Happy New Year! Are you ready for 2017?
I hurled myself at my mum and dad, hugging them tightly. It was the Saturday before Christmas, and I was at King's Cross Station, having ridden the Hogwarts Express back from school with Brooklyn, Rossalene, Millie, Helen, Lanie, and Shawnee. Our compartment had been crowded, but full of laughter and holiday cheer.
My parents squeezed me back. I kissed my mum on the cheek and rumpled my dad's light brown curls. His hand snapped up to his head- he didn't like messy hair- but then he grinned and mussed up my locks, too. The two of us burst into fits of laughter as we tried to tousle the other's hair most. Since he had a good two feet on me, he was winning. I couldn't reach!
Mum rolled her eyes. "I believe I am the only adult in this family." But she cracked a smile, and took my trunk and Peltie's cage as I tried to leap onto Dad's back. "We were going to take the Knight Bus to your grandparents' house, Aly, since it's going to be evening in a couple of hours-"
"Yes, yes!" I shouted, abandoning my pursuit of messing up Dad's hair and bouncing up and down excitedly.
"-but we decided Floo powder would be our best method of transportation," Mum finished.
Dad flicked a stray curl behind my ear as I slumped in disappointment. "Cheer up. I know you want to ride the Knight Bus, kid. Maybe someday. It's a bit of a bumpy ride."
"I know," I grumped.
My parents had rented a Ministry car to get to and from King's Cross, and it was in the backseat of that small green car that I sat and told tales of Hogwarts in all the way back to Rowena's Borough.
Mum spent a few minutes once we arrived home helping me repack my trunk with all of the things I'd need for a Christmas at my grandparents' manor. Dad took care of Peltie, Addison, and Geoffrey- all of whom would be coming with us, of course. A holiday for me meant even more work for Mum and Dad… yuck… and of course Peltie went with me wherever I traveled.
I'd only ever traveled my Floo powder once or twice, I realized as I made a beeline for the fireplace, trunk in hand. The first time, I'd wanted to go to Brooklyn's house- I'd been lonely, and home alone, and young- but somehow, instead of the ancient home that had been the Vawdreys' since before Mr. Vawdrey's grandfather was even born, I ended up just down the street at Millie's. I wasn't excited to try the unpleasant, whirling way of traveling again, but I was dying to spend Christmas with Mum's side of the family. The Vawdreys would be there, and my grandparents Black, and my other aunt and uncle (Mum's little brother and his wife). I hadn't seen Uncle Reggie (short for Regulus) or Aunt Lucy for two years.
My parents followed me, Dad carrying the owls and Mum carrying the trunk they shared. Dad went to the window, opened it, and let the three owls free. "They can fly there, and it's dangerous to take them through the Floo network," he explained to me. My pretty tawny owl hooted and led her two adopted brothers out of the window and into the chilly evening air.
Mum took a pinch of green powder from the glass tumbler atop the mantle of the fireplace. Dad closed the window and we turned around just in time to see Mum throw the powder into the flickering flames. She stepped into the fire, a wisp of black hair coming out of her updo, and shouted, "Mother and Father's manor!" She disappeared in a flash of green light, and just like that the fire was back to normal.
"You next, Aly," Dad said, holding out the tumbler to me. I took Peltie's empty cage from him and scooped out a pinch of the emerald dust. Flinging it into the fire, I watched green envelop the flames. I stepped into them and felt the very faint warmth bathe my skin.
Opening my mouth, I took a small involuntary breath and coughed from the thick greenish-grey smoke. Still, I managed to choke out, "Grandfather Black's house."
All of a sudden, my living room vanished. I kept a tight hold on my trunk and Peltie's cage, and kept coughing as darkness, green light and an acrid, burnt smell whirled around me. Suddenly I was sprawled in a heap on a dark carpet embroidered with maroon and gold appliqués and ringed in gold tassels.
I stood. I was in an office, and someone was sitting regally in a straight-backed wooden chair behind the ornately carved desk. He had dark eyes and was balding, and he was my grandfather, Caelum Black.
"Grandfather!" I cried. My cough hadn't taken me to the wrong place after all. I was in Grandfather Black's home office, a place I barely remembered.
"Alyssa." He stood, the barest hint of a smile brushing across his gruff face. "We were expecting you downstairs. From what I hear, Hesper arrived just a minute ago. I had some work to finish up before you arrived, but it has since been completed. Let me take your trunk."
