The Schism Revival

Volume III of the Fabula Post Bellum Saga

Chapter 1: Frederick, Frieda, and Flora

"Oi! James! You find it?"

"Gimme a second!"

His eyes scanned each shelf, starting with the first and working his way upward. Just when the sheer height of the small square stockroom threatened to make him dizzy, he found it – a small, red box on the sixth shelf up.

James glanced at the ladder nearby and gave a sigh. He'd never liked that ladder, and it was going to take a while to climb up there, retrieve the box, and climb back down.

He took his wand out of his back pocket. Dad would frown at that. But James had forgotten the sheath for his wand at home – well, less "forgotten" and more like "purposely left gathering dust on his dresser because he couldn't be bothered with it." He hadn't yet mastered how to call his wand to his hand from a short distance without actually grabbing hold of it, and until he could do that, the sheath was just one more thing between his needing the wand and actually grabbing it.

Strictly speaking, of course, James and other underage wizards weren't allowed to do magic outside of Hogwarts. But even his own mother admitted it was a rule primarily made for young wizards that had to leave Hogwarts and live with Muggle parents. The Statute of Secrecy was a big deal – when it actually applied.

But here, in the middle of Diagon Alley, which was a commercial district in London made by wizards, for wizards, that could only be accessed by wizards – there weren't really many secrets about magic. On-duty hit wizards – at least, according to James's best friend Richard Murphy, who had a grandfather and a father that had served and an uncle that was currently on the force – could still technically detain an underage wizard for performing magic outside of school if they saw the act being committed. In this tiny but impossibly high stock room, there were no hit wizards to catch him. (James cast a half-joking look over his shoulder just to make sure.)

James pointed the wand at the sixth shelf and aimed. The first thought that popped into his head was the Summoning Charm, which he had learned a couple of years ago. Then he remembered his first practice with the charm. The targeted object had come much too quickly, zoomed right through his grip, and hit a Slytherin girl in the forehead, resulting in the whole Slytherin half of the class glaring at him and thinking he had done it on purpose…

He lowered his wand, suddenly saddened, then shook his head, frustrated at his own sadness.

James Potter had spent the first several weeks after returning from Hogwarts in a lethargic funk. Most recently, his father had sent him here, to London, to stay with an aunt, uncle and cousins, help out at the shop, and "get his mind off things."

If only it were that easy, James thought. There were so many "things." When he'd last left Hogwarts, two of the four Houses were one more taunt or suspicious injury away from open war with each other. At least, that's what it felt like. Things had always been a bit tense – one could argue they had been 'a bit tense' for several centuries – but toward the end of the school year, something happened that had caused that tension to morph into outright hatred.

Neville Longbottom, one of the heroes of the last great Wizarding War, Head of Gryffindor House, and a personal friend of James's, was attacked and nearly murdered – by a Slytherin student. The student – in a small part because of James's own efforts – was stopped and apprehended. Understandably, this enraged many of the students in James's own House Gryffindor. James wasn't happy about it, either – but for different reasons.

The first problem was that the student that had been arrested for attacking Neville – a seventh year named Garrick Claudius – wasn't actually the guilty party. He had been set up – framed by another seventh year – and somehow also coerced into confessing the crime.

From the point of view of the authorities, it was an open-and-shut case.

As far as they saw, Claudius, who'd had run-ins with trouble earlier that term, lost control of his temper and assaulted a ranked authority in Hogwarts. Moreover, he'd used an Unforgivable Curse on someone who tried to stop him. Maybe expulsion from Hogwarts and a short stint in Azkaban – or even in the smaller, newer Ogden Ward in the main Ministry building in London – would have been the worst to happen to Claudius if that one curse hadn't been involved. But Unforgivable Curses were called as much for a reason – thus, Claudius could look forward to spending the rest of his days in an Azkaban cell…

…For a crime he had confessed to, but had not committed.

For what it was worth, which wasn't much, his father had told him that prisoners there were treated much more humanely than they had been when he was a young boy. Foul, demonic creatures called Dementors, he had said, used to guard the place as opposed to the wizards used today. They were probably his greatest fear growing up, and still were, to an extent. That gave James two good reasons to not want to meet a Dementor – ever. If the great Harry Potter was still afraid of them to this day, that was reason enough. But if he'd been more afraid of them, even back then, than he was of Voldemort himself… well, James hoped he never had the bad luck of running into one.

But Dementors or no Dementors – prison was still prison, and it was no place for an eighteen-year-old that had done absolutely nothing wrong but be the most believable suspect.

