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The house Jack built
Chapter one. Edgar.
Edgar was out of firewhisky. Swearing he threw the empty bottles out of the window, and someone on the outside yelled up to him with an angry voice. As if he cared. He took down an old biscuit tin from the shelf above the sink, and opened it. Inside he found eleven Knuts, the last of his savings. He took out ten of them, walked down the stairs and over to the Thirsty Dog, where he bought two new bottles.
If the boy wanted anything to eat, he could buy it himself. The bakery used to sell old bread cheaper in the evenings, if they had any more left. That bloody boy would eat him out of the house soon, with his insistence on being fed twice a day.
He would need to find a job again. Easier said than done, especially for a man with no formal education. Usually he would do odd jobs for the merchants in Diagon Alley, but there were fewer jobs now than when he was younger. Especially now, when the Goblins had taken over the building industry. It was the Ministry's fault, with their policy of integration, and the Goblin Rights associations.
He glanced over at the newly built house on the other side of the road. He had been there, asking the man if he needed a hand, but the bloke could not pay him. So Edgar had just turned and left. Edgar Fletcher did not do charity. With a grin he thought of the poor job they had done with the roof; the newcomer had obviously no clue whatsoever of what he was doing. Young Mr. Bullstrode were in for a nasty surprise when the autumn rain started to fall.
The boy had been there, scowling at him and pretending not to know him. He had dealt with him later on, giving him the clear message that grown people should be treated with respect. The boy would never learn, of course, too much like his mother. Always with her head up in the clouds she had been, and then she had lain down and died. Her Mudblood lover had run off, leaving him with a four-year-old child to look after. Edgar had done it out of the goodness of his heart, he had, considering they hadn't even left him so much as a Sickle.
And the wretched boy hadn't even thanked him for it.
He walked back into the kitchen, and found himself a cup. The flat only consisted of two rooms, the kitchen and a small room that was Edgar's own. The boy slept on the turn-up bedstead in the kitchen, the nights he could be bothered to come home at all. Edgar didn't know where the boy kept house at nights, nor did he care.
With a sigh of relief he poured himself the first glass of the day, closing his eyes to the burning sensation down his throat. Tomorrow he would be forced to walk from shop to shop in Diagon Alley, asking for work. Begging. He was a month behind with the rent, and had no choice.
He looked out the window. A rare streak of sunlight had found it's way into the damp and glum alleyway, and the sounds of the children playing reached him. They had no mind for the hard times awaiting them, but he knew better. In a few months winter was coming, and he would not make it through another winter on the street.
"Laugh while you can," he muttered under his breath at the noises from the children.
He poured himself a new glass. He had laughed too, once. When he didn't know better. Life was a vale of tears; he had learned that at an early age. For every laugh you pay back with tears, tenfold.
"Tenfold!" he yelled out the window, and could hear the children laughing at him.
Sulkily he retreated back to his silent kitchen table. How could they know? Their parents pampered them, believing they protected them. But Mundungus knew; he had made sure of that.
He did not hold his whisky very well anymore. A voice in the back of his head told him that this was a bad sign, but no sensible man listened to such voices. He could quit anytime he wanted. But he did not want to, what else did he have left? Old Madam Ogden was the only thing that gave him comfort in this world, the only woman who had remained faithful to him. Like an old and familiar mistress she was, lulling him to sleep every night in her warm embrace, whispering sweet lies in his ear.
Like Guinevere.
Sweet or not, lies are still lies. But Edgar would not think about that, and took another sip in honour of old Madam Ogden.
His bladder was full, and he stood up and urinated through the window. Immediately a raging female voice screamed at him.
"What'ya doing, you bloody fool?"
"Fuck you!" he roared back at her.
In need of a good whipping, that woman was. But that incompetent bit of a man she had couldn't even get that right. No wonder Mrs. Smith had male company when he was at work. Edgar had knocked on her door one morning, but the bitch would not let him in. Perhaps he should drop her husband a hint or two, which would serve her right.
Guinevere had never refused him anything.
He repeated her name silently; her name was for his ears and his ears alone. To speak her name in a place like this was like staining it, desecrating it. It was a name that belonged in his most secret dreams.
He had met her on the street a few weeks back. At first she hadn't recognised him, but he had known it was she the moment he saw her. He had stood as though petrified, not knowing whether to approach her or hide. Then she had seen him. Her eyes had been big when she took in the sorry pile of rags in front of her; she had frowned slightly, like it displeased her to see him like this.
Why should she be pleased?
She was a pretty lady now, and he was just the same misfit that he had always been. At Hogwarts their school robes had hidden the differences between them. He had been able to pretend to be someone he was not, and never could be. Someone Guinevere could love.
She had a teenaged girl with her, obviously her daughter, looking exactly like her mother had when she was fifteen. She had been dressed in expensive white dress robes, and had eyed her mother strangely when she talked to the ragged stranger.
