"Hello Daphne," Nava said as she came down the stairs. It was past midnight, everyone else snoring soundly already. Daphne was awake though, sitting at the bottom of the stairs, listening to the quiet buzz of radio static. Her left arm was burning underneath her fuzzy jumper, more so than usual, sending the pulsating pain through her entire body. Usually, Daphne could ignore the near constant pain of the Dark Mark, but it seemed particularly intense that night. He was summoning her, trying to break her once again by sending the unending pain jutting through her body, but Daphne was strong. She clamped down on her lip, biting until she could taste metallic blood in her mouth, if only to draw her own attention elsewhere.
"Hi," Daphne replied softly, trying not to let Nava know what she hiding underneath her lumpy, green jumper. The pain squeezed on her voice, but still, Daphne could put on her show of normality like she always did for her family. Her right arm was clasped tightly around the mark, a little voice in the back of her mind telling Daphne that it wouldn't hurt if she just cut the arm off. Daphne tried again to silence the voices in her head telling her to mutilate her body, but she couldn't. Not this time. This time they were still screaming through her head
"Couldn't sleep?" Nava grinned and sat down next to Daphne. She looked at the younger girl sympathetically, not really knowing though about the voices that shouted to her from the inside. "Me neither."
Daphne blushed, staring at her feet, Nava's sweet smile momentarily making the pain fade. The red scarf that Nava was wearing earlier was dry again, her hair voluminous and shiny under the vibrant colour. Daphne still couldn't look the older girl in the eye, some strange fear going through her head that Nava would be able to see through her and realize what she was hiding. The pain threatened to rip her apart from the inside, but on the outside, Daphne still smiled weakly, opening herself to conversation with Nava.
"Thank you for letting my sister and I stay here," Nava said. "It's brave what you and your family are doing."
"No problem," Daphne muttered. She shoved her left arm behind her back, crushing it with her body weight, numbing it just the tiniest amount. Nava's voice could almost make her forget, but not quite. Her soft velvet voice wasn't quite enough for that.
"My sister and I have been traveling for four weeks now," Nava revealed. "Always traveling through the forest or back alleys. It's been hard on her. She's never known war before."
"And you have?" Daphne asked, raising her eyebrow. She peered up behind her stringy black hair hanging in front of her face, eager to know more about Nava. The older girl fascinated Daphne, to a point that confused her. She'd never been so captivated by another person before, so interested to know their life, their story. The feeling was foreign to her, but it warmed her up. Not in the same way the pain of the Dark Mark burned inside her, but in a slow, gentle way, like a warm hug or a hot drink.
"I grew up in Iran," Nava explained, a kind of sadness in her eyes as she reminisced about her past. "I was born while the country was in a revolution, overthrowing the monarchy, and then I grew up watching my nation fight with Iraq. We left when I was eight, right after Mahin was born, but I remember. My earliest memories are of running into the bomb shelter."
Daphne sat for a moment, stunned by Nava's story. She'd never known anything about muggle wars or of their history. She'd never stopped to consider before that the muggle world had their own wars and battles to be fought. Daphne had never thought about how the muggles fought without magic or what they fought over without blood status. The muggle world was all a mystery to her, but as Nava spoke about her world, Daphne wanted to know more about this strange foreign world that was somehow all around her, but at the same time such a mystery. Most of her knowledge of the muggle world came from Professor Alecto Carrow's twisted muggle studies class, but somehow, Daphne didn't believe that was based in much fact.
"It just isn't fair to Mahin," she continued, shaking her head. Nava shut her eyes for a moment, her heavy lids blocking the rich colour from Daphne's view. "I can do this. I mean, I remember what it was like running through deserts and hiding from all different forces. I know what it's like to live in fear, but she doesn't. It's been peaceful for her entire life up until she went to Hogwarts. I didn't want her to go, but we didn't have a choice and now she's here with me instead of safe with my parents."
Daphne nodded, noting the regret and pain seeping through Nava's voice. She cared about that little girl more than life itself. Daphne could see it in the way she walked towards the cabin hours before with her arm wrapped around the exhausted child. She could hear it in the nostalgia of Nava's voice as she spoke of Mahin's peaceful life.
"I didn't want my sister involved in this either," Daphne said. "She's delicate, you know? Astoria's too kind and sweet to be involved in all this, but I dragged her into it. I thought I was protecting her, but now she's too involved to ever be safe. Of course, Astoria's older than Mahin. She can hold her own, but she's just so little."