James didn't know Claudius personally, although he knew Claudius was no angel – he'd earned himself a term's worth of detentions with Neville in the first place by punching out a younger Gryffindor boy. Still, though – prison? Claudius might have deserved detention, but not prison. James wanted so badly to clear the poor bloke's name and get him out.

But the only chance for justice had disappeared.

Morris Beal was a youth in House Hufflepuff that had graduated that past spring. To most, he was an upstanding young man with an affinity for Defense Against the Dark Arts. But James knew that behind that façade lay a twisted, manipulative individual with a cause known only to himself. But the cause itself wasn't what made Beal dangerous; it was his willingness to do anything, to sacrifice anybody, to get there. James's thoughts turned to the young girl that had been cut off from her wizard peers. She, James thought, would have been starting her third year this coming September. James wondered what had happened to her.

"James!" A tall, tan boy with shoulder-length brown dreadlocks strode into the stock cellar. "You daydreaming again?"

"I found it," James replied, pointing up toward the red box on the sixth shelf, with his wand.

He grimaced.

"Well, go on," the dreadlocked boy said with a smile. "Get it down."

James couldn't exactly whip his wand out for everything here at the shop, but his Uncle George and Aunt Angelina weren't nearly as strict about the magic thing. They certainly weren't with their twin children, Freddy and Roxanne. James's twin cousins, both entering their sixth year at Hogwarts, were technically still a half year short of being of age with their January birthdays, but they helped their parents here at the shop (Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes – fair follies for your funny bone!). And most times, their help in easing the workload was worth the nominal risk.

James raised his wand and aimed it carefully. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Nothing.

James redoubled his grip.

Still nothing.

"What?" James snapped, looking at his wand, now furious at himself. He'd snuck a few tries at magic, and this wasn't the first time this had happened. "Damn it, that's so basic…"

"I've got it," Freddy said, tapping him on the shoulder. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The red box easily left its mooring on the sixth shelf and slowly started to hover downward.

CLANG.

The shop's doorbell rang. Freddy whipped around, almost like a trained puppy.

And Freddy's magic, which had been guiding the red box down slowly, gave way to the much less merciful pull of gravity. Freddy realized his mistake and turned back.

"Oh, shi—"

James raised his wand, and thought desperately, Please don't drop, Aunt Angelina's gonna murder us…

And somehow, almost as if in response to James's plea, the box stayed aloft. James guided it down…down… down…

Freddy snatched it from the air and James, with a sigh of relief, let the spell wane and lowered his wand.

Freddy was now staring at James with a look of confusion. "Did you just—"

CLANG.

Freddy gave a start and tore from the storeroom. James stared at his wand for a second and then followed his older cousin out to the lobby.

By the time James came close enough to the front door, he arrived to find Freddy wrapped very tightly around someone else.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" Freddy uttered as the person let him go. Because of the casual clothes, it took James a while to recognize her—

"Greta?" James uttered, ambling forward uncertainly.

"Oh – hi, James." Greta, who hadn't let go of Freddy completely yet, was beaming nearly as broadly as the day a few months ago when Gryffindor's Quidditch (which she had captained) team had won the Cup for the first time in several years. He had never seen her dressed down this much before. She was wearing a green shirt with faded gold trim that looked like she'd had it several years. James recognized the particular shades as being – or at least being close to – the colors of the Holyhead Harpies. Said shirt was also somewhat low cut, exposing rather more of her skin than James had certainly ever seen. Greta looked back at Freddy and said, "So I just got the owl…"

"You didn't," Freddy replied in an awed whisper.

"I did," Greta answered, smiling a smile a mile wide. "They've made me Head Girl."

"That's brilliant!" Freddy replied, looking like Christmas had come early. He turned around to look at James. "Right?"

James's emotions were mixed. "Yeah. Brilliant. Congrats." Hogwarts rules stated that the Head Boy and Girl, who were supposed to be impartial in their oversight of the student body, could not participate in house-based organizations like the Quidditch clubs. So this announcement, while it was great news for her and didn't come as a complete shock, meant Greta Stanford's time as a Gryffindor Chaser – and their captain – was done.

"So you just got the owl?" Freddy asked. "Why'd you come here first?"

Greta bit her lip.

"Because they told me who they'd picked to replace me as Quidditch Captain."

Freddy's jaw unhinged. So did James's.

"The owl should be along later…" she admitted. "I thought you'd like it better if you heard it straight from me."

Freddy was still in disbelief. "You're serious…?"

"Of course I'm serious," Greta said. "You think I'd come all the way here to lie about something like this?"

She put a hand on Freddy's arm. He was looking down, apparently too overcome with emotion to talk.

