Double Trouble 1

Opening Moves

From the day that we were born, fifteen minutes apart, James and I were together. The two of us did everything together and were the best of friends. Which was just as well, because we didn't have any other friends. We were the only wizard kids in the area, and there weren't many people in the village below our house anyway. We mostly stayed home and wandered the house and land around it. We never missed having friends, either.

Our house was huge and old, at least three hundred years old. Mum said that some bits of it were far older than that. It sat high up a hill, with woods and a lake and a great meadow behind it, and the village two miles away, along a windy and bumpy dirt road. Whenever we had to go anywhere further than the village, Mum got out our car –it was at least thirty years old and coming to pieces, but it still worked –and drove. But she didn't like to drive so we never went far.

We didn't care though; the land around our house was more than enough to occupy even inquisitive people like us. And although we didn't often see the villagers, they knew us and tolerated us. "There go James and Lily again," they'd say when we ran through their gardens after a rabbit or a runaway kite or some such thing.

Mum taught us everything. Really everything, I mean, not just the things that all mothers teach their kids. She taught us spells and potions, history and astronomy, how to fly a broom and how to use Floo powder. She didn't wait until we were eleven to start teaching us, either. We enjoyed the lessons that she taught us. Homeschooling is great. If it was a lovely spring day, we'd forget about the werewolf codes and goblin uprisings in our books and go outside to learn the various herbs and fungi in our garden, their use and tending. Or we'd hike through the forest, looking for traces of unicorns or other magical beasts. Mum said she was fairly sure that there were unicorns in the forest, and once James and I thought we saw a bird that might have been a phoenix.

Anyway, we had a great mother. Not many kids have a mother who was more fun and involved than ours. She did all sorts of things with us, and let us do things like staying up until midnight sometimes. In fact, she was just about perfect. Which was just as well, because we didn't have a dad.

That's the one thing that she refused to tell us, no matter how many times we asked her. She said that we were born on June 21, 1982. Since then, we had had about as good a life as anyone can, except for the fact that we had no dad. Well, of course, we knew we must have had a father, but not who he was, or what he did, or if he was alive. We discussed it and James thought that either he was someone who was already married, or that he was a Muggle and left Mum when he found out she was a witch. That happens. I didn't quite think so, somehow. James was pragmatic; I had a romantic mind and loved fantasy. So I had dreams that our father was some really important person who'd been kidnapped or something, and that one day he'd come back and take us all to live in a palace or somewhere like that. Or else that he had been a dark wizard who had fallen in love with Mum and reformed, only to be killed by his old associates when he tried to leave, and that Mum didn't tell us because she couldn't bear to think of him. I knew even then that my fantasies were ridiculous. But you'd think that kids have a right to know who their dad is, right? Anyway, we knew that there was some mystery in Mum's past. For one thing, the only friend she had was Remus Lupin, or Uncle Remus, as we called him. There was some mystery about him too, but we didn't have a clue as to what it might be. For a while we thought he might be our father, but we look nothing like him, and when we asked Mum she said no. And sometimes she'd just cry for no reason. We noticed that it tended to happen a lot toward the end of October, and sometimes in August, but there were other times, too.

On our eleventh birthday, Mum took us to Diagon Alley to get us wands. Until now she'd let us practice using her wand, but she said that we were old enough to get our own now. First we went to Gringotts bank. James and I had never been there, and we were so engrossed in looking around that we were almost left behind when the goblin led us to the little cart. That ride was exciting, almost as good as a game of broom tag, and when we finally stopped in front of a vault, I was a little disappointed. The goblin opened the vault, and Mum scooped gold into her bag. I caught a glimpse of it, and was quite amazed. The vault was very full of gold and silver. We must be incredibly rich, so why did we live in a house that was falling to bits, with a broken down car, instead of somewhere fashionable? Just one more mystery to add to the list.

