Ollivanders At War
A/N: This is the chapter where my personal grievances with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows come most to light. I won't apologize for my feelings about the book, but I will apologize if it comes off as heavy handed or bitter. Enjoy this chapter – and stay tuned for the epilogue!
There was a small tenement house, in a suburb. There was a car parked outside on the street, with an Embassy-approved driver at the wheel. Guadalupe Santos stood on the pavement, staring up at the house like she barely believed in it, like it was too sacred to approach.
She didn't have to approach it. The door opened in one side and a woman looked out at the teenaged girl on the sidewalk.
The woman gave a cry. She ran forward in her house slippers, slowing down as she neared the girl, studying her face to be sure it wasn't a dream, and then hugging her and thanking God, she would never let her go again.
And a man came out from the same door and at first hung back, as if doubting what he saw, and then he ran and joined his wife. And there would be long days ahead, and painful explanations, and tears and full moons. But in this moment, Guadalupe wept with joy.
War is an interesting catalyst.
There are so many moments of transition, of transformation, which contribute piece by piece to a complete alteration of the whole. For examples:
The streets of Hogsmeade were in turmoil. It was early June, 1997. Madame Rosmerta had been seen guiding Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore to Hogwarts Castle, only to be seen shortly afterwards screaming and running into her house.
Then the Dark Mark appeared over the school.
People pounded on Dora Tonks' door, looking to her to help, she was one of the Aurors in town, wasn't she? Someone all the townspeople knew and recognized. But Dora was out. Calliope was left, and she did her best to answer their demands.
She said, "There was a distress call three hours ago, there are reinforcements up at the school, no, I don't know what's happened, someone find Madame Rosmerta and calm her down, now—"
She parried off the demands and the fear for a long time, until Dora's face appeared at the back of the crowd. Calliope gasped with relief to see her, and parted the mass of people to run to her friend. It was by then almost midnight.
"Dora – the school – rumors have – is Dumbledore—is he?" Now that she was closer, Calliope could see that Dora was holding fast to the hand of Remus Lupin. But Dora reached out for Calliope's hand, and squeezed it, and nodded.
"He's dead," Calliope heard herself say. "Dumbledore is dead."
Dora nodded again. "And Bill – he met Greyback – and the school, Calliope, I never want to see the school attacked again…"
The two women clung to each other as they wept, oblivious to the crowd panicking and the war growing worse and worse around them.
ooo
While Calliope and Dora, in midsummer of 1997, were dancing at Bill and Fleur's wedding, Linus was clocking in another day with the Obliviators and Paramnesiacs' Division. He was filling out his usual paperwork when there was a rumbling, a distant noise like an explosion.
He sat up at once. After a pause, a voice came over the public announcement system: "Lockdown, this is an emergency lockdown—" before it was cut off.
Another explosion, from the same direction. It made up Linus' mind for him.
He got up, leaving the paperwork forever unfinished, and headed for the main foyer to the elevators. He passed office and cubicle as they were locked and shut from the inside. As he entered the foyer, paved in black and white marble, he saw a small paper missive fluttering and throwing itself against the elevator, trying to enter.
Linus, recognizing Kingsley Shacklebolt's brilliant blue stationery, pointed his wand. "Accio."
The paper arrived in his hand: he unfolded it and saw what looked like an elaborate lowercase 'h.' It was the glyph of Saturn, of lead, of destruction. Of the worst possible thing coming to pass.
Linus stared at the paper a moment. Then, the only present member of the Order of the Phoenix took action. He put his wand to his throat. "Sonorus." Then he shouted: "Please abandon lockdown mode. Evacuate immediately through emergency exists. I repeat, evacuate immediately."
A few hours later, after the dust had, literally, settled and the bodies were discreetly taken away, Linus was summoned from his flat to a severe reprimand from his new superiors. This reprimand was public; he was chosen as the first scapegoat to illustrate the new regime's principles. Chief among these was "You will not move, you will not escort a large body of employees, you will not talk about moving, leaving, or evacuating, without approval from your supervisors. Is that perfectly clear? I don't care if a wall of fire is descending upon you…"
And so on and so forth. Linus stared straight ahead as the man – Ministry-tested and Death Eater-approved – harangued on.
So the game had changed. Linus would just adapt with it. He would survive, and – he caught side of Amity's sandy blonde head in the crowd – everyone he could protect would survive, too. He would adapt to a role of Healer, with the Rod of Asclepius and his own growing expertise. He would adapt to a world of chaos and draconian rule, and survive.
