For once in her life, she wasn't glad she wasn't part of a group. She
seriously wanted to be surrounded by people at all times. In case Lee came
back. But she wasn't part of any group, so she did what she could. She used
her powers every so often to search Lee out. If he got too close, she would
leave.
Classes were a nightmare. People who weren't being sympathetic ignored her. Tobias and her didn't talk much.
One day she found a note on her bed.
'Dear Aldrea and Tobias', it read, 'You don't know me. I don't know you. But I knew your mother. I don't know who you live with now, and I'm not sure how much you know about your mother. But I won't lie. I've always wanted to see Ariadne's children. Tomorrow afternoon, meet me on the tall hill thing, past Hogsmede. Signed, Sirius Black.'
Sirius Black! I clutched the letter tightly. Tobias surely wouldn't go! Or allow her to go. But if she didn't tell him.
He knew her mother. Maybe he was even her father. She let herself entertain the daydream for a little while. But after a while she put the note under her mattress. Then she went into the pile in her trunk, which were her clothes. "What should I wear tomorrow?" she asked herself. She sounded like she was planning what to wear on a date. She giggled nervously to herself.
The next day she was extremely jumpy. Tobias kept asking her if anything was wrong. She shook her head each time. She WANTED to tell him, but knew he would say no.
Finally it was afternoon, and Aldrea finally realized why her plan had been so weak. How was she going to escape from Hogwarts and get to Hogsmede? She was going up to her dorm room, sure that there was no way to get to Black.
Then when she walked into the room, she got a fright. There was something on her bed. When she picked it up, her hand disappeared. It was an invisibility cloak. Out of it fell a note.
'Leave it under your bed when you finish with it.' She stared at it for a moment and shrugged. She didn't care that it wasn't signed. She was going to find out about her parents!
After almost half an hour tugging herself up the 'hill', she was up. Out of breath and panting loudly, but there. She turned to the dog that had followed her from Hogsmede. "Come here, puppy." She said and patted its head. Then she turned and went into this weird cave thing that she hadn't seen from below.
It was empty. She looked around. There was food and newspapers and it smelled like someone had taken several dumps recently, but it was totally empty. Then from behind her was a voice. "You came."
She spun and faced Black. His shaggy black hair made him look like the murderer he was. But murderer or not, she HAD to know who her parents were.
"You don't look like her."
That slightly disappointed her. She had hoped that she did look rather like her mother. But no, which the opposite. She DIDN'T look like her.
"Don't you have a brother?" he asked.
"He wouldn't have come, even if I had told him. He wouldn't have let me come either."
"Why did you come then?"
"I've always been more curious about my heritage than he has. He looks towards the future. I look towards the past."
"Well, your mother didn't know her parents. She lived at an orphanage."
"Oh." It was one disappointment after another. "How did you meet my mother?"
"We were in the same year. I didn't really notice her until our fifth year. But she had noticed me. She had a crush on my since our first year." He smiled slightly, as he remembered his years at Hogwarts.
"Why did you suddenly notice her then?"
"There were few girl who would waste their time with a small thing called revenge. But not Ariande. I messed with her, she would mess with me back." He smiled wistfully at the memory.
"Was my mother pretty? Who was my father?" She had more questions but decided to hold back on them.
"Well, in the eyes of many, no, your mother average. But she was beautiful, if you got to know her. And your father, well...."
"Did you love my mother?" she interrupted.
"Yes." He answers, without pausing.
"Are you my father?"
"No." he said, once again not pausing.
"Then who is my father?" she pushed.
"Well, in her sixth year, your mother was raped."
Aldrea couldn't find the words to answer. Her mother, raped? And like that, Tobias and Aldrea had been born? That had never been what she had expected. So she and her brother were nothing but a....mistake?
As if reading her mind, Black, spoke. "She loved you. Whether or not your father was the guy who raped her. You were her children and she would never have abandoned you willingly."
"So why did she leave?"
"She was murdered." She words froze Aldrea's blood. Murdered?
"How? By who?"
"Well, who exactly was never made clear. But I know who I think did it."
"Who?"
"Well, your mother had a friend from the orphanage. Her friend later became her babysitter for you guys when your mother went out. One day we went out, leaving you two with her friend again. When I dropped her off, nothing seemed wrong. I came back early the next morning and knocked on the door." He swallowed as if it hurt to talk. But he continued. "No one answered. So I went through the side of the house, to see if your mother was in the backyard and couldn't hear me knock. There I found her.