"I used to find her so annoying," Nava said, a little smile spreading across her face. She looked beyond Daphne at something in the distance, but of course, in the tiny cabin, there was nothing there. "When she was young she'd always bother me to show her some magic or teach her how to do it. That's when I realized she was a witch too, when her toys began levitating and it wasn't my doing."
"Astoria used to steal my school books, before term even started, and then wrote all sorts of notes in the margins. She'd learn the spells before I did, sometimes. I thought she was such a brat."
"Sisters are like that," Nava laughed. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled up old photograph. It didn't move like the ones Daphne was used to seeing, but there was something very magical about the photo. It showed the pair of them, Mahin and Nava, sitting below a tall poplar tree. Nava looked about nine or ten-years-old and her sister just a baby, crawling towards her, frozen in time. The girls smiled brightly in the photograph, unaware that someone had taken it.
"It's beautiful," Daphne said. "You and Mahin must be very close."
Nava shook her head sorrowfully. "No," she said. "We weren't actually, not before all this, at any rate. I was always at school or at my friends' houses over the summer. I loved wizarding culture so much, I just never wanted to go back to the muggle world. I regret it now, not spending much time with my family."
"Astoria and I were always close," Daphne mused. In her conversation with Nava, Daphne could almost forget the pain searing through her arm. Nava felt comforting, like she'd been there for Daphne's entire life. It was refreshing to have someone who understood what Daphne felt, even if she was from an entirely different world. "Astoria's my best friend, I just wish I knew how to protect her."
"You're just a child yourself," Nava said shaking her head. "Your parents protect both of you."
"Right," Daphne blushed again, a bright red coloured that she tended to avoid whenever possible, making her cheeks all splotchy and uneven. "They can't protect us against everything though. There are people out there…"
"Death Eaters," Nava said, her teeth clenched. Daphne noticed her fist tighten as and angry grimace spread across her face. Her angry tone sent shame running through Daphne's whole body, almost overpowering the blistering pain from the mark with another kind of pain. The choices she'd made in the past would always haunt Daphne, the cowardly decision she'd made in the name of protecting her sister, but maybe more to protect her own skin against Bellatrix Lestrange.
Bellatrix Lestrange, who still haunted Daphne's nightmares. Her twisted laugh was still the one Daphne heard whenever silence fell upon her. When the pain searing through her body threatened to drive her mad, it was Bellatrix's horrifying figure that Daphne saw. She couldn't ever shake off the memory of her days spent with Bellatrix Lestrange learning loyalty and ferocity. Bellatrix would forever terrify Daphne to her absolute core, more so than the faceless Dark Lord who Daphne had only seen once to have the mark burned onto her skin.
"Daphne?" Nava asked. She reached across the empty space between them, making contact with Daphne's pale, cold skin. Her warm hands, almost burned, sending a little twinge through Daphne's left arm. Nava rubbed circles on the back of Daphne's icy hands, staring into her cold, dark eyes that seemed to stare at nothing at all. "Are you alright?" she asked again.
Daphne nodded her head and stared at the spot where Nava's skin touched hers. The other girl's warmth radiated into Daphne, numbing the pain of the still throbbing Dark Mark almost immediately. "I'm fine," Daphne said quickly. She shot Nava a feeble smile as she brushed her stringy hair out from in front of her eyes.
"Your skin is cold," Nava said. She grabbed Daphne's other hand and rubbed them between her warm ones. A look of concern filled her eyes. "Let's get you to bed."
Daphne allowed Nava to lead her up the stairs, her arm draped around Daphne, keeping the warmth inside her body. She felt more comfortable than she had in months in this relative stranger's embrace, as if she belonged there, tucked under Nava's gentle arm, leaning her head on her shoulder.
"Thank you," Daphne whispered as they stopped in front of Daphne and Astoria's closed bedroom door. She could hear soft snoring coming from her parents' bedroom across the corridor and Astoria's even breathe behind the closed door.
"Goodnight Daphne," Nava squeezed the younger girl's cold hands once more and kissed her softly on the cheek. In the darkness, Daphne felt herself flush bright pink as the pain in her left arm actually began to fade away. She touched the spot where Nava's lips touched her skin and watched as the she disappeared into the other room.
