Disclaimed, including the various plays that will be the title/quotes.
Part I: The Romantic Melodrama
Chapter 1
Rustic Chivalry
- he passes the nights singing like a solitary sparrow -
The story began with Arlene's most recent romantic mishap.
Because or despite of her inherited second-generation wealth, Arlene Day maintained a resolute faith in the romance of life—that was, the universe was inherently inclined to romantic drama. While it might be considered ill form to give away the heroine's character flaw before the introduction of her hair (expertly dyed blonde with a red tint showing through, but naturally a light Titian copper-ish-brown), it must be said that Arlene was not a particularly grounded individual. She would often slip away into her thoughts where facts were less rigid, and when the distinction between the imagined and reality became unclear, she simply chose to believe the more interesting version.
Exempli gratia: The waiter, who introduced himself as Leon, was probably an impoverished art student who paid his tuition by wearing those tight jeans, and when he smiled, it was a trained but shy smile. The elevator conductor with the lazy eye—his nametag read 'Pushkin' but she didn't believe him—could be a veteran in the Vietnamese war and lived with the guilt of shooting a dozen men. The grumpy woman behind her in line, who couldn't stop absentmindedly toying with the Mercedes keychain hanging off her index finger, was frowning at the memory of ruining her newest pair of distinctly on-trend Prada platform shoes when shooting pheasants at the hunting range.
Presently, however, Arlene's mind was fully engaged at trying to convince herself of only one thing: that her breakup was good for her, in the grand scheme of things. Really, Arlene insisted, twiddling with the car window control in a way that would have driven other people mad had there been other people in the limousine with her. The best of all possible worlds—even if the entire affair should have been more tragic and beautiful, instead of just plain awful. Nobody deserved a spectacle in the middle of the school cafeteria. College, like life, was just an extension of prep school forever.
The chauffeur smartly did not try to engage in small talk as he drove her home to Sunset Boulevard. It took great resolution to remain sulky in the grand Californian sun, but the lady was rising up to the challenge admirably.
Arlene had first approached the soft-spoken Orlando because she thought he had a beautiful name and beautiful calves. With long hair and little social standing, he was a self-proclaimed suffering poet, and she had found it endearing to listen to his bad verses about her auburn hair. She had genuinely enjoyed those lazy lunch hours when he would scribble furiously, occasionally looking up to smile at her shyly, and she would draw out the perfect strategic layout for her cheerleading squad. But after cutting his shoulder-length hair and a few weeks of the gym, all the other girls also discovered his calves and flocked to him. Now she couldn't stand how he read his poetry in the school garden at lunchtime, with a dozen flatterers writing their own odes to his poetic genius. It was as if he saw god when he looked into the mirror now.
And she had wanted to build something with the artist Orlando. It hadn't mattered that he didn't have an ounce of artistic talent in him—why Arlene felt like she could write better poetry. How hard could it be, really? Old faces glimmer out of the yellow haze that would dampen steel—there, she did it. All he did was put colors in front of subjects, with odd verbs. Orlando lacked any sort of self-awareness, and that had been charming until that very trait had turned him into an arrogant asshole.
Orlando did not take to the break up very gracefully, nor did his band of girl followers, secretly pleased as they may be. The hoard of them spat out the easiest insults, the ones that always induced fear and shame: ugly, fat, slut, et cetera, et cetera.
Well, yes, Arlene had to admit, she did not inherit her mother's beauty.
True, Arlene had to admit that she did not inherit her mother's beauty.
Of course there were many who claimed that she was in fact, the fairest in Beverley Hills (and at one time Orlando had been among those ranks), but those were her nurses who dotted on her and Daddy's secretaries who fawned over her. They always said that her figure would be strikingly attractive after a few years, when she shed a few stubborn pounds, but she had held the same weight for years now. They also frequently complimented her eyes as being 'green-hazel at its best', although in truth her eyes were a chilly sienna and have never sparkled with the smallest hint of green in her entire life. Their stretching of the truth extended to her innate beauty as well, for they all stood and clapped in tears when she participated in that school play when she was six. Their words were something along the lines of 'never seeing such a heartfelt and graceful performance', despite her performance to involve three words and mostly just dying.
(Although to be fair, it wasn't as if anybody could practice dying.)
