Old Gemini

When Eileen stepped into her family's garden to inform the children Marietta had arrived to pick up Terrell, her heart lurched. At the base of the garden's walnut tree were the twins, looking up into the budding branches. She didn't see Terrell with them.

She raised her eyes to the branches. Through them, she saw Marietta's boy. Eileen hurried toward the tree drawing her wand. "Terrell Smith!" she shouted while, wordlessly, she cast a levitation charm on the boy.

"Oh!" he exclaimed as she brought him back to the ground. In his hands he was clutching Marcus's Welsh Green kite.

She knelt down in front of the wide-eyed boy and cupped his pointed jaw in her hands. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Terrell's surprise faded and under her hands, he beamed. "Yeah!" he assured. The boy laughed. "You surprised me Mrs. Belby."

Eileen exhaled in relief. "What were you doing in the tree?" she demanded as she let her hands fall away from him.

"Our kite was stuck!" he explained, holding the kite in his hands a little higher for her to see.

She sent a glare over at her watching twins. "I've told you children to never climb the trees!" Eileen scolded them.

Immediately, Marcus's wary expression turned contrite. Carrie, however, stuck out her chin and said, "You've told us." She almost, but not quite, smirked. "Terrell's not been told."

Eileen gritted her teeth in vexation. "Let me correct myself then," she hissed. "I will have no child on this property in our trees or there will be severe consequences for every child."

"Mum!" whined the girl, balling her hands at her side and scowling.

Standing up, Eileen dusted off her skirt. "Come inside," she urged the children. She looked at the boy holding the kite. "Your mother is here, Terrell."

He smiled, clearly pleased at the news. Eileen felt some of her ire fade when he said, "Okay, thank you!"

As the boy hurried for the door to the house, she looked once more to her twins. She crossed her arms and ordered, "Marcus help him gather his things." Her son hurried to follow her command and Carrie fell into step behind him. However, as they passed her, she grabbed her daughter's shoulder. "Not you, you stay here Carrie."

"Mum, I want to help," complained her daughter, pouting and shifty-eyed. Eileen knew that was not true. Not wholly.

Eileen maneuvered the girl to stand toe-to-toe with her. "We need to chat," she said to Carrie as the boys disappeared into the house.

Her daughter sighed in what sounded suspiciously like defeat.

"I know it was you who goaded him into the tree," Eileen told Carrie. Not that it was hard to tell. Carrie had bristled during the scolding, defending what Terrell had done. Marcus had just looked pathetic. Her son only looked like that when he felt guilty and her daughter only objected so strongly when she knew she'd misbehaved.

Her daughter smiled and it was sheepish. "I didn't think you'd find out," she admitted.

Eileen frowned. That was an awful reason. If Carried had wanted to argue she thought it was fine because the tree was sturdy or she had been prepared to dive under her friend to catch him if he lost his footing…

Well, Eileen would still be cross. There was no doubt there. However, she may have been willing to show leniency. Thoughtfulness mattered in her household. Even when it came from a flawed place.

What Carried had just done, however? She had no consideration for Terrell's safety, only for her selfish desire to bring the kite back down from the tree. She closed her eyes.

"There will be no trip to the ice cream shoppe for you this Saturday," Eileen proclaimed.

As expected, her daughter gasped. "That's not fair!" she protested.

Eileen opened her eyes and glared at her outraged child. Tightening her hold on the girl's shoulder, she hissed, "What's not fair is having to bury a child." The anger faded from Carrie's face slightly and Eileen shook her, hoping to rid the rest of her childish furry. "You could have done that to Ms. Edgecombe," she told the girl.

"…Sorry," Carrie whispered after a long moment, eyes large and finally, truly apologetic.

Eileen let her daughter go. "Don't do it again," she said.

The girl nodded. "I won't," she promised.

She relaxed and let her frown flicker up into a brief smile. "Run ahead, see if the boys need help still," she said.

Carried beamed back at her. "Okay!"

