PALE WINGS: PROLOGUE
Butterflies

Mischa Potter's P.O.V

Mischa Potter had made a poor job of hiding the damage. She knew that. It was like black mould under a white-washed wall, pure and crisp, but the shadows tarried in the high sun, and right there, if you squinted, you could see the draw of decay. Lilac licked at the thin skin of her eyes, the corner of her bottom lip was cracked, blistering pink from the fang she kept worrying the soft flesh with, her curly blond hair, usually a happy sunshine yellow, was a tangled mess of coils and corkscrews, and there was a certain droop to her that could often only be found in a sunflower with a bobbled head too heavy for its spindly stem. Scrunched up in the small seat on the train, knees drawn to chest and temple resting on window, Mischa looked very much like a lost child.

Still, dressed in a new baby blue thick jumper, knitted as a parting present from Molly, jeans with no holes, shiny fawn coloured brock shoes, she hoped she made at least a partly pleasant visage. Breezy. Bright. Like the morning sky. Approachable, but nothing special. Someone you would look right over if you passed in the street, as people often did with a clear morning sky when they had other things on their mind. Even her scar was mostly covered with the newly cut fringe, though, the hair spiralled and curled up from her brow and left a good inch of the lightning bolt visible. She could never fully escape what and who she was, no matter how hard she tried, but here, dressed as she was, surrounded by muggles, a whole sea away from England and all those dank little memories, she felt as if she could run just far enough to escape the pounding reflections.

"Next stop, Penn Station. Thank you for using Amtrak rail services."

Mischa poked one last time at her half nibbled egg and cress sandwich, wincing as the mayo dribbled onto the tray of the train seat. White on white. She remembered that. A blinding white so bright and hot it turned pupil to pin-pricks. The keening whistle of a train hanging in the air. Something underneath the bench. Someone. Crimson and squirming. Leave it to die. Leave it to whither and shrivel like a crumpled leaf blew free from bent tree branch. Don't pity the dead, Mischa. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love. She could feel it, the weight in her arms, blistery and twisting, thickness smearing, crimson splashed on white petals and white arms and she had stomped, kicked, bucked, she had-

No. She mustn't think of that. Anything but that. Secrets for secret places, lies told in an echo, rippling through the dark, distorting until it made no more sense, just noise. No one knew. No one but her. And no one would. Shakily, she twisted open the bottle of orange fanta and downed half. The spice of firewhiskey set her nerves to ease. Underage drinking was last on her long list of sins.

Dumping her half picked apart lunch in the little bin in the side of her train seat, Mischa jostled to a stand, slinging ratty rucksack over shoulder as she haggled with the overhead compartment, yanking battered suitcase free. When the case thunked onto the ground, the woman behind her, an old woman hewn from paper skin and glass bones, swamped in garish paisley, who had been napping through the soft sway and chug of the train, gave her an idle glare for being disturbed. Mischa winked at her. The glare turned into a foul scowl and Mischa could only chuckle.

Squeezing and shimmying through the crowded train, Mischa came to the cart doors, propping herself against the hand rail by the lit buttons as the train began to slow to a puttering stop. She felt nervous. Jittery. Twitchy. She hadn't felt nervous in a long time. Not since the clearing in the Forbidden Forest, smooth stone rubbed under the pad of her thumb, Sirius's face-

She must not think of that. Mischa must not think of many things, for if she did, in the light of day, out in the open, they would come spilling out of her, secrets no longer in their secret places, echo's no longer rippling in the dark but screaming in the sunlight, there for everyone to see and hear and feel. Secrets, she thought, were a lot like dreams. Sometimes, they spilled over. Sometimes, they stained. Sometimes, they splattered everywhere like slit carotid arteries.

"Welcome to Penn Station. We hope you have enjoyed your journey with us today."

Mischa tightened her grip on her luggage and listened as the doors whooshed open. It was bright today. Clear too. A bite in the air lingering from a drawn out winter. Spring was coming. Minding the gap, Mischa stepped off the train, watching as mothers, fathers, business men and tourists in scarf's and camera's dangling around their necks, began to flitter about like a kaleidoscope butterflies.

