Hey! I'm not dead!
Sorry it's been a few months guys, I promise that I never gave up on the story, just mental health issues kind of ruined my brain for a little bit. Had to take a little bit of time to get things in gear. It was hard to just get out of bed every day. But my esteemed editor was super helpful in giving me courage and strength, so a big shoutout to my plant sister from another mister. And I want to thank my girlfriend too, for putting up with me.
And I could literally hug every single person who kept reading this fic during my break. All your support means sooooo much to me, it's unbelievable.
I apologize for the short chapter, but it was the most I could muster up. Bigger and better things will be coming, I promise. Those side projects are still very much in the works as I write this! I've also been working on a solo original work that I haven't quite decided to share yet.
As per usual:
I DO NOT OWN ANY RECOGNIZABLE CHARACTERS, PLACES, OR EVENTS. THOSE BELONG TO THE WRETCHED BITCH HERSELF, J.K. ROWLING 3
Chapter 30
Barbara didn't get another phone call from Rose for a few more months. She did, however, receive plenty of postcards. Katie and Brian were dragging her all over the country, exploring both the magical and non-magical aspects of the United States. In one letter, Rose wrote enthusiastically about being back on the East Coast.
The weather might be more humid and temperamental, but I missed the mountains and forests. New Jersey still sucks, although we did meet the Jersey Devil. Salem is still more of a tourist trap than anything else, but we spent a whole week up in Maine. Brain wanted to visit some family in New York City, but I spent most of that time hiding in our hotel room. I've never been a fan of cities, and that still hasn't changed.
I miss you and Uncle Jesse a lot, I hope that I can see you guys soon. Apparently Grandma and Grandpa heard that I would be heading back down south again and cutting back across Texas, so they invited us to stay at their place for a little bit. I agreed since I haven't seen them in a long time.
Barbara tossed down the letter and sprinted from her room to Jesse's study, where he was filing paperwork and making phone calls. Panting, she waved her hand feebly at her brother when he put his hand over the speaker and gave her a confused look.
"She's...she's going to see mom and dad…" she wheezed, holding her back. Jesse winced and resumed his phone conversation before quickly hanging up and bolting from his chair.
"Then there's no time to lose. You haven't told her about them, have you?" Jesse looked like he was going to blow a fuse, but he wasn't mad at his sister. Barbara shook her head furiously.
"God no, but I also didn't think that they would reach out to her!"
"Barbie, they're old, they'll find any reason to change up their daily routine." Jesse pointed out as they both prepared to leave. With luck, they would hopefully be able to get to their parent's house before Rose did.
Beauford and Maybelle Sauer owned an absolutely ridiculous plantation manor surrounded by magnolia trees. The long shaded gravel drive made her feel like they were all driving into a sort of alternate universe. Like a well-groomed unicorn would appear in between the trees. As Brian brought the car around to the front, Rose saw her grandfather standing on the front porch in a white suit, waving and coming down the front steps meticulously slow. Rose felt uneasy as she watched him, her bag on one arm and one held up.
"Uh, it's okay grandpa, we can meet you, you don't have to come down here." she said nervously, but the elderly man insisted on tottering down the old wooden steps.
"Nonsense! I want to give my granddaughter a hug! It's been too long!" Rose tried not to grimace as she could quite literally hear his bones creaking as he walked. His skin reminded her of a tortilla, and she tried not to laugh as he gave her a surprisingly firm hug.
"How are you, Mr. Sauer?" Brian asked politely as he opened his trunk to get the rest of their things. The slightly crooked-spined old man gave Brian a bright smile and clapped him on the back.
"Ah, there he is! The senator's son." he looked at the Newport and whistled, staring at the chrome rims and smooth paint.
"Those no-maj types, so resourceful. It's a miracle that they even learned how to read and write!" he laughed as he patted Brian on the back, like they were sharing a private joke. Instead, Rose could see that her best friend became intensely uncomfortable and could only manage to quirk a small, cold smile. Both of them quickly looked at Katie, who looked like she was going to say something valid but also incredibly rude. Quickly, Rose took her grandfather by the arm and started to guide him inside.
"Come on, I want to say hello to grandma." she said as she steered the old man inside. Rose made a mental note to cut this visit short so Katie wouldn't commit a felony.
Her grandmother wasn't any better, and it was really starting to get on the three friend's nerves. Dinner in the lavish, airy dining room was highly unnerving as Maybelle stared at all three of the younger witches and wizard at her table with an alarming amount of sharpness that wasn't normally present in people her age. While Rose had seen them all briefly during the floo call back when she was still in Glasgow, it didn't even come close to experiencing the real thing.
"I just wanted to thank you again for inviting us to stay for a bit." Rose said in a somewhat meek voice as she pushed her spinach around with her fork. Her brief stint as a Gryffindor was a reminder that her strength didn't lie in making eye contact with the elderly.
"It's the least we could do for our lovely granddaughter and her little traveling companions." Maybelle responded pleasantly, but something in her tone made Rose's skin prickly uneasily.