As it happened, Linus did survive. But at one point he owed his life directly to the strength and willpower of Januarius Fell, who carried him on his back more than two miles to a Muggle hospital. When Linus woke up and was astounded by the action, the reverend only said, "The debt has been repaid."
ooo
Januarius' radical preaching of brotherhood and equality made him and his sister prime targets. The Daily Prophet featured him on slow news days, with such headlines as, "Bible-Thumping Thumps Out Blasphemy," and "Religious Quack in Hot Water."
Januarius was thus left to preach in quiet pubs and Underground stations, in the basement of the Ollivander's shop in Diagon Alley, in all little pockets of the Resistance, with Julietta always beside him as altar server, lector, and Eucharistic Minister, as the situation demanded. She helped him to collect newspaper clippings, and names of the dead, Kissed, and disappeared from the Quibbler and radio broadcasts, to keep in intentions and prayers.
One particular clipping, from early in the summer, after the takeover of the Ministry, declared "Azkaban Prisoners Pardoned." Only Julietta knew that Januarius kept that clipping close his heart, in his own Tarot deck. Of the pictures of the pardoned, there was one small photograph of a gaunt woman with short, wavy dark hair. The caption read "Tisiphone Gibbs Pardoned from Azkaban, to Join the Werewolf Partnership Team."
So the months passed, until, just a few days before Christmas, Januarius and Julietta were forced to flee England.
It was during the Sunday Service, as Julietta was lighting the fourth candle in the Advent Wreath and Januarius was commencing the Prayer of the High Priestess. Suddenly the back door flew open with a bang.
Guadalupe Santos stood there, heavily bundled up against the chill. "You've got to get out of here. All of you. Out, out, out!"
The eight congregants obeyed, and the Fell siblings followed Guadalupe to a tiny diner overlooking the bleak west coast of Liverpool, where they sipped lukewarm coffee. After an hour, a woman with a long red scarf walked past the window. Guadalupe and the Fells got up and followed, ducking their heads against the winds.
The woman (whose face was deeply hooded and covered) walked on a meandering road to a cliffside. Set in the rock were narrow stairs, leading down to the waterfront where a boat with enchanted lanterns bobbed in the surf.
Guadalupe helped Julietta down the stairs, but Januarius' sight remained fixed on the woman whose red scarf was already losing color in the mists as she walked rapidly away.
Januarius pulled out his silver birch and dragon heartstring wand. "Expecto Patronum!"
A pelican of silver soared out, ahead of the woman, stopping her in her tracks. She turned around when Januarius called "Tess!" and ran to her.
Tisiphone glared at him in fear, caught between his Patronus and him. "Jan, go back—"
But instead he took her face in his hands and kissed her, and held her close to say, "Tisiphone, never forget that all the worst sins of man's devising are, to the mercy of God, as a live coal thrown into the sea."
"Jan…" he had only heard her speak three syllables but he knew the tone in her voice, the tone of, "Januarius you have stopped making sense again."
He let her go but continued to look up into her eyes. "Peace be with you."
She pressed gloved hands on his arms. She pushed him away. He saw her mouth "And also with you."
His Patronus faded. He watched her pull out a silver Death Eater mask as she turned away. If he said anything else, the wind carried it away.
He turned back to the stair and the boat, and descended to the water. He let himself be carried across the ocean. He didn't look back.
ooo
Dolores Umbridge's revival of the Presumption verdict, almost Fury-like in its intention, had collapsed with the arrival of the Muggle Prime Minister. But when Pius Thicknesse came to power, suddenly the precedent of Presumption bore fruit. Strange fruit.
First it was the entirely reasonable demand that all wizards provide a birth certificate to prove their identity wherever they went. Then the Degrees of Descent Registry came into being, which very quickly morphed into the Muggle-Born Registry. With no Mr. Ollivander present to affirm that each wand was matched with its proper owner, the certainty that any Muggle-born witch or wizard had been born with the magic he or she claimed dissolved.
First the penalty for Presumption was imprisonment in the Sycorax. Then it became imprisonment in Azkaban. More and more liberally, the Dementor's Kiss was used. And soon people simply started to vanish – no paperwork necessary.
ooo
In response to the government's vanishing acts, people vanished under the radar of their own accord. Not that most wizards had any idea of what radar was – but all wizards were familiar with the notion of 'hiding.' Now they vanished, spiriting themselves to the Continent, or the States, or even, in one case, New Zealand. Amity Tweak, whose parents were both Muggle-born, voyaged to Iceland with her family. Guadalupe Santos' parents took an extended family visit to Catalan. And Januarius and Julietta fell took advantage of the Transitive Property of Family, which stated that:
Given: Mark is family (through Januarius, brothers by blood.)
