~*Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire*~
Author's Note: Yeah, hi. This is my first fic (well, duh) and, of course, it takes place in the days of the Marauders, and, of course, my own character is the one who the story is focused upon. But I will, of course, include many other major characters as well. Also, I DO NOT own any of the characters J.K. Rowling has created. I wanted to use a name like a celestial object since Sirius is a star, so I wanted to use the name Gemini, but some other person had it first, then I wanted to use Arae (another constellation) but I didn't want to make it seem like Auria, from another story. But then I figured what the hell, and stuck with Gemini. And then I went on to FFN.Net to search for that other story because I felt guilty, but it wasn't there! Yes! I mean… no… nevermind, you don't care, do you? The long rant thing was because I also wanted to say: I DO NOT MEAN TO COPY ANY OTHER STORY, AND IF THERE ARE ANY SIMILARITIES THEY ARE NOT INTENDED, UNLESS MY ALTER-EGO IS ACTING UP AGAIN! My God, the Author's Note may become longer than the story. I'll close by saying what every new desperate author says: PLEASE R&R!
WARNING: THE FIRST CHAPTER IN ANY FAN STORY I WILL WRITE WILL MOST LIKELY BE VERY BORING, ACCORDING TO MY BROTHER. Just a warning.
It was one day before the start of the new school year when Bruce Moon struggled to fit the large oak table into the new house. His raven-haired daughter, Gemini, and his step-daughter, Cassandra, were trying to hold the smooth wood but it kept slipping beneath their palms, which were sweaty due to moving large and expensive objects into the house all day. The Moon family was a very rich family, for Bruce was a very successful man. In all the fifteen years of his daughter's life, he had worked as a lawyer, had a job in an oilrig and spent a brief period at the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario, Canada. Unfortunately, his jobs hadn't allowed him to spend much time with his daughter, and by the time she was six, they had grown so distant that they barely felt comfortable around each other. By the time Gemini was twelve she met her worst nightmare: Debra Smith and her daughter Cassandra. Bruce and Debra had met on a subway train in New York City and claimed that it was "love at first sight". Gemini, who by that time just wanted to be left alone, was horrified to find that Cassandra was thin, blonde, and wanted to be a fashion designer when she grew up. She was also seven and had Attention Deficit Disorder, which made her hyperactive almost all the time. Debra herself was horribly old fashioned and believed that a woman without a husband by the age of twenty was disgraceful. Five months before Gemini's fifteenth birthday, the couple became married and Cassandra had to fight with her stepsister in the pew so the British girl wouldn't "speak now, or forever hold her peace". Gemini looked away from her father in disgust when he and Debra kissed. It was a very gloomy wedding for both father and daughter.
"I can't hold it any more!" panted the American girl, knocking Gemini out of her daze. "Can't we put it down?"
Bruce shook his head. "No, it'll scratch the wood. Gem, where d'you reckon we should put the damn thing?"
Gemini had been waiting for ten minutes for him to ask her this. She smiled at her stepsister as if she were an idiot. "Why don't we try the back doors?" she said. "You know, the one that has two doors we can open?"
Debra, who had been sitting on the front porch, staring at the moving van that was blocking her view of the neighbours' houses, walked around to the back and opened the doors. Here, the table could actually fit through the doorframe. Moving quickly, the trio carried the heavy object into what would become the dining room. Gemini sat down on the floor beside Cassandra. "One more thing," she panted. "What is it?"
Bruce smiled apologetically. "The piano."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
You'd think with all our money, we could get a house where I didn't have to share a room, thought Gemini while staring up at the darkened ceiling. They had managed to pay some of the neighbours who were willing to help move the piano into the guest room. Gemini helped one of them, a most unfortunate man who was mentally challenged, blind, deaf, and had two fingers on each hand. Cassandra tried not to stare but failed dismally and left the room, while Debra glared at the man openly. His friend pushed the piano a little more and glanced at Gemini.
"So, how much we gettin' paid, miss?" he asked. Gemini smiled.
"I don't know how my father will pay you, but I think he ought to pay this guy double," she said, nodding to the deaf man and helping him up a step. The deaf man's friend smiled at her, but both their smiles were wiped away in an instant.
