Chapter Text
For the first few years of her life, Renata Lestrange knows nothing outside of Lestrange Manor. Mother dotes on her and plays with her, Father spoils her, Grandfather indulges her, the house elves obey her every whim. She's the sole Lestrange of her generation, and the way things are going she will be the best prospect for the Black Heiress as well. So Mother's parents dote on her as much as Grandfather, the culmination of their hopes to get the power from the main Black line to their own.
She has nothing to compare her childhood to. As far as she is aware, she lives an entirely normal life. Everyone she knows lives in a great grim house with cursed objects and beaten elves. She doesn't think the wounds her parents bear, or the slurs they fling are the slightest bit out of the ordinary.
Of course she stays close to Mother when they go to Diagon Alley, she doesn't want to touch a Mudblood. What if she gets dirty too?
Renata is a child. She questions nothing that her parents tell her.
She is seven when everything falls apart.
The Dark Lord vanishes, and days later her parents leave the manor, never to return.
Grandfather takes her to a big room with lots of strangers, and Mother and Father chained in chairs at the centre with Uncle Rabastan and her tutor Mr Crouch. She says goodbye to her parents and uncle dutifully, albeit with no small amount of confusion.
"We will be back, Renata." Father says calmly, kneeling in front of her with his chained hands on her shoulders "Our Lord will return and release us. Your grandfather will take care of you while we are indisposed. Behave for him, alright? We will see you soon."
Mother peppers Renata's face with kisses. "Be good for Grandfather, Renny. Learn lots of curses and remember you're better than anyone else. Make us proud baby."
And then they are gone.
Grandfather and Renata go back to the manor alone. It feels colder and emptier without Mother, Father and Uncle Rabastan. Without Mother's laughter to lift it, the silence feels almost oppressive. Father isn't there to light the lamps when she has a nightmare, so that the darkness stays stifling until she calls an elf. Uncle Rabastan doesn't clatter in at all hours, or light huge fires that make Grandfather scold him for wasting fuel.
Grandfather misses them as much as Renata does, though he doesn't say so. She can tell, even though he tries to hide it. His moods get darker and grimmer, and he spends hours locked away in his study.
If he talks to her at all, it is to lament that she is growing up in the time after the Dark Lord's defeat, and tell her stories about their great deeds. A couple of times he teaches her curses and rituals that even Mother had said should wait until Hogwarts.
The elves are even quieter than ever because of Grandfather's dark moods. After he cuts Jolly's head off for spilling a tray at tea time Renata can hardly tell they have any elves.
When an inspection comes from the Ministry, something about standards of elf treatment, Grandfather gets a fine. They aren't allowed to kill the elves anymore, and physical punishments are barely tolerated.
Renata doesn't understand why, they own the elves so shouldn't they be allowed to do what they want?
The Ministry inspection doesn't say anything about them mistreating the banisters that she'd cracked practicing Quidditch the day before, or the scorch marks in the ritual room. They complain about the contents of the library instead. It's too dark apparently, and they are worried about the atmosphere for a child to grow up in. They tell Grandfather he should spend more time with her, and teach her less Dark Magic. They tut over the cursed objects on the mantles of every fireplace and shriek at the grandfather clock that shoots bolts out of it every hour on the hour.
Renata is very glad when they go.
She is even gladder when Grandfather decides to spend the subsequent week with her. They take all of the cursed and Dark things on display and hide them in the attic. It's fun finding new hiding places, and she's never been allowed in the attic for so long before.
Grandfather lets her keep Mother's vanity set though. That had come from Grandmother Druella who had taken ill and died shortly after the Dark Lord vanished and Mother was imprisoned. It's a Rosier heirloom, cursed to scorch the skin of any non-Pureblood who touches it and to scream if someone without Rosier blood uses it. Grandmother Lestrange, who died before Renata was born, was a Rosier, so even though Mother was a Black she has enough Rosier blood for the set to treat her well.
It lives on her own vanity now, the hand mirror, the little brushes and pots and things. It's like having a piece of Mother with her. Father's pocket watch lives in Grandfather's pocket now, but the snapped halves of his wand and Mother's are kept in a little drawer on Renata's vanity.
Aside from that, it is as if neither Mother nor Father nor Uncle Rabastan had ever existed in Lestrange Manor.
Renata hates it.
The next four years of her life are spent almost entirely alone. Grandfather sees her less and less. He hardly leaves his study, and when he does he barely speaks to her aside from mealtimes.
Her tutors had been dispensed with after Mother and Father had been taken away - Mr Crouch had gone with them, as had Miss and Mr Carrow, and Grandfather hadn't hired any new tutors.
Her friends had hardly visited - some of them had lost their own families, so had been given to relatives on the continent or elsewhere in England. The rest had kept the parents, but Grandfather had explained that those parents had betrayed the cause and so those families were dead to them - even the Malfoys had betrayed them, so Grandfather wouldn't let her see any of the Black side of their family. There was no reason to make new friends, as no one outside of the Dark Lord's followers was worth associating with. Even the elves had kept to themselves, staying mostly in the kitchens and only leaving to tidy and clean in the dead of night.
So she read anything she could get her hands on in the library, and flew on the overgrown Quidditch pitch, and played games with her reflection in the enchanted mirrors. It was a lonely life, and monotonous, but she swam in summers and skated in winters and got letters from the Blacks and Malfoys on Yules and birthdays, and read so many books that she loved them better than most people. It was what it was, and no more, no less. She didn't mind. She didn't really know much else - and besides, she had promised to behave for her grandfather.
So she tries to be quiet and obedient, and not trouble Grandfather too much. But it is so lonely that a tiny part of her is glad when her Hogwarts letter comes after years of seeing no one but Grandfather and the elves since the Ministry visitor.