As Though She Were Mine

"Too close," Calliope whispered to herself once she was outside of the apothecary. Today, Mr. Mulpepper was the one working in the Knockturn Alley location. He had been in the midst of doing inventory when she looked around the doorway that separated the stairs to the flat from the store. She had thought he'd been in the middle of counting bat wings, but once she was out on the apothecary floor, he'd turned away from the display and Calliope had to nearly sprint to hide behind a barrel of gillyweed.

Calliope had stayed there for almost five minutes, she reckoned, just waiting for Mr. Mulpepper's footsteps to sound in the direction opposite of her. When he did move away, she'd looked around the barrel and saw he once again had his back to her. That time, Mr. Mulpepper had looked like he would be busy for a while. Doxy eggs were sold in very small amounts in little vials and, surprisingly, the Knockturn Alley apothecary had almost a whole shelf's worth. Calliope had gotten back up then and hurried out the door.

Now outside, she stared over at McHavelock's and considered how she was going to get upstairs to the flat above it. She didn't know for certain, but Calliope believed the layout couldn't be terribly different from the Mulpepper's apothecary. The real test, however, would be getting to the stairs without Mrs. Whittaker or one of her employees noticing Calliope.

Walking across the street to the shop, Calliope kept her head down. She didn't want anyone looking at her too closely right now. The Mulpeppers were right people might want to hurt her to get back at Sev and if they recognized Calliope and saw she was all alone… She shivered.

Once in front of McHavelock's, she walked up to the display window and stared inside. It looked like other hat shops she'd been to. The walls were lined with shelves laden with hats and in the middle of the shop were tables showing off displays. There were also mirrors on the tables and full-length versions placed in a few spots for someone to peer at themselves and take in their whole outfit. Back in a corner of the shop, where there were a couple of chairs and a settee sofa, Calliope saw a middle-aged witch was fussing with a vase of flowers.

Calliope hoped she was an employee and not Mrs. Whittaker. Going for the door, she opened it just a little as to not set off the chime hung in front of it and slipped into the store. Before she could be spotted by the witch, who was now placing the flowers down on a table between the chairs, Calliope dove beneath the tables displaying some of the store's hats. There, Calliope stayed and watched as the witch walked around the shop.

Soon, the witch paused by a shelf next to the counter and turned her back on Calliope. As she fussed with some wide-brimmed, brown hats with stubby-pointed tips, Calliope crawled out from beneath the tables and to the little waiting area. Upon reaching it, she went and hid behind the settee sofa and began to look for the way upstairs. Looking around, Calliope soon spotted a dark indigo curtain by the counter. She bit her lip. Did that lead upstairs or to the back of the shop? Perhaps both? Another look around the shop told Calliope there were no other possible doorways. It must lead to the back and upstairs.

Calliope squeezed her eyes closed and sent out a silent prayer to the universe. Let there be no one behind that curtain. Let there be a set of stairs that would lead her to the flat and Sammy. Let her get there safe . Opening her eyes, Calliope looked one last time to the witch before she made her move. Army-crawling across the shop, she got behind the counter and pulled back the heavy fabric of the curtain slowly until there was a gap wide enough for her to sidle through. Once on the other side, Calliope pressed her clammy hands to her hot face and exhaled. She'd made it this far now. There was only a little further to go and she would finally meet Sammy. Calliope would learn who they were and why there were in this flat and become their mate.

And then …

Then Calliope would have to figure out a different way to meet with them because she could not do this again. It was too dangerous. Maybe she could tell Sammy how to floo over to the Mulpeppers' flat. Yes, that was what Calliope was going to do. Had to do. That way, she wouldn't be putting herself at danger or risk being punished by the Mulpeppers for being continuously disobedient.

Removing her hands from her face, Calliope peered around her. She was in a narrow little hallway. A few steps ahead was another curtain on her right and on her left, a doorway without a curtain. Getting to her feet, she approached slowly and looked around the open doorway only to immediately turn away and run for the other, curtain covered doorway. Diving behind it without thought for what might be on the other side, Calliope held back a startled gasp.

"Gilda!" yelled a woman, possibly Mrs. Whittaker, on the other side of the curtain. "Gilda! Is the order for Goyle ready? He should be by for his hat any minute!"

"Yes, Mrs. Whittaker," Calliope heard the other woman call back to the witch Calliope now knew for certain was Mrs. Whittaker. "It's in the storeroom!" she said.

