Winter vacation was something Guin had been looking forward to since Halloween. Though Hagrid did an admirable job of decorating, and the prospects of another Hogwarts feast was appealing, she had more to look forward to at home. She would be staying with Angeline for a day but then would travel to Muggle London and spend the rest of the vacation at Rilla's. Hardly any of the students would remain at Hogwarts during Christmas, and it didn't bother her overmuch. Malfoy was mocking Potter about being forced to stay, but he was just bitter – about life in general.
The red-haired boy from the Sorting, Winston Freeman, made long, impassioned speeches to anyone who would listen. "The Christmas decorations are discriminatory!" he said, standing on a chair in the Great Hall. "What about the Jews? The Muslims? The Buddhists? The atheists? You have Christmas trees and lights, but do you think about the message that it's sending? Christianity isn't the only religion in the world; the Americans have the right idea, with separation of Church and State." His words were met with snickers from most, speculation from some, and a humored wink from Dumbledore. Guin didn't think she'd ever heard him string more than three words together at a time, unless answering a question in class.
She packed her bag the night before they had to leave, examining the dormitory as she did. Six beds, three on each side of the rectangular room, draped in emerald canopies chased with silver. Through the center aisle ran a green carpet, embroidered with argent snakes twining around each other, in patterns vaguely reminiscent of a Celtic knot. The rest of the floor was stone, as were the walls, but magicked so that it never froze an unwary bare foot. The large fireplace, which burned bright green flames, had in front of it an intricate steel grate, again in the form of snakes.
To Guin, it had become home: she fit with the other Slytherins more easily now. Blaise and the other two girls, Jessica Roth and Sally-Ann Perks, were affable people, and she was able to talk with them. Pansy and Millicent, a trollish and unpleasant girl, were to be avoided. To some, perhaps, the girls' room might have seemed cold, but it had been effused to some extent with a sense of camaraderie, a friendly rivalry between equals. After some amount of time, Parkinson and Bulstrode had utterly no influence in the circle of Slytherins. And that, thought Guin, is the way things should be.
She gathered up her bag, gripping the plastic handle so tightly that it cut a red mark into her hand. A last, fond look at the room before she left, chatting with Blaise and Jessica – well, Jessica wasn't doing much of the talking. She was rather a quiet girl, not given to much show of merriment. Blaise, on the other hand, tended towards silliness. Guin blinked as she continued speaking. "Will you miss Mikael over the vacation? /I/ will. He's sooo dreamy!"
Guin stared blankly at her. "Who's Mikael?"
"L'Argent, silly!" Guin thought privately that Blaise shouldn't be the one talking.
"No, it'll be a nice break from him," she said.
"Guin, you're crazy! He's the cutest first-year Slytherin – maybe the cutest first year –"
"Blaise, I'm only eleven."
"So am I!"
"My point is.. I'm too young to be thinking about boys that way—"
"I'm not!"
"Blaise, you're giving me a headache," Guin said sadly.
"Mission accomplished!"
Jessica grinned at them.
-----
Guin's shoes almost snagged on the train platform as she disembarked, but managed to catch herself before a serious fall. Angeline was waiting for her at the station, in pale green robes that fit snugly around her body. The woman didn't look like a mother, she looked like a model, or some relic of the Victorian age, a pale elfin figure with an inner core of steel. Guin waved goodbye to Rilla, and then stared at the blonde woman. After a second's pause, she gathered up her courage and said bluntly, "Mother, why are you letting me visit Rilla over the vacation?"
"Are you objecting?" Angeline asked amiably, raising one perfect eyebrow.
"Well, no, but.. Mother, I thought you hated Mudbloods." Inwardly, she winced at the use of the word, but Angeline insisted on 'proper' terminology at all times.
With a wave of her hand, Angeline indicated that Guin should follow her to the Z3, which waited patiently outside the station. "Good, Guin," she said approvingly, "I like that you're using the head nature provided you." Guin flushed a bit, pleased. "Things change," the woman murmured shortly, eyes chilling several degrees. "Curiosity is all very well, but it also kills the cat." No, Mother, /you/ kill the cat, Guin thought, but said nothing.
"How are you enjoying Hogwarts, so far, dear?" The word 'dear' in Angeline's mouth became something else, not quite a curse but devoid of any usual friendliness or affection, a mask worn just like the carefully blank expression on her face. "I was so pleased to hear that you were placed in Slytherin – both your father and I were in that House. I would have been utterly disappointed if the Hat had put you into Gryffindor, though you're not very Gryffindor-like, are you? No, you're too much like me."