"She had blood covering her hair, matting it. She looked as if she had been thrown against the wall. She was dead. Her cold, lifeless eyes, I can still see, if I try enough." He shivered slightly. "Anyway, I ran inside. You and Tobias were gone, as was your mother's friend. I think she did it. Your mother's friend."
"What was her name?"
"Jane. Janis, really, but Jane for short." Aldrea's breath caught in her throat.
"Aunt Jane!" she cried. "She's the one who cares for us. Aunt Jane. I always knew she wasn't my aunt." Then her eyes rolled into the back of head, and she feel to the ground.
Sirius tried catching her before she fell, but failed. Her head hit the ground with a thud. She left the back of her head and his hand came back bloody. He took an old newspaper and pressed it into the wound. Then he waited for her wake. Her breath was even and she seemed alive. Except that nothing would wake her.
Aldrea had a vision. She saw a black haired girl. She was watching a boy. They were both in the G. Common Room. Her eyes were like hers, gray.
Then she saw them in the winter. Skating. Then the girl, her mother she now knew, fell through the ice. The boy, a younger version of Sirius, pulled her out. They sat by a tree. They kissed. She ran.
Aldrea saw years fly by. She saw her mother fall in love with Sirius. She saw Sirius start loving her back. She saw her mother get raped. She saw her mother have twins. Them, she thought to herself. She saw her mother leave the orphanage when she had grown. She saw her mother leave one day. Finally time slowed down. She saw the world through her mother's eyes. She saw the empty cribs. She felt herself running down the side of her house. She saw Jane.
"Jane! The children are gone!"
"I know."
"Help me look for them!" Aldrea never even saw the brick coming. And as she felt her life slip away she heard Jane's voice.
"Don't worry. I'll take good care of Sirius for you. Now that you're out of the way we can be happy." Then Ariadne died and Aldrea woke up with a start.
Sirius looked down at her with a worried expression on his face. "Are you ok?" Aldrea didn't answer for a moment. She looked at him silently. Then at last she answered. "Jane kill her for you, you know."
Sirius looked stricken. "Then I killed her. I killed James and Lily, and now I killed Ariadne too."
"Why did you kill Lily and James in the first place?"
"Does it matter? You won't believe me anyway."
"How do you know that?" Aldrea challenged. Sirius could see she would not rest until she was told. Ah, so she was stubborn like her mother.
"I was the only one to know where James and his family were. Only I could ever find them. But I knew that I was the first person Voldemort would look for if he wanted the secret of the Potters' destination. So I told the secret to Peter, for I thought Voldemort would never think of questioning Peter. I was right. He didn't need to question Peter. Peter told him. And like that, James and Lily were killed."
"But you said you killed them." Aldrea said, confused.
"True. But I didn't kill them literally. I killed them figuratively. If I hadn't made such a poor choice, they would still be here, alive."
"But Voldemort would still be out there." So Aldrea was also a voice a reason. She seemed more like Ariadne by the second.
"True."
"But you got your revenge, did you not?" she asked, "Peter was killed. You blew him up. "
"No. That was a show for everyone else. You see, we could change our forms. Illegally, of coarse. Long story short, he changed and disappeared, cutting off his finger as a dramatic effect. He's still out there. Serving Voldemort."
"So you are innocent?"
"Yes and no."
"You mean yes. You blame yourself without reason. You made a mistake, nothing more."
"A mistake that cost James and Lily their lives! It was as if I held the wand myself."
"But you did not."
"I feel like I did."
"So? You were not truly the reason they died, were you? Were you the reason Voldemort wanted to kill them?"
"No."
"Well, then you have no reason to feel the way you feel. You haven't felt true guilt."
"And you have, I suppose you're saying?" he seemed totally sarcastic, and not at all expecting what he would hear.
"Yes. My ex-boyfriend got sick and died."
"But that has nothing to do with you at all. You are not the first one who has had a sick boyfriend. It is you who has never felt true guilt, not I."
"Then answer me this. Why did he get sick over night? And right after he-he slept with me?"
"He slept with you? You are but 15-"
"Answer the question!" she said roughly.
But Sirius could not. And Aldrea knew it.
"And just now I got more proof of what I say." Aldrea began.
