-IF YOU STAY WITH ME FOR EVER-
Chapter One
A Mother's Shadows
Everybody in Brentwood, England knew that the De Vil mansion was the oldest house to have been built upon the land. Locals and visitors respected the grand mansion like a town elder, and recognized the inhabitants like they recognized their own mayor.
Four little boys and a pretty girl lived in that house, along with their mother and father. Mr. De Vil was a broad, kind man with wrinkles around his eyes and muscular arms with which he could carry all his children at once. He worked downtown as the CEO of the first international exporting company, and the income it produced helped him as much as the locals, who adored him for it. Mrs. De Vil, his wife, was a weak looking woman with a strong personality and no sense of humor, but whose heart was in the right place, as her husband told everybody who asked about her.
Mrs. De Vil rarely left the house; she grew noticeably weaker and weaker with every passing year, and had barely enough energy to take care of her five children and the enormous mansion, which was left to her by her late parents. The house was huge and dark, the perfect place for a married couple of wizards to live. Mrs. De Vil's parents were too old to have children by the time Mrs. De Vil was born, but they loved their only child with all of their heart, and gave her everything she asked for. Except for the one thing they couldn't. Their daughter, who had always been thin and fragile, never got the only thing she was entitled to have by birth: magic. She was one of the few squibs in the west side of England, and she would never get used to that title.
When Mrs. De Vil was twenty-four, she married a handsome young muggle who loved her more than he loved anything else, and they lived happily ever after. She never once mentioned her magic heritage to her husband, secretly wishing her kids wouldn't turn out to be wizards when she wasn't one herself.
It was a sunny Tuesday when Mrs. De Vil's parents died on an armed mugging gone wrong. They were too young to die, said the obituaries, but nobody lamented their unfortunate death like Mrs. De Vil. The only thing that kept her sane after they were gone were her beautiful children and caring husband. The children grew up to become successful pioneers, businessmen and their only daughter, Cruella, grew up to be a wonderful fashion designer.
From a young age, her parents could tell Cruella was quite different from the rest of her brothers. Where her brothers were soft and kind, she was cold and mean. She got absolutely everything she wanted from her parents, and that never changed even as she grew older. Her words were meant to cut and her laugh could freeze even the warmest of people. But that didn't stop her from falling in love. She was almost thirty when it happened; the man was older than her and worked right across the street from where she had her first big fashion job. They shared cigarettes and a wicked sense of humor, and it wasn't long before they started dating. Cruella was so in love with this man, she failed to notice she had gotten pregnant within four months of their relationship, and it was way too late when she found out.
Cruella waited for him every morning just outside of the buildings they worked at, they'd buy coffee, have a cigarette and kiss goodbye in front of Cruella's office. It was a cold, rainy morning the first time he didn't show up, leaving an excited Cruella standing in the middle of the street with a hand on her tummy and no cigarette in sight. With every day he didn't show up, Cruella grew sadder and sadder, finally becoming bitter and cruel when she realized he had disappeared from her life.
The day her son was born, Cruella was already tired of him. She named him Carlos after one of her brothers, she wouldn't give herself a headache thinking of a name for the creature. Carlos was tiny and pretty and full of freckles, which, of course, Cruella hated. Back when she was dating Carlos' father, she had been working on what she thought would be her biggest success. Her newest design featured Dalmatians' fur on a big, splendorous coat with matching gloves and even a hat to bring the whole thing together. The project, however, was turned down as no one was keen on skinning dogs for coats, a decision that Cruella found ridiculous and infuriating. She tore all of her designs apart and trashed her whole office, wishing nothing else than to never, ever see a lousy, dirty Dalmatian dog in her life. What a surprise it would be to her to see those same spots on her son's face, a constant reminder that she had lost everything she had ever dreamed of at the same time. No husband, no big life-changing design and a kid she didn't even want to hold in her arms.