"After all," the old woman waved her wand, summoning a bowl of mashed potatoes "I always believed that showing a little kindness was a surefire way to foster some goodwill amongst folks. Or at least that's the way things should be."
Rose didn't like her tone. If there was one thing her constant paranoia had afforded her, it was the ability to pick up on even the slightest deviations in behavior. Her grandmother was all smiles on the surface, but she could tell the old woman would tear her apart in seconds if she could. They would all have to be careful around her.
"Well times are changing. Some people just don't know how to let go of an outdated mindset like that when it would only benefit them." Katie said harshly, not even hiding how she was vehemently opposed to the elderly couple. Maybelle didn't miss a beat with her quick reply.
"You people didn't know what good times were until you stole it. You should be more grateful that we didn't take action against you." she said, "More sweet tea, dear?"
"Grandma what?" Rose said, flabbergasted "That's...that's awful how could you say something like that?" she put down her fork and stared at the woman in disbelief. Maybelle just shrugged lightly with a sniff as she watched the pitcher of sweet tea pour slowly into Katie's glass.
"Oh nothing, don't mind me. Just an old woman and her thoughts."
The rest of the afternoon passed in much of the same fashion. Wherever the three of them went around the house, as Rose didn't want to leave Katie alone, there was always some sort of reminder of the elitist mindset that she had seen so much of back at Hogwarts. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably in shame when she thought of how this was likely how the entire wizarding world was, and that apparently being exposed to a fanatic like Voldemort was the only way for her to see this clearly.
Instead of getting wound up in guilt, Rose let this fuel her. They spent one night in the creaky plantation home before Rose opened the pouch that held her wand. She hadn't touched it in weeks, but the draw of the power she felt in it was like putting on a comfortable pair of slippers.
"Rose, put that down." Katie grumbled as she sat up in her bed, rubbing her eyes. She hadn't slept well because she had been unwillingly separated from Brian for the night, but even the gap toothed blonde knew when something was off.
"Relax, I'm not going to kill any more of my family members. But if this conversation gets ugly, I want to have a fighting chance. My wandless magic is still not the best for offensive dueling."
"It is eight in the morning, you are not dueling your grandparents just because they're prejudiced like every other pureblood. I appreciate the gusto, but do you really want to sever ties with them? No offense, but they're probably going to croak soon anyway, so why fuck with it now?" Katie waved her hand dismissively as she combed her fingers through her hair, "I know not everybody will like me just because of how I was born, and while I want to kick all of their asses, it's impossible."
"Stop that." Rose said suddenly, as she felt her chest ache with sadness "You take that back. Katie, I will kick all the asses if it means you can live without judgement. All that shit about stealing magic and being less? It's wrong and you know it. Don't live quietly and out of the way just because some dusty motherfuckers say it's the way things should be."
It was like somebody had poured liquid fire into her veins, and Rose was feeling ready to rumble. She jumped on top of her bed and pointed to Katie sharply.
"It is your human right to live freely and equally. Your heritage, your gender, the color of your skin, who you love...none of that determines your worth as a person. You are worth everything! And I will be damned to hell if anybody tries to say otherwise!" chest heaving as she shouted, Rose pushed down a familiar twinge of rage that she hadn't felt in awhile. She glanced down briefly at her wand before dismissing the thought.
Jesse and Barbara both looked at each other in alarm when they saw the old magnolia trees lining the drive ablaze with bright, greenish white flames that writhed with animal-like intensity.
"Holy shit, is that fiendfyre?" Jesse asked in awe as he brought his car to a screeching halt and jumped out. The heat was intense, and the siblings winced as they heard hissing and popping tree bark.
"We need to put this out before it spreads!" Barbara shouted over the inferno, and they tediously began dousing the flames, but the dark magic was difficult to handle. Through the black smoke, they trudged down the path before they came upon their childhood home.
"What the hell is going on?!" Jesse asked in alarm as they both could see more flames threatening to swallow the mansion. Spells were still being cast inside, multicolored flashes and shattering windows a testament to the fact that a battle was still occurring inside.
…
Rose watched as her grandmother cast fiendfyre again, the green fire spilling from her wand like molten lead as it crawled and licked its way along the floor.
"You're going to bring the whole place down! You seriously want to die over this?" Rose screamed hoarsely as she also cast her own fiendfyre, bright red as it took the form of a lion and clashed with the green pool that ate away at the varnish on the wooden floors.
"Stupid child, you have no idea what you're talking about!" the old woman shrieked, her thin white hair fraying from its carefully coiled pattern as she moved agilely around the hall.
"Look at all the magic power you have! This is evidence of how powerful purebloods are, even when your bitch of a mother had to go and ruin it all!"
Rose stopped and tried to put out some of the fire, but her rage was rekindled when she heard her grandmother speaking about her own daughter like that.
"I've never been happier to hear that the useless worm was murdered when you all moved, and so quickly too! He deserved it, he was tainting a legendary bloodline. A pathetic No-Maj gardener, hah!"