James and I didn't speak as we headed down the street to Ollivanders. I looked at Mum. She was a bit pale; I hoped that she was feeling all right. We opened the door of the little shop. It was very dark inside. The little man behind the counter looked up as we came in.

"Ah, yes," he said quietly. "I though you'd be coming in soon. I still remember when you came in. Rowan and phoenix feather, eleven inches?"

"Yes," Mum said tightly. "James and Lily need wands today."

"Of course," the little man said. "I never forget a wand, or a face," he said as he pulled out his tape and started measuring James' wand. "Never."

"I know," Mum said quietly. "I've been told that."

"Thirteen inches, oak and dragon heartstring, I think," Ollivander muttered to himself. I was looking at Mum at that moment, and was surprised to see her face go white as the ghost in our grandfather clock. For a moment, I thought that she might say something, but she didn't. Mr. Ollivander started measuring me now. When he was done, he started pulling down boxes.

"Try this," he said, handing a wand to James and another to me. I waved mine and tried to get some sparks out of it. A few came out, but I could have done a lot better on Mum's wand.

"Definitely not," Ollivander said, snatching the wands out of our hands and replacing them.

We went through dozens of wands that day, trying to find one. Finally, James had a twelve-inch beech and unicorn hair wand, and I had a ten-inch rowan and phoenix feather. Mum paid for them and we walked out of the shop. As soon as we were outside, she seemed to relax.

"Let's go for an ice cream," she said, leading us down the street to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, where we sat and enjoyed triple-chocolate fudge-nuts delights. Then it was off, down the streets again. We stopped and peered at the display in Flourish and Blotts. It was very interesting; a large cage full of books sat in the window. The books appeared to be trying to rip each other to shreds. Mum laughed and we passed on.

She didn't let us anywhere near Knockturn Alley. I'd heard that sometimes kids tried to go down, just to see what was down there, but she wouldn't even turn her back on us until we were well away from the dark and dingy lane. So James and I just stared at all the sights. Finally, we went back out through the Leaky Cauldron and headed home.

I must say that it was a bit disappointing to us when we really understood that we wouldn't go to Hogwarts, but we'd gotten over that when we were nine, and we loved our life so much that we would hardly have wanted to change it for anything. Shortly after our trip to Diagon Alley, Uncle Remus came for a visit. He brought James and me a wizard chess set for a birthday present and taught us how to play. We really liked it, but sometimes I'd get tired of it before James, and then he'd try his best to get me to play more anyway. One day, I just refused. Uncle Remus said he wouldn't, so James asked Mum if she'd play. She just stared out the window, not making any response. James asked her again.

"No," she said, quietly. "I don't play." She kept looking out at the rain, and her hand tightened on the curtain.

The reason that Uncle Remus had come to visit was to tell us that he had gotten a job. He was to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.

"I am looking forward to it," he said one evening at the end of July. "I think I'll enjoy it greatly."

"You aren't worried about Snape?" Mum asked.

"Don't worry. Dumbledore's spoken to all the staff. Snape will just have to deal with it." He paused a moment. "Harry will be there." James and I looked up from our game, anxious to hear more. Harry who? We didn't know any Harry.

"You don't think he could mean the Harry?" James asked.

"Harry Potter?" I thought for a moment. "Maybe. He'd be at Hogwarts now, wouldn't he?"

"Yeah," James said, staring off into space as he calculated. "He'd be older than we are, but not too much older. Sometimes I wish we were going, you know? It might be fun to be around other kids like that."

"We'd have to leave home, though," I said. "And I think Mum would get lonely. Anyway, she's teaching us everything we need to know." Then Mum noticed us still hanging around and sent us off to bed.

Next day, when we came down, I grabbed the paper from the delivery owl as usual. I liked reading the papers myself, and usually I tried to do so before breakfast. Today, the whole front page was just three words: Black Escapes Azkaban! I went into the kitchen where Mum and Uncle Remus were already eating.