The whole business of not being 'the fairest of them all' never bothered Arlene. Sure, she occasionally found herself wishing for her mother's looks, but she never wished for long. It was so passé to be beautiful, something out of a moralistic Victorian book (none of which she had read)—all modern heroines were homely. Like, it wasn't the sixties anymore. Nowadays it was more about being skinny and pseudo-intellectual. Besides, look at her mother Elayne (that probably wasn't even her real name) and where her beauty got her. She was a second rate actress and songstress, and quite the fetching beauty in her days, as second rate Hollywood girls tended to be—her beauty was the kind that stopped hearts and never lifted them. Daddy had taken a shine to Elayne, so the only natural course was for Elayne to become involved with the roaring real estate shark. But happy days were numbered, and soon after Elayne absconded with some Irishman, taking only her jewelry and her trusty ostrich Birkin bag. In this unfortunate affair, what Arlene pitied her mother the most was on losing the delightful bundle of joy that was Arlene herself.
All this Arlene knew at the omniscient age of eleven, which was quite a good age, she mused, when there was no doubt in her mind that she knew everything and was right all the time. Nobody could have convinced her otherwise, not her moody little brother Caius, and certainly not the string of women hopeful of becoming Mrs. Augustus Day, changing faces and names each time she turned around.
"Miss Day," the chauffeur gently broke through her reverie, "we're here."
Ah, finally, home.
Arlene stepped out of the car daintily as the footman opened the door.
"Wait," a man in a ridiculous orange pinstripe suit—which emphasized his Godfather-esque physique—called out from the front door, stepping past the gilt mahogany with the rushed sluggishness that accompanied a spectacular beer belly.
It was Daddy's lawyer, Mr. Goldbum, a regular guest. Daddy was very fretful of his financial wellbeing, as all self-made men (which was a lie: Daddy came from a long line of riches, even if Grandmama cut him off for a while when he fled from New York) tended to be. The lawyer always rode in her limo when he got the chance, claiming an awful, incurable case of motion sickness that was only alleviated in large, open spaces (limos) and with gastroenterologist-approved beverages (champagne). Arlene bore him with a gentle patience she reserved for very few people, mostly because that despite of his taste in fashion, he was one of the best lawyers with the least scruples, who had just enough moral fiber to tell you when he was bought out. A delightful combination. Also the lawyer used to bring her caramelized chocolate pecans, even after Daddy forbade it after the discovery of four cavities (although when Arlene really wanted one she would cry and accuse Daddy of imprinting upon her the social pressure to be anorexic, and Daddy always gave in.)
Arlene frequently suggested to Mr. Goldbum to take an apprentice: a paler, younger man, with blond hair and crinkling eyes—who was neighbor to a psychiatrist and fell in love with the patient's lulling voice. Or at least bring about a mobster cousin—Arlene was sure he had mobster ties—who would burst into roaring laughter and fits of sentimentality, but always quickly returned to a careless ruthlessness. Alas, no such luck.
Arlene considered her bad luck in life, and determined to be brave in the face of it. "Mr. Goldbum," she said sweetly to the lawyer, "there's a new bottle in the cabinet, recommended by that vintner that you liked last time."
"God bless you, you magical child," the lawyer declared before heaving himself into the car.
Arlene beamed at him.
Although it was still her bad-luck day, so when she turned around, she saw her little brother Caius glowering at her at the doorway, a mop of dark hair and blue eyes. Well, Caius glowered at everything—he was probably going through late puberty—but he seemed to be intently pissed at her.
She shrugged and walked past him into the mansion. Caius heard the magical comment no doubt. It was a perpetual sore spot with him, since he wasn't magical, whereas she was. She preferred the word 'magical' to 'witch'—the word 'witch' sounded so very Wicked Witch of the West. Why, nobody ever remembered the good witch Glinda, and Arlene fancied herself a good sort of person, really, most of the time at least.
He made a nondescript annoyed noise behind her. She made her heels click with more animosity.
Despite Daddy being said to have the Midas Touch—whatever land he touched sprouted gold fountains, literally; he didn't have the most tasteful of clientele in his youth—Daddy was a Squib. The magic in Daddy's line ended with him, as Caius inherited nothing beyond a good set of teeth and a large nose. Whereas Arlene's talent for magic was discovered when Daddy found her troop of magical leaves marching in the backyard. He had beamed with pride for a whole week. Caius never got along with her afterwards, the jealous, sulky little thing.