Guin glanced sideways at Angeline, surprised. She hardly ever mentioned Edmund Marlowe; it was as though she was trying her hardest to forget her husband and father of her only child. However, she did not reply to that, either, for already the girl was worrying about the other words: you're too much like me. I'm not, I'm not, her mind chanted, but there was a nasty niggling feeling in her stomach that Angeline was right.
She was silent for the rest of the ride, but Angeline didn't notice or didn't care, not a word escaped Mother's mouth as she turned smoothly into the long driveway, passing under the impressive gates, with marble snakes twining up the pillars. The Marlowe family manor looked better than she remembered it. The ivy seemed greener, the stones and architecture more whimsical, the house more welcoming. It was more structured than Hogwarts, but was easily as charming.
Guin dropped her bags in the foyer, where they were taken by the silent house elf, and ran to the kitchens. Sarah was stirring a heavy beef stew in a pewter pot when she arrived. "Mumma!" Guin yelped, throwing herself at the mute former-witch. The woman responded warmly, making muffled noises that were the only way she had of verbally expressing joy. Hugging her tightly, Sarah crooned wordlessly at her, smoothing Guin's hair before breaking away and bustling around the room, making sure that the girl had food and warm hot chocolate to drink.
"Thank you, Mumma," Guin said. It was a time, she supposed, when it would be appropriate to tear at the eyes a bit in happiness. But though the grin stretched wide across her face, Guin found she could not cry. Sarah, on the other hand, was waving her arms frantically, water streaming freely down her cheeks. Gesturing with wild swings of her hands, Sarah indicated that Guin was so tall, so grown up! As she had not with Angeline, the silence was broken and the words poured out one-sided, uninterrupted, as Guin told her surrogate mother about life at Hogwarts.
Dinner that evening was a simple affair, but stilted. Angeline seemed more absent than usual, as she poked elegantly at the thick stew Sarah had concocted. Abruptly, the woman pushed her chair back and left. "I'll be in the Owlery if you need me, Guinivere," she said. "Though I expect not to be disturbed." Guin nodded mutely and finished up her dinner. No need to waste perfectly good food, she thought, mopping up the last of the soup with a piece of bread.
-----
"How's your mum?" Rilla asked, as she led Guin through the door into her parents' flat.
"She's herself," Guin said dryly.
"It's not that big, but it'll do – we have the trundle bed set up for you in my room," Rilla replied, as they dropped Guin's suitcases off in her room. It wasn't very large, indeed, Guin thought, but it wasn't what one could call cramped. The bed and the trundle took up most of the space available, and a cluttered desk and chair what was left. Hung on the walls were posters of rock bands that Rilla liked, most of them Muggle.
"Weird!" Guin said, peering at them. "They're not moving at all!"
Rilla giggled quite a lot at that, and had to be slapped on the back in order to calm down. The parents were nice but basically colorless people, especially when Guin compared them with her own. They regarded her somewhat nervously, as though she would be apt to curse them or make tulips grow from their foreheads or something to that line of thought. "Maybe we better spend most of the time in the city – Mum and Da aren't exactly the calmest people in the country." She giggled again, and they set off.
Guin was amused by the Muggle shops that they browsed, and even more so by the various people walking by in the streets. Some of the fashions were quite shocking, and the two girls had several snickers at the expense of those daring enough to wear them. Guin herself was dressed in Muggle clothing, as was Rilla. Angeline would have been shocked if she saw her daughter: a black T-shirt, oversized, had the words 'antisocial: approach at your own risk' printed across it. Baggy gray cargo pants hid bony legs, and in one of the Muggle antique shops, Guin had found an old RAF flight jacket, which she wore proudly. Numerous necklaces completed the outfit, along with combat boots.
Nothing so outrageous was to be found on Rilla, who tended to favor more conservative styles. They passed their time idly, squandering it in tourist spots and the smaller alleyways where hardly anyone traveled. In Diagon Alley, they met some of their classmates, but it was on a busy street in London that they saw someone neither of them had expected. Rilla had gone into a shop to use the bathroom, and Guin loitered outside, bored. Scanning the crowd idly, she analyzed the inhabitants walking by, trying to guess what their jobs might be. Something about a boy her age looked familiar, and then Guin groaned in dismay. It was no one other than L'Argent.