"Someone escaped Azkaban!" I yelled excitedly. "I didn't know that was possible."

"Who?" Uncle Remus asked immediately.

"Some guy name Black. I don't think I've ever heard of him. What did he do?" But Uncle Remus had leapt up and snatched the paper from me. He started rifling through the pages, Mum leaning over his shoulder, looking pale.

"Got out last night somehow," Uncle Remus muttered. "Says they're looking for him… very dangerous… they think they'll get him soon…I wish that I was so confident. They know he's dangerous, at least. How did he get out?" The adults stared at each other. I didn't know what to make of it. Both of them were very white.

"You don't think he'll come here?" Mum asked.

"No," Uncle Remus said, though he didn't look very confident. "I'm sure the Ministry will…" his eyes fell on James and me. We were both drinking in every word.

"Don't worry," he said gently. "Black will never get anywhere near here. The Ministry will get him fast enough." For some reason, his words didn't seem to make him very happy. Mother was touching something on a chain round her neck. I'd seem her do that once or twice before, but I didn't know what it was.

"Who –what did he do?" James asked.

"Sirius Black – worked for Voldemort," Uncle Remus said slowly. "He killed a lot of people, years ago. Before you were born."

"A dark wizard got out of Azkaban?" I asked. "He might kill someone!"

"They'll catch him," Uncle Remus repeated. "Why don't you two have breakfast now?" We sat at the table. Mum was still staring out of the window.

"Do you think he'll come here?" James asked her. "Is that why you keep looking out the window?"

"What?" she asked. "Oh, no, he won't. He won't, don't worry." She hurried from the room. James and I stared after her.

"Why did she do that?" I wondered aloud. Uncle Remus began to follow her.

"Stay here," he said. For once, we did as he said and left them alone. I knew that this was no time for us to interrupt.

"Maybe she knew one of the people who Black killed," I suggested. "Maybe I was right!"

"About what?" James asked. So I told him my idea that our father could have been a reformed dark wizard. He laughed.

"Right, Lily, that's so likely. Why don't we look at the papers?" So we started reading. Some of it was very interesting stuff that we'd never heard.

"I always thought that when You-Know-Who left, his followers all gave up," I said. "Didn't know that any of them stuck around and fought."

"He looks insane," James said, pointing to a photo of a man, just laughing and laughing. "This says it was taken just after he massacred those people." Next to that photo was one of Black now. He was spectrally thin, pale and his dark hair was matted in tangles. You couldn't see where his beard left off and hair began; it had to be elbow length. His sunken eyes shone out of the photograph as he blinked slowly.

"I don't like the look of him," I said.

"No," James said. "Azkaban sure didn't do much for him, did it?"

"Those Dementors," I said with a shiver. We'd read about them, but Mum didn't like talking about them. "I will never go there."

"Don't worry, Lily, good people don't go to Azkaban. It's not like either of us would ever kill thirteen people with a single curse."

"He must have been a very powerful wizard," I said. Just then, two owls flew in and dropped letters on our heads. Two of the letters were for Mum; the other was addressed to 'Professor R. J. Lupin."

"Think we should disturb them?" I asked. James was examining the letters.

"These come from the Ministry!" he said, holding up one of mum's letters and the one for Uncle Remus. "And this one –it's from Professor Dumbledore!" Even if we weren't going to be attending Hogwarts, we still knew who Dumbledore was.

"Letters?" Mum asked. We turned and saw her in the door, and handed her the letters.

"Why don't you two go play?" she asked. "It's a nice day."

"Right," James said. "We'll be in the woods if you need us.

"Why the woods?" I asked when she had gone, taking the letters with her. "I thought we might go swimming or something."

"They can't see us in the woods," James said. "So we can sneak back and see if we can find out what's going on."

"James, as much as I want to know what's going on too, I don't think we should spy. I think this is important to Mum. If she wants us to know, she'll tell us."

