A.N.: I haven't updated in a few days, so here's chapter twenty-one.
The Eldest of the Pleiades
21
"Who amongst you is ready to tie your hopes and dreams to the sea—?"
"I am!" Opal cried enthusiastically, beaming.
"Not finished yet!" Sirius said exasperatedly. Opal's face dimpled as she leaned back against Maia's legs, dressed in an open buttoned Georgian coat with huge cuffs, a silk sash tied around her waist, a battered leather tri-corn hat on her gorgeous blonde curls, and having the time of her life.
"And who amongst you has the courage and fortitude to stay true in the face of danger and almost-certain death?" Sirius growled, a patch over his eye, a large plumed hat on his head, a pistol and rapier tucked into his thick belt, long legs strapped in brown leather boots eating up the carpet as he circled the captives. Opal giggled. "What—what is that? Giggling. Giggling—on my ship! What did you say?!"
"I said I'm ready, Cap'n," George grinned, for Sirius had rounded on him for grinning at Opal's delicious little laugh.
"And who be you?" Sirius growled.
"Handsome," George smirked. "Feared by men, greatly desired by the ladies." Opal snorted.
"Excellent!" Sirius growled. "Cut him loose, Sweetie." Maia, with a long sash tied like a bandana around her head, a long, embroidered waistcoat tied around her waist with a brown-leather belt in which was tucked an Arabian sword, and a pair of knee-high brown pirate-boots, smirked and pretended to slash the 'ropes' binding George, Ginny, Neville and an unwilling Crookshanks to the 'mast' of their play-area. Sirius handed him a battered straw tri-corn hat, and George grinned as he tied a cravat around his neck, tucking a sabre into his belt. "Your job will be to ration each sailor onboard his dram o' rum. Mind you don't indulge and tip overboard; Davy Jones'll have you!" Stooping at the waist, Sirius scowled at Opal, growling, "And who be you?"
"Just Opie!" Opal chirped. "I'll lie under your bed and cut your head off when you sleep!" Sirius did a slight double-take, before arching an eyebrow.
"You'll make a first-class riggin'-gel," he growled, indicating the birds-nest at the top of the knotted rigging Maia had strung up in the corner of the playroom. "Keep a sharp eye for the King's colours."
"Aye, aye, Cap'n!" Scurrying over to the rigging, Opal stuck her tongue between her teeth, paused, and started tackling the rigging, panting and grimacing to climb to the top without falling, and she stood in the birds'-nest with a long telescope.
The playroom Maia had put together, utilising what was already in the room and everything she had found up in the attics, had been a huge hit. The pirate-ship; the village of dollhouses; the rocking-dragon and hobby-hippogriff; the chest of costumes; the puppet-theatre; the "Queen's dressing-table"; the tea-table set with numerous teacups and cake-stands, with the March Hare and the dormouse in attendance and a mural of Alice walking through the gates of Underland, with all the talking flowers, dragon-flies and rocking-horse-flies, animal topiaries, the dodo, the Tweedles, and Absalom in his patch of mushrooms, sucking on a hookah; the faux beach with a deck-chair, a palm-tree, a painted mural inspired by The Blue Lagoon and a makeshift little hut draped inside with diaphanous white tulle, coconut-shells for bowls and a collection of silver teaspoons, a music-box and collection of sea-shells and sea-anemones, a stuffed parrot and a little white hammock; Rapunzel's window, accessed by a little ladder hidden by the faux stonework of the wall, complete with a long braid to climb; the miniature three-person carousel featuring a unicorn, a phoenix and a dragon, fully operational and musical; the collection of dolls she was in the process of giving new wardrobes; the refurbished old dresser that now bore a clothing rail and a lot of the repaired antique clothes for costumes; the 'zone of tranquillity', a corner created to look like a Moroccan tent, with pouffs and floor-pillows, and low bookcases filled with children's stories, where Opal could sit and read by herself with Spike. As the Doctor would say, "Masterpiece!"
Maia had a second watercolour to add to The Talon by the end of the day; she had painted their day's adventure, sinking a passenger ship bound for the Caribbean and taking on some of the crew as their new recruits, pillaging a Spanish treasure-ship, putting each of them—Sirius, Opal, Ginny, Neville, George and Maia herself—in full pirate costume, onboard a sun-soaked, black-sailed ship complete with pet monkey and a few captives locked in the brig, as if they were extras on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl—the inspiration for their day's make-believe.
Ginny was slightly in love with Jack Sparrow—championed only by Opal in her affection for the rum-saturated pirate. It had fallen upon Maia yesterday to visit HMV and buy up every age-appropriate Johnny Depp film not in Sirius' collection; a learning experience for Ginny, who had become entranced by the iPod display while Opal chatted on and on about her Muggle uncle's iPad.
She sat laughing to herself over the finished watercolour, because it so brought to life their make-believe adventures; she had remembered all the details of everybody's made-up characters, their appearances; her own wild, berserker-braided and dreadlocked, beaded hair, the long bandana over her head, her shining Arabian sword, her bare, sunburned arms, leather vest and vibrant sash, and her catchphrase, "Hello, sweetie", from which she got her pirate-name; Ginny's fiery mane of hair tumbling out of a plait and the scar down her left cheek; George's rakish grin, tattered shirt and bare feet, and his pistol; Sirius' eye-patch, mango snacks and hipflask of rum; Opal's flashing telescope as she watched the horizon at the top of the mast, a colourful little speck of embroidered silk, battered leather, with a silver knife clamped between her pearly teeth and her little freed-slave boyfriend in his little boater-hat and tattered trousers; Neville, the 'honest pirate', with Pretty Baby, his pet monkey. All of them sun-drenched, the sky blisteringly blue, the clear Caribbean glittering, dolphins leaping up through the surf at the helm, she almost wished it could all have been real. Smiling, she turned to the story she had written, their make-believe recorded properly, and titled it Opie: Misadventures of a Girl Stowaway, 'Chapter One: Accidental Captive'.
