Author's Notes:
Much like the first chapter, this will be hopping around in time. The dates will guide you.
24 December 1980
"Dusha moya." A whisper in a noisy dream. "S rozhdestvom."
Lights flashed in angry hues of reds and greens. Screams tore through the night, dissolving into sobs beneath the roar of fire. So much fire. White snow turned red. Red dissolved to green. Green flashes. The night painted in green as a skull formed in the sky, a snake protruding from its laughing mouth.
"It's time to wake up, now. I've something to show you."
Gideon's body lay next to his twin's, his eyes still open, glossy and devoid of that spark that was once there. The flashes of green become consuming and I kneel down beside him - my stomach knots, panic rises through my body in searing waves. He saw me. He saw through the mask, into my soul. He knew it was me. He knew it. He hesitated, distracted, wondering why the hell I was there to begin with. He saw me and now he's dead.
"You're having a nightmare. It's only a dream."
It was a memory. Not just a fabrication of a terrified mind. It happened. It's still happening. Sobs escape me in gasping, heaving breaths.
And then there are arms around me, pulling me away. I want to stay. I want to mourn and to hell with the consequence. I don't fight, though. I let Igor lead me away, stealing to safety in the midst of the Death Eater's triumph. They won't notice we're missing.
"Wake up."
My eyes snapped open. Drenched in my own sweat and my heart threatening to break through my chest, I found myself clinging to Igor, who patiently stroked my hair, willing away the dreams like he always did. Inhaling, I could feel my body begin to relax, his familiar scent lulling back from my panic. The musky smoke from the fireplace, the faint hint of spice from his aftershave, the lingering alcohol, and the warmth. Unfamiliar pine assaulted my senses but I was too comfortable to question it.
"Happy Christmas, little mouse." His voice was still a whisper, hoarse with fatigue. I wondered if he'd slept at all.
I kept closed my eyes again, refusing to let go even when he began to pull back. " 'S'not Christmas yet," I protested, wanting nothing more than to fall back to sleep in his arms.
Laughing, he finally managed to pull away from. "Come and see," he said. "We don't have much time."
The bed rose as he moved away from it, leaving me behind in his room.
Groaning, I groggily fished for my robe on the floor, thoroughly confused by what he was up to this time.
08 August 1978
I promised my mother for what seemed like the hundredth time that yes, I would be fine on my own and no, I didn't need anything else. Even as I ushered her out of the door I swore on my life that if I ever needed anything that I would tell her immediately.
She stood in my doorway, with those big, watery eyes and trembling jaw, making me wish that I'd never decided to move out in the first place. "There'll always be room for you back home," she said, sniffling, "should you ever need to come back."
We hugged. It'd been forever since we'd hugged, the last being when dad had died, just after the funeral.
"I know," I said, once she let me go.
It wasn't until the door closed that I truly felt the full impact of what letting me go meant.
I was alone. In London. By myself.
No Professors or Mum around to keep me safe. Only the other hand, no Professors or Mum around to enforce pointless rules.
With no furniture. Or dishes. Or toilet paper.
The money my father had left behind was to be used for the first few months of rent and a few groceries. I didn't need electricity; I was of age now and at least capable of lighting and heating my home. The only furniture I owned was from my room at home, currently piled in the bedroom here, which left me standing in the starkness of the empty whitewashed flat.
With my only passing N.E.W.T. being in Defense Against the Dark Arts - not that I took that many to begin with - my options were limited. Though, with any luck, my O in potions and E in Herbology from the O.W.L.s might land me a job down at the Apothecary in Diagon Alley. Maybe.
I needed a job.
I climbed over the piles of empty boxes I'd been tossing out of my room in an unorganized display of unpacking., tripping a few times before I made it even halfway to the door. Luckily, Greta had no qualms about letting herself in when I hadn't made it to the door in over 30 seconds.
She was carrying two large boxes of pizza, grinning broadly with Gideon following closely behind, his favorite Muggle beer held up in the air as if it were some kind of trophy. Their expressions slowly dropped as they began inspecting the new flat.
"Wow," said Gideon, "it's very..."
"Small?" Greta offered.
His eyes shot to her and he stiffly tilted his head to the side in silent code, but I was well aware of what that look meant. It was the 'Be nice!' look that Gideon had been giving either of us since we were thirteen. "It's cozy."
Greta snorted. "Sure." She maneuvered around the pile of boxes and into the small kitchen. "Where's your table?"
I huffed, grabbing one of the large boxes from amidst the pile. "You know, I might've been able to afford a bigger flat if one of you had agreed to move in with me," I snapped, sending them both an accusatory glare.
Gideon and Fabian had found a flat last month after having been accepted into the Auror training program under the renowned Alastor Moody, and Greta was leaving for Spain in a week for a year's apprenticeship with Sergio Martin, a famous wandmaker.
I dropped the box in the middle of the floor and rested my hands on my hips. "There. One table."