"She'll tell us," he said. "Right. Just like she's told us everything we've asked her."

"James, she always tells us things that we need to know."

"So why won't she tell us who our father is? Or whether we have any other relatives –I know that her parents were killed, but maybe we have cousins or something – or what she hides in that secret cupboard we can't open, or why the only visitor we ever have is Uncle Remus, or why she won't send us to Hogwarts-"

"I know, James. I want to know, too. But there must be a reason why she won't tell us," I said. "We should respect her wishes."

"Oh, come on," he said, rolling his eyes at me. "Since when have you been like this?"

"Besides," I said, rationally. "I can see them watching us out the window. We'd best get going."

"Fine," James grumbled as we headed off for the forest.

We got back around lunchtime. Mum met us at the door.

"I have to go down to London," she said. She had a strange look on her face, as if she were anticipating something horrible that was about to happen to her. Somehow, she looked as if she had aged ten years in the last hour. "Remus will look after you. I won't be back until tomorrow." We stared at her. She'd never left us overnight before.

"All right," James said uncertainly.

"Have a nice trip," I added. She nodded, then Apparated away. As she was leaving, I almost thought that I saw tears in her eyes.

"Where did she go?" I asked Uncle Remus.

"She had to see someone," he said evasively. "I have to leave tomorrow, guys. Do you want to do anything special?"

"Can we play broom tag?" I asked, naming one of my favorite games. He smiled.

"I can try," he said. "I'll need to borrow your mother's broom. Think she'll mind?"

"No," James said. "It's ancient, anyway. Has to be older than we are." He got it out of the closet and handed it over. Uncle Remus inspected it. Something about him seemed very sad, as he looked over the broom.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it were older than you two," he said quietly.

"I told her she should get a new one so she can keep up when we play," I said. "But she said no."

"Well, your mother has her reasons," Uncle Remus said. He smiled. "And besides, I don't think she needs anything special to keep up with you. She's a fabulous flyer."

We played until it got dark, and then came in for dinner. Mum had left food for us, and we had a nice dinner. Afterwards, James and I played chess together for hours. After a while, we got Uncle Remus to play against the two of us. We managed to beat him, but it wasn't very easy.

"Did you let us win?" James asked suspiciously.

"No," he said. "I'm not that good a player, myself. I always liked watching, though." His words trailed off and he stared into the night. Something distant seemed to be in his eyes. "It's rather late, isn't it? You two should go to bed." We protested a little, but gave up quickly.

"I wonder where Mum is," James said as we brushed our teeth.

"So do I," I agreed. "I hope she will get back early tomorrow." When we went to bed, I stared out the window at the stars. They were very bright and the sky wasn't cloudy at all. I wondered if our mother was looking at the stars now. I wondered if the escaped prisoner, Sirius Black, noticed the stars, or if he didn't care for their beauty. I wondered if he'd been caught yet. And I wondered what the secret was that Mum seemed to hide.

Mum got back after lunch the next day. She looked exhausted.

"I'm fine, dears," she assured us when we asked her.

"What did you do?" I asked her.

"I had to see someone," she said. "Where's Remus?"

"I'm here," he said, coming into the room. "I suppose I should go now. I do want to be to London before dark."

"When will you come back?" James asked.

"I'll visit you again next summer, okay?" he asked with a smile.

"I hope you have a nice time teaching," I said.

"I do too," he said. "Do you think the students will like me?"

"If they don't, they're idiots," James said firmly. "Write to us."

"I will," he promised. "Will you be all right, Jenny?" he asked Mum.

"Yes, Remus," she said quietly.

"Remember to contact me if you need me," he said. He picked up his bags and turned to go.

The summer went quickly after that. The papers kept talking about Sirius Black, how he hadn't been captured yet, how he had killed thirteen people all those years ago. Apparently Black's escape was the only thing to happen that summer.