There were the chequered skippers, all brown and amber, with their re-usable shopping bags filled with groceries from the next city over, tittering home with loaves of bread under arm. There was the brush-footed, shoes glossy and polished, pencil skirts tight and suit jackets pressed, barking orders for coffee or for Jeff down in accounting to get his arse into gear so they could close the deal, from their mobile phones, commuting on mass to work. There were the children darting between legs, giggling, cabbage whites sparking in their air as mothers yelled for them to return or wait. There was the gossamer winged common blue, decked in jewellery and perfume, fluttering in mincing steps, checking nails, meeting loved ones and lovers in waiting rooms, dark alleys and cars. And there she was, Mischa Potter, standing just passed the yellow line of the platform, the Ascalapha Odorata, the black witch moth. Not belonging to the day. Not part of the crowd. The witch lost in an ocean of muggles, like a moth engulfed by a swarm of butterflies.

And she would stay 'lost' for six months, until her seventeenth birthday. On her seventeenth birthday, Mischa would reach the age of majority in the wizarding world. She could do as she pleased. Act how she pleased. Live where she pleased. The ministry of Magic would no longer be able to order her to do anything. She would buy a little cottage out in the sticks, near the coast, where fields would bloom with wild flowers that sweetened each breath, and the air would taste like salt. She would spend days outside, counting and catching butterflies, purple ones, her favourite, mixing potions over bubbling cauldrons, and whittling her days through with cups of peppermint tea and treacle tarts freshly baked.

No one would find her in her cottage so far removed. The sound of the ocean would drive away the screams of war she still heard in the dead of the night. The taste of mint and honey would wash away the acrid taste of ash and blood that still persisted on her tongue. On her wall, the largest in the front room, would be a mirage of butterflies, caught and delicately pinned to parchment paper, framed in sleek glass, so many colours cut from velvet wings, so many that there could be no possible way she would ever see that terrible, terrible white hell again.

Best of all, she would no longer be passed around then, like a used handkerchief that people felt too bad to bin. Aged and shabby, discoloured and mangled, but still holding that drop of sentimentality that stalled one from completely discarding it. Taking in a shaky breath, Mischa squared her shoulders and began to push through the crowd, towards the exit of the train station and towards the front road where, she knew, a car should be waiting. At least this time she wasn't being handed over to Petunia and Vernon. Those days were long gone. No more cupboards. That was the one thing she had put her foot down on. Nevertheless, she couldn't decided whether this alternative was better or worse.

After the war, after everything Mischa had gave, all she did, killing T-. Well, Mischa had thought she had earned her freedom. Voldemort was gone. The wizarding world would be focused on rebuilding from the ruins left by the war. No one would have any time to focus or pay attention to a little girl with no home and no family. Orphan's were absorbed, lost, forgotten in a blink. Mischa should know. She had been there and done that. Only, this time was different. This time she was special. The saviour of the wizarding world. If only they knew the truth. They, the ministry of magic, wanted to be seen as protectors, for all their mistakes, and so, had to be seen doing right by her, the child that had won a war. They couldn't be seen dumping her on the nearest doorstop, even if it was only for the next six months. And so began the quest to find Mischa a home, as if she was a feral dog being adopted from an overcrowded kennel.

Turns out Mischa was not the only one to have led a double life, of moth and butterfly, muggle and witch. Nanny Annie, an English nickname to hide her not so English name Ausra, had been walking that tight rope long before Mischa had been born. Her mother's mother, as it turned out, had been married before Mischa's grandfather. Mischa couldn't remember her grandmother much, Petunia had only visited once or twice, when Mischa was barely walking, the two women loathed each other, Mischa had heard Petunia ranting about her grandmother long and often enough, even after her death, but Mischa had only a few kind memories of the woman, all warm and golden. It was her grandmother that had named her Mischa, given her the one piece of jewellery she had, a locket with a sprawling family sigil embossed on the front, the name etched on the back, and two little black and white photo's of children inside, and it was Mischa's grandmother who had given her this 'opportunity', in a convoluted way.

