Dog Days: Jo

Love is a Battlefield Chapter 4

"Mum, I think you should sleep now."

"Don't be silly, Jo," my mother hiccuped. "I'm perfectly fine."

"But you stayed up all night again with Mr. Loddington and got up so early this morning to make us such a lovely brekkie that I'm worried you didn't get enough beauty sleep." She loved it when one of us girls called Baldie "Mr. Loddington." It was imagined respect to placate the ugly truth that none of us really respected him at all.

Mum blinked blearily as she sat across from me at the kitchen table. There was a vague haze pervading the area still, a result of her horrendously burning the attempted porridge. She had come home late last night (or rather very early this morning) and collapsed on the sofa. That didn't stop her, however, from waking me and a very angry Joss at 6am, saying we ought to have a family breakfast "like old times" because we were "her darling girls." Dodging punches and literally dragging Joss down the stairs, with surprising strength my mother had planted us both at our white kitchen table and proceeded to shove lukewarm tea and blackened oat grain at us. At some point, I had to unearth the fire extinguisher in reaction to an aborted attempt at eggs, Joss had fallen back asleep while sitting up (a talent she had perfected in the back of her classrooms fourth year), and Mum had plopped down with a tequila bottle, eyes leaking tears at how much we had "grown up" and "why did we have to go to that nasty school." Obviously she was still drunk. If the Jesus could turn water into wine, could I, a witch, turn tequila into water?

Since I would probably need my wand for that, the plan was to send her back to bed.

"I do want to look like my pictures again," she said, rubbing her fingers against the bags under her eyes. She sniffled. "I think my bags are getting bigger. Oh, god!" She buried her head in her arms.

I sighed inwardly, but outwardly placed a comforting hand on her elbow. "It's okay, Mum. We love you and Mr. Loddington loves you, doesn't he? Didn't he comment on how beautiful you look yesterday? Let's go to bed." Baldie had and rather loudly commented, almost sounding he was trying to convince everyone else and himself of its truth. At Emma's urging, Mum had dyed her roots to the almost blinding blonde again, but she was far from a supermodel in her faded, Victorian nightgown.

I walked around the table and put my hands under her armpits. "Come on, Mum. Sleepy time. Everything looks better after a sleep. You tell us that all the time, don't you?" She had, a long time ago.

"You're right, Jo." She wiped her eyes and let me frog march her back upstairs to her room. "My darling girls, I did say that to you. It was comforting, wasn't it? It was good advice, wasn't it?"

"Yes, Mum. It was good advice and you're beautiful." I put her down on the bed and tucked covers on her chin.

"My darling girls," she muttered and reached to put a hand on my head. "Such good girls."

I slipped from her grasp and tip-toed out. At times like these, I felt sorry for my mother. But only these times. Our dad had died in the First War against You-Know-Who, 18 June 1981. I had been only three years old, but the date so affected my other sisters, so affected their idea of this family that the date stuck in my head. Mum, apparently, was happier before. But she had married someone who was now gone, her daughters did this magic thing she didn't want to understand, and her insecurity issues could drown the Royal Navy. Talk about high maintenance. I can't even imagine her as a girlfriend. She turned into a drinker, cut her daughters off from all magical contacts (almost violently as in the case of the Weasleys), and her own mood swings gave us all quite the childhood. Thank Merlin for Hogwarts.

Speaking of Hogwarts: O.W.L.s. I'd gotten them last week, not that Mum understood or cared, but Emma and Val were pleased. I'd gotten O's in Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, E's in Herbology, Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, and Astronomy, and an A in History of Magic (because it was beyond me how to stay awake during that class and Joss had taught me how to sleep sitting up). The marks weren't as good as Val's, but she had been a Hufflepuff prefect. I didn't really care about being a Gryffindor prefect, though it would have been nice last year. Oh well. I'd gotten too many detentions anyway.

I shook myself as I went back downstairs to the kitchen, finding Joss grumbling about making proper tea. She plunked a mug down in front of me and shuffled back to her chair, all the while muttering under her breath something that sounded like variations of "pissing bloody wanker."

I'd only just sat down when a tapping came at the kitchen door window and I looked up to see the Prophet owl. It was a nice reminder that the magical world existed in the doldrums of our summer. I hated that I was still underage, but I only had one year left. Then world, watch out! My precious wand wouldn't be locked up in some useless trunk in my room...

I scampered up to the owl and took the paper, patting the animal on the head before it flew off. We had already paid for this month's issue of Prophets so the bothering about coins was unneeded. I carried the paper back to the table, reading Val's article first and then working my way to the front, passing my finished pages to a still barely coherent Joss. At some point I made us both toast with jam.