"Which is?" Sirius inquired.
"Before Jane killed my mother, I felt a force, unlike any other. It came close. And it was out to kill my mother. It was the same force that I felt before Jamey died. It was after my mother, and thank god Jane got to her before that force could. But this force is now after me. And it killed Jamey to get to ME. To hurt me. And it has hurt me. Hurt me so much, that I could hardly even tell betrayal from friendship, even from close up."
"Betrayal? From whom?" But Aldrea would not answer. She just sat there, staring at the wall. And with complete certainty she spoke.
"And when the time comes, it will kill me too."
Tobias waited in the library. Aldrea had told him to meet her there. People kept giving him looks. The librarian herself kept looking at him suspiciously. That might have had something to do with the fact that he had come into the library about five times since he had come to Hogwarts.
Finally he spotted Aldrea coming towards him. She looked happier than she had in months. "Wazzup, Aldy?" He asked, lighthearted.
"Look, Tobias. You will not believe this! I just found out who are mother was!" Was this the news? Jeeze. He had never cared who his mother was. He had never cared who is father was, either. He would have cared less if he had found he had an Uncle Joe. "And Aunt Jane isn't really our aunt," she continued.
"That's news? I've KNOWN that," he scoffed.
"Well, now you know it for sure," Aldrea answered, looking obviously disappointed at his lack of enthusiastic attitude. Sorry, but he was not about to lie about how much he cared about the subject at hand.
Aldrea sighed. "Look, I know you've never cared about our mother, or our father. But listen to this. That same thing that killed Jamey killed our mother."
"You mean, the same disease?"
"The same force."
Tobias shook his head in disbelief. "I don't believe this. I thought you were past that. Look, Aldrea, I'm going to be plain with you. There is no 'force'. You made it all up to make yourself feel better or something. But there was nothing after Jamey, there is nothing after us and there was nothing after our mother!"
Aldrea stared at him, the hurt barely visible in her eyes. "Okay, Tobias. I'm glad we understand each other now then. If you don't want to face the truth, it's not my problem. But when you find yourself facing it, and wishing you had listened to me, you'll be sorry!" With that she stormed out, pissed.
Tobias grinned sheepishly at the onlookers. After a while he got sick of their stares and said, "Fuck off, assholes." It didn't take a rocket scientist to see why the librarian threw him out.
Classes were a nightmare. People who weren't being sympathetic ignored her. Tobias and her didn't talk much.
One day she found a note on her bed.
'Dear Aldrea and Tobias', it read, 'You don't know me. I don't know you. But I knew your mother. I don't know who you live with now, and I'm not sure how much you know about your mother. But I won't lie. I've always wanted to see Ariadne's children. Tomorrow afternoon, meet me on the tall hill thing, past Hogsmede. Signed, Sirius Black.'
Sirius Black! I clutched the letter tightly. Tobias surely wouldn't go! Or allow her to go. But if she didn't tell him.
He knew her mother. Maybe he was even her father. She let herself entertain the daydream for a little while. But after a while she put the note under her mattress. Then she went into the pile in her trunk, which were her clothes. "What should I wear tomorrow?" she asked herself. She sounded like she was planning what to wear on a date. She giggled nervously to herself.
The next day she was extremely jumpy. Tobias kept asking her if anything was wrong. She shook her head each time. She WANTED to tell him, but knew he would say no.
Finally it was afternoon, and Aldrea finally realized why her plan had been so weak. How was she going to escape from Hogwarts and get to Hogsmede? She was going up to her dorm room, sure that there was no way to get to Black.
Then when she walked into the room, she got a fright. There was something on her bed. When she picked it up, her hand disappeared. It was an invisibility cloak. Out of it fell a note.
'Leave it under your bed when you finish with it.' She stared at it for a moment and shrugged. She didn't care that it wasn't signed. She was going to find out about her parents!
After almost half an hour tugging herself up the 'hill', she was up. Out of breath and panting loudly, but there. She turned to the dog that had followed her from Hogsmede. "Come here, puppy." She said and patted its head. Then she turned and went into this weird cave thing that she hadn't seen from below.
It was empty. She looked around. There was food and newspapers and it smelled like someone had taken several dumps recently, but it was totally empty. Then from behind her was a voice. "You came."
She spun and faced Black. His shaggy black hair made him look like the murderer he was. But murderer or not, she HAD to know who her parents were.