She had the ghostly image of a stag painted in silver, ice-blue and white on a midnight-blue background, utilising charms to make the stag rear its head proudly, ghostly swirls of silvery mist billowing at its hooves, seemingly pulsating with radiating silvery light, to accompany Harry's submission to The Talon, a detailed description of how to produce a Patronus Charm; when their pieces were complete, the others had given Maia them to put together in one newspaper, and she was still waiting for a few. She hadn't read the ones she had already received; that would take the fun out of their meeting on Friday-night, but she had examined some of the illustrations George had submitted, to put in blank spaces just as she was doing, developing several photographs. He was a very talented artist, with a different style to Maia's, and she liked his artwork, the colour, the expressions in his characters' faces, the costumes.
After a long day with Professor McGonagall, she had unwound for a few hours at the Hobbit-hole, the first time the Weasleys, Cedric and Neville had visited the place, with Opal, who had Side-Along Apparated with Sirius bearing a bucket and spade. Tired, she had had a nap in the sun; tended her bees; done four paintings—little Pip meeting pretty Estella for the first time by Miss Havisham's ghostly butterfly cabinet; the Bennett sisters from Pride and Prejudice; Helena, Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius in the fairy-forest outside Athens; and Cupid accidentally creating the purple 'Love-in-Idleness' flower from a wild pansy, the love-potion Puck uses in A Midsummer Night's Dream, a commission for the twins—and had splashed along the beach with Opal, had a sandcastle-building competition and cooked fresh omelettes over an open flame for a late-lunch. Opal had declared she was moving in to the Hobbit-hole, and any correspondence should be addressed 'Opal Baggins, Bag End'.
Now, sitting in her room, the rest of the house quiet but for the studio, where Vittorio was doing the night-watch broadcast, she had finished her latest essay for Professor Flitwick to mark, had finished the assignment Professor Vector had set her via owl-post for her Arithmancy study, and was now in the process of piecing together the first issue of The Talon.
The Supremes playing softly on her record-player, snacking on some pâtisserie she had made yesterday, a double-lined glass teacup of pomegranate-arils and a contraband packet of Quavers and an icy Diet Coke, a knock sounded softly on her open door. Unless she was working and didn't want to be disturbed during the day, her bedroom-door remained open. Especially at night; Opal had a habit of climbing in with her when she was afraid the face-spiders in her closet and the Ringwraith under her bed were out to eat her toes and lay eggs in her nostrils. All of that was thanks to Sirius, who liked to tell Opal incredibly vivid stories before bedtime, half-terrifying himself in the process, and making it very easy for Maia, or the twins, to make him scream "like a little tiny girl!" whenever they hid in a darkened corner, bided their time, and jumped out at him.
It was George, and evidence of the last time he had jumped out at Sirius was bruised around his left eye, the result of Sirius punching him in reaction to being startled out of his wits, the 'fight or flight' reflex having kicked in; George had just laughed, and Fred and Maia had been no help, giggling themselves silly. Mrs Weasley had forbidden them to do it anymore, convinced Sirius would forget himself and curse them. The bruise was healing, no longer a lurid blackish-fuchsia, and he scanned her room before finding her at the desk and grinning.
"I thought I saw your light on," he said, smiling. "Can I come in?" Maia nodded, indicating the little footstool by her desk, and after removing a pile of magazines, records, watercolours and the plate of snacks she had been indulging in, George sat down.
"I thought you and Fred were upstairs," Maia said, quietly, because Opal's bedroom was opposite hers, and she kept her door open.
"We finished early," George said, stifling a yawn. He gave her a very sweet smile. "We finished those fireworks." Maia beamed, sitting around in her chair, setting down her wand, which she had been using to trim the articles the others had given her for The Talon.
"The flowers or the dragons?" she asked, smiling delightedly; the twins had come up with different ranges of enchanted fireworks in all different designs, with side-effects like multiplying every time someone tried to Vanish them or Stun them: they had created some that exploded in an array of champagne-gold butterflies; another that started off like a great golden star, each ray of light shimmering as it drifted to the ground, each droplet of light transforming into a five-petal flower; firecrackers that went off like mines; she had seen designs for a wave-like silvery ice-blue rocket that featured unicorns running among the surf, sparklers that spelled swear-words, Catherine-wheels, and both life-size and miniature dragons made entirely of fireworks, and, "for the ladies," George had smiled, a collection of fireworks that came scented, in the most beautiful flowers the twins had found in their Herbology textbooks; roses, sunflowers, violets, lilies, hydrangeas with tiny fluttering butterfly-like petals, peonies and irises, lotus flowers and orchids, bluebells that chimed, dainty sparkling silver lily-of-the-valley, cherry-blossoms, star-centred zinnias, ranunculus and anemones, poppies and sweet-peas, freesias and tuberoses, all sparkling, glittering, mother-of-pearl sheens and diamond-bright colours. The miniature dragons were very fun, snapping and snarling at each other, careening and gambolling in aero-gymnastic displays, mimicking true dragon breeds—Opal-Eyes, Chinese Fireballs, Swedish Shortsnout, Welsh Green, etc.
"All of the flowers are finished," George said, smiling happily. "We're still working on a few of the miniature dragons. We thought we could give a display of them at the Hobbit-hole one afternoon."
Mrs Weasley didn't come with them to the Hobbit-hole; actually, she was forbidden from going with them, because Maia knew she would hover anxiously, scold if they got too boisterous, and make everybody awkward and prevent them behaving naturally and having fun.
Sirius butted heads with Mrs Weasley over how the teenagers should spend their summer, especially since they were guests in Sirius' house and under his supervision; Sirius advocated experimentation and fun balanced with learning, but the emphasis on enjoying themselves, encouraging them to explore new things and taking a hands-off approach to watching over them, enjoying their fun with them rather than trying to stop them having any in case they got hurt. Mrs Weasley, despite her charms, was not always a woman with whom it was easy to get along; she alone thought she knew best for her children—and everybody else's—had to be in control, and would scold when she thought they were getting too boisterous, which put her at odds with Sirius, who enjoyed the noise and the enthusiasm after so long in Azkaban.
