Pffist. Click. Pffist. Those were the sounds of Susan Harrisford; enjoying her muggle television set and squirting whipped cream in her mouth. It was a fun pastime, she had decided, ever since moving into their new penthouse.
"Susan?" Sarah called. Susan hurriedly capped her whipped cream container and stuffed it behind a throw pillow.
"Yes, Mummy?" she asked, angelically. Sarah came in the room, holding two sheets of parchment in her hands, and smiling slightly.
Walking over to the couch, Sarah removed the throw pillow and uncapped the whipped cream container. "What have I told you about the whipped cream?"
"Sorry," Susan said, looking at her mother. "What's that letter?"
Sarah smiled ironically, and squirted some whipped cream in her mouth. Susan opened her mouth to tell her mother that she was being hypocritical, but Sarah shook a finger in her face. "Do as I say and not as I do."
Susan rolled her eyes.
"Anyway, Miss Harrisford, I do believe that I have some news for you," Sarah went on, flapping the sheets of parchment in her daughter's face.
"What is it?" Susan asked, shifting her weight on the couch. Sarah only swung her feet up upon the new coffee table, and smiled devilishly.
"Mummy!" Susan protested.
Sarah cleared her throat, and adopted a very regal tone to her voice.
"Dear Miss Harrisford, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts school of Wizardry and Witchcraft..." Sarah didn't get to finish her sentence.
"Eeeeeeyaaaaa!" Susan screamed, leaping off of the couch, and running laps around the new-smelling, pristine living room. "Wooooohoooo!"
There was knocking - rather, beating - at the door, and Sarah gave a little ironic smile directed at her daughter, before opening the door.
Like two corks out of a bottle, Gerald and Grace sprinted into the room, and interrupted Susan in mid-lap.
"You got an invite too?!" Grace half-asked, half-squealed. Susan was too ecstatic and out of breath to answer, so she just nodded excitedly.
"We'll have to try and get in the same house!" Gerald exclaimed.
"What's all the fuss about?" Robert Ravenclaw the first asked, as he walked in the door. "Nice place you got here, Sarah," he casually added, taking in the room in front of him.
Little Rob came in after his father. He raised his red eyebrows at the exuberant threesome in front of him. "I take it you got the invitation also," he said mildly.
"I didn't think that the school invitations would come today," Hannah said, stepping in the penthouse room after her son, with Carolyn close behind. "I didn't think you sent them out so soon," she commented, looking at her husband. Robert just smiled.
Hayley was the last to arrive, guiding Helen on her arm, and carrying a dozing Christopher in the other.
"But I suppose that the timing was good, eh, Hannah? Sorry, but I couldn't help overhearing the ending of your conversation. Oh, and many congrats, Robert."
Sarah heard this and pulled a face. "Something's going on that I don't know about," she pouted.
Gabriel nodded. "I noticed that," she added, placing her hands on her hips. The other three adults, Carolyn, Robert, and Helen just smiled innocently.
"Gerald, lemme see that letter," Gabriel ordered, wrestling the parchment from her son's hands.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL
of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Robert Ravenclaw
That was all Gabriel needed to read. She nearly squealed with shock, and handed the parchment over to an irate Sarah, who scanned it briefly before losing all color to her features.
"Did Albus Dumbledore retire?" Gabriel finally asked, when she got her breath back. Robert looked at Hannah, and they both shrugged.
"I guess so," Hannah said, "Professor Dumbledore decided to take a year of reprieve, after being headmaster for nearly fifty years. If this works out, Robert might be headmaster for good."
"Why doesn't anybody tell me about these things?" pouted Sarah.
Meanwhile, the children had retreated to Susan's room. It was fairly large, and it still smelt of drywall and new, sky colored, paint.
"Nice," Rob said approvingly, pushing his glasses up with one hand, and smoothing the blue wall down with the other.
"I was expecting... I dunno, green," Grace said, looking about. Susan made a face.
"Honestly, why does everybody think that I have an obsession with green, and snakes?" she asked, sitting on the white-carpeted ground. "Just because I'm related to Slytherin doesn't mean that everything I have has to be green."