For the first time, Calliope looked at the room around her. She did not hold back her gasp when she realized what room she was in. The room was the storeroom. It was filled with hats, different hat-making materials, boxes, and some mannequin heads. Realizing how much trouble she was in, Calliope stepped quickly to the other side of the curtain. Just in time too, because the half of she had just been stood in front of moved forward and Calliope saw the tip of Mrs. Whittaker's boot step in. Heart threatening to jump from her chest, Calliope stepped back out of the room just as Mrs. Whittaker full went into the storeroom. Once back in the hallway, she raced for the open doorway, praying neither Mrs. Whittaker or the other witch, Gilda, took an interest in the noise her leather soles on the wooden floor. Now on the other side of the doorway, Calliope held her breath and waited.

The heels of Mrs. Whittaker's boots were soon clicking on the same wood Calliope's bar shoes had slapped. "I have it," she told Gilda. "Did he say whether he would like it boxed or not?" she asked, voice becoming quieter as she walked further away from Calliope.

"I believe he was planning to wear it out, Mrs. Whittaker," replied Gilda in a normal voice that Calliope had to strain her ears to hear from her spot on the other side of the threshold that led to a staircase upstairs.

Mrs. Whittaker murmured something in reply, but Calliope could not hear her. Wiping the sweat from her face with the sleeve of her robe, she decided that was a good thing. It meant she wouldn't be coming back this way for a while. Nodding to herself, Calliope turned toward the staircase. She'd made it. She was going to meet Sammy now. She walked up the steps and reached the landing. To her right, was a cobalt blue door.

Taking a breath to calm herself down, Calliope walked over and gave it a firm, but not loud knock. After a beat, she knocked one more time. Another minute passed and Calliope began to wonder if she should try to knock a little louder. She had to have arrived late, she realized. Sammy could have given up waiting for her and gone to a room at the back of the flat. Thankfully, during her deliberations, the door opened and revealed a girl, no, revealed Sammy.

Calliope drank in the sight of her. She, in a lot of ways, looked nothing like Calliope. Where Calliope was fair, small, and brown-eyed, the same could not be said for Sammy. Her hair was brown like Calliope's eyes, but a lighter shade, though not so much that it could be bleached blonde if she went on a long holiday someplace sunny. She was taller than Calliope too and a little soft around her middle and face. She also had a not quite knut-sized birthmark above her right eyebrow that was just visible beneath her fringe. Calliope may have felt a little bad for Sammy, but once you looked away from the birthmark, you landed on her eyes and Sammy's were the prettiest blue she'd ever seen. They were nearly aquamarine in color. Calliope could have stared even longer into them, but Sammy looked down and whispered:

"Hi."

She blinked. "'Lo," she returned.

Looking up again, Sammy smiled, showing that she also had a lovely set of movie-star teeth in addition to her beautiful eyes. "I'm sorry I couldn't meet you yesterday," she said.

Calliope shook her head. "Don't be," she told the other (older?) girl. "There's an age-line," she explained, pointing at the very obvious runes etched into the frame of the doorway. "You can't get past one of these easily."

Sammy looked at the runes, a serious expression on her face. "Yes, I guess that's so, isn't it? I'm sorry I didn't know there was such a thing."

"Can I ask you a question?" Calliope asked Sammy, heart speeding up in her chest.

Sammy nodded. "Of course," she answered.

She licked her lips and considered her words before deciding she just needed to be direct. "You're a Muggle-born, right?"

A hesitancy came to Sammy's features. "I–I guess?" she replied in an uncertain tone. "I really don't know all of your peoples' terms yet," she admitted. "I didn't even know I was a witch, or that my sister was before she took me from my mum and dad's in the middle of the night back in June…"

"Your sister's a witch?" Calliope said, mind spinning as she tried to figure out who Sammy could be related to. She knew a lot of people, though, mostly, the ones she knew by name had been mates with her sisters and Darla or a particularly troublesome student for Sev. "What's her name?" she asked.

"Amber," Sammy answered. "Amber Vickers."

Calliope felt an old, fuzzy memory start to clarify in her mind. She thought she actually recognized the name. "She… She played Quidditch, didn't she?" asked Calliope. "I think I can almost recall Sev complaining because she stopped the Slytherins from winning the inter-house cup the year before—" She stopped. Now probably wasn't a good time to mention that she'd lost one of her sisters. " Well, she caused them to lose," finished Calliope a little lamely.