Later that same ugly summer, Cruella's oldest brother, Cecil lost his job due to a change in politics that left him, practically, on the streets. Mr. and Mrs De Vil, generous and kind as they were, left their beautiful house to their unfortunate son, buying a discrete little apartment downtown for themselves. Cruella, infuriated by this and thinking she was the one who deserved the family house more than any of her brothers, confronted her parents. But they didn't budge, and so Cruella stopped talking to them in the most definite of ways.
As the years passed by, Cruella saw her son growing up. She witnessed his first words, his first steps, his first stumbles and cries, but not a single one of those things made her heart feel any different towards him, and she always considered him more a little pest than anything else. But what could she do with him? He was a De Vil after all, and if she wanted to keep her good image in the fashion world, she couldn't just throw the kid away, and she wouldn't talk to her parents to give them the child even if her life depended on it; so she kept him, like you keep a stray dog, just waiting for the moment she could get rid of him without being frowned at. But, the years passed and Cruella found some other... uses for her oh so called son, something to get him occupied while she worked at her office downtown. She made him wipe her floors, wash her dishes and her car, and she came to the conclusion that this new arrangement wasn't half bad. What was better than having someone doing things for you for free because you were their owner? Carlos was hers, and every word she ever spit his way was just a new order or chore to do.
Thrilled by the realization that she could control this kid, she made him fear dogs, so he would never ask her for one. She made him fear her so he would never disobey her, and above all, she made him hate himself, because she wanted him to know how she felt about him, the one thing that truly ruined her life and turned it into this hell that she was forced to live in.
-o-
There weren't many thing little Carlos De Vil could be thankful for, except perhaps for the fact that he had a roof over his head and –sometimes– food on his plate, but in general everything in his life was gray and monotonous. Everything except for one little thing. On the summer of what he thought was his tenth or eleventh year, (neither he or Cruella remembered how old he was) he received several letters from the same remitter, something called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, addressed very specifically to him.
Luckily, his mother, Cruella De Vil, a renowned British fashion designer with one of the worst and most infamous temperaments of the world, didn't know yet about those letters since her son was the one who took the mail to her every morning. The first time he saw the letter, he found it absolutely weird to see his own name written on it, the thick paper and deep ink making it look so old, almost as if it were something out of a book, or even a joke. Carlos hid it underneath his shirt as he went to his mother's room to serve her breakfast in bed and deliver her mail, just as she liked it, hurriedly leaving after having set everything down so he could read the letter in the privacy of his tiny room.
But the contents of the letter made absolutely no sense to him, and he quickly dismissed it as a joke. The first thought that came to his mind was how his fifteen year old cousin Diego would bother him whenever they saw each other, making weird jokes about wizards and magic and something called a "squib". Carlos thought he must have been the one behind all this. Diego wasn't even that bad, he thought, he had his good side, but it wasn't a surprise that he picked on Carlos. After all, he was so tiny and skinny it was normal for kids at school to pick on him, and even Diego participated sometimes.
Sadly, Carlos was so used to this kind of treatment he had learned to overcome these circumstances with a little bit of sarcasm and a confidence that he didn't really have, so the next time he saw his cousin when Cruella's favorite brother visited her, he took the letter and approached Diego, crossing his arms as soon as he was in front of him.
"You are funny, Diego, but did you really think you could trick me with this?" He asked, a smirk on his face, thinking that he had finally beaten him in his own game "I'm a kid, but I'm not stupid," Diego, much to Carlos' surprise, just laughed.
"Yes, you are!" He said with the thick northern accent that he had, "I ain't wrote this, you think I would actually take the time to pull a prank like this on you?" He shook his head as he laughed on and on, and Carlos looked up at him with his eyebrows raised, not understanding anything.
"Wait… you– you didn't send this? Then who was it?" He asked.
"And who do you think it was, genius?" He whispered as he pointed at the signature in the letter. "It was from Hogwarts. God, I can't believe you are the smart one in the family. You've received several of these, have you not?"
Carlos looked at his cousin, perplexed. He was ready to use his signature sarcastic laugh and keep looking for the trickster who had sent him the letter, but something on the way Diego was looking at him made him think it twice. He was dead serious, not an ounce of humor in his face. Something deep within him asked him, begged him to believe what his cousin was saying. Perhaps, and only perhaps, he wasn't lying.