Given: Mark's parents are family.
Therefore: It is perfectly polite to pay a surprise Christmas visit on family.
ooo
When Mark got the call that a plane was coming in, with two passengers that needed shelter, two that he personally knew, he let himself hope that one was Calliope, unhurt but ready to slough off the war and hide away with him in Massachusetts.
No such luck.
What he found instead were the two sleepless and jittery Fell siblings, freshly flown in from Ireland, and terrified of airplanes and airports.
On the long, awkward drive to Mark's parents house (where the only sound was the radio, crooning "How'd you like to spend Christmas on Christmas Island? How'd you like to spend your holiday away across the sea?"), Mark had time to wish some more for Calliope's presence beside him, humming along.
It was a long and quiet drive. But they arrived at last in the streets that Mark had grown up on, and Julietta stirred awake in the back seat. When they pulled up to the Printzens' house, the lights inside were on and the Christmas tree in the front window was all lit up. Julietta gave a gasp and hurried to open the door before the car had even stopped, and Januarius said, "It's beautiful," which were the first words he'd said since arriving in America.
And Mark, leading the way to the side door, let himself think that it would be a happy Christmas, after all.
ooo
Calliope spent Christmas Eve at Hollywyck, alone. Technically she was in hiding; publicly Linus and Hector had disowned her months ago, for her connections with the Order and Muggles were too well-known, and their reputations needed to be spared for as long as possible. Scurry had volunteered to stay with the shop, to help Hector protect and ward it.
So the big house, surrounded by forest, was empty and dark, except for the candles that Calliope lit. She burned the Yule log in the fireplace, thinking of her mother and her grandmother, and Benedicte, and the silence of the dark of the year.
But Christmas Day was a proper holiday. Christmas Day she passed with Dora and her family and Remus, and she led the singing. It wasn't perfect: The pudding burnt, for one thing. For another, there was a wreath of ill-feeling twining around Remus (not for his lycanthropy, but for the way he had abandoned Dora when she'd first announced her pregnancy, but it was nothing that couldn't be overlooked, not for Christmas.) And there were too many toasts to fallen friends. But for all that, Calliope remembered Dora and that last Christmas very, very dearly.
ooo
In the same low, dungeon room as Mr. Ollivander, Luna Lovegood welcomed Christmas morning by clawing at the walls. She sobbed and cursed and even shrieked at the door, "Let me go! Let me go! I have to go home! My daddy needs me! It's Christmas…" she sank against the door. "It's Christmas. This isn't right."
She started when Mr. Ollivander's cold hand touched her shoulder. She pushed his hand away at first. But it was a human touch, it was given kindly, and she reached for him. He hugged her like she was one of his own grand-nieces.
By the time the meager thread of sunlight that stretched into their cell was stronger, Luna had stopped crying. She sat up. Mr. Ollivander listened as she began to tell him about her family tradition, their wreath of candles, and the St. Lucia song that she recited. In return he told her about the Yule log, where one morsel of wood was saved from the fire's appetite for a year, until it kindled the next year's fire, continuing a magic so old it practically wasn't magic anymore. And as he talked, he wiped Luna's tears away.
ooo
While Mr. Ollivander and Luna Lovegood kept faith in the dungeon of Malfoy manor, the most secure stronghold of the Death Eaters, Hector and Scurry repaired the glass in the windows of the wand shop. Over the following months, he kept at least one lantern on at all times, as if saying to all spies and Snatchers, "Come and find me. I dare you."
He offered wand repairs. He held clandestine meetings for the Resistance, Order of the Phoenix-based and otherwise. He advised those who needed to keep up appearances on the best Muggle-hating persona to adopt – for example, Linus, who publicly cast off all connection with his sister, "Undesirable No. 187." Linus actually met with Hector quite regularly.
Linus had taken it on himself to see all the students of the Agnes Stidolph School – Mark's former students – safely in hiding, and away from the clutches of the Werewolf Partnership and its thugs, except for the stubborn ones like Guadalupe Santos who insisted on remaining in the thick of things. The list of people for Linus to trust narrowed as the months wore on. His Thicknesse-approved superiors grew more suspicious of him by the day. But he was holding up. He was adapting, surviving. He and Hector were going to be fine.
Until the day in mid-February when Calliope vanished off the map.
For thirteen days Calliope was held prisoner, on starvation rations, in Bindweed Hall. Bellatrix Lestrange promised her that, if she was very very very good, with sugar on top, she might get to join her uncle before the end.
