As Though She Were Mine

Calliope screamed when green flames came to life in the Mulpeppers' hearth. When a moment later Sammy tripped out of them, eyes huge and mouth gaping, Calliope sprung forward. "You did it!" she yelled into her friend's ear, winding her arms tight around the taller girl's neck. "You made it through!"

"I did!" agreed Sammy, wrapping her own arms around Calliope a brief moment before pulling away altogether. "It was soo frightening, Calliope!" she told her. Eyes bright with recollection, she said, "I had to close my eyes to force myself into the flames."

Calliope laughed, amused at the image it brought to her mind's eye. 'Poor Sammy!' she thought. Smiling, she said, "Going back to Mrs. Whittaker's should be easier at least."

"I hope so!" said Sammy, exasperated.

Slipping her hand into Sammy's, she tugged the other girl toward the flat's kitchen. "I've got it all planned out for us, Sammy," she explained. "I picked a pretty easy potion for us to do together. It's a hair-raising potion, which isn't very complicated and takes less than an hour to brew."

A fretful pucker came to Sammy's lips. "A hair-raising potion?" she echoed. "Is it scary?"

"No, not at all!" assure Calliope, shaking her head. "It's actually rather silly. It's like the name says," she told her friend, "it causes your hair to rise up." Then, more to herself than Sammy, she mused, "This isn't a very useful potion, but it'll be fun to play with for a little while before you have to leave."

This last bit seemed to be exactly what Sammy needed to convince her, however. With a resolute nod, she said, "Okay, let's try it."

-O-

Their heads bent over the potion, Calliope stared into the gray-brown liquid and reviewed the steps for the potion in her mind. As a particularly large bubble surfaced and popped, she told Sammy, "This is when the rat tails go in."

Her friend dipped her chin. "Here I go," she murmured, picking up their little dish of prepared tails and pouring it into the potion. "There!" she said, satisfied, "it's all in."

"Well done!" praised Calliope as the potion took on the expected yellowish hue she knew it ought to be. "Now we just have to let it simmer ten minutes and then stir it clockwise three times before we can test it out," she told Sammy.

Leaning back, Sammy clapped her hands. "Oh, I'm so excited!"

"Me too!" Calliope said as she picked up some of their stray, empty plates and bowls from the table to put into the sink for washing later.

Sammy, after sitting down in one of the kitchen chairs, picked up the potions book Calliope had used to find them the potion to brew. "Calliope, is it okay if I take this book with me today?" she asked as she thumbed through the pages. "I would like to look at the other potions we could brew someday." She chuckled and commented, "It'll be much more fun than reading the book I packed when I left home for the thirtieth time."

Calliope felt her stomach do a flip. She wondered if this is how that comic had ended up in Eileen's hand all those years ago. "I don't know…" she said.

Sammy sounded truly miffed as she asked, "Why not?"

Calliope bit her lip. She knew there was no way she could hide all of the little bad bits of her past, but Calliope hadn't thought she would ever have to reveal this secret to someone. Especially since Sev made it very clear that they were never to mention they met Harry before he came to Hogwarts to anyone lest it get back to Professor Dumbledore. Now that the old man was gone, though…

She sighed. There likely wasn't any harm in it. She wouldn't have to say Harry's name now anyway. "When I was little," she started, "my aunt snuck around, making friends with someone she shouldn't have, and she brought us to meet him. My aunt's mate gave my sister Eileen a comic to take home and read and then my dad found it and my aunt got discovered." She chanced a look at Sammy to see how she was taking the story and felt a little buoyed by the small frown on her face. "And in a lot of trouble too," finished Calliope.

Sammy put on what could only be described doe-eyes. "I'd be very careful, I swear," she said. "I can keep it in my bag with my origami animals. Mrs. Hagar doesn't go through my things."

Calliope narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms "Never ever?" she demanded.

"Never ever," assured Sammy. "It's as I said, she only pays attention to me to complain at meal times about how expensive it is to feed a pig like myself," she told Calliope, shoulders falling slightly.

She frowned. "That's mean of her to say," Calliope replied. "You're…" she started only to trail off. She couldn't say Sammy was small. She wasn't and trying to be nice and say she was would just be patronizing. "Well, it would be wrong to say you aren't larger," Calliope said. "But you certainly cannot add that much to her grocery bill!" she concluded, nose wrinkled with indignation.

"You would think so, wouldn't you?" Sammy mumbled, a sad, pitying smile stretching across her face. "But she says I do."

Calliope didn't hesitate. "She's lying," she spat.

Sammy, eyes trained on the tabletop, whispered, "I hope so."

Calliope felt her reservations fall away. She believed Sammy. The book would be just fine hidden among Sammy's things. "You can take the book," she said, "I trust you." Placing the last of the dishes in the sink, she then went and opened the fridge and pulled out a couple of hard-boiled eggs. "You can have a couple of these too," she told Sammy. "They're some boiled eggs the Mulpeppers like to keep around for breakfast and snacks." She smiled at her confused friend and explained, "This way, you can eat a little less at dinner and maybe Mrs. Whittaker won't be quite so awful."

