A Scattered Fire of Stars

Chapter One: La Famiglia Sinistra

Dawn breaks; there is blue in the sky,
your face before me though I don't know why.
Thoughts disappearing like tears from the Moon. - Enya, "I Want Tomorrow"

"Maristella, are you sure you slept well last night?" Giordano Sinistra looked up from his morning coffee with a worried frown.

"Here, have some eggs and toast and sausage," Cynthia Sinistra, Maristella's mother, said from Maristella's other side. "You can't live on coffee and biscotti in the mornings. You need to eat a proper, cooked breakfast." She loaded Maristella's plate with food. "Did you know that when your father and I were first married, his idea of breakfast was a cup of coffee and two or three biscotti!" Cynthia smiled at Giordano as she tipped more sausages onto her husband's plate. "Here we sit in Tuscany enjoying an English breakfast!"

Giordano smiled back at his wife. "Admit it, Cynthia, we couldn't be having our breakfast on the balcony if we still lived in England. English breakfasts are good, English weather is bad!"

"Watch that smug tone, Signore Sinistra, or I'll charm the Kneazles into walking all over your astronomy charts while the ink is drying!" Cynthia wagged a playful finger in Giordano's direction. "And you, miss" - this latter was directed at Maristella - "you're just picking at your food! In fact, you've been picking at your food all the time you've been here! Don't you feel well? Do you need us to call a Mediwitch?"

"No, Mother, I'm fine," Maristella lied, pushing her food around her plate. Her stomach churned. She looked up from her breakfast, and caught the view from where she was sitting, on the balcony of the Sinistras' Tuscan country home. The sight of the olive trees and her mother's cherished vegetable and herb garden cheered her up, as did the rolling hills of the countryside, dotted with trees and vineyards. Maristella and her sister had been born in England, but spent most of their summers in Italy, Giordano Sinistra's birthplace. This summer in particular, the Sinistras' villa was a place of refuge to Maristella. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of rosemary which drifted up from below the balcony, and tackled her eggs. She would heal somehow and get through this ordeal. She had to be strong - she had no choice. "It's just that there's a war on now, and You-Know-Who has been resurrected, and then there's what happened to that poor Diggory boy, and...the state of the world is so worrisome now. Cedric Diggory is only the first. Before this ends, there will be so many more."

"...Maristella, you wouldn't be lying to me about your prior knowledge of Mr. Crouch and his, ah, activities? You know what the consequences would be if I were to catch you in an untruth... The familiar voice echoed in her ear, soft as velvet and deadly as venom. "After all, you, as Mr. Crouch's former fiancée, would be in a, shall we say, privileged position, with regards to... intimate knowledge of Mr Crouch and his plans."

"...Would you do me a huge favor, Severus? Stop with your disgusting, childish double entendres." Maristella fought to keep her voice steady. She hadn't known of Barty Crouch's masquerade as "Professor Moody;" up until fifteen minutes ago, she had thought Barty long dead in Azkaban. "Since I don't want our little chat to get any more personal than it already has, why don't I just say that I am telling the truth - I always assumed Barty died in Azkaban - and I am both horrified and insulted at your insinuations that I am a liar and a secret Death Eater. I am perfectly willing to drink Veritaserum, Severus, if you still don't believe me." Maristella held out her hand. "Bring on the Veritaserum, Severus." She saw him hesitate. "Go on, I'll be most happy to prove that I'm telling the truth. Barty was dead to me all these years. I grieved when I heard of his death, and eventually I came to terms with it and moved on. I am as shocked as you are to discover the truth about "Professor Moody."

Snape's sallow, angular face twisted into a sneer. He bared his uneven yellow teeth at Maristella. "That won't be necessary." There was a hiss, and Snape looked down to see Beatrice the Kneazle baring her own, less yellow and very much sharper, teeth at him in a warning growl. He hastened to the door. "I believe you. Thank you for your valuable time, Maristella. And remember - not one word to anyone outside these walls. You are sworn to secrecy, or I personally will see you sacked, and blacklisted from any Wizarding employment anywhere in Britain!. Do you understand me?"

Maristella could hear the door to her quarters slam and footsteps pounding down the stairs that led from her rooms out of the Astronomy Tower. Trembling, she put her head down on her desk. All the emotions that she had kept rigidly under control during Snape's interrogation came flooding back...

