The world, for the first few years, was a vast and silent map of marble and moonlight. White Manor was not a home; it was a monument to stillness. Its hallways were cavernous veins of polished grey stone, so long that a child's footsteps were swallowed by the distance. The ceilings soared into gothic arches, losing themselves in shadows that the enchanted candlelight could never quite banish. The air itself was different here—always cool, still, and tasting faintly of old stone, beeswax, and the dry, crisp scent of powerful, dormant magic.
By the age of four, I had learned its geography intimately. I was a ghost in my own house, a silent observer with wide, watchful eyes. I had learned to walk without a sound, my small, bare feet gliding over the frigid marble. My parents saw this as a sign of the White family's inherent grace and control. They would watch me, a small figure in a simple white dress, as I navigated the cavernous drawing-room without ever disturbing the oppressive silence.
"Such composure," my father, Cassian, would murmur to my mother, his voice a low rumble of approval. "She is a true White. No pointless noise, no chaotic outbursts."
I would hear him from across the room, my hearing preternaturally sharp. I would give no sign that I'd heard, of course. I simply continued my task, perhaps arranging a set of enchanted crystal blocks into a perfect, symmetrical tower. They thought I was playing. In reality, I was testing the magic of the house, feeling how it responded to my will. The blocks would grow cool under my touch, a faint layer of frost tracing their edges before it sublimated into nothing.
My internal world was a stark contrast to my placid exterior. My mind, the mind of a woman who had lived and died in a world of frantic, desperate noise, was a constant stream of analysis and planning. I cataloged every conversation I overheard, every magical artifact I saw, every book whose title I could glimpse. This life was a chess game, and I was years behind. Knowledge was my only path to catching up.
The greatest treasure, and the greatest challenge, was the library.
It was my father's sanctuary, a two-story rotunda of dark mahogany shelves groaning under the weight of centuries. The air inside was different, thick with the intoxicating scent of aging parchment, leather, and arcane dust. A massive, domed skylight of enchanted glass showed a perpetually clear, star-filled night sky, regardless of the actual time or weather. The silence in here was deeper, heavier. It felt sacred.
And it was warded. Not with anything complex. Just a simple, humming barrier at the threshold, designed to repel the unfocused, chaotic magic of a typical child. To a normal four-year-old, the doorway would feel like an invisible, unyielding wall.
For weeks, I studied it. I would sit just outside the entrance, ostensibly playing with a doll, while I extended my senses toward the ward. It felt like a thin sheet of static, a faint vibration in the air. It was keyed to intent. The loud, demanding, 'I want!' of a child would cause it to solidify. But a quiet, unobtrusive presence… that might go unnoticed.
My chance came during a long, droning summer afternoon when my mother was hosting the Greengrass matriarch and my father was locked away in his study. The house was at its most still.
I left the doll on the cold floor of the hall. Taking a slow, calming breath, I emptied my mind, focusing on a single, simple thought: I am just a shadow. I am not here. I held no desire to enter, no childish want. I simply… moved.
My small body passed through the shimmering barrier without a ripple. The air inside the library instantly enveloped me, cooler and drier. The scent of ancient knowledge was intoxicating. For a moment, I just stood there, a tiny figure dwarfed by the towering shelves, and breathed it in. This was the real heart of the House of White. Not the cold marble or the severe portraits, but this silent, accumulated power.
My time was limited. I knew the section I wanted. From my father's lectures to my mother, I knew the histories of the Sacred Twenty-Eight were on the lower level, to the west. My legs were short, but my determination was absolute. I found the right aisle, the dark wood spines of the books gleaming in the starlight from the ceiling. Black. Gaunt. Lestrange. Malfoy.
And there it was. White. A thick, silver-bound tome with no title on the spine, only the family crest: a silent, snow-covered mountain peak. It was too heavy for me to pull from the shelf. I placed my small hands on it, pushing. It didn't budge. Frustration, a hot and useless emotion, pricked at the edges of my control. A normal child would have grunted, or cried.
