Chapter Ten:
The Story of Us
It was early morning. Only breakfast, really. Near dawn, barely a creature was stirring… Of course, as can be expected, the woman of the house was up, making that breakfast. Morgan Cole yawned numbly as she shuffled sleepily about the kitchen. Pulling her long, disheveled, curly-wavy auburn hair into an untidy bun at the crown of her head, she trod over to the cabinet. "Crack of ruddy dawn," she grumbled to herself in a soft but very thick Irish brogue. "Of course, who's up? The wife. The mother. The woman of the stinkin' house… And all those ladies up in Wellington are squaking about how 'far we've come?' Lordy I'm beginning to think it's all a screamin' heap o' rubbish. Late twentieth century and all and still the lady of the house is sleep-deprived and up at the crack o'dawn, fixin' breakfast for her lazy-arse husband… And oh Hell, it isn't supposed to be this warm in November!" She flung her bathrobe onto the couch on the other side of the kitchen island, as though it were filled with itching-powder.
A decisive flicker in the sleepy eyes exactly the color of her hair had her stomping her way exaggeratedly to the stairwell. "LEO!" She called up the stairs in an aggravated fashion, "WAKE UP!!! GET YOUR LAZY ARSE OUT OF BED!"
A sleepy groan was the response that greeted her. "IF YOU DON'T GET UP, I'LL DUMP A BUCKET OF ICE-WATER ON YOUR HEAD!"
"No you won't. Just – jusa – fi-fi-five-more-m-minutes," came the voice of a half-dreaming young man from the upper story. "Don't wanna go to school."
Morgan rolled her eyes and stomped her way up the stairs. After a brief few moments of what must have sounded like Barnum and Bailey's Three Ring Circus finally gone over the edge, the young woman could be seen dragging her scruffy-haired husband down the stairs by the ear with a stern and determined but triumphant grin on her face. "Ow, ow, OW!!! Will you let go of me?! I'll do whatever you want if you just give me my ear back!"
She released him, spinning, into the kitchen. "Why in the world do we have to be up this early?" he yawned in a slightly thick New Zealand accent.
She shot him a dangerous look, "You have to be up because I couldn't sleep and there's no way you're getting a full night's sleep if I can't have one. Now help me make breakfast."
Leo shook his head, knowing better than to be surprised. Morgan had never been a morning person and she never would be. Were he more awake, he'd have found the situation rather comical. He kissed his wife on the cheek, hoping to see her smile… Maybe then he'd get to drop off on the couch. No such luck, he noted, as he watched the line of her mouth squiggle suspiciously.
He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her, rocking back and forth on his feet and propping his head over and to the left of hers. "C'mon, Morg… Let's be rebels, let's not make breakfast, we'll be against breakfast! Let's do something really BAD… Let's get over onto that couch and…" He dropped his voice into a conspiratorial whisper and said into her ear "…fall ASLEEP! C'mon, you know you want to."
She grinned mischievously, using her left arm to pull his right ear level to her mouth, and whispered back "Nice try, Mister Smooth." Giving him a playful shove against the wall at the other side of the kitchen, she strutted up to him… Walked her fingers up his chest… Leaned in close… And grabbed him by the shirt collar, dragging him over to the stove. "But you're helping me make breakfast, whether you like it or not."
"I love you, darling?" He said hopefully, "You look absolutely beautiful on this late-spring morning?"
She growled at him, gritting the words out of her teeth. "Help. Breakfast. NOW. Personal. Injury." Surrendering, he grabbed the pancake mix out of the cabinet and set to work. She rolled her eyes, but her face gave way to an inevitable grin. Biting her lip on her smile, she sighed, her voice betraying her affection, "Leon Ezekiel Cole, what am I going to do with you?"
He gave her a searching look, "You just HAD to say the middle name, didn't you?"
She caved in, giggling, "It's funny. Ezekiel. What kind of…?"
"You know my grandparents are VERY Orthodox… They wanted me to have a really Jewish name somewhere, something they could find in the Torah… Or something like that. Apparently Leon wasn't 'Jewish enough,' for them. My parents weren't all that into that, so they stuck it in the middle name, I think they hoped no one would notice. You know that… You just like to laugh at me."
She nodded mischievously, shoulders shaking with silent, suppressed laughter. "I just never thought I'd find a Maori-English-New Zealander Jew. C'mon, you have to admit it's a little funny… I think it's cute." She sauntered up to him and rubbed his arm, leaning her head on his shoulder.
He raised his eyebrows at her, eying the crucifix dangling at her neck. "It's a good thing Bubby and Zaede are in London still… I don't think I could stand it if every day I had to deal with their yacking about what kind of grandson I am, getting married to a Catholic shiksa, and about my daughters being gentiles… Oi. I never understood that. Why should it matter?"
She gave him a sympathetic look. "And my parents… They keep telling me I should have kept my maiden name. No respectable Irish girl would take an English name they tell me." She imitated her mother "Really, Morgan! After all our ancestors have fought for, after all the oppression, the cruelty, the persecution, after all the blood this family spilt trying to get away from those bloody Brits and be free at last… You go and marry one of them!" She rolled her eyes and nestled in closer to her young husband's chest. "They just don't see what I see."
He gazed down into her heart-shaped face. Her milk-white skin glowing (in his eyes) in the early morning light, her auburn-colored eyes dancing worriedly, pale, thin, pink lips stretched into a forced smile of hope; her long auburn hair, a wild mess of curls and waves, tumbling untamed out of her bun. "I bet they aren't too happy about me not being Catholic either."
She frowned. "No… They're not. They're very religious and traditional. They don't understand why you're not a good Roman Catholic boy."
"Because my adoptive parents aren't," he replied.
"I think they still don't know about Vatican II," she continued, irritatedly, as though he hadn't spoken. She rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration. "I'm a sinner, I'm going straight to Hell."
He gave her a lopsided grin. His dark hair shone in the November sun, his copper-toned skin of obviously Maori descent coming up bronze in the light of that rising star. "I thought that was me."
She gave him a lopsided grin right back, eyes sparkling, "Well, if that's where you have to go, I'll gladly follow you there."
He pulled her in closer to him, kissed the top of her head, and squeezed her shoulder. "Well, we don't need them," he declared.
She raised her face to him, smiling. "No: we don't, do we," she whispered, more of a statement than a question. They leaned in close to one another, wrapping their arms around each other's necks… And then they heard a muffled cry erupt from upstairs and no small amount of stumbling. Morgan blew the hair falling into her eyes out of the way with a small puff of air from the corner of her mouth. Leo leaned in, pressed the bone of his nose to hers and said "The kids are up."