Several times Maia had seen Mrs Weasley's expression when the twins or Ginny were playing with Opal, as if she was afraid the little were-girl would try and take a chunk out of her children. If Mrs Weasley didn't say it outright, Maia had confessed to Remus that she knew Mrs Weasley didn't approve of Opal being in close proximity with her children. But it was that very prejudice and preconceived notions that all werewolves were blood-hungry and mindless even in human-form that she wanted to help Remus fight. The twins, unusually perceptive of their mother's many whims and emotions, sometimes very loudly told her their opinions on her hovering over them, making things awkward while they were trying to have fun with Opal, ruining the atmosphere with her shouting when they were all breathless and aching from laughing; Fred had even gone so far one afternoon as to tell Mrs Weasley that he wished she would stay at the Burrow, because she was just ruining everybody's fun.
Having said this in the aftermath of Mr Weasley's argument and Percy's disowning of the family, this probably had not been the most tactful of things for Fred to say; it had taken Bill and Remus all evening to talk Mrs Weasley out of her tears.
Mrs Weasley also didn't like anyone, even Maia, Cedric or Neville, 'squandering' the day playing board-games or 'doodling', even if they had been taking lessons with the Professors all the previous day or worked on their homework at night. There again, Sirius and Mrs Weasley butted heads, because Sirius of anyone knew that childhood came once, and whatever came next, if they had only these happy memories left, that could keep a lot of people going—especially, if her adult life was to be anything like Remus's, Opal.
The matter in which Maia wouldn't back down was Mrs Weasley's constant need to clean and boss people around: it was Maia and Sirius' house, and if things needed washing or sweeping or scrubbing, they, or Kreacher, would do it; but everyone else was a guest in their house, and Maia didn't want anybody tense or angry because Mrs Weasley had forced them to abandon their hobbies, especially when, like Maia, or Cedric, they had spent a good part of their day studying and doing work. With the glorious weather prompting them all to walk to Diagon Alley every day or visit the Hobbit-hole, resentment for Mrs Weasley grew every time she tried to order them to go through storage-rooms or help with the dinner. But, as Maia said, it was her and Sirius' house, and if disused rooms needed to be organised and cleaned out, she and Sirius would do it, and she wouldn't have anyone missing out on the chance to enjoy their summer by being forced to scrub mould from dresser-drawers.
And as far as helping to cook was concerned, she was still in charge of all of the meals, because Mrs Weasley, for all she was a wonderful cook, was a typical English housewife and knew how to make wonderful stews and pies and soups aplenty, but the weather was just too hot for that kind of heavy cooking; Maia's skewers, salads, fresh seafood dishes, homemade pasta, Swedish meatballs and exotic Mediterranean and North African dishes, open-faced baguette sandwiches for snacks, French dishes modified for the heat, and barbecue were much-celebrated by everyone who stopped by for dinner: One of Sirius' great pleasures was to stand on the front porch-step, surrounded by Maia's and Neville's potted plants that Opal helped water every evening before bed, at the small but fully-functional barbecue tucked up against the rail, with a Butterbeer in one hand, tongs in the other, turning foil-wrapped corn-on-the-cob, flipping burgers, sausages, marinated chicken, pork or shrimp, and vegetable kebabs.
The twins had to be careful to keep all of their shop things in the attic-room, protected by the mirror; and thus, everybody else had to be careful what they said to the twins in front of their mother. It seemed everyone but Mrs Weasley knew that the twins were still going full-steam ahead with their joke-shop; but any time the twins acted with their usual boisterousness and fervour for mischief, she would scold, and shout, and make it very awkward for everyone in the house. Most of the time, she chose to remain in her room with her knitting and Witching Hour on her and Mr Weasley's wireless, oblivious to Sirius advertising her sons' business during his broadcasts, and clueless that Maia and Ginny sat upstairs in the twins' workshop putting together owl-orders while the twins mopped their brows, sweating by simmering cauldrons, wearing one of Maia's floral aprons each, or very carefully measuring out explosives, made notes and kept a book on Healing on-hand while one of them tested out their merchandise.
Fred was right about one thing; because of the recent argument with Percy, Mrs Weasley was very emotional, and tended to ruin everyone's fun. Maia lived in constant anxiety that someone would reveal the ever-changing password up to the attic, and Mrs Weasley would discover the workshop. The amount of time and effort the twins had put into their products, the creativity and ingenuity and perseverance required were admirable, she hated to think that Mrs Weasley, so outspoken about supporting her children in their every endeavour, would throw away all her twin sons' inventions simply because she disapproved.
So when something creaked out in the playroom, Maia froze, listening hard, anxious that it was Mrs Weasley overhearing their discussion about the twins' invented fireworks. Footsteps sounded downstairs, and George let out a breath of relief; catching her eye, they both laughed.
"Are you putting The Talon together?" George asked, peering at the clutter on her desk.
"Yes, and no, you can't have a sneak-peek," Maia smiled, shielding the documents on the leather-topped, incredibly cluttered desk.
"I wasn't going to sneak!" George grinned. "Although, I know what the next headline should be."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. 'Maia Black finally gets on a broom!'" George smirked. "When are we going to get you playing Quidditch?"
"Not today," Maia yawned, catching sight of the tiny watch-face propped up on the panelling ledge above the desk. It was past midnight; it had officially become 'tomorrow'. "I've got Herbology."
"I don't understand why you actually want to go to school during the summer holidays," George shook his head.
"Personal betterment, a full education," Maia said, chuckling, and George just shook his head again.
"You've just finished sitting all of your exams," he said. "Shouldn't you be taking a break for the next decade?"
"Those were Muggle exams," Maia sighed, stifling a yawn.
