this is not a fairy tale.
A name does not make a woman; but rather, the woman makes the name.
Over the years, Lady often wondered what her parents had been thinking when they chose such a name for their first and only child. Had they expected her to grow up into someone refined and elegant? Had they hoped the gentleness of it would somehow quiet the squalling infant who was never satisfied? Or had it been simply a fit of romantic idealism, a wish for a future that would be sweeter and kinder than their present?
Lady was born into a home that perhaps could be better described as a hovel, on the fringes of a near-forgotten wizarding town. But it wasnât until she was around four-years-old that she began to notice the way her family was shunned, how her father especially was treated like a pariah, and how none of the neighborhood kids ever seemed to want to play at her house. It took days of hounding her mother with countless questions and âbut whyâsâ to finally learn the truth. Her father, Charles Macbeth III, was a squib.
While he had once been the one to sit her on his lap and tell her stories for hours, or to dress up in funny hats or play dolls with her, Lady grew more and more distant from him with each passing year. She heard the taunting whispers of her classmates at the village school, and she had long since accepted that they would never be invited to one of the Macbeth regal holiday dinners. Her fatherâs family had kicked him out at age sixteen, when it became clear that no amount of money or private tutors could give him even an ounce of magical ability.
Lady couldnât have been more ready to escape to Hogwarts, and being sorted into Slytherin lit a passionate fire under her like nothing else ever had before. Slytherin was the house of Macbeth, the one her father shouldâve been sorted into had he attendedâhe was forever disappointing herâand it was her chance to redeem the legacy that he had lost. If she distinguished herself, if she could but shine brightly enough, there was no way the Macbeth clan could fail to notice her star.
But Lady was also a girl of subtly. Her mother had grown up in an aristocratic wizarding household that still attempted to observe the formal traditions, despite being as poor as churchmice after several bad financial schemes. Coriander Macbeth had striven to teach her daughter those same airs and graces, and Lady had been a dutiful, if not particularly eager, learner. Lady climbed the social ranks of her houseâand, indeed, of most of Hogwartsâwith the ease of flying, able to charm a room with a smile, and threaten it with the judgment of a perfectly raised eyebrow.
But every inch of power only made her hungry for more, and she was determined to reach what she now saw as her destiny. Her parents may have been disappointments, but she used the shame and disgust she felt towards them to fuel her next steps forward. By 20, she had earned a junior reporter position at The Daily Prophet, and by 25, she was one of their chief correspondents. She worked constantly and rarely took vacation time; it had been years since she had seen her parents. She dated when it was advantageous, when either their money or their information could give her a foothold on the next rung success. Romance was a word as naĂŻve and ineffectual as her mother, who had tried to raise Lady on stories of damsels that always needed rescuing, and true love that was as superficial as the magic of a kiss.
Now, as a freelance reporter whose stories frequently get some of the highest bids in journalism, many would consider the 29-year-old an accomplished young woman. But Lady knows the story isnât over, and that when her massively bestselling autobiography is someday published, the words âThe Endâ wonât be printed until her tale has left a legacy so large that no one could ignore it.Â