She gave him a little kiss and said "You go and get Brenna and Tzipora, I'll finish making breakfast."
He didn't move, giving her a pleading look and puppy-dog eyes. "Do I have to? C'mon, I'm sure they'll fall asleep again if we just let them alone awhile…" He winked at her and gave her a devious shark's grin.
She burst out laughing, raising her eyebrows skeptically at him, and shoved him, giving him a playful punch. "Yes, now go up and get them, you pervert." Her hands trembled slightly and she watched as he shuffled off, pouting, his head hung in mock obedience. She looked down at the pancake batter she poured into the skillet. Suddenly, she was unable to wipe that fool's grin off of her face.
After a good while and some interesting sounds, Leo was on his way down, singing atrociously out of key and carrying two dark-haired little girls, aged four and two years. He set the older girl down, who, after realizing that despite her protests she was not going to get picked up again, grappled onto her father's leg like a weight. The toddler scrambled over his shoulders into the position of a piggy-back, her hands covering her father's eyes, and her tongue sticking out at her older sister below her. Morgan looked at Leo, frantically trying to realign Tzipora's hands so that he could see where he was going, as though she was struggling very hard not to laugh. "Another typical day in Tauranga, then?' she mused aloud. "It seems I married the village idiot."
"Hey now!" he said, still struggling to remove his clinging children from him, "I resent that statement!" Giving her a silly grin he continued, "Tales of my idiocy go far beyond the village… Honestly, I'm far more famous than that! Hmph!" he huffed in mock indignation.
It was when the pancakes had been piled onto all their plates (drowned in butter and maple syrup of course) and they had all settled down to satisfy their massive appetites that the doorbell rang.
As Morgan arose to answer it, her husband jumped up, wiggling his eyebrows, and followed her closely, as though playing a detective game. Before she could open the door, he sprung up behind her and covered her mouth playfully. Wrapping his arms then around her toothpick frame, he drew her in close to him and refused to let her go. "Oh come now, Leo, you can have your fun later… Let me answer the door for goodness' sake!"
"And what if I don't?"
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" She swore, before making the sign of the cross as in repentance, letting out a puff of air in an attempt at patience. "Get your head out of the gutter Leo… Promise I'll make up for it later," she cooed playfully, mediating her demand.
He only gripped her tighter, chuckling to himself, binding in her arms. "You never answered my question… What if I don't?"
Her eyes sparkled with malice, although he couldn't see it, as though to say: Well, if that's the way you want it… "THIS!" she shouted as she wrenched her right arm free and jabbed him hard in the stomach. She smilied victoriously as he stumbled back, clutching his stomach, and she opened the door.
She stopped smiling when she saw who was on the on the other side of the threshold, however. Not bothering to hide her confusion, she raised her eyebrows suspiciously. She had never seen anyone dressed like this before… Much less a whole crowd of people. Frowning in bewilderment at the horde of people before her, dressed in long, heavy-looking black cloaks, she was for a moment dumbstruck. She didn't like the looks of these people, they seemed awfully dodgy. "Who are you? What do you want?" she asked, her voice trembling… Fear prevailing in her intuition, she could feel her gut twist in warning.
One of the men (awfully snobby looking, she thought) handed her a newspaper. "Hello," he said, seeming to… Was he sneering at her? Who did this stranger think he was? "I believe you haven't picked up your paper yet."
"Oh, thank you," she said in a hard voice thick with suspicion. She glanced at the headline "23rd November, 1986: MORE GO MISSING: PRIME MINISTER UNABLE TO EXPLAIN SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE OF MORE THAN 100 NEW ZEALAND CITIZENS" She turned to her husband, tossing the paper aside within the house. She reached for his hand and squeezed it tight in anxiety. "Now, if you'll excuse my asking, what exactly is your business here at this hour?"
The man smiled, showing them his sharp, bright-white teeth in a disturbing manner. His cold, grey eyes flashed sadistically, "Why, you see, we're here on official government business… We've heard that there's been a bit of magic going on here, and…"
Magic??? WHAT was this man talking about? Ten year old children knew that there was no such thing as magic. She and Leo exchanged disturbed looks. He spoke up "Look, I don't know what you're playing at, but you're obviously not from Wellington… So if you would just give up this sick charade and vacate the premises…"
"Oh, of course we're not from Wellington," the blond man said, in an aristocratic British accent. He smiled again. Neither Morgan nor Leo liked this… They both seemed to get the feeling that anything that made this man happy could not be good for them. "Not that decrepid government in the feeble muggle metropolis."
Muggle? What was that supposed to mean? Perhaps the stranger had lost his mind entirely. "Then you're not from the government. Please leave," Leo growled between his teeth.
"Oh," the blond man said, he seemed to be simply shaking with controlled glee, "but we ARE your rulers…"
Here the couple attempted to interrupt (quite disgusted might I add), but they were once again cut off.
"You see," he said simply and flippantly, "we've detected some rudimentary magic going on in this house, and so we've come to take your children away."
At that moment, the older girl, Brenna, appeared by her mother's side. "What's going on, Mummy? Why is that man here? Can he go away?" She cooed with a trembling innocence, "He's scaring me." She clung to the skirts of Morgan's nightgown, twisting the material in her little fists.
Morgan, biting her lip, whispered to the child to take Tzipora and to go hide somewhere where no one could find them, and to hurry. "Listen," she said to the strangers, her face burning with cold, hard fury and determination, "I don't know who you think you are, but if you don't get the hell out of here right now, I'll have you in prison quicker than you can say 'police!'"
"Oh really? Is that so?" The man seemed amused, as though he were fighting very hard not to laugh at his unsuspecting victims. "Why, you're not being very polite, are you? We're your guests… Have a little hospitality."
Both opened their mouths to speak, but were shocked to find that no words would come out. Horrified as the man, brandishing a stick of some sort, stepped closer to them, they did the only thing they could think of and slammed the door in his face. Morgan ran to the telephone and Leo locked all the doors and windows. Still, neither could speak. Morgan paced about, biting her lip and shaking her head madly, seeming a bit near tears as she tried so very hard to speak into the telephone, but couldn't.
They had both just reached the door once more when it swung open as though the locks did not exist. The blond man, chuckling slightly at the horrified looks on the young couple's faces, stepped inside. "No, no manners at all," he sneered. "I believe I shall have to teach you a lesson in proper etiquette, shan't I?" He pointed that stick of his directly at them.
Before he could speak again, however, a small child ran to stand in front of him. She seemed as though she could only have been about six years old, yet still, the fiery redhead seemed to command authority with her presence. "Mister Malfoy!" She demanded, "Stop! They are only muggles after all, they don't know any better. Do not hurt them! If you do it will make you worse than they are!"