"So you're trying to catch up on four years in three months," George said, giving her the kind of look Sirius gave her whenever she did something unnaturally responsible for a girl her age.
"Most Hogwarts students aren't getting one-on-one tutoring from the professors," Maia pointed out. "It makes a difference, having that proximity; Professor McGonagall says I've made more progress with her in only a few day-long lessons than in an entire year sitting in her class, because she can dedicate the attention I need." And Maia practiced. A lot.
She got along well with Professor McGonagall, who was strict but fair, and who had told Sirius that Maia might be one of the most gifted students she had taught in her nearly-forty years at Hogwarts. Maia thought that was down to having one-to-one supervision, but it also helped that Maia practiced a lot, ignoring the laws against witches and wizards under seventeen not using magic—to Ron's and Ginny's disgruntlement, given Mrs Weasley had confiscated their wands at the beginning of the summer holidays—and had been studying further ahead in Tonks' old textbooks on her own.
"Fred and I always learned more on our own than we ever did in lessons," George said, going through some of the watercolours he had moved off his stool. "Though I will admit, we always paid attention in Transfiguration."
"I wouldn't have thought Professor McGonagall would let anyone get away with slacking off in her lessons," Maia said thoughtfully. George chuckled.
"No. That, and Potions; we always kept our noses clean in Snape's lessons," he said; Maia raised an eyebrow at him disbelievingly. George chuckled. "Alright, relatively clean. Otherwise they would have been unbearably dull. But with all the potions we're brewing up nowadays, it's good Snape taught us the groundwork first, properly. Otherwise we'd probably have killed ourselves in a lab-accident already."
"Mm. Or turned yourselves into super-villains," Maia chuckled. "I can see you two as evil geniuses in your own comic-book." George laughed.
"The Devilution of Gred and Forge," he chuckled. Maia smiled.
"At the very least you could serialise your old adventures at Hogwarts in a comic," she said softly, and George grinned.
"Good branding for the business," he said, eyes sparkling.
"You'd have all the kiddies wanting to recreate your old pranks," Maia added, and George grinned.
"Talk about me being responsible for you getting more ideas for projects, you're just as bad," he laughed, glancing around for some notepaper; she handed him a stylus and a pot of ink, and he hastily started scribbling, smiling to himself.
"The only solution is to stop speaking to each other once and for all," Maia laughed.
"Not an option," George smiled, glancing up at her through his lashes. "If only because you get us to stop working and eat something every few hours."
"You should start calling me 'Nanny'," Maia chuckled.
"Or not," George grinned. "You don't have any tea on the go, do you?"
"Um…no," Maia said, glancing around for her tea-tray, a brass one with two-inch high sides that could be placed on removable, folding legs, and on which she had brought up a lot of her things from the den, in a bid to tidy up that room and gather her things in a single place, the easier to find them for her various projects, as well as the pâtisserie she had made, and the pomegranate arils. "I can go and put on a pot, though."
"You don't have to do that," George said, glancing up, a smear of ink on his upper-lip where he'd brushed his finger across his mouth in thought.
"No, it's alright," Maia smiled. Of the two twins, she found herself liking George more and more. The twins were both outrageously outgoing and irrepressible—she could see them as brilliant stand-up comedians doing ad-lib—and to begin with, she had liked Fred because he'd forced her to act out mischievously and have fun, but she talked more with George, and they laughed; he appreciated her sense of humour, and she found herself being funnier, bouncing jokes and innuendo off George; there were more nights like this, when they'd find themselves together, each working on their own projects, perfectly content to be quiet, working, listening to music and sharing a pot of tea, chatting about their ideas and exchanging artwork and bouncing ideas back and forth, laughing. It was dangerous, because sometimes they found themselves looking at the clock at three in the morning, Fred fast asleep and snoring, wondering where the time had gone while they talked quickly and enthusiastically about everything, and nothing important, and anything they could think of.
George had very quickly become her friend. Perhaps because he, like Fred, was so outgoing, unwilling to let anyone sit out on the fun they were having; she had always loved fun, had been the mischief-maker nobody could blame at school because of her magic, and despite having a lot of friends in the Muggle world, in this new one she had only the people living in this house. She couldn't believe there were any better people in the world than the ones she had met, and the Weasley twins especially had become almost the heart of this large, obscure, somewhat dysfunctional family. They were the heart and funny-bone of the body that made up the residents of Grimmauld Place, aided and indulged by Sirius, despaired over by Mrs Weasley, who constantly had to be reassured about their future employment-prospects by Remus and Bill—who both knew about Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes but kept up the pretence that the twins could land any job they went after out of pure charisma—and completely and utterly adored by Opal.
Thrown together in relatively small quarters, forced upstairs out of earshot into one of two rooms when the Order had their meetings, Maia had become very close with several other residents of Grimmauld Place very quickly. Neville was one; the twins, two others, and after the first few days of resentment over Maia's being allowed by Sirius to go out at night and have the use of her wand to perform magic, Ginny. Cedric kept very much to himself, helping Kreacher go through the contents of the library, or else reading Maia's Muggle novels, visiting Flourish and Blotts or Apparating to meet his friends or his girlfriend Cho all over England; and Ron also kept to himself, eating, reading Quidditch magazines, listening to Radio Rock and playing chess with anyone who would sit down to a game with him.
This wasn't the first time George had come into her room to chat, share a pot of tea and paint; but George was the first boy ever to come into her bedroom. Having never had any visitors but magical ones who weren't deflected from the estate by powerful magic her ancestors had put on their property, Maia had never had friends over to her house, never had a sleepover or even her boyfriends over for tea to meet Diane. After the first few times when they had holed up in here—sometimes with Fred, most of the time not—it had become incredibly comfortable for the two of them to rub along, chatting, working, exploring ideas and exchanging artwork; her walls were now papered with some of George's paintings, most of which depicted moments here in Grimmauld Place, or Diagon Alley; this afternoon, he had done several of the Hobbit-hole. She was also teaching him more about photography, and they had gone through some of the antique cameras she had found upstairs.