-o-O-o-

Stepping out of the fireplace, Eileen was not overly surprised to find her husband at the dining room table with his hands wrapped around a half-full mug of tea. Smiling at her oddly somber-faced husband, she went and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. "Hello, sweet," said Eileen.

He looked up at her, a little of the tension around his eyes having bled away since she first came in. "Hi," he returned.

Eileen sat down across from Marcus and reached for the dish of food waiting out for her. Taking off the tea towel Marcus had draped over it, Eileen hummed when she caught the fishy aroma. Marcus had made his grandmother's tweed kettle pie, a favorite of their children.

As she dug in, Eileen remarked to her silent husband, "You look particularly grim tonight." After swallowing a bite, she asked, "Has something happened?"

Marcus sighed and dipped his chin. "We got a firecall from Esther while you were teaching your evening class."

"Oh?"

"I think you might want to finish eating first," he said.

Eileen put down her spoon and pushed her barely touched dinner away from her. Her husband made a face and before he could protest, she began to interrogate him. "Marcus, what's happened?" she asked. His eyes tightened and she felt the need to steal herself. "Is everyone—"

"Parvati Patil is dead," he cut in, voice cracking on dead.

Eileen put a hand to her forehead. She almost thought she had to have misheard. "Parvati?" she whispered.

Marcus stretched his hand across the table and Eileen gladly entwined her fingers with his. Their warmth lessened a little of the numbness that had taken her. "Esther doesn't know much yet. I guess Harry called to talk to her. Parvati had receipts for ingredients from one of our apothecaries at her flat," explained Marcus. He looked away and all but pressed his chin to his chest. "It's all lining up she made something to poison herself with."

"Oh no," she murmured.

"I… I feel that they're going to rule this a suicide," replied Marcus when he lifted his gaze. His blue eyes were watery as he remarked, "It makes the most sense."

"You're not wrong," Eileen said after a time. The way Marcus had laid everything out, suicide did seem the most logical conclusion. She squeezed her husband's fingers. "I feel bad for her."

"Her and her parents," muttered Marcus. He took his hand back and ran his fingers through his already askew hair. Hiding his eyes behind the heels of his hands, he said, "They've lost both their daughters, and now, they have to raise Padma's son on their own…" He pulled his hands away and looked over at Eileen. "Well, not quite on their own. Didn't the girls have a cousin in your year?"

"Sachin," she answered. "They had another cousin in the year beneath Darla too," added Eileen after thinking a beat longer. "Not that it changes much." She rested her chin on her fist and sighed. "Their cousins both have their own lives now."

"Are you okay?" pressed Marcus when Eileen said nothing more and instead fixed her eyes on the grain of their dining table.

"I wasn't terribly close to either," she admitted. Eileen could count the number of times she saw the two after Hogwarts on both hands. "Padma was stuck-up and Parvati! Half the rumors running around Hogwarts during our years there were because of her and Lavender."

She turned in her chair, away from her husband and his sad, sympathetic eyes. Eileen clenched her hands in the twill fabric of her skirt. "What upsets me is people are still dying," she admitted. Parvati was just another death on top of a long line of deaths. She laughed so she wouldn't cry. Staring at a painting she had done of a trio of Aethonan horses on the wall across the room, she willed the tears in her eyes away as she whispered, "I thought, at least for a couple of decades, things would be peaceful."

He got up from his chair to come to stand behind her. Gingerly he placed a hand on her shoulder and said, "I understand."

Eileen placed her own hand over Marcus's. "We've lost so many, Marcus," she said. "I could go through our yearbooks and cross out names by the dozen."

"Peacetime doesn't stop tragedy, it seems," he said in a sad, hoarse voice.

She could no longer stem the urge to sob. Burying her face in her hands, she choked, "Marcus—!"

Her husband let go of her shoulder only to move to be in front of Eileen and hug her head against his chest. "Oh, my love…" he soothed. "Shh, my love."