With a sigh, Gideon flourished his wand, transfiguring the box into an actual table - albeit a small one, roughly the same size as the as the cardboard structure. "Really, Grace?" He set the case down on the newly made surface with a wink.
None of us were going to address it out loud but, as we fell into an unfamiliar silence, this was going to be one of the last times the three of us would be spending time together for a long while. With Greta leaving and Gideon in training, they were well on their way to starting their new lives. As I'd expected, the three of us wouldn't quite fit together in this plan.
We'd say we'd write each other and, at first, we would. Then the letters would slowly become more sparse and eventually stop altogether with the exception of the chance holiday card. Maybe years from now, I'd run into Gideon or Greta on the street or in a shop and we'd hug and tell the other that they looked good and ask how they were doing with all of the social niceties of old acquaintances.
But we would have tonight. And pizza. And beer.
I forced a grin despite the twist of my gut telling me to hug them, sobbing, and refuse to let them live their lives. "Did you get black olives?" I peeked under the lid of the pizza box.
Laughing, Greta said, "Duh" and popped the first cap of many of the night.
15 September 1978
I laid my head on the sticky bar top, exhausted and entirely uncaring of whatever semi-liquid my arm was lying in. Working in the mornings and early afternoons as a housekeeper for the Leaky Cauldron and spending my nights in an unpaid internship for the Apothecary (because evidently, N.E.W.T. level test scores were a must to start as in a paid apprenticeship) was killing me.
Death Eater attacks on Muggle-borns were becoming more frequent and Voldemort's supporters were rising dramatically in number. The world was in turmoil and I'd stopped reading the newspapers months ago if it hadn't been for Gideon's sudden break of contact. I scoured the Prophet every morning, praying not to see his name amongst the dead or missing. Greta hadn't heard from him either, not that she had the time to write that often, either.
So, the old, noisy pub at the ass-end of Diagon Alley was the perfect place to spend a Friday evening alone.
At least they had whiskey, my newest best mate.
From beside me, the barstool creaked beneath the weight of someone encroaching on my alone time with my alcohol. I peeked over my arm, finding a face that I recognized immediately from the Daily Prophet back in school.
Igor Karkaroff, who was, if there was any truth in what Snape had said in June, a Death Eater was sitting beside. Looking at me.
Dread filled me, my palms and face almost immediately feeling clamming as my heart attempted to make a break for it, hammering loudly in my chest. Stiffly, I slowly sat upright, dragging my glass to me as a distraction. Maybe if I acted as if I didn't notice his presence, he'd leave me alone. Maybe he'd thought I was dead and just came to check on me, and now that I was moving, he'd go away.
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, finding his eyes still on me and I took a long drink from the glass.
I was going to die.
That's all there was to it. I'd gone to a pub and a Death Eater sat beside me, and now I was going to die.
"It is an awful shame to drink alone," he said, in a voice that was both dark and soft - something ebbing on the brink of dangerous and as smooth as the whiskey was going down.
I turned toward him, without thinking, immediately captured in the intensity of his gaze. His eyes, a coppery amber whose richly-colored burnish made even the cognac in his hand pale by comparison, locked with mine igniting a tension that made my panic amplify. A nervous laugh escaped my lips as I finished the rest of my drink.
"I was actually just leaving," I said, keeping my voice as even as possible while making a show of pushing my coins along the bar with one hand so I could place my other inconspicuously on my wand. Though surely, my logical voice said, finally coming out of hiding, a single Death Eater wouldn't make a scene in such a public place.
He grinned, nodding politely as I began to stand. "That too bad. I was drinking alone tonight, too."
Standing there as the man turned his back to me, I couldn't decide if it was the tug disappointment that he wasn't looking at me anymore, the extreme loneliness of the past month, or the extra bit of whiskey in my system that made me wanted to stay. Maybe it was a combination of the three.
Whatever 'it' was, it caused me to sit back down again. "Maybe I'll stay for one more," I said. Afterall, if he was going to stalk me out of the pub to kill me, I would prefer to be just a little drunker than I was.
18 September 1978
I frowned as I inspected the mess on my kitchen floor. I'd set my coffee mug on the table that Gideon had transfigured for me, only to send the thing toppling over in a splintering catastrophic pile. With my wand still tucked away beneath my pillow - where I typically placed it during my paranoid drifting to sleep and forgot just about every morning once the sun had risen to chase the shadows away - I decided the mess could wait.
I was due to work in a half hour and desperately needed coffee. And probably a shower.
Just as I picked up the carafe from its burner, someone knocked at the door. With a longing glance towards the earthy-smelling liquid, I set the glass pot back down, padding along the cold floor as another, more urgent series of knocks were pounded into my door.
"I'm coming!" Agitation unintentionally found its way into my voice and I pulled the door open. Then, I froze.
Alastor Moody - the Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody: badass Auror - was standing at my door alongside Sirius Black, the wanker, and Caradoc Dearborn, who'd been three years ahead of me in school.
My mouth dropped open as an icy realization washed over me: something had happened to Gideon. However, before I had time to truly register what was happening, a wand was in my face and my world turned black.
