Here comes my first fanfiction. I write it currently with a German and a French version, in the Wizarding World of J.K. Rowling. Thanks to hikahimaru for the support. I hope you – readers – will enjoy it.
When our lives were about to explode
The House to which one belonged at the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry hasn't always played such a critical role in our existence. I was a Slytherin. My little sister, Keelin, was a Slytherin. My mother was a Slytherin either. But my father and Keelin's twin brother, Aedhan, weren't. Of course the issue became more and more decisive as I grow up at Hogwarts. And my younger siblings' Sorting leaded to more distrust than mine three years before. It had been possible however to get through this before my sixth schoolyear. It was during the previous summer that we understood all was about to change.
Since the summer of my tenth birthday I knew that my parents were keeping some secrets from us. I had every confidence that it was a cause for conflict. Then, as time went on, I spotted that my father had kept it from my mother for much a long time. Aedhan and Keelin eventually understood that something was going on, to a smaller extent. If the decision had been mine, I would have ended up by telling them what I knew. Well, surely, I would have done it for Aedhan. However, about Keelin nothing could be less certain.
I hope I've loved her as an older sister should love an annoying little one. But when I was younger, I felt almost jealousy when I saw how close she was to Aedhan. And that were never completely gone, I'm afraid. Aedhan was my only and favourite brother. He was nice, sometimes naïve, sometimes stubborn, always funny and helpful. We shared our interest for owls and brooms. During my first three years at Hogwarts we also shared the strangeness of not being on the same soil, we shared the progress of Mum's owl training, we shared the ups and downs of my witchcraft learning. By contrast, Keelin was always clinging when I spent time with her twin. From the tiny little thing that crawled after her early galloping brother, whom I learnt all the games I knew, she had turned out to grow as a possessive pain, smart enough to imagine what to keep Aedhan with her – and distance away from me if she could. She was the one who awaked the violent protective behaviour of our brother at school when she was abandoned by her Ronan-boyfriend for being weird, as if it means something to have a boyfriend when you are seven. This scene forced the big ten-year-old girl I was to react by keeping bruisers apart, what led me to tighten Aedhan's arm strong enough to hold him back from using spontaneous magic, and what incidentally led me to crack his bone by using mine. Keelin was also the one with whom Aedhan spent the whole Christmas holidays during my third year, because of her new separation – with her Ronan again. I had probably better to go and see that stupid boy to tell him he should stop hanging around her if he just doesn't like her magic weirdness. Keelin had always had different personal interests, indeed. She didn't love flight as Aedhan and I did. Dad and his horses represented just the same for her as Mum and her owls for us. It was all the same for her gossip exchanging: we were definitely not on the same page. And that's exactly why I couldn't give Aedhan a clue about what was happening, to avoid the risk of seeing Keelin throwing an *Exploding Snap* in the dormitories of Slytherin.
However, as long as I can remember, she was my family. She and Aedhan were concerned by what took me five years to understand.
By the time of my first year, my parents were still having estranged relationship. Then – since the day following my Sorting, actually, and until my siblings' – Mum used to say that real Harpers were sorted in Slytherin and O'Leans in Hufflepuff. Yes, Mum's a Harper, and proud of it. One Harper was of same cohort at Hogwarts, and a good friend of mine. My cousin was actually like my closest one, except for a few details. First, there were his sister and my brother places. Then, there had been the Quidditch World Cup when he had supported Bulgaria, whereas the Irish Chaser Siofra Morane was a cousin of our parents. With him, however, I was proud to belong to the House of Mum's side of the family. It's later that I began to understand what it meant between her and Dad.
Dad had light blue eyes – which would've been icy without his natural smile. Mine are exactly the same. Aedhan and Keelin share both the warm green-brown eyes of Mum. This has been another reason for me to be jealous of my sister. So I couldn't help but notice the first other person I ever saw with Dad's icy eyes. There was at Hogwarts this one year older Hufflepuff boy: the first piece of the puzzle.
There are little reasons for one Hufflepuff and one Slytherin to meet and to learn about each other, even more when they are not from the same schoolyear. Once I had looked into his eyes, in the corridors, I tried many times to find a way to run into him. But when I managed to look at him long enough, the curly-haired boy was not moving anymore. There were screaming everywhere. Some pupils where pointing at him, others were staring at a motionless ghost just steps away. Then schoolteachers arrived. For the second time this year there were rumblings against Slytherin and the young Harry Potter, despite the fear that filled his eyes. That's how I learnt that Justin Finch-Fletchley – the dark-haired boy with icy eyes – was said to be Muggle-born: the second piece of the puzzle.
There had been a while since the first time I saw my parents quarrelling one with another. I had heard less and less about Dad's 'irresponsibility', about Dad's 'lies', about Dad's 'fault', about Dad's 'Exploding Snap', about Mum burying her 'head in the sand', and how 'intolerant she was… As my school life became darker and weirder, even for the magic people we were, the puzzle was building. And things between my parents eventually settled.
My parents never met at school. It wasn't part of the problem that Mum was flourishing at Slytherin where her name and her blood were respected. Nor was it because Dad was a very popular Hufflepuff at Hogwarts. Actually, they met during the previous War. Mum was twenty and Dad thirty. And what happened during the twelve years before didn't concern us. Well, it did not count until then. One day of summer, between my fifth and my sixth year at Hogwarts, the Daily Prophet burst into our kitchen. Then again, I heard about Dad's 'duty'. It was from his mouth this time. My siblings and I were sent upstairs. And I understood in the face of my young cadets that time had come for our lives to explode.
*Exploding Snap:
1. a widespread card game in which players are thrilled for the cards may unpredictably explode while meeting one of equal value, the following card may (or not) turn the tables
2. any similar situation, (highly) potentially hazardous for the one who settles it
I'm waiting eagerly for reviews!