Sammy's eyes grew wide before she wrapped her fingers around the eggs. Tucking them away in the large pocket of her pullover jumper, she said, "Thank you, Calliope."

She smiled at her. "What are mates for?"

"We're friends?" said Sammy, seemingly surprised.

Calliope rolled her eyes. What a silly question. Of course the two of them were mates. "Yes!" she exclaimed.

"Thank you," Sammy said, leaning in to hug her. "Thank you so, so much."

"It's no trouble, Sammy," she replied, patting her friend's back. "Now, let's go try our potion! It should be done."

Sammy let her go and looked around Calliope to their cauldron on the table. "How do we use it?" she asked.

Picking up their spoon, Calliope gave the potion the necessary stirs before she began to ladle a little onto her fingers. "You take a bit," she explained, massaging the potion onto her arm, "and rub it on your hair to make it stand up." Calliope thrust her arm under Sammy's nose for her to see her now needle-straight hair. "See my arm?"

"Wow!" whispered Sammy, shocked. "That's brilliant. How long does it last?" she questioned as she stood up to look into the cauldron.

Pouring a small amount into a vial, she told Sammy, "I adjusted our ingredients when I prepared it. So, it's rather weak. It will only last about twenty minutes."

Sammy made a grabbing motion for the newly poured potion. "That's plenty of time," she declared. When the potion was in her hands, she dipped her fingers into it one by one before running it through her fringe. She gave a startled, delighted giggle when her hair rose up. "Look at what it's doing to my fringe!" she cried. Sighing happily, she asked, "Isn't that just aces?"

Calliope nodded, satisfied to see the potion was working so well. "It really is!" she agreed. Then, laughing into her hand, she admitted to the other girl, "You look so silly, Sammy."

Sammy grinned. "Your arms look like you have a wheat field sprouting on them," she countered, reaching over to give the tiny, upright hairs a light poke.

Calliope lifted her arm and squinted at her hair. Her arm hair was about the right color, she had to admit. "They do a bit, don't they?" she remarked. Looking away from her arm and at Sammy, she teased, "You're fringe makes you look like one of those exotic birds you'd see in an encyclopedia."

"Thanks!" replied the other girl, showing off her movie-star teeth with a proud grin. Wistfully, she sighed. "I wish we had a camera right now," she said. "This would be a fun memory to have a photo of."

"It would be!" enthused Calliope. Mind racing, she replied, "Perhaps I can snoop through some of the Mulpeppers things and find their camera." Reaching over to give Sammy's hand a squeeze, she offered, "We can take some secret pictures the next time we brew."

"I love that idea," replied Sammy, giving Calliope's hand a return squeeze before letting her go altogether.

Sitting down in one of the table's chairs, Calliope stretched her arms out on the table and said, "Oh, this has been so nice." When Sammy continued to watch her with attentive eyes, Calliope explained, "I've really missed having another girl to talk to. Back at Hogwarts, my sisters and aunt were always coming through our quarters, so I never felt lonely. Having you here…" she trailed off, guilt pooling in her gut. Was it fair of her to say how she truly felt? The Mulpeppers were trying so hard to be enough, but they weren't. That wasn't their fault, though, and it made Calliope feel naughty as she admitted, "I feel a bit better about having to stay with the Mulpeppers and not seeing Eileen or Essie."

Chin in her hands and elbows on the table, Sammy asked, an odd light to her very blue eyes, "Are those your sisters?"

"Yes," answered Calliope.

"I always wanted a full-blooded sister that lived with us all of the time," Sammy confessed. "Maybe we wouldn't have been the best of mates, but I think we'd have gotten along more than I and Alex do."

Calliope blinked. She was pretty sure Alex was Sammy's brother, though, she'd never really said outright. Either way, her heart panged for her friend. "What's wrong with Alex?" she questioned.

"Nothing!" assured Sammy at Calliope's alarmed tone. She brought a finger to her mouth and chewed her nail a moment. "He's just a boy and very… boyish," she explained. "He only wants to talk about footie and play his Nintendo in his room."

She frowned. "What-o?"

"Nintendo!" Sammy repeated with a little bit of that sulkiness she'd the day before when Calliope didn't know the Seasoning Girls. Seemingly catching herself, Sammy breathed in and out before she told her, "It's a game system. You can play it with people or on your own."

Calliope squinted her eyes and tapped her chin. That almost sounded familiar. As if Gail or Harry had mentioned such a game in passing before. "I… I think I've heard of that," she replied slowly. "My mate Gail has mentioned a game system a couple of times before."

This seemed to please Sammy as she smiled and said, boastful, "My grandpa pitched in to help Dad and Mum get it for my brother when it came out a few years ago. It was his Birthday and Christmas present that year!"

She blinked. No one got anything that expensive in the Snape household. Unless you were Darla as Eileen liked to say. Though, Edie always insisted that wasn't true. She and Sev may seem like they spent more on her, but really they were investing in all of the girls. Sooner or later, just about everything of Darla's became Eileen's, then Essie's, and finally, Calliope's. "Whoa."

