AN: Violence tw
Chapter Twenty Five: Cold Tea
Lucius Malfoy was made welcome by the Black family for the duration of his stay in Sowsworth. His wife Narcissa, being a former Black herself, accompanied him along with her sister Bellatrix. A third sister, Andromeda, was absent and unmentioned due to her greatly disapproved of husband who was both poor and common.
Regulus was not sure if he was grateful for the company of his cousins, missing, for the first time since his departure, Sirius' presence and cold demeanour. Bellatrix was insufferable without Sirius there to mock her.
On the first evening of their stay, Bellatrix sat beside Regulus at dinner and spoke nothing but praise for his recent behaviour in regards to the Prewett farm situation.
"Of course, we're not supposed to name names," she said loftily, her voice cold but her smile warm, "But the fire was genius."
"I didn't have anything to do with that," defended Regulus.
"Of course not," replied Bellatrix with a wink before returning her focus to her yorkshire pudding.
"I'm so glad that all that 'save the farm' rubbish is over," called Walburga across the table, drawing all attention. "Now you, Lucius, can finally put that land to some good use."
"I couldn't agree more," said Narcissa, giving her husband a fond look as he attempted to pretend he hadn't just burnt his tongue by eating a particularly hot roast potato.
One day after the arrival of Lucius Malfoy and his family in Sowsworth, the Prewetts began to pack up their belongings. They weren't taking much with them, aware that there wouldn't be room for all their bits and bobs at the Weasley farm, where they were to live for the foreseeable future.
Molly Weasley was quick to volunteer to house her family and her husband Arthur equally quick to comply.
So, by the following week, the Prewett farm was left vacant, ready to be demolished at the end of the month.
Regulus turned sixteen on the eighteenth of May, which, to his dismay, his cousins were present to celebrate. Yet, with him avoiding his friends ever since the church-burning incident and Sirius completely ignoring him, he didn't have many other options for company.
He did try attempt a conversation with Sirius that day at school, running into him outside the boy's toilets.
"Hi," said Regulus.
Sirius gave him a perplexed stare which, probably due to years of experience, he managed to turn into a cold glare.
"What is it?" said Sirius coolly.
"So Bella and Cissy have been staying."
"So I've heard."
"And it's been awful."
"Naturally. Anything else?"
"Oh," stammered Regulus. "No. That was all really."
"Fantastic. Have a lovely birthday, brother," replied Sirius.
The coldness of his continued glare undermined any sentimental value his words might otherwise have held.
Beyond watching him walk away, that was the only contact Regulus had with his elder brother on his sixteenth birthday.
With a wistful sigh, Regulus entered the toilets and relieved himself.
On the last Friday of the month, the day before Petunia's wedding to Vernon Dursley, James had been invited to sleep on the Evans' sofa. Petunia apparently did not trust Lily or James to be ready in a timely fashion and so wanted to keep an eye on the both of them.
That evening, after dinner, Lily was flat on her back on her single bed, Brutus purring contentedly on her chest. James was sat in the chair across the room, staying as far away from the cat as possible.
"I think my suit's too nice," said James off-handedly as he rummaged through the clutter on Lily's desk.
"Think you'll show me up?" asked Lily.
Brutus glared at James as the sound of nail varnish bottles falling to the floor echoed through the room.
"Sorry," said James to the cat before continuing, "Yeah, I just think I'm gonna look so fantastic it's really gonna emphasise how awful you're gonna look."
"Brutus, go maul James' face," ordered Lily calmly.
"Oi!" cried James. "You might think that's funny but he understands you and he'll fuck my face up while I sleep."
With a small laugh, Lily said, "But I thought you wanted to look worse for tomorrow."
"Alright, keep joking, but you're the one that's gonna have to snog me afterwards."
James returned to his rummaging.
"What are you looking for?" she asked.
"Something to draw on my face with."
"Why?"
"Well, this was what I was trying to say earlier, I'm gonna look too good tomorrow, so I need something to mess up my face. And before you suggest Brutus again, I don't mean anything permanent."
"Oh, I've got lipstick," cried Lily, sitting up so quickly that Brutus jumped off of her lap.
"Surely that will only make me look better."
"Leave it to me," said Lily, getting to her feet. "If we avoid the lips then we should be fine."
Brutus leapt onto the windowsill to sulk in the dying sunlight.
"Okay, first let's deal with your hair."
