FLASHBACK 1987

"Mum, you're being totally unfair!"

Deidre glared into the steaming mug of coffee before her, casually mixing in some milk as her daughter ranted about just how unfair she was being. Perhaps she was being biased, but Deidre thought she was being perfectly reasonable with all this.

The trio had been living in their home in the suburbs of Newcastle for four years at this point. While the house and lifestyle had grown on the children, just as the Ministry said it would, Deidre was still completely unsatisfied with her new lifes. It was lovely to not have to pay bills, yes, and her funds from before had been enough when combined with her Ministry allowance to pay for food and clothing and other necessities that the children might need. So far, she had not needed to get a job, and focused wholeheartedly on developing herself as a good Muggle woman. It was degrading, but she did it. After careful tutoring in the first few months, the children soon began to accept their lifestyle. Armand was distraught, at first, over the notion that he would never be able to use magic again, but when he learned that he could still learn theory on his own time, he settled a bit more. Regan had barely begun to develop as a witch, and the transition wasn't quite as awkward.

Being tutored by Ministry officials had been enough to make her want to end everything. However, living as a Muggle was not as difficult as she thought it would be. She had been used to cleaning and cooking, sometimes with or without magic, in her old life, and doing so now without magic wasn't a huge stretch. Armand spent a great deal of time catching up on his Muggle schooling, which he seemed to relish. Any chance to learn something new always kept him on his toes. They weren't old enough yet to fully understand how disgusting it was to live surrounded by Muggles, though as they grew, a fraction of their parents' resentment toward the Muggle kind remained, which always pleased their mother.

Regan integrated into school easily. She began when she was five, while all her peers were four, but that only made her status as a popular and outgoing girl higher. The girl became the centre of attention quickly, and although she wasn't all that good in her studies, she managed to scrape by with each passing year. Armand, on the other hand, was dubbed "weird" by his classmates at first. He was quiet, always reading, and asking his teachers if there was anything he could do for extra credit, even though he was exceptionally talented in nearly all of his classes. He was the subject of bullying for a little bit, though now that he was in Year 8 at his all boys school in the city, he had managed to get a group of friends that were similar to his personality. They were all the victims of bullying still, but at least he wasn't alone. Deidre had been into the school on countless occasions to try and sort it out, but these Muggles were still far too lenient on their children, and her son's bullies were never really punished. All she wanted was a wand and five minutes alone with each of them, and she could have set them straight.

It had been a bit of a tough year for Armand. Seeing as he was now twelve, he had spent the previous year quite upset that he wasn't allowed to attend Hogwarts. Although he had been told many times that they could have no contact with their old world, Deidre suspected that somewhere deep down he had hoped that they would give him a chance to prove that he wasn't his father. A letter had come from Dumbledore, stating that although Armand could not attend school, his textbooks would still be sent, and the boy was free to write to him anytime he wished if he had questions about the material. Her old headmaster knew Deidre was a complete mess when it came to magical theory, and it was a relief to know that she wouldn't have to teach the boy herself. When the textbooks arrived, Armand took all the covers off and replaced them with the covers of Muggle books, and brought them everywhere with him. He was quite fond of potions, and any other class that explained the magical attributes of certain unsuspecting items. He was depressed on and off, unfortunately, that he could only learn these in theory. However, whenever they went out to the country for family days or hikes, Deidre would be sure to get him to bring his Herbology book along, and they would scour the countryside for plants that matched those mentioned in the book. Whenever they found them, Armand was allowed to keep them.

Regan didn't particularly care that Armand got to study magic and she didn't, mostly because her older brother usually talked at her about useless facts that he was learning. Theory was boring to her. It was boring in her all girls Muggle school, and she had yet to see what was so interesting about magical theory. Couldn't be much different, right? Deidre usually told her quick little spells that were helpful with certain things, and the girl seemed interested for a while, but would slowly tune her out for something more fascinating, like a new magazine. The girl tended to have a lot of friends over on weekends, and Deidre couldn't count the number of evenings she had tried to keep eight or so girls happy in front of their new Muggle television set – ghastly thing – and prepare food, keep all the pet snakes around the house out of sight, and ensure Armand wasn't tormented by his sister's friends whenever he showed himself. Perhaps this was what all mothers went through, but she had never expected it to be this hard.