"Yes," agreed Sammy, completely misunderstanding Calliope. Putting a hand to her chest, she told her, "I wouldn't have wanted just one toy for all of the holidays in a year. Alex did, though, and after he got it, he stopped wanting to do crafts with me." Her pride fell away and a hint of sadness entered her tone. "We used to do origami and paper planes together. I'd fold little towns and things and he'd make planes to crash into them or fly over and it was fun. Now…"

"I don't know what origami is," admitted Calliope, hoping it would distract the other girl from her sorrow. "You've mentioned it a couple of times now."

Sammy gasped. "You don't?" she all but yelled. "It's fun! You take pretty sheets of paper and fold it into nearly anything." Lifting a hand, she began to list on her fingers, "Animals, hats, flowers, I've made boxes…"

"That sounds brill!" replied Calliope, tickled by the idea of turning a sheet of paper into something pretty just by folding it. "Will you teach me tomorrow when you come over? We only have parchment here, though, is that okay?"

"Yes, perfectly all right," agreed Sammy. Then, tilting her head, she asked, "You have a way to cut it if we need to, though, don't you?"

"Uh-huh," she replied, nodding.

"Then that settles it," decided Sammy with a clap of her hands. "Tomorrow we'll do origami and discuss what the next potion we'll brew will be."

"Okay," replied Calliope, pleased with the plans. She then pointed at Sammy's hair, which was slowly floating back down toward the girl's forehead. "Your fringe is falling," she told her. "I think we should finish cleaning up and you ought to go back to Mrs. Whittaker's now." She glanced at the room's clock. "It's nearly four."

"You're right," agreed Sammy, a small downward curve to her lips. "I'll bottle the rest of this potion if that's helpful?" she offered.

Calliope nodded. "That's fine." Turning toward the sink, she said, "I'll wash up the dishes."

-o-O-o-

"Calliope, would you come here, dear girl?" called Mrs. Mulpepper from the hallway. Putting down the book she was borrowing from Sammy (a story in a series about teenage twin sisters growing up in America), Calliope got up from her room's rocking chair.

Walking out of her room, she asked, "What is it, Aunt Maisie?" Hands on her hips, she questioned, "Do you need more help with dinner?"

"No, no," assured Mrs. Mulpepper from the end of the hall, an odd smile on her face. "I just want you to come here."

Shaking her head in exasperation, Calliope made the short walk to follow the old woman into the lounge room. She froze once in the doorway, mouth dropping open. "Edie?" she whispered at the sight of her mum, still dressed in her traveling robe and a hat.

"Hello, swee'," she said, opening her arms to Calliope.

"Edie!" she cried, sprinting over to her. She wrapped her arms around her mum and breathed in the smell of laundry soap and the rosemary lotion Edie was fond of. "What are you doing here, Edie?" asked Calliope.

Her mum smiled down at her, eyes heavy with bags like she hadn't gotten a good night's sleep. "Can't I visit my daughter?" she teased.

Calliope puffed out her cheeks. "Yes!" she exclaimed, only to mumble, softer, "But…"

Edie sighed and let her go. "I had business out o' the castle tha' needed my attention," she admitted.

That made more sense, but none at all too. Frowning, Calliope looked up at Edie and said, "You? Besides the Mulpeppers, who else do you know that lives outside of Hogwarts?"

She looked away from Calliope "My cousin was ill an' called me," she said.

"…That's what you're telling people?" Calliope questioned after taking a minute to soak in her mum's word. Edie rarely talked about her family. Certainly not enough for Calliope to know if she actually had cousins or not.

Her mum patted Calliope's head. "I do have cousins, swee'," she told her.

Calliope smoothed down the hair her mum had mused and remarked, "Then I guess it's plausible, isn't it?"

Her mum said nothing in reply to her comment and, instead, smiled at her. "Yer aunt sends her love," she told Calliope.

"You saw Darla?" asked Calliope, bouncing on her feet. "Did she say when I would see her again?" she demanded, recalling the letter from a couple of weeks ago.

Edie's smile turned a little strained. "Soon, I reckon," she replied. Then, eyes flashing with secret amusement, added, "Perhaps with a lil'surprise fer yeh."

"Really?" asked Calliope, excited. She wondered what her aunt might bring with her for Calliope. A book (as sick of them as she was, a gift from Darla was always fun)? Or a treat? Perhaps a puzzle? Oh, she hoped it would be something like a puzzle that would keep her busy for hours after the visit.

"Yes," replied Edie. Hand once again on Calliope's head, though, the back of it this time, she suggested, "Now, why don' yeh sit with me an' tell me how yeh are?"

She nodded and let herself be guided to the sofa. "Okay!" she agreed as she sat down close enough to sink into her mum's side.

How did you enjoy Sammy and Calliope brewing together? Edie has made an appearance too! What's your favorite part?

Thanks for reading!