I did not.
Instead, I closed my eyes and focused. I remembered the chill of the crystal blocks under my fingers. I remembered the cold that had been my end in my last life, and the cold that was my beginning in this one. I didn't try to move the book. I tried to change the conditions around it.
I focused on the friction between the book and the shelf. I imagined the air growing colder, the moisture in the ancient wood crystallizing. A faint wisp of white mist, visible only in the magical starlight, curled from my fingertips. The leather of the book's binding creaked as it contracted in the sudden, localized drop in temperature. I felt the shelf beneath it become slick with a microscopic layer of ice.
Then, I pushed again.
The heavy book slid forward with a soft, scraping whisper, the sound shockingly loud in the profound silence. It tilted over the edge of the shelf, and I had to scramble to catch it, its weight nearly toppling me. I grunted with the effort, staggering back before setting its base on the floor. It stood taller than my waist.
Panting, I sat down and pulled the heavy cover open. The parchment was thick, the ink a faded black. It was a genealogical history, filled with names and dates and dry accounts of political maneuvers. It was exactly what I was looking for. I turned the crisp, cool pages, my small fingers surprisingly deft.
I found the section I was looking for near the middle: 'On Rivalries and Ideologies.'
The House of Black, the script read, is a house of fire and impulse. Their magic is born of passion, of rage and ecstasy, of devotion and madness. It is a wildfire, powerful and brilliant, but consuming and uncontrollable. They are the chaos to our order, the storm to our winter. They feel, and so they are slaves to their own hearts.
The House of White is a house of ice and intellect. Our magic is born of stillness, of logic and absolute control. It is a glacier, slow and unstoppable, carving the world to its will. We are the order to their chaos, the winter that quiets the storm. We think, and so we are masters of our own power.
I traced the elegant, archaic script with my finger. Chaos and Order. Fire and Ice. It wasn't just a political rivalry or a feud between families. It was a fundamental opposition of being, a magical philosophy encoded into their very blood.
A floorboard creaked in the hall outside.
My head snapped up, my heart a frantic bird in my chest. I hadn't heard anyone approaching. The house-elves? My mother?
Panic was a luxury I couldn't afford. With a surge of adrenaline, I pushed the massive book back toward the shelf. It was too heavy. I couldn't lift it. I was trapped. My perfect infiltration was about to end in discovery and punishment.
No.
I looked at the book, then at the empty space on the shelf, just above my head. I needed it back. Now. I placed my hands on its cover again, but this time, I didn't push. I pulled. Not with my muscles, but with my will. I focused on the cold, on the stillness, on the absolute, logical necessity of the book returning to its place.
The air around the book shimmered. It grew heavy, condensing. The tome lifted from the floor, slowly, wobbling in the air as if suspended in water. It was surrounded by a faint, shimmering aura of cold. I gritted my teeth, sweat beading on my brow, my small body trembling with the sheer effort of it. The book rose, inch by agonizing inch, until it was level with the shelf. I nudged it forward with my mind, and it slid back into place with a soft, definitive thump.
The instant it was settled, the pressure in my head vanished. I fell back, landing on the floor with a soft gasp, my limbs feeling like jelly. The world swam for a moment. I had just performed my first act of intentional, telekinetic magic.
I didn't have time to process it. I scrambled to my feet and darted out of the library, slipping through the ward just as a house-elf, a tiny creature with bat-like ears and bulging green eyes named Pip, rounded the corner with a tea tray for my mother.
He stopped and blinked at me, his large eyes widening in surprise. "Miss Lumi," he squeaked, his voice trembling slightly. "Pip did not see you."
I just looked at him, my expression placid, my breathing still slightly ragged. I gave him a slow, deliberate blink. Then, without a word, I turned and walked silently down the long, echoing hall, my mind alight with the knowledge I had stolen and the power I had just unleashed.
I was not a White because of my name. I was a White because of my magic. It was cold, it was controlled, and it was mine. And it would be the tool I used to carve out my freedom.