Note: Dedicated to NinjaTerra, and any other Cleo fans! Enjoy! =)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I making any profit from this piece of writing.
10: The Love Life of Mr. Richard Avery
Carrie awoke the following morning, fresh from dreams of a magic mirror and explosions of magic like fireworks in a night sky. She dragged herself of bed and was midway through padding across the landing towards the bathroom when she heard her mother calling from the bottom of the stairs.
"You've got a letter." Mrs. Winters announced, holding out an envelope for the girl to see, and Carrie rushed down the stairs to retrieve it, retreating to her bedroom to examine it more closely.
Once sat upon the edge of her bed, Carrie stared down at the envelope keenly. It was made a mottled, cream parchment and her name had been written upon the front in neat, curling letters. Flipping it over, she reached to slide the envelope open before carefully extracting the short letter within.
Carrie,
Dora and I leave for Southern France this morning. We have a reservation for Room 102 at the Grand Hotel, I have enclosed the full address for you. Do not hesitate to write to me if you feel the need at all, if anything goes wrong whilst you and Teddy are at school. He assures me that he will be on his very best behavior whilst we are away, and will be staying at his grandmother's house when he is not at school. I have left the attic room's window open. I'm sure if you open your own window and shake a box of owl treats loud enough, Godric will grace you with his presence and you can use him to send your letters. I hear cat treats are equally as effective, he is not a fussy eater after all.
We will be back home in ten days time.
Have a good time at school, and try to keep Teddy from getting both of you into any more trouble!
Take Care,
Remus
Carrie couldn't help but feel an odd sense of worry descend upon her, knowing that Teddy's parents were going to hundreds of miles away, leaving Teddy to his own devises. Over breakfast she asked her mother exactly how far south Southern France was. It seemed to be quite a long way.
When she wandered down the hallway to answer a knock upon the door some five minutes later, Carrie Winters had absolutely no idea that when she was going to write to Remus, she would not be driven by concerns about Teddy in the slightest. Indeed, Carrie would be far more concerned about somebody else entirely.
Upon discovering Teddy Lupin upon her doorstep, Carrie hurriedly pulled on her shoes and snatched up her school bag, calling a vague goodbye to the rest of the house before escaping out the door.
"You're ready early." she observed as she and Teddy crunched their way down the gravel driveway. Glancing over her shoulder towards his house she asked: "Did you parents leave yet?"
"Dad was up at five." Teddy told her, sounding revolted. "It was unnatural. They left about half an hour ago by the floo."
"I bet they were excited!" Carrie exclaimed, only for his gaze to drop to the pavement as they turned up the street. After scrutinizing his despairing expression, she reached to lay a hand upon his arm. "What's wrong, Ted?"
The young wizard glanced sideways at her, grip upon his bag tightening as he mumbled:
"They're hiding something."
Carrie pursed her lips together and attempted to look bemused.
"Hiding something? What makes you think that?"
"Because Dad cracked this morning. I got up to use the bathroom, only Mum was in there...I could hear her crying. So I went downstairs to tell Dad...and...and do you know what he said?"
"What did he say?"
Teddy came to an abrupt halt, turning to fix Carrie with wide, panicked eyes.
"He just said: Looks like she could use a holiday, then! And then! And then he LAUGHED! He laughed and then he bolted up the stairs like I'd just told him I'd set my bedroom on fire! I think something's wrong, Carrie. Very wrong." He frowned deeply, reaching to bite a nail in consideration before concluding: "I think Mum's sick."
At the panic in his voice, Carrie could not help but announce:
"She's not sick. I know she isn't." She mentally kicked herself for such an admittance, feeling a rush of panic when Teddy looked at her curiously.
"How do you know?" he asked, and the muggle gave a hurried shrug.
"Well...well she can't be sick, Ted...sick people don't go on holiday, do they? They just stay in bed!"
Teddy made a disbelieving grunt as they carried on up the road.
"What did you write for the History homework?" he asked, and Carrie shrugged.
"Saint George and the Dragon." she supplied, and the wizard gave an unimpressed snort.