I handed it over. "Are the Vawdreys and Uncle Reggie here yet?"
"Regulus and Lucille arrived early this morning," Grandfather answered as he opened the heavy door to his office for me. I stepped out into the second-floor hallway, a place I did remember, with its black carpet and dark maroon walls and portraits of deceased family members staggered down the corridor.
"You'll be staying in the third-floor guest bedroom," Grandfather said, stepping out into the hallway and shutting the door to his personal office behind him. "Is it all right if you share with Brooklyn? Your grandmother assumed it would be."
"That's fine," I replied cheerily. "Thank you, Grandfather."
"I am going to put your trunk in your room," he said, relieving me of Peltie's cage, "and this as well. Perhaps you should go downstairs and say hello to your grandmother."
I skipped off down the hall, sliding down the carved wooden bannister of the stairs (a skill I had perfected a few summers ago when I'd been made to stay here for the entire summer with Libby, Brooklyn and my grandparents). Everything in Grandfather and Grandmother Black's house was grandiose and expensive. Even Grandfather had that regal, poised air that came with being raised a Black. My mother, Aunt Cassie, and Uncle Reggie had it, too, but not as bad. This was because Grandmother was short and plump and cheerful- and a Ravenclaw, unlike Grandfather, who had been a Slytherin during his time at Hogwarts (no surprise there).
When I walked into the imposing family room, Grandmother was the first to spot me. "Alyssa!" she exclaimed, rushing over to envelop me in a warm hug. "My, but you've gotten so big! You're taller than me now, child. What are they feeding you at Hogwarts? No meat, I hope?" She gave me a huge wink. Grandmother was a vegetarian too. She had been the one to persuade me to give up meat two years before.
Mum looked at me. "Aly, what fireplace did you come out of? Certainly not this one." She gestured to the carved stone of the main fireplace.
"Grandfather's office fireplace," I replied.
"Hey, hey, hey," interrupted a lilting voice. "Hugs for your grandmum but not your auntie and uncle? Come on now, Aly sweetie!"
I turned and gave a bear hug to my Aunt Lucy. She had bright, shimmery blonde hair, a pale complexion, and the sweetest smile to ever grace the face of a witch on Earth. Aunt Lucy had been the beauty of her year when she was a Hufflepuff at Hogwarts ten years before, but she was still sharp as a whip and absolutely brilliant. Then I hugged her husband, Uncle Reggie, who was standing next to her. Aunt Lucy was tall, but Uncle Reggie was taller. He had the regal Black features, the straight back, the grand air- but he had a warm smile and dark, floppy hair that fell over his light brown eyes. A Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff. They really made a lovely pair.
Just as I pulled away from Uncle Reggie's embrace, the fire in the fireplace flashed bright and green and Dad stepped from it. He hugged his in-laws, Addison and Geoffrey's cages tucked under his arm.
"When will Brooklyn, Libby, Aunt Cassie and Uncle Karan be here?" I asked Grandmother.
"Sometime before dinner," she replied with a shrug, looping her arm through mine. I really had grown taller than her- I could now see over the top of her curly greying head. "Now, Alyssa child, come cook with me. I have a cake that needs mixing, cookies that need scooping, and an entire tart to make. You too, Regulus. You don't get to just leave your mixed salad scattered around the kitchen!"
Laughing good-naturedly, the three of us wandered into the kitchen. Uncle Reggie went back to chopping vegetables, and Grandmother and I beat the dough for a vegetable-and-goat-cheese tart, talking all about my time at Hogwarts and her time away from it.
The Vawdreys arrived that night, just before Grandmother and I pulled the leek-potato-carrot-cheese tart from the oven. I heard shouts from the family room as we laid the steaming tart on the counter, and we poked our heads into the next room to see what had happened. Mum, Dad, Grandfather, and Aunt Lucy had all claimed armchairs in the family room- I know Mum would have helped cook, but the kitchen was already crowded enough what with Uncle Reggie trying to do juggling tricks with chunks of chopped zucchini. Aunt Lucy got up from my favorite armchair- it was soft, fluffy, worn, near the fireplace, and made of the prettiest midnight blue velvet- and cut off the conversation as the flames in the fireplace greened and Uncle Karan stepped out of it.
The talk of my wand and my Hogwarts house- Mum and Dad had been bragging, and the other two asking questions- died off immediately.