In November, the Daily Prophet screamed the news that Black had been at Hogwarts. He'd apparently tried to break into one of the Houses 'for what nefarious purpose, we can only guess,' as the paper put it. Mum read the article and her face grew hard, but she didn't say anything to us.

Christmas at our house is wonderful. We decorated the whole huge place, cellar to rafter, with greenery and trees and holly. Mum let James and me enchant up a magical warm snowfall to frost the large tree in our big library. We made garland of popcorn and cranberries and hung it from the ceiling, and frosted silver patterns onto the windows. And then, three days before Christmas, snow fell and covered the ground, three inches deep. James and I spent all day outside, throwing snowballs at each other. Mum joined us now and again, but she had lots to do to get ready for Christmas. All day Christmas Eve the smell of good food drifted through the house, while Mum and James and I ran around with bags and bows and presents, trying not to let the others see what we held.

I'd hidden a gift for James in the library months ago. There were many different secret passages, cupboards and hidey-holes in our house. James and I knew most of them, but I thought that he didn't know about this one. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten exactly where it was. I knew that you opened it by stepping on a certain stone in the floor, but the library was immense and there were hundreds of stones in the floor. So I started stepping on all of them.

Halfway through, one opened to reveal a hole. I reached down to get the package out, but realized that this was not the hiding place I had used. My hand touched something that felt like paper. I pulled it out. It was a photograph, a little dingy with age, but obviously a wizard photo. The picture showed a girl and a boy with their arms around each other, laughing. The girl had short dark hair; the boy's dark hair was longer than the girl's. They somehow looked familiar.

Suddenly I realized that if the girl in the picture had longer hair and was fifteen years older, she'd be my mother. I had never seen any pictures of my mother as a girl. I peered closer, and thought that perhaps the boy looked like James. Could this be a photograph of my father? I didn't know.

Footsteps outside jerked me back to reality. I shoved the picture back into the hole, sealed the stone back, and stood. I had a book in my hands when Mum came in, arms full of gifts. As she put them under the tree, I determined that I would come back to look at the picture some time when I didn't have to worry about being disturbed.

"James." I whispered softly, as it was nearly midnight, and I didn't want to wake my mother. "James." My brother blinked and opened his eyes.

"What is it?" he mumbled. "Go away."

"James, I want you to come with me. I found something in the library today and want to show it to you."

"Now?" he said, squinting at the clock.

"Yes, now," I said, pulling him from his bed. He groaned, but followed as I crept down the hall.

"I know it's here," I muttered, pacing the library. "Ah!" I stepped on the right stone and pulled out the picture again, handing it to James.

"A photograph," he said. "You woke me up for this?"

"Look at it!" I hissed. "That's Mum!"

"Really?" he stared closer. "It is! And –that boy in the picture with her-"

"He does look a bit like you, doesn't he?" I asked.

"A bit, I think," James said. "It's hard to tell. You think he might be our father?"

"It's possible," I said. "What do you think?"

"I've seen this face somewhere else," he said slowly. "I know I've seen it, but it looked different. Blast, I can't remember." He gave me the picture and I looked at it again. Both the figures were laughing.

"I wonder what happened," I mused. "If this is our father, I mean. They look so happy here."

"We'd better get back to bed," the ever practical James reminded me. "We'll want to be up early tomorrow."

"All right," I said.

We got up very early and went into our mother's room to wake her up.

"Merry Christmas!" we called together. She sat up. As she did so, her nightgown slipped down her shoulder. I caught a glimpse of a shiny scar on her shoulder, and a flash of gold around her neck. That was a burn scar, I realized. She never said anything about being burnt like that.

"Let's get breakfast," she said. We followed eagerly, with me adding two new bits of data to my list of clues to my mother's past; she had once been badly burnt, and she wore something on a gold chain around her neck.

The year turned and hurried by, month after month. James and I began to roam further afield again in March, when the weather became warmer. One day toward the end of the month, we were exploring a part of the woods we hadn't been before when we heard strange noises off to one side. Being curious, James went to investigate, and I followed in case he needed help.