"That's a stupid story." he told her as they rounded a corner. "There's no way a muggle could slay a dragon!"
"I don't see why not!" Carrie replied indigently, folding her arms defensively across her chest. "Besides, Mildred's mirror is stupid too! That's what your dad said, anyway."
"Well it's more likely than a muggle killing dragon."
Carrie opened her mouth to protest, only to find herself wishing:
"I hope so."
They walked on in silence for several minutes until Carrie wondered aloud:
"Maybe Mr. Avery knows about the mirror too."
"What makes you think that?" Teddy asked skeptically.
"Well...we did find that book in his storage cupboard..." Carrie trailed off at the sound of a bicycle bell dinging loudly behind them, and the two children paused in their walking to glance over their shoulders.
"CARRIE!" Cleo's voice half shrieked from back up the road, as if the incessant bell ringing had not quite caught her friend's undivided attention. The self-professed witch came whizzing up the pavement towards them, dark hair in knotty disarray being blown back from her face by the breeze. Her bicycle skidded to a halt mere inches from Carrie's foot, making the girl wince in anticipation of a broken toe or two.
"Hi Cleo." Carrie greeted a moment later, having paused to get over the near miss, and the other girl shot Teddy a wide grin in acknowledgment, before asking Carrie:
"What are you doing after school today?"
"Nothing much, I don't think." Carrie told her, resisting the urge to sound disappointed. The worst thing about Remus and Tonks being away was, by far, the fact that Teddy would not be around to spend time with her outside of school.
"Do you want to come round for tea?" Cleo asked, still grinning broadly. "Barbie and Cindy will probably hog the TV, but Dad's left the attic ladder down, we could go up and have a nose around if you want."
"Cool..." Carrie began, only for Teddy to ask:
"What's that smell?"
As the young wizard's nose wrinkled in disgust, the foul odour finally assaulted Carrie's nostrils and she struggled not to reached to pinch her nose in revulsion.
"That," Cleo announced, seemingly entirely unaware of the stench, "is home made spot cream! I read about it on the Internet, I've made some for Mum's birthday, do you want to see?"
Carrie felt Teddy's hand reaching to grasp hold of her by the elbow, giving her firm tug onwards up the road.
"Maybe later!" he exclaimed cheerfully, ignoring Cleo's roll of the eyes. "We've got to get a move on...we'll be late for school!"
As her best friend dragged her on up the street, Carrie turned to offer Cleo a hasty wave, promising:
"I'll see you after school!"
Almost as soon as they were out of earshot, and Carrie had glanced back to see Cleo heading in the opposite direction, Teddy instantly dissolved into a fit of giggles.
"Shhh!" Carrie demanded, finding it difficult not to join him. "She might hear you!"
T"Don't be silly Carrie, she isn't going to hear me...home made SPOT CREAM! Merlin, whatever you do, don't tell her when it's MY birthday!"
When they finally passed through the school gates five minutes later, Carrie caught sight of the caretaker, Mr. Avery, trimming the bushes on the other side of the school lawn.
"Why do you think it is, Ted, that Mr. Avery knew your name that day in the cafeteria?" she asked the boy beside her, who paused in his fiddling with the straps of his bag to offer her a careless shrug.
"I have no idea, Carrie."
"Well...don't you think it's a bit odd?"
"Maybe..."
"There's no maybe about it, Ted! It's VERY odd!"
Teddy came to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the stairs that lead to the school's main entrance. As she narrowly avoided tripping over her own feet as she hurried to stop beside him, Carrie watched him glance over at the caretaker, who was busy shoveling leaves into a large green sack.
"Listen, Carrie..." the boy murmured, turning back to face the girl, leaning towards her until their faces were mere inches apart. "I think you need to stop this fascination you've got with Avery and his broom cupboard."
Carrie's mouth fell open in indignation, hands flying to her hips as she positively glowered at the boy.
"MY fascination?" she cried, causing a couple of passing Year Eight girls to stare at her as they mounted the steps. "You're just as keen to find out what's going as I am!"