Lucius glanced resentfully in her direction and shoved the child violently against the wall. "I don't take orders from children," he spat. Pointing his wand at her, he opened his mouth to speak once more…
And then a shadow fell over them both. A dark man stood behind Lucius and pulled him back. "Is there a problem, Malfoy?" the man said, with a tone of pure disgust.
Lucius' pupils contracted in fear and hatred as he turned to face his challenger. "No, of course not, Mister Petranni, I was only…"
But his unconvincingly-submissive tone was interrupted. "Listen, Malfoy," Mister Petranni spat, "I don't care what kind of big-shot you think you are because everyone in England is under your thumb. Here, you are nothing, and you'd find it best to remember your place… On pain of death." He spoke that last sentence as though he had been commenting on the weather. "Now, you will do as I say… And as I am obliged to go to the Ministry at the moment, you will do as my child commands you in my stead. You must remember, Malfoy, you low-born scum, that I own the law-enforcement agencies here. So, put one toe out of line, and I will have you executed. Keep that in mind." Lucius bowed painfully with a bitter glint in his cold, grey eye. And all of a sudden the dark man was gone.
"If you'll excuse me for just a moment," he snarled at Morgan and Leo, who had been trying to sneak away during this brief intercession, and froze the two promptly in their places, "I have to take care of a little something. Now, Miss Petranni," he approached the child, who arched her posture and stiffened her shoulders the closer he came, "Be it far from me to show any disrespect to one of your high birth. Although," he grinned his shark's grin, "you'll have to forgive me for this moment of indiscretion, but I can't have any little girl ruining all my fun, now, can I?" He pointed his wand at the little girl and cried out some strange words that neither Morgan nor Leo understood.
The little girl was frozen on the spot, and only the movement of her eyes betrayed any sign of life.
~**~_~**~_~**~
Luciana glanced up into the midwinter sunlight streaming through the stained glass window and pulled her shawl closer around her robes in a desperate effort to keep warm. She rose from her desk, crossed the library floor, and stoked the fire with her wand. Muttering to herself disagreeably about the muggle-like state of the Hogwarts heating system, she summoned her warmest, thickest cloak to her and draped it over her shawl.
"What are you doing, Lucie?" called a young man in a booming drawl. He was a tall and well-built man of muscle… Only his youthful voice betrayed him to his true years. Anyone who had heard him would have known that this boy was not a day older than eighteen. Seeing as today was his eighteenth birthday, this was so. Luciana turned to the boy. Her long black curls met his straight platinum locks, her softly rounded white face met his pale, angled, pointed countenance, and piercing silvery eye met piercing silvery eye. There was little warmth in either gaze.
" 'Tis no business of thine, Hades." Luciana rolled her eyes and continued scratching away on the yellowed parchment before her irritably as though she had never been interrupted from the first.
But Hades Malfoy was not so easily dissuaded. He approached the fifteen year old girl at the bench slinkily, with a morbid fire in his eye. Gripping her shoulder a little harder than she would have liked, he whispered dangerously in her ear, "Oh no? Perhaps Father would think otherwise…"
He made a grab for the parchment, which she craftily blocked, and gripped her arm hard enough that she knew instantly she would find finger-shaped bruises there next morning. "Fine," she hissed bitterly, a serpent-like demon apparently speaking in her place. "If you must know, I am writing to France," she lied quickly… Not that she expected Hades to believe her, for he knew well how she loathed her French cousins irreversibly. She swore quietly under her breath with the hope that she could convince him, at least, persuade him from interest in this intrigue. "It is a grueling business, but necessary nonetheless. Thou knowest well, Hades, what will befall our division if we do not show our root, the base, the respect they demand of us. There is no shame in a little false penitence if it will buy us more power for our region."
She gave him her coldest, hardest Malfoian glare (it is a gaze to make the blood run colder than ice,) daring him to challenge her account. He merely raised an eyebrow in response, as if t'were nothing at all, a carefully cynical glint in his eye. "It has never been your manner to display such prudence, Lucia… I must say I question what thy true objective is. What is your motivation? Thou hast never been concerned with the troubles of the family. Thou hast never cared in the slightest for our situation as a division, for our empowerment as the British regiment. You must excuse my lack of faith inst thou, dear little sister, but thou hast always given me the impression that thou wouldst sooner be guilty of fratricide than see the day this family revels in the glory that will so rightly come to it."
"What makes you think that I am doing any of this for you? Play not the fool, Hades, thou knowest that the gains of our regiment are my gains just as well as they are thine. Some time if one desirest to awake to gold, one must lie in straw. If it means that I might one day live as I so rightly should, I accept that I must lie with the dogs."
He twisted her wrist, and as she struggled to keep from yelping out in pain, he continued to challenge her in his dangerously soft verbal tones. "So audacious, sister… It is not prudent for a woman to be so bold. Thy foolhardy impulsiveness would be more befitting of a Gryffindor…"
At this, she spat in her older brother's face and wrenched free her wrist. "Simply because I am not fool enough nor base enough to be thy lap dog as is Cerberus?! Oh you are a fool, Hades, and one day I shall make thee see…"
"Oh, but shall you? What will you do? You are but fifteen… A little girl, baby sister. Now if you'll excuse me, oh Powerful One," he sneered sarcastically as he strutted back out the door, "there are important things and important people to attend to."
She stood and glared at her brother's retreating back. As she watched him round the bend she whispered to herself "But you shall see, brother of mine… There shall come a day when little sisters and fifteen year old girls will shape the fortunes of all mankind. I promise you that."
~**~_~**~_~**~
Lily Evans stood, back firmly against the wall, glaring at the petite young woman opposite her. "Look, Aurora… I know we never knew each other well at Hogwarts. We weren't exactly friends… But you're just going to have to get over that. Very quickly. You've got to talk to someone, Rory."
The other young woman looked up at her from across the narrow hallway with a strange, guarded yet piercing glint in her bright blue eyes. She did not speak.
"Please, Rory… I'll wait here all day if I have to, I don't mind." Lily took the time provided her by the other's silence to study the person before her. She had known Aurora Ambrose ever since she first came to Hogwarts. Everyone in Hogwarts knew Aurora Ambrose. Aurora, with her blue eyes, her golden hair tinted with cherry fire, her bewitching grin, and her ministry father, though small and slight in stature, was the sort of girl who very few people could ignore. She was the friendliest girl in the school and was widely known to all, friend or foe, as "Rory."
