Peroxide for the Wound
Part Two
Subtitled: It's Easy to Be Surprised with Both Your Eyes Sewn Closed
Quote: He not busy being born is busy dying.
Bob Dylan (1941 - )
A/N – Please review with any helpful suggestions or thoughts. The Subtitles all belong to Dashboard Confessionals, and everything else is JK Rowlings.
Isabelle was allowed to finish the year out at Salem Day School for Witches, but a week after school had ended, an agent from child services arrived to say the Mr. Lupin was expecting her any time. Isabelle had never unpacked most of her things when she moved in with the Tralias and so Mrs. Tralia had her things shipped to his house. Isabelle had hoped she could floo to her 'dad's' house but the floo network wasn't international so she was forced to travel the muggle way.
The morning of her flight dawned sunny and beautiful. She couldn't sleep, a problem that often afflicted her of late, and so she found herself on the Tralia's porch at dawn, watching the sunrise. Isabelle had always been a loud, vivacious girl but she had in a single second aged many years and was now pensive, careful, and thoughtful. She was once impulsive and firery but now there was a careful dullness in her as though she was afraid to court death through the very strength of her life.
After that day in Ms. Bloom's office, she didn't put up a fight about moving to England. She didn't put up a fight about being torn from the only life she'd ever known. She didn't even put up a fight about having to live with a man who claimed to be her father and yet had never sent a birthday card, Christmas gift, or even post card. She'd lost her will to fight.
At night, when she was asleep, was the only time she truly came alive. She was tormented by horrible images and feelings the threatened to overflow. She'd awake in a cold sweat, shivering despite the summer heat that threatened to suffocate her if her own thoughts didn't smother her first.
She simply stopped sleeping.
On this particularly morning, Isabelle sat cross legged on a huge wicker chair on the porch, a hot chocolate in hand, staring doe-eyed and melancholy at the reds and pinks that filled the sky
"Isabelle!" Mrs. Tralia said in surprise as she opened the screen door. "What are you doing out here? I just went upstairs to wake you. We have to leave for the airport in about a half an hour."
Isabelle nodded. "Couldn't sleep." She said simply, looking back to the sky.
"Well that's probably for the best. You'll sleep all the way to London this way." Mrs. Tralia said brightly and began to close the screen door. "Come in pretty soon and we'll start to pack the car."
Isabelle nodded. "Alright." She said and as she watched the beautiful colors slowly fading into a uniform blue, all she could think was how funny it was that the sunrise could be the end of something as much as it could be the beginning.
Heathrow was the mot depressing airport Isabelle had ever seen. It had none of the huge, windowed corridors that were present at Ohare and JFK. She was funneled down a windowless hallway with all the other incoming international flight passengers. They came to a huge room where Isabelle waited in line for over an hour to have her passport checked. By the time she got through, her luggage was waiting in the next room. A cavern of a room, Isabelle had to fight her way through the sea of families and people rushing about. Her ears were assaulted with dozens of foreign tongues and accents.
Once she had gathered her baggage, she took a cab to Kings Cross railroad station, as she had been told to, and proceeded to Platform 9 ¾. She walked through platforms 9 and 10 as she was instructed to and boarded the Hogsmeade Express for the last leg of her journey.
"Now Mr. Lupin will be at the station to meet you." Mrs. Tralia had said when they had said their good-byes over ten hours ago. Isabelle hoped they never reached the station. The sun was beginning to set as she sat alone in the compartment. She shivered as the countryside stretched endlessly in front of her.
Somehow the prospect of moving two thousand miles away hadn't seemed quite as daunting when Isabelle had sat in the sunshine with those she knew well. Now, alone, in a foreign country with darkness falling, she wondered how only weeks before she had been sitting with her parents, eating dinner and laughing. She half-expected herself to tear up at these memories, but no response came. She hadn't cried in weeks. She didn't expect that she ever would again.