"You don't look like her."
That slightly disappointed her. She had hoped that she did look rather like her mother. But no, which the opposite. She DIDN'T look like her.
"Don't you have a brother?" he asked.
"He wouldn't have come, even if I had told him. He wouldn't have let me come either."
"Why did you come then?"
"I've always been more curious about my heritage than he has. He looks towards the future. I look towards the past."
"Well, your mother didn't know her parents. She lived at an orphanage."
"Oh." It was one disappointment after another. "How did you meet my mother?"
"We were in the same year. I didn't really notice her until our fifth year. But she had noticed me. She had a crush on my since our first year." He smiled slightly, as he remembered his years at Hogwarts.
"Why did you suddenly notice her then?"
"There were few girl who would waste their time with a small thing called revenge. But not Ariande. I messed with her, she would mess with me back." He smiled wistfully at the memory.
"Was my mother pretty? Who was my father?" She had more questions but decided to hold back on them.
"Well, in the eyes of many, no, your mother average. But she was beautiful, if you got to know her. And your father, well...."
"Did you love my mother?" she interrupted.
"Yes." He answers, without pausing.
"Are you my father?"
"No." he said, once again not pausing.
"Then who is my father?" she pushed.
"Well, in her sixth year, your mother was raped."
Aldrea couldn't find the words to answer. Her mother, raped? And like that, Tobias and Aldrea had been born? That had never been what she had expected. So she and her brother were nothing but a....mistake?
As if reading her mind, Black, spoke. "She loved you. Whether or not your father was the guy who raped her. You were her children and she would never have abandoned you willingly."
"So why did she leave?"
"She was murdered." She words froze Aldrea's blood. Murdered?
"How? By who?"
"Well, who exactly was never made clear. But I know who I think did it."
"Who?"
"Well, your mother had a friend from the orphanage. Her friend later became her babysitter for you guys when your mother went out. One day we went out, leaving you two with her friend again. When I dropped her off, nothing seemed wrong. I came back early the next morning and knocked on the door." He swallowed as if it hurt to talk. But he continued. "No one answered. So I went through the side of the house, to see if your mother was in the backyard and couldn't hear me knock. There I found her.
"She had blood covering her hair, matting it. She looked as if she had been thrown against the wall. She was dead. Her cold, lifeless eyes, I can still see, if I try enough." He shivered slightly. "Anyway, I ran inside. You and Tobias were gone, as was your mother's friend. I think she did it. Your mother's friend."
"What was her name?"
"Jane. Janis, really, but Jane for short." Aldrea's breath caught in her throat.
"Aunt Jane!" she cried. "She's the one who cares for us. Aunt Jane. I always knew she wasn't my aunt." Then her eyes rolled into the back of head, and she feel to the ground.
Sirius tried catching her before she fell, but failed. Her head hit the ground with a thud. She left the back of her head and his hand came back bloody. He took an old newspaper and pressed it into the wound. Then he waited for her wake. Her breath was even and she seemed alive. Except that nothing would wake her.
Aldrea had a vision. She saw a black haired girl. She was watching a boy. They were both in the G. Common Room. Her eyes were like hers, gray.
Then she saw them in the winter. Skating. Then the girl, her mother she now knew, fell through the ice. The boy, a younger version of Sirius, pulled her out. They sat by a tree. They kissed. She ran.
Aldrea saw years fly by. She saw her mother fall in love with Sirius. She saw Sirius start loving her back. She saw her mother get raped. She saw her mother have twins. Them, she thought to herself. She saw her mother leave the orphanage when she had grown. She saw her mother leave one day. Finally time slowed down. She saw the world through her mother's eyes. She saw the empty cribs. She felt herself running down the side of her house. She saw Jane.
"Jane! The children are gone!"
"I know."
"Help me look for them!" Aldrea never even saw the brick coming. And as she felt her life slip away she heard Jane's voice.
"Don't worry. I'll take good care of Sirius for you. Now that you're out of the way we can be happy." Then Ariadne died and Aldrea woke up with a start.
Sirius looked down at her with a worried expression on his face. "Are you ok?" Aldrea didn't answer for a moment. She looked at him silently. Then at last she answered. "Jane kill her for you, you know."
Sirius looked stricken. "Then I killed her. I killed James and Lily, and now I killed Ariadne too."
"Why did you kill Lily and James in the first place?"