On the thirteenth day of her captivity, Calliope was brought to a parlor. A large table of mahogany – pockmarked and stained – stood in the center of the room. Bellatrix waited on the other side of it, smiling.
The Death Eater wasted no time. She strapped Calliope to the table on her back, her arms stretched out on either side. While Calliope struggled, more Death Eaters entered. Masked, they lined the walls.
"Welcome back to Bindweed Hall," Bellatrix told her. "You snuck in here once before… and you snuck your way out… my, but aren't you clever! Little Clever Miss here doesn't even need a wand, does she? Oh, no – all she needs is her hands to break out of anywhere, isn't that so, Missy?"
Calliope said nothing.
"Well, if you answer my queries – you know which ones, right?"
Calliope said nothing.
"Regarding the protections surrounding the Minister of Muggles, and the protection of his family – which I know you helped to establish, clever little thing you are, despite your vices – just answer my questions, and I'll let you walk right out of here with Weatherwax magic still perfectly in your power. If you're stubborn, though…"
She walked over to Calliope's limp right hand, and plucked the pinky finger up. She began to push it back, and back. "I'm just going to have to take reasonable precautions – do you know how many bones there are in your arms, Clever Miss? – to make sure you don't leave Bindweed Hall at all. Ever. What do you say?"
Calliope's gaze stayed fixed on the ceiling.
"I'm getting impatient, Missy."
"I have a suggestion for you. Go to Disneyland."
"What-land?"
"It's a bigshot Muggle resort. Out in California. Sunny place. Lots of music. It might calm you down."
Then Bellatrix got mad.
Four hours after Bellatrix was done with Calliope…
A door swung open. A door deep in the basement of Bindweed Hall, modified to prevent any spells from being spoken or any sounds escaping at all. A slit of light fell into the room, and Calliope appeared out of the shadows. She was lying halfway on her side, propped against the wall. Her arms – pale as paper, thin as quills, crooked like broken umbrellas – splayed out on either side of her. Her matted black hair covered half of her face, but she squinted up and blinked in the light.
Two women stood in the doorway. One came to Calliope's side and knelt. "It's Guadalupe. You remember me? I''m here."
The other woman closed the door.
Guadalupe brushed the hair out of Calliope's face, then gave her to drink from two thermoses she carried: one was cold water, the other was a creamy soup that was warm and heartening. Then, when Calliope was more awake than she really wanted to be, the other woman stepped forward and took off her Death Eater mask.
Tisiphone Gibbs looked into Calliope's eyes and said only, "I'm making good," before breaking off a strand of her cousin's hair. She added, "And I'm taking a leaf out of Barty Crouch Jr.'s book. You can figure it out later."
She took out two flasks and uncorked them. She dropped Calliope's hair into one flask, and a hair from her own head into the other. Then Guadalupe helped Calliope to drink the Polyjuice Potion as Tisiphone took the second dose. They transformed into each other – and both women screamed, Tisiphone as her arms broke and Calliope as her broken arms were reset with loud snaps. When Calliope was ready, wearing Tisiphone's form and clothes and odor, she was reluctant to leave her cousin behind.
"This is the best way." Tisiphone bit her lip as she jostled her arm. "Tell Hector and Mum that I'm sorry. Now, go."
Calliope didn't protest. She turned her face to the wall as Guadalupe choked out a short and earnest good-bye to Tisiphone, pressing a rosary into her hand. They left her there.
As they moved out of the dungeon, with Guadalupe supporting Calliope, the girl explained in a whisper that she, as a werewolf, had enlisted with other lycanthropes in the Werewolf Partnership. It was the best way to protect her family. But every werewolf needed a "handler," and Tisiphone had volunteered to be Guadalupe's. Their newest assignment was supposed to take them to the continent for a few days, and Guadalupe was going to join her parents in Spain. They had enough time to get Calliope back into safety, before… Guadalupe couldn't finish that thought.
The next thing that Calliope remembered clearly was the pain in her arms. She began to transform back into herself in a cramped and uneven corridor. But Guadalupe knocked on what looked like a random door and it swung open. Inside was a flat that Calliope knew. Dr. Ferndean had fled to South Africa to join her son, but she'd left her flat to be used by the Order at need. And Dora was there to welcome her.
ooo
At the end of all things, Dora was always waiting for her. Since falling pregnant Dora had become less physically active in the resistance and the Order. But to make up for it, she read up on strategy and became the Order's to-go tactician, with Calliope always at her side. Before the war had begun, Calliope had stood beside her as her bridesmaid in her wartime wedding, her elopement to Remus Lupin. And even in wartime, there were a few evenings when the two old friends only talked about their school days, and baby names, and books, as if there was no war at all.