Before Ausra had come to England from Lithuania, married a younger, bright eyed Martin Evans in a little village chapel on the outskirts of Surrey, she had lived a whole other life. In fact, she had married a Count, lived in a bloody castle, had two previous children, and seemed all set and ready to live the rest of her days out in peace and wealth. For whatever reason long lost to time and death, perhaps the secret hiding in nanny Annie's damp grave, she had packed up shop, fled Lithuania, over the great scope of Europe, settled in England, and like some sick joke, began all over again. She married Martin, had another two children, both girls this time, Lily and Petunia, not even two years after fleeing, changed her name to Anne, and well… Never looked back.

Her first husband, Robertus, was dead. So was her youngest child, Mischa. Merlin. Her grandmother had named her after the poor kid she had ditched back in Lithuania, and Lily, liking the name, had never questioned it. Mischa wondered if she looked like her, this ghost child of pale wings, a child from another life, or if nanny Annie had simply missed the child so much she needed a part of her back even but in name, and she, herself, had nothing of the blood in her. Mischa didn't know which idea she preferred most, but, well, the locket with the name and family sigil was only given to her, not Petunia, not Lily, not Dudley, and well, Mischa remarkably resembled her grandmother, blonde hair and too-green eyes and all… In the end, it did not matter. One child remained from her first marriage, Lily's older half brother, and with the Potter line completely dead in the water, Mischa the last to carry the name, the ministry had tried to find her some living relative.

In ironic happenchance, this half brother of her mothers had, in fact, been searching for his mother. He had found her in nanny Annie, found the truth, Martin, Petunia, Lily, Mischa herself, all of it, and had contacted the muggle services to get in touch with her. They in turn had gotten in touch with Petunia, who, no longer having Mischa under her roof, although she still collected benefits for 'looking' after the girl, panicked and contacted the ministry, alerting them to a man searching for his niece. The ministry had picked up on the digging going on to her family, saw the truth themselves and, well, would you look at that, a home already in the making with most of the paperwork already filled out. How joyous for everyone!

They did not ask for Mischa's approval when they contacted him. They never asked. Mischa only found out when his letter arrived saying he was looking forward to meeting her this spring. And so, they, the ministry, conjured up a cover story, and everything had fallen into place like dice rolling in snake eyes. It was easiest to stay as close to the truth as possible, so Shacklebolt had told her, to stop Mischa from slipping and accidentally outing the wizarding world.

"Just stick as close to the truth as possible, Mischa. Change few facts. Hide the lies in truth and no one sees the rot."

Lily and James Potter, former MI5 agents who had been tracking an underground terrorist cell, were killed on October 31st, when a deranged serial killer and leader of the terrorist sect, obsessed with the ideology of immortality, broke into their home. James was murdered out in the hallway. Lily was killed standing over her child's crib, trying to protect the infant. The leader, who went by the moniker of Voldemort, went to kill the child, after having a series of delusions about a baby killing him, and in the struggle with her mother, a struggle that ended with Mischa's burning scar, he was grievously injured, believed dead for many years.

"Repeat it back to me, Mischa. It's important you remember your story."

In a resounding fuck-up by child services, Mischa was given to Petunia and Vernon without following proper protocol, who were not the best of parents to the child. They kept their abuse hidden, and none were the wiser. By age eleven, Mischa had been granted into a gifted school, one her parents had once upon a time attended, and soon, the cards came tumbling down. Tom reappeared in her first year, having broken into her school, masqueraded as a teacher, and tried to bludgeon her to death with a stone. Second year he attacked again, abducting her friend, Ginny Weasley, and tried to poison Mischa with exotic snake venom. In third year, Mischa's actual guardian who had been appointed by her parents prior to their untimely murder, another member of the MI5 task team set to capture and quell this terrorist guerilla movement, broke out of a mental asylum and came for her, only for it to come to light that he wasn't the one to sell her parents out to Tom, and for it to be another friend and colleague, Peter Pettigrew. After Pettigrew escaped, with no proof of his innocence, Sirius was forced to go on the run, still trying to protect his god-daughter.