"There was a Death Eater called Avery, you know." Teddy announced flatly, folding his arms firmly across his chest. "And if that man over there knows who I am, I wouldn't be surprised if it's because he's related to wizards."
For a long moment, Carrie simply gawped at him, and when she finally found her voice again she asked:
"When did you figure that out? Why didn't you say something?"
"I didn't figure it out." Teddy muttered, reaching to grab her by the arm and drag her up the steps, giving her a little shake when she turned to stare over her shoulder at the caretaker. "Dad did last night after dinner."
"You...you told your dad about hiding in the cupboard and...and everything?"
"I have to tell him everything, Carrie. I don't think he or Mum trust me to behave. If I don't tell him every tiny detail of what I've been up to at school every day he says he'll cancel Christmas."
"Your dad can't cancel Christmas, Teddy! I mean...he can't, can he?"
"I don't want to try and find out."
There was a lull in conversation as Teddy set about extracting his timetable from his bag, and as he identified their first lesson as being Maths, Carrie wondered:
"Isn't you dad...worried?"
"Worried?" Teddy repeated as he shoved the paper back into his bag and they set off towards Registration.
"Isn't he worried about you going to a school where they employ a Death Eater as a caretaker?"
"Dad never said he was a Death Eater. He just said he had the same surname as one."
"Yeah but...but your dad also said that the Goyles weren't Death Eaters, only related to some. And look how friendly they turned out to be!"
"My Mum is related to Death Eaters, Carrie." Teddy pointed out with a dismissive wave of the hand. "Half her family were Death Eaters and her aunt was Voldemort's Bitch."
"Voldemort's...Bitch...?"
"Yep, that's what Mum calls her."
Carrie was glad to have Teddy with her that day to keep her distracted from the constant niggling thoughts about whether or not Avery was indeed as shifty an individual as his name suggested, and why, if he was, she found herself more curious about him than ever. Maths passed without any major hiccups, unless one counted the fact that Teddy managed to break all three of the scientific calculators that the teacher had leant him, after which she insisted he share Carrie's, (Carrie was pretty certain that the percentage button on her calculator was never going to work ever again. Her resolve never to leave Teddy alone in a room with her computer doubled tenfold). By the end of the day there were no major incidents for Carrie to write to Remus about, though on the way to Cleo's house, having said goodbye to Teddy at the school gates, Carrie took a very long detour to the shops and, once she had fussed over the rabbits that were on sale, had bought a large tin full of cat treats. They seemed to rattle rather loudly when she shook them experimentally, and so she supposed they would do for luring Godric out of his room should she need to write to Remus.
When she arrived at Cleo's house some while later, she was greeted at the door by the dark haired girl's whispered assurance that it was safe to come in because Cindy hadn't arrived with the bottles of fake tan quite yet.
As it happened, Bowie's best friend did not arrive for some hour, during which Carrie and Cleo had climbed the ladder up to the loft, each armed with a torch, to do a spot of treasure hunting. As she peered into a box full of old toys in one corner of the dusty room, Carrie spotted something of interest in the box next to it out of the corner of her eye. She reached to stick her hand inside, pushing past what seemed to be a rusty old saucepan, before her fingers finally closed around the object and she gave it a firm tug.
"Found something?" Cleo called from behind her, engrossed in her examination of an old doll that appeared to be missing both eyeballs.
"It's a mirror." Carrie called back as she raised the dusty looking glass to her face so that she could peer at herself through the dark. Thumb scuffing the gilt silver handle, the girl smiled to herself.
I wonder, she told her reflection silently as she reached with her free hand to run a finger around the mirror's frame, what would it feel like, magic? Would becoming a witch make me feel different?
She watched herself let out a little sigh and her mind began to wander to magic mirrors and witches...
And it was at that moment that Carrie Winters realized something. She understood that snooping around at school was not the wisest of ideas. She understood that, with a man named Avery around busy doing some snooping of his own, she ought be very cautious indeed.
But she also understood that none of this really mattered, because try as she might, she simply didn't care what Remus had said about it.