Edgar poured himself another drink. He was already drunk, and it scared him, so he drank more to forget why.
For she had talked to him. Her voice had been friendly, though distant and without the warmth he had once known. She was so much more than him and still she had taken time to speak with him. Then the girl had gone inside the shop to look at some new dress robes, and her demeanour had changed.
"What has happened to you, Edgar?" she had asked him, in a voice filled with concern.
Life. Life is what happened to me.
He had wanted to say so much. To tell her how sorry he was. How he had thought about her for more than thirty years but never dared to seek her out. How the thought of her cool slender hands touching him still aroused him, now that nothing else would. But Edgar was not a man of words; he had no way of telling her how he had yearned for her. He could only hope she had seen it in his eyes, like he had seen something in hers.
Then a man had emerged from inside, followed by the girl. He had spoken to her, but Edgar could not recall what he had said or what he had looked like. He was not important, the only things that had mattered were her eyes. Those grey eyes of hers, into which he had gazed so many times. He could still see them so clearly, they had been concerned for him.
She had been sad.
Then the man had grabbed her by the arm, and she had gone with him.
His feelings confused him. He felt disgusted with himself for making her sad, but still there was something inside him that felt joy. Because she had cared. He was gone from her life, but she had the memories too. They had shared something that had marked them both, a secret they would take to their graves.
It was holy to him.
He had been a proud Gryffindor back then, with his life ahead of him. He had laughed, like the happy children out there in the Alley. They were playing with a ball now, with their mother's brooms between their legs. Pretending to play Quidditch, throwing the ball between them. No one in the Alley could afford a real broom, but the children were happy nonetheless.
But he could not live his life over again.
She had been in Hufflepuff, a thorough worker she had been. Stubborn as a bludger, and shy as a deer. It had taken him a long time to come near her, to break through the defence she had built up around herself. And behind it he had found a soul.
It had been his fault. On the summer holiday before his last year, he had got drunk, and slept with a girl from the Alley. She had become pregnant, and the girl's parents had demanded that he do the right thing. He had quit school and lived with the girl for some time, but he refused to marry her. The child had died before it's first birthday, and the girl had gone.
Guinevere had refused to accept his letters. Every owl came back with the paper still attached to its foot.
If. There were no ifs anymore, only these cold, empty rooms –and the bottles that allowed him to forget what he had become. He still had the dreams, but dreams couldn't keep him warm through the night. Only Madam Ogden would give him rest.
His dead baby daughter would have been thirty-one this spring; only when he was drunk could he allow himself to mourn her. Born into misery, out of misery; unwanted, like he himself had been, like Mundungus was.
As if on cue the boy came home, finding his uncle crying by the kitchen table. He had a package under his arm, which he put down on the table. Gently he took his uncle by the arm and urged him to stand up.
"It's night now, lets get you in bed."
"I'm sorry, Dung," the man was snivelling, leaning into the little boy beside him. "I'm not a good uncle to you. I'm not a father, I never was."
"Come on," Dung encouraged him, moaning under the weight. After a little fumbling he achieved to open the door to Edgar's room, and pushed his uncle on top of the bed. Edgar kept on muttering incoherently while Dung removed his shoes, and pulled a blanket over him.
"You sleep now, uncle."
****
Edgar woke early in the afternoon the day after, and for half an hour he stayed in bed before the call of nature forced him to get up. He put the chamber pot back under his bed and held his head in his trembling hands. He reached for his bottle, and after a couple of shots he was beginning to feel human again. There was a knock on the door, and with a hoarse voice he muttered 'Enter'.
It was the boy. "I made some soup," he said.
"Where did you get the money to buy food?" Edgar said gruffly.
"Got a few potatoes and a nap bone from Jack."
"So it's Jack now, is it?" He was in a terrible mood, but he needed something to eat; he just hoped he would manage to keep it down. Slowly, he shuffled himself into the kitchen. The soup smelled good, actually, maybe he could try to eat a little. Dung had already poured him a portion in his soup bowl; his spoon placed beside it and water in his cup.
Edgar sat down in the chair, and with a sigh he emptied the cup out of the window. The cup now empty, he poured himself a generous drink and the smell of the firewhisky mixed in with the scent of the food. Meanwhile, the boy was standing by the door, and Edgar eyed him with irritation.
"You aren't gonna stand there staring at me while I'm eating, are ya?"
"No, I've already eaten. I'm going out."
"Well, go on then!"
Dung shrugged and left, and Edgar could concentrate on the food. It smelled even better now that he was alone. Perhaps he was a little hard on the boy sometimes. Nah, it was for his own good.
He finished his drink and poured himself a new cup. Then he grabbed the spoon; if he ate slowly...
