NO PART OF THIS 'BORROWED PLOT' MAY BE REPRODUCED OR TRANSLATED IN ANY MEANS WITHOUT THE PRIOR PERMISSION OF AUTHOR.
THIS IS A BORROWED STORYLINE FROM THE Harry Potter SERIES, AUTHOR-JK ROWLING. I RESPECT HER MORAL RIGHTS AND IN NO WAY WILL VIOLATE THEM.
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WHEN THE MOON SHIMMERS
Jenny watched as her father approached her, walking slowly among the horde of families reunited with their kids, walking among the trolleys, looking straight at her, hardly watching where he was going, but still able to walk straight to her, without stopping anywhere in between.
He stopped as he reached her trolley, which was one step ahead of her. He was still looking at her with that unusually annoyed expression, though it was getting distant every second.
Jenny gave him a weak smile which, he did not return.
"Jenny!"
Gwen was running towards her from the wall. Behind her, Mrs. Jones was following her hurriedly, she had her wand out, Jenny tensed, she had never seen her mother take her wand out like that except when going to her job.
"How are you, Jenny?" Mrs. Jones asked as she drew level with her, and, like Gwen, she also gave her a tight hug.
"Ned, what happened to you?" she asked, as she released Jenny. Mr. Jones shook his head. "Anyways," she continued "I have to go now, okay." She said, half to Mr. Jones, half to Jenny. "That Lovegood woman has, I think, broken the Decree…., of…, I don't know what, but reportedly, the situation has gotten out of hand and, as William says, it's getting difficult to handle two faced, fire breathing, giant Cornish pixies."
"Giant?!" Jenny said, surprised "Cornish Pixies are not giant, they are small! How come anyone manage that?!"
"Exactly my question, honey, but don't worry. Hopefully, I'll be back before supper. Oh, maybe, William will be with me. Tell her that." She added to Mr. Jones before disapparating.
Gwen clapped her hands in delight. "Uncle Willy is going to come!" she said.
William McFarlen was brother of Mrs. Jones who was a very good uncle to Jenny and Gwen and his visits were always looked forward to.
But Jenny was puzzled. "Tell whom?" she asked her father, who, instead took her trolley and moved forward.
"Tell whom?" she repeated the question to her sister. Gwen clapped her hands once again. "Ooh, I'm not going to tell you, it's a surprise!"
"What's a surprise?"
"You'll see." Gwen said as she sidled next to her father in the front of the car.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
As their car drew into the wide broom shed which now housed what remained of broken, old brooms, now gathering dust, it became evident to Jenny what surprise was there for her.
A brand new Silver Arrow was standing majestically among the dusty, broken broomsticks by the wall in the broom shed. Jenny gasped.
"Aunt Tia is here!"
"Yes!" Gwen confirmed.
Jenny literally bolted into the house, with Gwen by her heel. As they ran down the stairs to the kitchen, Jenny tripped on the hem of her robes, and fell headlong on the carpeted stairs, her nose got a bit of the dust from it, but she immediately got up, running her hand on the nose, when laughter met her ears.
"Aunty!" she said, running into an open pair of arms.
"Jenny! You should be careful!"
She released her, and stepped back, to take a look at her young niece.
Pink cheeked, and raven haired, she brushed a strand of silky brown hair impatiently from her forehead.
"You're already a beautiful young lady." She said, stooping to kiss her on her cheek.
"And me?" Gwen asked eagerly.
Aunty Tia laughed. Giving Gwen a kiss too, she said, "The last time I saw you, you hardly had any teeth, but still," she added, as Gwen's face fell slightly "I can see a young witch who's going to be very big one day."
The reason behind that Jenny liked Aunty Tia very much, and Gwen did not even remember her was that when Gwen was around one year old, Aunty had graduated from Hogwarts and then she had embarked upon a journey of the whole world, to see and learn about the magic of people all over the world, in different continents. And it had taken her a good four years for that.