"I might have been Captain, but you were the heart and soul of our team last year," she said. "You're going to be great."

Freddy smiled. "You, too."

Greta's hand slid down to Freddy's own. And after an annoyingly long stare (to the point where James, standing in the background completely forgotten, thought, Get on with it already,) they kissed.

James, feeling younger than his fourteen years, stood there and stared for a moment – not like they cared or even remembered he was in the room anyway. Who had come up with that idea for a sign of affection? "I like you a lot. Let's mash our lips together." It was almost comical, really, the more James thought about it.

Another thought grabbed him by the throat suddenly, and a feeling of loss punched him in the gut – like the sensation of hunger, but much worse. Trying to choke down the awful lump, he turned his eyes away and walked back to the stock cellar.

The to-do list still wasn't finished yet, after all, and they opened in half an hour.

The morning had dawned a bit coolly.

Not for the first time that summer, she had been before everyone else (including the sun itself) to rising. This morning, though, was not like other mornings this summer. Last night, she had slept quite well. No night terrors, no sudden stabs of pain in the foredawn darkness. Just calm, sweet, restful sleep.

The wind kissed the curve of her cheek and the smooth of her pale shoulders and back. She always felt beautiful in this dress – the few times she ever got to wear it. She wasn't allowed to take it to school, though. A thirteen-year-old girl couldn't wear such things in the cold, cruel world outside, after all.

But this place was neither cold nor cruel. Here in Wales, tucked away from all people but the most desperate of wizards. It took something more than magic to make it here, and for many it took nothing less than having nowhere else to call home to want to stay.

She couldn't completely understand that.

Remote as it was, and as horrid the reasoning for being forced to call this place home, it was Eden. Some outside, who knew not the proper name, even called it Paradise. It did seem like a place that only those souls in the rest of death should have been able to enter and abide.

Maybe that was the thing she hated about it the most.

Maybe enough time had passed. Maybe the sins that had become so inextricably connected with her blood were forgotten enough that she and her loved one could venture into the outside world with no fear.

But where, then, would they go? The quaint bustle of wizarding Cardiff? No. Here seemed as good a place as any, for now.

And she would leave when the time came. But that time was not now. Not yet.

"Frieda. You're awake."

The girl winced almost as a reflex. Maybe her hatred of her given name was irrational, she thought. She had, after all, been named for a great-grandmother whom she had never met. But she liked her other name better. It was more her own, and she knew of no one in this or any other era that had it. So, 'outside', that was what everyone called her. Here, though, she was Frieda – little Frieda from the cottage at road's end.

She turned around.

The woman's hair was straight and not Frieda's own shade of red, although no less beautiful. Frieda was thankful her mother – God or gods rest her soul – had been born a twin. Growing up with her aunt meant Frieda would never forget her mother's face. Although her aunt, if asked, would have said that Frieda's mother had been much prettier.

"Are you alright?" the woman asked.

She nodded.

"No nightmares?" She shook her head. "Nothing hurting?" She shook her head again.

The woman smiled. "Things are finally starting to look up, then…"

"Maybe," the girl replied, turning around and gazing out over the balcony. They had a nice view here, across the sparkling pond and out to one of the few roads in the village. Frieda felt a hand on her back and tensed.

She jumped and halfheartedly swatted her aunt's arm away. Her aunt liked to tease her sometimes by running her fingers on her shoulders like the legs of a spider. Her aunt put a hand in her wild, curly, dark red hair, and she tried not to duck away. "Your mother would be proud of you."

The girl heard it probably once a day when she was home. It never quite got old, though.

"You look sad," her aunt said. "I mean… you feel good today, don't you? What's wrong?"

Her aunt knew all of her tells – all those little mannerisms and facial things she did if she was lying, or if something wasn't quite right. "I'm kind of ready to go back."

Her aunt gave a sigh. "I missed the castle sometimes, too. It was a nice place."

"It's not the castle so much," she admitted. "I mean… it's a pretty place, but it's cold. You know how much I hate the cold. I just… I guess I just miss my friends. Or one of them. We sort of… after… back in May…"

She grimaced.

"I think he blames himself for what happened," she reasoned sadly. "I just… I wish I could tell him it wasn't his fault."

"'Him'?" her aunt repeated. "There's a boy?"

"There's a lot of boys," she answered, trying to keep a straight face. "Hogwarts has a lot of boys, and a few of them are my friends."

"But none of them like this one," her aunt said, smiling knowingly.

She cringed, not meeting her aunt's eye. "Aunt Flora…"

"Don't think I haven't noticed," Flora answered. "It's not the first time you've talked about him. But you still haven't told me his name."