"What's wrong with it?" asked James, sounding almost genuinely offended.
"We need to get it out of your eyes," explained Lily.
Grabbing a handful of bobby pins, she began to pin strands of James' wild black hair back from his face.
"Oh my God," said Lily.
"What?"
"I've just never seen this much of your forehead before."
"Is it acceptable?"
"Eh, It'll do. Now pass me that lipstick."
James picked up the tube Lily was gesturing to and handed it to her.
"What are you gonna do?" he asked.
"Make you look terrible," she said. Then, pulling back she announced, "Done."
"You didn't do anything yet," protested James.
"I know," replied Lily before bursting into laughter.
Once she had recovered from her laughing fit, Lily returned to her task of drawing on James' face.
"Your face is really soft," she commented. "How have I not noticed that before?"
"Because you don't pay attention to the things that are important to me."
Lily hummed as she doodled on James' cheek.
"Okay so this looks like a penis," began Lily.
James choked back a laugh, "Right."
"But that wasn't my intention."
"What was it supposed to be?"
Before Lily could answer, Petunia burst into the room.
"Lily, someone's here to see you," she announced. Then, seeing what Lily and James were up to, not to mention the penis doodle, she let out a sigh and said, "You better wash that off before tomorrow."
As James followed Lily down the stairs, he rubbed at the lipstick on his cheek, aware that he was simply spreading it, creating a bigger mess as he did so.
James stopped rubbing when he saw that it was Hestia at the door. She always managed to make him feel as though he was under the gaze of a very strict teacher or aunt.
Without looking at James at all, Hestia cried, "Lily, you have to help me. Fabian's on the roof."
"This roof?" asked Lily, confused.
"No, the roof of our house, our house. The one we just moved out the other week."
"Does he know it's being demolished in the morning?" said Lily.
"He's convinced himself he can stop it happening, says that if he stays there long enough everyone who's come to knock it down will get bored and go home," explained Hestia.
"Well, you can't fault his idealism," said James.
"You could criticise his lack of communication about the whole thing though," countered Lily, "I mean, why didn't he tell us? We could've helped. Strength in numbers and all that. What if he needs a wee? Someone's gotta take over for him."
"I didn't come here so you could help him relieve his bladder," snapped Hestia, "I need your help getting him down."
"What, you want her to scale the wall and fling him off?" asked James.
"I want her to convince him this is ridiculous. He's not listening to me because apparently I think everything's ridiculous."
An undertone of bitterness took a slight edge off of the concern in her voice.
"Well, we can't drag him down," said Lily. "But we can help him out. Right, let's put on our shoes and go round gathering people up. Or we could get the others to do it then we could go and give Fabian moral support."
"This isn't what I had in mind," said Hestia.
"I think it's a great idea except for one thing," voiced James. "Your sister's wedding is tomorrow, Lily."
"I know, that's why we've got to gather everyone together. This way we can come back tonight, go to the wedding tomorrow, and by Sunday people should hopefully still be there."
"This is a truly awful plan," said Hestia.
"Alright, Hest," said Lily, "You tell Fabian we're on our way."
Hestia couldn't help but feel that, in spite of her noble intentions, she had made the situation far worse than it had been to begin with.
James caught Angie and Sirius in the middle of Angie's evening television session so, naturally, Sirius was sent to open the door.
"Alright?" greeted Sirius.
"Absolutely dandy," replied James.
"Who is it?" called Angie from the living room.
"It's me," James called back.
A moment later, Angie had entered the hallway and begun to offer James food.
"I already ate, Ange," said James, "Now get back to the evening news. What if you miss a grisly murder?"
Angie continued her attempts at convincing James to eat for a minute or so before returning to the living room.
"She worries you're too skinny. Talks about it a lot," said Sirius. "I don't think she trusts your dad to feed you."
"Well I haven't died yet so I'm sure it's fine. Besides, I think I've gained weight."
"Moving past the fantastically intriguing topic of your body, you wanna tell me why you're here?"
"Oh yeah," said James. "Do you wanna help start a protest?"
"I've been waiting for someone to ask me that my whole life," replied Sirius. "But first let me get out of my pyjamas."
Once Sirius was dressed in appropriate clothing, James told him that he was to collect Remus and Peter, then meet him at the Prewett farm where he would be waiting with Lily.
"Just Remus and Peter?" questioned Sirius.