The platform seemed empty as the train pulled to a stop with a jerk. Isabelle grabbed her bags and made for the door just as they began to open. She closed her eyes and took one last deep breath to steady herself before she stepped out onto the dark platform. She looked around her and at first she didn't see anyone. Finally, in the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a man, leaning against the wall. He looked a little ragged though and she looked around frantically to see if there was anyone else. The two of them were literally alone on the platform. She stood there awkwardly for a moment, as she tried desperately to work out the situation. Of all the ways she had pictured her father, this was not it. She couldn't make out his features in the filtered half-light from the street lights, but his robes were worn out and his hair looked as though it hadn't been washed in ages. Finally he stepped forward.
"Isabelle?" he asked, stepping fully into the light. His voice was rich and full and as her eyes fully began to adjust she took in his appearance. Besides looking a little tired, he wasn't a monster. His sandy blond hair was tussled and he large gray eyes that were framed with terrible circles. She found herself wondering if he had nightmares too.
Isabelle nodded mutely.
"Let me take that." He said. She handed him her bag, never taking her eyes off of him. That nose, she knew that nose and that chin too. A strange thrill started to fill her. For a brief instant Isabelle began to hope, a feeling as strange to her in recent days as happiness.
But then he turned away and the moment was gone. She felt worse than she did before, because for a brief moment she had hoped and now, as they walked into the station to floo to his house, she was filled with the overwhelming reality of the situation: she was alone in a foreign country, living with a stranger she vaguely resembled, and nothing was going to be the same again, ever.
"You must be exhausted." Remus said as Isabelle stepped from the fireplace, filthy with ashes.
She nodded and took in her surroundings. She stood in a rather simple and small kitchen. He watched her wandering gaze and shrugged. "It's not much, but it's clean and it's home."
Isabelle nodded again, at a complete loss for words. They stood there for a moment in awkward silence.
"Well," Remus said and clapped his hands together. "Let me show you around." He gathered her things in a business like manor and proceeded to show her around the small, but comfortable cottage. They came to a cozy room with two small sofas, a fireplace and shelves filled with books. "This is the living room." He said and gestured about him and kept walking into a hallway lined with faded yellow paper and tired looked wizards waving sleepily from crooked frames. In the hall way there was a staircase on the left, two doorways on the right and one door way at the end of the hall that led to the outside and seemed to be a back door. He opened the first door on the right. "Bathroom." He said, closing it quickly and moving on to the second door. "This is my study." He said without opening the door, touching the doorknob gently. "You are not to go in here without my express permission. This is very important. Do you understand Isabelle?"
She nodded, her tired mind trying to figure out exactly what was so important in there that she wasn't supposed to see. For a second, the thought of him being a dark wizard passed through her mind but as she watched him walk slowly up the stairs she dismissed it as ridiculous. There was something strange about this man, to be sure, but he wasn't evil.
At the top of the stairs they reached a landing with three doors: one directly in front of them, one on the direct left and one on the direct right. "This middle one is the bathroom. You may go ahead and make room for all of your things." He said and pushed open the door to reveal a small and sparsely decorated bathroom. "This room, here," he said as he pushed open the door on the right. "Will be your room." Isabelle walked into the room cautiously. It was easily the nicest in the entire house. A large fire was crackling in the fire place and a large bed with a blue canopy was on the wall opposite it. The wall opposite the door had large bay windows with a window seat and the closet was next to the fireplace. All her boxes were stacked in front of the bed. "I hope it's alright." He said nervously as he hovered in the doorway. "I don't really know what girls like but my friend Adelle said the windows would be a good idea and she picked out the bed too."
Isabelle stared about her in amazement. "Wait you mean this wasn't here before?" She asked, finding her voice.
He shook his head. "I didn't have another bedroom, so when I found out you were coming, I added this."
Isabelle just shook her head.
"I know it's really plain, but we have to go to London day after tomorrow and I thought you could get what you needed then. Adelle or maybe Mrs. Weasley could help you and– "
"It's wonderful." Isabelle said quickly, a small smile lighting her face for the first time in weeks.
A smile began to grow, transforming his tired haggard face. "Really?"
She nodded. "Really."
He grinned, they stood there for a moment in silence. "I'll just let you get some sleep, then." He said and slowly backed out of the room. "Good night." He said and shut the door.
"Goodnight." Isabelle whispered.