"Shut up! My dad was a good man!" Rose cried, trying not to choke on hot tears as she gave up attempting to save the home out of politeness.
"Oh yes, I'm sure he was a perfectly good creature, but he helped produce you, a shitty little mutt who thinks she has the right to lecture her elders on what is correct. You're in for a good beating, girl! I didn't like the attitude on you the second you stepped through my door!"
Rose narrowly avoided getting her head sliced off by a curse that caused the wall at the end of the foyer to explode into a million wooden splinters, the sound of cracking deafening as paintings on the wall were eviscerated in the blink of an eye.
"You did a fair enough job of protecting all those little thoughts in your head too, I'll give you credit for that. I can only wonder how you managed to become so powerful for somebody so young."
"Thoughts?" Rose panicked momentarily, and that was when she felt it. The headache she had grew stronger, just like how it had when she used too much dark magic.
"But that was how you slipped up. When you use dark magic, it saps an awful lot of energy you could be using to defend yourself. I know all about your filthy thoughts about that girl, the criminal? And you have something else on your mind, something that weighs on your consciousness like a dead horse being dragged along a line, I wonder what-"
Rose snapped her mind shut so quickly, she heard a strangled gasp as her grandmother hit the floor like a sack of bricks and her fiendfyre extinguished itself immediately.
"Oh, shit." was all she had time to say before the front door was blasted open. Beams of light broke through the thick plumes of smoke before her mother and Uncle Jesse ran into the steadily burning manor. They both looked at the crumpled form of their mother before looking up at Rose.
"Where did he go?" Barbara shouted, and Rose looked at her mutely with confusion.
"Your grandad, bootleg Colonel Deep-Fried Racism. Where is he?" Jesse clarified, and Rose immediately thought of the white suit. And how she saw a flash of a white suit in the study when the fight with her grandmother broke out. He had escaped through the floo network.
"He's not here, I think he got away." she said slowly. Barbara easily stepped over Maybelle and grabbed Rose by the shoulders, steering her towards the door.
"We're leaving now, come on." she said seriously, and Rose didn't even attempt to escape from her grasp as they moved quickly back between the blackened, drenched magnolias.
"Katie and Brian…"
"Jesse will fill them in, but we need to leave before the cops show up. They'll take your magic if they catch you, and that's not what I want for you." the older witch said firmly as she pushed Rose into the passenger seat of Jesse's sports car and peeled out of the driveway, barely closing her door in time to not slam into a marble statue as they spun out.
"Mom, mom I did it again-" Rose's voice was small with fear. She had killed her grandmother, and she had been fully aware of it the whole time.
"Oh, no you didn't kill her. She'll be back." Barbara answered quickly, and Rose couldn't help looking at her mother in total astonishment.
"What?"
"Maybelle and Beauford don't die sweetie. At least, not from what I've seen." was all that Barbara said. Her tone was uncompromising, and Rose didn't want to push that line of questioning further. It was haunting, the way her mother said it like it was normal.
"Rose, I'm sorry this is all my fault. I should have warned you-"
"I'll say, the old bitch was outright trying to murder me!" Rose couldn't help squeaking as she remembered how quickly the ancient witch seemed to move as they fought. There wasn't any hesitation "And she was awful! I don't think I've met anybody as horribly abrasive. Well, okay there's definitely worse-"
"Rose, this is why your grandparents weren't around when you were younger, and why I didn't encourage you to foster a connection with them." Barbara rubbed her brow furiously in irritation. Rose threw her hands up in exasperation.
"Did you think I just wasn't ever going to see them? A warning or something would have been nice!" Rose cringed at her own shrill tone, but arguing with her mother wasn't something she experienced often. The uncomfortable nature of the situation made her skin crawl, the tension in the car thick enough to cut with a knife.
"Honestly, sweetie, I didn't think anything like this would ever happen. But you're right; I should have at least told you about them. I guess I've just become desensitized against their brand of cruelty. Those two were never good parents, and I knew they wouldn't have been good grandparents either. They wanted to take you away from me, you know." Barbara's voice suddenly choked up, and Rose instantly felt a stab of guilt. Simultaneously, a question burst forth.
"What? Why? And why didn't you ever tell me?"
"Because you were a baby! And it was just easier for us to ignore it at the time. We moved up north, I renounced any claim to the family fortune, and we lived our lives that way. It was some twisted idea of theirs that you could be their little prodigy and heir, and I didn't want that for you. I thought that moving to England would make things better but then it didn't and now we're here." The wavering defeat in her mother's voice made Rose feel even guiltier.
"Mom, I-"
"It's not your fault. You never were, and never have been the problem. I would take you a million times over instead of those rotten old bastards." Barbara said softly. Instead of saying anything else, Rose gently clasped her mother's forearm and squeezed lightly. They sat in total silence for the rest of the ride. Rose could only pray that Brian and Katie were alright, and that she would get in touch with them as soon as she could.