"Yeah, let Mary and Dorcas get the rest," said James casually. "See you later."
Lily gathered Mary and dragged her to Dorcas' house where she gave both girls their instructions for the following hour or so. Then, quite promptly, Lily left to meet James.
Dorcas and Mary were both willing to run around Sowsworth gathering the people they thought might be willing to help with Lily had called 'the protest' although they could not agree who to call on first.
Dorcas kept suggesting that they ask Maureen Baddock whereas Mary thought that, given his house was closest to Dorcas', it made the most sense to collect Benjy first, especially since Maureen had never before shown any interest in the Prewett farm.
After a mere three minutes of arguing, Mary gave in.
"Fine," she said. "If you're so desperate to knock for Maureen Baddock then you go knock for her. I'll go find Benjy."
Dorcas thought for a moment before conceding.
"I'll meet you back on the green in fifteen?" asked Mary.
"Deal," said Dorcas.
Dorcas had been to Maureen's house once before. Earlier that month an uncharacteristically shy Maureen had approached Dorcas in the library and asked if she'd like to come over for dinner some time. Dorcas had accepted with enthusiasm and a short, slightly awkward but pleasant meal had followed that evening.
In spite of this previous visit, Dorcas was absolutely wracked with nerves as she knocked on the Baddock's front door.
Maureen's younger brother Phil answered the door with the stony expression Dorcas has seen so many times before on the face of teenage boys.
Without saying a simple hello, Phil turned his head and yelled as loudly as possible "Oi, Maureen, someone's here for you."
Dorcas was then left to wait alone for an uncomfortable minute or two before Maureen appeared.
"Hey, Meadowes," said Maureen brightly. "What you doing here?"
"Hi," replied Dorcas, louder than she'd expected. "I was wondering if you'd like to come to a protest."
Maureen frowned in confusion before saying, "A protest?"
"Yeah."
"Has this got something to do with that farm business? I never really got what was going on with that."
Dorcas took a deep breath before beginning, "Well, the Prewetts couldn't afford to keep their farm so their landlord was gonna kick them out and turn it into a golf course."
"Right," said Maureen, egging Dorcas on. "But what's so immoral about that? If they can't afford to keep it then surely the landlord has the right to kick them out?"
With a sigh, Dorcas continued, "But we were trying to raise money so they wouldn't have to be kicked out. It was all going really well until those complete wanker rich bastards had to ruin everything so it's kind of a matter of-"
"Do you wanna come in?" offered Maureen, interrupting Dorcas just as she had begun to sound incredibly passionate. "I could make some tea."
"Alright then," said Dorcas, a little affronted at having been cut off mid-sentence.
"If you really convince me then maybe I'll give you a chocolate biscuit," added Maureen with a wink.
Despite the rather fantastic view of the surrounding area Fabian had on the roof of his old house, he didn't see Lily and James coming due to the fact that he was lying flat on his back staring at the sky and singing, very loudly and a little off-key, 'Power to the People'.
"Oi, Lennon!" cried James once he and Lily were barely ten feet away. Fabian almost fell off the roof in shock. "You got room for a couple more up there?"
Once he'd regained his balance, Fabian replied, "What are you two doing here?"
"We've come to join you in solidarity," said Lily.
"And Lily was worried you might need a piss," added James.
Fabian grinned and said, "I do actually."
Lily shot James a smug look as Fabian attempted to get to his feet and make his way over to the ladder he'd placed against the wall.
"Do we have to sit on the roof?" asked Lily of James.
"I think so," said James. "It seems fitting. Besides, we're basically experts at sitting on roofs by now."
"Because of that one time we got drunk and almost fell off of the church?"
"Exactly."
Once Fabian was on the ground he muttered a quick thank you to Lily and James before sprinting off towards a row of bushes across the nearest field.
Benjy didn't need half as much convincing as Maureen to join the protest.
Within a moment, he was tying his shoes and calling to his mum that he'd be out for a while.
"Where are you going this late?" demanded his mum, rushing from the kitchen and stopping dead when she saw Mary. "Oh, you're going out with a girl?" she said hopefully.
"Yeah, Mum. Me and Mary have a date," said Benjy with almost no irony, which surprised Mary rather a lot.
"Oh, alright have fun," chirped Mrs. Fenwick before adding with a laugh, "And don't do anything I wouldn't."
"Promise," replied Benjy dryly. "Come on, Mary."
He slammed the door behind them.