Sammy's eyes were back on her toes. "I don't rightly know," she answered. "I don't know Amber very well, y'see. She's my half- sister," explained Sammy. "She's ten years older than me and I didn't see her too much when I was little except for a couple of days between Christmas and New Year and two or three weeks in the summer." Voice even lower, she confessed, "The last couple of years since she graduated from school, I haven't seen her except for Christmas Eve and mine and my brother Alex's birthdays. She tried to come to Dad's birthday in April, but Mum wouldn't let her in 'cause she'd brought her boyfriend. Mum didn't want a stranger at a family celebration."

Calliope felt her brows furrow. She wasn't unfamiliar with half-siblings, or different sorts of families. Her family was a different sort, after all, but to know so little about someone who was a sibling (or good as)? Well, that was odd for Calliope. As was turning family away at a birthday party. Unable to find anything better to say, Calliope replied, "Oh."

Looking at Calliope again, this time with memories ghosting across her gaze, Sammy explained, "A few months ago, Dad woke me up in the middle of the night and had me pack my school bag with a couple of changes of clothes and other stuff I would want if I were spending a weekend at my grandpa's. When I was done and came out of my room, he was in the kitchen with Amber and a bloke, no, her boyfriend, Emmett. Dad hugged me and kissed me and said I was going to go with Amber because I wasn't safe staying with him, mum, and Alex anymore."

Hand clenching at her side and voice trembling, she continued, "He said it'd only be for a little bit and I would be okay, but that's not true! Amber and Emmett brought me here and Emmett told Mrs. Hagar if she didn't keep me and hide me for them she would never see him again. So, she agreed, and Amber told me I would be fine here and she'd see me again as soon as they had a safer place to keep me and we'd be together until I could go home to Mum and Dad and Alex." Tears falling down her cheeks, Sammy told a steadily more horrified Calliope, "It's September now! I haven't seen her again once and Mrs. Hagar hasn't heard from either of them as far as I can tell either! Not that she ever says anything to me except for when she's complaining about how much I eat!"

"I'm sorry, Sammy," Calliope said and she tried to reach out to the other girl, but the age-line stopped her. Bringing her hand back against her chest, she pressed it to her hurting heart and whispered, "I think I know why they aren't back."

Sammy stared at Calliope, eyes wide and hopeful, but also deeply afraid. "You do?" she whispered.

Calliope nodded, feeling extremely guilty even though it wasn't her fault. "Muggle-borns have and are being sent to Azkaban for stealing magic from Pureblood and Half-blood squibs. If your sister hasn't been sent to prison already, she's probably on the run. With Emmett, I reckon."

The other girl's face squished with confusion and affront. "I haven't stolen any magic!"

"I know," she replied. "It's just the excuse the Ministry is using to get rid of witches and wizards like yourself. They think Muggle-borns are bad and destroying the wizarding world."

"Why?" demanded Sammy.

Calliope shook her head. Honestly, she didn't know. At least not well enough to explain to her new friend. "I don't really understand it all myself," she admitted to Sammy. Then, side-eyeing the girl, she asked, "How sure are you that you're a witch like your sister? There's this whole thing with Hogwarts acceptance letters and them being able to track your location down so you get it."

Sammy scowled at her. "Very," she answered. "Before… sometimes… things… happened," she explained in a stilted way. "There was this girl, Amy Winn, who used to make fun of me at school for being, um, fat," she whispered, blushing. "One time she was poking me in the stomach and talking loudly about how squishy I was to a couple of her mates and I really, really wished that she wasn't so pretty and that people would have a laugh at her instead of me. All of a sudden, this boil appeared right on her nose and it wouldn't go away for weeks after. That whole time, people picked on her and not me for once."

Calliope processed this story and nodded. It did sound just like a bit of accidental magic. "Did your sister or Emmett work for the Ministry? Maybe know some people who did? They could have done something to make sure your letter couldn't find you," she said.

Sammy gave a helpless shrug. "I don't know," she answered.

Squinting at the other girl, Calliope asked, "You're sure neither of your parents is magic?"

Once again, Sammy scowled. "Yes!" she snapped. "If either were, it would have to be Dad, since he's Amber's dad too, and he's not the least bit strange."

"Being magic doesn't make you strange," Calliope countered.

The other girl scoffed and gestured at Calliope. "Yes it does!" she argued. "Look at your clothes? Who goes around in weirdly colored robes and pointy hats?"

