A large box was sitting in the Owlery with Scarletts name in fancy writing across the top. The fleet of little bats that had brought the box to Hogwarts were all hanging upside down sleeping exhaustedly. The box lay on its side and photographs were scattered everywhere. Scarlett was racing around trying to scoop them back into the box that poor tired bats had spilled when they just could not fly another second. She could have been faster at her task, but every once in a while she would just get lost in a picture.

Her parents’ estate had finally been settled and the box of pictures had been sent directly to her as part of her inheritance from her mother. Scarlett was so thrilled to have them that she was beyond words. She knew the pictures were in little danger for the Owlery was empty at the moment of all but Scarlett and the bats. Some of the pictures moved in the Wizardly way, and some were still, but all were precious to Scarlett though she was not familiar with all the people in them. Just now she sat peering at one that contained a group of girls that contained her mother, but no one else Scarlett recognized. They were all about Scarlett’s age though and she smiled for the girls looked so happy.

Melie walked slowly up to the owlery with a letter in her hands. She had been sending home a lot of letters lately, she missed her family dearly. Melie hoped that Orion would be back with a reply from someone from home. When she reached the top of the stairs she saw Scarlett sitting on the ground with a box of photographs spilled out on the ground. She was staring at a photograph and Melie sat down next to her, she loved photos.
"Hey Scar, what are you looking at?" Melie asked and took at peek and the picture in her hands. There were a group of girls in it all smiling, around the ages' of Melie and Scarlett. Melie looked from face to face wondering who they were, until she got the blond haired blue eyed girl in the middle on the right, it was a face Melie knew, and she knew her well.

“Hey Melie!” Scarlett said as her friend came to sit by her. Scarlett was happy to have the company because pictures were always so much more fun when you shared them. “The lawyer who handled my parents’ estate just sent me this box of pictures and old letters. Apparently Mamma wanted me to have this box of old stuff all to myself, because it was directed straight to the school. Look there she is,” said Scarlett proudly, pointing out her mother at sixteen. The girl Scarlett was pointing to had large pale blue eyes and golden curls. Her lips were a pretty pink Cupid’s bow that smiled sweetly from the photograph. “Hard to believe I’m her daughter all dark-haired and green-eyed, but see our noses are the same.” Scarlett was eager to point out this resemblance for, though she could hardly be accused of suffering from any kind of self-esteem problems when it came to her own physical beauty, Scarlett had always wished she looked a little more like her angel-faced mother.

Melie listened to Scarlett as she told her that the pictures were her mothers. Melie eyes opened a little wider when Scarlett pointed out the blond haired blue eyed woman next the the blond that Melie knew.
"That's your mother?" Melie asked shocked. "She doesn't look anything like you! But I don't understand! She standing next to my mum!" Melie looked at Scarlett slightly confused. "But I thought you said you're family has been in America forever, how did our mum's meet? I don't get it?" Melie asked. She started to quickly go through some more of the pictures trying to see if there were anymore of her mother and after a second she found another of the two blonds smiling again, waving at Melie as she watched it. "This is so weird," Melie mumbled to herself.

Scarlett could scarcely believe what Melie said. "We have been in America for..." Quite frankly there were a lot of secrets in Scarlett's family and she now felt she could state nothing for sure.

Scarlett turned the picture she was looking at over. The writing was too faded to make out. She turned over the picture that Melie had and there was written in the handwriting that Scarlett loved so much, "Cousins by blood, best friends by choice." Scarlett could not repress a squeal of delight. "Cousins, Melie our mothers were cousins. We're related!" Scarlett looked at her dear friend hoping her reaction would be good.

Melie's jaw dropped as she heard Scarlett announce that their mothers were cousins.
"What?!" Melie asked looking at the back of the photo and there as plain as day was the proof. "Oh my god!" Melie squeeled back to Scarlett. "No way! This is so cool. There is no way in the world I would have guessed that we would be related! How could my mum have never told me about any of this?"

"Maybe they lost touch," said Scarlett. The thought saddened her. The two girls in the picture looked so close with their arms encirleing each other's waists heads tilted to lean against one another. "The box has a bunch of letters in it too. If there are some from your Mama we should read them and see what happened. Just help me clean the rest of pictures up and we'll go someplace and go through them."

Melie nodded at Scarlett's possible explanation for why they're mothers had lost touch, and then quickly helped Scarlett pick the rest of the photos up so that they could search through it in a better place. Everytime Melie picked up a picture or a piece of paper she glanced to see if her mum was in anymore. She silently wondered to herself why her mum had never told her about Scarlett's mum, Melie had mentioned her in letters home, but her mum had never said a peep. Melie started to walk down the steps of the owlery and called back to Scarlett over her shoulder, "Where do you want to go? The dorms or just somewheres we can sit down?"