"Tia, Fi says that William may come with her for supper," Mr. Jones entered the kitchen after depositing Jenny's trunk in her room. "And I'm going out. D'you want something?"
"I don't want anything but," she looked around the kitchen, "You guys are out of Vanilla."
"You're going make Vanilla custard!" Jenny exclaimed
"No, I'm going to make Vanilla ice-cream but you go and rest," she added sternly as Jenny opened her mouth. "We'll talk later."
……………………………………………………………………………………………...
"Too much Vanilla." William remarked, spooning himself some ice-cream.
"I think," Tia said in a voice that clearly suggested suppressed anger "that a Vanilla ice-cream is supposed to have too much Vanilla."
"Says who?" William asked, pausing his spoon in mid way to his mouth.
"I think she just said it." Gwen answered innocently, pointing at her Aunty. Jenny choked on her spoon of ice-cream.
Thumping her on the back, Mrs. Jones said "Now come on you two, stop biting each other's head the moment you see each other."
William took another spoon of the ice-cream. "I am biting," he said, after eating it "but only this 'too-much-Vanilla-containing' ice-cream, it's too hard, isn't soft at all, like it is supposed to be."
Tia suddenly grabbed the ice-cream bowl and added another serving to herself quite forcefully.
Mrs. Jones cleared his throat, looking pointedly at William.
"Anyways," Mrs. Jones continued "I don't know why you have brought that old broom, Tia," she said, meaning Silver Arrow. "even if the model is new!"
"Silver Arrow is getting quite old now, quite old fashioned, I know, but it's still good enough to compete with this new Cleansweep." Tia answered, making her and her brother's empty plates disappear with one swish of her wand, another swish, and four wine glasses and a bottle of wine appeared infront of her.
"Also, that was what I can afford right now." She said, pouring herself some wine.
William smirked. "So," he said, as the bottle of wine sailed towards him expectantly (wine glasses trudging behind apprehensively) "When are you showing us your new house?"
"Us?" Tia asked innocently. "I don't know why William, but I think that you are including yourself in 'us'. Please tell me that I'm wrong?" she added sweetly, batting her eyelids sweetly at him.
William smirked again, (though there was a dry flush in his cheeks) filling his wine glass till top, he said, after a hearty swig from it "I know, that you miss my old habit of telling you that you are wrong, but," he took another swig, "as much as I hate to admit it, but this time, at least, you are right."
Hestia filled her glass too, to the brim, and allowed it to move forward, towards her sister in law (who was watching her apprehensively) and opened her mouth "You really remember the old times, then?"
William, who had surprisingly half emptied his glass before the bottle approached him once again, filled it full again. "Only the enjoyable ones."
"Care to tell what is enjoyable in your opinion?" Tia asked irritably, finishing her first glass of red wine.
"Can I speak?" Mrs. Jones interrupted, trying to send a 'now-you'd-better-shut-up' look to her brother who had opened his mouth smirking. But Tia overrode her.
"Oh, no, no Fiona, let William speak. I think, he has missed being ridiculed since I left."
William turned a fine shade of red, matching the wine, but he took another hearty swig before answering "Funny you'd mention it, but do you know that it was because of you that I was ridiculed."
"What do you mean?" Tia demanded, putting down her glass immediately, her cheeks a little rosy now.
"You know what I mean." He said, his voice suddenly very quiet.
"Oh, I know where all this is going to lead!" Tia exclaimed loudly.
"Oh, where?" William asked.
"Always the same story, never can stand a woman better than you!" Tia accused, pointing at William. Mrs. Jones buried her head in her hands.
"Sometimes," Mr. Jones said huskily, "a woman better skilled than you eclipses you for life."
Mrs. Jones looked up immediately.
There was silence as Mr. Jones poured himself another glass of wine, Tia glared at William, her usually pink cheeks now red, and William stared at her in a kind of dazed look.
"Jenny," Mrs. Jones said suddenly, her face quite tense. Jenny started, she had quite forgotten that she was there, sitting right between all of it, they were all going on as if she was not present. "Jenny, take Gwen to her room and go to sleep."