The street that she lived on had friendly enough people. Her immediate neighbours were always cordial and kind when they ran into each other. On one side there was a retired couple, and Deidre would occasionally find herself watching them enviously as they went for their evening walks, hands clasped together. On the other side, there was a family of six. Bit loud when all six of them were there, and matters weren't made better that there were three teenage boys and one girl living with their parents. The kids were a little snotty sometimes, but Regan had made friends with the daughter, who was only a year older and went to the same school. Deidre was on speaking terms with Alice, the wife of the household, and came to her with carefully disguised questions whenever certain strange Muggle attributes vexed her.

The house itself wasn't terrible either. It was spacious enough for the three individuals within it to exist comfortably. On the lower level, there was a kitchen combined with a sitting room, and a more formal dining hall on the other side of a thick wooden staircase. Upstairs, there were two small bathrooms and three bedrooms. Deidre had the largest with an ensuite, while her children shared the single one down the hall, and had opposite bedrooms on either side of the narrow hallway. Over time, they had come to decorate it to their liking, though the basic furniture that the Ministry had given them could still be seen in the foundations. Out back was a rather small backyard and a little cement terrace, along with a door that led to a cellar below the house. Most Muggles used it for food stuffs and whatnot, but Deidre generally shoved unwanted items down there for good.

Despite all the good in her world, she hated it. She hated being away from her old friends, who she hadn't heard from in years. She hated that the Ministry did monthly checks on her still. She hated not having a wand, and being unable to perform wandless magic without alerting one of her keepers. She hated that her children had made friends with filthy Muggles. She hated that she had to walk to the grocery, and sometimes carry all the heavy bags back by herself. She hated cars. She hated Muggle men and their ridiculous flirtations. She hated Muggle technology, as much as it was slowly getting better. She hated the teachers at her children's schools. She hated that she had yet to find a single magical being in Newcastle, despite the size of the city; they had to be around here somewhere. She hated that her neighbours always brought her presents and freshly baked goods for the slightest of holidays, including the Summer Solstice. There were so many things to hate, and Deidre sometimes felt like it consumed her completely. She sat around the house for who knows how many hours in a day on the days where she had no errands to run, and she fumed. It was so hard to let go of the hate, no matter how hard she tried.

The hate she was feeling at that moment, though not as strong a hate that she used for everything else, was at her daughter's persistence to get her ears pierced. She had just cleaned up their breakfast dishes, and while Armand was getting his things ready to catch the bus to school, Regan simply wouldn't let the issue go.

"So many girls have them done now," she pushed, her arms folded irritably across her chest. "I look stupid without them!"

"You look respectable without them," Deidre replied and nodded at her tie, "and fix your tie. I'm not sending you to school looking like a mess."

"I look fine," her daughter grumbled, absently pulling her tie up completely. The uniform was hideous, but she had always thought Regan was pretty enough to not look like a complete disaster in it. Armand, on the other hand, usually had to have his pants lengthened by a tailor. The shirts were usually too baggy, and he simply looked too tall and too skinny most of the time. Regan had once expressed being embarrassed to ride the bus with him because of his outer appearance, which earned her a week of washing the dishes.

"All the girls have them!" she continued to whine as Deidre grabbed a rag and began cleaning bits of toast off the table.

"All the girls your age?" Deidre remarked skeptically, shooting her daughter a look, "Or do the older ones have them, and you'd like to look like the older girls?"

Regan's dark eyes narrowed, "No! I just look like a baby without them! Some girls even have two earrings in now!"

"In both ears?"

"Yes!"