The red-haired girl sighed. "James."

"James….?"

"James Potter."

Flora began to laugh – not just a bit. A lot.

"You're making fun of me," the girl whined.

"So does James Potter get to call you Frieda?" Flora teased.

The girl's face grew very hot. "He calls me 'Brynne.' Like everyone else."

"But he's not like everyone else, is he?" Flora asked.

Brynne shook her head. "No."

Flora stroked her niece's head. "I can't say I'm shocked. Fate has a funny way of bringing things full circle."

"I almost don't want to," Brynne confessed. "I don't want to go somewhere just because someone said, 'Go there.' I want to go there because I want to go there."

"Do you not?" Flora asked.

Brynne blushed, and looked down.

"I always thought the first boy I liked would make me feel strange – like I had butterflies in my stomach. He'd make me not able to put sentences together and do stupid things like blush and giggle at everything."

"James doesn't make you feel that way?" Flora asked.

"…No," Brynne admitted. "It's… it's the opposite, really. I can be myself. Whatever I am, he lets me be that."

Flora smiled. "Then what's wrong?"

Brynne frowned. "It's too obvious. I mean… Harry Potter's the one that rescued me from my home and tracked down the people that murdered my parents. And now, it's his son… it's so predictable. It's like someone wrote a script for me and I'm just acting it out. I don't like that feeling."

At this, Flora put her hand on Brynne's head again. She guided the girl into a half-embrace on her shoulder, and kissed her forehead.

"Everything's not so easily tamed, Frieda," Flora said. "Some things, just by their nature, can't be controlled. But just because it's wild doesn't mean it's bad. You of all people should know that. You were as wild as anyone – you'd leave here early in the morning and be gone for hours. You'd come back home with all types of strange stories. You had leaves in your hair and dirt on your dress – and that's if there was any dress left. I must have given half the gold I ever earned to the seamstress. And sometimes, when the weather got hot, I'd catch you swimming in this pond with nothing more than what you were born in—"

"I only did that once!" Brynne exclaimed, an embarrassed blush creeping over her face. Flora gave her a knowing smile, and Brynne's defiant scowl flagged. "…or twice. A summer… a few summers in a row…"

"People always asked why I didn't do a better job controlling you," Flora recounted. "After that incident with the wolf, Madam Moira even tried to have you taken from me…"

"I'm glad you didn't give me up," Brynne replied seriously. She didn't think Moira Beal, the blonde, weathered-looking matron at the hamlet's orphanage was a bad sort. Some of her orphanage children, though, were trouble. One in particular.

"I am, too," Flora replied. "Although, when I was young – still only a girl myself, really – I thought about it, once or twice. Not because I didn't care about you. The opposite, really. I thought you'd be happier, safer…"

"You never wanted anything for yourself?" Brynne asked, surprised to hear the crack in her own voice, and to find that her eyes were suddenly wet. "I know you gave up a lot for me. It doesn't seem…fair."

"Why do you think I'm not happy?" Flora questioned.

"…You didn't want to get married?" Brynne asked.

"'Want' didn't have much to do with it," Flora answered. "It's always about options. Our parents – your grandparents, I mean… they were… well, the Carrow family is – or was – part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Our father didn't really hate wizards that weren't pureblood…. He was proud of being it himself, though. Your mum and I were sort of indifferent, really… but our parents didn't want us dating when we were in school. They said they wanted us to keep focus on our studies, but I think they were really more worried about us mixing with boys that they weren't sure were completely pureblooded. Naturally, the first thing your mother did after we left school was fall in love with a Muggle boy from Swansea." Flora laughed fondly. "Our parents… well, you saw the photograph. Probably one of the more awkward wedding pictures ever taken. They forced your grandfather into a Muggle suit. He wore it well, but he wasn't happy about it in the least bit."

Brynne laughed.

"You could've gotten married, too, right?" she asked. "Even before you took me in, you had, what… six or seven years?"

"I don't know, it was…" Flora sighed. "I was scared of it when I was young. And then you came along and… well, it's hard to get a man's attention when you're raising a baby. Scares a lot of them off. Tia never warned me about that part."

"Well…" Brynne said carefully. "I'm not a baby anymore."

Flora smiled. "I thought you were supposed to be talking to me about your boy troubles."

Brynne looked down.

"You're afraid, aren't you?" Flora asked. Brynne, taken aback, looked up at her. "You've got to be. To do or feel things halfway… it's never been in your nature. And this is a very, very big thing to feel for the first time. You must be terrified."