He was dressed like, well, a punk. There was no other way to put it. L'Argent was in Muggle clothing, which surprised her as much as the initial shock of actually running into the boy. A gray sweatshirt had black letters printed on it: 'optimism not wanted here.' She had to snicker at that; it was something Guin herself would have bought. Huge jeans billowed around his lower body, covering his shoes. He had at least as many necklaces as she did, ball chains and what looked like several rubber bands tied together, with a Captain Planet ring strung along them.
And worse, he had seen her too. "Guin?"
"Just my luck," she replied.
"Hello to you, too."
"Re-stocking on Hardy Boys novels?" Guin asked sweetly.
"Actually, no," he said. "I'm visiting my Uncle Henry."
The blond man from the picture exited from the same store into which Rilla had refuged. He peered with intrinsic good nature at her, than glanced sideways at L'Argent. "Friend of yours from school, Mikael?" Uncle Henry was tall, a trait which seemed to run in the L'Argent family. Downy corn-yellow hair fluffed along his skull, resting above deep brown eyes that had also the trademark puppy-dog look to them. He was dressed normally, as well, and Guin supposed that was a result of living in a Muggle city.
"To some extent," L'Argent said, clearly unsure.
"Guinivere Marlowe," Guin said, holding out her hand. Henry L'Argent shook it firmly, and she fought back a wince as he accidentally crushed her fingers. Not noticing, the man glanced back and forth between the two of them, nodding.
"Know your mother, I do," he said, causing Guin to sigh in annoyance.
"Everyone does, sir."
"None of that sir business, please!" he said, comically tragic. "Just Henry. You'll make me feel like an old fart."
"Not much of a difference there, Uncle Henry, you're a middle-aged fart," L'Argent interjected.
"That's m' boy," Uncle Henry said cheerfully, and then glanced towards the door as Rilla approached them. "And who's this?"
"I'm Rilla," she said.
"Muggle-born?" Uncle Henry queried, "You have the look about you."
Odd, Guin thought. The look in his eye had suddenly become rather more intense, though perhaps it was just a trick of the light. No, no, you're being silly, Guin. Shaking her head, the girl blinked. What was she thinking? This man was obviously an adult to be trusted. Rilla was already giggling at some joke that he and L'Argent had fired off – "Join us for lunch?" Uncle Henry wanted to know, and the two girls nodded. They had nowhere else to go today. L'Argent grinned, a touch relieved, and the four of them tramped off to find a decent restaurant.
The red-haired boy from the Sorting, Winston Freeman, made long, impassioned speeches to anyone who would listen. "The Christmas decorations are discriminatory!" he said, standing on a chair in the Great Hall. "What about the Jews? The Muslims? The Buddhists? The atheists? You have Christmas trees and lights, but do you think about the message that it's sending? Christianity isn't the only religion in the world; the Americans have the right idea, with separation of Church and State." His words were met with snickers from most, speculation from some, and a humored wink from Dumbledore. Guin didn't think she'd ever heard him string more than three words together at a time, unless answering a question in class.
She packed her bag the night before they had to leave, examining the dormitory as she did. Six beds, three on each side of the rectangular room, draped in emerald canopies chased with silver. Through the center aisle ran a green carpet, embroidered with argent snakes twining around each other, in patterns vaguely reminiscent of a Celtic knot. The rest of the floor was stone, as were the walls, but magicked so that it never froze an unwary bare foot. The large fireplace, which burned bright green flames, had in front of it an intricate steel grate, again in the form of snakes.
To Guin, it had become home: she fit with the other Slytherins more easily now. Blaise and the other two girls, Jessica Roth and Sally-Ann Perks, were affable people, and she was able to talk with them. Pansy and Millicent, a trollish and unpleasant girl, were to be avoided. To some, perhaps, the girls' room might have seemed cold, but it had been effused to some extent with a sense of camaraderie, a friendly rivalry between equals. After some amount of time, Parkinson and Bulstrode had utterly no influence in the circle of Slytherins. And that, thought Guin, is the way things should be.
She gathered up her bag, gripping the plastic handle so tightly that it cut a red mark into her hand. A last, fond look at the room before she left, chatting with Blaise and Jessica – well, Jessica wasn't doing much of the talking. She was rather a quiet girl, not given to much show of merriment. Blaise, on the other hand, tended towards silliness. Guin blinked as she continued speaking. "Will you miss Mikael over the vacation? /I/ will. He's sooo dreamy!"