The Prophet had tons of news about the Cup. The Weird Sisters were aiming to have a mini-concert with some Silencing Charms around their tent area. Ludo Bagman was going to be the commentator. Val'll get a kick out of that. Ugh, I'm worried one of my teachers will be there. Can you imagine McGonagall at professional Quidditch? She'll go red with apoplexy at all the indecent behavior. And Dumbledore will be wrapped up in earmuffs, scarves, mittens, and socks, knowing him, liking any excuse to wear wool. Can you imagine Professor Snape? Now that would be awkward. I was reasonably good at Potions, considering my O in the subject, but I was a Gryffindor and Snape, while not outright ridiculing me, would only sniff at my correct creations. One time during First Year I got 5 points for our House for a hair growth serum. It was downright legendary. What do teachers do during summer holidays anyway? Polish up the Hogwarts knights' armor? Devise new detentions? Skydive from the Astronomy Tower? Sounds incredibly boring. Good thing the Cup is here to liven things up for them.

"Hey Joss," I said, coming up with an idea. "Who do you reckon will win the Cup?"

"The Irish, obviously," she snapped. "Why do you ask?"

"I bet Bulgaria will win." Joss bristled like a porcupine at this. "They've got Krum! He's a brilliant Seeker!"

"But as empty as a pumpkin! Have you seen this picture? He's walking like a duck!" She shoved a photograph of a semi-lost looking Krum in the Prophet.

I scowled. "Flying is different than walking and I'm sure he has the usual amount of intelligence. Probably got more O's than you."

"They don't do O.W.L.s in Bulgaria, smart one."

"Oh really? Well, let's make a bet. I bet a galleon Bulgaria will win the Cup."

"You're on, little sister. And Krum will probably fall on his big ducky arse and-"

There was a slamming noise against the window.

Both our heads snapped up at the sound: an unfamiliar owl was throwing itself at the glass, trying to get into our kitchen. Joss jumped up and opened the door. "Stupid bird'll kill itself one of these days."

"Who's owl is that?" I asked. It wasn't one my sisters typically used. No one at Hogwarts really wrote to me. An owl for Emma would go to her flat and Val was scheduled to arrive today. It might be for her, but Joss was nearly strangling the creature in an effort to get it to calm down, her face growing steadily redder. Must be for Joss.

I jumped over and snatched the letter out from under the owl, which Joss immediately dropped onto the kitchen tiles. "Give me my letter!" she shouted.

"Who's it from, big sister?" I said as I danced away, running out of the kitchen and around the lower story of our house with Joss in hot pursuit and screeching after me. I opened the letter as I ran and spied the name at the bottom. I nearly stopped in my tracks. "Fred Weasley!"

"Give it back, gnome-scuttler! Don't read it or I'll make you disappear like Bertha Jorkins! Fucking flying whizzer-bang!"

The knowledge that Fred Weasley, the Fred Weasley was writing to her and the sound of the vaguely familiar name made me trip over the corner of the sofa and Joss tackled me the rest of the way to the floor, sitting up on my legs and pinning me to the floor with her arms. She was breathing heavily and snarled, "Give. Me. My. Letter."

Since I had a vested interest in keeping all my teeth, I waggled it at her with what movement I had in my wrist. She released me, snatched the letter, and pulled a lock of my strawberry blonde hair in retaliation before sitting on my legs to read it.

I lay there because provoking Joss anymore would be a hazard to my health. What was Fred Weasley doing writing to my sister? The Twins were in my year and my year was all the better for it, the duo making any unbearable class bearable. Their pranking was absolutely brilliant and sometimes they let Joss and I tag along in their adventures: one memorable 'venture was into the Forbidden Forest where things had gone a bit pear-shaped with the centaurs and a huge spider, but it was one of the best days of my life. For the life of me though, I couldn't tell them apart. It was embarrassing. You'd think always being "the youngest Wilde sister" and constantly being compared to either (rarely) Emma, (sometimes) Val, or (mostly) Joss would give me some ability to distinguish the indistinguishable, but nope. The other girls at Hogwarts like Katie Bell or Angelina Johnson could tell them apart no problem. And they particularly gushed over Fred for some reason. Even though the Twins were identical, he was "more handsome and dashing," "more daring," and will really "go for you." Was Fred going for Joss?

It was silent as Joss quickly read her letter. When she finished, she snorted, muttered "the twit" under her breath, crumpled up the paper, and threw the ball in the direction of the rubbish bin. It looked to be too short, but then the ball floated farther, neatly landing in the center of the bin. Wandless Magic.

"It's so cool when you do that," I said, genuinely impressed. "I wish we could do more without wands. It would be so convenient for the underage."

"You've got to practice, little sister." Joss seemed to have forgotten to be angry at me, pleased at the praise and distracted by Fred.

She stood and as she helped me up I asked, "Who's Bertha Jorkins?"

She smirked. "Don't you read? It was in the paper recently. She's a Ministry official working for the Department of Magical Games and Sports and she's gone missing in Albania. Val wrote about it. Good thing Val's coming here for the Cup. Then she can't get eaten by anything freaky and end up on some slab Emma works on. Maybe Val should stick to writing about Quidditch."