"Maristella, dear, for Circe's sake, if your thoughts are bothering you, use your Pensieve!" Cynthia admonished her daughter. "And do finish your eggs before they get all cold and congealed. I cooked them myself; Timmy doesn't do it right." Timmy was the Sinistras' house-elf, whom Cynthia had brought with her when she married Giordano.

Maristella smiled weakly and took a large bite of her eggs.

"Of course, no one can cook as well as you, Cynthia dear, not even a house-elf!" said Giordano. "But you can't expect Maristella to drag her heavy old Pensieve with her on a visit. You can use mine, Maristella. You know where I keep it, in the cupboard in my study. Just go on and throw some of those bothersome old thoughts right in there."

"Father, I don't really think I should" -

"Nonsense, Maristella, we're family, we don't hide our thoughts from one another. Just go ahead and use my Pensieve." Giordano took a huge bite of his eggs and toast.

"Father, really, I don't need to use your Pensieve, I can wait until..." Maristella began to protest, when she was interrupted.

"Mistress! Master! Miss Fiorenza on Floo!" Timmy's squeaky voice rang out from the doorway.

"Thank you, Timmy!" Cynthia got up, abandoning her coffee and breakfast, and rushed into the house. Giordano stood and patted Maristella's arm.

"Now take your wand and go dump some of those thoughts in my Pensieve. You'll feel a lot better." Giordano took Maristella's arm and steered her into the house. "You go to my study and use my Pensieve and then come on and talk to your sister."

Maristella went into her father's study, which smelt of lemon furniture polish, paper, dust, Kneazles and birds, and opened the mahogany cupboard which held Giordano's Pensieve. Two orange-and-white spotted Kneazles were curled up on an overstuffed chair; one opened her eyes at the sound of the cupboard door opening and yawned. A bright orange Fwooper fluttered about in a large cage. Taking her wand - ten inches, cedar with a phoenix feather core - from the pocket of her robe, Maristella touched its tip to her temple. She took a few innocuous thoughts from her brain and dumped them into the Pensieve. Family or not, Maristella had no intention of pouring all her innermost thoughts into her father's Pensieve, especially the ones concerning Severus Snape or Barty Crouch. Not only would she jeopardize her position - her safe shelter - at Hogwarts if she were found out, Giordano would look at Maristella's thoughts, and would go frantic with worry, demanding that she return to Tuscany at once...Please don't owl Professor Snape, Maristella thought - then with a smile, placed that thought in Giordano's Pensieve for him to find. Maristella had told her family some Professor Snape stories, about how foul-tempered and greasy-haired he was, and Giordano had threatened to "send him a Howler he won't forget" if he ever directed that bad temper against Maristella.

Putting her wand back in its pocket, Maristella picked up the Kneazles from their overstuffed chair, sat down, and settled the disgruntled animals in her lap, where, after a glare and a snort or two, they settled down. Giordano Sinistra loved animals, especially Kneazles, and regretted that Kneazles never had black fur because, he said, then they could shed on his robes and it wouldn't show. As it was, he was always using De-Hairing Charms to keep his robes from being encrusted in hair. Maristella stroked the drowsing Kneazle, feeling much better than she had during breakfast. She didn't want to worry her parents any more than they were already. When she had first arrived in Tuscany, at the beginning of the summer, Maristella was almost in a state of collapse. Her father had been so upset to see his daughter in such a state that he had threatened to lock Maristella in his house with a Warding Charm to keep her from going back to Hogwarts at the end of the summer. He'd dropped the idea after Maristella, and Cynthia, had vehemently protested. Now it was almost time to return to Hogwarts - only a few short weeks until the new year began - and Maristella didn't want to hear about wards and Petrificus Totalis again. Hogwarts needed her; the students - especially the Slytherins - needed her. She would just have to maintain control over her emotions, let go of the past, deny the pain. Perhaps a Cheering Charm or two -

"Maristella! Come and talk to your sister!"

With a sigh, Maristella got up, displacing the by-now-indignant Kneazles, and walked out of Giordano's study to the living room, where her sister Fiorenza's pretty brunette head sat in the fireplace.

