Author's Note: Hello all and welcome back. In last week's chapter, Sophie revealed the truth to Draco and to the others at Grimmauld Place 12 - and it did not particularly end well. This week we'll deal with some of the aftermath of that. This chapter contains some wallowing in self-pity, great parenting (honestly, I am rather proud of writing it), and some new discoveries. I'm curious to hear what you think!
Major thanks to Ghostwriter71, LeahLovesPotter, and TheMushroomGuild for reviewing the previous chapter. You guys are amazing! :)
August 27, 1996
Bath
Over the next couple of weeks, Sophie tried with all her might to settle back into her old life. When she first returned that Monday after dinner, she told her mother some half-hearted lie about Emma having caught the flu, before dragging her feet upstairs and dumping her still-packed bags in the corner of her room. There they remained ever since, even after repeated urging from her mother.
In the days that followed, she took up extensively reading through and cataloguing information regarding the upcoming school year, making schedules and lists of things that she had to complete, projects she wanted to do – anything else that kept her mind away from magic. In the evenings, she allowed Ryan to take her to dinner, to parties, to the movies, or simply just up to his or her own room, where she would listen with half an ear to the vague, semi-deep nonsense he'd been spewing ever since she had first met him – but which now suddenly no longer amused her. She broke up with him on a rainy Saturday afternoon a week after returning home.
The truth was that as much as she tried, it was impossible to go back. The truth was that she felt old, and this life of school and boys and meaningless frivolities felt empty. For the first in a long time, she found herself flipping through the pages of her notebook, not for the information about magic, but for any glimpse of her old life.
By the time the last week of August came around, she hardly left her room anymore, staring at the ceiling and trying desperately to remember anything. She knew her mother's name had been Irene Wright and her father's Charles Lewis, but for the life of her it was like repeating the names of two strangers. She had lost the memory of their faces some years ago, but now even the faintest whisper of their voices was gone. It was all gone.
She no longer remembered what the house they had lived in had looked like, or the town where she'd grown up. She didn't remember the holidays they had taken, or the family members who had come to visit her on her birthdays. After years of not talking or even thinking about it, it was all gone.
She suddenly, wistfully, found herself wishing she could go back. And for the first time, she grieved the life she had lost.
August 30, 1996
Bath
It was a Friday evening – and if Sophie had had any awareness of what day it was anymore, she might have thought about how she used to spend such evenings having fun with her friends or Ryan. As it was, however, the days had started to blur, and the only thing that Sophie was still vaguely aware of was the fact that the summer holiday would soon come to an end.
She had just sat through another silent family dinner – or at least from her side – and had trudged back up the old staircase to resume her spot against the headboard of her unmade bed when a knock on the door kept her from also resuming her gaze's spot on the opposite wall. Odd, she thought somewhat detachedly, her mother had given up trying to give her pep talks after the first week. She wondered what she could want this time.
'Can I come in?' Her father's voice called. Sparing her a response, the door soon opened on a crack, and his smiling face popped in.
She sighed, 'I don't want to talk, Dad.'
'Didn't come here to,' he retorted, holding the wooden chess set she had received during her first Christmas in this life through the crack. 'Thomas from the office beat me at a friendly match just the other day. I need some practice.'
The question wasn't expressed, but it was clear that he was giving her a choice because he had yet to open the door any further. She appreciated the way he wasn't trying to bully her into talking though and so, after a short moment of hesitation, she nodded.
He moved further into the room, moving some of the clutter of notes, scrap paper, and a rather cranky Severus from the foot of her bed to make room for the chess board. He didn't speak as he set up the pieces and Sophie found she appreciated him even more for it. Throughout her time with them, she had always had a better bond with her father than her mother. Neither of them were talkers, but despite that – or perhaps because of it – they had always managed to understand each other rather well.
'You may start.'
It had been a long time since they had last played – despite the fact that she had always enjoyed those hour-and-a-half moments of quality time, she supposed at some point life had started getting in the way – and it took her a moment to remember her father's favourite strategy. When she did, her hand released the pawn in front of her queenside bishop and instead moved the pawn in front of her kingside horse one square.
They played in silence for a while, moving and removing pieces on the board. There was no clear winner yet, but as it was Sophie was currently on the winning hand.
'Your mother says you are not getting out of your room much anymore,' her father remarked, as she was studying the board for any potential future move from her father that she was missing.
She temporarily forgot the next move of her one remaining bishop as she threw him an annoyed, warning glance.
In response, he held up his hands, 'All I'm saying is, it wouldn't hurt to open a window every now and then. It's starting to smell a bit like when we first moved in here.'
She huffed, but nodded, before returning her attention to the board and moving her bishop three squares forward across the black tiles, effectively capturing her father's knight.
As he removed the piece from the board, he looked up at her once more, grey eyes so solemn that she found she could not look away. 'Without jest, Sophie, your mother is worried about you – and so am I. I've always known you have a good head on your shoulders. So if you broke up with that boy Ryan then I can only trust you had a good reason for it. But I also know that while I never quite liked him, he did make you smile and act a bit more foolish than we are used of you. And that really is no crime when you are in your teenage years.'
'I know that. But I'm not sad about breaking up with Ryan.' She shrugged. 'I guess I always knew he wasn't the right one for me, but lately it just started to bug me how different we are.'
'And does this by chance have anything to do with that boy who stayed here with his Mom?'
'I didn't break up with Ryan because I'm in love with Draco, if that is what you're suggesting,' she glared, though the real bite was gone.