This was a good point, and they all knew it, but nobody spoke. Helen slid down the wall, careful not to bump Gerald, who was sitting right next to her.
"I like the blue," she said wonderingly, her blinded eyes taking in the walls. Gerald looked at her.
"How do you know what the blue looks like?" he asked. Helen shrugged.
"Sometimes I can feel blue, or taste green," Helen said, drawing her knees up to her chest. There was a befuddled silence in the room, and the blind girl cracked a smile. "It's hard to explain, all right?"
"I suppose so," Rob said. "Feeling blue is a very interesting sense indeed."
There was more silence in the room, before Susan looked up and spoke. "So, what do you think of going to Hogwarts?"
There was a mumbling chorus of answers, none of which made any sense. Finally, Rob shrugged again. "I don't like to think of all the pressure there's going to be."
"What do you mean?" Grace asked suspiciously. Rob sighed.
"From our parents saving themselves from the Dark Lord, from being related to the founders... I was almost hoping that I'd get a letter from one of the other schools."
Quiet reigned while the other four milled this relevation over. "I had never thought about that," Helen said, thickly.
"Well, at least the sorting shouldn't give us any problems," Susan muttered. "We're probably going to end up in our respective houses, since we have direct bloodline."
There was murmuring of agreement with this observation, and more silence. Susan sighed. Digging in her pocket, she produced a wad of pounds, and counted them over.
"Since my room seems to be a cornucopia of interest to you all-" a slight chuckle ran around the room with Susan's sarcasm, "-I vote that we go to the ice cream shoppe down the street. Mum gave me pocket money just the other day - my treat."
This suggestion was taken in wholeheartedly by the rest of the group, and they all flew out of the room, as fast as legs and sight could take them.
"So, where did Seamus run off to?" Robert asked, sinking into the white couch. Gabriel just rolled her eyes.
"He's the Attack and Defense part of the Ministry of Magic... there was something going on - some dispute - between our Ministry and Albania's Ministry... so he couldn't take off." She shot a look at Sarah. "You wouldn't happen to have anything to drink, would you? I'm parched."
Sarah groaned and hoisted herself out of her seat. "As long as you get it." Then, hypocritical to her words as always, she looked around. "Whaddya want?"
"Whaddya have?" retorted Gabriel, in the same slang.
"Water, juice, milk, tea..." Sarah trailed off.
Hayley cut in. "You wouldn't happen to have anything a wee bit... stronger, would you?" she asked.
Sarah smiled fiendishly. "I have margarita mix."
"That sounds great," four voices chimed in at once.
Grace, Gerald, Susan, Rob and Helen came in the room at this point. "Mummy," Susan announced, "we're going to the ice cream shoppe down the street."
Sarah was putting out liquor glasses on the table, and shot a glance at her daughter. "Just be careful."
"Where are they going?" asked Hannah and Hayley at once, their overprotective-motherliness kicking in. Sarah sighed.
"There's an ice cream place round the bend... don't worry, they should be fine."
"Should be," uttered Hannah under her breath.
"Oh, give it a rest, Hannah," Robert moaned, sinking further into the chair he was sitting on.
The sounds and smells of London was enough to make anybody's head spin. Helen, who was used to the countryside, kept a tight hold on Susan's forearm as she guided the group down the streets.
"Here we are," she finally announced, pointing to a small cornershop. 'Taylor's Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Shoppe' was emblazed across a sign shaped as a strawberry ice cream cone, and the entire store was painted an eye-popping shade of yellow. Grace winced as she pushed the door open to a bright orange room. The color contrasts were almost too much.
A pretty teenager with brown hair and eyes stood beyond the counter, wearing gloves and twiddling an ice cream scoop nervously in her hands.
"She must be new," Susan whispered, "I haven't seen her here before."
"Welcome to Taylor's Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Shoppe," the girl said in a droning fashion, "how may I be of service?"
"Three frozen bananas for me," Susan went on, turning to the others, "What do you guys want?"