"Maristella!" Fiorenza called out in a cheerful tone. "How are you?" Without waiting for an answer, she continued, "Look at my new earrings!" Fiorenza's head shook from side to side. Maristella squinted, but couldn't quite make out much in the way of earrings at all. The light of the fireplace flames obscured whatever sparkle Fiorenza's jewelry threw off.

"Um, emeralds?" Maristella asked politely, still squinting.

"Isn't Boris just the sweetest man in the world?" Fiorenza gushed. Boris Razumovsky was Fiorenza's husband, rich, handsome, and brainless. Luckily for him, and for Fiorenza, he had inherited wealth; neither of them had much capacity for any kind of useful work. Maristella thought that between them, Fiorenza and Boris had about enough brains to fill an eggcup - barely. She feared for their children.

As if Maristella's thoughts were a Summoning Charm, the sullen faces of her niece and nephew appeared in the fireplace next to their mother's. "Say hello to your Auntie Maristella, Dimitri and Katya!" Fiorenza chirped.

"Hello, Aunt Maristella," Dimitri and Katya said in unison, then "Can we go now? I want to play gobstones." from Dimitri.

"Kiki!" Fiorenza yelled in a different, and less pleasant, tone. "Get over here! And bring Master Dimitri's gobstone set!" The syrup came back to her voice as Fiorenza added, "Yes, darlings, you can go now. Kiki is here, she will take you to the nursery, and you can go play! Say goodbye to Aunt Maristella like a polite boy and girl."

"'Bye Aunt Maristella!" Dimitri and Katya chorused, and then both their heads disappeared.

Fiorenza sighed, then simpered. "Maristella, don't you feel empty?"

"Not after eating the breakfast Mother cooked, no, I don't."

"You know what I mean. Doesn't being deprived of the joy and fulfillment that a husband and children bring a woman make you feel all empty and hollow inside?"

"Says the mother whose children are raised by the house-elf," Maristella snapped. "How many house-elves do you have now anyway?"

"Only about seven or eight" -

"What? Do house-elves grow on trees in Russia?" Maristella knew that old wizarding families like the Sinistras and the Crouches counted themselves fortunate to have one house-elf. The Malfoys always gave themselves airs because they had three house-elves - now reduced to two, ever since Harry Potter had tricked Lucius Malfoy into freeing his house-elf Dobby. No family had seven or eight house-elves. That was unheard-of.

"No, but they are a sickle a dozen here. Neither Boris nor I have to do any work."

"No, you can just sit on your bum and admire yourself in the mirror all day." This conversation, thought Maristella, was going nowhere. She was reminded of all the reasons she wasn't close to her older sister.

"You're just jealous because you're not married," Fiorenza pouted. "When are you going to get married, Maristella? And have some children? You'll never know what true love is until you have your very own children!"

"Oh, that's rich, coming from a woman who lets the house-elves bring up her precious bambini!"

"Oh, you really are jealous, aren't you? You had better hurry up and find a man soon because you are not getting any younger - or any thinner, either! Is that why you haven't gotten married, Maristella? No one will have you because you're FAT!"

"Girls!" Cynthia Sinistra swept into the room. "Can't you, just for once, get along? For shame - sisters! You should love one another, not fight like this! Say you're sorry, right now!"

"Size forty-two is NOT fat! It's a perfectly normal size!" snapped Maristella.

"Of course forty-two is a normal size, dear, and you're not 'fat', you have a nice hour-glass figure. Fiorenza, did you call your sister "fat?"

"It's for her own good," Fiorenza said in a sulky tone. "I was just telling Maristella how much good it would do her to get married and have children, especially now that You-Know-Who is back..."

Maristella's stomach sank, as it always did with every reminder that Voldemort had risen again.

"...and who wants to face You-Know-Who without a husband at her side?"

If her mother hadn't been in the room, Maristella would have put her hands to her throat and made gagging noises. Fiorenza had always been self-absorbed and shallow, and never the brightest fairy at the feast, but that had to be the most ridiculous thing anyone ever said, reducing a war, where thousands of innocent lives would no doubt be lost, to the status of a matchmaking plea.

"Fiorenza, I think I'll be able to face You-Know-Who with or without a man. I don't have much of a choice, either way. And speaking of men," Maristella hastened to change the subject, even if only slightly, "do you remember Severus Snape? He was in our House and your year."