Debra sniffed. "I doubt my husband would ever pay a monster like him." The other helpers stopped immediately, staring at her in disbelief. Gemini stood rigid while the man's friend stood stock still, balling his hands into fists.
"You ain't right," he said, his voice shaking with suppressed rage. "He ain't no monster, you are, to be insultin' him like that when he's tryin' to help you." He wrapped an arm around the deformed man's shoulders. "C'mon mate, you don't have to put up with this." And led him out of the room. Gemini gave her stepmother a horrible glare and ran out of the room in pursuit of the two men. She found them struggling to step down the porch steps. In one heart-stopping moment, the deformed man tripped on one of the steps and fell to the ground with a loud thud.
"Bert!" the other man yelled and jumped to the ground. Gemini gasped, leaping down the steps and onto the ground beside the two men.
"I'm so sorry!" she cried out in alarm, all anger lost. The man called Bert sat up heavily, staring at her with sightless eyes. The other man seized Bert's arm and Gemini grabbed his other one. Both hoisted the poor man onto his feet, both wearing faces concern. "W-will he be all right?"
The man with the coat nodded. "He'll be fine, miss." Bert was still looking at her, when he suddenly extended his arm and patted her head lightly with his two-fingered hand. "Aank oo, ni… niss adie." Bert's friend grinned at the stunned look on Gemini's face.
"He likes you, miss!" the man said happily. "He says, "thank you, nice lady.""
Gemini smiled. "Oh," she reached up and patted the man's head. "Thanks." When she brought her hand down however, the other man was staring at her with a look of pure terror.
"Where'd you get that?" he demanded, plunging his hand into his coat. Gemini backed away immediately.
"No, no, no, no, no," she said, holding her hands up in front of her face. "Y-you don't have a gun, d-do you?"
"Answer my question," said the man said with more confidence now that she was scared. "Where'd you get that thing?" Gemini stared wide-eyed at him.
"What-" she looked down at her left arm, where the man was looking to. "Oh! This!" she pulled up her sleeve to reveal a red tattoo of a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth. "That…" Gemini looked back up at the man with the long black hair, who was slowly lowering his hand from his coat. She shrugged. "I don't know where I got it," she admitted for about the millionth time. "My dad won't tell me, but I've had it for as long as I can remember." The man looked relieved at something and also very pleased, but when his grey eyes met her green ones, they were full of sympathy. He clapped a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm so sorry to frighten you, miss," he said and turned away, wrapping his shoulder around Bert again. "C'mon mate, your wife'll be in a right state if anyone tells her what happened." Gemini stared after them for a moment, then headed back inside, knowing it was pointless for her to ask about her tattoo for he would never talk about it.
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The first day of school was a reflection of Cassandra and Gemini's moods: dark and cloudy. Both girls woke up feeling groggy and tired, trying to resist the temptation to duck back under the warm covers. Tired as she was, Gemini sat up with a start when Cassandra let out a shriek.
"Oh my God, we're going to be late!" she turned her horrified face to Gemini. "Why didn't your dad wake us up?"
Gemini stared blankly at her stepsister for a few seconds, then remembered what she had seen in the pamphlet of the school that Debra had left on the counter. She laughed at her stepsister.
"This isn't like a-a-America," she said, failing to stifle a huge yawn. "We are going to go to King's Cross Station at ten o' clock. If you had even bothered to look at the pamphlet you'd have seen that the train ride takes about four hours. We're going to an all-girls school." Gemini added grimly.
Cassandra gasped. "But that means-"
"Yep," Gemini said dryly. "Uniforms."
When Gemini dressed into the only clothes she had that wasn't a dress, both girls headed down the stairs where they heard Bruce and Debra conversing in low voices. Gemini spun around quickly to her stepsister, holding a finger to her mouth, but Cassandra mouthed, "I know". They approached the kitchen, but their parents had their backs to the two girls.
"Debra, whatever you do, don't let her go near Platfor-"
It was at this moment that Cassandra opened her mouth wide and let out a gigantic yawn. After that there was complete silence and Gemini, raising her eyebrows at her stepsister, walked into the kitchen. She strode into the kitchen, sat down, crossed her legs, and smiled pleasantly at her father and stepmother, who exchanged nervous glances. Cassandra, being the copycat she was, sat down like Gemini, trying not to grin.
