Reflecting.

[Marina Roeswood]

OOC: Invite only. Sorries.

BIC:

Taking long strides to the graveyard, Marina was reflecting as she'd done many times before. But now, however, she had something new to reflect about. Folded neatly within the pocket of her robe, resting among her wand and a chocolate frog, was a piece of parchment with neat blue lettering upon it. Within the contents lay the answers to many questions, but it seemed to bring about as many more. Stopping for a moment, Nina pulled the letter out into the moonlight.

"Lumos..." she muttered, raising her wand above the letter to illuminate the writing beyond what the moon could do.

Dear Marina,

We have no obligation to take you in. You are not our granddaughter, and we mean this in every literal sense. Our son was kind enough to care for you as his own, when in truth, you weren't. You are the b****** child, the product of an affair that your mother had. If you don't stop being so ungrateful, we'll have no choice but to find your alternate accomodations. You are disgracing our son's memory.

Sincerely,
Amara and William Roeswood

The letter was so formal, so hate-filled, that it had taken even Nina aback. The people who used to always love her, despite the secret they held, had now, when she needed them most, entirely and officially turned their backs on her. She really had nowhere to go. And since Marina wasn't about to lie in order to have a place to stay, she was essentially homeless.

Despite all this, she didn't cry. In fact, it was rather a relief to have that tension finally break. However, her focus was on an entirely new mystery in itself.

This certainly explained a lot: her parents' apparent loathing of her, her difference in appearance from her father and in behavior from the rest of the family. She was a Slytherin. To them, that was abomination. To them, that was an unforgivable sin. She realized now that they hadn't really hated Slytherin in itself, but instead, hated what that difference probably meant.

Marina hadn't been her father's child. And as time had continued, it had been confirmed more and more frequently. But now, there was near irrefutable proof. She was a Parselmouth, an Heir of Slytherin. And yet, there hadn't been a Slytherin in the family in well... ever.

But despite all the questions that it answered, there was one that still nagged on the corner of her mind, one that brought her here to muse and think. If the man she'd grown up accepting as her father wasn't, then who was?

Nina had some respect for the dead, and bowed her head as she passed between the gravestones, raising her eyes only just enough to read the names scribed upon them. Here parent's graves were off elsewhere, buried in the family plot, and she hadn't anyone buried here. Her eyes fell upon an unfamiliar name and she staired at the gravemarker without purpose, looking dully at the highly polished stone.

There she was, Nina, her image reflecting back at her, a mere shadow of it's true self, as she had become since she'd come here. What little she had had come to pieces, and the last bit had only just unraveled by an innocent letter, Roeswood sealed, that was dropped to her at breakfast. She stood, her dark rimmed green eyes downcast, still as a statue, vaguely resembling in a way the stone angels that were found in random places about her. It seemed as though she were searching somewhere for an answer, and almost as though she wouldn't move until it came to her.

[Remiel Antares]

A man in a dark cloak stood away from the girl, though his eyes were transfixed upon her. So many thoughts passed through his mind at once, but one thing was for certain. This girl was the one he had been searching for.

It had been several weeks since he had first found it. The man in the dark cloak was an ex-dark wizard who was on the run from the Ministry of Magic. For 15 years he hadn't been caught, and now he decided it was time he could walk around freely in public again. Wandering down an alleyway in London, he came across an old newspaper lying in the streets. Apparently it was a "Magic Horizons" School Newspaper, so he went to throw it out...but then one name and face caught him.

It was like staring into a mirror, except mixed with a face he had seen 15 years before. "Marina Roeswood, Slytherin Prefect" the name read. Roeswood...the last name echoed in his mind, as he leaned against the alley wall. "So this girl is...her daughter then...?" He continued to walk through the streets of London, reading the rest of the Article.

"She's at MH...She's at MH..." He began to mutter to himself as the weeks went by. At last it became too much for him. He knew that Marina Roeswood was alive, and at MH, and that he needed to know the truth. So he hitchhiked as fast as he could by Muggle driving into the land around MH, and then made his way there slowly.

At last, he was in this graveyard, and before him was the girl he wanted to find more than anything. Stepping closer to the girl, he said in a very deep rough voice, "Visiting someone, little girl?"

[Marina Roeswood]

When the voice suddenly pierced the summer air, Marina jumped in startlement. She'd been so lost within her musing, so focused on the nothingness, the air, between her and that gravestone that she just happened to look at that she hadn't even noticed him standing there, watching her. Immediately, her head snapped sideways and her hand reached into her pocket, retrieved the wand, and pointed it in the direction of the sound without so much as a thought. Unlike other voices here, this was older, and since she knew all the Professors' voices, he couldn't be one.

Something about him threw her off for as split moment however. There was a striking familiarity that she couldn't place, something in his features, the way he carried himself, the way he spoke. It was as if she'd seen or met him somewhere before, but somehow, Nina was certain she hadn't.

When she regained her composure, her green eyes focused on him sharply, boring into every facial feature, every bit of his being and committing it to memory, with an expression mostly in her eyes that many would consider unnerving.