"Ew! Maristella, surely you're not so hard up for a husband that you're thinking of marrying him? He was ugly and mean and knew lots of curses and hardly ever took showers, and didn't he become a Death Eater?"

"Yes, that's the one, and perish the thought that I should ever marry him. No, I was just curious. Listen," Maristella cast a glance at her mother, "I've got to go, but it was lovely talking to you."

Cynthia smiled benevolently at her younger daughter. "That's much better."

"And I'll owl you when I get back to Hogwarts. Goodbye, Fiorenza."

"Goodbye, Maristella! I'm sorry I was so mean! Goodbye, Mother!" Fiorenza blew a kiss and then whoosh! Her head vanished from the flames."

"Hmmph," Cynthia sniffed. "I know you should get married, Maristella, and soon, but you're not so hard up that you should consider some horrible unwashed former Death Eater! Your father would be so upset."

Maristella had a sudden thought: Father, I'd like you to meet my fiancé, Severus Snape. She could just imagine the look on Giordano Sinistra's face, and laughed out loud.

"I'm so glad to see you're in a better mood. A nice chat with your sister was just what you needed. You two really should try to get along better."

Maristella opened her mouth to protest, but Cynthia continued, "I think Fiorenza's wrong about you being fat - you have a nice figure - but you definitely need some new clothes. Why don't we go shopping later this afternoon? I'll take you to that lovely Donna Lucrezia's where I get all my robes. We'll pick you out a few nice new robes so you won't look all frumpy and covered in Kneazle hair."

"Mother, I have plenty of robes, and as for Kneazle hair, you know I use a De-Hairing Charm - my clothes are not 'covered in Kneazle hair.'"

"Be that as it may," Cynthia replied, "you really should have a new robe or two. And some new shoes. Get your wand and your cloak and let's Apparat."

* * * * * *

"Why don't you put on your new dress robe and go show your father?" Cynthia asked Maristella when they returned from their shopping expedition, laden down with boxes and bags.

"It will get all covered with Kneazle hair," Maristella replied.

"Well, then, use that De-Hairing Charm you say you always use! Go on, put on your new robe and I'll have Timmy bring up some coffee." Cynthia smiled. "Your father's never learned to drink tea - he still calls it a 'vile beverage.' And as for Butterbeer...I'll never forget the look on Giordano's face when he had his first swallow of Butterbeer!"

"I think that's one of the main reasons he was so eager to move back to Italy when he retired," Maristella said, with a small smile. "He never liked English food. Though you can get decent coffee in most places in England nowadays. I can even get coffee with my breakfast at Hogwarts."

"You are drinking at least a glass of pumpkin juice a day, aren't you?" Cynthia asked sharply. "Pumpkin juice isn't just for children - it's good for you!" Seeing the look on Maristella's face, Cynthia continued, "I don't mean to nag, Maristella, but I have to say these things because I am your mother, and we mothers never stop worrying about our children. You'll understand if - I mean when you have your own children."

Maristella sighed. Years ago, she'd had such high hopes of the large family she would have...hopes that grew dimmer now with each passing year. Learning of Barty's recruitment into the ranks of the Death Eaters had been a stunning betrayal for the young Maristella. That her first love should have gone to the dark side cut deeply. Maristella had never found another man she loved enough to marry. Or, perhaps, allowed herself to get close to. Casual partners and boyfriends had come and gone in the years since Barty went to Azkaban, and Maristella was even farther from marriage and motherhood than she had been then.

With a sigh, Maristella picked up her bags and turned to go to her bedroom. "Here, let me help you carry these things to your room and then I'll help you get into your new robes, and we'll show your father how pretty you look and have some coffee," said Cynthia.

* * * * * *

"Those robes are beautiful. You'll be the center of attention at the next Hogwarts formal!" a beaming Giordano told Maristella. The dress robes that Cynthia had insisted upon buying for Maristella were a deep sapphire blue velvet, patterned with silver stars and planets in a realistic approximation of the night sky. The stars even twinkled. She had gotten the very last set of robes in that design in her size - forty-two - that Donna Lucrezia's had left in stock. Apparently, according to a Muggle fashion magazine Maristella had confiscated from Sally-Anne Perks of Hufflepuff last year, size forty-two was a "plus" size. Maristella wondered if "plus size" was a Muggle euphemism for "too fat for fashion." Muggles, at any rate, seemed to have an inordinate fixation on women's thinness. Much more so than the wizarding world, except for a few vain and rich women like Fiorenza, or Draco Malfoy's mother, Narcissa - though Maristella would have wagered that Lucius was as obsessive over his looks and used as many Appearance-Enhancing Charms, Love Allurements and magic skin potions as his wife.

