Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize, but I do own Dvona and anybody else you don't recognize.
A/N: Thanks so much to those of you who have reviewed, I appreciate it so much!!
Several hours later found them both heavily weighted down with various shopping bags of all shapes and sizes filled with everything from shoes to clothing to potions ingredients to books to a set of luggage. Everything that she had lost in the tragedy had been replaced. Well, most everything. Everything unimportant. Replaceable. Material. Some things were never going to be replaced. Completely oblivious to my sudden shift in mood Blake suggested getting ice-cream at the sweet shop, but Dvona only shook her head and hurried toward the street she knew led to the hotel. Slightly baffled the sandy haired man followed behind her wondering where they vivacious girl he had spend the afternoon with had gone. She was walking ahead of him with a decisive purpose, however, and he figured it would be better to let her be about it.
The hotel was further away than Dvona had thought it was going to be, and by the time it was finally in view her fingers were screaming in displeasure from the thin straps of the bags cutting into them. She was determined, however, to get into her room before she put the damn things down. Trying to shift them a bit so that the pressure wasn't so painful all she achieved was to make herself stumble to the side. A soft chuckle came from behind her and she looked back to see that Blake had shifted all of the bags he was carrying into one hand. The other was held open towards her expectantly.
"Let me take some of them would you?"
"Nope, I'm fine. We're almost there anyhow." Pushing the outer door of the hotel open with her shoulder she felt Blake trying to take some of them from her hand and she shrugged him away slightly annoyed. "It's fine, I've got them. If you really want to help then fish the key out of my pocket for me so we can get into the room." At that he turned a wonderful shade of red, and Dvona found herself holding back a smile. "It's in my left front pocket, and hurry up about it would you? These bags are going to pull my arms right off."
"Well if you had let me take some of them-"
"Key! Now!" Turning an even deeper shade of red than he had been before Blake did as she ordered, and hesitantly pulled the edge of the pocket away from her hip and peered in. "Oh come on. Hurry up already." At this point Dvona was trying quite desperately not to burst out laughing. She nearly felt sorry for the awkward position he was in, but mostly it was just amusing. As carefully as he could he dipped two fingers into her pocket until they encountered the smooth metal of the key. Upon finding it he pulled it out as quickly as he could and unlocked the door with unsteady hands. The second it was open she pushed past him, rushing to the bed and letting her many purchases drop down upon it. Blake followed suite, but set the bags down much more gently. As Dvona shook out her hands trying to get blood to reach her fingertips again he stood awkwardly, the key still in one hand.
"Can we aparate to the hospital? I'm exhausted and just want to get this visit over with." Really, she didn't want him to go with her at all, but she knew well enough that he hadn't been sent along with her for the day to simply keep her company. The ministry didn't want her on her own until she was out of their country, and thus no longer their problem.
"Of course. We'll have to go outside though, the hotel has anti-aparation wards all over it." Dvona followed Blake out of the building rather dejectedly. She knew she would have to bring him into the room with her and her mother. The doctors frowned upon visitors loitering in the halls, as it tended to upset some of the patients. The thought of somebody else seeing her mom like she was made her vaguely nauseous. She had never brought anybody with her when she came to visit, not even Leon or Zoe, her closest friends at Erisons. And now she had to bring a complete stranger with her? 'At least you'll never have to see him again after today.' She thought to herself, and felt herself relax a bit.
Feeling a hand seeking her she was pulled from her thoughts, and the next thing she knew they were standing just outside the hospital. To look at it, one would not first off know what it was. It looked like nothing more than an old Victorian house set on the top of a hill with beautiful grounds surrounding it. As a scream was heard from inside, it became clear just how far that picture was from the truth.
With a sigh Dvona threw back her shoulders and walked up to the guard stationed at the front door. He immediately recognized her and gave her a brief smile, welcoming her back before swirling his wand in a complex pattern and opening the door for them. As they stepped inside they entered a room with another guard and a long table, on which a few wands already lay. Used to the procedure Dvona pulled her wand out and laid it down on the table as well.
"Any magical objects you have with you have to stay here. Some of the patients would be too dangerous if they were able to get their hands on any." And so Blake followed suite, laying his wand as well as his ministry id badge on the table. They were then let though the next door, and into the building. Right ahead was an office, and Dvona quickly made her way there, waiting for the red haired woman to look up.
"Hi Stella." The woman did look up then, and her eyes widened to the size of saucers before she jumped up and wrapped Dvona in a suffocating hug.
"Dev! Oh child I am so glad to see you! When I heard about all that nasty business at your school I thought the worst, you know I did." Her thick southern accent sounded teary, and Dvona was touched by the woman's concern. "Then the papers were saying that one student survived but they wouldn't tell who, said she was wanted for questioning and they couldn't release her name till things were sorted out… I always thought it was you! I did I swear it! If anybody was going to come out of something like that it was going to be you!" To her horror Dvona felt her own eyes tearing up at the kindness being shown to her, and she quickly pulled away before they began to fall.
"Well, I'm back now Stella, but not for very long."
"What on earth are you talking about child?"