"We could go and sneak some of that chocolate-mousse I made for tomorrow," Maia said softly, and George grinned, setting his notes and stylus down on her desk. Grabbing her hand, George stifled a laugh as Maia giggled and they danced downstairs, soft-footed. Only with Maia did George seem to forget his ability to Apparate; he and Fred took great delight in popping in and out of every room at unexpected times, driving their mother round the bend and making everybody else jump.
Sharing a small ramekin of rich chocolate-mousse (the fourth batch of chocolate-mousse in a fortnight, each made using a different recipe, the favourite to be put into her recipe-book after an Order-wide vote) and a cup of tea apiece, they sat back in Maia's room, George reclining at the end of her bed because the footstool wasn't the most comfortable of seats for a larger person, while Maia sat propped up against her pillows, an artist's clipboard in her lap, sharing the spread of little glass teacups on her little brass tray, filled with coloured water to rinse their brushes. Distracted from one of her commissions for the twins—a variation on Cupid's creation of Love-in-Idleness she had done earlier; the twins liked to have three or four choices, from which they put together different aspects of the artwork that they liked, suggesting things to go into a final piece of artwork—Maia sat, subtly watching George.
She liked to look at George. Broad-shouldered, with an easy grin very tall and strong, he had gorgeous arm-muscles from Beater's practice with the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and he had the rare complexion amongst redheads that tanned as much as it freckled; his eyebrows a darker auburn, like his eyelashes and the stubble that shadowed a jaw that was masculine but not too strong, she liked the slope of his nose, and the brightness and mischief inherent in his deep navy eyes. They were sometimes far warmer and sweet than Maia expected them to be; George was the gentler of the two most boisterous, hilarious boys she had ever met. And his smiles could sometimes be very sweet. She had never before thought redheads were in any way attractive; but gazing at George…he was.
While he wrote steadily, with the ink and paper Maia had given him, Maia set aside her painting, taping a fresh piece of watercolour-paper to her board, and started painting a new portrait. Getting just the right flaming crimson-red of George's hair in the deep amber-gold light of her bedroom was difficult, but she managed it, and the portrait of his profile came out beautifully.
"If you keep checking me out, you're never going to finish that Cupid painting," George remarked, and he was grinning sweetly when he glanced at her, eyes twinkling.
"I'll manage," she answered softly, smiling to herself. Flirting was something she was okay at; her best tactics were used to deflect unwanted attention from blokes at the Weeping Sunflower, particularly to give the illusion that she and Tonks were lovers. At school she had had boyfriends since she was thirteen, never serious because of her age and relative isolation in her family's magically-protected estate. But she was playful, and flirtatious when she wanted to be, and highly social; being a highly intelligent girl, she was also exquisitely articulate, and being told she was pretty, she had come to accept that she would sometimes receive unwanted attention; but sometimes she would enjoy it. She and George flirted a lot, but it was that playful flirtation, teasing each other, tickling, touching, catching each other's attention because they liked each other's reactions. Maia liked George. He was good-looking, fun and intelligent; they had fun together, and Maia did like it when she thought he was flirting with her.
"Maia?" George said quietly, several moments later, when she was peeling the masking-tape from her board, gently blowing on the watercolour of George to dry the paint.
"Mm?"
"Why don't you have a… Do you have a boyfriend?" George asked. Maia tried not to look at him, flushing subtly. What was he…was he asking her…? She blew another breath onto the painting, drying it off.
"I did," she said thoughtfully.
"What happened?" George asked curiously. Maia frowned slightly.
"I turned him into an octopus." George burst out laughing. "Shh!" Maia whispered, grinning, glancing at her bedroom-door, which was still ajar from when they had snuck down for chocolate-mousse and a cup of tea. "Someone will hear you!"
"It's nearly two! Everyone's asleep; even Vittorio's gone," George reminded her, smiling, and Maia couldn't help smiling back. She rinsed off her brushes, Vanished the water out of the double-lined teacups, set the brass tray on the floor, and yawned, stretching luxuriously, before climbing onto her front, so that she was lying alongside George. Grabbing a pillow, she rested her head on it, gazing up at George. Reaching over the edge of the bed, George set down his notes and carefully screwed the lid on his borrowed pot of ink; plumping the pillow Maia had given him to lean against, he yawned and settled on his side beside her.
"S'pose I should go to bed," he murmured, eyes closed.
"Mm," Maia hummed.
The next thing she knew, she drifted into consciousness with the sun streaming into her room, warm and utterly relaxed, comfortable in the extreme, something heavy draped over her waist, her back against something warm and nice-smelling, while a little ball was tucked against her stomach; gold glinted, and as she squirmed luxuriously, getting the impression that it was something boy-shaped she had her back pressed against, she realised that Opal must have climbed in with her sometime earlier in the morning, because she was spread out like a starfish over two-thirds of the double-bed, sucking her thumb.
Maia remained where she was, lodged with wonderful closeness against George, to use the correct term, spooning, because she was so comfortable, and it was a nice feeling.
The second time she emerged into consciousness, Kreacher was bringing her the first cup of tea of the morning. Opal was also lying sprawled over her, her back to Maia's front. And George was gone.
She poked Opal: with a snort, the little girl jerked awake, her little body digging into Maia's stomach.
"Off, you little urchin!" Maia grumbled.
"Why was George cuddling with you?" Opal asked, displaying her usual knack of innocently commenting on things that might embarrass others or things she shouldn't perhaps know about (like declaring she wanted to 'sex' Vittorio, whom she thought was 'dreamy'; Opal's dad Jules blamed her cousins).
"Because he fell asleep here," Maia yawned, sipping her tea, sighing with relief; she didn't feel like herself without that first cup of tea.