"I didn't like the Patils!" she cried into Marcus's front. "Yet!"

"What?" he whispered as he stroked her hair.

"I ache for Parvati," she said. Pulling away from her husband's chest, Eileen stared up at her husband with wide eyes and warbled, "Marcus, how she must have felt these past couple of years! To be alive when— when—"

His hand began to stroke her hair anew. "You're recalling what you felt after Lottie died, aren't you?" he asked, frowning in a sad, sympathetic way.

Eileen gave a high-pitched, frenzied giggle. "Felt?" she said. She pressed one of her hands to her husband's heart and corrected him, "Feel, Marcus." Leaning back, hand still on his chest, she explained, "The feelings have never stopped. They've simply grown bearable."

His expression turned agape, then anguished. She had to look away. Eileen had hurt Marcus. How she hated it when she hurt him.

"I didn't realize," he whispered.

She scoffed. "I never told you, how could you have?" she muttered. Crossing her arms and curling in on herself, Eileen admitted, "I don't like to talk about those feelings. It makes them burn stronger." Digging her fingers into her arms, she murmured, "I can't afford to have it hurt more. Otherwise, I might—"

Her husband dropped to his knees and grasped her shoulders hard and fast. "Don't say it, Eileen," broke in Marcus, voice loud, panicked.

Eileen met his wide, frightened eyes. "I won't," she promised.

Marcus let go of a long, shuddering breath. "Oh, love," he said as he wrapped her up in his arms. "My love," he whispered before he pressed a kiss to her brow.

She leaned into her husband, nestling her face in the crook of his neck. Her voice was muffled as she told Marcus, "I shouldn't have said that to you."

"No, it's better," he replied. "I should know." Pulling her away from him a moment, he smiled at Eileen. It was strained, but she appreciated the effort he was making. "I'm your husband. I want to know where I shouldn't step, where I shouldn't let the children step." Marcus leaned in, kissing her. When they parted, he did not go far, choosing to rest his forehead against hers. "I want you to stay here, stay with us," he told Eileen.

She blinked back a fresh wave of tears. "I want to stay with you as well."

"Good," he said, relief ringing clear in his tone. "Good." Marcus kissed her again. When they separated, he said to Eileen. "I love you."

"I love you too," she whispered, smiling at her husband.

-o-O-o-

Eileen stared at her incomplete sketches of Lottie. She had over thirty now. Some were still faceless as the day she first made them. A handful had noses and nothing else. Others, mouths and noses. A couple were even nearer to completion, having everything, noses, lips, flushed cheeks, eyebrows…

Not one had Lottie's bright, alive eyes.

She felt tears start to sting at the back of her own eyes. In a fit of frustration, Eileen shoved the drawings away from her. They scattered onto the floor around her drawing desk. She buried her face in her arms and sucked in a shaky breath. Why was this so difficult?

Eileen had drawn other people who'd passed before. Some had been at the request of bereft individuals. Others on a whim of Eileen's. A few she painted in the past Eileen had known in life. One of them, Charity Burbage, she had been taught by in school and liked as a professor.

She remembered painting her professor's portrait well. It had been her first commissioned work. Eileen was newly seventeen at the time and received a letter from Professor Burbage's bereaved fiancé. He'd asked if she would paint him a small portrait. Eileen had written back, asking why he wanted her to paint the portrait.

Eileen wasn't a professional at the time and rumors then (now facts), said Sev, her dad, had been a witness to Burbage's murder. The fiancé, Ralph Burns, reply to her questions had touched her. He had written:

Miss Snape, Eileen,

I don't care who your father is. What matters to me is you knew Charity. You knew her face, knew the exact way she'd smile— She smiled so much when she was passionate about something. She was passionate about teaching you kids. Charity told me a time or two about you and your talent with a brush.

Even if this portrait won't be to professional standards, I know it will still be beautiful. Please, help me, Eileen. I want to commemorate Charity for her parents in a special way. A portrait painted by a student who knew and cared about her will mean so much to them.

