Author's Note: The chapter title is from a song by Avril Lavigne. There is a tissue warning on this chapter, as well as a discussion of torture and abuse, just so everyone is forewarned. MNF
Chapter 11:
Nobody's Home
Friday, October 2
Persephone's POV:
I was sitting in the conference room of MMB 2 with Harry and Walter, listening to the elder man quizzing the younger. Harry wasn't aware, but today was the last day of his training. He'd done remarkably well, surpassing my expectations. He was even quite helpful in finding staff for both breweries. He sat in on as many of the interviews as he could, though he refused to do so when one of his friends from school was the applicant. He didn't want to be accused of favoritism, although I had more than enough faith in him to be completely objective in the matter.
I wished his mum and dad were here to see the man he'd become. To me, the poise with which he moved through his daily life was an even stronger testament to his character than his defeat of Voldemort in the spring. He was bright, but didn't flaunt his intelligence. He was humble, finding what was exceptional in others even when they were praising him. He was compassionate and concerned, fully listening when someone was speaking to him. He had an amazing natural charisma which made people want to follow him. Lily and I had spoken often about her dreams for her son; I'm sure wherever she was now, she was proud of the man her baby had become.
There were days, however, when Harry was hunched over a machine with Walter that I had to stop myself from calling him James. It was always painful when I needed to remind myself it wasn't my dear friend. As much as I missed my roommate, I missed him more. The resemblance of Harry to James was uncanny. It went beyond the physical as well. The glint James had in his eye, when he was about to lay out his most recent 'brilliant plan', was visible in Harry as well. It did not surprise me to find out he got into trouble while at school.
"It's the only one of the 'fortified' beers in which the alcohol content goes down," Harry was explaining to Walter. "Regular MMB has four and a half percent alcohol, but Purple Pleasure has only four percent." I smiled widely at the answer. Harry had learned it all, even the most mundane of facts regarding our product.
"Very good, very good," Walter praised him. "He's ready, boss."
"I knew that a week ago," I responded. "You were the one who wanted to keep teaching him." Harry had his head cocked slightly to the side and his brow was furrowed. "Harry, you've done it. You've learned the business, your ready to be the brewmaster of MMB 2. Congratulations!"
"Really, you're sure?"
I laughed at his response. "Absolutely sure," I confirmed. "Good thing, too, we're ready to bring the plant on-line on Monday. You're going to need to start the first batch of Wide Eyed Night on Monday morning. I have the crew prepping the grain for the mash over the weekend."
"Wow, I mean, thanks." Harry's humility was endearing.
"Tell you what, let me make sure the barrels of the MMB 1 brews arrived here okay, and then let me take you out for supper. You deserve it."
"I've got it Perri," Walter said. "I think they're all here, but I'll check before I go. Have a good weekend."
"Thanks, Walter. There should be three barrels each of MMB, Padfoot's Pride and Stag's Surprise."
"Got it," he said as he rose. "Congratulations, Harry. You've worked hard for this."
"Thanks, Walter, enjoy your weekend too," Harry wished him.
Walter left the conference room, and Harry and I rose and walked down to our offices.
"Let me just grab my coat and we'll be off. Do you want to be recognized or not?" I asked while we stood at the juncture of the hallways between our office doors.
"Not, if possible," he answered.
"I understand, I have the perfect pub for you."
A short time later we were in my car, driving to the Rose and Crown in Rickmansworth. The place was old, dimly lit, serving great food and an extensive selection of beer and wine. I parked my sedan in the lot and threw my coat in the backseat. I hated taking the ankle-length wool duster into pubs. Inevitably it got stepped on, and often something was spilled on it. I tucked my wand into my handbag and directed Harry toward the door. Just before we stepped inside I heard the chime letting me know my car alarm had been set.
We sat down in a booth and I handed the beer list to Harry. His eyes grew to twice their usual size while he was reviewing it.
"How do you pick?" he asked.
"Well, I usually go with something seasonal, or you can ask for a flight from a certain brewery. It's fun to try different things. Also, what you order as your drink can influence the meal you select," I reminded him.
"You pick the beer and then order dinner? Isn't that backwards?"
"Only in the mind of chefs and food snobs," I quipped back and he laughed.
