The Origins of Karma Black (Invite only)

Karma Black glanced over her shoulder as she stopped before the library doors. It was insanely past cerfew, and she'd waited for the librarian to leave before even setting foot near the place. A quick Alohamora and she was in, the vast room dark befor her. Her eyes quickly ajusted and she held the door as it cloed in order to make sure it was silent.

Pulling her cloak tigher around her body, she stepped foreward, taking extra care to be as silent as a shadow.

She was waiting for two people to show up, Alessa and Lacey. She glanced around the empty library before heading for the back of the room. She seated herself at a table and folded her hands on her lap, waiting.

Lacey stood in front of the library doors, staring. She pulled the Invisibility Cloak that had been passed down to her somehow from the Potter family, more tightly around her. She hated breaking rules. It was far from being her. But then again, she was a Gryffindor and therefore would probably break rules in the future to save the world or something stupid like that.

So, with a silent resolve to figure out what exactly Karma was up to, she pushed open the doors she knew to already be unlocked. Lacey figured Karma arrived already, and, like usual, was correct with her assumption. Perhaps she should be a seer. The very idea of suck a ridiculous notion brought a smirk to Lacey's invisible face.

She pushed the doors open silently and closed them gently before walking in the shadows, even though she was already invisible, to an occupied table where Karma sat in all her dark haired beauty.

Lacey pulled the Cloak from her face and folded it in her arms, glancing at Karma before speaking so quietly she couldn't even hear herself and was surprised Karma could.

"Perhaps you would like to tell me why I am here?" she scowled, but it was halfhearted. Curiosity was tugging at her brain like a magnet, and her unusual mood and very Slytherin-like attitude was unbecoming of her, and she felt exhausted from acting so mean.

Karma turned to Lacey. "Appearently, you're family, and as family, you deserve to know something about your great aunt. According to record, I'm your aunt. Your Aunt!" She said in a whisper. Karma took a deep breath. "But there is one more person that has to be here before we start. Alessa."

Lacey took a deep breathe, staring at Karma with widened eyes before averting them to an ink stain on the tabletop. Finally, after a moment of quiet tension, she spoke. "Look, Karma, I know I haven't been particularly. . . nice as of late and I'm not just saying this out of 'respect' because you're somehow my Aunt, I'm saying this out of genuine remorse. I don't know what's gotten into me lately, and this whole family confusion as only set me more on edge. So what I'm really trying to is. . . I'm sorry."

Offering a small smile, Lacey decided to change the subject. "So you're. . . my Aunt. Well, that's something that doesn't happen everyday." she laughed quietly. "I hope Alessa gets here because I have no idea how long my curiosity can keep at bay."

Karma nodded. "Apology accepted." She was on edge too. She didn't know how to tell them, but she didn't know how to keep it in either. With a bit of reluctance, Karma pulled a large acient-looking tome from her backpack. "This is something you need to see."

Karma placed The Records of the Family Black on the table between them. "I believe at one point every Black had a copy, but fires and losses and time itself has made it so there are only two. I have both of them." She slid the book closer to Lacey. "For the wait."

Alessa hastily walked through the corridors under her deep black cloak, cursing and occasionally murmuring unintelligent things about how hard it is to get Peeves to shut up. Why is he always inside the dungeons, anyway? Nevertheless, she let him out, hoping he'd give the other children a hard time as well. She's very sadistic.

She turned sharply, stopped in front of the library door and attempted to open it. It wasn't more of an attempt, seeing as it was opened already.

Alessa heard a voice - it was Karma's, and the other unfamiliar. She listened for a while just to make sure that it was safe and knowing that it is, she made her way towards the table where Karma and a Gryffindor sat. Strange, she thought. Karma always hated Gryffindors.

She took her cloak away as she went for a chair and nodded slightly as a greeting. The book caught her attention.

"I came. Now - tell me." she said, remembering the note she gave during the carriage ride.

Karma glanced up at Alessa before nodding. "I have to tell you the whole story, or it won't make much sense." Karma said. "Somehow or anothed, I'm part Vampire."

Karma twidled her thumbs and pulled the book back towards her, flipping to a page closer to the back. On it was a picture of a women that looked a lot like Karma, only her hair was a lighter shade of brown, and her eyes were bright red. "This is my mother." Karma said softly. "If you were to read this book, you'd learn that she was in a relationship with my father for two years before he died. She didn't get pregnant with me til the last month of his life." Karma's voice was emotionless. She didn't want to think about it, not really.

"Maybe five, maybe six months into the pregnancy, the lonliness started to eat away at her. Her entire family died, and father was all she had. It had been a secret, a love affair going on for too long to not have feelings attached, I guess. My mother loved my father very much. That's why she became a vampire; to stop the lonliness, but that didn't work out either." Karma smiled sarcastically. "She didn't realize til later that Vampires are lonely creatures, or that they can't have children. It took her thirty years to find a cure."

Karma flipped the page of the book and pointed to a picture. "This is my mother as a Vampire. According to this and some of her journals I found, the answer lied with a dying witch that my mother's maker had marked for draining. Nothing much was said about her but that she was almost as old as Nicholas Flamel, and as good as he was with Alchemy, she was with Dark Magic." Karm sighed.

"So my mother took her advice, and took a spell that was so complecated it almost drove her insane, and cast it with careful perfection. It involved shedding the blood of the Vampire who made her, a Transmutation Circle, and the sacrifice of something dear to her. She chose her years with me." Karma was having a hard time keeping her voice monotone, but she managed it, barely. "So she turned human, had me a few months later, and died when I was three." Karma nodded, greatful for the darkness that hid her expression.