My mum's twin's husband was dusting ash off of his dark green robes when Brooklyn appeared. Then Libby flashed in as I hugged my best friend like I hadn't seen her in ages instead of a few hours, and finally Aunt Cassie, too. When greetings had been exchanged and hugs given, Grandmother planted her hands on her hips like the force to be reckoned with she was. "I have a tart cooling in the kitchen, and I'm sure everyone else is hungry too. Therefore, it's dinner time!"
"Excellent, Mum," Uncle Reggie agreed, leaning out of the kitchen with a chunk of raw carrot in his hair.
"I'll set the table," Brooklyn and Libby volunteered at the same time.
"No, I'll do it, girls," Uncle Karan said. He whipped out his wand- eleven inches with a dragon heartstring core, even though he wasn't a Black- and waved it. Immediately there were loud clangs from the kitchen and dining room as plates, silverware, and glasses burst from their drawers and cabinets and set themselves on the dining table.
As Brooklyn's father did the napkins, Uncle Reggie glowered jokingly at his brother-in-law. "You almost killed me with a serving fork!"
Grandmother let me carry out the tart from the kitchen. As everyone oohed and aahed over the perfectly golden-brown crust (one side had been scorched a bit because I hadn't been paying close attention to it in the oven- luckily Grandmother had an acute sense of smell- but we'd cut away the burnt bit so you couldn't even tell it had ever charred), Grandmother levitated out bowls of steaming asparagus and roped Libby and Brooklyn into carrying out platters of fresh rolls, tins of butter, and Uncle Reggie's chopped salad. Grandfather brought out a bottle that was labeled Wilbur Walmsley's Wonderful Wizarding Wines, 2000 and poured the adults their wine as Aunt Lucy fetched water for the three of us witches who weren't of age yet. Finally everyone was in their seats, and Dad (who was closest to the tart) cut it into twelve good-sized pieces. There were only eleven of us, but extra food always came in handy for nice midnight snacks. He served us each a piece as Grandfather and Grandmother passed around the asparagus. Brooklyn beside me handed me a roll that she had already buttered, and Uncle Reggie proudly served me some of his salad. Finally, we were ready to eat. Grandfather said a few words asking Salazar Slytherin and the Black ancestors to bless the food- some odd religious mumbo-jumbo that no one else was into- and we dug in.
"So, Aly, Brooklyn, tell me your wands again," Aunt Lucy requested after swallowing her first bite of tart. "This is delicious, by the way, Aly, Darcy."
"Mine's twelve and a half inches long, ebony wood, dragon heartstring core, and reasonably supple," Brooklyn rattled off promptly, drawing her wand from the inside pocket of her robes as if she'd been waiting for this question. The handle was carved to look like a stack of marbles, and the beautifully polished dark wood glinted in the low lamplight of the manor.
"Dragon heartstring, like a proud Black woman," Aunt Cassie said in a slightly pompous tone.
Aunt Lucy turned her bright blue eyes on me. "And you, Aly? Your mum couldn't remember the exact specifications of your wand. Something about cedar wood, I believe?"
Luckily, I remembered. Gulping, I in turn pulled my own wand out. "Fourteen and a half inches long, cedar wood with unicorn tail hair core, skinny but hard and durable." I was parroting Gabrielle O'Cain's words and I knew it. After all, they were permanently burned into my brain.
"Fourteen inches long?" Uncle Reggie whistled in surprise.
"And a half," Mum corrected.
"That might be the longest wand I've ever seen," my uncle continued. "What was the record, Father? Fifteen, sixteen-"
"Eighteen inches. Death Eater Lucius Malfoy," Grandfather answered.
"Well, you know what they say," Dad chipped in. "Big wands come with big personalities!"
"So both of our first-year girls have big personalities," Grandmother said proudly.
Grandfather scoffed and boomed, "I need no wand to tell me that!"
Aunt Cassie leaned forward and asked the question I'd been dreading the most. "Did you say unicorn tail hair core, Aly? Why not dragon heartstring?"
Mum sighed and rolled her eyes. She'd obviously been also dreading the question. "We tried almost every dragon heartstring wand that Miss O'Cain had there before that woman insisted on trying something else. This was the first wand we tried with a different core."
"You do take after your father," Aunt Cassie said with an almost disapproving smirk.
An awkward silence stretched across the room, until Uncle Reggie- no doubt trying to stop the discomfort- swallowed a bite of food. He leaned forward slightly and said, very loudly, "This is quite good, Mum. You too, Aly. I love potatoes and goat cheese together."