"Were you painting again?" Opal asked, in a vaguely disapproving tone, yawning as she fidgeted around the bed, glancing at her with wide, already bright eyes, all traces of sleepiness gone. Maia nodded, blowing on her tea and offering Opal a sip.
"So what are you going to do while I'm at school with Neville?" she asked, taking back her teacup, watching Opal as she leaned back against the mound of pillows, ankles crossed, hands behind her head. She quickly reached for the camera, capturing the image, and she chuckled softly as Opal sighed, pouting.
"I'll play with Uncle Padfoot," she said. "Can Cedric or George take me flying again?"
"You'll have to ask them," Maia said.
"I like Quidditch," Opal said thoughtfully. "I think I'll be a Quidditch player when I grow up."
"Are you going to be a girly Viktor Krum?"
"Ron calls him Vikki," Opal said, with a conspiratorial grin and a giggle. "Maia, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I have no idea, yet," Maia said honestly.
"I think you should write stories," Opal said dreamily, yawning, as she lounged against the pillows. "I'll ask Daddy and Uncle Padfoot to read them to me every day at bedtime."
"Even when you're grown up?" Maia smiled.
"No; I'll read them to my babies then," Opal sighed gently. Maia glanced at Opal, her heart slipping; Remus had told her that very few of his kind had children. Who wanted to pass on their condition to innocent little children? In twenty years, Maia wondered whether Opal would be able to bring herself to condemn her own children to a lifetime of monthly torture. It made her incredibly sad to think this sweet, playful little girl would grow up without so much.
"Are you going to have babies, then?" Maia asked.
"I think I'll adopt them," Opal said, and Maia raised her eyebrows, chuckling.
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. Uncle Padfoot said when he ran away from his horrible parents, Harry Potter's Granddad and Nanny adopted him as a son," Opal said, sighing gently. "I'd like a son as dreamy as Uncle Padfoot." Maia almost shot tea through her nose, choking with laughter.
"There's a wonderful Greek tragedy just perfect for you, Opie," she smirked, then grinned at the little girl. Finishing her tea, she sighed. "Are you going to come downstairs with me?"
"Yes!" Opal chirped, shuffling off the bed. Maia paused to make her bed, then followed Opal downstairs, bearing her teacup, several empty plates, the ramekin from the chocolate-mousse she and George had snuck last night.
"Good morning," Remus said, smiling as he glanced up from some early-morning correspondence; it wasn't unusual for the adults in the house to be up unusually early, even if they didn't have to get to work, like Mr Weasley did. Remus now kept 'office-hours'.
"Morning," Maia smiled.
"Oh, looks like someone fell asleep in her clothes again," Sirius remarked, watching her idly as Opal hopped straight for Sirius' lap, her favourite perch besides cuddling with her Daddy.
"Mm," Maia yawned, pouring herself another cup of tea. "You're up early."
"Ailith just got off duty," Sirius said, hoisting Opal into his lap, where she settled comfortably, sucking her thumb, and Remus shot him a careful glance, as Maia smirked at Sirius. Every time Sirius and Ailith met, Maia noticed they seemed more and more intimate. Not mad-dogging each other across the coq-au-vin, snogging at every opportunity, but they seemed emotionally close.
"Duty doing what?" someone asked, and the twins dropped downstairs, already freshly-showered and dressed.
"Minding her own business, that's what," Sirius said, giving the twins a look. George glanced over at Maia as she set down two more teacups, and as he sat down, he smiled.
"Morning," he said, and Maia smiled as she leaned around him to give him his tea, brushing a hand lightly across the breadth of his broad shoulders, and he smiled up at her.
"Morning," she said softly. A soft tap on the window had everyone glancing up, and, as it had become routine in the last week, they were unsurprised to see a flock of owls waiting to be admitted so they could drop off their deliveries. Taking several bronze Knuts from the red flowerpot on the windowsill, Maia paid the Daily Prophet owl, the first owl to swoop into the kitchen, and Opal watched delightedly as George helped her rid the other owls of their post, one by one swooping back out of the window. As it had since Radio Rock's first historic broadcast, most of the post was now for Sirius, under the guise of the Fugitive, or Jack or Vittorio; all Radio Rock fan-mail ended up at Grimmauld Place, to the amusement of its residents, especially the teenaged ones who had made it their responsibility to write replies.
But today, along with the usual song-requests, personal stories and letters from hopeful sponsors and bands looking to promote their latest record, there were several letters for Remus; one for Fred and George each; one for Mr Weasley and Jules apiece from their respective offices; one for Cedric; and four for Maia. One was a reply from the Wizard carpenter she had chatted with several times and sat down in the Leaky Cauldron for a drink to discuss designs for the casing of her pocket-wireless; the second was a reminder from Madam Primpernelle's about the date of the first of her six cosmetics-making classes; the third was a wonderfully fat envelope from Hermione, and the fourth, the largest and heaviest delivery, was from her aunt's Herbologist friend in Jerusalem.
Writing in Hebrew, his first language, he had replied to Maia's letter, full of jubilation that she was finally studying magic, and in a place with greenhouses as celebrated as those at Hogwarts, he had enclosed a copy of his book that Maia had had so much difficulty sourcing.
"Huh," she said softly, rereading the letter, because her Hebrew wasn't as squeaky-clean as it should be, with all Aunt Diane's tutoring.
"What is it?" Sirius asked, as Neville, who came downstairs in a t-shirt and his grass-stained jeans, ready to have a big breakfast before going off to the Three Broomsticks for their day-long lesson with Professor Sprout in the greenhouses, peered at the book and picked it up off the table, examining the exquisite illustrations, and the, to everyone else, unreadable language it was written in.
"It's, um…my aunt's friend, in Jerusalem, he's a famous Herbologist in the Middle-East…but his publisher is still in the process of translating his books into English," Maia said, glancing up from the letter. "So he sent me a copy in Hebrew."
"You know Hebrew?" Jules asked, eyebrows raised.