After nearly a quarter of an hour of decisions, Gerald carried a loaded tray over to a booth with swivel seats, and they divided the sweets as they had gotten them, and sat quietly for a while, chewing, slurping, and licking at the ice cream.
None of them noticed the owl swoop by the window.
By this time back at the apartment, all of the adults had polished off two alcoholic drinks apiece, and were working on their thirds. Needless to say, everybody was a little tipsy.
"Then - then - then," Gabriel sputtered, laughing herself nearly sick, "she says: 'Dammit, Chick! That's a pencil!'"
Everybody roared with laughter, Hayley upsetting her drink. "Where did you learn all of those jokes at, Gabriel?"
Gabriel took a long pull of her margarita and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
"The Gryffindor Common Room... Oh man, the stuff I heard in there -" she paused to finish off her drink - "would have choked a goat. I heard that one in my fifth year - but I didn't get it until about three years ago, mind."
"I haven't had this much fun since God knows when," Robert chucked.
"We're all completely wasted," Sarah pointed out. There were a few more moments of silence before everybody dissolved into laughter once again.
"Dear, oh dear," Hannah giggled, placing her empty glass on the table, "what will the children think?"
Robert looked over at Christopher and Carolyn, whom the former was snoring away, and the latter was involved, in some teenage soap opera. "I really doubt they care, dear."
Gabriel smacked her lips. "Ya' wouldn't happen to have summore of summat, would you?" she asked. Sarah rolled her eyes.
"I really don't think that you-" she gave a hiccup, "-need any more of 'summat', Gabriel."
Hayley just giggled. "And when have you, Miss Slytherin, ever admitted that you've had too much of a good thing?"
"I have tequila in the cupboard."
There was a unanimous cackle of agreement with this. Hannah feebly tried to protest, but was squashed flat when Robert passed her a small shot.
An owl pecked against the large window. Finding that it was closed, the owl preceded to beat and screech against the window.
Carolyn had tears in her eyes and her fists clenched in hot anticipation. "Come on, Hope! Just kiss him already!" In the heat of her show, she had completely blocked out everything, including the adults' drinking game. But the owl screeching at the window nearly sent her over the edge.
"Mum!" she yelled over the din, "some owl's at the window!" she finished, not taking her eyes from the television screen.
Hayley, who was weaving slightly, nodded to Sarah. "S'your house!"
Muttering crossly, Sarah fished a wand out of her pocket - ebony with the diamond snake's head - and pointed at the window. It clicked open, and the owl fluttered in.
The owl was so huge that its wingspan barely made it in the door. Flapping noisily, he landed on the table.
"Black, ain' he?" asked Robert, squinting at the bird.
He was correct, in the fashion that the bird was completely and utterly black in every way possible. The owl was also a dull black - when the light hit it, no shine came off of it.
The bird gave a mighty caw, and loosed a piece of black parchment from black claws, and soared out the window again. Hannah squinted after it. It was gone as soon as she blinked.
Sarah rolled the parchment open, and an oddly shaped parcel fell out, wrapped in a white cloth.
"What in the heck?" asked Gabriel, bending over clumsily to pick up the lumpy shape. She promptly dropped it. "Ow!"
Straight across her fleshy palm, Gabriel now sported a long, bloody cut.
Hayley reached across the countertop and gingerly pulled the handkerchief away from the lump. When the object rolled onto the granite, Hayley, Sarah, Gabriel and Robert backed away so quickly that for a moment, Hannah was quite startled.
"What's wrong?" she asked, reaching for the chain that came off of the object.
"Don't touch it!" Gabriel shouted, reaching out a hand, although she was too far away to yank Hannah's hand away.
"I'll be careful," Hannah snapped, lifting the object up by the chain. The other four winced, as if they expected the place to be blown to bits with her picking it up.
A long, golden chain had something of a half-circle at the end of it. The object was also a glistening gold color, shaped into what appeared to be a once perfect circle, though it looked like it had been roughly shorn by something, and the straight edge of it was very sharp.
"See?" Hannah asked, pointing to the sharp edge, "This is why you cut yourself!"