As she walked into the mansion and up the spiral staircase, she heard her father's voice float toward her through the unlocked gilt-edged mahogany door. "Yes Rita, please book her a suite in the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, they have a nice location. And take care of the chauffeur and car, but please disregard any pleas she might make with you to get an Aston. Or a Firebird, god knows where she got that idea. She's a nightmarish driver and I don't want too much attention. A nice Audi or Mercedes would do."
Arlene's preference in cars was the outrageously expensive. She was not allowed sport cars, and she had acquired a taste for them precisely because of that. Although lately she was thinking about getting a vintage Firebird Trans Am—it looked so gaudy and campy.
"Daddy," she started as soon as she heard the beep of phone that signaled end of dialogue, "Where are we going?"
Augustus, a middle-height man with neatly cut steel gray hair and perpetually in a three-piece pinstripe suit, old-fashioned suspenders, and a perfect tie (even at eight on a Saturday evening), turned around his leather chair and locked his hands together.
"Sugarplum," his tone was serious and left no room for argument, "This is not a vacation. I have arranged for you to transfer to Hogwarts in Scotland. There are some convoluted tax, uh, strategies—a new maneuver, very promising; but I will spare you the financial details, but it requires a proof of residency and intent and nonsense. In any case, Caius can't go—can you imagine what freedom would do to him?"
"Brooding and starvation?" Arlene suggested helpfully. The penchant for dramatics ran in the family, it would seem.
Daddy waved dismissively, not to lower himself to childish levels, "And haven't you always talked about Scottish moors? Hogwarts is on some piece of loony moor land. You do remember Hogwarts, do you not?"
She did talk about moors, ever since playing the redbreast robin in her school's adaption of Maberly's The Secret Garden. She loved it so much, that later she read the actual book, one of the few novels that found their way into her hands. She justified it to her scoffing friends by saying who wouldn't love Dickon and his hands. Her friends, understandably, did not understand Arlene's fascination with a fictional character's hands. And moors were innately romantic—look at Wuthering Heights! Oh the Bryonic Heathcliff!—to soothe his tortured, beastly soul! Well, Arlene never read the book per se, but everybody knew about it. It was required reading for school at some point, but of course the popular kids just watched the movie with plenty of vodka. Somebody's brother brought grass for everybody, but Arlene was just high on Timothy Dalton's morose gaze.
"Hogwarts," Daddy repeated, used to her episodes, his blue eyes steadily drilling into hers.
"Oh," Arlene said, startled. She wasn't even at a wizarding school—she went to some prep school, and did weekend homeschool for magic on the side. Daddy's version of homeschool was moving the school to home—he made all the teachers of Gently's School of Holistic Theory (awful name, part of why she didn't want to actually go there) come to their house. Hogwarts sounded vaguely familiar, but she wasn't sure if it was because it ought to be familiar. She got a letter from some British school once, but at the time her knowledge of England was embodied by the tales of a schoolmate who had moved from London, who had only spoken ever about drab weather, tasteless food, and rather rude people speaking in Cockney. So, as a willful child who wanted to stay in sunshine, Arlene had cried her way out of whatever Daddy had suggested back then.
"I don't remember something of the sort," she professed, completely shameless. She had no time for the less important things in life.
"It's what the British likes to call it the finest establishment in the world, but they say that about all their facilities. It's been there since the 9th century though, in some castle."
A castle! An old castle! "And it's on the moors?"
"Somewhere uncivilized in any case," Daddy replied, "You'll be taking a train from London. King's Cross, platform nine and three quarters. The specifics are in a dossier on your bed, of which you won't read."
Arlene grinned cheekily; Daddy knew her well. "Nine and three quarters? How whimsical! When am I leaving?"
"Before the end of this month."
"So I don't have to worry about summer finals now," she responded cheerily. Or Orlando.
She had always wanted to visit the British Isles! Daddy didn't believe in vacations, and only sent her and Caius off to the Alps for their annual, obligatory stay at their cabin. Arlene wasn't terrible at skiing, but Caius was always better, so she absolutely hated it. The British Isles, though, were another thing altogether.
Her knowledge of the world had expanded drastically since eleven, and her idea of the British was no longer shaped by that awful, misleading boy back in fourth grade. The land was filled with pitter-pattering rain and cats, shepherd's pie and gentlemanly boys, musty bookstores and idiosyncratic hills, gnomes if one was lucky with a garden, and perhaps even a few benevolent fairies. It would be such an escape from recent banality that had settled over her life! Her life was privileged, she knew, but one got sick of so much sunlight after a while. She was sure Hogwarts would prove to be a wonderful land, full of dark-haired and fair-hearted knights, gallant and splendid, eyes and swords flashing, rolling like thunder and scattering their enemies like a lion to mice.