Sincerely,

Ralph Burns

After his letter, Eileen had agreed. She had reasoned that if Burns felt that strongly only she could capture Burbage's essence, taking on the project was the right thing to do. Eileen had spent her entire summer and then some of September painting the portrait of Professor Burbage.

It had not been easy to paint her professor. Eileen had struggled and wept and fussed about minor details. However, when September came and she put on the last touches, Eileen had felt proud of her work.

Professor Sinistra, who she had gone to for opinions and critique as she worked on Professor Burbage's portrait, told Eileen when she finished the painting it was brilliant. That the painting looked like a photograph and Eileen had captured the minute details of Burbage's smiling face perfectly.

That was when Eileen had invited Burns to Hogwarts to pick up the portrait. When he saw it for the first time, he sobbed. His reaction had nothing on Burbage's parents, however. They sent her a cake after they received the portrait and a beautiful letter expressing their gratitude. On Christmas of that year, they sent her another letter. It featured a photo of them, their squib son, his wife, and Burbage's portrait in the arms of her mother.

Every year since then they have also sent her their family Christmas card. In the last card Eileen received, Professor Burbage's parents were older, they wore glasses and there was more gray in their hair than before. The squib son and his wife were also changed. The wife had gained weight and the son had grown a beard. Instead of standing side-by-side in the latest picture, the couple's child, now six or so, had stood between them. Charity's portrait, her smiling face forever thirty-six, held in the arms of her loving mother, was the only thing that stayed unchanged in the yearly photo.

It would always be unchanged until, one day, she simply stopped receiving the cards from the Burbage family.

Until that day, Eileen would cherish the photos. It was them, the reaction of the Burbage family to her painting, that spurred her to become what she was today. They showed her just how meaningful a lovingly-crafted portrait could be.

Eileen knew, if she could just get past this block, she could give her mother something just as meaningful as she gave the Burbage family. Edie would look at Lottie's portrait every day. She would hang it proudly in the lounge. She would keep the frame free of dust and fuss at Eileen and Calliope's children to be careful around it as they played.

She lifted her face from her arms. It was a beautiful vision. Eileen wanted that future for her mother— No, for her children. She wanted them to grow up playing, laughing, being loved under the beatific smile of her twin sister.

Eileen got to her feet. Gathering the sketches, she inspected them all, looking for the best one to finish. If she did this right, she would only have to finish one sketch.

-o-O-o-

"Eileen," said Sachin Patil as she took the seat beside him.

She looked out of the corner of her eye at her old yearmate. Sachin had always been a couple of shades darker than his cousins, yet, today, he seemed wan. He also had unkempt stubble on his cheeks. Eileen felt her sympathies rise at these small signs of grief.

Reaching out, she briefly touched one of his hands. "Hello, Sachin," she murmured. "How are you?"

He sighed and looked up at the other people in attendance at Parvati's funeral. She looked around as well. To Eileen, it seemed most were family to Parvati. Behind her, as she came into the funeral, she had passed Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They'd only exchanged brief nods. They would be able to talk amongst themselves later. Right now, Eileen felt her attention was best used on those most in need.

"As well as to be expected," answered Sachin.

Eileen made a noise of sympathy. "I understand," she said. Eileen hoped he could feel her earnesty. She had been in his place — more than once as well.

Sachin turned his face and gave her a weak smile. "Thanks for coming," he replied. He tipped his head in the direction of an older couple at the front of Parvati's memorial. Their black hair was streaked white and the woman was cuddling a boy about four in her plump arms. That had to be Padma's son, Prajeet. He would probably be in the year above her Anthony. "I know it means a lot to my aunt and uncle to see people who went to school with Parvati here," he told Eileen.

She hadn't planned to mention it, but if Sachin wanted to talk about the lack of contemporaries at Parvati's funeral…

"I see there aren't many of us," she remarked.