Jenny turned to the lightly snoring mass of raven hair sitting on her right that was her sister. "Gwen,… Gwen?" she said quietly, trying to make her sister get up and go to sleep at a much preferred place, like, her room.
"Gwen,…Gwen…get up Gwen?"
Suddenly, Uncle William slammed his glass down in exasperation.
"You know it!" he bellowed. Pointing his finger at Tia. "I know you know it!"
"Know what?!" Tia asked, quite bewildered.
"You know that I LOVE YOU!" He shouted, thumping his hand on the table like a hammer. Jenny gasped and covered her mouth. Mrs. Jones froze. Mr. Jones looked up in the middle of filing his glass again, and looked up, his brows knitted.
"Oh, this is ridiculous!" Tia also stood up, pushing her black coloured strand of hair away from her eyes. "I thought you were over it! This is not the same time! I'm not the same me! And this is not some ruddy infatuation!"
"Ruddy Infatuation?!" William repeated, very red in the face now "It might've been ruddy infatuation to you! But to me?! To me it has always been, and always will LOVE!"
"William!" This time it was Mr. Jones. He had stood up, quite red in the face because of the after-effects of wine.
"Even if you have love for my sister, keep it to yourself, at least now, when my daughter is sitting!"
Jenny, Mrs. Jones, and Tia raised an eyebrow.
"What?" Tia asked blankly. William was also giving the same expression.
"Exactly!" he said, finishing his glass of wine and slamming it down on the table. "I don't want her to cite your example in her case!"
in her case
These words stung Jenny. What does he mean?
Mrs. Jones glanced at Jenny.
"Ned, what are you-?" she began but Mr. Jones spoke again.
"Like she already has enough experience of ruddy infatuations on her own!"
Aunty Tia glanced at Jenny. "What are you saying?" she asked her brother.
"Ask her!" he said, pointing at Jenny. "Ask her about her boyfriend!"
Mrs. Jones and Tia immediately turned to her. "Jenny," Mrs. Jones asked gently "is your father right? Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Course she has!" Mr. Jones said, flushing down some more wine down his throat. "All of twelve, and look at her ways!"
Jenny's eyes started filling up with tears. "Daddy!" she gasped "What are you saying?"
"Who was that boy?" Mr. Jones asked "That boy at the station? The one who hugged you?"
The moment he said it, Jenny burst into tears. But Mrs. Jones asked sharply "He hugged you?"
"Yes, he did! But he's my friend, not my boyfriend!" Jenny answered, sobbing.
"Oh, the same story! You had also said the same about him!" He added to his sister, pointing towards William. She shook her head at him and said gently to Jenny.
"Jenny, dear, is it true, did you really hug a boy at the station?"
Jenny cried harder. "I .., did not..hug, him! He…, hugged…, me!"
"And what about the letter that he was saying to send to you?!" Mr. Jones asked loudly.
Jenny cried harder. "His, bir…thday is in August, and he… was talking about…, sending that,.., that,. letter to invite me!"
"Oh, a likely story! Do you think that I am stupid?"
"I do." Tia said, turning back to him.
"You shut up!" he retorted to his sister.
"Don't talk like that to her!" William said, firing up immediately.
"MEN!" Tia roared in exasperation. Yelling loudly about idiotic tipsy men, she left the room.
"Hestia!" William called after her. "Hestia! Listen to me!" He left the room after her. Then came the sound of a loud cracking.
"Wh-what?" Gwen sat up sleepily, rubbing her eyes and looking at her sister in sleepy wonder. "Why-why are you crying Jen-Jenny?"
"it's bed time Gwen, get up and go to sleep in your room. Both of you," Mrs. Jones said. Jenny immediately got up, and still crying, ran upto her room.
She could hear her mother speak as she pounded up the stairs. "Ned, how could you? Atleast you should've talked about it to me first! I'd've talked to her!"
But she did not pause to hear. Pounding up to her room, trying to control her tears, she slammed the door shut, flung herself on the sofa beside the window, curled up, and started crying.