I beamed. Grandmother had made most of the tart, sure, but I'd helped an awful lot, and it had been my suggestion to include potatoes instead of just leeks and carrots.
"Thank you, Regulus," Grandmother said, patting her son on the arm.
At that moment, people began to break into smaller conversational groups. Grandfather, Dad, and Uncle Karan all began to talk about their work (they were all employees of the Ministry of Magic- Dad at the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, Uncle Karan at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Grandfather heading the Department of International Magical Cooperation). Aunt Lucy asked Libby what she was hoping for during her fast-approaching Hogwarts years, and Brooklyn's nine-year-old redheaded sister launched into a talkative spiel about how she was hoping for Slytherin but if not Slytherin Ravenclaw like her grandmother and how she couldn't wait to get her wand and schoolbooks and make new friends, etc., etc. Aunt Cassie and Mum, the twins, chatted about Mum's latest article- a front-page story about a coven of witches in Dublin who had nearly broken the International Statute of Secrecy by performing healing spells on a Muggle who was deathly ill with some kind of pox. Grandmother kept talking to Uncle Reggie about the food. This left Brooklyn and me to strike up a discussion.
"I've been telling Mother and Father all about what's been happening at Hogwarts," my oldest cousin said in a low voice. "They say none of it is normal, not at all. My Uncle Hugo- Father's older brother- his wife's little sister works in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and she says she's never heard of any thestrals being so nice, let alone eating vegetables. She claims she wrote an essay in her seventh year at Hogwarts that explained why carnivorous animals can't eat vegetables for long without their digestive systems rebelling. She's petitioning for a committee to go to the school before New Year's and look at the horses." She lowered her voice further. "Apparently they might have to be slaughtered if something is found to be wrong."
"Dad's friends in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures said the exact same thing," I whispered back. "Only this is the first I'm hearing about any paper or petition."
"You wouldn't have," she replied quietly with a toss of her long dark hair. "Father says they just wrote it up yesterday, and it's being kept top secret. Already it's got three hundred names. Just seven hundred more until the committee's put together. I would sign it if I were of age. I love Tanith and all, but something's just off about her."
"I agree. Rowen- it's fun having him 'round, but something's not right."
"And the staircases," Brooklyn exclaimed. She re-lowered her voice, although why we were whispering I didn't know. It seemed wrong to discuss what was going on at Hogwarts so loudly in front of our family, so maybe that was it. Or perhaps she didn't want to scare our parents into making us switch schools. "Did you tell your parents about them? About the paper cuts? Or the boneless foot?"
"The paper cuts, not the boneless foot," I murmured. A Gryffindor sixth-year had been sprinting up a staircase leading to the fourth floor when it had disappeared- him along with it, according to his classmates. Conor Mathieson had been there when the boy was found on the first floor right outside the Great Hall before lunch, and he'd spent most of Charms class that afternoon talking about how the bones in the boy's left foot- the one that had been touching the staircase when it vanished, if witnesses were to be believed- had just up and vanished. "It only happened last week."
"True," Brooklyn allowed, shaking her head in wonder. "I'm starting to get worried. Hogwarts- well, it just seems so different from the school of our parents' tales, and not really in a good way."
I shrugged. "It's been thirty years since they graduated!"
"Twenty-five," Brooklyn corrected. "Remember, they graduated in-"
"Two thousand and sixteen. I know," I huffed. "As I was saying, a lot can change in twenty-five years. I'm sure it's nothing."
Brooklyn nodded slowly, but she didn't look convinced.
Later that night, Grandfather brought out the freshly cut Christmas tree for us to decorate. Libby, as the youngest, got to put the star- a bright yellow thing that glowed like it was charmed, which it probably was- on the tippy top. Brooklyn and I claimed all of our special ornaments. Everyone got to put on their own- mine consisted of a collection of fourteen ornaments. The first was two small panes of glass sealed together with a Permanent Sticking Charm, with a curly, wispy lock of my baby hair stuck between them. I also had a small broomstick-shaped child's toy that was bright green (the first bit of "kiddy magic" I had ever performed was making it turn from brown and golden to pink to blue to its current shade of lime), and the first of my baby teeth to fall out, forever sealed inside a small globe of glass. Then there were the photos. Eleven tiny moving pictures of me were trapped in small frames. There was one from each of my birthdays except for the actual day I was born, back in 2029. In my first picture, I was bawling. In my second, I was asleep. In my third- running around. In my fourth- waving. My fifth I was laughing, my sixth changing toys different colors… all the way up to the most recent, my eleventh from earlier that year. Short, curly brown hair, sparkling jade green eyes, freckles galore- I stared at the photo of me grinning wildly as my hair whipped around my face. It had only been taken seven months before. Only seven months and so much has changed! I'm a Hogwarts student now, a Ravenclaw- I've got new friends, I've learned new things-
Brooklyn gave me a friendly nudge with her own eleventh-birthday photo. Unlike me, she had twelve photos, since her birthday was December seventeenth so she had already turned 12. "Stop staring at your picture and put it on the tree before everyone takes all the good spots!"