"Well?" she asked in an English accent. Bruce and Gemini stared at her then back at each other. Gemini was no longer smiling.
"You've done this to me all my life," she said calmly. "When I was five you still hadn't told me that Mum died. I believed, and still do, that she was a prostitute." Her hands were clenched into fists on her lap. "When I was seven you finally told me that she died, but you never told me how. We always moved to a different place every single year. You think I haven't noticed how it's always just before the start of the school year? You never told me why that is.
"When we moved to Australia eight years ago, the children asked where I got this," she pulled up her left sleeve again and the skull with the snake in its mouth stared out at them all. "I don't even know where I got it. You never told me. Do you know how some people react when they see this thing?
"And now you and your dearest wife are whispering behind my back," Gemini leant back in her chair. "When do you plan on telling me anything? Or will I hear it from somebody else first. Perhaps," her teeth were clenched. "The Man. Remember the Man, Dad?"
"The Man?" Cassandra interrupted, shifting around in her seat. "Who's the Man? You've never told me about the Man, Gem."
The look that Gemini gave her stepsister made her avert her eyes quickly. "You wouldn't want to know." She turned to her father. "Well?"
Bruce looked hopelessly at his daughter, then bowed his head. Gemini cursed out loud, and stomped out of the kitchen and angrily up the stairs, light bulbs exploding above her head. Cassandra, clearly confused, went to go after her.
"That girl needs to get her act together." Debra said mildly, taking a sip of tea. Cassandra paused on the stairs, debating whether or not to say what popped into her head.
"Shut up, Mom." She snapped and headed up the stairs.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
No one was talking as the two girls dumped their suitcases into the trolley and continued to look for their train. One had just arrived and was pouring out people. Gemini flicked a speck of dirt off her jeans as her stepmother sniffed.
"You should have dressed so that you look respectable," she said disdainfully, pushing the trolley fast.
"You're not my mother," Gemini growled under her breath. Debra actually laughed out loud.
"And boy, am I thankful for that." She exclaimed scornfully. Gemini turned her head so fast it cricked. While Debra wasn't looking, she rubbed it carefully. Cassandra came out of the crowd five minutes later, panting slightly.
"I found the train," she turned to Gemini. "I've never been to an… an "all year" school before."
"Neither have I." Replied Gemini, glancing at Debra as if she were to blame. The three of them walked through the growing crowd; slightly bumped one way or the other by careless passers-by. When Debra and Cassandra were a good ways ahead of her, Gemini turned around to look at one of the clocks. It was two minutes from eleven o' clock. When she turned back to follow Cassandra she discovered to her horror that they had disappeared into the sea of people. Gemini fought her way through the jostling crowd but still couldn't find her stepsister. One minute to eleven. Gemini came up to a metal barrier and leant back on it to rest for a while. But with a horrible plunging feeling, she fell backwards onto her back, nearly knocking the wind out of herself. She got up and gasped audibly. A different platform stretched out before her, and a scarlet train with the words: "Platform Nine & Three Quarters" was blowing its whistle. The last of the people on the platform had disappeared with loud cracks. Gemini spun around and held her hand up to the wall she had come through and pushed lightly. Nothing. She couldn't get back through.
"Mam!"
The girl turned to see a man in uniform take her hand. "Come with me, mam, the train's about to leave."
"But-but-" she stuttered. The guard interrupted her.
"Yes, you forgot your luggage. Don't worry mam, we'll deliver all lost items to their owners in no time." It seemed he was used to saying this. He pulled open a door and pushed her in gently seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was protesting every inch of the way.
"Listen to me!" she demanded, but he shut the door and locked it. A shrill whistle blew again and there was a slight screeching of wheels. Next second, Gemini was nearly knocked off balance as the train started moving. She saw a window down the corridor and ran towards it. Fields spread out before her eyes as they rounded a corner and the platform vanished from sight. It had all happened so suddenly. Gemini stared at her pale reflection in the window as the scenery rolled by.
"This is not good." She said anxiously.