The man pulled his thick hood over his face as he hurried down the dark street, rain beating down on him. He had a lumpy rucksack over his wiry shoulder, almost dwarfing his thin figure. His face was hidden in the shadows, out of view from the florescent street lamps that made the damp London streets look like something out of an old oil painting. His were the only footsteps in the whole neighbourhood, for even in this rough spot, people stayed in their homes on Christmas night.
This man was alone though, making his way down the streets at a brisk pace, always looking over his shoulder as if he were waiting for a monster to jump out from behind the rubbish bins. Finally, he made his way inside a decaying building, or what was left of a building. The windows were all smashed in and the inside was skeletal, just plain concrete floors and wooden beams holding the ceilings up. It had already been stripped of anything even remotely valuable, only leaving the shell behind to shelter those who had nowhere else to go.
The man was so happy to be out of the cold that he did not even notice how empty the building was that night. It did not strike him as odd that the usual burning rubbish bin fires were gone and the huddled masses were nowhere in sight. In their place, was just one dim light coming from the centre of the building and a single woman's shadowy figure.
"Oi!" the man called out gruffly. "Wotcher miss, you don't wanna be 'round these parts at night."
The woman walked towards him, her dress swishing with the movements of her hips and her wild curls bouncing behind her. Still, the man could make out no more than her silhouette. The woman's heels clicked on the concrete floors as her hand reached up into her sleeve, as if to pull out a weapon. The man cocked his head to the side, taking a step back as the woman approached. He stumbled backwards just a tad, turning on his heel to run, but a pair of ropes yanked him back, wrapping around his whole body, crushing his lungs.
He found himself sitting in the dim light, the ropes tied tightly around his torso prevented him from standing again. He whipped his head around to see who the mysterious woman was, but didn't see anyone there.
"Please!" he pleaded into the emptiness. "I've done nuthin' wrong!"
"Henry Watherson," a woman's voice drawled, her posh accent echoing around the empty structure. She stepped forward slowly out of the darkness, showing off her gaunt features and aristocratic clothes in the dank squatting grounds. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"My name's not Henry," he stammered. He tried scrambling away from the woman, but something kept him glued in place in the centre of the mysterious lighting. "You've got the wrong bloke! My name's James Staten, I swear it!"
"I think you know," the woman said in a high pitched voice. Henry noted that she was rather beautiful, but there was something wild in her dark eyes, as if she were a feral animal more than a human being. "Henry Watherson, magical maintenance at the Butterbeer head office. You attended Hogwarts from 1973 to 1980, graduated with four NEWTs, all dismal grades."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he cried. "Please, you've got the wrong man!"
"You disappeared from your job on the first of August 1997 and you've been hiding out here with muggle bums ever since," the woman continued on. "Blood status – mudblood."
The man's eyes filled with terror at her words. He curled up into himself, terrified of this strange woman he only recognized vaguely from the wanted posters that littered the streets years before, in a different life. Henry Watherson thought he'd outrun them, that he'd truly been able to start over as James Staten, but he should have known better than to have believed he could beat the Dark Lord.
"Bellatrix Lestrange, perhaps you've heard of me?"
She crouched down to his level and looked Henry square in the face, daring him to stare back into her own eyes. Henry cowered in fear, knowing what her people did to those like him.
"I can help you," she said finally. Bellatrix stood up again and began walking slow circles around Henry, who was still folded into himself at her feet. "I can help you get out. Isn't that what you want? A chance to start over somewhere else."
"H-how?" Henry asked, his eyes turned wide as he finally look up, meeting Bellatrix's beady black eyes. He had the expression of a beat puppy on his emaciated face.
"I just ask that you help me in return," Bellatrix grinned. She raised her wand and with a flick the ropes disappeared from Henry's body, freeing him again. She held her hand out and pulled the skinny man to his feet. He stood nearly half a foot taller than her, yet somehow she was still the more imposing of the two.
"I'd do anything," Henry said quickly. He bowed his head in deference to her, not daring to look her in those snake-like eyes again.
A sly grin spread across Bellatrix's face, as she folded her hands together in front of her. She looked like an excited child on Christmas, about to get their favourite gift.
"Have you heard," Bellatrix asked in her syrupy voice. "Of the safe house network?"
"Good morning Mahin!" Astoria chirped as the young girl made her way down the stairs. They were the only two awake at the early hour, Astoria awoken by the sound of birds and Mahin awoken by the scent of warm breakfast foods from below. She sat down on one of the rickety chairs, her feet barely touching the ground when she sat. Mahin was quite small, stout and short, like a toddler who'd never grown out of it.
