Remembrance and Reunions
"Who helped you?"
"I know you didn't do this all on your own,"
"Come on, tell me who it was that let you floo in,"
"We can find out who it was through the floo network anyway so you're not even helping anyone,"
"No you can't," Tigs spoke for the first time in almost twelve hours.
"W-w-what?" stumbled the auror.
"You're lying, there is no way to tell where a person has flooed from. Even with a chimney under surveillance it is only possible to tell where the person has flooed to," she said calmly.
"How do you know that?" said the auror.
"Please, that's OWL knowledge," replied Tigs. The auror asked her a few more questions, but she had stopped answering again. After about ten minutes, the auror finally admitted defeat and left the cell. Tigs pulled her coat around her and watched her breath fill the air. The cell was cold and grey, the walls and floor a bare concrete. There was a tiny, postcard size window near the ceiling which let in a single beam of light. She was sat on the hard little wooden bed that she had slept on the night before. She had just spent her first night in prison. Well, it was only a holding cell used by the Ministry but it was pretty much prison. Everyone else had made it to safety, Tigs' distraction had ensured that, and it would seem from the interrogation she'd sat through all morning that the Ministry had little to no idea who had been involved. She sat alone in the lock up for around two hours, thinking how desperately she wanted a smoke, before she was disturbed again.
"Looks like you're getting out without a charge, ginge," said the auror who had been interrogating her all morning. He was relatively young, so couldn't have been very experienced, but had an arrogant air to him. Tigs didn't like him at all. "Orders from the top," he finished, before turning on his heel and leaving once more. Tigs watched him go, confused. Why had they bothered to keep her in if they had planned to just let her go? Who 'at the top' had ordered her release? Didn't she need someone to bail her out?
"Edith," A disturbingly familiar voice echoed from the shadows of the corridor leading to the cells. Tigs felt sick.
"Fuck," she breathed. She wished she could escape, go anywhere rather than stay there. Hell, even Azkaban seemed inviting. But she couldn't get away. She had to face this.
"Edith, it's me," the woman came into the light in front of the bars of Tigs' cell. She was fair skinned with greying brown hair, scraped back into a tight bun. Her face was gaunt, a pair of spectacles balanced on a very pointed nose. It was a cruel face, and one Tigs had not laid eyes on for eight years.
"I know who you are, mother,"
Minerva McGonagall paced the floor of the Headmaster's office. She was consumed with rage. She couldn't believe that such a significant case of student disobedience had happened on her watch and, most embarrassingly, from her house Common Room. She was also furious that the movement had been led by her favourite student. Minerva had always recognised that Edith Tighe showed little regard for school rules, but she had never before gone out of her way to break them. Minerva was gripped with uneasiness at the thought of having to discipline a pupil who reminded her so much of herself, as Tigs had always shown the same headstrongness and innate ability to perform magic as she herself had.
Albus Dumbledore sat at his desk patiently, watching his old friend pace the length of his office. It had been almost over an hour since he had received an owl to say that the Ministry had decided not to charge Edith Tighe, and that they would be returning her to the school via floo. He watched the clock tick by absentmindedly, all the while pondering how best to deal with this situation. On the one hand, Edith Tighe had shown an utter disregard for the school rules and, by extension, the law. However, she had stood up for a worthy cause and had demonstrated all the traits of a tolerant, clever and empowered witch. It was a tricky one.
A few more minutes passed like this between the Headmaster and Head of House before their thoughts were interrupted by the sound a person arriving through the fireplace. Minerva jumped and whirled around, marching over to where a dishevelled Tigs was stumbling out of the fireplace. All of the rage that had been building up over the past few hours instantly dissipated from her when she noticed the blood pouring from Tigs nose and the bruising on her face.
"We have to report this! This is a violation of human rights, you were in Ministry custody!" exclaimed McGonagall after mending Tigs' broken nose and helping to clean the blood off her face and neck.
"It's okay professor, this wasn't the Ministry," said Tigs wincing, her ribs ached.
"Who was it then dear?"
"It was my mother," Tigs took a deep breath, and the two professors exchanged glances, "She used to hit me so her and dad split up. I haven't seen her since then. Coincidentally, she also one of the top aurors in the country. Augusta Carrow. You might've heard of her,"
"Your mother is Augusta Carrow?" gasped McGonagall, and Tigs nodded. "I taught her for a year when I first started. She was a Slytherin and most unlike yourself, obsessed with blood-status as I remember,"
"That's her. She had a brief lapse in her pureblood mania and married my dad, a muggle plumber from Gorton," Tigs' ribs twinged again so she paused before carrying on, "Then spent the rest of her life regretting it, telling him every day how she'd given up the Carrow name for him. The he divorced her and she went back her family. They don't recognise me of course, I dirty their blood status." Silence filled the air. The words seemed to echo around the room, washing over all the listeners.
"And she-" McGonagall pause, "She did this to you?" Tigs nodded in conformation. Minerva turned to face Albus, before turning back and concentrating her gaze back on Tigs.
"I will take 50 points from Gryffindor and you're to tell everyone that you have detentions with me until the end of the year, but I won't make you attend, you've suffered enough my dear. Now off to the Hospital Wing before I grow sick with worry,"
Tigs left and Minerva turned to face Albus.