Guin stared blankly at her. "Who's Mikael?"
"L'Argent, silly!" Guin thought privately that Blaise shouldn't be the one talking.
"No, it'll be a nice break from him," she said.
"Guin, you're crazy! He's the cutest first-year Slytherin – maybe the cutest first year –"
"Blaise, I'm only eleven."
"So am I!"
"My point is.. I'm too young to be thinking about boys that way—"
"I'm not!"
"Blaise, you're giving me a headache," Guin said sadly.
"Mission accomplished!"
Jessica grinned at them.
-----
Guin's shoes almost snagged on the train platform as she disembarked, but managed to catch herself before a serious fall. Angeline was waiting for her at the station, in pale green robes that fit snugly around her body. The woman didn't look like a mother, she looked like a model, or some relic of the Victorian age, a pale elfin figure with an inner core of steel. Guin waved goodbye to Rilla, and then stared at the blonde woman. After a second's pause, she gathered up her courage and said bluntly, "Mother, why are you letting me visit Rilla over the vacation?"
"Are you objecting?" Angeline asked amiably, raising one perfect eyebrow.
"Well, no, but.. Mother, I thought you hated Mudbloods." Inwardly, she winced at the use of the word, but Angeline insisted on 'proper' terminology at all times.
With a wave of her hand, Angeline indicated that Guin should follow her to the Z3, which waited patiently outside the station. "Good, Guin," she said approvingly, "I like that you're using the head nature provided you." Guin flushed a bit, pleased. "Things change," the woman murmured shortly, eyes chilling several degrees. "Curiosity is all very well, but it also kills the cat." No, Mother, /you/ kill the cat, Guin thought, but said nothing.
"How are you enjoying Hogwarts, so far, dear?" The word 'dear' in Angeline's mouth became something else, not quite a curse but devoid of any usual friendliness or affection, a mask worn just like the carefully blank expression on her face. "I was so pleased to hear that you were placed in Slytherin – both your father and I were in that House. I would have been utterly disappointed if the Hat had put you into Gryffindor, though you're not very Gryffindor-like, are you? No, you're too much like me."
Guin glanced sideways at Angeline, surprised. She hardly ever mentioned Edmund Marlowe; it was as though she was trying her hardest to forget her husband and father of her only child. However, she did not reply to that, either, for already the girl was worrying about the other words: you're too much like me. I'm not, I'm not, her mind chanted, but there was a nasty niggling feeling in her stomach that Angeline was right.
She was silent for the rest of the ride, but Angeline didn't notice or didn't care, not a word escaped Mother's mouth as she turned smoothly into the long driveway, passing under the impressive gates, with marble snakes twining up the pillars. The Marlowe family manor looked better than she remembered it. The ivy seemed greener, the stones and architecture more whimsical, the house more welcoming. It was more structured than Hogwarts, but was easily as charming.
Guin dropped her bags in the foyer, where they were taken by the silent house elf, and ran to the kitchens. Sarah was stirring a heavy beef stew in a pewter pot when she arrived. "Mumma!" Guin yelped, throwing herself at the mute former-witch. The woman responded warmly, making muffled noises that were the only way she had of verbally expressing joy. Hugging her tightly, Sarah crooned wordlessly at her, smoothing Guin's hair before breaking away and bustling around the room, making sure that the girl had food and warm hot chocolate to drink.
"Thank you, Mumma," Guin said. It was a time, she supposed, when it would be appropriate to tear at the eyes a bit in happiness. But though the grin stretched wide across her face, Guin found she could not cry. Sarah, on the other hand, was waving her arms frantically, water streaming freely down her cheeks. Gesturing with wild swings of her hands, Sarah indicated that Guin was so tall, so grown up! As she had not with Angeline, the silence was broken and the words poured out one-sided, uninterrupted, as Guin told her surrogate mother about life at Hogwarts.
Dinner that evening was a simple affair, but stilted. Angeline seemed more absent than usual, as she poked elegantly at the thick stew Sarah had concocted. Abruptly, the woman pushed her chair back and left. "I'll be in the Owlery if you need me, Guinivere," she said. "Though I expect not to be disturbed." Guin nodded mutely and finished up her dinner. No need to waste perfectly good food, she thought, mopping up the last of the soup with a piece of bread.
-----
"How's your mum?" Rilla asked, as she led Guin through the door into her parents' flat.
"She's herself," Guin said dryly.
