You all have fun as we enter the girls week alone without Arcturus being the sane one, enjoy, and review!
July 31, 1990
I am not a violent person by nature, really and truly, despite the atrocities I committed and the ridiculous situations I find myself in on a near weekly basis I do not enjoy violence.
When I had Ginny, Jimmy, Al, and Lily I was more than content to be nothing more then an over glorified constable doing my best to keep the innocent safe from the wicked.
Then they were gone, taken from me by nuclear fire and open warfare.
I thought myself lost, then Luna found me and I was happy with her and for a very short time our daughter Mary, then they where gone.
Gabby wasn't really wife material, she wouldn't be bound down, but I loved her regardless, and she loved me, then she was stabbed through the heart by a nameless Black Thorn assassin solely to hurt me.
So I had given up on love and indulged in violence, hurting those that wished to hurt the ones I cared about, or those who intended on hurting them to get to me, and wouldn't you know it?
I am really fucking good at violence.
Seriously, Voldemort was a fucking footnote to what I could unleash when I came full circle from infuriated to apathetic, I was a connoisseur of creative destruction, or perhaps destructive creativity...hmm, something to mull on later.
All that being said, and I have no Goddess damned way to explain why, that in this new life when Bella shows me honest to Morgana affection and care, my desire for violence ebbs away no matter how riled I was at the time. All I want is for her to hold me, and tell me tomorrow will be better, and...and I just don't know what to think anymore.
I'm still crazy, I am most certainly a psychopath at the very least, but...when I'm around my Wicked Witch, I feel... content.
I honestly have no idea what that says about myself, and on that note, I don't particularly care in so long as this fuzzy feeling of belonging remains.
I suppose, in the end, I'll always be that little orphan who desired being loved unconditionally more than anything else... Makes me wonder if perhaps Tom could have been saved, if there had been someone to give a damn about him as a child...
Rambling again, I tend to do that, sorry.
"Harri get moving or I'm going to Paris without you!"
Bella rolled her eyes in exasperation as she pulled her luggage to the door ignoring Sirius's puppy gaze as he stared up at her in his Grimm form.
"You can't go with us," she stated flatly as the dog shifted back to a wizard, taking on a whining tone that didn't earn him any favors as he pleaded out to her.
"Why not! She's my goddaughter and it's her tenth birthday why can't I come along!"
"Because while we're in Paris we're getting custom wands made, I'm taking my N.E.W.T's, hitting a spa and we're going on a massive shopping binge with just us witches. The last thing Dora, Harri, and I need is an overblown man child scampering about us like a fool."
"I am not a fool," Sirius muttered, a moment later he let out a surprised grunt as a small figure landed on his shoulders.
"No you are not, you are seriously far too serious to ever be considered a fool, right Sirius?"
Grinning widely now he glanced up at his goddaughter while reaching up to tickle her ribs causing her to break out into giggles.
"At least I'll always have you to defend me Prongslet," slipping her legs from her Godfather's shoulders the small girl fell to the ground gracefully while taking a bow. Turning around Sirius appraised the girl a moment as she openly grinned up at him while giving him the 'V for victory' hand gesture.
"Always and forever my beloved Dogfather, but Bella's not wrong, this is a witches week out and we don't need any wizards tagging along. How about a compromise, when we get back, you can host a party and I won't protest it at all?"
Sirius grinned at that, "Really, not at all?"
She shook an admonishing finger at him as she replied with, "No hookers Padfoot, but aside from that, yes."
He deflated slightly but snorted out a laugh as he nodded in acquiescence, "Ok, just be safe won't you?"
Grabbing his shirt and pulling him down to her level Harri kissed his brow before releasing him, "Always."
Soon the pair of witches left the Black Manor and approached the hired taxi that was taking them to the airport to meet up with Dora, a moment later Bella glanced down to her little cousin before speaking.
"You really shouldn't indulge him like that, Grandfather has been trying to beat maturity into him for almost a year now and if he thinks you're ok with his inane blathering it could undo it all."
Harrie shrugged at that, "There is a reason I'm the Heir to the Black family and Sirius is not after all. It isn't just because the man doesn't want the position, it is also due to the fact that he is completely unsuited for it."
That, and being made the Heiress meant that when Arty passed on to his next great adventure the whole 'Two Lord Blacks' thing could be nullified, gotta plan ahead to seal up puzzling paradoxes after all.
"That I won't argue on," Bella demurred while rolling her eyes to the heavens, "I love him as well as I can any in the family but he's just not, oh what is the phrase I'm looking for..."
Harri shot her a cheeky grin while pipping out with, "Sirius is completely incapable of being serious despite my empty reassurances to otherwise?"
Bella sighed at the over used pun but let it slide as she shook her head slowly, "That really does about sum it up."
As they entered the car and made their way to the airport Harri shot Bella a glance while quickly asking, "Did Aunt Andi give us any trouble about kidnapping Tonks for this little holiday adventure?"
Bella smirked in turn while shrugging lightly, "Only that she was offended that she wasn't invited. Though I am in charge over this lovely jaunt so please do try to keep the insanity at a minimum dear."
Harri tapped her chin thoughtfully as she stared up at the ceiling a few moments before turning her gaze back to Bella, "I promise not to purposely seek out trouble, but if it finds me on its own vocation I refuse to take responsibility."
Bella mulled on that a moment before nodding slowly, "Fair enough."