"Does it matter? You won't believe me anyway."
"How do you know that?" Aldrea challenged. Sirius could see she would not rest until she was told. Ah, so she was stubborn like her mother.
"I was the only one to know where James and his family were. Only I could ever find them. But I knew that I was the first person Voldemort would look for if he wanted the secret of the Potters' destination. So I told the secret to Peter, for I thought Voldemort would never think of questioning Peter. I was right. He didn't need to question Peter. Peter told him. And like that, James and Lily were killed."
"But you said you killed them." Aldrea said, confused.
"True. But I didn't kill them literally. I killed them figuratively. If I hadn't made such a poor choice, they would still be here, alive."
"But Voldemort would still be out there." So Aldrea was also a voice a reason. She seemed more like Ariadne by the second.
"True."
"But you got your revenge, did you not?" she asked, "Peter was killed. You blew him up. "
"No. That was a show for everyone else. You see, we could change our forms. Illegally, of coarse. Long story short, he changed and disappeared, cutting off his finger as a dramatic effect. He's still out there. Serving Voldemort."
"So you are innocent?"
"Yes and no."
"You mean yes. You blame yourself without reason. You made a mistake, nothing more."
"A mistake that cost James and Lily their lives! It was as if I held the wand myself."
"But you did not."
"I feel like I did."
"So? You were not truly the reason they died, were you? Were you the reason Voldemort wanted to kill them?"
"No."
"Well, then you have no reason to feel the way you feel. You haven't felt true guilt."
"And you have, I suppose you're saying?" he seemed totally sarcastic, and not at all expecting what he would hear.
"Yes. My ex-boyfriend got sick and died."
"But that has nothing to do with you at all. You are not the first one who has had a sick boyfriend. It is you who has never felt true guilt, not I."
"Then answer me this. Why did he get sick over night? And right after he-he slept with me?"
"He slept with you? You are but 15-"
"Answer the question!" she said roughly.
But Sirius could not. And Aldrea knew it.
"And just now I got more proof of what I say." Aldrea began.
"Which is?" Sirius inquired.
"Before Jane killed my mother, I felt a force, unlike any other. It came close. And it was out to kill my mother. It was the same force that I felt before Jamey died. It was after my mother, and thank god Jane got to her before that force could. But this force is now after me. And it killed Jamey to get to ME. To hurt me. And it has hurt me. Hurt me so much, that I could hardly even tell betrayal from friendship, even from close up."
"Betrayal? From whom?" But Aldrea would not answer. She just sat there, staring at the wall. And with complete certainty she spoke.
"And when the time comes, it will kill me too."
Tobias waited in the library. Aldrea had told him to meet her there. People kept giving him looks. The librarian herself kept looking at him suspiciously. That might have had something to do with the fact that he had come into the library about five times since he had come to Hogwarts.
Finally he spotted Aldrea coming towards him. She looked happier than she had in months. "Wazzup, Aldy?" He asked, lighthearted.
"Look, Tobias. You will not believe this! I just found out who are mother was!" Was this the news? Jeeze. He had never cared who his mother was. He had never cared who is father was, either. He would have cared less if he had found he had an Uncle Joe. "And Aunt Jane isn't really our aunt," she continued.
"That's news? I've KNOWN that," he scoffed.
"Well, now you know it for sure," Aldrea answered, looking obviously disappointed at his lack of enthusiastic attitude. Sorry, but he was not about to lie about how much he cared about the subject at hand.
Aldrea sighed. "Look, I know you've never cared about our mother, or our father. But listen to this. That same thing that killed Jamey killed our mother."
"You mean, the same disease?"
"The same force."
Tobias shook his head in disbelief. "I don't believe this. I thought you were past that. Look, Aldrea, I'm going to be plain with you. There is no 'force'. You made it all up to make yourself feel better or something. But there was nothing after Jamey, there is nothing after us and there was nothing after our mother!"
Aldrea stared at him, the hurt barely visible in her eyes. "Okay, Tobias. I'm glad we understand each other now then. If you don't want to face the truth, it's not my problem. But when you find yourself facing it, and wishing you had listened to me, you'll be sorry!" With that she stormed out, pissed.
Tobias grinned sheepishly at the onlookers. After a while he got sick of their stares and said, "Fuck off, assholes." It didn't take a rocket scientist to see why the librarian threw him out.