Scarlett gathered the rest of the pictures and letters. “There’s an open classroom not far from here. Honestly I can’t wait to look through these. I am so excited to find out I have a cousin! Everyone I grew up with had a ton of cousins, but I never knew any of mine.”

Once everything was cleaned up Scarlett levitated the box and headed down the stairs from the owlery. She waited at the bottom for Melie to come down so they could walk together to the classroom Scarlett had in mind.

When the two girls reached the classroom Scarlett set the box on the floor and gathered some cushions around it so that Melie could sit with her. “Ok you check through the pictures for anymore that have your mama in them. I will check for her name at the bottom of the letters. What is your mama’s name by the way?”

"My mums name is Olivia, but my dad always calls her Livie" Melie said as she sat on the pillow next to Scarlett and began to go through the pictures one by one, at first just glancing to see if her mum was in any, but as she started to see a dark haired baby popping up Melie took a little longer with each picture, watching Scarlett grow up. There was no chronological order for the pictures, some showed Scarlett as a teeny tiny baby and then the next one she would be a toddler. Melie pulled out a fairly large stack of pictures though that did have her mum in them. Almost always with Scarletts mum and they were always smiling and laughing. The pictures were old, the oldest seemed to have their mothers as young at 3 or 4 and then went up until they were in their early 20's. Melie looked up at Scarlett, "did you find any letters from my mum?"

Scarlett gathered all the letters out of the bottom of the box. Most were stacked neatly in piles tied with shimmering ribbons of different colors, but a few had escaped. She began opening envelopes and peeking at signatures and she identified three stacks of letters bound with icy blue ribbons as being from Livie. Other colored stacks came from all over the globe. Scarlett’s mother must have been quite popular to cultivate so many pen pals.

Every once in a while Scarlett would glance at the pictures Melie was looking through. Many she had seen, but there were some older ones that she had not. There was one taken under the Christmas tree of her and her little brother Irving that brought back a pine-scented candy-cane sticky memory of toys and games and snow.

“Yeah,” Scarlett replied to Melie’s question “I found a bunch of letters from your mamma to mine. They seem to start back when your mamma could bearly write. We can take turns reading them. How about pictures? Did you find a bunch of them together?”

Melie glanced at the small stack of letters in Scalretts hand.
"I found all of these," Melie said still flipping through the pictures. There were quite a lot of pictures in the box and she wasn't finished going through all of them. "There is still a lot more to go through." Melie went back to looking at the pictures, looking at Scarletts family, now part of Melie's family as well. "They always seem so happy," Melie said to Scarlett as she found more pictures and passed them to her. "I wonder what happened."

“I don’t know,” said Scarlett sadly. She hoped she would always be in touch with Melie and Dream, whom she considered to be her best friends, but she knew that people sometimes drifted apart. Scarlett thought about her family and its twisty ways. “I don’t know about your side of family,” it felt good to refer to Melie as family “but mine is a little strange.” Scarlett remember how all her memories of her power had be erased as she was growing up. Maybe Melie’s mamma hadn’t wanted to be a part of that. Then a terrible thought occurred to Scarlett. Maybe Melie’s mamma had found out that a dangerous prophecy had been made about Scarlett and she just didn’t want her daughter involved in that sort of thing. Scarlett’s brow wrinkled at the thought. To late she had already involved Melie in it and her friend had been kicked in ribs for her trouble. “Maybe you shouldn’t mention to your mamma that we know we are related.” Scarlett wasn’t sure if Melie would be her friend if her mamma told her not to be.

Melie new some of the stories of Scarletts side of the family and it made her wonder if Melies mum had secrets as well.
"Well as far as I know, there isn't anything awful about my side, but I never knew my grandparents, they died when I was a baby and my mum was an only child," Melie told Scarlett. "My dad wanted us raised in the magical world so I didn't even know if my mum has aunts or uncles, but obviously she must now" Melie stared at the picture in her hands still and looked at Scarlett when she mentioned not telling her mum about finding out about Scarlett being her cousin.
"Oh my mum wouldn't mind, I don't think anyways. Shes really sweet and shes always let me do as I pleased," Melie told Scarlett reassuringly, it was her father that she was worried about really, Sean had always been protective over Melie.

Scarlett listened as Melie described her mother and sighed. “No wonder they were good friends. My mother was a very sweet and gentle lady. She never raised her voice and she was always polite.” Scarlett’s voice had a wistful quality to it, because she tried so hard to emulate her mother, but more often than not her father’s brash temper over took her.

“I could read these letters out loud while you are looking at pictures,” Scarlett suggested.