Dora promised Calliope that if her baby was a girl, Calliope would be her godmother. But Remus' choice for godfather left Calliope a little surprised…
ooo
"Harry Potter?" Calliope repeated. "Really? You really couldn't think of anyone better?"
"Remus insists. It would make him so happy."
"If you can just pick a celebrity, I wonder how many girls have Celestina Warbeck as a godmother."
"He's not a celebrity to us, you know that. He's a good friend of Remus, and… I'm getting to know him."
"Dora, there are so many better people."
"Yes. And most of them are dead."
Calliope gave a groan. Death was not only a grievous tragedy, it was an unfair trump card in debates. "But he hasn't done anything since You-Know-Who took over."
"That we know of."
"One infiltration of the Ministry. That served to heighten the rampant paranoia. And one curious incident in Godric's Hollow at Christmas, that some conspiracy hopefuls attribute to him."
"That's not nothing."
"Well, then. He's either a brilliant strategist or a complete idiot. And Luna—" her voice choked, but she went on, "was braver than him by far with what she was keeping up in Hogwarts."
Dora glanced at the doorway. "Don't let Remus hear you. Now, calm down. Fifty-fifty says it'll be a little girl and I'll name her Thalia and you'll be her godmother and teach her to play violin at six years old."
Between that conversation and the actual birth, several important pieces of information came to light:
The news was confirmed that Tisiphone Gibbs had died shortly after Calliope's rescue. She had fought six other Death Eaters at a time, and gone down fighting.
The Obliviators were officially renamed the Interrogators and their abilities were used to force confessions out of Undesirables, and their program to amend the memories of Muggles were cancelled.
And Harry Potter, like a big damn hero, had rescued Servaas Ollivander and Luna Lovegood from Malfoy Manor.
Calliope hated having to eat her words, having to owe so much to Harry Potter, and having to be absent on a mission for a whole week when Dora's son, Theodore "Gift of God" Lupin was born. But she couldn't be bitter in the face of how happy, splendidly, exhaustedly happy, Dora was.
And when Uncle Ollivander was transported, safe and sound and free at last, to Ingleside, the house of Muriel Weasley, Calliope was there waiting to meet him.
ooo
Hector Gibbs was having a very stressful day.
Over the course of his buying groceries, half a dozen pamphlets were thrown nearly into his face: Muggles and the threat they pose to a wholesome pure-blood society; Your new friends the Interrogators and why you should trust them; and of course, why it was imperative that all witches and wizards be fruitful and multiply and leave off such "deviant" practices as birth control and – he squinted at the pamphlet in his hand – sediment. Yes, that said sediment.
He stuffed the pamphlet into a pocket. Proofreading – just another tiny element that was really going down the tubes. He paused on the cobblestones, readjusting his shopping bags and trying to remember if there was anything he'd forgotten.
And then Gringotts exploded, and a dragon crawled into the sky.
While other people shoved each other to get out of the way, out of the street, Hector stood as still as a statue, mouth open, just staring. And his shock doubled when he recognized who was on the dragon – Undesirables 2 and 3, with Harry Potter himself astride the dragon's neck.
For a moment they remained poised atop Flourish and Blotts' bookstore, the dragon serene, the three teenagers just as confused as the people at street level. Until the girl turned around and cracked a spell at the dragon's tail to send it flying, up north, away.
A part of Hector knew that the street would soon be swarming with Snatchers and law enforcement, but it was only the crack of tiles falling on the ground and someone's cry of "That's my shop!" that brought him to his senses. 'My shop.'
He ran up Diagon Alley's South Side, with eyes only for his shop, his own place. Up the stairs he went, to his tiny apartment. He inhaled deeply the aroma of cut wood, polish, and old paper, and found he was shaking. He put down the groceries, and they spilled on the floor. He went upstairs.
A ham radio sat on his bedside table. He took out the microphone and clapped on his earphones, not bothering to close the blinds or be quiet. He turned it on. "Sword of Gryffindor," he said as steady as he could. "Sword of Gryffindor, this is Page of Staves calling River, River, do you read me?"
Lee Jordan's voice came through on the headphones. "Read you loud and clear, Page o' Staves, what's up?"
"I think shit's about to hit the fan."
"What? Page of Staves, are you cussing?"
"Damn you, I mean it! A dragon just flew out of Gringotts and Lightning Boy was on it!"
And then everything started to happen very fast.