Mary didn't question why Benjy had lied to his mother and the only explanation he offered was a quick, "My mum doesn't like me hanging out with Frank."
The tea had grown cold and Dorcas was growing impatient with Maureen. The two girls were sat at the Baddock's kitchen table, a discarded packet of biscuits lay between them, and Dorcas was finishing her third attempt at explaining to Maureen just why she should join the protest.
"So have I convinced you yet?"
Narrowing her eyes, Maureen asked, "Why are you so intent on dragging me along?"
"Oh, alright," replied Dorcas, offence evidently taken, "I'll go bother someone else."
"No, don't take it like that. I just wondered why you came to me out of all people."
Dorcas blushed slightly and took a gulp of her tea. This was followed by an attempt to not spit the revoltingly room temperature liquid back into the cup.
"Okay, Meadowes," said Maureen. "Why don't you tell me again what happened with the fire?"
"Well, it was obviously the Richies," cried Dorcas.
"And that's illegal right?"
"Of course it's illegal!"
Then, Dorcas froze and glared at Maureen Baddock.
"You're teasing me, aren't you?" asked Dorcas.
"Me? Tease you?" said Maureen innocently. "I've never been accused of anything so heinous in my entire life."
Supressing smile, Dorcas replied, "So, you'll come with me?"
"Yeah, of course."
"You're cruel."
"I do try."
The two girls stared at each other, not quite knowing what to say next but not wanting to leave either.
"You know, Meadowes, I think I quite like you all riled up and political?"
Then, she kissed her and Dorcas did not laugh.
"Mary!" cried Dorcas, spotting her friend, sat with Benjy Fenwick, across the green.
Hearing the cry, Mary and Benjy both looked up to see Dorcas hurrying towards them, Maureen Baddock behind her, walking at a reasonable pace.
"What took you so long?" asked Mary, getting to her feet.
Benjy followed suit.
"Maureen took some convincing," answered Dorcas casually.
If Maureen had been close enough to hear this she would have burst into a fit of laughter. However, she reached the group a good thirty seconds later and so missed this exchange.
"Let's pop into the pub. Benjy says that's where Frank'll be," said Mary.
"And we can get Alice too," suggested Dorcas.
"You know the barmaid?" questioned Maureen, impressed. "Do you think you could get her to serve me?"
"Maureen, that would be illegal," replied Dorcas earnestly before turning back to Mary. Maureen watched on, a fond expression of amusement on her face. "Should we go to the Griffin and get Alice?"
"Frank'll be there too I bet you anything," said Benjy.
"Brilliant then let's go," sighed Mary. Then, to Maureen, she said, "Nice to have you aboard."
"Nice to be here," she replied.
Upon entering the pub, Mary noticed a particularly familiar brunette sitting at the bar nursing a glass of cheap white wine.
"Hestia?" cried Dorcas. "Shouldn't you be at the farm?"
Hestia turned her head slowly, as if not wanting to believe she was the Hestia in question. Then, upon seeing Dorcas and Mary, let out a groan.
"Can't I just drink away my sorrows in peace?" she demanded.
"What are your sorrows?" asked Benjy, following his three female companions to the bar.
"My husband's going to get himself killed by a builder," said Hestia sadly. "Or at least I think he's trying to. I love that boy but he certainly knows how to test the strength of my heart."
With a frown, Dorcas said, "Metaphorically or literally?"
"Oh, literally," clarified Hestia. "I think he might give me a heart attack."
"Well, you seem healthy enough," added Maureen unhelpfully.
"Thank you," said Hestia.
At that moment, Alice appeared from the back room.
"Where's Frank?" asked Benjy immediately.
"Benj, me and Frank don't spend all our time together," she protested before adding, under the power of Benjy's disbelieving stare, "He left for dinner about an hour ago."
"Which means he should be back any minute?" pressed Benjy.
"Yes," said Alice quickly, not meeting his eye as she hurriedly busied herself with wiping a nearby glass.
"You know," said Fabian, lying on his back in between Lily and James on the roof of what was once his home, "The longer I lie here the more I'm starting to think Hestia was right."
"Well, she usually is," agreed Lily. "But I think she was wrong about this. I think this is gonna be good. Even if we don't win, at least we took a stand."
"Oh, we're definitely not gonna win," said James.
Just then, the three of them heard a voice that sounded a lot like Sirius.