The noise was being caused by a large hawk. Its wing was broken and it had gotten itself caught in a thicket of thorns.

"Oh, poor thing," I said. "Let's take it to Mum. She can fix that wing."

"How are we supposed to get it out of the thorns and home without it killing us?" James asked. "It's a wild bird."

"I'll stay with it," I said. "You go get Mum. She won't want it to die."

"All right," he said, and ran off. I sat quietly by the bird, which had stopped struggling and was resting.

I heard a noise behind me and turned to look at what I had thought were empty woods. Suddenly, a centaur stepped from behind the trees. She looked like a young female.

"Oh," she said. "I did not know there were any humans here." She started to back up, into the deep woods.

"I didn't know any of you lived here," I said, unable to keep from staring at the creature. I'd never seen a centaur except in books.

"We do not," she said. "But the stars are unclear these days. We are divided over what they portend. I have come here because I believe that the message the stars bear for me is that it is my purpose to come here at this time."

"I see," I said, not seeing at all.

"My name is Adhara, human girl. What is yours?"

"Lily," I said. "What kind of things do the stars say?"

"We do not always tell humans what is written in the stars," she said. "But even humans should be able to tell that great events are about to occur, or are occurring even now."

"Not here," I laughed. "Nothing ever happens here, or to us."

"So you believe," she said. "But how do you know what will happen a month from now?" I stared at her, my mouth open. She turned again. "I must go," she said. "Remember two things; trust your heart, not your mind, and remember that things are never as simple as they seem. If you need me, I shall know, and shall come to you." She slipped off into the trees. I stared after her. What a confusing creature. Still, it isn't every day that you meet a centaur.

James and Mum arrived a moment later. Mum had her wand and turned at once to the wounded bird.

"Yes," she murmured, "the wing is broken. I'll help her."

"I thought it was a male," James said.

"Not this bird," Mum said. "She's a young female. Probably too young to have a nest of her own, yet. We'll take care of her until she's strong enough to fly again. She won't be able to use that wing for a while." She had put a spell on the bird's wing to set the bone and to bind it. Now she magicked a cage around her, and picked the cage up. "Shall we go home?"

"Do you think she can fly today?" I asked Mum as we fed Adhara – for that was what I had decided to call the bird, in memory of the centaur. I hadn't told James or our mother about meeting the centaur, though. I felt that it was a private matter, not something I needed to tell everyone.

"I think she just might be strong enough," Mum said. "She's certainly healthy, isn't she?" We'd cared for her two months and more. Now it was late June and it was time for Adhara to fly on her own. She sat on my arm as we carried her outside to the meadow behind our house. James started to coax her to fly, but she didn't move.

"Throw her up in the air," Mum suggested at last. I did as she said. Adhara seemed surprised for an instant. Then she spread her great wings and began to fly.

"She can fly! She can fly!" James and I shouted. We stared as she lazily soared and dove in the air.

"Oh, come back!" I shouted as she flew away.

"Adhara's a wild thing, Lily," Mum said gently. "Wild things are best let free."

"But I liked her," I said, crying.

"Let her choose," Mum said. I nodded. I couldn't see her any more, so I turned to go inside. Halfway to the house, I felt a wind past my cheek, and turned to see Adhara flying by. She circled and turned to land on my shoulder.

"You came back!" I shouted. " She likes us!"

"Well," Mum said, "If she wants to, she can stay."

Can you tell where I'm going? Do you know who the twins' father is? I rather think it's obvious, but that just gives it dramatic irony, I guess. Anyway, all will be revealed soon enough. I hope I'm not confusing anyone here. Everything will be explained soon, so if you didn't get anything, that's because I haven't told you yet. And for this story to really make any sense to you, you should have read my Magical Mischief Makers stories. Be sure to tell me what you think on your way out!