Calliope looked down at her short, celery-green robe with its big, silver daisy-shaped rouleau buttons and then back at Sammy. "This is normal fashion for witches," she told her. "Well, mostly. This might be a little out of style. It was my sister Eileen's before it was mine."

"If you walked around like that where I'm from people would think you're a freak!" Sammy sneered, crossing her arms.

Calliope was feeling a lot less kindly about the girl in front of her than minutes before. No longer did she seem like a friend in the making. "Well, if you walked around wearing a shirt covered with the faces of other girls, people would think you're a freak here."

This time, Sammy frowned down at herself. "They aren't other girls, they're the Spice Girls," she said. "You know, the girl band?" At Calliope's blank look, she said, " Wannabe ?"

"Wannabe, what ?" asked Calliope.

Sammy shook her head. " So strange," she grumbled.

"I think I'm going to leave," said Calliope, feeling rather put-out and insulted.

"No!" cried Sammy. "Please don't," she begged. "I'm sorry," she added. "I've been really rude, haven't I?" she said, looking sheepish.

"You have," agreed Calliope. "It was really dangerous for me to come all the way up here," she told her. "Knockturn Alley isn't a safe place generally and I've been told not to leave the flat above the apothecary by the Mulpeppers."

"What is an apothecary?" inquired Sammy, curious.

Calliope pretended to stir a cauldron as she answered, "A shop where you buy ingredients and supplies for potions."

"Oh!" Sammy whispered, awed.

Calliope nodded. "I could probably show you a little brewing," she said. "The Mulpeppers keep potions stuff in their flat and I know how to use it. My dad was the potions professor at Hogwarts all my life until last year."

Sammy grinned. "I'd love that!" she exclaimed. However, her face quickly drooped. "But how?" she said. "I can't get past this, what did you call it? Age-line."

"I have an idea," Calliope told Sammy. "You have a fireplace in there, don't you?"

"Yes," answered Sammy.

She smiled, feeling a little victorious. "So, usually, people keep a little pot or box on a table or shelf near their fireplace and in it is this powder. The powder is glittery and a bit greenish in color. You take a little handful of that and throw it into the fireplace and step into the green flames it makes and then call out your destination. In your case, you'll want to say the Mulpeppers' Knockturn Alley flat. If you want to be very sure you end up at the Mulpeppers' say Eugene or Maisie Mulpepper's Knockturn Alley flat and it'll take you to me."

After she finished explaining, Sammy looked downright horrified. "You're kidding!" she cried. "You lot don't really walk into flames, do you?"

"They're magical," said Calliope. "It's safe."

Sammy started to worry her lip. "I don't know…" she mumbled.

Calliope put on her best, most confident smile. "It's perfectly all right," she swore. "You'll see."

Her friend still looked far from convinced.

Thinking hard, Calliope said, hoping to persuade her once and for all, "This is the only way we'll be able to brew a potion together."

"What if Mrs. Hagar put an age-line around that too?" complained Sammy.

Calliope held back a sigh. "You put a message up in the window you couldn't get into the fireplace and I'll figure out a new plan."

Slowly, Sammy nodded. "Okay," she relented. "I'll try it."

"Brill!" exclaimed Calliope. "Since it's now a little late, let's have you give it a try tomorrow, okay? I'll wait by the Mulpeppers' fireplace tomorrow for you at one, okay?"

"Yes, okay," agreed Sammy her face a pale color and sounding very reluctant.

Calliope didn't let it deter her. "See you tomorrow then, Sammy," she said to her mate. "I have to get back to the flat before Aunt Maisie or Uncle Eugene realize I've gone and disappeared."

"Bye," replied Sammy, waving. "It was nice meeting you in person."

"You too!" Calliope said, waving back at the girl before going back toward the stairs.

As she started down them, Sammy called, "Hey, Calliope!"

Calliope stopped and looked back at the other girl. "Yeah?"

"Travel safely, won't you?" she told her.

A warm feeling settled over Calliope. "I will be," she said, "I promise."

Sammy nodded and closed the door. Returning her attention to the stairs in front of her Calliope started to tip-toe down them, mind already spinning as she plotted her escape from McHavelock's shop and her way back into the Mulpeppers' flat.

She's met Sammy! Thoughts on Sammy? Their first interactions in person?

Thank you so much for reading everyone :)