Dinner was pleasant, we easily talked about his life and how Ginny was doing at school in France. He started asking about the original partners and I told him stories about us in school and when we were first starting. I wanted Harry to know the other founders, since we all considered him our little boy. We were his aunts and uncles and there was no shortage of love when he was small.
"I meant to ask you this a while ago," Harry started. "Why does the mascot not have any part of Wormtail on it? Did you change it after he..." Harry trailed off.
I shook my head before I started speaking. "Peter wanted out long before that," I explained. "I don't think he was involved for more than six months before he was asking for his start-up funds back."
"Why?"
"I'm not exactly sure," I answered honestly. "I was in hiding already, but your father explained it to me the best he could, but he barely had any information. It had something to do with his parents needing money. Peter had used an inheritance from his maternal grandparents to join the brewery, but the Pettigrews found themselves suddenly in need for gold. James offered him an interest free loan, but Peter wouldn't take it. Remus always thought it had to do with some legal issues which needed to be quietly dismissed."
"Would that have been a realistic problem for them?" Harry asked and I fought back my laugh.
"Peter's father was, well, odd. Mr. Pettigrew was a pure-blood wizard, his wife a half-blood. By rights Peter should have been accepted by wizarding society much better than he was. The Pettigrews were fairly ostracized, however, due to some of the stranger experiments Mr. Pettigrew had done. The guys knew more about it than the girls, and they refused to share the exact details. Your father once said: 'No woman needs to hear about that depravity.' He wasn't one to put women aside or think of them as anything but equal, so I assumed it must be quite awful what he was doing.
"Anyway, when Peter asked for his money, the rest of us voted to comply. The company was financially sound and would remain so even with the withdrawal, so your dad took him to the bank, had the goblin withdraw his initial deposit, as well as his portion of the proceeds to that point. The rest of us voted to then remove the rat tail from our then mascot, Stog Woat, and St. Dorf was born. To be honest, the first mascot always irritated me. No one wants to think about a rat being anywhere near the beer-making process." Harry chuckled at my last statement.
"I whole-heartedly agree. It was rather short-sighted of him, wasn't it, taking all of his money that way?" Harry asked and I nodded.
"Long term, yeah, it was. However, in other ways it was best. Eliza had broken things off with Peter only a month or so before. It had become uncomfortable to be around them both," I explained.
"Why? You said Remus had gone out with Sibéal. How was this different?" Harry inquired.
"Peter thought we all were taking her side in the break-up. The reality was, we were." Harry leaned forward and took a long pull on his German lager.
"What was going on?" I hesitated in telling him. There was no way I could tell the story of their past without getting into the disaster that was Eliza's present. He'd respected her privacy and never asked me about her story, but he had a right to know. The breweries took care of her.
"If I share this with you, Harry, you must promise the story remains between us. You may talk with Ginny, but no one else. Eliza deserves her privacy, especially considering the condition she's in now," I nearly begged him.
"Seph, it's obvious she was important to you and to my Mum and Dad, and I know none of you would betray her. I will not either," he answered. It was a good, honest answer. I was coming to expect nothing less of him.
"After we left school, Peter became very possessive of Eliza," I started, working hard to hold my emotions in. "She was so bubbly and gregarious, she made the perfect receptionist at MMB 2. She had a way to make everyone feel important and as though their business with us was the most significant part of the day. Peter didn't like that she spoke with other wizards. He really didn't understand the relationship between Eliza and Sirius. He was convinced she was stepping out on him with one of his best friends. There wasn't a scrap of truth to it. Peter went so far as to confront Sirius, suggesting they duel over Eliza. He would have never stood a chance against Sirius, and thankfully, even with his temper, Sirius refused to engage Peter. Truthfully, Sirius and Eliza were both natural flirts and enjoyed each other's company. It was harmless, and the rest of us knew it meant nothing. Remus's Tonks reminded me so much of Eliza and how she'd interact with people."
"I understand. Tonks was a force of nature. If Eliza was like her, I could see how someone might get confused," Harry said. "So what happened?"
"Eliza was tired of his accusations and of his making her feel poorly about herself simply because she did her job well. Finally, with the support of your mum and dad, she ended her three-year relationship with Peter. He didn't take the break up well, refusing to believe she wasn't interested in him anymore. Peter made Eliza's life very uncomfortable for a while. The other five ended up having to provide around-the-clock supervision, just to keep her safe from someone who claimed he loved her."