"As a matter of fact, I'm not," she stated, her teeth gritted slightly, her intense gaze not breaking once as she held her wand at the ready in case she should need it. There was something about this man, whether it be a danger or otherwise, that set him apart. Thus, Nina decided to be particularly wary. She carefully bit back a comment on the title he gave her, choosing to look as formidible as she could and subconsciously making sure that her Prefect badge was showing. Alone in the graveyard at night with a complete stranger, Marina was seemingly unphazed.

"And, why, pray tell, would you care about my business here?" Her expression was as questioning as her voice as her eyebrows rose into careful, calculated arches. The corner of her mouth nearly twisted up into a smirk, but she pulled it back down quickly and kept a completely stone face, while every muscle in her body was poised for self-defense.

[Remiel Antares]

The man's transfixed eyes could've twinkled in their sockets like shining emeralds if they hadn't been so dulled. A shock like none other came when the girl stood as tall as she could and faced him dignantly; her very appearance rivalled her in every way. Her beauty, her stature, the way she kept herself...but her voice was different. Her voice, and her emerald eyes, which shone where his own could not. It was obvious to him now that luck had been on his side - he had found whom he was looking for right on the spot. The girl drew her wand in a hostile motion, one which made the cloaked man strangely smile.

Showing dignity and pride in all its degrees, she spat at him with the usual remark of what his business was. To the flashing of his dulled eyes, it occured to him she had done the last thing she should've done if she was really intending to drive him away - show him her Prefect's badge. It was the last straw; in fact, the cloaked man knew quite well without asking that he had found 'Marina'. "Me?" He croaked, his voice seeming to cause pain which each word, "Why, your business would be of no importance to me...unless your name would happen to be Marina Roeswood. Is that your name, girl, or do you know the one who bears it?"

[Marina Roeswood]

Marina was equipped to handle pretty much any reaction that the man could throw at her. Should he become hostile, she would attempt immediately to disarm him or at least to escape. Incredibly skilled at typical wand magic, and also having rudimentary skills in water magic, Nina was capable of proving a worthy adversary to many adults. This one, however, gave her the distinct impression that she should procede with caution, so as opposed to getting cocky, she cautiously backed off, lowering her wand slowly.

Her green eyes widened at his reaction to her immediate defensive stance. She expected him to be annoyed, or angry, but certainly not to smile in such a way, a way that sent a chill down her spine, as that irritating familiarity continued to grate on her nerves so consciously that she clenched her jaw. With a nearly perfect recall of any information, it bothered her when the answer hovered so, just out of the grasp of the outstretched fingers of her mind, balancing so tauntingly on the tip of her tongue.

However, she was distracted from her annoyance as his words, which he seemed pained in speaking, traveled to her ears. Marina listened intently as she always did, seeming outwardly disinterested but inwardly analyzing every syllable. Finally, when he uttered her own name, her face fell completely and for a moment the air of cold formality she'd adopted completely fell away.

"Marina Roeswood?" she repeatedly dumbly, seeming for the moment dense and mystified, as though unworthy of her status. As quickly as she'd faltered, however, Nina recovered, her cool demeanor returning along with her voice.

"That would be me," she stated finally, finding her pride as she staightened her shoulders, her lovingly polished Prefect's badge seeming to shine less brilliantly than her clear, emerald eyes.

[Remiel Antares]

The man frowned at the loss of posture that Marina gave when he first uttered her name. Indeed, he had hoped for her to be even more prideful - he remembered the days when he himself was in her position - and how prideful he was when he was mentioned. His mouth opened again, and with another painful croak, uttered a few more words. "Then it is as I thought...from the first time I saw your badge to your very stature...you are Sheila Treve's daughter, are you not?" He did not even have to ask that question. He knew it already - he knew it from when he first saw the picture - he knew it when he first saw her - he knew it now. There was no denying it.

[Marina Roeswood]

What pride she'd had fell away entirely as he uttered his question. In fact, for a moment, Marina seemed nearly ashamed, her eyes shifting downward for a split moment while she overcame the wave of fear that came with the utterance of that name. While her mother had not been so capable as her father (could she even call him that with the knowledge she had now?) in inflicting damage, she knew ways to be equally if not more so cruel. While the majority of her frightening flashbacks were of David, the greater part of the self-loathing that was instilled in her was done so by her mother, who impressed upon Marina from a very young age that she merely was not good enough.

The terror of always living up to her expectations, with the consequence of not doing so being to face David, was something that Marina was ashamed to admit still affected her deeply. Thus, she paused for a few long and awkward moments after Remiel's question, until she again found the courage to speak, as though the act pained her as much as it pained him.

"Yes, I am," Nina, at long last, replied cooly, averting her gaze carefully in the guise of staring at a particularly bright star. Something about the way he regarded her seemed to bore beneath the surface of a skin, and she squirmed in his presense until her line of vision wandered again to his face, where once again that strange sense of deja-vu struck her. Distracted, her mouth said what her mind thought, the filter turned off by the strange, unnerving circumstances.

"How do you know my name? How do you know who my mother is?" Her tone seemed somewhat uncalm, though nowhere near to panicked. Her nerves pulled taut, Marina clenched her fists so that her fingernails bit into her palms, the slight pain and discomfort strong enough to keep her focused upon reality instead of the nagging sensation that she somehow, despite having never met this man before in her life, knew who he was.