"How absurd. There's no way I'm letting you do that."

"Why not?"

"Because you're better than that!" Deidre snapped, exasperated by her constant defiance. She wasn't even a teenager yet, and she was already argumentative, "You have to remember who you are, and where you come from, Regan. These filthy Muggles can pierce whatever they want, but it's ridiculous to want to be like them."

"You don't understand anything," Regan whined with a bit of a foot stomp. "I'll just go get them done without you!"

"Ah," she snorted, tossing the rag into the sink, "with what money?"

"I can save!"

"And I can stop giving it to you."

The two stared at each other, neither wanting to be the first to look away and lose this fight. She could see angry tears starting to well in her daughter's eyes, the same that sprung up whenever the girl didn't get something that she wanted. She was so much like her father at times it was ridiculous. He too became a petulant child when something wasn't going his way, and that trait had been passed straight down to Regan.

"You're being mean."

"And you're being frustrating," Deidre replied pointedly, "and you're going to miss the bus. We can talk about it later."

"No! I want to-"

Before she could finish her whine, all the windows in the kitchen shattered noisily, causing glass to cascade both in and out of the house. Deidre stepped away from the two that burst in front of the sink, narrowly avoiding being covered in tiny shards, and then turned back to her daughter. Regan's face had gone from combative to horrified, and the few tears that had started to form in anger rolled down her face in distress.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!" she wailed, her eyes wide as she surveyed the damage her magic had done to the room. Deidre heard Armand's footsteps rushing down the staircase, and in a flash he was in the room. He looked at Deidre, then to Regan, and vanished back into the hallway, only to reemerge with a broom in hand. Both children knew the consequences of using their magic, even accidentally; someone from the Ministry would be there shortly.

"Shh," Deidre soothed, stepping around the table and pulling her daughter in. Regan wrapped her arms around her waist, still crying and apologizing profusely.

"It was an accident!"

"Darling, I know," Deidre sighed, pulling her back gently to wipe the tears away with her thumbs. "You were angry, and these things happen to young witches and wizards... Don't you worry about a thing."

"But-"

"It's all right, you don't have to explain," she continued, readjusting the girl's uniform absently and smoothing down a few stray hairs from her high ponytail, "just go put on your shoes and catch the bus before you miss it. Armand," she turned back to her son, who had swept one side of the kitchen into a neat pile, "that's not necessary... Thank you, but I'll clean it up."

He nodded and leaned the broom against the counter, then beckoned to his sister, "Come on, Regan. We've got to go."

After giving them each a quick kiss farewell, Deidre stood silently in the kitchen to take in all the damage. There were four windows; two over the sink, and one facing the outer walls of the house on each side. All of them were broken, and the floor was covered in tiny pieces of glass. She could hear Armand consoling Regan at the door as they gathered their things, and assured her that every witch or wizard would do it at some point in their life before they started at Hogwarts, and it was all perfectly normal. She smiled weakly, pleased that her son could always keep a level head in situations like these.

As she stepped across the tiled floor, her slippers making the glass crack beneath her feet, she heard the distinct sound of someone apparating into her formal living room. She ignored them, grabbed the broom and began moving all the glass into a singular pile in the corner.

"And what happened here?"

"You really didn't need to come, Amelia," Deidre sighed, recognizing the patronizing tone before she turned back to look at her visitor. "Regan was upset. It happens."

"It's happened a lot over the past few years," the Ministry official stated. "We might have to do something about it soon."

"They're children," Deidre sneered, turning back to look at the older woman with such hate that the other witch straightened a touch, "both of whom are nearing the proper magical age to start training their power. Armand has had numerous instances like this, and Regan is nearly ten... They are going to happen, and we've simply got to start managing the outbursts."