"Wait, so if you know about the letter, does this mean you received a Hogwar–" but he couldn't finish his question. Diego had put a hand on his mouth and dragged away from the others, stopping near Cruella's fur closet.
"You want your mother to find out?" He hissed, but then he opened his eyes widely and took a step back. "Please, tell me that aunt Cruella hasn't seen it," and Carlos could understand the fear in his voice.
"No, of course not," he replied, pushing him aside. "This is the first letter anyone has ever written to me, and even if I thought it was joke at first, I wasn't going to give it to my mother. And how is it possible that you know about this? Aren't you a even a little bit surprised that I am– that I might be a wizard?"
Diego couldn't help but to roll his eyes. "Oh, for– you are a wizard, period. And I am one too, dumbass, alright?"
Carlos pursed his lips together at the insult but said nothing about it. He was actually beginning to think again that this was all a prank, but he knew better. That look of fear in Diego's eyes when he thought that maybe his mother knew about the letter was real. Diego left with a nod after he convinced him that he was telling him the truth, and Carlos went straight to his own room to see the rest of the letter. He went to sleep that night with the letter wrapped in his hands, hoping and wishing with all his might that this could all be real.
-o-
It was no surprise that Cruella left her kid alone for days at a time to visit her favorite spa in London, and it was as much as a ritual for her as a rest for Carlos. Even though he was only ten or eleven years old, Carlos knew that his mother would never, ever love him, and that her fashion empire and her fur coats were much more important to her than her son. So every time she left for the spa and left him alone on their big country house, he felt at ease without the pressure of being her son on his shoulders, without nightmares of the huge closet in which she locked him up sometimes because he had done something wrong, or even just so he wouldn't bother her. He would take his sweet, sweet time cleaning the house as Cruella instructed him, and when he was done, he would relax on his room with his favorite thing in the whole world: his electronic inventions. However, he realized as he heard a knock on the door, things would go a bit different this weekend. He just didn't know how different.
The knock on the door was insistent, and Carlos murmured and cursed to himself as he went to open the door. As soon as he saw who was on the other side, his heart both leaped with joy and sank to his stomach.
"Diego?" Carlos exhaled before he was pushed inside by his cousin, who closed the door behind them once they were in the hall. "Wh– what on earth? What are you doing here?"
"I'm taking you to Diagon Alley, obviously," he said before he uninvitedly entered Carlos' room and started to make a mess. Carlos yelped and rushed in, finding Diego taking whatever he found on the floor and desk and putting it inside a bag that he didn't have with him a couple of seconds earlier. "Wow, she really doesn't give you much clothes, does she?" He asked, his hands still busy with Carlos' clothes and the bag.
Carlos felt his face burn from embarrassment and he took the bag out of his cousin's hands "Hey, you can't just storm in here and tell me you're going to take me to… to…"
"To Diagon Alley," Diego finished for him.
"Yeah, that. I can't go there! My mom would be furious."
Diego stopped what he was doing and turned to face Carlos, a smirk on his face.
"Did I happen to mention that Hogwarts is an ancient castle in Ireland, or Scotland or somewhere in between that nobody can see because there are like, a bunch of enchantments meant to conceal it?"
Carlos stared at him for a moment before handing him the bag back. "Show me some magic," he said, his chin up high and his eyes narrowed. "Prove to me that you're a wizard and I'll go with you."
"Ah, I thought you'd never ask, little one," and with that, Diego produced a large piece of gray paper from the back of his pants, as if he had prepared for Carlos' question with anticipation. "Now, I can't really show you any real magic because I already have, like, three warnings, but I have the next best thing."