"He said my Hebrew was exceptional when we last met," Maia said sadly. Glancing at Jules, then her uncle, she said, "Diane taught me everything I know about languages. French, Italian, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, even a little Japanese." Diane had raised Maia multilingual, knowing through personal experience how priceless the gift of language could be. Diane had spent most of her life writing biographies and translating them herself into different languages, and she had wanted as many doors open for Maia as possible.
Neville, who had taken the book from her, was going through the illustrations while he ate his breakfast: Maia had put together a basket picnic for herself, Neville and Professor Sprout last night, ready to go, and on Fridays, Kreacher was in charge of doing a full English breakfast, mostly because Maia had to get to the Leaky Cauldron early with Neville. "I'd love a copy of this when it's available in English. There's some very rare plants in here."
"They're all in his gardens," Maia said, tucking into her breakfast. "In Jerusalem—they're famed in that part of the world, people from all over visit to tour the gardens; he hosts competitions there, too. I was lucky enough to visit in time to see one of the garden-shows. The displays were absolutely fantastic."
"Who are the other letters from?" Sirius asked, glancing over as he went through his fan-mail.
"Oh, this one's from that carpenter, this is from Madam Primpernelle's about those classes, and…this one's from Hermione," Maia said. Hermione's letters never disappointed; they were always packed with substance and it was best to have the time to sink one's teeth into them rather than skim through them at breakfast, so she would save it for later. Noticing that Remus was looking unusually happy, she asked, "Who's your post from, Remus?"
"I've just heard back from one of my oldest contacts," he said, glancing up; a smile was illuminating his young features.
"Is that the professor you told me about?" Maia asked curiously. "Who was bitten during the War?"
Nodding, Remus said, "Professor Dumbledore asked him to stay at Hogwarts, but…he couldn't bear the thought of putting children at risk." He cast Opal a warm smile, sitting cuddled in 'Uncle Padfoot's' lap.
"And now?" Maia asked.
"He was a marvellous teacher; he's the man I most hoped to emulate as an adult, when I was your age," Remus smiled. "He was only my teacher for a year, but…now, I think he's itching to make a difference again."
"He's agreed to be involved with the were-baby school?" Maia asked excitedly, and Jules and Remus chuckled. Her referencing Opal as the 'were-girl' and all werewolf children as 'were-babies' made them laugh.
"Well, we're going to meet at the Leaky Cauldron, hopefully we can iron out some details," Remus smiled.
"Have you had any luck with Ministry funding for the school?" Jules asked.
"We've got a few people interested," Remus said. "It helps having Amos onboard…"
"And you went to school with a lot of the people now holding high positions in that Department," Sirius added, glancing up from a letter.
"Yes, and most of them still haven't recovered from their shock from discovering that I'm a werewolf," Remus said drily. "That I was a werewolf, all throughout our time at Hogwarts."
"That's because everybody always thought you were the quiet, good-natured, studious, well-behaved one," Sirius smirked.
"Well, I suppose that next to you, I did appear to be quite well house-trained," Remus smirked subtly, eyes twinkling.
"Mm, but it's always the quiet ones," Sirius grinned. "The stories I could tell about you—"
"Don't," Remus said, glancing at Sirius, who gave him a wolfish grin. "Sirius, don't—"
"I could tell you about the party after the Gryffindor-Slytherin game in our fifth year," Sirius said, smirking, and Remus shifted, giving his oldest friend a look. "Or about re-labelling all of Madam Pomfrey's potions… Or pilfering Professor Slughorn's stash of mead. Or the protest against the new school-uniform rules during sixth-year."
"You were a conscientious objector, Professor?" George smirked.
"Not only that, he encouraged others to be likewise," Sirius smirked. "He was a prefect after all. Had to set an example. In protest of the new uniform rules, we spent an entire month wearing nothing but the new Gryffindor tie."
"Suddenly we found ourselves highly popular with the ladies," Remus said, a grin sparkling across his face. The twins rocked with laughter, and Neville was grinning.
"And, it was you, my dear prefect Moony, who figured out the three ways in and four ways out of the girls' dormitories without setting off the security features that prevented boys from getting upstairs," Sirius said, and Remus didn't even bother to hide his grin as the twins clamoured for information. "And that was all thanks to Violet."
Remus paused, shivering, his eyes widening as a delighted, mischievous smile flickered across his face, though he tried to hide it.
"Who was Violet?" Maia asked curiously, unable to hold back a smile at the expression on Remus' face, trying to hold back laughter, his eyes glittering with suppressed mirth at memories the name brought back.
"Violet was…" Sirius grinned, shaking his head. "If James and I were the height of cool when we were at Hogwarts, Violet and your mum were our female counterparts. And Violet loved shy, well-behaved Remus."
"You mean she loved corrupting shy, well-behaved Remus," Remus smirked.
"We'd been trying to corrupt you for years before Violet took a fancy to you," Sirius pointed out.
"Well, you didn't have the same charms and wiles that Violet employed," Remus smirked, and Sirius threw his head back and gave his deep, bark-like laugh.
"Was she your girlfriend?" Maia asked curiously, and Remus' eyes sparkled as he nodded.
"What's she up to these days?" Sirius asked curiously.
"She's president of the Quidditch League," Remus said, and Sirius chuckled, "and she's got three children—all of them daughters."
"Of course," Sirius laughed richly. "She'd be wasted on sons."
"I don't know, any sons of hers would probably be protégés of Fred and George," Remus said. Glancing at the, Remus smirked, "Violet had a particular affinity for slipping love-potions into people's food and drink. Remember, Padfoot?"
"I'd been suppressing that," Sirius said, silvery-grey eyes widening. The twins giggled themselves silly at Remus telling them the story of Violet slipping Sirius a love-potion, in which the hair of a Care of Magical Creatures class hippogriff had been placed.
"So what's going on with the school-funding?" Jules prompted, getting them back to their original conversation once they had all stopped hiccoughing and wiped their faces, and Maia glanced up from her plate, interested; she liked to keep track of the progress Remus was making with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
"Well, at the moment, with all Umbridge's obstructions," Remus sighed, "there's been very little progress."