……………………………………………………………………………………………...
The cool midnight breeze was blowing over her face, over her now dry tear marks, making the hair near her face blow.
Jenny was not crying anymore, but every now and then, a dry sob escaped her lips. Lying against the cushions, she was staring outside the window, at the moon. Occasionally, a strong gust of wind made the leaves of the tall cherry trees rustle noisily. Just as a wolf howled loudly somewhere in the distance, the knob of her door turned.
"Allright if I come in?" Mrs. Jones asked gently.
"Yes, yes, of course!" Jenny said, impatiently brushing away the tears that had sprung in her eyes at her sight.
Mrs. Jones closed the door soundlessly and came and sat down opposite her on the sofa.
"No, thank you, you use it." She said, at the cushion that Jenny was offering her.
For a long moment, no one spoke. Jenny turned to the window and her eyes started filling up with tears again.
"Jenny…" Mrs. Jones said
"I'm sorry!" she gasped in reply.
"Why are you sorry?"
"Because, because I did something that made you and Daddy so angry and-"
"Daddy," Mrs. Jones interrupted "only daddy, not me. And it was nothing to be sorry about."
"It-it isn't?" Jenny asked, pausing in wiping away her tear.
"No, dear." Her mother said gently, taking her hand, and caressing it.
"It's allright for young girls to like boys, (Jenny blushed) and-"
"I don't like him!" Jenny interrupted.
Her mother looked at her. "I mean, I don't 'like him' like him!" Jenny added. Mrs. Jones smiled at her explanation. "You know," she said "I liked your father the moment I saw him, and friendship formed between us gradually, but I never told him that till the day I saw him with that girl on the Christmas Ball, it happened right here, in this house," she said, gazing at some point distant "your father was dancing with a girl who was his cousin, and I didn't knew that, I got pretty upset and downed a whole bottle of firewhiskey, I know, it was stupid," she added, as Jenny's eyebrows shot up "but after I got drunk, I took his hand abruptly in the middle of a dance, took him outside, and kissed him."
"You kissed him!" Jenny exclaimed.
"Yes, I did. I probably wouldn't have done it if I'd have had my mind on right but I did it." Mrs. Jones smiled "After Christmas, when I met your father at school again, I was pretty embarrassed. But then, he asked me out, saying he felt the same. Even though I had vomited after kissing him."
"Why had you vomited?" Jenny asked in a surprised tone.
"It was because of the excess firewhiskey, I was feeling nauseatic, but the point is, it all happened when I was fifteen." Her gaze came back at Jenny's face.
"I don't have a boyfriend, mumma," Jenny said, tears leaking from her eyes again. "and I swear that I'll never have one if Daddy gets upset so much!"
"I know you don't have boyfriend yet," Mrs. Jones said, Jenny opened her mouth at "yet" but Mrs. Jones overrode her "and nobody is going to get upset even if you do, and Daddy got out of hand because of the wine," she added as Jenny opened her mouth again "and Hestia." She finished.
"Aunty?" Jenny asked, surprised, "Because of, what-what Uncle Willy was saying?"
"Yes, and No." She said.
When Jenny continued to look puzzled, Mrs. Jones sighed. "William and Hestia," she said "went to Hogwarts the same year, and were together once. But then, because of," she paused, choosing the better word "differences, they decided to go different ways, actually, Hestia decided to go a different way, and she did, too, she went on that world tour, and your uncle joined the Ministry and started his training, and today, when he met her after four years, and got drunk up, he couldn't control himself, yeah, just like me when drunk, but your Daddy gets a little too concerned when it comes to boyfriends and his girls. I know, you don't have a boyfriend, but Tia did, and she wasn't too happy when all of it ended, I think that was what that propelled her to get away from here on that world tour, but anyways," she finished at last, "all this made your daddy extra sentimental towards his little girls."
There was a long silence as Jenny tried to digest all this.