News whipped over airwaves and radio, by fireplace and owl's wing and word of mouth: You-Know-Who was coming to Diagon Alley, to fight Harry Potter at Gringotts. No, to the Ministry, to declare himself Minister of Magic. No, to Hogwarts.
In the end, there were three battles, and an Ollivander was present at each:
Hector led the resistance against the brutal police shutdown of Diagon Alley, using his shop as a headquarters.
In the Ministry, an Interrogator-In-Chief thought he would quell the rising panic by making an example out of Linus Ollivander, that pompous ass who used his Leglimency and Occlumency to get around the law. So all of the Interrogators and all of the rest of Magical Law Enforcement and as many employees of the Ministry could be spared were all gathered in the Atrium, to watch as Linus Ollivander was publicly punished. But something went awry, something snapped. It turned into a riot, as wizards and witches flooded the executive and legislative offices, destroying printing presses, files, statues, posters, anything that it was possible to destroy.
And Calliope stood outside of the nursery door as Dora laid baby Teddy down in his crib. While Dora kissed Teddy good-bye, Calliope went downstairs and used the telephone to make a long-distance call to Mark, leaving a voicemail, telling him that she loved him.
Then the two women took their leave of Andromeda Tonks and Apparated together to Hogwarts.
ooo
Calliope had not wanted to believe that Hogwarts could be a battlefield, but a battlefield it was. To her horror she found herself cataloguing the parts of the castle strategically – Ravenclaw Tower, good spot, easily defensible, the dungeons, avoid them, too easy to get lost or trapped – as if the place hadn't been her home for seven years.
She took all orders directly from Dora, who had been at the school a year ago during the first skirmish on its grounds. More information came her way, and still she organized what she knew and reported it to Dora, information such as:
Death Eaters were assembling (obviously),
Acromantula were sighted coming out of the Forest in droves (bloody brilliant),
Harry Potter was somewhere in the school (ludicrously unimportant, judging by his performance for the rest of the war),
Luna Lovegood was last seen fighting off Dementors out on the southeast court (very important), and
Remus was last seen fighting Rookwood (monumentally important. Wherever Remus went Dora wanted to follow, and Calliope would not let Dora out of her sight.)
Fleur was somewhere, Professor Flitwick was somewhere, He Who Must Not Be Named was somewhere, but Dora was here and now, squeezing Calliope's hand and sharing one last glance with her before they went together to the Charms Corridor, where Remus was last seen.
Bellatrix Lestrange met them there. Behind her was another Death Eater, who engaged Calliope at once. The Death Eater was masked; Calliope never knew their face or even gender. They kept aiming at her arms but she was good at elemental magic – she brought down the fire from a flickering torch and sent it at the Death Eater's face so they ripped off their mask because the smoke made it hard to breathe, and Calliope shot them with Avada Kedavra and they fell facedown and that wasn't so hard, was it?
Except they hadn't died, they only convulsed in pain (the spell wasn't strong enough) and raised their wand to shoot a spell of white flame at her. She dodged, deflected it, and knew only one of them could live. She shot Avada Kedavra again and this time her spell was true.
The Death Eater died, and it wasn't the first time she'd killed someone and she turned around. Dora was giving Bellatrix the fight of her life, and Calliope felt a rush of pride for her friend. Other participants came in, Death Eaters, trying to help the Dark Lord's lieutenant, but Calliope drew them off, because Dora could win against her, she was that good.
And her wand arm was numbed by a curse that had just missed her, but she knew Weatherwax magic, where anything can be a weapon if you're holding it right. The rug was her weapon, the splintered frame of a painting, and her arm was back to normal and she killed her opponent and she had to check on Dora and she turned around and Dora was dead.
Dora lay dead on the floor, her body unmarked, and this was impossible, no, not impossible, she may be a great fighter but you can never account for luck – this was impossible.
Bellatrix was walking towards her, putting away her wand and taking her knife out, and that was what woke Calliope up. Before Bellatrix took another step Calliope was standing over Dora's body, wand pointed at Bellatrix's heart.
"Oh, that's lovely." Bellatrix stepped very slightly to the left. Calliope's wand followed. "Is the Mad Girl going to defend her playmate? Step aside."
"No."
Bellatrix's smile dropped. "That slut you're standing over is my niece, and therefore mine to do with as I please – now step aside—"
She was wrong. Dora belonged to Calliope. Bellatrix reached out one arm to slice off Calliope's fingers, but the younger witch curled her wand in midair and said "Sangrius Amonveux."
Bellatrix's arm gave a twitch and she dropped the knife. Calliope pulled her arm back and Bellatrix's arm traveled with it, limp as a marionette.