Lily had never known her very well personally, however… Although Aurora was a year ahead of her in school, Lily knew that if she made the effort, she could easily have been admitted into Aurora's innermost circle of friends… So it had not been on account of inability… It had been on account of lack of motivation. Unlike so many of the other Gryffindor girls, Lily was not impressed with Aurora. She never knew precisely why, exactly, but the fact remained that she was just not interested in the Ambrose heiress. Of course, one does not want to create false impressions, she had nothing against the girl, Aurora was indeed very sweet and doubtless an invaluable friend, but despite all that Lily remained indifferent. Aurora was too much of an open book, she had no true secrets, and despite the deep mystique behind her very old and high-born-among-purebloods family name, she led a fairly normal life and Lily in fact found her to be a bit on the boring side, to put it politely. Aurora Ambrose had always just lacked a certain edge. Even Lily had to admit, however, that she had always sensed that something great was to come to her, that destiny had something in store, that it was fated for something dark to befall and consume Aurora Ambrose. She had always ignored this feeling, however... And in later days she would sincerely regret it.
But that was all in the past, or, in the case of the latter, the future. Presently, the nineteen year old noted, Rory had changed very much. It would take careful study to pick out, because these changes were so subtle… But small as they were, the size of these changes was well made up for by their potency. Indeed, Lily hardly believed she was looking at the same person whom she had known as Head Girl and winner of the Hogwarts Class of 1977 "Best Personality" superlative award (Or no personality Lily had thought at the time, instantly feeling guilty at mocking someone so very kind.) The young woman before her, now Aurora Petranni, was hiding something. And she had something of an iciness to her as well. This was so completely out of character for her. Lily felt slightly awful and hated to admit it but some darker part of herself found this new Aurora much more intriguing. She had finally gotten an edge. This would make it so much easier to try and talk to her, as Lily had never been much of an actress and thus had a very hard time and very little patience for keeping conversation with someone she found dull.
As Aurora failed to respond still, Lily continued, eyes boring through the older woman at the opposite wall of the hall, imploring her to respond. "Look, as I said before, I know we've never known one another very well, but we're in the same boat now, and we're going to have to work together. I know something is wrong. I'm very good with sensing people out, Rory, and no one else may have noticed it, but I know that something is wrong and you're hiding it. I know you were always so friendly with James, and you might feel more comfortable talking to him, but I thought that maybe this would require a woman's touch. James is sympathetic, yes; a good listener, yes; comforting, yes; but he is a bit too simple and straightforward. His world is far too black-and-white. There are certain things he just doesn't understand and has no capacity to understand…" Lily glanced down at the engagement ring on her finger, twirling it with the thumb of her opposite hand, and said, more to herself than to Aurora, "I've always said he was much too sheltered."
"That he is," Aurora replied through a knowing grin that did not truly reach her eyes. Lily was elated that she had gotten her to speak… Maybe now she could maneuver this conversation in her direction.
"He's such a little rich brat," she giggled, "he's so spoiled. Not in the traditional sense, of course, as he's never demanding outright… People are right when they call him 'down-to-Earth,' but they are also, at another level, quite incorrect. James has always been so sheltered and secure and loved and well-taken-care-of by his parents, and by his family, and by his friends and admirers, and, goodness, even by Hogwarts itself!... Deep down he just doesn't understand that not everyone in the world has the same high moral standards of behavior that he has for himself, that not everyone is so innately good, that the world isn't that simple… That it just doesn't work like that."
Lily continued, trying very hard to put her thoughts into words. "He doesn't understand that it isn't always going to turn out okay and that not everyone really means well. He can't grasp that the world is not so easily divided into blacks and whites or goods and evils and is not filled with obvious answers. And it frustrates him."
"And so he's a spoiled brat, because he's never known any other reality than the one that gave birth to these convictions and this lack of perception, and he expects the same goodness he finds in himself of the world in general, and he expects that everyone else can see the things he believes to be so obvious, and he expects that everyone else is going behave just as morally as he does, that everyone else is going to be just as much a bastion of light as he is… And when it doesn't turn out that way he gets frustrated and he feels hurt and he internally lashes out much like a spoiled child denied a cookie or a toy. Very few people understand that… That there is another side even to such goodness, that such 'perfection,' so called, can be so limiting." Lily wished she could elaborate further, but that was the best she could do.
She sighed in surrender. "It's all because of the money, I swear it," she quipped with a derisive grin, "only wealth like that could protect someone so much from the reality of life."
Rory raised her eyebrows and gave her a smile that clearly said: you have no idea what you're talking about. She opened her mouth as if to speak, and Lily inwardly cursed her idiocy…
Stupid, stupid! She thought to herself… Of course, Lily had forgotten who she was talking to… The Ambrose family was among the most ancient and wealthy in Europe, even the vast Potter fortune was dwarfed by comparison… And Aurora was heiress to all of it. "I mean…"
"I know perfectly well what you mean, Lily," Aurora grinned knowingly at her. "Trust me, however, money can damage at least as much as it can protect. Wealth, with its vast corruption and isolation, causes more problems than it is worth often times, and those born into money know just as much hardship as you do… It is just hardship of another sort. The wealthy have no monopoly on self-protective, sheltering 'bubbles,' I promise you that. While they may seem immune to the troubles of the average person, the average person is indeed immune to many of their troubles. There are entirely different worlds which you are speaking of, of which you know nothing (and be glad of that!), worlds of darkness just as worlds of light… James is the way he is not because of his money, although I'll admit that might have helped it all along a bit, but because that is who he is… He is an idealist. And that is why you love him so very much, I believe... Correct me if I am wrong."
Lily was stunned. Aurora had just, in those few moments of speech, knocked the wind out of her… Now she was impressed. This woman was far more perceptive than she had ever in her highest moments of praise been given credit for… Lily had never even thought of it that way, and yet this woman who barely knew her understood it all instantly. Aurora was right. "Maybe," she whispered, failing to find her voice out of shock. "I think you may be right."
The first genuine smile lifted out of Rory's face. "Yeah," she teased gently, "I thought so too."
Now, Lily thought, noting how easily Aurora had manipulated the subject matter away from herself (great Scot, that girl is good!), 'tis time to see if we get can Mrs. Petranni to shed the same light on her own self. "So," she said, trying to think of a discreet way of phrasing this, but in failing to do so giving up and lazily opting for bluntness, "are you going to tell me what's up?"
Aurora's smile faded instantly. "I guess not. Rory… Please. I just want to help you, you know. What are you so afraid of? You used to tell everyone everything… Why the sudden change? Is it to do with Demetrius? If he's been hurting you I'll…"
"No," she said in an alarmingly calm tone of voice. "He has not been hurting me. What ever would make you believe such a thing?"
Lily didn't know exactly what, but there was something about the icily hard manner in which Aurora had just spoken, and she figured that she had hit on something. He may not have touched Rory for all she knew, but he definitely had something to do with all this. "Well, I don't know, I just always… He's always seemed… Sort of…" Lily stammered rather tactlessly and inwardly swore at her inability to phrase things properly.