It was a shame that Teddy seemed so keen to be entirely sensible about the whole thing, the muggle mused with a sigh. It was, after all, something unheard of. Teddy Lupin and sensible just didn't seem to match. Carrie dreaded to think what Remus had said that would persuade the boy to be so out of character.
So boring...
"Bloody hell!" Cleo's voice exclaimed, bringing Carrie back to reality with a small jump. "Look at my HAIR!"
Carrie shuffled until she was facing her friend, sniggering at the old school photographs that Cleo was holding up to show her, in which a four year old with long pigtails and bows grinned somewhat manically at the camera.
"You look scary." Carrie admitted, and Cleo discarded the photograph in disgust. "It's fun this, don't you think? It's like a treasure hunt."
"I love treasure hunts!" Cleo exclaimed as she delved into yet another box, the context of which gave a squeak that confirmed that it was stuffed with yet more children's toys.
And Carrie Winters found herself smiling broadly, setting down her torch and sitting herself down upon the dusty floor.
"I'm on a real treasure hunt." she announced, breaking out into a grin when predictably Cleo's head whipped back round to stare at her. "I'm looking for a magic mirror. A real one. D'you want to help me, Cleo?"
Carrie's telling of The Mirror of Mildred Marchbrook was by far creepier and more intense than when Remus had read it from the book that Teddy had found. Of course it probably helped that Carrie and Cleo were sat in a dark, dusty attic with no light save the torch that the storyteller was using to illuminate her face. Cleo was a much more verbal audience, too. She oohed and aahed in all the right places and fidgeted in excitement at the prospect of finding the mirror. When they retreated downstairs some while later in search of a drink, Carrie was about to suggest that Cleo meet her at the school gates after school the next day so that they could begin their investigations when the doorbell rang and Cleo hurried down the stairs to open the front door.
"Bloody hell!" the girl exclaimed once the door was open a crack, jumping backwards and holding her hands up to her eyes as if to shield them. "The orange! IT BLINDS ME!"
Carrie attempted to stifle a snigger as Bowie's best friend Kayleigh pushed her way into the hallway, seemingly oblivious to Cleo's teasing as she demanded to know:
"Where's your sister?"
As the girl stomped down the hallway in her teetering heels, shouting Bowie's name at the top of her lungs, Cleo reached to push the door shut with a scowl.
"Alright Cindy, keep your hair extensions on! What's wrong, did somebody break a nail?"
"Shut it, squirt." Bowie's voice automatically snapped as she dashed out of the kitchen towards her friend. Carrie joined Cleo at the bottom of the stairs and together the two of them watched the two older girls skid to a halt before one another, reaching to grasp one another excitedly by the hands.
"What is it?" Bowie cried, eyes widening in anticipation, and Kayleigh opened and closed her mouth a few times as if she couldn't quite manage to get the words out.
"God, look at them!" Cleo muttered as Kayleigh resorted to letting out an odd little squeal of excitement, causing Bowie to hop from foot to foot impatiently, desperately shouting:
"What? What is it?"
"If I ever make a noise like that, Carrie, you have to promise to gouge out my voice box with a spoon." Cleo hissed, her eyes widening in disgust.
"RICHARD...!" Kayleigh finally managed to squeal, and Bowie's grip on her hands tightened to such an extent that Carrie thought she might snap a few fingers.
"Yes...? What about him?"
"He's...he's...HERE!"
"You're not talking about the Bin Raider from school again, are you?"
"Shut UP, Cleo!"
"He's just knocked on your neighbors' door! I SAW him!"
"Oh my god!"
"And! AND, you'll never guess what?"
"What? Tell me!"
"Whatsherface...you know, the daughter..."
"Juliette?"
"YES! Juliette! She opened the door and...and oh my GOD, you'll never believe me..."
"What happened?"
"She...he...they KISSED! Juliette bloody Downton is Richard's GIRLFRIEND!"
"NO!"
"Yes! They were snogging and everything!"
"No way! You're taking the piss!"
"I don't think she is, sis. I don't think she'd risk running up the driveway and possibly laddering her tights unless she was being serious...what are you doing?"