"Let me see it," Robert finally demanded, holding out his palm. Hannah dropped the object into his awaiting hand, and he examined it.
"What is it?" Hannah finally asked after a moment. "It looks like a pendant of some sort."
Everybody winced. "You don't think..." Sarah trailed off.
Hayley had ambled over to the countertop again, and smoothed out the piece of black parchment. She gasped and motioned the others over.
Things are not as they appear,
For I reign anew,
And I seek revenge in what you most fear,
Loss of what means most to you.
No interest, have I, in you a'tall,
Not your life, but what you hold above,
Pity one has to die so small,
The little ones that you love.
-The Ballad of the Underworld...
The poem was written in a graceful, slanting hand, in milk-white ink, so it stood out like beacons against the black parchment. Hannah stared at it blearily.
"What in the world?" Most of the other adults seemed to have the same response, except for Sarah, who seemed to have gone into nuclear meltdown mode.
Scrambling away from the countertop and the letter, she grasped her wineglass and hurled it against the wall. The shattering noise was enough to tear Carolyn away from her show, and Christopher groggily woke from his nap.
"Sarah?" Hayley asked, "Sarah? Are you al-" she was cut off by Sarah's exploding.
"NO! The bloody bastard!" she screamed, staring wildly at everybody. Hannah gasped and looked over in Christopher's direction.
"There are children listening to you, Sarah!" she protested. Sarah didn't seem to hear.
"Don't you get it?" she cried, looking at the other befuddled adults. "He's come back, and he wants revenge, so he's going to kill Susan!"
There was silence, and Hayley fell into a dead faint. Robert stared at the place where she lay, glasses hanging askew from his left ear. Gabriel just stood shock still. Christopher started to cry loudly, seeing his mother lying on the ground like that.
Hannah walked over and scooped the crying child up and attempted to calm him down. "That still doesn't explain why you were cussing like a muggle truck driver!" she snapped, bouncing Christopher.
"I'm sure you want your children to die, then?" asked Sarah feverently.
Hannah looked her over with a start. "What's the matter with you?! I think that you might have had a mite too much to drink, Sarah.... who's this he you keep on talking about?"
"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!" burst forth Gabriel. "You-Know-Who! Tom Riddle! Voldemort! The Dark Lord! Whatever you want to call him, it's him!" Hannah visibly flinched when she said 'Voldemort'.
"Why in the world would You-Know-Who want to kill our children?!" asked Hannah hotly.
"In case you might have forgotten, dear," Robert said in a very forced tone, "we were supposed to be his apprentices, and we kind of... well... thwarted him, I suppose?"
Hannah was about to retort, but the door opened, and Rob, Helen, Susan, Gerald and Grace walked in. They stopped shock still at the smell of alcohol, the fainted Hayley, the wailing Christopher, the wide-mouthed Carolyn, and the stance that seemed to be taking place in the living room.
"I think that we must have missed something," Rob finally said, eyeing the pile of smashed glass by the wall.
Helen had her nose covered. "Really. What's going on?"
"Nothing really," Robert said, the look in his eyes daring anybody to argue. Nobody took up the challenge. "We were just discussing going out to buy wands and such."
Gerald looked over at Hayley, who was still out cold. "Some discussion," he muttered under his breath.
Grace, for once, decided to display a little tact, and played along with the charade. "So, ah, when are we going?"
"Next week, Dear," Gabriel said, absentmindedly.
There was more awkward silence, before the children scuttled off hurriedly to Susan's room, whispering confusedly to each other.
When they had gone, Carolyn started flipping through the channels, Christopher had gone back to sleep, Robert helped Gabriel haul Hayley onto the couch, and Hannah assisted Sarah in cleaning up the alcohol and glass shards.
There was silence.
A/N: I have had the worst case of writers block in the entire world, so you can blame that for me not getting this up sooner. Not much to say at the moment, just that I hope I can get the next part up sooner than this one. Please review! ^_^
Disclaimer: Everything that is mentioned in the Harry Potter books belongs to J.K., and everything else belongs to lil' ol' me.