"But you know," Mrs. Jones said after a few minutes "everything happens at a certain age, and at a certain time, everything. It's written all up there." She pointed at the sky outside. Jenny looked out, and her eyes started to fill with tears again.
"Can you see the moon?" Her mother asked, after watching her for a minute.
"yes."
"How do you see it?" she asked.
Jenny turned towards her, but Mrs. Jones turned her face to the moon again,.
"What do you mean?" Jenny asked.
"Can you see it through your tears?"
"Yes."
"How does it look?"
"It looks,…" Jenny trailed away, not finding the correct word.
"Shimmering?" Mrs. Jones asked.
"Yes!"
"When I was a child," her mother stood up on her knees and settled her elbows at the wide window sill, making Jenny do the same, and gazed at the moon, "and I used to cry after some loss, like when my pet kitten was lost, my toy broomstick broke, and my favourite grandpa died," she paused a little there "my mother always told me to look at the moon then, when, in the night it came out."
"Why did she tell you that?"
"The reason was, I always used to cry in my bed." Mrs. Jones answered simply "During the day, I'd pretend I'm a rough girl, who's fine and is not upset over matters as lost pet or broken broomstick, but, in my bed, when there was no one to pretend to, I couldn't control my feelings and used to start crying."
Jenny listened raptly, her mother had never spoken about herself like that before.
"My mother knew what I used to do, because she mentioned it casually, that she looks at the moon in the night when upset about something, and all her worries used to vanish."
"One night, I was crying, and looking at the moon through my window, when she came, and explained."
"What did she say?" Jenny asked.
"She said," Mrs. Jones took off her eyes from the moon "that whenever, I look at the moon, and it shimmers to my eye, it does not so because I'm crying, it does so because it's trying to tell me something."
She looked at Jenny. "She told me, when the moon shimmers if I had lost my pet, it's trying to tell me that nothing, not even your own body, is going to stay with you forever.
"She told me, when the moon shimmers, if I had broken some toy or something else I owned, it's trying to tell me that I'll only get something more better."
"And you believed all that?!" Jenny blurted suddenly.
Mrs. Jones smiled. "I did, till some time, then I got even more big to admit or discuss matters over which I used to cry but," she paused "I still believe what she said when my favourite grandpa died."
"What was it?" Jenny asked.
"She told me, if we lose someone whom we love when they go away, and when we look at the moon in the night, and if it shimmers to us, it is saying that..,"
"That?" Jenny asked.
"That, the one whom we love, and if they have gone away, (Jenny understood that 'gone away' means dying) they have not truly gone, they are there, looking down at us from where we can not see them, and wish us well, and all this has happened so that God can give us a chance to test our strengths, and all of it has happened because it had to happen, good, or bad, whatever happens, it had to happen in that way and nothing that we will do will affect it, for it has happened for the best."
Jenny was too stunned to answer to that. There was a few minute's silence, and then Mrs. Jones cleared her throat. "Never mind that. You won't know what it means now."
"Er, mumma..?" Jenny began but Mrs. Jones waved a hand.
"So," she said, taking her seat at the sofa again "who was that boy who hugged you, who is not your boyfriend, I know, but he still pissed your daddy off?"
Jenny raised an eyebrow at her mother's choice of words.
"Come on, tell me!" Mrs. Jones hit her lightly in the stomach with a cushion.
"His name's David, David Abbott." She answered, blushing slightly.
"Abbott? I think I know his dad," Mrs. Jones said, "he has blonde hair?" she asked. Jenny nodded.
"Yes! He's Frederic Abbott's son! So, he said he'll send you a letter?"
"An-an invitation." Jenny answered.
"Well, I think I can work your daddy into sending you, the Abbotts are nice people." Her mother got up from the sofa.
"You can?" Jenny asked, amazed.
"Yes, but I think, that you should better tell him first to send the 'letter' in the name of your father." She said, pointing at her blonde owl, Zara, who was sleeping in her cage, with her beak slightly open.
"And warn him," Mrs. Jones paused in the doorway "that your father is allergic to more than formal words about his daughter."