"I'm moving to England. To live with some extended family." She heard Blake shift around behind her, but he didn't say anything to correct her, for which she was thankful. She didn't want anybody at the hospital knowing about her father, as the news would surly get back to her mother. All of the nurses knew why she was in here, and they all thought it terribly romantic. That a woman could love a man so much she would just shut down upon hearing of his death. Of course, they hadn't been the ones who had been forced to live with a mother who, when looking at her daughter saw only the man who had fathered her. They hadn't seen their mother reach the breaking point and shut herself off from the world, from her daughter. The last thing Dvona wanted was for any word of Sirius Black to reach her mother. Whether or not she could even hear people around her in her condition was unknown, but on the off chance, Dvona didn't want it to get any worse. And surly that was all news of her father would do. Make her mother worse off somehow. That's how it always was.
"But you'll still come visit her, right? I mean, up till now you never missed a single visit." It was true, and the guilt she felt for leaving hit her like a ton of bricks.
"I'll try." It was a lie. A bold, outright lie. She wouldn't be coming back, not until she had achieved her revenge. If she survived that, then she would come back. But she had to treat this visit as goodbye. Even though she had discovered an immense power inside of her, she still didn't know how she had accessed it the night of the massacre. For all she knew, she would never be able to reach it again. And if that were the case, then she was most likely going to die attempting to do this. But that was something she had come to terms with the very night she had become a killer. Life ends for everybody at some point. It's just a matter of how you go.
"Here." She hefted the bag full of gallions onto the desk and Stella made her way back around it. "This should cover the late payments and quite a few more months." The older woman peered into the bag, and then looked up at Dvona with her eyes full of questions. Before she could ask them, however, Dvona had begun talking again.
"We're going to go visit her now, when we are done I will stop by here again and find out when I need to send more money, does that work?" At Stella's nod Dvona quickly began to walk towards the back of the house, felling Blake at her back. Blocking the other patients from her sight Dvona walked quickly to the stairs in the back of the building, up them, down the hall, and to the third door on the right. Knocking gently she pushed it open, wishing more than anything else that she was alone right now.
"Hey mom, it's me." There was, of course, no response from the woman laying in the bed by the window. The room looked as if it could be a bedroom in any house. A comfortable bed, a flowery quilt, an old wooden dresser, pictures of Cathleen and a much younger Dvona on the walls. Only the woman lying on the bed staring at nothing gave anything away. Dvona moved to sit on the edge of the bed and caught her mother's hand in her own as Blake wandered around the room, studying the pictures.
"I'm sorry I haven't been here in a while, trust me, I would have been if it were possible. You see, something really awful happened at my school. It was attacked, and I'm the only one that survived. And it was only because Leon had said something stupid again and just to prove him wrong I went into town alone. When I came back… everything was gone. And so I couldn't come back until now." The blond woman's hand rested meekly in Dvona's, and her eyes continued to stare at the ceiling. The familiar disappointment ripped through Dvona, and she struggled to keep her tears at bay. Part of her had hoped her mother would be able to comfort her. After everything, maybe this would have brought her back. Of course, it hadn't.
"I won't be able to come back for a while mom. I have to repeat my last year of schooling over in England, so it may be a while before you see me again." Still, no response. With a sigh of resignation Dvona bent over and placed a gentle kiss on her mother's forehead before standing up. Glancing around the room she noticed that newspaper clippings of the attack on Erisons had been taped to the wall, and Dvona felt a surge of anger. What if her mother could see the things around her? Pictures of a slaughter shouldn't be anywhere near her.
Fighting back tears once again at the images Dvona ripped them from the wall violently and shoved them haphazardly into her pocket. She didn't want anything that could upset her mother in the room. Outside the window the sun was setting, and for a moment Dvona stood looking out over the pink sky. Tomorrow she was going to meet the man who was the reason her mother was in the state she was. Tomorrow she was going half way across the world, and leaving her mother alone in this bed for God knows how long. She hated herself.
"It's getting late Dvona, we'd better get going." Speaking for the first time since they had reached the hospital Blake's voice broke through her thoughts, startling her.
"Yeah, you're right. Lets go." He left the room first, and as Dvona pulled the door shut behind her she looked back at her mother one last time, and felt a wave of sadness sweep over her. And to her shock, she felt the power inside of her stir a bit. As they made their way back toward the entrance she tried to clamp down on it, tried to catch the little wisp of magic and to her horror found that she couldn't. She couldn't control it. As she realized that she started to worry, and she felt the magic grow a little bit more. Desperate now to stop it, fearing what might happen, she forced all of her emotions aside, behind the wall she had built. And thankfully, the magic had settled back wherever it belonged.
Oblivious to her struggle, Blake had led them right up to the desk where Stella handed Dvona a receipt before jumping up and hugging the young woman again.
"I'm glad you've got somebody to stay with hun, I just wish it wasn't so far away. You come back and see us when you can, alright?" Nodding numbly Dvona returned the hug and followed Blake out into the entryway, where they collected their wands, and then back outside. They aparated back to the street where they had gone shopping earlier, and upon looking at him questioningly Blake said he was hungry, and would she like to get dinner.
Looking around her Dvona spotted a bar that was just starting to form a line to get in. She grabbed Blake's hand and pulled him toward it. All she wanted to do now was forget. Forget this crappy day, forget the attack, forget what was sleeping inside of her, forget everything. And as they entered the darkened building, she knew that for at least one night, she would be able to.