"Just do it anyway," Sirius said, frowning.
"I want to," Remus sighed. "But with Umbridge in full-force at the Ministry, anything we do now could be put to a halt, and you can bet she'd try to force more laws through the Wizengamot, preventing us from doing anything of the sort again."
"I thought Amos was helping with that," Jules frowned. "Overturning Umbridge's new laws."
"Oh, he is," Remus sighed. "But it'll take time, and unless we can somehow get rid of Umbridge, the Wizengamot is still going to be dominated by people in Fudge's pocket or who are just as prejudiced as he and Umbridge are."
"I told you, I've got thirteen counts of murder that need filling up," Sirius said, playing with Opal's ringleted hair. "I'd be happy to sort out Umbridge for you."
"We're still holding out hope that your name can be cleared, Padfoot," Remus said, giving his oldest friend a tired smile, "I won't have you giving the Ministry cause to put you on trial for murder for real."
"People like Umbridge always get what they deserve," Jules said, rather savagely, frowning over at Opal, and Maia wondered if he was thinking what his little girl's life would be like when she grew up if Umbridge was allowed to continue her tyranny over the minorities. "Well, I'd better get off to work. Opal, you be a good girl for Sirius, alright?"
"I always am! It's Uncle Padfoot who's naughty. Mrs Weasley tells him off for letting off fireworks and Stinkpellets and stealing cakes," Opal chirped indignantly, turning her face to her father so he could give her a kiss before picking up his briefcase and making his way upstairs and out of the house. The rest of the working adults followed suit, picking up briefcases, tugging on freshly-ironed robes; slinging Opal over his shoulder, Sirius made his way up to the den to get ready to broadcast later in the afternoon, and the twins Apparated up to the attic. They had been murmuring quietly amongst themselves about how they could convince Remus to divulge his information on accessing the Gryffindor girls' dormitories, something that Maia knew, from reading Hogwarts: A History, was made almost impossible by the Founders.
Left alone with just Neville and Remus—Neville went upstairs quickly to put together his bag for their lesson—Maia flicked her wand at the plates and cups and glasses on the table, which all floated over to the sink and started washing themselves, and sat down at the table, wondering how best to phrase what she wanted to propose to Remus. "Remus?"
"Mm?"
"How…how many werewolf families, do you know, would you say are…supported by someone else?" Maia asked. "Like how Christian supports his parents?"
"Those who have unaffected family-members can sometimes be fortunate enough to have financial support," Remus said. "But, on the other hand, family-members sometimes completely turn their backs on those who have received the bite."
"Even though it's not their fault?" Maia asked. "I can't imagine anybody would want to get bitten."
"No," Remus agreed, shaking his head. He sighed, "But the prejudice against our kind is pervasive, and very old. Especially before the Wolfsbane Potion, it was incredibly unsafe to be around anyone who was affected, even if magic was used."
"So there are… Are there families who have no money?" Maia asked, hating the idea of complete poverty for families, with children.
"There are some who have nothing," Remus said sombrely, nodding.
"Because I've been…thinking, well, even second-hand spell-books can be expensive," Maia said, sighing softly. "And I've been doing some research, with Flourish and Blotts, and the apothecaries in Diagon Alley, the stationery shop. And I even asked Professor Snape whether he knew any highly-qualified potioneers who would be able to make the Wolfsbane Potion for large numbers. I'm trying to work out how much it would cost to sponsor an individual werewolf to go to school at the Hogwarts level, you know, taking their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s. And it's the same, no matter where I go; the more I were to buy, the cheaper the cost would be. Fully kitting out a dozen kids to go to school would cost less than sponsoring two. I was…thinking perhaps I could sponsor whoever you can convince to go to that school. And maybe set up grants to buy wands with Ollivander, when they come to Hogwarts age."
"Maia, you do more than enough already," Remus said gently, giving her the kind of look that was so patented Remus, that kind, thoughtful, surprised-to-be-liked and pleased and proud that she was so thoughtful and generous look. "More than anybody's ever offered before."
Maia sighed heavily, chin resting on her hand. "I have all that money in the de Lusignan vault, Remus," she said glumly. She hated having all that money, when Remus was forced to accept new robes from Sirius as a gift, unable to afford new ones himself. "I hate having all that money. It's just lying there; I can't not use it to help make someone's lives a little better."
"That money has to last you, Maia," Remus said. "That's for your family, your children, in the future."
"Some things are worth more than any amount of gold," Maia replied quietly. She would give away all of the contents of that vault if it could bring back her aunt, her mother, her father, the uncle and aunts she had never known, her grandparents. "And I'm not prevented from going out and earning a wage if I find my funds depleting. If I have to spend a little money to help ensure other people can go out and earn some, it's money well spent." Remus smiled softly.
"I'll keep it in mind," he said. Checking his pocket-watch, he said, "You and Neville should get going soon, Pomona will be waiting for you."
"Yep," Maia nodded, checking her own watch. "I'll see you later. Will you be home late?"
"I hope not," Remus sighed. "I don't think I've worked harder in the last four weeks than in the last four years."
"Welcome to the grind," Maia smiled, and Remus chuckled.
"Have a good lesson," he said, and Maia made her way upstairs, found Neville, retrieved her bag, and the picnic lunch she had put together, and together they approached the fireplace in the dining-room, the only one large enough and clean enough to accommodate for Floo travel; the kitchen fireplace was governed by the enormous range, and the drawing-room had yet to be approached for cleaning.
A.N.: Please review! This may or may not be the last update for a few weeks, because I'm going on holiday on Saturday, so if you want another update before I go, you'll have to treat me to a good few hearty, lengthy reviews! I'll be hand-writing everything while I'm away (without access to the internet—eek!) so I'll blitz updates when I get back, but please leave me a few treats in my Inbox for when I get back!