"It's not that big, but it'll do – we have the trundle bed set up for you in my room," Rilla replied, as they dropped Guin's suitcases off in her room. It wasn't very large, indeed, Guin thought, but it wasn't what one could call cramped. The bed and the trundle took up most of the space available, and a cluttered desk and chair what was left. Hung on the walls were posters of rock bands that Rilla liked, most of them Muggle.
"Weird!" Guin said, peering at them. "They're not moving at all!"
Rilla giggled quite a lot at that, and had to be slapped on the back in order to calm down. The parents were nice but basically colorless people, especially when Guin compared them with her own. They regarded her somewhat nervously, as though she would be apt to curse them or make tulips grow from their foreheads or something to that line of thought. "Maybe we better spend most of the time in the city – Mum and Da aren't exactly the calmest people in the country." She giggled again, and they set off.
Guin was amused by the Muggle shops that they browsed, and even more so by the various people walking by in the streets. Some of the fashions were quite shocking, and the two girls had several snickers at the expense of those daring enough to wear them. Guin herself was dressed in Muggle clothing, as was Rilla. Angeline would have been shocked if she saw her daughter: a black T-shirt, oversized, had the words 'antisocial: approach at your own risk' printed across it. Baggy gray cargo pants hid bony legs, and in one of the Muggle antique shops, Guin had found an old RAF flight jacket, which she wore proudly. Numerous necklaces completed the outfit, along with combat boots.
Nothing so outrageous was to be found on Rilla, who tended to favor more conservative styles. They passed their time idly, squandering it in tourist spots and the smaller alleyways where hardly anyone traveled. In Diagon Alley, they met some of their classmates, but it was on a busy street in London that they saw someone neither of them had expected. Rilla had gone into a shop to use the bathroom, and Guin loitered outside, bored. Scanning the crowd idly, she analyzed the inhabitants walking by, trying to guess what their jobs might be. Something about a boy her age looked familiar, and then Guin groaned in dismay. It was no one other than L'Argent.
He was dressed like, well, a punk. There was no other way to put it. L'Argent was in Muggle clothing, which surprised her as much as the initial shock of actually running into the boy. A gray sweatshirt had black letters printed on it: 'optimism not wanted here.' She had to snicker at that; it was something Guin herself would have bought. Huge jeans billowed around his lower body, covering his shoes. He had at least as many necklaces as she did, ball chains and what looked like several rubber bands tied together, with a Captain Planet ring strung along them.
And worse, he had seen her too. "Guin?"
"Just my luck," she replied.
"Hello to you, too."
"Re-stocking on Hardy Boys novels?" Guin asked sweetly.
"Actually, no," he said. "I'm visiting my Uncle Henry."
The blond man from the picture exited from the same store into which Rilla had refuged. He peered with intrinsic good nature at her, than glanced sideways at L'Argent. "Friend of yours from school, Mikael?" Uncle Henry was tall, a trait which seemed to run in the L'Argent family. Downy corn-yellow hair fluffed along his skull, resting above deep brown eyes that had also the trademark puppy-dog look to them. He was dressed normally, as well, and Guin supposed that was a result of living in a Muggle city.
"To some extent," L'Argent said, clearly unsure.
"Guinivere Marlowe," Guin said, holding out her hand. Henry L'Argent shook it firmly, and she fought back a wince as he accidentally crushed her fingers. Not noticing, the man glanced back and forth between the two of them, nodding.
"Know your mother, I do," he said, causing Guin to sigh in annoyance.
"Everyone does, sir."
"None of that sir business, please!" he said, comically tragic. "Just Henry. You'll make me feel like an old fart."
"Not much of a difference there, Uncle Henry, you're a middle-aged fart," L'Argent interjected.
"That's m' boy," Uncle Henry said cheerfully, and then glanced towards the door as Rilla approached them. "And who's this?"
"I'm Rilla," she said.
"Muggle-born?" Uncle Henry queried, "You have the look about you."
Odd, Guin thought. The look in his eye had suddenly become rather more intense, though perhaps it was just a trick of the light. No, no, you're being silly, Guin. Shaking her head, the girl blinked. What was she thinking? This man was obviously an adult to be trusted. Rilla was already giggling at some joke that he and L'Argent had fired off – "Join us for lunch?" Uncle Henry wanted to know, and the two girls nodded. They had nowhere else to go today. L'Argent grinned, a touch relieved, and the four of them tramped off to find a decent restaurant.