She took a deep breath. "Vampirism. Side effects include, heightened senses, agility, a crazy high metabalism, and pretty much insanity." She giggled. "Any questions?"

Alessa, occasionally glancing at the book and Karma, looked like her eyes were about to blow. Not only was her best friend historical, but she's also a vampire. So that explains the time they talked about the half-demon guy in the train and about eating him.

She shook the thought away. "I can't believe I'm best friends with someone who's part vampire," she muttered, staring at the book. She was still in awe - she looked at the Gryffindor who is sitting beside Karma. Tough she couldn't recognize her face much, since it was pretty dark. "So the myths aren't true? You don't burn under the sun nor do you sparkle."

Karma rolled her eyes. "I'm not an actual vampire. I don't want to drink blood, and I don't have a particular allergic reaction to sunlight. I can't turn into a bat either. I guess i'd have to be an animagus for that."

Alessa smirked. "Well, then, what are the things that you do, being half vampire?" she asked, raising one of her brows.

Karma shrugged. "I'm faster than normal, stronger than normal, can see pretty perfectly in the dark, am particularly hard to poison, and I don't really get ill. I think maybe bloodlust will come in the future. Perhaps hating sunlight will too."

Alessa particularly aware that Karma wants to be an assassin. She heard her conversation with Arsen in the carriages - and she personally thinks Karma would do a good job protecting the Magical Folks.

She looked down, and played with her hair. "Is that why you want to be an... assassin? To make use of your abilities?" she said, silent enough for only Karma to hear.

Karma shook her head and told Alessa the truth. "I'm not becoming an assassin anymore. I've given up on that dream. I have no idea what the future holds."

Alessa leaned back, shocked. "But... you'd make one great assassin! Er, not that I don't respect your opinion, but..."

She shook her head. Karma's not the kind of girl who easily gives up, She's the one who fights and won't stop until she gets what she wants. That's what makes her strong.

"Perhaps you're right..." Alessa finally said.

Karma smiled. "Of course I'm right. It's my future. I know what I'm doing here, Alessa."

Lacey was silent, grateful for the darkness of the room that was shadowing her completely shocked and confused face. She glanced down at the old book and picked it up gently, fingering the tattered cover for a second before flipping it open to the page where Karma's mother's time could be found. She scanned the pages, seeing everything Karma had said, but now feeling more at east that the whole thing wasn't some sick trick she was being played at because she was a Black who happened to have been sorted into Gryffindor -- not that she was complaining or anything.

She wasn't one for pity, therefore felt non for the girl before her -- who happened to somehow be her cousin in a sick and twisted way -- but she did feel sorrow. As Karma had been retelling her dark and seemingly loveless life, her brown eyes that she obviously was trying her best to conceal all the emotion out of, were large and glassy. Her voice sounded strained and it didn't take an empathic to see that her past still hurt.

"So. . ." Lacey trailed off. "I guess I'm related to a part vampire." her lips twitched upward in an attempt to lighten the mood. She brushed a honey curl from her face and looked back at Karma. "Sorry I doubted you. I didn't have a right to make such an accusation."

Examining the book again, she flipped through the old pages. "This is. . . so amazing. Such history of our family lies in this tome." she said breathlessly. "Two copies? Mind if I borrow one sometime?"

"So a part-vampire, huh? At least you don't sparkle." she snorted. "Do you hunger for blood?"

Karma looked from Alessa to Lacey. "No, I do not wnat blood at the moment, but I may in the future. And to borrow that one, the one you have right now, all I need is a hairbrush. Do you have one? I lost mine and my hair is starting to suffer from it." Karma ran her hand through her soft, almost perfect looking, Black hair. "That is, it will be suffering."

Lacey nodded in understanding. "So. . . what will you do then? When you're thirsty for blood?" A laugh escaped Lacey's lips and she quickly quieted herself. She eyed Karma's perfect hair before cracking a smile and reaching into the small bag she had taken with her and retrieving a brush. She handed it to Karma with a shake of her head. "A book that is thousands of years old and you ask for a brush in return."

Karma shrugged. "I'll deal with that when I come to it." She said, thinking about what it would be like to crave the blood of another person. Couldn't be that difficult.

Karma took the brush and placed it in her pocket. "It's no problem, really. I need a hairbrush more than I need two copies of the book."

With a shrug, Lacey nodded. "That's going to be a bit weird though." she commented, wrinkling her nose. "I mean, you've got the curses of the vampire but not the perks of immortality. That's sorta lame. I mean, unless you don't want to be immortal. I honestly don't see the point in living forever."

"I suppose so." she smiled. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Karma stood and pulled her cloak around her, pulling up her hood. "The longer we stay here, the more likely we'll be caught. I'll see you two in classes." She nodded to both of them and walked into the shadows, disappearing from sight. She was in the Common Room in ten minutes.

Lacey stood as soon as Karma was out of the door and pulled her Invisibility Cloak around her form before slipping out the same way she came in, walking at a brisk speed to Gryffindor Tower and reaching the common room and no less then eight minutes.

Alessa nodded. Karma nkows what she's doing - she always does. As she listened to the two relatives in front of her, she can't help but glance at the book, which was now at Lacey's hands. She asked for the copy of the book, and Karma asked a hairbrush in return?

Weird, but reasonable.

Karma was first to stand, then Lacey, and Alessa realized that staying longer wouldn't do her any good, either. She wore her deep black cloak again and wore the hood, which completely covered her face due to the shadow.

She followed the Gryffindor out and locked the library before closing the doors. This has been a night, she thought. She ran towards the dungeons, then, which was quite hard, since this was 3 floors above their common room. She went there without any trouble nevertheless.