Maristella, seated in her father's study with a Kneazle on her lap - so much for keeping her new robes hair-free - and sipping the coffee Timmy had brought up from the kitchen, looked over at her father's desk. There was a big framed picture of her father and mother, arms around each other and waving at the camera, on one side; Maristella posing with the House Cup and showing off her Head Girl badge in another picture; and on the other side, yet a third big framed picture of Maristella and Fiorenza, all dressed up for the Yule Ball. Both girls were wearing dress robes of green, for their House, and were smiling with dignified sedateness at the camera, doing their best to appear glamorous and grown-up. Fiorenza was taller, and more conventionally attractive, than Maristella; she had fair skin and hazel eyes that contrasted with her wavy black hair. Maristella, on the other hand, was shorter and stockier, with black curling hair, dark brown eyes and olive skin she had inherited from Giordano Sinistra. Perhaps, she mused, that's why I've always been Father's favorite - I look so much like him. And I became an astronomer, just like he is...

"Don't forget, when you do get married, you had better choose a man who is good enough for you! Don't get me wrong, Maristella, but I've always thought that none of the young men you've dated - not even that Crouch boy - were quite the kind of young man I would have picked for you. And we all know what eventually happened to the Crouch boy. But enough of that," Giordano waved his hand, "while you and your mother were out shopping I Apparated downtown and bought you a few things. What with this war going on and all, I thought you could use some presents."

"B-b-but Father...that's very kind of you, but I can't possibly..."Catch the Portkey from Florence to Hogsmeade with all these packages, Maristella thought to herself. It was hard enough Portkeying from one place to another with a birdcage and a Kneazle and her normal luggage. As it was, half of her new things were going to have to be owl-posted back to Hogwarts at this rate.

"Here, Maristella, I bought you this..."

"A Remembrall! Oh Father, how sweet of you!" Maristella forced a smile onto her lips and brightness into her voice. I'd much rather have a Forgetitall, she thought to herself. If only there was such a thing.

"The very latest model. I know your old Remembrall is out of date and now they make much better ones that can hold many more reminders. And I bought you these." Giordano put three books into Maristella's lap. One was called The Science of Chaos Magic, the second, Alchemy and the Planets: New and Updated Edition, and the third was The Art and Science of the Four Elements And How to Work With Them.

Maristella wondered what she was going to do with a book on alchemy. Like any good astronomer, she knew the elemental and magical qualities of the different planets, and their uses in magic - but alchemy? Potions? She didn't want to get any closer to Snape than she had to. Maristella had never thought of Snape as a particularly pleasant companion, and, after the events of the summer, her feelings toward him had changed for the worse. Snape was the one who had broken the news to her about Barty's escape from Azkaban and his disguise as "Professor Moody," and not in the most pleasant of ways. Being accused of colluding with the Dark Lord and his followers, while still reeling from the revelation that Barty hadn't died all these years ago in Azkaban, was devastating for Maristella. Also devastating was the fact that Maristella had been sworn to secrecy about Barty; she could not go to Giordano, dump her problems in his lap, and avail herself of his advice. At least she could confide in her family about the resurrection of You-Know-Who, and Cedric's senseless death, and the new fear that gripped the wizarding world.

"And before I forget, here's this." Giordano handed Maristella a small lumpy package. She opened it to find a small, dull mirror in a tarnished copper frame. The mirror glass had an oily, dark sheen.

"Thank you, Father - I really appreciate it - but what exactly is this?" Maristella looked into it; her reflection, blurred and distorted, stared back.

"It's supposed to be a 'magic mirror' which enables you to 'concentrate your magical willpower and even access parallel dimensions.' Here's the book that came with it." Giordano handed Maristella a small, leather-bound book. Maristella opened it and a puff of dust came flying out. A small spider scuttled from between the dingy pages. Maristella coughed and choked as the mildewy dust went up her nose and into her eyes.