Arriving at the airport the pair unloaded their luggage and approached the terminal, it didn't take long for them to find their cousin who for her part was dressed in a miniskirt, combat boots, and a baby doll cut Iron Maiden t-shirt. The bright pink spiked hairdo was rather telling as well.
"Dressing up for the occasion I see," Bella drawled as they stopped before Tonks who smirked triumphantly in return.
"Wotcher! I was trying to get a bit of a reaction out of mum as I left the house, the fact that I had to dive through the floo to dodge curses was rather telling I suppose. Don't worry I'll change on the plane, why are we taking a plane by the way?"
Neither Bella nor Harri found it necessary to comment on Andi trying to curse her daughter for going out in public in that outfit, the younger of the pair quickly responding to the metamorph's question with a cheerful chirp.
"Simply put Bella doesn't really have a footprint in magical Britain yet outside of her paperwork, it's all muggle so we're going to have to do things the slow way until she takes her N.E.W.T's. Which is fine since we need to get her a proper wand made regardless."
Bella sighed at that, "Yes, the old heirloom wand I have been using is, well, ok I suppose, but it isn't perfectly matched to me and tends to resist my commands during transfigurations."
Tonks nodded at that as she fell into step with her cousins to get her ticket processed, "I can use dad's well enough but mum's wand barely reacts to me, like trying to milk a stone really. So I get why you would want to have a properly paired off wand for your exams, you have been studying for them right?"
Harri rolled her eyes to Bella who for her part managed to hide her brow twitching in a cascade of wavy hair as the younger girl replied for her, "She has been, to the point where Lord Arcturus has to have ordered her to get some rest actually."
"N.E.W.T's are a pivotal and important task in a witches life and must be treated as such!" Bella snapped out as she completely ignored the service drone who was processing her ticket, "These exams will define the rest of my life and I am damn well not going to toss that on the wayside by being lazy."
Harri sighed while glancing back to Tonks shaking her head slowly, "We had to switch the coffee out to decaf when we found out she had not slept in three days, getting her to relax has been a chore. To say she wasn't amused when she figured out she wasn't being caffeinated would be an understatement."
"It was sabotage!"
"It got you seven hours of uninterrupted sleep," the little witch bit back causing her cousin to snap her mouth shut and pout a bit.
Tonks snickered at the interaction as she accepted her passport back from the teller and followed the pair to their plane, "Something tells me this holiday is going to be rather interesting with you two involved."
"Everything is made more interesting with my interaction," Harri stated with a sniff, both her older cousins rolled their eyes as they smacked her on the back of the head while each took one of her hands. Growling she refrained from saying anything further as she was dragged through the terminal, vowing vengeance the entire way.
Neither Bella nor Dora took any note of this, much to Harri's annoyance.
What followed was a very boring few hours on a plane where Harri played Tetris on her Gameboy while Bella napped and Tonks wrote out crossword puzzles. Upon landing the trio of witches took a cab to a high end hotel and charged it to Arcturus's account which amused Harri to no end.
Her friend was going to be so pissed off when he found out about this, and she couldn't refrain from laughing for it.
Leaving Dora to pounce on the mini-bar Hari and Bella made their way to the magical district to have their proper wands constructed and bound to them.
Unlike Diagon Alley Paris's Magical Shopping District of Rue de RĂªves was free from the taint of Dumbledore and Voldemort's influence, which in turn meant they had to be more wary of attacks than normal.
Neither witch was overly concerned about their safety, but they paid attention to their surroundings regardless.
Entering Madam Sabine's shop the pair paused as they had to disentangle themselves through the beaded strings as they entered the room proper.
Bins of treated leather strands, wood doles and chunks of raw ore were left on display while an elderly woman puffed on a pipe, who watched the new arrivals with a gimlet eye.
Sighing she stood and handed her pipe to a young boy who quickly hurried behind the curtains leading to the backroom, she soon stared at Harri before shaking her head slowly before speaking in a tired croaking tone.
"Couldn't be content destroying one world, could you?"
Harri just stared at the woman a moment before brushing Bella's hand aside while simply stating two words.
"Fuck you."
The woman snorted in return, "Fair enough, well, come along, you are here for a reason after all."
Turning to Belladonna first the woman nodded slowly before gesturing to the bins before her, "Extend your hand, and when something catches your fancy, lemme know."
It took about forty minutes, but eventually Bella found a core and a dole blank that matched her.
A White River Monster Spine core, which was incredibly rare and desired by many, and a Cherry Wood body, twelve inches, springy and playful in nature. All she had to do was wait for her blood sacrifice to soak through its core for her wand to be completed, she could hardly wait.
Harri's wand was, much to her lack of surprise, special. Her core was a dual one, which wasn't unheard of but was also quite rare. The primary core was a tail feather from a Thunderbird that went by the name 'Frank', twined about it was a hair from a Thestrals's tail, both soaked in her own blood sacrifice.
The core was set in a wand crafted of ebony chaised with filigree wrought from Cold Iron to act as a limiter of sorts, the meteoric metal dimly reflecting the light that the obsidian wood absorbed.
Harri would likely have been unsettled by this if she wasn't jaded as hell to begin with, funny how that works.
Orders made, the pair of young witches returned to their hotel to find a half dressed and very drunk Tonks holding up a bottle of wine and cassette tape while grinning widely.
"Who wants to get drunker with me and watch Ghost?!"
It was going to be a very fun week, Harri decided then and there.