"No, Mischa. Try again. You must get the story straight or your uncle, a well-respected psychiatrist and head in his field, will tear it apart. Now, begin again."

In Mischa's fourth year, Tom lashed out once more. With his own people in place, he infiltrated her schools' games, murdered her friend, Cedric Diggory, and tried to finish her off before Mischa managed to escape. In her fifth year, having picked up on Tom's pattern of attack, Mischa was superficially inducted into the same organisation her mother and father worked for, in an act to protect her. This obviously failed. Spectacularly. They were cornered in a building and Sirius… Sirius die-… Sirius…

"Can't I just stay here?"

"No. your uncle has… Stubbornly requested a meeting with you and we have no ground to deny it. You also need a home and responsible guardians to look after you until you turn of age. If we keep trying to push it back, he'll ask more questions, push harder, and we don't need more people digging into anything else."

One of the heads of the MI5 department her parents worked for was murdered by Severus Snape, another member they believed to be on their side but was actually a turncoat. With Albus's death, it all fell down to ashes. Civilians were killed, government institutions were infiltrated and finally, it all came to a head right back where it all started. In a last ditch attempt, Tom attacked Mischa's boarding school once more. Many people died, agents and civilians alike, but not before Severus Snape, who had been playing triple spy to hand them information on Tom's lot, passed Voldemort's location to Mischa before he too kicked the bucket.

"We've doctored and created all the files necessary, with help from our contacts in the muggle services and government. All you must do Mischa, is stick to your story. Just for the few months you'll be over there."

Mischa, not wanting anyone else to get hurt, snuck off to face her dear ol' foe. She was fatally wounded in the little scuffle, but managed to stab Tom in the heart, ending the madness once his followers disbanded having seen their god-like leader killed by nothing but a child. Mischa was then taken to an intensive care unit for her injuries where, just a few weeks ago, she received a seemingly innocuous letter from Baltimore, from an uncle and a side of her family she had never knew existed.

Yes. Mischa Potter knew her story. She knew many stories. Just like she knew many butterflies. And just like butterflies, stories had papery powdered wings, too delicate to touch or hold, so easy to snap and crumple and, Merlin, here she was, with so many stories to keep straight. Still, she reminded herself, just six months and she would be free. Her own agent. And who knew? This uncle, perhaps, might be an alright fellow, a family member Mischa might actually keep in touch with. In his short letter to her, merely a simple line of; I sincerely await your arrival this spring and wish you good health and a quick recovery, was nice. There was no butterflies hidden in his words. He didn't pretend to want to know about her mother or father, he didn't lie and say he was sorry for their losses, for he did not know them, and neither did he fake sincerity into a rambling waterfall of excuses. It was concise, clear, and, most importantly to Mischa, bluntly to the point. She respected that most.

"Ticket, please?"

Mischa snapped back out of her memories with a flap of her lashes, eyeing up the haggard looking man behind the turnstile of the train station. Nodding, she didn't speak much these days, Mischa dipped a hand into her jean's back pocket and plucked out the piece of paper, flashing it to the man. He nodded in turn and swiped a card over his desk and the turnstile opened. When Mischa stepped out into the open front car park off the main road of the train station, the air became nippier, chilly and sharp without so many people pressing in on her from every direction. Here, in the cool air, surrounded by the rumbling cut and start of engines, Mischa found she could breath properly again.

"Mischa?"

The deep voice came from right behind her, the roll of the vowels heavy with an eastern European whorl. Turning around, Mischa was met with a man made of all sliced lines, as tall as he was broad, impeccably dressed in silks and cotton that could only be Italian imports. Even his Oxford shoes were spit to dazzling glean. His hair was in contrast to her own, dark, neatly combed back and away from his even sharper face, slightly peppered with greys around the temples and front. And while he stood with all the bearing of someone in their mid-forties, time did not seem to constrain him like it did most people, wrinkling and weakening, but maturing, like wine, adding aristocratic dignity and prideful strength to an already overflowing bearing of presence. Notes of a gentleman, nanny Annie would say. To come up behind her, he must have been waiting in the entrance lobby. He must have saw her come through, followed her out.