"Is that Sirius?" asked Lily. "James, sit up and see."
Trying to ignore the pain that was growing in his back, James leaned forwards and saw two of his best friends walking towards them.
"Where's Peter?" he yelled down.
"His mum's sick," Remus called back.
"Bless him," said Lily.
By the time everyone else had arrived, Lily, James, and Fabian had relocated to the ground and were sat with Remus and Sirius in a nearby field playing eye spy.
Fabian could not quite believe the amount of people who had turned up, even a few he didn't recognise, including a dark girl with badly applied eye shadow (he suspected she was Dorcas' friend as Dorcas had linked arms with her and she was laughing at something Dorcas had said) and a skinny, spotty boy who appeared to be with Kenneth. They'd even managed to get ahold of the elusive and eternally busy Marlene McKinnon.
Most importantly, though, was that his wife Hestia walked proudly amongst them.
"Hest," cried Fabia before leaping to his feet, running over, pulling her into a tight hug and giving her shoulder a quick kiss.
"I was brought here against my will," she said testily once released from Fabian's embrace.
"Really?"
Hestia looked up into her husband's pleading eyes and sighed, "No. I came to make sure you didn't get yourself killed."
"You're so sweet," said Fabian squeezing her face.
"And you're a nightmare," she replied fondly. "Thank you for getting off of that roof; you're much less likely to die down here."
A pleasant hour passed where the group, sat in as even a circle as they could manage, alternating between playing eye-spy and various other tedious word games until night fell and Lily mumbled to James that they should probably go.
That was when the protest hit a rather large, insurmountable bump in the road.
A group of some twenty teenagers appeared, starting as a mere grey mass in the dark. As they grew closer to the circle, faces became clear.
Mulciber, Rosier, Avery, and Snape took the lead, Bellatrix and Ascella in tow. Behind them stood a vast amount of other Richies. You'd think that every single rich kid under the age of twenty in the Sowsworth area had joined their ranks.
As the circle of protesters got to their feet, Sirius felt his stomach drop, unable to help but notice that his brother was notably absent.
"How did they know we were here?" said Hestia.
Sirius could only think of that conversation he'd had with Regulus some weeks ago about Peter Pettigrew.
Mulciber reached them first and practically spat, "Surprised to see us?"
If asked the next morning, both sides of the fight would claim that the other had thrown the first punch. Fabian would go to his grave swearing it was Mulciber whereas Mulciber himself was certain that Sirius had lunged for him first.
Regardless of who started it, it did not take long for every single person, including a reluctant and overwhelmed Hestia Prewett, to join in the physical confrontation.
Bellatrix ran towards Lily, who was egging her on, crying out that she was more than ready to take her on.
Before Bellatrix could lay a single finger on her, Snape had grabbed Lily's wrist in a misguided attempt to pull her to safety. Lily gave Snape a swift bite on the hand before turning her attention back to Bellatrix, grabbing ahold of her hair and kneeing the in the stomach.
"I never liked you at school," said Lily, watching Bellatrix fall over.
Before Bellatrix could retort, Avery had pushed Lily down.
Sirius and Mulciber were still wrestling on the ground, punching each other whenever they had the opportunity. Then Sirius got a rather large upper hand, holding Mulciber down and pulling out his penknife.
Fear filled Mulciber with enough adrenaline to throw Sirius off of him and grab the knife for himself.
Though he tried to tackle him, Sirius prevented Mulciber from getting to his feet. Once Mulciber was upright he gave Sirius a swift kick in the face, knocking him unconscious.
Free of Sirius, Mulciber frantically searched the field for someone, anyone, to hurt. Then he saw James, winning a rather unfairly matched fight with Eric Knott.
"Oi, Potter!" cried Mulciber.
This distracted James for the few moments it took Knott to run away (although it should be noted that this was not Mulciber's intention).
"Alright, Mulciber?" replied James pleasantly as the two boys moved towards each other, "I was hoping to run into you actually."
"Were you now?"
"Yeah, I wanted to ask you something."
"What was that?"
They were inches apart.
"Yeah," said James. "I wanted to know if you were born this ugly or if puberty was just particularly unkind to you."
Without hesitation, Mulciber took Sirius' penknife and swiftly drove it into James' gut.
AN: I love you all
thanks so much for staying with me this long
there's one more chapter left for me to write and then we're done here which is a pretty weird feeling
have a lovely day and I hope you liked the chapter