Astoria glided across the tiny kitchen with the warm plate in her hands. She placed it in front of Mahin – two sunny-side up eggs and baked beans. It wasn't breakfast as Astoria was used to, but it was heaven to deprived Mahin.
"Thank you," she said hastily before beginning to gobble up the meal. Astoria sat across from the child, watching her eat with a kind of strange admiration. She turned up the radio dial and listened carefully at the static, waiting for some message from another safe house to come through.
"Aren't you going eat?" Mahin asked in a timid voice.
"You eat," Astoria said, shaking her head. "You must be very tired from your journey."
"Oh yes," Mahin nodded. "We've been walking a lot. Navi can't apparate because I've still got the trace on me. So we must walk or take the muggle transportation, but Navi is afraid that we'll be caught on muggle cameras."
"Your sister is a smart lady," Astoria answered.
"She is very smart," Mahin continued. "Navi is going to be an auror. She was almost done training when the Death Eaters began looking for us."
"An auror?" Astoria echoed. She thought of her own sister, who'd once, several years ago, expressed a desire to be an auror as well. Of course now, with the mark on her arm, Daphne would never be an auror. "That seems quite exciting," Astoria continued, trying to hide her thoughts from the child.
"Oh it is," Mahin nodded. She raised her fork in the air and twirled it like a wand. "Someday I'll be an auror too. Navi says we're going to America, but we can still be aurors there, right?"
"Of course," Astoria replied chirpily. "They still need people to catch the bad guys in America. Though, there are fewer of them over there."
Mahin nodded sweetly and continued forking the baked beans into her mouth. She hummed a little tune to herself as she ate, swinging her short legs back and forth underneath the chair. Astoria found herself remarkably impressed with the child, so seemingly untouched by the horrors she must have already seen. She seemed so unaffected by the terror that plagued everyone else. Astoria longed for the kind of innocence Mahin still held onto, the kind of true innocence she hadn't seen in months.
Her soft humming stopped abruptly as footsteps came from the stairs. They were light, but every movement in the cabin was easy to hear, every sound echoed off the walls. Nava arrived downstairs, her hair held back by a black scarf that cascaded down her back like an extension of her dark hair. On her hip, Nava carried a small brown messenger bag, the only belonging she carried with her when she arrived at the house not 12 hours earlier. She smiled at Astoria and Mahin as she stepped into the kitchen and ruffled her younger sister's hair.
"Good morning," she said. "You're never up this early on your own Mahin."
"I smelt breakfast," she explained, her mouth full of egg.
Nava laughed and thanked Astoria for the plate of food she placed on the table. Like her sister, Nava quickly began to shovel the food into her face, having learned to savour food when she got it. Astoria leaned against the counter and watched as the two sisters ate, occasionally whispering something to each other in language she couldn't understand.
Less than an hour later though, Nava and Mahin were packed and ready to move on to the next safe house in the chain. One more move after that and they would be safely in France, then on route to America. Nava tightened her sister's cloak and cast a quick heating charm over the two of them before they left the protection of the Greengrass house Fidelius charm. Norella, Linus, Daphne, and Astoria stood in front of their latest guests, waiting to say goodbye. Daphne stared down at her feet, her right hand clasped tightly around her left arm.
"Thank you so much for your hospitality," Nava said graciously, shaking Linus and Norella's hands. "We are forever in your debt."
"Glad to be service," Linus nodded. "We hope you have a safe journey."
"Good luck," Norella wished them. She smiled kindly at Nava and Mahin, giving them the small amount of maternal love they needed.
"Goodbye," Nava said. She smiled kindly at Astoria and then finally turned to Daphne as Mahin said her thanks and goodbyes to Norella and Linus. Daphne, still staring at her feet, shuffled nervously as Nava reached her arms towards her. She didn't dare look up, for fear that Nava would see just how much she'd miss her.
"Daphne?" Nava said softly. She reached for the younger girl's face, lifting her chin gently. "I'll miss you. Goodbye."
Finally, Daphne stared up into Nava's big, hazel eyes. She gave the girl a weak smile and dropped her arms to her side. Her little grin quickly disappeared though, a sad expression spreading across her face. Daphne reached up and intertwined her fingers loosely with Nava's hand.
"I'll miss you," she replied at last, her voice barely more than a whisper. She ran her thumb over Nava's hand and bit her lip, dropping her gaze from Nava's hazel eyes again. Her hand dropped back to her side and she took a small step back.
"Goodbye."