Nevertheless, even though he said her name in that ineffable voice, Mischa had heard it as clear as a tweeting robin on a snow covered branch in a barren wood. There was a distance there as he looked at her, like a deep canyon had torn asunder between them, but in reality, wasn't looking at her. The locket around her throat felt unbearably heavy then. Hot too. Scorching. Inside lay two photos. Black and white. Children. Mischa had always thought the one of the left, the little girl, had been one of her. Perhaps not after all. Her gaze flickered down to her own shoes for a split second, saw the cheap flex of faux leather, a scuff already blackened on the side of her toes, and winced. What a poor sight she must make to this man of composer and pressed slacks. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse from misuse, having not talked since saying goodbye to her mother and father-… Back there, in the forest, and to her own ears, she sounded light, airy, childish and lost. So very, very lost. So very, very young.

"Dr. Lecter?"

But it was her voice that broke him out of the hollow appraisal, and Mischa knew he was seeing pale wings of things long dead. She did too, most days. Yet, he heard her voice and he smiled. Really smiled. It wasn't a large smile, neither was it toothy and bright, but those smiles, full of sweeping lip and blunted tooth were often forced creatures, hiding the glowers and scowls and venom. This smile, yes, was little, a barely there curve, a phantom of a dimple dipping close by on his cheek, a slight crinkle to his dark eyes, rattling dark eyes, yet, it was real. Mischa found herself smiling back, just as small, just as barely dimpled, just as real.

"There is no need for such formality, Mischa. Just Hannibal is fine. Or, if you prefer, I would very much like to eventually be known as uncle?"

A.N: This was spawned from a little AU idea I had of my other story, Where Hemlock Blooms, where the little plot bunny of a question; What if it weren't Alana Hemlock was related to, but Hannibal himself? God knows where this AU will go, or how far it will go, I'm taking it a chapter at a time, but, well, here it is! What no one asked for lol. Still, I have a round-about idea about this AU, and so, thought to give you guys a clearer scope of the fic before we start.

This is going to be completely family themed. No romance, not for Mischa. Just family. Hannigram is included in this fic, quite heavily, (read real fucking heavy), so if that isn't your crumpet, I'd advise not going any further. I am delving into the whole Murder!Family Hannibal plot, but Mischa is not going to be as crazy and unstable as she is in Where Hemlock Blooms. I'm also not sure whether I am going to include Abigail Hobbs into this fic (What do you guys think, should I include her?). This fic is also going to be heavily focused on just three characters, Hannibal, Will Graham, and Mischa, and while others are introduced and we touch base with them, they're never going to be a focal point.

I also want to give a big warning this fic is going to be SLOW. And I really mean slow. I'm coming in from a completely different angle than I did with Where Hemlock Blooms. This is mainly a study into the characters, how I envisage them, what drives them, the psychology behind it all, the relationships between them and how they form, and less about killing and murder (Although we will have plenty of that in here, but the characters and their reactions will always be the first priority). If you hate slow fics that have heavy conversations and move slower than a snail, I really wouldn't read this fic. Some chapters are just going to be Mischa and Hannibal talking at a piano, or Will and Mischa playing with dogs, I'm being completely honest here lol, so if that ain't your thing, this is your heads up.

Of course, dark themes are included. Hannibal is a cannibal, mind games are played, bodies are cut up and put in tableaux, all the grotesque artistry of Hannibal the TV show, so please, keep that in mind if you are triggered by such things. This, like Where Hemlock Blooms, will earn its M rating, but, yet again, it's going to be a slow build up to such things.

I'm also taking large liberty with canon, both in the Potterverse and Hannibal, as you can see from this prologue. Hannibal's mother was actually called Simonetta in the books, never talked about in the show, and of course, Lily had no half brother, and the biggest bone of contention that will likely appear, this Fem!Harry is, Merlin forbid, blond! Lmao, but well, fanfiction! If you want canon, watch the show/movies or read the books.

Well, with all that said and done, I really do hope this wetted your appetite and you look forward to more! If you have a spare moment, drop a review, hit the follow and favourite button, and hopefully, if this takes off, the next chapter will be written and posted soon.