Grandmother, Uncle Karan, Aunt Lucy, and Dad- everyone who had married into the Black family- didn't have personal ornaments. They hung up the boring things like shiny red glass globes with the words of the Black family motto scrawled across them in Grandfather's beautiful calligraphy: Toujours pur ("Always pure"). Before the time of The Boy Who Lived, it had meant pure blood. But now it meant something else. Always pure- always kind- always good.
Grandmother brought out a platter of cookies as the decorating began to wrap up. I took a chocolate chip one (okay, two) and scrutinized my family.
Everyone else had personal ornaments. My grandfather, Mum, Aunt Cassie, and Uncle Reggie each had twenty- 17 pictures (from age one to the day they turned of age), the first thing they had ever used magic on, a lock of their baby hair, and their first lost tooth. There were also five extra personal ornaments- a baby tooth, a lock of hair, and three pictures. They were of Mum and Aunt Cassie's first younger brother, Pollux Black II. He had died of dragon pox a week after his third birthday. Six year later, in 2013, Uncle Reggie had been born.
Uncle Pollux's ornaments were always the last on the tree. After every other ornament and light had been strung onto the huge pine, Grandmother hung his hair, Grandfather his tooth, and his three siblings his pictures.
Libby yawned the second Uncle Reggie put Pollux's last photo on the tree. Immediately, Aunt Cassie's dark gaze locked onto her. "Bed. You too, Brooklyn, Alyssa."
"We're two years older!" I complained.
"Yeah, we should get to stay up!" Brooklyn agreed.
"We'd be fools if we thought you wouldn't stay up anyway," Uncle Reggie told us, mussing her hair. Brooklyn squealed and slapped his hand away- with her longer locks, she was much more subject to difficult tangles. "Up to bed with you both. You'd talk to each other down here; we all know you'll talk to each other up there until you fall asleep. Best start sleeping in bed, not down here."
"No fair," Libby whined as Mum and Aunt Cassie shepherded us up two flights of stairs.
"Good night, dear," Aunt Cassie replied as she herded Libby into her room across the hall and shut the door.
"Good night, Aly, Brooklyn," Mum murmured as we entered ours.
"Good night," we chorused.
"'Night, Aunt Cassie," I called across to her.
"Good night, Mother!" Brooklyn echoed.
Grabbing my pajamas, I changed in the adjoining bathroom. When I came out- teeth brushed and all- Brooklyn was also in her pajamas (dark green silk with golden trim), leaning against the wall with her arms folded brusquely. "Took you long enough," she grumbled, hustling past me.
When she came out ten minutes later, I replied from my spot on the bed, "You're one to talk."
Contrary to Uncle Reggie's belief, we didn't talk. Instead, Brooklyn turned the radio on very low and put it next to her bedside so only she could really hear the oldies singers like Celestina Warbeck croon their tunes. I pulled a book from my trunk and nestled underneath the covers with a flashlight that I'd specifically packed for this very reason. The book- The Tales of Beetle the Bard by, you guessed it, Beetle the Bard- was full of children's tales, but no matter how old I got I would never outgrow Babbity Rabbity and her Cackling Stump or The Warlock's Hairy Heart. My mum hated that I liked the latter story, as it was full of blood and gore, but I loved the idea of a warlock driven mad by love.
I had just turned the first page of The Fountain of Fair Fortune- also an excellent story- when my eyelids drooped and I slowly fell asleep to Celestina Warbeck singing faintly of a cauldron full of hot, strong love.
The first chapter of 2k17... one day late. Took me a bit to type up, as it's a fairly long chapter! I think we'll have one more with the Black family, and then it's back on to Hogwarts, where strange things are afoot...
Please don't forget to review!
~atrfla