The Life and Times of Arjulia Rigel

Secret of the Medjai: The First Star-Crossed Night

Once upon a time, like how all the other folktales start, there was a little girl whose father loved very much.

Her name was Arjulia Rigel. She was the tiny daughter of Juhato and Dinah Rigel, member of a traveling nomad group. For the past 10 months they traveled across most of modern day Russia, Germany and crossed the North Sea into Scotland.

One warm summer night, the nomad leader, Suren, announced that he felt a strange presence among since 10 moons ago. The group could only agree that the cause of this disturbance was Arjulia herself.

Juhato, her father, had feared this coming for many seasons; he knew why his daughter was different. He had been a wizard in Egypt before he ran away from home, joining the band of nomads, where Suren looked after him as a son. He had seen the world, he came to love his wife, Dinah, whom he met in a place called Syria. He told her early on what he was, and she still accepted him.

A friend of theirs told them Suren went out looking for someone to be rid of the girl. Both fearful for their daughter's life, they went into hiding.

No sooner had they separated themselves from the group, they came upon a strange looking building. It was large so some sort of wealthy person would have lived there.

Then they made the hardest decision of their lives, well, the last.

They left Arjulia safely inside the door with a tiny scroll clutched in the child's hand as she slept. Dinah made a bundle of blankets that looked like a baby, and together they went around the castle to go off to the mountains to catch a sailing boat across the sea.

But they never made it to the sea.

Some 10 miles into the journey to the coast they were stopped by a horrifying man in a dark cloak. For the first time since he showed her that he was a wizard, Dinah saw her husband pull out his wand and level it at the man.

"Crucio!" the man incanted.

Her husband froze and yelled in pain. When it stopped he got to one knee and tried to throw a spell back, but nothing came to him.

He had forgotten everything he was ever taught. He'd been living like a muggle for too long.

"Avada Kedavra!!"

Her husband was dead. The very reason she left her precious life in Syria was gone.

"Give me that child! It must DIE!!" the man yelled at her. He extended the whitest hand Dinah had ever seen.

She threw the bundle of blankets at him and ran for it. She ran almost fifty feet before she heard the man yell I anger and she was hit hard in the back by--

10 miles away, little Arjulia Rigel began to cry. The occupants of the house stirred and were amazed to find a babe in swaddling clothes lying on the inside of their doorstep.

A young gentleman with brown hair that he'd let grow to his chin length bent over and examined it. Curious brown eyes looked at the beautiful child from her dark hair to her tiny fist. He noticed a tiny scroll clutched in its hand.

In shiny green ink read the name, Arjulia Disareli Rigel.

"We'll take her in then," he said, lifting her up. "Her parents must be somewhere, I'll send Moggy out to look for them in the morning. Something terrible must've happened in order for her to be left here."

"Master Gryffindor, is that necessary? We would be bringing a foreign child into this house, which could import disease and..." his house-keeper began.

"Mrs. Dearden, this child is the daughter of magical parents, we know that much," he retorted. "More explanation is to be found where ever her parents are. I'll ride out to that band of gypsies that settled 10 miles from here and see what they know. Poor Arjulia, you'll be safe in this household now."

"What about the countrymen who come to this house, sir? Are they to see such looking foreign daughter? What would they think?" she huffed.

"They would think ill of me and my entire family fortune would be diminished. If muggles should like to come into my castle for any reason, she is to appear as your apprentice, and only then.

"When I am away governing the school, you will teach her what she needs to know until she comes to school. Are we agreed?"

"Of course, sir," said Mrs. Dearden.