"What did Peter do?"
"Now, it's called stalking, but it wasn't a crime in the late seventies. He'd show up at her flat at all hours of the night, he'd follow her when she went to Diagon Alley to pick up supplies or do her errands. Eliza's flat wasn't far from your parents', and would often flee there. Peter started following her there, and to Sibéal's house and even to Remus and Sirius's flat. She eventually moved in with me for a while when he wouldn't leave her alone. He never knew where I was living. When he wanted out of the brewery, the rest of us saw it as a blessing.
"So he wasn't a partner by the time he betrayed my Mum and Dad?" Harry enquired.
"No, but he was still close with James and Remus," I explained. "When they had to pick a Secret-Keeper I was shocked when your dad chose him. I knew he was attempting to protect Sibéal and Eliza from the Death Eaters and Remus had refused, blaming his 'condition'. Sirius would have done it, but they thought it would be better to have him out there as a decoy, since it was so obvious how strong their friendship was. I wanted to do it, but James wouldn't put me into more danger. So, they went with Peter," I brushed the tear away from my eye and took a long sip to clear the cotton feeling in my mouth.
"When his death was announced, our lives were in chaos. Your mum and dad had been killed, Sirius was in Azkaban. We girls knew Sirius wasn't guilty, that he wouldn't have betrayed James and Lily to save his own life and that he wasn't the Secret-Keeper. We attempted to explain what we knew, but," I paused. I didn't want to go down this path right now. There were parts of this story I wasn't prepared to tell just yet. "Let's just say we weren't listened to, and leave the rest of that story for another day, shall we?"
"Alright," Harry said cautiously. "You promise you will tell me, though, right?"
"I do promise, just not here or now, okay?"
He nodded in response.
"Anyway, with Peter 'dead'," I said the word suspiciously, since the official evidence of his death was less than complete. Killing spells don't obliterate bodies and spells which would destroy a body wouldn't leave a finger behind. "Eliza was able to relax, move back into her flat and begin living her life. We all lived the best we could, until the summer he returned."
"In July of ninety-four, Peter kidnapped Eliza. We knew from Sirius and Remus he was out there, but we honestly never thought he'd be stupid enough to come near the breweries. We were all looking for him, hoping to turn him in and clear Sirius's name. He slipped into MMB 2 just after closing and took her. We looked for them in all the familiar haunts of his: his parents' house and their lake cabin, the Shrieking Shack, this dive of a bar he went to in Liverpool. There was no sign of them anywhere.
"Six weeks later, Eliza was found by the side of the M1, north of Nottingham. She was taken to a Muggle hospital where, thankfully, she was identified in the A and E department as a witch and quietly transferred to St. Mungo's. What he'd done to her-" I had to choke down the bile which had formed in my throat and was threatening to come further up. Harry reached over and took my hand, stroking the top with his thumb.
"We're not exactly sure what he was attempting, but he'd been plying her with some sort of potion. The best the investigators could decipher was a strong love potion, but it was so poorly made. Potions was truly Peter's worst subject," I rubbed my free hand across my forehead. "Her mind was gone. She recognized things, but she had no recent memories. Physically it was a miracle she was alive. He'd starved her, must not have left her with enough to drink because her kidneys were shutting down from dehydration. She was covered in bites and cuts and scratches, which were all infected." I paused to get control of my emotions.
"She'd also been assaulted, recently, and evidence pointed to more than one assailant. Since he was a Death Eater by then, and they had a proclivity for such behaviors, we assumed he...shared her." It was all out, everything I could say had been said. I couldn't, however, stop the images from moving behind my eyes.
"That bastard," Harry muttered under his breath. "If he weren't already dead, I'd find him and kill him with my bare hands."
"We all felt that way," I responded. "Do you understand why we arranged for the brewery to take care of her?" He nodded. "She's has excellent care at the facility she's in. We've never pushed to have her remember. The Healers believe the memories would simply be too traumatic to endure."
"I'd like to meet her one day," Harry asked and I nodded.
"Let me prepare her for your meeting. Given your resemblance to your dad, she will likely confuse the two of you. I need to make sure she's ready to see you."
"I understand. Thank you for trusting me," he quietly replied and we both went back to finishing our meals.