Sachin's shoulders fell. "She… She really isolated herself after the war," he admitted.

Eileen winced. That did explain the lack of schoolmates. "Yes," she murmured. "War changes everything."

The man's dark gray eyes grew fevered. Leaning in, he glanced around before imparting, "Sometimes, Padma, before she—" he paused, breath hitching. Sachin exhaled before he continued, "Before she thought things would have been different if Parvati hadn't seen Lavender be mauled to death."

She nodded and her fingers found the chain of her locket. Eileen was certain Parvati would have been a different witch. Watching a loved one die… Well, it wasn't something one ever got over. Darla had shown her that over the years. Eileen knew her to blanch just around the sight of brooms these days. Once, before Lottie's accident, she had been all but enraptured by flying and Quidditch games.

"She was likely right," agreed Eileen. "Sachin?" she said after a pause.

He tilted his head. "Yes?"

Eileen's fingers dance down to the locket and she pulls it out from beneath her jumper. Clutching it in her fist, she asked, "Did Padma ever tell you about some of the things Unspeakables work with?"

Sachin stared at her fist, brows furrowed. "Some, yes."

She felt herself begin to sweat beneath her robe as she considered her next words. "My family, we don't talk about it, about Lottie much at all, but at one point she found a thing called a Reality-Shifter," she explained to her old yearmate.

He huffed, sounding almost amused as he did. "Let me guess, you can change your reality with it?"

"Essentially," she replied. Unwrapping her fingers from the locket, she opened it up and turned the photo in Sachin's direction. "Here, look," she urged.

He pulled his brows together and squinted at the picture of Lottie, their not-parents, and Ren. "Those are your parents and…" he trailed off and glanced up at her before he said, "Lottie, I presume?"

She pushed her lips to stretch into a smile. "Yes."

"Who is the boy?" he questioned, showing off his keen Ravenclaw intelligence.

"The son of Edie in a different reality," she answered. Eileen chuckled. "My brother, you could say."

Sachin leaned back in his seat and turned his eyes to the ceiling. For a moment, he said nothing, tapping his foot instead. "I… I think I almost remember this now," he said once he turned his attention back to Eileen. His gray eyes were wide as he continued, "My parents mentioned a Hogwarts professor's daughter going missing when I was little." He reached for her locket, but Eileen pulled away. Sachin let his hand fall back to his lap. Eyes bright, he asked, "That was your sister, wasn't it?"

"Yes," she replied. Closing the locket and tucking it back away beneath her sweater, Eileen told Sachin, "I bring this up to say there has to be a reality where Parvati is happy and well. Padma and Lavender too." His eyes flashed and she hurried to try to make him understand, "Thinking that thought… It brings me comfort when I miss my sister."

Sachin's eyes turned to his hands. "Maybe that will for me someday," he replied as he turned them into fists. "Right now, I'm just angry that reality isn't ours." Lifting his face, he looked at Eileen with a clenched jaw and demanded, "What are we going to do about Prajeet?" Eileen reached for her hand and squeezed it hard when her old schoolmate's lip began to shake in spite of his efforts to keep it stiff. "He's lost his mother, he never had his father, and now, he doesn't have his aunt either."

"You do your best," she whispered, her voice cracking. "That's all that can be done."

Sachin nodded and dropped his head. She also looked away. They both needed a moment to gather themselves.

Finally, she was drawn to look back at him when he murmured, "Eileen?"

"Hm?" she mumbled as she returned her gaze to Sachin.

His gray eyes were despairing as he asked, "Do you ever wonder if we're living in the worst reality?"

She froze at the question. She couldn't lie. She had wondered that. More than once over her life too. Sometimes, Eileen even believed that she must be living in the worst one. Why else would she have lost so many? Why else would so many good people be dead and evil ones alive?

"I have," she answered finally. Then, because she'd long since thought past that initial ponderance, she strengthened her grip on Sachin and told him, "I decided long ago it doesn't matter." His expression slackened with surprise and Eileen felt protectiveness surge inside her. "This one is mine," she explained. "Another reality would pale to this one even if everything was the same except for I had a living Lottie in it."