"He's such a suspicious character, that's what you're trying to say, isn't it? Listen Lils, truly evil people are much more discreet than he is. If Demetrius were hiding something, everyone would know it, my husband is hopeless at deceit and disguise. You just want to think he's done something wrong… Because he was in Slytherin at school… Because he's from the Mediterranean… Because he's dark and evil-looking in a sexy sort of way that every good evil character is said to be… Because he comes from an ancient, wealthy, and highly - respected pureblood family… Because he is so good at his profession and has caught so many Death Eaters that it looks a little too easy… Because he is a rising star in the Ministry and in wizarding society as an Auror… Because of all of that, because we love to see our heroes fall. Because that would make an excellent, overly-used plot for a deplorably-written but popular novel or a 'red hot' tabloid scandal. You would love to believe it. They would love to believe it. That's why, isn't it, Lily?" She had said all this in very slow, steady, and calm tones, yet all the same it had the effect and sting of a whip-like verbal snap.
Lily was a little overwhelmed. She did not know quite how to respond to that… Although she did know one thing, she was beginning to reconsider whether or not she really liked this "Aurora-with-an-edge" better than she did the Aurora she had known at school.
"No, of course not… It's just… Well, you two have been married for eighteen months now, right?" Rory nodded. "You were so happy at first, but over the past few months I've noticed some changes in you… What is happening to you, Rory? You used to be so open and innocent. Now you're keeping things from the people who have the potential to help you most. Now you're becoming sullen and – dare I say cynical in your sarcasm? You've become darker. I know Demetrius has had to be away a little more often now, because of his missions and what they're asking of him at the moment… I was just wondering if you're alright… Because I don't think you are, and I'm not going to lie to you, I don't think I like what you've become."
Aurora looked into Lily's eyes with a painful reality and a piercing sorrow. "You know, Lily, for all you speak of James' naïveté, I think that you're in unreality just as badly as he is. The difference is that you hide it. You may technically know what the world is really like, so you do not appear quite so obvious as does James, who does not have that technical knowledge… But deep down you do not really believe it… Because you have never experienced it. No, I am not doubting that you have faced some hardship in your life, I'm sure you have, but you are still largely untouched and thus unaware of what things the world is capable. These are trying times for us all, and the more time you spend in the real world, the more jaded you will become; the more you see, the more you will realize the truth… I don't think we could get by and still retain our sanity if not for our cynical humor. And as for my secretiveness… Can you really blame me?" Lily could see tears welling up in the blue eyes as Aurora seemed to have had the last straw and began sinking slowly to the floor. She sniffled slightly. "Who can you trust? You don't know anyone. One can never know who's on the right side… We don't know who they are. Our enemy is faceless, Lily. What are we supposed to do? I for one don't know. All I know is that the less people I talk to, the less chance I have of dying at the hands of one of them. With evil all around me, how can I keep myself sane and whole and moderate?"
She drew her knees into her chest and hugged them in tightly. "Christmas Eve is in two weeks. I just remembered that. I never know when is when anymore. Do you know what my Christmas wish is?" Lily was amazed at how instantly Aurora Ambrose Petranni could go from cold, sarcastic, cynical, and stinging to hopelessly innocent, childlike, and broken. "Do you? No then? Someone I can trust… Just one person I can talk to… Because I swear it I will go mad if I can't talk to someone soon."
Lily felt a little apprehensive about approaching Aurora who, by this point, had tears streaming silently down her crumpled and distant visage. However, she reminded herself, she would be seeing quite a lot of this woman in the future as their husbands were assigned partners… She might as well get over herself now. With that in mind, Lily crawled over to her shattered new friend and drew her into her tightest, gentlest, and most genuinely sincere embrace.
"By the way, Lily," Rory poked her head up briefly and said more through her red, raw eyes than through her mouth. "Don't bother with that home pregnancy test. It'll be positive. You're six weeks along… As am I."
Lily simply gathered Aurora tighter in her arms despite feeling an iron fist clench desperately over her heart… How did she know?
~**~_~**~_~**~
Lucia slowly turned her head, not wanting to appear suspicious as she checked to see what had caused the momentary disturbance. Someone was approaching, and he would be through the door frame at any moment. Darkness had fallen well over an hour ago, and in the faint candlelight she could make out nothing but a shadowy silhouette. Carefully she rolled up her recently finished parchment and tucked it into a pocket on the inside of her cloak.
Arching her posture in anticipation, she squinted through the candlelight and called out harshly. "Who disturbs me?" The stranger's stride did not appear predatory, but one could never be entirely sure.
She received no response, and she had drawn her wand before the figure stepped into the flooding light of the candles' flames. The fire revealed long, loosely curled dark brown hair, a dark, Mediterranean complexion, and softly piercing emerald eyes. Nikolai Petranni. Tall enough to be a man. Too skinny and wiry to be anything but a seventeen year old boy. She lowered her wand. "Don't you think this is a little dangerous… Sir?"
Her eyes silently asked him if he were sure they were alone. He shut the door behind him. "Miss, I assure you we are quite well abandoned here." His pupils bored into her with the meaning, imploring her to drop her façade.
"Very well," she temporarily dropped her gaze, swinging her head to the floor and back up at him in a smooth, fluid, circular, clocklike motion. She slowly withdrew the parchment from her cloak and stepped closer to him. Her shoes made an odd clapping sound as they slapped the parquet floor. She spoke in low tones, but by no means was her voice soft, no, it was hard as steel and edged with ice, like a bitter wine laced with arsenic. "Have you decided then?"
"I have."
"And?" She stepped closer to him.
"… And, if you join with me, if you ally with our band, you shall have everything you ask and will be protected from the fate your family shall meet." He met her forward stride and raised her one step.
Luciana considered this for a moment. "Everything I ask? Define 'everything' for me, please… Men are so slippery with words nowadays, one must always be sure of what they are holding their men to…"
Nikolai did not flinch at being indirectly referred to as belonging to Lucia. Nothing seemed to faze him, and he would not allow the Malfoy daughter to win the upper hand with such subtle, passive-aggressive intimidation. "You shall have whatever you wish in the way of material things, within reason, that is, within our power, of course. Furthermore, you shall have very much influence, if you understand my meaning, in your requests of personal matters, and shall be prithee to all the intelligence of my line… Not a secret kept shall there be from you." This was indeed a valuable commodity… Secrets were very dangerous things then, you know.