The whooshing sound in my ears gave way to the muffled sound of talking, slow and garbled. Angry hisses of words, impatient stomping, slamming doors.
I blinked, bringing into focus a small sitting room that I couldn't recognize. Dark and dusty.
A face was before me suddenly, Moody again, mouth moving but his words were distant and distorted as if I was underwater. Shaking my head to try to focus made his brow drop low and angry.
A hand on his shoulder and then a wand was in front of me again.
Another whoosh and a low-pitched screech.
I blinked.
"Watercrest," Black said, his wand still pointed at me.
Glaring, I glanced back at Moody, who was still watching me sternly, that enchanted eye rolling to the side once before narrowing in on me again.
"Is it Gideon?" It was the first thing I could think of, though my throat was dry and my voice was scratchy. Had I fainted? "Is he alright?"
Black's expression softened a bit and he lowered his wand, though Mad-Eye thought nothing about lowering his.
"What association do you have with Igor Karkaroff?" Moody snapped, drawing closer to the chair in which I was seated.
I squinted and attempted to move my hands, only to find them bound to the arms of the chair. "K-Karkaroff?" I repeated, growing rapidly more nervous. Something definitely wasn't right.
"You were spotted at the Intemperate Imp last Friday night in the company of Igor Karkaroff." Black's wand was at his side now, lowered entirely as he eyed me, a curious look crossing his features.
"A known Death Eater." Moody spat.
Oh.
15 September 1978
"What's your name?" Karkaroff asked, less-than-casually.
I missed the hidden agenda at first, something else I blame on the alcohol. In hindsight, with the speculation that he was a Death Eater and everything their cause stood for, I really should have known his motive behind his asking. He was essentially asking me if I was a Pureblood. "Gracelyn Watercrest."
"Watercrest?" His smirk slid from his face, turning impassive. "I'm unfamiliar with the name."
"My father was a Muggle."
He was silent for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
Growing uncomfortable in the silence, I continued, reaching for anything to move the conversation along. "And my mother was a MacDougal."
"A half-blood, then."
There was something accusatory about his tone that made my stomach fall. It wasn't that I hadn't heard it before - belonging to a House dominated by influential Pureblood families had brought that to my attention - but the statement always held an underlying jab to my inferiority. My father had been a Muggle but he was a very good man.
"That's right," I said, flatly, reaching for my drink for backup.
He continued to study me for a few more moments as if I were some kind of experimental creature that had fallen from the sky before a grin reformed on his face. "My father was a bastard, vechnaya pamyat." He tipped his glass toward mine, clinking them together. "Vashe zrodovye! Let's drink to better fathers." He winked at me before downing the amber liquid.
"Vasha z'drovovia," I echoed uncomfortably, entirely sure I'd butchered the pronunciation. A pang of guilt for my otherwise normal parents struck me, so I drowned it in whiskey. Arguing about what he considered 'good parentage' was not going to end in my favor.
He nodded, that same handsome smile lighting his features as before. "We'll be getting along just fine, little half-blooded MacDougal," he said.
18 September 1978
"He sat next to me at the pub," I said. "We had a drink!"
"Do you make a habit of drinking with Death Eaters?" Moody asked.
I groaned, struggling in my chair. "The Prophet said that that was disproven." The words felt strange on my tongue, but lying always did, even if it was by omission of information.
Moody pointed behind him, the enchanted eye rolling back in his head while the other remained fixated on me. "Black, the veritaserum in the case. She'll tell us what she knows."
Veritaserum? I choked in surprise. What exactly did they think I knew? The conversation that night had revolved around Karkaroff's years at Durmstrang in Scandinavia and my interest in the local Apothecary. It's not as if there had been plans made to burn down Muggle neighborhoods or anything remotely related to Death Eater business, whatever that entailed.
Black didn't argue, dutifully rifling through Moody's trunk for the small vial.
I opened my mouth to protest and the door to the small room swung open with a bang. A familiar redhead entered, his face drawn out and pale.
"Gideon?" I asked, unbelievably relieved to see my friend.
"I thought I told you to keep him out of this?" Moody asked as Dearborn as he followed Gideon through the door.
Dearborn held his hands up defensively. "I tried."
"Tried? Doesn't look like you tried all that much!"
Gideon gestured to me, keeping his gaze on Moody. "What are you doing? And why are we at Black's flat?"
"Couldn't very well give away Headquarters, could we?" Black said.
"Perhaps some explanations are in order." A calm, greying wizard in blue and yellow robes entered the room, bringing the beginning of whatever argument that was about to happen to an abrupt halt.
If I hadn't been already extremely confused, I certainly was now. "Professor Dumbledore?"
End Notes:
Translations:
Dusha moya - "my soul"; a term of endearment
S rozhdestvom - "Happy Christmas"
vechanya pamyat - "eternal memory"; attribution to a funeral
vashe zrodovye - "to your health"; cheers
vasha z'drovovia - Grace's complete butchering of the toast ;)