"Here, Maristella, have a handkerchief." Cynthia exclaimed. "And look at your new dress robe, now it's got dust on it! Giordano dear, maybe you should have dusted that book off after you bought it?"

"I thought it looked interesting, and it's supposed to be powerful, or so the gentleman who sold it to me said. Just promise me," Giordano wagged a finger at Maristella, " that you'll never use it for Divination!"

Maristella smiled, and got up to kiss her father on the cheek. "Thank you so much for the lovely gifts. And as for divination - who do you think I am?" she exclaimed in mock indignation. "I am a scientist! What did I learn at your knee, Father dear?"

"Magic is the art and science of causing changes to occur in nature according to will!" Giordano, Cynthia and Maristella chorused. "Our future is up to us!"

Now all I have to do is remember that credo when the going gets tough - as it most assuredly will, Maristella told herself. Just because You-Know-Who is back, doesn't mean we are doomed. And Slytherin - one day Slytherin will be a house students will be proud to be sorted into. I am a Slytherin. I can help the Slytherin students at Hogwarts. But how, exactly?

Whoosh!

"Maristella Sinistra?" The head in the fireplace spoke. A very familiar head - with long, greasy black hair, cold black eyes, and long hooked nose. Severus Snape's head.

"Giordano! There's a strange man's head in our fireplace!" Cynthia exclaimed, staring at the flames with alarm.

"It's all right, Mother, I know him. Hello, Severus," said Maristella." "Mother and Father, this is Severus Snape, Potions Master at Hogwarts. Severus, this is my mother and father, Cynthia and Giordano Sinistra."

"How do you do?" said Severus. "Maristella, I'm using handfuls of Floo powder on this call, so I'll be brief. When you get back to Hogwarts, we have to talk about Slytherin House. Immediately. The situation, as I don't have to remind you, is quite serious. Good day, Maristella - Madam and Mr. Sinistra." With another whoosh, Snape's head disappeared from the flames.

"So that's the Severus Snape you've told us all about," Giordano said with distaste after Snape had finished his Floo call. "He doesn't strike me as the kind of man I would hire to teach my children."

"Hasn't he ever heard of a Dentiwizard?" Cynthia wanted to know. "Or shampoo?"

* * * * *

"Unpleasant man, that," Severus Snape said to his black cat, recalling how the stocky, dark-haired man Maristella Sinistra introduced as her father glared at him as if he were an intruder into his pristine Tuscan fireplace. "I don't doubt that was part of the reason the Crouch boy became a Death Eater. After facing his fiancée's father, maybe he thought You-Know-Who was pitifully small potatoes."

Charon meowed and rubbed against Snape's ankles.

"Of the many things I have to put up with in my life, I am thankful that overprotective future fathers-in-law will never be one of them. Nor are fiancées."

Charon meowed again and looked up at Snape with large, orange eyes.

"You're probably the biggest pain in my neck at the moment, Charon, since it's the summer holiday and I'm not having to deal with that wretched Longbottom boy wreaking havoc in my classroom every day. I suppose you want food? Plimpy fillets in cream sauce?" Snape got up and headed for the kitchen of the tiny Hogsmeade house that was his summer home. He rented the house from Madam Rosmerta, the proprietress of the Three Broomsticks. It was said that Rosmerta owned half of Hogsmeade. That wouldn't have surprised Snape. Rosmerta's business acumen was as sharp as her magical skills were mediocre. Rumor also had it that Rosmerta was Lucius Malfoy's mistress, or at least had been at one time. Snape didn't know whether to believe that, and hoped that Rosmerta hadn't stooped that low.

Charon, who had followed Snape to the kitchen, now sat before his food dish and yowled indignantly.

"Alimentum!" said Snape and pointed his wand at the cat's food dish. Filleted Plimpies in cream sauce appeared, and aron fell to eating as if he hadn't eaten for weeks.

Snape, who wasn't hungry, settled for dry toast and a cup of tea. While he ate, he thought of the House of which he was Head. Something had to be done about Slytherin, and immediately. Much as the woman made him uncomfortable, Maristella Sinistra, as the only other Slytherin alumna at Hogwarts, was the only one he could turn to in this matter.

"I now have to be nice to the damned woman, Charon. I don't trust her, I don't like her, but I have no choice. If it weren't for Slytherin, I would have gladly had her sacked just to get her away from me."

Charon licked his chops.