Shrewd as ever was a Slytherin, Luciana Malfoy knew how to make a deal, how to drive a bargain her way. She stepped yet closer to Nikolai, drawing her hand out to his chest slowly but without caution. She traced her fingers back and forth along his collarbone with a delicate sharpness, like the lightest touch of the finest silver blade. As she lifted her face to his, her long black curls slipped slowly back, falling from her face, behind her shoulders, and to her back like velvety silk. "And why exactly would I want any of that? What use is any of it to me when I must sacrifice all I know for it?" She brought her right hand up to smooth over his cheek with that same sweet but jaggedly sharp touch. "Why is any of that worth anything to me?" As she reached her point, she let her hand slide down to his chest once more, as she swiveled her finger there and pressed it into his heart. "Why should I sell out my own kin for a few material comforts, a little bit of influence, and knowledge of what happens around me? Why am I standing here? Am I wasting my time?" She pierced his emerald irises with her silvery eyes. She was good.
Two could play at this game. Nikolai draped his arms over her shoulders as he replied, giving her measure for measure the same chillingly sweet stab of gently firm physical contact. His grip on her shoulders was tight and binding, stinging them with chill warmth that would have intoxicated any woman of lesser mettle.
He glared at her. "Times are changing. They have changed. The old order is dead. A new power is rising… You know that, I know that, 'tis no use playing fools. I offer you the security that every one of us needs to survive in these times. There is no law enforcement, for laws no longer hold any sway. Life as we know it is slowly descending into chaos, the fabric unwinding faster and faster every day… And every day more blood bathes the streets and the pastures all over this cursed continent. No one is safe anymore. If you do not find something to hold onto, you too shall be swept away. Only those who have the strength will survive, the rest will be led like lambs to the slaughter just like everyone else. People are dying out there, Luciana… And death does not appear to be discriminating. Those who do not attach themselves to a higher power will perish away into pain and dark and nothingness and they will be forever forgotten."
"Thy family will perish, any way you prefer to look at it, it shall happen. They shall fall and be crushed… Thou, nay, thou needst not slip into the darkness never to return again. If only you follow me, I shall give you and all of your descendants everything they have ever dreamed of and shall realize for them visions far greater even than those. You have been gifted with this opportunity, and it would be foolhardy if you did not take it… It would be an insult to thy Slytherin heart to deliberately step away from the chance to be saved."
"My clan has been building on its resources, developing an army, consolidating our finances, strengthening our bonds, forming new alliances… We are prepared, as prepared as any can be that is, and we shall rise from this death. I am offering you the chance to join in that alliance and rise with us, as one of us. With or without your help we will be successful, and with or without thy cooperation, regardless of thine action, thy family will be crushed, your regiment, your clan, is weak and divided, bitterness separates and impales them. If, however, you forge this contract with me and my kin, you may be in the power to save even those you have the misfortune of sharing blood with, of those who have wronged you so and maligned you to a worthless child. Be saved and ye shall save. Don't you see, Luciana?... If only you place your faith in me I can assure for you a place in the world to come. If you shun me and refuse what I offer you, then nothing can save you, and thou shall be swept away like all the rest."
There was a certain finality in his tone that she did not like, but with which she had to agree. Unfortunately, Nikolai Petranni was right… A dark shadow had indeed fallen over the Earth, and she could feel it around her as the night came on deeper, darker, and ever faster. Blood did bathe the streets and soak the countryside through and through, straight to the bone of the earth. She was sure that even the water itself was no longer pure and blue. The more time passed, the more the order seemed to disintegrate, and the harder they struggled trying to preserve it, the faster it all came undone. Life was not life anymore. Life was survival… And those who could not find a foothold in power or protection would indeed be swept away by the red tide of blood to destruction, doom, and death.
Although she did not yet say so, she had made up her mind to bind herself to him. She felt she had no other choice. What he offered her was conditional, it's true, it was dependent upon her pledging her loyalty only to him and his kin, forsaking all else… But what else could she expect? He was only a man after all, an imperfect human in an imperfect world, two circumstances which left him without the power to offer her anything unconditionally, without the power to be anything but unfair. It was not as though he were God, she reminded herself, remembering and feeling once more some of the piety that had been beaten into her head as a child. If he were God he would have the power and the capacity of heart to be fair and to judge her only based on the merits of her goodness, to be just and to make it right. She reminded herself that an imperfect human being in an imperfect and impartially unfair world would have to ask for her loyalty to be able to save her, and this man was not God, thus he was without the power and heart to reach beyond that. He was only a mere mortal, limited by imperfect human capability and subject to the conditions of the world around him.
At the moment, however, perhaps dreaming in her heart of hearts of a day when she could finally find her place to rest, she concealed all emotion, refusing to let him know he'd won her over. "How do I know you'll do what you say?"
"You have my word."
"Thy word is not enough. As I said ere while, in times like these, words are slippery… In times like these one's words alone cannot suffice, they must be accompanied by action."
"I shall bind thee then, in contract of blood. If thou wilst agree to meet me here tomorrow at midnight hour, it shall be sealed in that fashion. Do you accept?"
She looked up at him. The inevitable moment had come, she dreaded it, but she had no choice but to say it, there could be no belaboring the moment. "I do." She tucked the parchment back into her cloak pocket, and as she glared up at Nikolai Petranni she felt a hot, angry knot in her stomach. She wanted to get back at him, somehow, some way, as if to avenge the honor she had had to surrender and to defend what honor she had left… To impress upon him her power and what awful things still might come to him should he try to take an ounce of that remaining dignity… She could think of nothing, so she used the only tool of revenge she had at her disposal. She leaned forward and kissed Nikolai Petranni. It was not a kiss of love or sweetness or passion… It was one of bitterness and power, of bite, of poison, of blood and iron… A warning that would keep him in his place.
With that, she opened the door and swept out of the chamber, disappearing in a swish of cloaks into the long corridor… Into the fateful mist of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She had made that pivotal decision. This new year of 1448 was going to change everything.
~**~_~**~_~**~
Lily hurried out of the chemist's and dashed down the snowy London street to the Leaky Cauldron. Thunder rolled, lightning cracked, and rain poured from the sky just as she crossed the threshold. Great, she thought, raining again. She dreaded the thought of the slush that would contaminate the streets next morning.
Her small package throbbed anxiously against her thigh… Over and over and over again. Again and again the small box in the plastic bag swung back and forth as she walked, banging violently against her legs with each step. The plastic bag revolved and spiraled as she stepped forward, the handles twisting around her fingers and threatening to cut off her circulation. Her breath was quick and shallow as she stepped through the shadows into the pub. Her heart pounding mercilessly, she kept as best she could to the shady corners and dark walls as she crossed the pub floor with her eye focused solely on the back door. Once she had slipped into the back alley, tapped her way along the bricks, and skated quaintly into Diagon Alley, she turned in the direction of the Broomsway Avenue Apparation Dock.