"I trust you'll have a firmer grip on them next time then?" Amelia inquired, smoothing down the front of her black robes. Deidre ground her teeth together irritably, hating the fact that some other woman was telling her how to proper manage her children, and continued to sweep without a response. She heard some rustling behind her, and looked back to see Amelia retrieve her wand. In an instant, all the windows had been replaced, the shards were off the floor, and it looked as though no disaster had happened.

"I understand this is difficult for you..."

It took Deidre a moment to realize what she had said, as she had been staring at Amelia's wand resentfully. When she finally tuned back into the conversation, she arched an eyebrow, "Do you? I suppose you live like this every day then... No magic, no nothing, right?"

"You're doing better than you give yourself credit for," the witch admitted with a small smile. "It's time to stop being so negative about it and see your positives."

"Oh yes, I'll be sure to give that a try!" Deidre remarked in a falsely cheerful tone which had strong undertones of blatant sarcasm. The blonde rolled her eyes and then sighed, as though she was working with a student who simply refused to behave in class, and then vanished from sight. At least there hadn't been too many threats of severe consequences, but she still hated it when they sent Amelia. The woman seemed to always be there when Deidre was at her weakest.

Shaking her head, she snatched up the tied garbage bag near the door of the kitchen and began to haul it out toward the front door. When she stepped outside, she regretted doing so in only a bathrobe with nothing but a long t-shirt underneath. It was late September, and the weather was already taking a turn for the worse. No sun, either. Fantastic start to the day. The metal can rattled noisily as she lifted the lid and stuffed the rather smelly bag of trash inside, and she jumped when a voice suddenly permeated her thoughts.

"Everything all right at the Gyden household?"

"Fine, Alice," she replied the best she could as she slammed the lid down on the garbage can. She folded her arms over her chest to keep her purple bathrobe closed, and absently pushed some loose strands from her messy bun back behind her ears. "Everything's just fine."

"I thought I heard a window smash," she stated, sidling up to the paint-chipping fence that divided their yards, "and I thought I'd make sure some little bugger hasn't been throwing rocks at windows again. They strike round school season, you know? Angry to be back."

"Ah," she forced out, nodding her head. "Yes, well... No, one window did shatter. Kids throwing a ball around before school started. But I cleaned it up and it shouldn't be too expensive to replace."

"My Tom could come do that for you," she insisted, grinning at the thought of her older husband helping out. "He's real handy."

Deidre gave the shorter, much plumper little woman a look over, and then smiled as brightly as she could force, "Oh, no. I'd like the children to pay for it... Teach them a lesson and all."

"Good girl," the woman grinned, nodding her head in approval. "Got to get them in line while they're little like yours are. My Sadie is sweet as can be, but the boys are a lost cause."

As if on cue, her three boys can barreling out of the house, uniforms all a mess, and rushed down the walkway and out the little front gate. Clearly late. Ron, the eldest, paused a moment to give his mum a quick peck on the cheek, and then turned his attention on Deidre. It all happened in a split second, but she saw his eyes go from her exposed legs to her breasts, then back again, and then gave her a wink. Repulsed, she kept her features as neutral as possible, and then cleared her throat, "Well. Best be off to get the day started."

"Right, just let me know if you need anything further!"

She waved her arm lazily to acknowledge that she had heard the woman, and then stepped inside quickly, shutting the door behind her and locking it. Filthy little Muggle pervert. Ugh. She shivered dramatically in disgust, and found herself slowly meandering back toward the kitchen. There wasn't really anything on her agenda for the day, which was disappointing, because it wasn't even nine in the morning yet and she already felt bored and stressed.

Her coffee, which she had been looking forward to, had gone cold by now. If she had a wand, she could have reheated it in an instant, but now it was wasted. However, as she stood there in front of a once broken pair of windows, replaying the morning's events in her head, she realized there was something much better in the kitchen to drink than coffee to calm her nerves. Arching an eyebrow, she casually sauntered to her cabinet and retrieved a perfectly polished wine glass, and soon found herself rummaging around her wine rack for something delicious and red.

Hell, it had to be happy hour somewhere, right?