As both teenagers turned and ran back towards the front door, Kayleigh flinging it open wide as Bowie struggled to pull a pair of trainers onto her feet, Cleo shook her head in disbelief.
"Are you...GOING ROUND THERE?" she cried, and Bowie paused in her struggle to offer her little sister a scowl.
"Of course not!"
"Good, because you know, they might be Doing It on the sofa or something..."
"We're just going to have a peek through the window."
"What? God, you two are bloody mental!" Cleo turned to roll her eyes in Carrie's direction, only find that her friend had dropped down onto the bottom stair and was busy pulling her own shoes onto her feet. "Carrie...?" she managed to inquire, completely bemused at the sight, only for Carrie to jump to her feet and dash out of the door after the others. As silence descended upon the hall, Cleo took a moment to simply blink uncomprehendingly at the open front door, before she hastily grabbed the nearest pair of shoes she could find and set about pulling them on.
"Stop pushing!"
"Move up, I won't be able to see..."
"This is stupid."
"Go home then!"
"Shhh!"
As she and the other three girls slowly shuffled along under the front window sill of the Downton house, Carrie glanced over her shoulder down the driveway to check that nobody was watching them. She dreaded to think what the people over the road would think if they chose that precise moment to glance out of their windows. When Cleo accidentally elbowed her in the ribs and she narrowly avoided toppling backwards onto her back, Carrie reached to grasp hold of the window sill above in an effort to steady herself.
Cleo was probably right, she realised as they all came to a halt. This was stupid. She wasn't even sure why she had decided to take a sudden interest in Richard Avery's love life, she'd just heard his name mentioned and...well...here she was.
"This window's open." she heard Bowie whisper, voice more hushed than ever, only for Cleo to grumble:
"How'd you know they're even in the living..."
"Shh! I can hear something!"
All four girls fell silent, straining their ears to catch wind of any sound. At first, Carrie was pretty sure that Kayleigh had been mistaken, for she could hear nothing at all coming from inside the house, but after a moment she thought she heard a strange, low noise, almost as if somebody were groaning.
"I'm going to look!" Cleo whispered impatiently, and as the girl slowly rose up to peer through the window, the other three followed her lead. The top of the window sill was just about coming into Carrie's view when beside her Kayleigh let out a gasp and Bowie reached to grab both younger girls by the arm, giving them a firm tug downwards ans she squeaked:
"Oooooo-kay! Well, nothing to see here, kids! Let's...let's go!"
And all at once the girls scrambled to their feet, Cleo letting out a shriek of appalled laughter as she cried:
"Was I was right? They're DOING IT, aren't they?"
"SHHHHH!" Bowie demanded, abandoning her hold on Carrie in order to grab Cleo by the shoulders and give her a hasty shove back towards their house. As Kayleigh rushed to push her way past Carrie in order to make a run for it, Carrie at last overbalanced, falling flat upon her back with a poorly suppressed groan.
"Wait for me!" she muttered, afraid to raise her voice as she watched the other girls dash back towards the safety of Cleo's front door. A dull ache blossomed on the back of her head, and for a long moment Carrie simply lay there, staring up at the cloudy grey sky.
"Come on, Carrie!" Cleo called, only for Bowie to clamp a hand over her mouth and motion frantically for Carrie to move instead.
Carrie reached to push herself up onto the balls of her feet, swaying a little from her aching head as she grasped hold of the window sill and pulled herself upwards, heart hammering so furiously in her chest that she was entirely unaware of Bowie's hissed caution that she might be seen. As she pulled herself up onto her feet, stumbling a little in her haste, Carrie screwed her eyes shut, determined not to catch sight of anything even vaguely similar to what Cleo claimed. Now level with the open window, her face contorted in horror at the thought of what she might hear.
And yet what she did hear in the short few moments before she turned and fled like the three girls before her did not disgust Carrie Winters in the slightest.
Indeed, what she heard intrigued her.
"Just you wait," a deep and breathless voice murmured from just inside the window. "I'm going to make you perfect."