She was two steps from her destination when she came face to face with perhaps the last two women she wanted to see on the face of this Earth. Guinevere Brown and Veda Patil. Veda means "sacred knowledge," giving that woman that name was an oxymoron if there ever was one. The two had each recently gotten married, a circumstance which Lily had hoped would quell their boy-craziness and excitability that could only be described as "teeny-bopper-ness." However, Lily was disappointed to find that these seemed to be permanent aspects of their collective personality... Not even the threat of Voldemort could subdue their appetite for the frivolous.
The two women ran excitedly up to her. "Lily Rose Evans, get over here this instant!"
How? Lily mentally rolled her eyes, we're standing centimeters apart. I'm sorry, I must be blind, I thought you just came over to me, geniuses. She would have loved to have said that, but unfortunately she was in a rather precarious situation here, and it wouldn't be smart to upset people she might need on her side. Sighing in surrender, Lily decided to play along unconvincingly. "What?"
"We've heard some things about you…" the two chirped conspiratorially.
As if I care. "Like what? Have I finally worked my way out of that prostitution ring you had me in last?"
Missing the snap entirely, the two twittered on. "Oh don't be ridiculous, Lil! No, no, no, we heard that James left you for a midget dwarf in Tahiti and you've been sleeping with Gilderoy Lockhart ever since! Is it true? Is he good in bed? Is…"
A midget dwarf? When were they ever tall? This one's right up there with wet water, hot fire, dark blackness, and cold ice. Lily grinned and imitated their tone. "As if James would ever prefer a midget dwarf to me." She showed them her ring finger, "Here's your answer."
"Oh my God, Veda, look at the size of that thing!"
Veda squealed with a liberal mix of joy and jealousy "I can't believe it! She's marrying Gilderoy Lockhart!"
"No." Lily couldn't suppress a long, indulgent eye roll. Some people… Unbelievable. "No, James and I are engaged."
"You mean he realized he couldn't live without you, left the midget dwarf, and came crawling to you, begging you to take him back?" Veda swooned. "How romantic!"
"No," Lily struggled to conceal a groan, "there was never any midget dwarf."
"So it was just you and Gilderoy then," Veda continued. "Why'd you leave Gilderoy for someone like James?"
"What's wrong with James?" she demanded defensively.
"Oh, nothing," Guinevere replied, "it's just that he's so… He's such… He's such an idealistc goody-two-shoes. He'd never do anything bad. No sex appeal."
"Well," Lily huffed indignantly, "I happen to think it's very sexy."
"Suit yourself."
"Yeah," Veda whispered to the other half of her brain, "I always said she was a little sick in the head."
Guinevere ignored her friend. "You find that sexy? A man who would never touch you until you walked down the aisle?"
Lily raised her eyebrows. A man who would never touch her until they had walked down the aisle? What little these women knew. She was about to correct Guinevere and inform her that James in fact had no such qualms, but she then remembered the pregnancy test in her plastic bag, and figured maybe it would be best to leave them in ignorance. After all, who knew what they would say if they unveiled the contents of the chemist's bag in her left hand? Either she'd be having Gilderoy Lockhart's baby or she'd raped James or… Well, she didn't want to think about what else they might come up with. No, it was better to let them think what they wanted , that way less questions would be asked and she could get out of there sooner, if she told them the truth, she knew she'd have a better chance escaping Azkaban than she would these two.
She found, awaking from her moment of thoughtful distance, that Veda and Guinevere were happy to continue theorizing about her, right in front of her, and without her. "It's the forbidden fruit concept," Veda said intellectually, or, rather, as intellectually as she could manage.
"No," Guinevere continued, "That's what she needed Gilderoy for, dimwit!" She remembered that Lily was there. "Isn't that so, Lily? So, why'd you leave Gilderoy, was the sex bad?"
Lily grinned evilly, realizing that these two would hear only what they wanted to hear. Oh well, if you can't beat 'em, might as well join 'em. "Oh no… He was the best I've ever had, in fact," she fixed Guinevere with a hard stare, "but there was one problem… He kept calling your name in bed." As she watched the priceless looks on their faces she thought she'd never in her entire life found it more difficult to keep a straight face. Guinevere was gaping at Lily and Veda was shooting bitterly jealous and scandalized glares at Guinevere. Lily took this opportunity to step around them. As she passed, she whispered to them conspiratorially, "Don't tell my boss though, he thinks he's the only one I've been shagging."
The two women's eyes were fixed buggily on her. "Who's your boss?"
"The Minister of Magic. Didn't you know? I'm an intern at the Ministry."
With that, Lily strode away quickly to the apparition station, apparated to her flat, and fell down laughing on the sofa. "Priceless," she giggled.
~**~_~**~_~**~
It had been several hours since she had found the test results positive, and even more since she had stopped laughing. Momentarily detached, she thought Interesting, isn't it? Aurora told me not to even bother with it, and so as a result, to see if she had been right, I did exactly what she told me not to? Interesting indeed.
It was then that James crossed the threshold of her doorway. He was smiling cheerfully at her as he crossed the room. "You called?" The instant he saw her face, however, his grin faltered. "What is it, Lily?"
He looked down at her from the other side of her small coffee table. Lily had tried for the longest time to think of some way of telling him… But her desperate mind had failed her, and all she could think of were dots… Large dots, small dots, purple dots, green dots, dots of every size and color, all the fuzzy dots that has been clouding her head and her vision these past few hours. She stood up and drew him downwards and pulled him to sit next to her. She discovered she didn't know what to do with her hands, so she grabbed his. It was horribly cliché, she knew, but she was feeling neither original nor clever at the moment. Cliché would have to do.
"What happened?"
Lily realized just how long she had been sitting there silently. "I, er – well, I… I have to tell you something." Her voice wobbled as she spoke and simultaneously tried to think of the right way to put this…
He gave her a small smile. "Yes, I realized that. C'mon Lil, out with it, don't be ridiculous." He kissed her neck and smirked up at her foolishly, batting his eyelashes in the fashion of Veda and Guinevere. "I promise I won't bite. See?"
She promptly discovered that there was no right way. So she just said it. "James, I'm pregnant."
That shut him up. He went rigid and simply stared out into the distance. She thought he was simply pausing briefly with shock and realization, but when his eyes started to lose focus, she worried that perhaps he had forgotten to breathe. "James. You are alive, you know… You do remember that, right?"
His eyes snapped back into focus. All he said was "Oh."
Oh? She hadn't imagined him being thrilled with the news, but she had hoped for something slightly more comforting and glamorous than Oh.