Perhaps a little bit too eager to prove Carlos that he was right, Diego unfolded the paper and handed it to Carlos. It appeared to be a newspaper, with big bold letters at the top of the first page that read The Daily Prophet. Underneath the title, small issues were addressed like on any other newspaper copy. "Victor Krum to inaugurate this year's Quidditch World Cup. To get the details, turn to page 14." "News on dragon blood smugglers from the Middle East, see what the Arabian ambassador of magic have to say on the matter on page 10." His eyebrows raised in disbelief, Carlos shot Diego a look.
"Go on, keep reading," Diego urged him.
The first and biggest article talked about a new addition to something called the "International Statute of Secrecy" and even though Carlos did not get a thing the article said, he read on as if he were personally preoccupied about wizards being spotted wearing Chuddley Cannons' memorabilia in plain sight. Whatever that was. But when Carlos unfolded the paper to read the rest of the article, he practically jumped in surprise. There was a picture of a man walking down the street with a big cloak with a logo on the back, except it wasn't a picture at all. Pictures weren't supposed to move. The man kept on walking down the street with an unconcerned strut as the rest of the people in the picture stared at him.
Awestruck, Carlos turned to the next page to see what kind of technology could be creating such an illusion, but the paper sheet was as thin as any other newspaper's, perhaps even thinner. With his eyes wide open, Carlos turned to face Diego.
"How is this–"
"Magic," he cut him off with a hand movement. "Now that you believe me, close your mouth and help me pack the rest of your stuff," he said nonchalantly after putting the paper away.
Carlos had hundreds, thousands of questions, but he kept silent and made a mental note of asking him later, when he wasn't as exasperated. As he picked shirts and pants from the floor and stuffed them in a second bag Diego had given him, he thought about being far away from Cruella. She had never cared for him, why would she complained about not having him there? She would be happy that Carlos wasn't there to bother her all the time. Carlos liked the idea of leaving his house more and more with every passing second, and when they finally packed everything Carlos owned, Diego turned very serious.
"Carlos, listen to me. This is all brilliant, you going to Hogwarts and all, but you have no money. Now, I will lend you some so you can buy a couple of books and quills, but I need you to do something else."
Diego looked at him with such intensity, Carlos was kind of scared of what he might ask him to do. He gulped and nodded.
"I need you to go upstairs and steal something of Cruella's," Carlos was about to complain at this, but Diego talked louder, so he kept his mouth shut. "Listen to me, you won't make it any other way. So just steal some jewelry or something worth at least a couple hundred pounds, alright?"
For some reason, Carlos was on the verge of tears. He didn't fear anything or anyone as much as he feared his mother, and the thought of stealing from her made him incredibly nervous. But he understood what Diego was telling him, and realized there was probably no other way. So he let out a shaky sigh and weighed his options. Diego had proven to him that there was a… wizard community somewhere in the United Kingdom, so the thought of being a wizard himself wasn't that far fetched. Cruella would most likely be furious with him for leaving her without her permission, but what could he do to him if he wasn't around? And finally, he was so incredibly depressed in that huge, empty house he had grown tired of it all, and he was just eleven. Or ten. So, with tears in his big brown eyes, he went upstairs and into his mother's room.
Just as dark and as cold as his mother, Cruella's room made Carlos' hands tremble and his heart beat so quickly and so loudly he thought he'd have a heart attack right then and there. On the far end of the room, Cruella had a vanity full of perfumes, jewelry and make-up that probably represented her second favorite thing after her furs and fashion label. Feeling the pressure of the whole universe on his lithe shoulders, Carlos reached for a couple of the most expensive looking necklaces, having the irrational thought that Cruella might burst in at any given moment. When he had gathered a couple of necklaces and earrings, he put them all in his pocket and made his way downstairs, a couple of tears still fresh on his eyes. Diego was waiting for him at the door, bags ready.
"Attaboy," he said with a smile and a ruffle to Carlos' hair. "Let's bounce."
Story co-written by Alondra (Eilskasky/devilisimo. tumblr. com) and Joanna (ofjaylos. tumblr. com)
Our Beta reader: Talley (mrslvdiastilinski. tumblr. com) go check her stories as well
We also created a page for this fic so you can ask or send us anything: if-you-stay-with-me-for-ever. tumblr. com