Eileen thought back to shortly after her sister's return from her trip to another reality. How she described the way Edie and Severus were near-identical to their parents. Except for one detail. They didn't know her. Nor would they ever know Lottie the way Edie and Sev did.

"She would be Lottie, my sister, but she would not be mine," Eileen said to Sachin, trying to gauge his level of comprehension. "Do you understand?" she asked after a beat.

Slowly, he nodded. "I think so."

Eileen let his hand go. "I should give my condolences to your aunt and uncle as well."

Sachin hopped to his feet. "I'll come with you," he said. "Take Prajeet for a few minutes. My sister took her pair to the next room a little while ago for a bit of tea."

She offered the man an approving smile. Eileen would have to offer the Patils a few free classes at her studio. Painting was a soothing activity. It also allowed for one to express themselves in ways they might not be comfortable doing in another way.

It would not cure their grief, hopefully, however, it would help them find a way to begin to sort it.

-o-O-o-

While helping Elspeth clean up and put away her painting supplies, the little girl abruptly turned their conversation away from cats when she looked Eileen in the eye and told her, "Mother says if I want to learn to paint from you more it will have to be in a class with lots of other kids."

Eileen rolled with the shift. Her own children did this from time to time. "She's right," she told Elspeth as she finished casting silent sealing charms on the girl's pots of paint.

Elspeth bit her lip and Eileen leaned into the play room's cupboard to put the paints away. As she did, the little girl asked, "Do you know the other kids?"

"Yes, I do," answered Eileen, feeling amused at the question. She was glad the cupboard door hid her and her smile.

As she closed the cupboard door and began to help Elspeth put away her easel and fold up her dropcloth, the girl continued with her line of questioning. "Are they nice?"

Eileen paused. She didn't want to turn the girl off classes, but she also didn't want to lie… Eileen sighed and finished helping Elspeth fold the cloth into a neat square to put away in a drawer of the cupboard. Finally, she said, "Mostly."

Elspeth's cupid-bow lips puckered. "Mostly?" she repeated.

She flashed the child a reassuring smile. "Everyone has their unkind moments," she replied.

The little girl blinked. "Oh," she said. Then, turning anxious once more, she told Eileen, "Mother told me that some might be mean to me because they don't like her and Father."

Eileen nodded. She hadn't wanted to bring it up, not without knowing if Millicent already had. Now that she knew Millicent had warned her daughter, she felt she could safely guarantee her such a scenario was not something she'd have to deal with all on her own.

"If they are, you tell me," she said to the girl, reaching out to hold her chin. Staring the girl in the eye, she tried to convey with her gaze how very serious she was making sure Elspeth did not have to suffer from misdirected hate in her class. "I'll make sure they stop," she assured the girl.

"Really?" whispered Elspeth, russet brown eyes shining with hope.

Eileen let the girl's chin go and smiled. "Of course." Picking up the dropcloth, she opened the cupboard's drawer and put it away. When finished she stood up and placed a hand on top of Elspeth's head. The girl lifted her face to gaze at Eileen as she said, "I want my classes to be a place where people can be happy and learn. You can't be happy or learn if people are being mean to you."

"Oh."

Eileen moved her hand to the back of the girl's head and lost her smile in favor of a somber expression."Elspeth, I promise the classes will be loads of fun for you and the other children will be respectful to you."

The girl held up her hand, only her pinky extended. "Pinky promise?"

She chuckled. "Pinky promise," agreed Eileen, linking their pinky's together.

Elspeth released her pinky and sighed. "Okay," she said, small face determined. "I'll tell Mother I want to go."

"That's an excellent choice," praised Eileen.

How did you all enjoy this chapter? Feelings on Parvati's passing? Elspeth being a part of Eileen's little kid classes now?

Thanks for reading!