"You're sure?"
"Positive."
No, this was most certainly not nearly as she had hoped it would be. Earlier, she had been nervous. Now she was scared. Really scared. And feeling alone in this. And not much beyond the truly terrifying could shake Lily Evans that way. She was even trembling physically at that very moment.
"When?"
"Halloween, it would seem."
And then he smiled again. His eyes misted over a little bit and he said simply, "Yeah, Halloween, great night that was. I'll never forget Halloween." His grin grew.
"James!" She punched him playfully, "Snap out of it you fool!"
"Sorry," he replied through his smile, before retaining focus. He fixed her piercingly with his chocolate colored eyes. "Look," he said, in a soft tone Lily did not usually hear from him when in the company of others. "The wedding is on New Year's, that's only three weeks away… So we'll just have a baby a little bit sooner than we would have planned."
Yeah, try a few years sooner. "James, what're we going to do?"
He drew her into his arms. "We'll figure it out, I'm certain of it. Everything will be alright. We'll be okay… We'll pull through together."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
~**~_~**~_~**~
It was dusk. Lucius kicked the little girl, (was Brenna her name?) into a line with all the other Mudblood children and looked around, surveying his handiwork. The common, filthy muggle houses were still blazing, and the bodies were marvelously displayed. "Excellent job, everyone," he addressed the hunting party, "one of the most successful raids I've yet seen. Meet me at the tavern at midnight, and I'll buy you all a drink or two… Or twenty." The hooded men hurrahed and Lucius sneered at their baseness. Little did he know, at the very same moment, the aristocrats of Australia were sneering down at him and his baseness from their comfortable position in their observational tower.
He was clever, they would have to give him that. The Jewish man had been crucified, that was a particularly brilliant, if not gruesome, stroke of genius. The curly-haired Catholic woman was hanging naked and partially dismembered from a tree.
She had been the last to die… The hunters had each had quite a bit of fun with her. Lucius in particular seemed to take great pleasure in having her as her dying husband watched, screaming in agony, threatening him with all he could what he would do to him once he broke free, his eyes crying out in a pain Lucius had never seen, but enjoyed very much. This man, whatever his name was, knew that he was going to die, and there was nothing he could do to save or protect the one he loved. There is a certain mark knowledge like that leaves on the eyes. Lucius had removed the silencing charm off of his muggle prey shortly after he had bound them… How he loved to hear them scream. There was no sport in silence.
Alina Petranni, six years old and standing powerlessly immobile as Lucius had left her, watched the lifeless, bloodied corpses all around her. She thought maybe if she looked at them long enough, hard enough, they would start moving again. Maybe then they would sit up and start breathing, and wipe off all the blood and dirt. Maybe then they would laugh and tell her that it's okay, they weren't really hurt, they hadn't really died… That it had all been pretend. All that screaming and crying and twitching was just for show. She believed that maybe then everything would be okay, but somewhere she knew that it wasn't. It was all real, and here she stood, helpless, without the power to do anything about it. She hadn't even shut her eyes while it all happened. Because she couldn't help it, something in her wanted to see. And she knew that was wrong bad. It was all her fault. It had to be.
She was observing the appropriately blood red sky when Mister Malfoy approached her, grinning his scary shark's grin. "Look at what you've done," he scolded her softly. "Do you see?" Tears were falling from her eyes and streaming down her frozen face. "Oh, don't cry now child. I know a way we can fix this and make it all better… It'll keep you out of trouble, because you know what your daddy would do to you if he discovers what you've done." At this point there seemed to be more tears than flesh. He pointed his wand at her and leaned in close. "I'm going to take away the memory of this place and all that happened here. In your waking hours you shan't be able to recollect any of this… But you must understand, I can't excuse you entirely, you see… You must be punished for your crime... And so this memory shall never truly leave you. No, you will be absent of it in your waking moments, but it will visit you again at night, in your dreams, for all the days of your life."
He said some strange words. She saw a bright light… And then everything went black.
Suddenly Alina opened her eyes to find herself in a strange, empty field. She stood up, brushed herself off, and found her father approaching her. "Has Malfoy behaved himself?" Her father stared her down, awaiting an answer.
She stammered, frightened of him and what might befall her if she delayed him too long. She thought hard, but the last thing she remembered was seeing her father leave, so she guessed everything must have been alright… And the only way to keep herself safe from her father's wrath was to give him an answer that pleased him. "I suppose you could say that."
"Very well then," he smiled, as he surveyed a long line of children before him. He smiled down at her. "These are some of the wild Muggle-born children we have saved, Alina. Whichever of these you choose you shall have as your closest personal servant. Which one do you want, Alina?"
He was smiling at her. She smiled back, happy to see a grin on her father's face. She looked the long line of children up and down and felt instantly attached to a small dark-haired girl of apparently Maori descent. She pointed. "I want this one father, this one shall be mine."
Demetrius fixed a wrist-leash to the child of his daughter's choosing and brought her out to Alina. Alina grinned happily at the little girl like a newfound playmate. "I shall call you Branwen."
~**~_~**~_~**~
A small, dark haired girl of thirteen years and Maori descent stood out on a desolate New Zealand plain, surveying the foundations of what would have a small but lovely home, she imagined. She could not remember much about it, but she knew that she had been happy here at some point. She could not remember her parents' names. She could not remember even her own true birth name.
"I am free, Tzipora," whispered Branwen. "I am free, and I know you must be out there somewhere, and I shall find you. I promise."
~**~_~**~_~**~
Little Disclaimer: "The Story of Us" is the name of a movie that I saw a long time ago, and liked a lot. This chapter, however, has nothing to do with the movie, I just liked the way the title sounded. Aurora's line "With evil all around me, how can I keep myself sane and whole and moderate?" is from Sophocles' Electra. There's probably something else in there that I don't own, but I don't remember what it is, so if you see something, let me know and I'll disclaim that too.
Little A/N:
Just to make sure you understand all the time/space jumping here, this is how it goes (section by section):
November 23, 1986 (early morning, shortly after dawn) / New Zealand à January/February 1448 - daytime / Hogwarts à December 10, 1979 - morning / a hallway somewhere in London à 1448 – later that evening / Hogwarts à December 10, 1979 – later that afternoon / from Muggle London to the Leaky Cauldron to Diagon Alley à December 10, 1979 – later that evening / Lily's apartment, wherever that is à November 23, 1986 – dusk / rural New Zealand à Fic Present (A.K.A: September 1995) / rural New Zealand
So now we know how the Australian magical elite gets its muggle-born servants.
And just so you know, we are going to see more of all these characters later on, and what is not explained here will eventually be explained somewhere down the line. So don't yell at me for not being more specific in certain areas.