The older woman's face contorted in fear and pain as the spell's effects spread through her shoulders and to her other arm.
"You're – you're controlling my blood?" she gasped, her breath now uneven and hitched as Calliope's magic crept into her lungs.
"Looks like it." Was the answer.
(Somewhere in the office of Thorfinn Rowle, where she had been imprisoned, there was a book, with instructions of elemental magic, and particularly the manipulation of blood, because what was blood but water with a bit of earth mixed in, after all.)
"Let me go!" Bellatrix shrieked, but only once as her face flushed and a vein throbbed in her neck.
Calliope stared at her coldly, then directed her wand down, sending her power to the arteries of Bellatrix's legs. She made her walk, step by painful step, until the captive reached the top of the staircase.
Then she released the spell, and Bellatrix ran.
One minute, two, three, Calliope waited to make sure she was gone. Then she heard the noises of the battle again – people were fighting, far off, in a place that wasn't Hogwarts. And Calliope was alone with her dead.
It was she who brought Dora's body to the Great Hall. She had closed her friend's eyes and stood guard in the Charms corridor until the reprieve was announced, so that when Dora was laid out on the floor, she looked like she could be asleep. She laid Dora next to Remus' body – and that sight meant nothing was fair in the world, nothing was left, if some cruel god could strike the two of them down with little Teddy at home, sleeping and fed. Throughout the reprieve, Calliope stood vigil. She saw the people, coming and going, injured, dead, miraculously whole.
The whole time, she felt she was not herself, not Calliope, but an invisible receptacle of grief, a tiny voice that was meant to scream, because the grief was flooding her, uprooting her, and nothing would ever be just right again.
She bent down and curled a lock of hair – she would never remember the color of it – behind Dora's ear. When she stood up, Luna was standing by, hair clumsily braided, face bloodless. She only said, very quietly, "I hate war."
Calliope nodded agreement, and then reached out and held Luna tight, and they hugged each other. Calliope wanted to scream or sob or do anything, but she could not.
ooo
Later on, she saw Luna (plus two other girls) battling Bellatrix Lestrange, and she would have run between them, would have slaughtered Bellatrix, but Molly Weasley's voice echoed through the hall. "Not my daughter, you bitch! Back – get back – she is mine!"
And Calliope had never known Mrs. Weasley all that well, but she knew Dora had been almost a daughter to her. And Calliope stepped back, watching in growing admiration, near reverence, as Mrs. Weasley battled. She didn't use a single verbal barb or torturous hex like Bellatrix did. Mrs. Weasley shot to kill, and Bellatrix didn't take the words "You – will – never – touch – our – children – again" seriously. Bellatrix laughed, and Molly shot a direct Avada Kedavra to her heart.
And as Lord Voldemort screamed, Calliope had felt as if a knot had come undone – Dora was avenged – but then, her barbaric joy was dashed, because it fixed nothing. And right on cue, Harry Potter ripped off his Invisiblity Cloak in the Great Hall and challenged Lord Voldemort to a duel like it was some kind of show. Calliope could have spat.
She watched the ensuing spectacle like it was a pantomime, and she suspected the rest of the onlookers did, too. Why else would they cheer like a bunch of goddamn sports fans when Harry Potter reached out and caught the Dark Lord's wand like it was a rose thrown to a world champion?
Calliope left the hall then.
She felt that she was supposed to help clean up, but walked away from the rubble, from the survivors and the dead. Once she thought of Dora, and then she turned around and went straight back.
The bodies were being taken care of. Kingsley Shacklebolt was organizing them. And Molly Weasley stood guard, with a retinue of sons around her and her grey-faced husband. Nearby lay Dora and Remus' bodies. Calliope asked a meaningless question, but Mrs. Weasley caught her eye and nodded, as if to say that Dora was no less precious to her than Fred, or Remus.
Then Calliope said a stupid thing. She said, "I'll tell Andromeda."
Why had she said that? Why had she taken on that burden? Andromeda was another aunt to her, but she couldn't walk up and tell her that she'd lost not only her husband, but her only daughter, her baby… No matter; the burden felt too right and too awful to revoke.
She found Luna sitting in silence next to the boy with the sword, and reached out, squeezed her hand in a wordless, tangible good-bye.
Then once more Calliope walked out, away from the earth and lake, towards the path she'd walked so often with Dora, away from the battle that she felt she would never leave, to break the news to Andromeda.