It would be glorious!
(Also Daddy took his empire-building ploys very seriously. To maintain a sense of progress in his business, he had to wring every last penny out of his glorious mind. Arlene didn't see why, since money was money, and they had plenty, but it was important to Daddy, so it was important to her.)
"I'll go start packing up right away," she declared, even though the end of summer was three weeks away. It usually took her at least a month to pack (and shop desperately once she realized she was missing all sort of things) properly.
Augustus looked upon his daughter fondly. Her quick acceptance and lack of questions touched a father's heart, and he felt as if he should do something for her. "Since you're going to be out of the house, you can finally get a pet, as long as you promise to take care of it. You won't have there. Just not a dog—dogs are so…" Frowning delicately in way exclusive to long-successful businessmen, Augustus mused before speaking, "doggish."
"Most certainly, they seem to define the very characteristic of doggishness!" Arlene agreed as she ran off.
-.-.-.-
We shall skip the part where Arlene was forced to pick out only twenty pairs of heels from her collection to take with her to London, and how she fervently made Ms. Clarkson the housekeeper promise the rest would be shipped out as soon as possible.
-.-.-.-
The plane ride was uneventful. She sat next to an aging businessman with slightly smelly feet, instead of any tall, dark stranger with a fascinating tale and a helpful hand with luggage. He fell asleep in the middle of A Streetcar Named Desire, which Arlene couldn't understand. The flight stewardess was miraculously strong though and took care of all her bags. Once again, she struggled between the comfort of first class and the missed opportunity of meeting some shy farm boy with ruddy cheeks and frightful eyes during his first flight. Arlene decided, as always, that she might bring up flying coach to Daddy the next time.
London, however, took her breath away. All these houses! So quaint and so dismally brownstone! It spoke of lonely curtains and a yellow fog that curled under the window certainly. As she looked out the car window, she found that there were fewer trench coats than she had anticipated.
Suddenly, in the middle of the most ordinary street, filled with ordinary (and therefore charming) English folk, the car braked. They stopped in front of a line of stores, mostly mom and pop shops of fish and chips. In in a small corner was an old, battered looking door with a swinging sign that said 'The Leaky Caldron' that swayed and creaked with some nonexistent wind.
"This is it, Miss," the chauffeur spoke in an adorable British accent.
"Thank you, Leon," she said to the chauffeur, "I'll have to go to that ice cream shop you recommend next time, and maybe bring your girlfriend too, I'm sure she's just as delightful as you are."
The chauffeur blushed, god bless him, and said, "You are too kind, Miss."
"Not at all," Arlene waved casually; she loved getting to know the lives of other people.
So, despite being surprised that she was supposed to step inside this grim looking tavern, Arlene nonetheless smoothed out her white-lace-sprawled sundress—London was already a crisp, autumn weather so early in September, and Arlene was excited to actually make use of her collection of coats. She had been dying to wear that new burnt-mustard-colored fleece-wool-blend military-inspired coat.
The interior was not any more impressive. The place looked like the concept art of a seedy bar in some movie. Arlene was disappointed by the crowd as well, as they treated her with more indifference than curiosity. She remembered what Daddy had told her painstakingly—at the back of the tavern, she must tap the bricks in a particular order to get into Diagon Alley. All the specificity made her feel like she was in some border ballad, and must perform seven Herculean trials to save the prince in distress, she thought gleefully.
She wouldn't say no to a prince, after all.
The bricks shifted and opened before her, showing cobblestone roads and a charming Amish Mennonites village aura. The wizards and witches—in robes!—were merrily walking about.
She went to Ollivanders to have her wand polished—the small, beady old man scared her a little with his throaty whisper and slow caresses of her wand. He went on about seeing the oddest combination of rowan wood and kelpie mane hair—it made very nice swishy noises but was rigid like nothing else, long for her height at eleven inches, and the kelpie hair wasn't used in modern wandlore anymore. But Arlene was not paying attention, distracted by the reflection of herself in the window, and then a passing pedestrian who had a striking side profile—what a nose he had! She then went to the clothing shop Twilfitt and Tatting's, coming out with a much lighter purse and a slight distaste for the elite class of the wizarding world. Apparently Americans were not suitable company for the Lestrange youths of society.
But of course, every protagonist needed a nemesis—or a whole social class of them.