'I never said you did. But you have been a bit down lately. We could... I mean if you like, that is… What I'm saying is that if it would cheer you up a little, I would be happy to drive you to London to go and visit that boy. Or something…'
She smiled despite herself at his uneasiness. 'Thank you, Dad, but that won't be necessary. As it is, I don't think Draco wants to see me anymore. In fact, I'm quite certain he would rather not.'
'But you helped him and his mother.' Somehow the statement sounded more like a question, and Sophie found it reflected the same process she herself had gone through.
She sighed, 'I did. I helped them by doing what I thought was right for them. I asked him to trust me, to trust my judgment, and it never occurred to me that I could have simply asked him what he wanted or needed.'
When she dared to glance up from her hands, she noticed her father's gaze was fixed on the chessboard, and for a good two minutes he didn't reply at all. Then he reached out for his castle and without hesitation, moved it across the board to capture her bishop. 'Did you apologise?'
Sophie blinked, at first not registering the question because of the sudden loss of her bishop. She noticed that with its absence, her king was starting to get in a very tight spot indeed. 'I did.'
'Then I'm sure he'll come to see that your actions came from a good place.'
Two turns later, her father had checkmated her king. Still, she didn't feel like she'd lost completely that evening.
August 31, 1996
Bath
The next morning was a sunny one, and her father surprised her at ten by coming into her room and asking her if she would not join him to pick up some papers at his office and then for ice cream on the way back. She surprised him even more with a yes – albeit an unenthusiastic one.
Bath on a Saturday was a busy city, with people young and old flocking in from all over the region to visit its quaint shops and markets. Because of it, the fifteen minute-walk to her father's office took them a full thirty minutes, and as she waited outside the modern building, Sophie looked out absent-mindedly at the passers-by. When they finally came back home after finishing their cones with chocolate and banana-flavoured ice cream, it was already past 1.
When they did, Sophie gave her father a quick hug before going up the stairs, being fully set on returning to her perch on her bed for the remainder of the day, when she found her mother blocking the doorway to her room.
Both windows in her room were wide open, as was the window that she could see through the open door of the bathroom. The covers of her bed were piled in a corner of the room and as she entered, her mother was sifting through the pile of clothes that had been collecting to the side of the door for the past few weeks.
'I already carried off one load of clothes that came out of that duffle bag of yours. At least half of them were unworn, but by this point they had been in that bag with the dirty clothes for so long that they'd started smelling like them!'
Sophie didn't know what to say, unsure whether a response would only encourage her mother's rant. Instead, she moved further into the room, sitting on the edge of her unmade bed.
'I know we've been lax with you about this until now, Soph, but I will set some rules about basic hygiene if it is necessary!'
'It's not,' she said, rather monotonously 'I promise it won't happen again.'
Her mother finally broke her mad sifting to send her a stern glance over her shoulder, 'See to it that it doesn't. I'm not your maid!'
'I know, I'm sorry Mom.'
Her mother huffed as she straightened, 'Well this should be the last of it. I've put your toiletries on the desk, so you can return those to the bathroom yourself. Your school notebooks and books are also there.
'Speaking of which... There was also a book in your bag that I'd never seen before, with some funny title like "Darkest Art". Should I be concerned?'
'What,' Sophie choked, spotting the book in the pile of clutter on her desk. She had completely forgotten about taking it from Regulus' room. In all honesty, she had not allowed herself to think of anything relating to the magical world for the past few weeks. 'No, I... It's this really angsty teenage book... Emma actually lent it to me, said it was quite good.' Her heart was racing 100 miles an hour, and she could only hope her mother had not yet had the time to crack it open. She couldn't even imagine what she would do if the book had screamed at her poor, unsuspecting Muggle mother.
'Hmmm well if you say so. Just make sure to use your head okay,' she gathered the pile in her arms and made for the door, 'I don't want you getting involved in anything weird.'
'Always do,' Sophie muttered and as she did, she wasn't sure if she had just responded to the first or second part of her mother's statement.
September 1, 1996
Bath
That night she lay awake. While this in itself was not an unusual occurrence, the reason for it was. Even in the darkness, she could make out the outline of "Secrets of the Darkest Art", and the title glistered mysteriously in the light of the lamppost across the street.
Even now, she couldn't quite remember why the title seemed so familiar to her. Like all the memories of her past life, her memories of the Harry Potter book series were vague and unspecific. She remembered the general plot and some random details here and there, but if she had ever known it at all, the significance of the book now escaped her.
And so she vowed that the next morning, when her parents were off to church, she would try to open it. By then, she had everything perfectly planned out, having considered every possible worst-case scenario that could follow opening the book. She cleared the kitchen table of anything that might catch fire and – just in case – took out the fire blanket from one of the overhead cabinets and placed it at the ready. She wielded her mother's feather duster, the only thing in the house with a long enough handle that would keep her out of immediate danger. And like this, with her hands stuck in her mother's plaid oven mittens, she carefully pushed the plastic handle of the duster under the leather cover. It slowly came up – and nothing happened. She dropped it again.
Cautiously, Sophie took a step forward, renewing her tight grip on the duster, and placed its handle back between the pages of the book. This time she threw open the cover completely, providing a full view of the title page. It revealed no new information though, just the title and the author. No publication date. Still, she had not been hexed into the next century, so that must be a good thing.
She put the feather duster down on the kitchen counter, closing the last few steps to the table. Starting to shrug off the oven mittens, she thought better of it and then picked up the books with cushioned hands. With difficulty, she turned several pages, but still nothing. No screaming, no fire, no curse. Nothing.
'Huh,' she huffed, looking around at all the precautions she had taken. She put the book down, deciding that it was probably best to put the kitchen back in order before her parents came home and found her in the middle of it all, reading what she had termed a "really angsty teenage book".