Andromeda didn't need to be told. The fact that Calliope had returned, alone, was all the news that she needed.
ooo
But before Calliope Disapparated, when she was out of hearing range, she looked back towards the smoking castle and screamed, screamed so loud she fell to her knees with the force of it, screamed, and shrieked, and wept.
ooo
Calliope waited at Andromeda's house to receive news. Owls crisscrossed the sky that day more densely and quickly than they had on November first, 1980.
Kingsley Shacklebolt was instated as temporary Minister of Magic. Blodwen Rowle, now Thorfinn's widow, was placed under house arrest but reunited with her son, Tristan. The street rebellion in Diagon Alley had left many wounded and done much damage, but Hector wrote to say that the shop's damage was superficial, nothing that some elbow grease couldn't repair. Oh, and he was fine, too.
Amity Tweak wrote from the Ministry of Magic to say that the Death Eaters had variously surrendered or been overpowered. She herself had arrived late to the skirmish there. And Linus had survived the battle, mostly because he didn't fight.
Before it had even started, he'd been 'made an example of' – and those who had disciplined him had curbed his means of performing Leglimency. His eyes had been cursed, and now he was stone blind.
Time would tell if he could be healed, Amity wrote, her writing unusually jagged and crooked. She added that Linus refused to let anyone try to heal him with the Rod of Asclepius, with the editorial stubborn idiot.
Oh, and he had asked Amity to marry him, and she had said "Yes."
That day, and the days that followed, were among the strangest in Calliope's life. A few sensations stood out vividly – baby Teddy's howling cry, the shock of seeing Linus and talking to him with his now totally grey eyes staring past her, and the quivering feel and sound of her own voice as she sang at Dora's memorial service. When she cried, she thought she would never stop. When her tears dried, she thought she would always be a wretched shell, and nothing would ever be just right again.
But slowly there came other sensations, not burning her but warming. She and Hector led Uncle Servaas through the rubble of Diagon Alley, to the front door of the shop, on his tottering feet. All the masons, shop owners, and repair workers stopped what they were doing, every single one, to walk over to old Mr. Ollivander, and shake his hand, and pat him on the shoulder, and tell him how highly they always thought of him. And when Hector put the key to the shop in his hand, and Mr. Ollivander opened the door, the onlookers all burst into applause.
Later, there was the sardonic glee she took when Harry Potter first took his godson in his arms, and the baby shrieked like a banshee and reached out an arm in Calliope's direction.
There was also the entirely more wholesome joy she felt when Harry Potter – just Harry, that's what he liked to be called – pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and determined to try again, until Teddy was relaxed and at peace and perfectly loving and trusting in his arms.
There was the sound of Fleur's rapid, fluttering French as she told Calliope that she was pregnant. There was the smile that lit up Linus' face when Amity talked to him, and the way that he sought out her hand and kissed it. There was Luna's visit to the wandshop, to just "check up on Mr. Ollivander," the first of many more to come. And as she and Calliope talked about the nightmares they both had, Calliope looked at Luna's silvery eyes and thought, 'She could be a part of the family. And why not?'
But there were still nightmares.
Twenty-seven days after the Battle of Hogwarts, Calliope, Linus, Hector, Amity, Aunt Phoebe, and, most beloved, Uncle Servaas, took lunch in the apartment above the wand shop. Calliope had retired to the window seat, looking out over the street. She was waiting, looking into the milling crowd and the remains of debris.
Then, sudden as the strike of a clock, she saw them. Julietta, leading the way, Januarius, looking very lost, and behind him, looking around with a wary but irrepressible curiosity, finding the wand shop –
Calliope was up and out of the room. She nearly flew down the corridor, down the stairs, between the narrow shelves piled all the way up to the ceiling. She reached the desk just as Mark opened the door.
Mark stood in the doorway, staring at her – and he looked healthy, wearier, and as confused and uncertain as she'd ever known him –
She couldn't move.
He crossed the space between them, dropping his suitcase and in a moment she met him, held him, clung to him, kissed him over and over.
Their knees gave way; they fell to the floor, and she found herself crying, though whether with joy or sorrow or relief, she wasn't sure. But there were tears on his face, too, when he pulled back to look at her. He said, "It's good to see you."
She nodded, looking into his eyes – hazel with a ring of gold around the pupil. Had she ever noticed that before? She would never be able to look at him enough. "It's good to see you, too."
"Would you care to – to go dancing?" He smiled, uncertain of the question, if this was the time or the place – but she laughed softly – the first time since Dora's death – and nodded, and kissed him.
She leaned into him, pressing into his shoulder and neck as he wrapped his arms around her, like he would never let her go. "It's so good to see you," she said.