"You know she doesn't just write about Quidditch."

"But what if she did?"

"Then she wouldn't be near Albania."

"Exactly."

I pouted a bit, but then brightened. "Speaking of the Cup, we're supposed to pack the food, right?"

Joss looked at me sideways. "Yeah," she said slowly. Her dark hair was sticking up a bit, ruffled up in places and her pajama bottoms had seen much better days. A patch had torn out in our scuffle and Emma would have sneak the pajamas away to fix it at some point. At 16, I was the only one that was still underage, but Joss didn't really care about fixing clothes, saying it was fine as it was. But now her amber eyes were staring at me.

I grinned. "Then we should of course pack the food. You know, the right food."

A grin grew on her to match mine. "Oh yes, the right food. The good and healthy food."

And suddenly we were friends again, practically twins despite our phenotypic differences. We had always been close, our birthdays only a year different. Emma and Val were separated by only two years and they were a closer as well, the two parents to take care of us when our Mum failed (which was often). Joss grabbed my hand and led me upstairs, descending on our secret horde of sweets. We made baskets out of the bottom of shirts and filled them up, racing back downstairs to the kitchen to dump them on the table. She then ran upstairs to get her wand and I dragged the tent and general food box (labeled in duct tape and Sharpie in Emma's spiky yet even letters).

Joss tumbled into the room right after I did, carrying both our clothes packs, her wand in her mouth, and clouds of brightly colored candies floated after her. "Did you bring down the whole horde?" I said. Whoa, we had a lot of candy. I guess sweet teeth run in the family.

She spit her wand onto the table. "The Cup could last months, Jo! Months. Ireland needs to beat your Bulgarian lizards properly!"

"Krum's going to win it!" I was trying to be serious, but soon we both laughed.

Joss cast a charm to make the food box feather-light, and our rucksacks and we set to work. Banter about the Cup continued, but was eventually replaced with vocal thoughts on packing as much of our favorite foods into the magically weightless sacks and boxes as possible. First, our favorite Muggle candies were stashed mostly in our packs, layering the circular levels with Cadbury and jammie dodgers, jars of Nutella and Peanut Butter, lemon biscuits and vanilla-frosted cakes, marshmallows and graham crackers. The Wizard sweets, which we had less of, made appearances: chocolate frogs (Emma's favorite and therefore placed towards the top in order to placate her), Bertie Bots Every Flavor Beans, pumpkin pasties, licorice wands, and citrus bombs (refresh the air and your tongue!). To drink there was milk, tea, water bottles, sugary soda, and lemonade: pretty tame, considering. We hadn't managed to transport butterbeer from Hogsmeade.

After packing all that, we blended vanilla shakes and cooked magically-to-be-kept-warm cheesesteaks, Joss bellowing that if I packed one more thing of sandwich meat and cheese she would toss me off the top of the Stadium. There were hot dogs, spaghetti with tiny delicious meatballs, Top Ramen, sweet & sour pork, chicken tikka, mushroom stroganoff, and stew from a Muggle can. We even got dressed enough to fetch haddock fish and chips from the corner for lunch, also buying some for the trip. Joss ended up also having to cast an feather-light charm on the cooler as well as conjuring more ice from the tap water.

"Do you remember a spell that keeps the ice from melting?"

"Uh...inmelto?" She waved her wand at the ice, which sat wetly, almost glaring at us for our gall in trying to defy physics. She frowned. "Maybe we can ask Val. We did pack all that cheese for her."

"You packed what for me?"

We both jumped a foot in the air, Joss sending a red spark towards the sound that Val bounced away almost immediately as she stepped through the kitchen door, flicking the lacy curtains out of her small, pretty face. Her brown hair was longer than I remembered, her bangs grown out and almost reaching her hazel eyes. We both tackled her into a hug immediately.

"Val!" we sang in unison, still gripping her waist. "We packed cheese for you!"

"That's nice," she laughed. "I'm a bit frightened of what else you packed."

We let her go and Joss answered, "Oh, nothing dangerous." She grinned wickedly, her mood buoyant.

"The weirdest was chocolate-covered blood pops."

"Better than licorice dipped in vanilla."

"Ew, no. Those are both gross," said Val, chucking what looked like half a moldy plastic belt into the bin, and dumping her packs next to our bulging ones and making herself tea and eyeing the mess of the kitchen. "Why would Emma even let you touch the packing? Did you pack real food too?"

"Obviously," I said. "You packed the exact kind of food you need to watch the 422nd Championship of the only proper Wizarding Sport. Krum's going to beat them bloody."

Joss snorted. "The Irish are going to bury him in his own Quidditch robes."

Val turned towards us with her mug of tea and leaned against the counter, an eyebrow raised at our betting. "Did you pack energy drinks?"

Joss and I looked at each other. Again in unison, we said: "we need to go to Tesco."