Brynne stared out at the pond thoughtfully, her eyes now following an oddly shaped bird struggling to stay aloft. That was her at the moment, she supposed. Not quite right, maybe even a bit broken – but trying to fly nonetheless.

It took a couple of seconds – mostly because Brynne didn't want to believe it – for her to realize that the 'flying' bird was actually falling, and that it was not a 'bird', but something else entirely.

"What's that?" Brynne asked, pointing at the falling… thing.

Flora looked at it for a moment. Her face fell into an expression of grave concern.

"Follow me," she said. "Now."

She and her aunt both ran (and that was no exaggeration) toward the road on the other side of the pond, and what Brynne saw when they got there almost made her heart stop for a moment.

She only had a working knowledge of body parts. However, she knew more than enough about them to know that human beings only had one knee for each leg. Yet the crumpled mass of man lying in the road had two very obvious bends in his left leg. Not far away were the remnants of a broom, which had exploded into a jumble of twigs and straw, scattered across dirt and grass. From what Brynne could tell of what little was left, the broom had been quite old; that the ground had finished it off was no surprise at all.

"Uncle Flynn!"

A boy scrabbled over to the broken man and started shaking him by the shoulder. He had a mass of sandy hair down to his neck that recalled the developing mane of a young lion. At an angle, Brynne could also see that he was wearing a pair of spectacles that were severely askew, barely hanging on his face.

"Uncle Flynn!" the boy snapped again.

"Don't try to move him," Flora warned. A second later, moving the man proved to be quite unnecessary. He seemed to revive in an instant with a grunt, and in the next instant his body seemed to realize that his leg was broken. He banged the dirt with his fist, snarling some words into it that are best left unquoted.

"Uncle Flynn?" the boy's tone, no longer panicked, queried.

The man found strength to get his mouth out of the dirt and turn his head. "Well… bollocksed that up, didn't we? You look decent enough."

The boy stood up. "Where are we?"

"This is Morgana's Orchard," Flora announced.

"Well, I'll be damned," the man, apparently called Flynn, chuckled painfully. "It is a real place."

"Your leg's broken. Badly," Flora said, frowning.

"Ah." Flynn didn't seem too put out by this. "Explains the stabbing pain in my shin. Think you could get me some help? You lot got a Healer around here?"

"Me, when there's a need for one," Flora explained. Flynn started to laugh.

"See?" he choked to the boy. "Told you. 'Born Lester' means 'born lucky.'"

And then he passed out.

Flora tweaked her lips in thought. "Frieda, stay here. I'm going to go home and see if I can find something to set that leg before we try moving him."

And, with a pop, she was gone. The sandy-haired boy knelt by his uncle for a moment, and shook his head. "All this for two hundred effing Galleons…"

He stood and, finally, turned to look at Brynne.

Her jaw unhinged. His did, too.

"You're Rowan," Brynne finally uttered, once she got over her shock. "Rowan Lester."

Rowan Lester was a Gryffindor boy in Brynne's year at Hogwarts. They had never been close or talked much to each other because of that. They'd really had only one conversation at length; it was during their first year. Rowan's remaining family – or so he'd thought – had died in an awful accident. Brynne had suggested that since Rowan's father had been a wizard (which he only found out weeks before arriving at Hogwarts), there might have been some wizard relatives out there that Rowan didn't know about.

Obviously, she had turned out to be right.

That was over a year ago now.

Rowan Lester was a picture of change and transition – moreso, even, than most thirteen-year-olds. There was still a shadow of the staid, public-schooled Muggle boy that had once been his existence. He had grown taller, but looked to be the same weight, giving the appearance that someone had simply stretched him out. His facial features – once you got past the glasses – were handsome, but in the childish way that a very young boy dressed in a suit could be described as 'handsome.'

Rowan recognized her, but didn't speak immediately. He looked away, a bit frustrated with himself. "I'm sorry. I should remember your name, but…"

"Brynne," she replied.

Rowan nodded.

"Brynne," he repeated. "Can't believe I forgot that."

"It's fine," Brynne reassured him. Glancing at Flynn, she commented. "You've obviously had a rough morning. Are you alright?"

"Somehow," Rowan sighed, glancing at the remains of the broken broomstick that had borne them here. "I was always pants at flying, but somehow I managed to get us out of Cardiff…"

Brynne wasn't even going to ask why Rowan and his uncle had been forced to escape Cardiff so quickly.

That was the unspoken rule in Morgana's Orchard if someone arrived hurt or broken, after all. The 'why' of it all wasn't as important as making them whole again.

Not nearly.