"I can always trust you to do the right thing, Minerva,"
"So what happened?" asked Dorcas, and the group of friends all groaned, as they all heard the explanation a thousand times over as it was repeated every time someone else joined the small crowd around Tigs' hospital bed.
"As I said, I broke all the windows in the Ministry offices to create a distraction, and then ended up in a fight with an auror, which is why I'm in here," she had always been good at lying. "Then I spent the night in the holding cells and flooed back this morning."
"So what's it like being a convicted felon then Tigs?" grinned Sirius.
"She didn't get charged Sirius so she's hardly a con-" began Remus
"Shush Moony, she suits the devil-may-care vibe," Everyone laughed at this, including Tigs, even though it hurt her ribs to do so.
"Okay you lot, Miss Tighe needs her rest," said Madame Montessori and her friends left the hospital wing slowly, each biding their farewell to Tigs and giving her, much to Tigs displeasure, a hug.
"Tigs," Tigs sat up and scanned the dark hospital wing, her eyes finally found the origin of the voice. It was James.
"James, what are you doing here?"
"You didn't think I'd leave you here all alone did you?"
James clambered into the bed next to Tigs, it was a bit of squeeze but neither of them minded. Tigs rested her head on James' chest and he ran his fingers through her hair.
"So what happened to you lot after the protest?" asked Tigs at long last, her voice echoing around the hospital wing.
"We all flooed back to Hogwarts straight from the Ministry, we didn't want to incriminate Frank by all flooing back to his. Then we had a huge sleepover in the Common Room, not that anyone slept, everyone was still full of adrenaline from escaping the aurors, and me, well I was worried sick," he kissed the top of his girlfriend's head, "I don't know how many times I have to ask you but please don't do anything like that again Tigs, my blood pressure can't take it." Tigs laughed at this and eventually James joined in, the dread that had been building up over the past 24 hours was all gone again and the two drifted off into a deep, and much needed sleep.
"James, James!" Tigs' voice broke James sleep and he awoke with a start.
"What is it? Are you okay?" he blurted.
"I'm fine, but Madame Montessori is coming and she'll go mad if she sees you in bed with me!" The next few seconds were somewhat chaotic, James leapt up out of the bed and looked around frantically for somewhere to hide. There wasn't anywhere, and he could hear the door handle turning from Madame Montessori's door. Panicked, he sat down on the edge of the bed just as Madame Montessori walked in.
"Good morning Tigsy, oh Madame Montessori, I hope you don't mind me visiting Tigs this early it's just that we usually take a morning walk together," James tried his best to look innocent, grinning like an idiot at Madame Montessori. She took one look at him, from his messy hair, to his dishevelled clothes, to the sleep still present in his eyes, and his glasses folded neatly on the bedside table, and knew full well that he hadn't arrived in the hospital wing that morning.
"No problem James, in fact you two can still have your morning walk, Miss Tighe is free to go," Madame Montessori was a kind old woman, and she had a special fondness for the Marauders after observing their tenderness with Remus Lupin every full moon. She watched James leave with Tigs and smiled, reminiscent of her own days at Hogwarts.
The next few days of lessons passed incredibly slowly. Everyone was slowly adjusting to the harsh reality of the newspapers. The protest was the headline of every news source, Tigs' picture plastered over every copy of the Daily Prophet. Her speech published and re-published over and over again. The whole incident still seemed strangely distant, Hogwarts functioning as usual, and it appeared to the students that their school was a little self-contained world, separate from the world of Death Eaters and blood politics. However, reminders of the real world still crept in. The entire NEWT potions class found themselves somewhat fixated by the seat that was usually occupied by Oliver Marshall, its emptiness vast enough to swallow them all up. On the Thursday morning, Remus walked over to the seat and laid a bunch of tulips upon it. From then on, the spot became something of a memorial not only to Oliver, but to all who had lost their lives. Students of all ages brought items to place on it, some muggleborns having lost family members in the attack. Flowers, teddies, photographs, candles, letters and all manner of personal items adorned the front desk of the Potions room, and by Friday, Dumbledore elected to have the desk moved into the corridor with a plaque above it that read-
A memorial to all those who were lost in the Mull Massacre, 30th November 1976.
For Oliver, for Daisy, for Sam, and for those whose names we may not know, we will remember you.
The Quidditch match that weekend could not have come sooner. No game in history had been so enthusiastically anticipated than the match between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw that year. The match offered something of a relief to the students, a way to escape from the world and have fun with their friends once more. The game seemed to most as one step closer to normality. The Quidditch commentator, Ivan Burns, started the game by requesting a three minute silence to commemorate those who died. The silence was respected by every student, even brutes like Avery and Mulciber knew it wouldn't be worth acting up.
The game had the relieving effect on the crowd that everyone had hoped it would. Hardly anyone could recall the winner as they headed back to the castle, their hearts a little warmer and the weight on their shoulders a little lighter.
Hi everyone,
Thanks so much for reading! I promise their will be more Lily and James next chapter, please please please please review! Reviews are like chocolate cake,
Thanks for reading my imagination,
ImagineHP