To shake out the unpleasant surprise, Arlene went to the pet shop the Magical Menagerie after picking up a bag of sugarplums.
She was determined to get a cat. It was by far the most impractical pet—some would use the word 'useless'—for they had almost no magical properties like the fire crab, nor any utilitarian uses like the owl. Because of this, it was also the least common of all pets—if she could not get something grandiose, like, oh a golden phoenix, then a cuddly cat would do.
The pet store was stacked with cramped cages, beastly eyes on Arlene as she walked in. A large selection of rats and toads were in the store, and not as many cats, as suspected. Poor creatures, Arlene sighed as she silently mused, confined in dark, dank cages, at the mercy of someone else's whims. She was moved beyond words, and promptly forgot the emotion when she spotted the cat section in the back. Tucked in a corner was a flame Ragdoll kitten, looking very much like a fluffier version of a Siamese, cutely curled up. It nuzzled Arlene's hand when she tried to feed it a sugarplum, and Arlene immediately took the cage to the counter.
The counter was empty, with a 'Be Back Soon' card haphazardly thrown on the surface, but Arlene was happy to wait. A boy close to her age of nineteen was also waiting for the salesperson. There was something aesthetically pleasing about him: a slight, healthy tan on his thin face, an almost-feminine nose, and a headful of sandy brown hair in a curtained hairstyle so commonly seen back home since the emergence of the Backstreet Boys. Why, he looked like he would make a perfect Michael Darling in a Peter Pan movie, she thought. Arlene muffled a laugh as she thought of putting the wiry boy in large striped pajamas printed with cats. He would look good in them, she imagined.
The sound of her laughter gathered his attention, and he turned to smile bashfully at her. His eyes swirled like the milk and honey coloring of a cat's eye stone, and she imagined she could almost see herself suspended in the reflective ambers of his pupils (despite the dim lighting). A boy with those eyes could only be genteel and poetic; she took an immediate liking to him.
Arlene greeted him with a bright smile and went to set the cage on the desk. Getting no response and without a further conversation to fill the silence, Arlene lowered her head to dig in her bag for her wallet. She frowned as she looked inside and let out a long-suffering, dramatic sigh.
"Alright," the boy greeted in an endearing accent that she couldn't place, then asked, "Something the matter?"
"Afternoon," she heaved another sigh, "It seems that I have underestimated my spending powers, and so hadn't brought enough wizard gold."
"Gringotts is right around the corner," he offered, and after a moment's observation of her Muggle attire, "The bank, that is."
"But what if the kitten is taken when I'm gone?" She despaired, "It might take a while to sort through all the security and exchange stuff, and I have already pledged my love undying and solely to this one here!"
The boy smiled amusedly at her melodrama. "You can leave your cat with me—my friend asked me to help him get some stuff, so I need to wait until the owner gets back anyway."
Arlene felt her heart swell at his act of kindness. She could have just called her chauffeur to get some gold (although now that she thought about it, she suppose he couldn't get in Diagon Alley), but she would not turn down a nice gesture from such a nice Michael Darling. "Oh there is goodness in the world! The price tag is twelve galleons, and here," she flipped her wallet and let the contents pour out onto the desk, "I'll leave this here for when I'm off."
The boy stared at the table. More than a few credit cards have made a small heap on the surface, and he gave a wry smile. "Aren't you worried that I might make off with your 'deposit' here?"
"Nonsense, who would choose a few plastics over the eternal gratitude of a girl and her cat?"
He chuckled at her words, not understanding that Arlene had not meant it as a joke.
She then hurried to the bank and dealt with old-fashioned, wrinkly goblins who took half a century to get her money. When she rushed back, however, the boy was gone. There was a woman behind the counter now, who pointed to the cage and the cards on the counter and said, "Are you the customer who went to exchange money? The boy told me to reserve the cat for you. His friends came already."
"Oh," Arlene rearranged the leftover bills into her wallet, strangely disappointed. Perhaps she had been more earnest in her wish to put on a production of Peter Pan than she had originally thought. Oh well, Arlene resigned as she paid—she had lived through bigger disappointments.
.
No matter, some things are meant to happen.
What odd people—Remus thought as he was beckoned away by his mates—the American waters raised.
Note: 'he passes the nights singing like a solitary sparrow' is a line from Giovanni Verga's short story (Rustic Chivalry) that he turned into a play, which in turn was put to libertto and became the famous opera known as Cavalleria rusticana.