This is my first Children of the Lamp fanfic, it's set after the fifth book in the Christmas holidays, John and Philippa are 12 or 13. Read and enjoy. Also if you liked this, you might want to check out my other fanfics: THE BOWLER TWINS IN NARNIA, a Chronicles of Narnia fanfic and CITY OF DRAGONS, a Stravaganza fanfic.

Djinnternmail

Along time ago, at the very beginning of the djinn and the humans, at the very beginning of the world even, there was a tiger. His coat was white as snow and his eyes were black as coal. He possessed so much power that the neither the humans nor djinn could not escape him and they were dying. Slowly, but surely, one by one.

Then came the djinn child with white hair and skin as pale as the tiger's and eyes as black as his. It had taken her parents and she had vowed to find it and kill it or else die trying. She journeyed across the world, through the oceans and across the grassy plains until finally, she came to the frozen wastelands in the North and the tiger was waiting for her.

She could see it silhouetted against the black night sky and it could see her, so pale and fragile, but he didn't attack. Instead he spoke.

"Good evening child," his voice echoed through the silence. "I have been waiting for you. You may not know it now, but you can be more powerful than you could ever have imagined. I can give you so much power."

The tiger breathed in and blew up to ten times his size so that he towered above the girl. And still she stood her ground and stared silently at him, she had nothing to lose, but he had everything.

"Are you not afraid?" he asked. "Are you not tempted? Imagine a power over life and death, a power so great it could bring your parents back."

And she cringed, she didn't have anything to lose, but she had everything to gain, especially her parents. Could she really trust the tiger, he who killed all with no mercy and yet here he was bargaining with her on the ice with a harsh wind blowing in all directions. One word resounded in her mind as she stared.

"Why."

"Are you afraid tiger?" she asked boldly, her voice high and distant.

"And what would I have to be afraid of child?" he asked. "For I am too powerful for you, too powerful for anyone."

And although his voice was loud, it was almost as if he was trying more to reassure himself and than to intimidate her.

"The higher the pride the harder the fall," she said back and then all of a sudden she shouted "Trigolamatoplanospheroten."

A stream of blue light came from her fingers and hit the tiger square in the chest returning it to it's original size. It looked worried.

"You have crossed me child!" he screamed then charged towards her.

"Trigolamatoplanospheroten," she shouted again and the blue light hit the tiger in the leg.

He crippled falling to the ground, his mouth hitting the ice hard. One single white canine broke and skidded across the ice and halted at the child's feet. She picked it up and turned it over and over. The tiger looked up at her one more time before falling silent and still.

He was dead.

The child clasped the fang tightly, in it she knew was all the power in the world.

"What are you reading this time?" asked John coming into the room wearing a pair of black jeans and a blue t-shirt.

Philippa was lying on her purple duvet, book in hand, red hair toppling down on her blue top and a puzzled expression on her face. She didn't reply.

"Sis," he said.

"Huh?" she asked snapping out of her trance.

"What are you reading?" he asked again.

"Oh, Djinn folklore and legends," she replied.

"Anything good?" he inquired.

"Yeah, there are some really interesting stories in here," she told him. "Like this one with a girl and a tiger."

"Neat," said John.

Although he wasn't a big fan of books, he didn't want to get on the wrong side of his twin as she did like books a lot. Lately she had taken to reading them all the time, ever since they had come back from the Amazon.

"Are you okay?" he asked concerned.

"Yeah," she answered. "I'm fine."

"Kids," called their mum. "Dinner."

Philippa dropped her book on the bed and bounced up so that she was the same height as her brother, which John found annoying as Philippa had grown a good few inches over the holidays so that she was now just as tall as him.

"Let's go," she told him hurrying him out the door.

The Gaunt household was rather large and not to mention extremely tidy and quite glamorous really, but that was to be expected when your mum was none other then the hugely glamorous Layla Gaunt who could look stylish in pretty much she was wearing a striped suit with a white blouse.

Layla Gaunt hadn't always looked as she did then, she had had an accident where her body was turned to ash and her spirit escaped. She had then gone searching for a new body and had taken the body of their former house cleaner Mrs Trump because the house cleaner was no longer able to use it. For a while the kids and Mr Gaunt had been uneasy with it, but Layla had undergone plastic surgery in order to get herself back to the way she had been.

Dinner was always a proper occasion where the whole family sat at the table, dinner today was a roast as it was Sunday.

"Great!" exclaimed John. "Food!"

Philippa rolled her eyes at him, another thing she had taken to doing lately.

"You two really need a haircut," remarked their mother. "Look at you John, your hair is much too long and Philippa yours is scraggly. Don't you agree Monty?"

Monty was the new family pet, she was really Montana, a reporter who had once tried to assassinate the Gaunt twins by order of Mimi de Ghul. Monty purred in agreement.

Monty wasn't the only pet of the Gaunt family who had previously been human, Mr Gaunt's brothers had tried to kill him so Layla had turned them into dogs, but they had turned back and were much better people and most recently, she had turned Mr Gaunt's captives into various rare animals. Since then she had given up djinn power.

Oh yes, the Gaunt twins were djinn and so was their mother although their father was human.

They were half an hour into dinner when Mrs Gaunt started choking, the rest of the family were quite afraid until she coughed up a piece of paper.

"Djinnternmail," she muttered unfolding it. "I don't know why Nimrod didn't call."

She opened it up on the table and read it in her head.

"Oh," she said before folding it up and tucking it into her pocket.

"What did it say?" asked Philippa exchanging a look.

"It seems there's something wrong over in England," she replied.