The soup bowl exploded in his face, sending soup over the whole kitchen. Sputtering and swearing, he jumped up from the chair, soup dripping from his cloak and his hair. The spoon had fallen to the floor, with a mousetrap attached to it.
He stared at it, while he tried to calm his pounding heart. Then the familiar anger welled up.
"MUNDUNGUS!"
The house Jack built
Chapter one. Edgar.
Edgar was out of firewhisky. Swearing he threw the empty bottles out of the window, and someone on the outside yelled up to him with an angry voice. As if he cared. He took down an old biscuit tin from the shelf above the sink, and opened it. Inside he found eleven Knuts, the last of his savings. He took out ten of them, walked down the stairs and over to the Thirsty Dog, where he bought two new bottles.
If the boy wanted anything to eat, he could buy it himself. The bakery used to sell old bread cheaper in the evenings, if they had any more left. That bloody boy would eat him out of the house soon, with his insistence on being fed twice a day.
He would need to find a job again. Easier said than done, especially for a man with no formal education. Usually he would do odd jobs for the merchants in Diagon Alley, but there were fewer jobs now than when he was younger. Especially now, when the Goblins had taken over the building industry. It was the Ministry's fault, with their policy of integration, and the Goblin Rights associations.
He glanced over at the newly built house on the other side of the road. He had been there, asking the man if he needed a hand, but the bloke could not pay him. So Edgar had just turned and left. Edgar Fletcher did not do charity. With a grin he thought of the poor job they had done with the roof; the newcomer had obviously no clue whatsoever of what he was doing. Young Mr. Bullstrode were in for a nasty surprise when the autumn rain started to fall.
The boy had been there, scowling at him and pretending not to know him. He had dealt with him later on, giving him the clear message that grown people should be treated with respect. The boy would never learn, of course, too much like his mother. Always with her head up in the clouds she had been, and then she had lain down and died. Her Mudblood lover had run off, leaving him with a four-year-old child to look after. Edgar had done it out of the goodness of his heart, he had, considering they hadn't even left him so much as a Sickle.
And the wretched boy hadn't even thanked him for it.
He walked back into the kitchen, and found himself a cup. The flat only consisted of two rooms, the kitchen and a small room that was Edgar's own. The boy slept on the turn-up bedstead in the kitchen, the nights he could be bothered to come home at all. Edgar didn't know where the boy kept house at nights, nor did he care.
With a sigh of relief he poured himself the first glass of the day, closing his eyes to the burning sensation down his throat. Tomorrow he would be forced to walk from shop to shop in Diagon Alley, asking for work. Begging. He was a month behind with the rent, and had no choice.
He looked out the window. A rare streak of sunlight had found it's way into the damp and glum alleyway, and the sounds of the children playing reached him. They had no mind for the hard times awaiting them, but he knew better. In a few months winter was coming, and he would not make it through another winter on the street.
"Laugh while you can," he muttered under his breath at the noises from the children.
He poured himself a new glass. He had laughed too, once. When he didn't know better. Life was a vale of tears; he had learned that at an early age. For every laugh you pay back with tears, tenfold.
"Tenfold!" he yelled out the window, and could hear the children laughing at him.
Sulkily he retreated back to his silent kitchen table. How could they know? Their parents pampered them, believing they protected them. But Mundungus knew; he had made sure of that.
He did not hold his whisky very well anymore. A voice in the back of his head told him that this was a bad sign, but no sensible man listened to such voices. He could quit anytime he wanted. But he did not want to, what else did he have left? Old Madam Ogden was the only thing that gave him comfort in this world, the only woman who had remained faithful to him. Like an old and familiar mistress she was, lulling him to sleep every night in her warm embrace, whispering sweet lies in his ear.
Like Guinevere.
Sweet or not, lies are still lies. But Edgar would not think about that, and took another sip in honour of old Madam Ogden.
His bladder was full, and he stood up and urinated through the window. Immediately a raging female voice screamed at him.
"What'ya doing, you bloody fool?"
"Fuck you!" he roared back at her.
In need of a good whipping, that woman was. But that incompetent bit of a man she had couldn't even get that right. No wonder Mrs. Smith had male company when he was at work. Edgar had knocked on her door one morning, but the bitch would not let him in. Perhaps he should drop her husband a hint or two, which would serve her right.
Guinevere had never refused him anything.
He repeated her name silently; her name was for his ears and his ears alone. To speak her name in a place like this was like staining it, desecrating it. It was a name that belonged in his most secret dreams.
He had met her on the street a few weeks back. At first she hadn't recognised him, but he had known it was she the moment he saw her. He had stood as though petrified, not knowing whether to approach her or hide. Then she had seen him. Her eyes had been big when she took in the sorry pile of rags in front of her; she had frowned slightly, like it displeased her to see him like this.
Why should she be pleased?
She was a pretty lady now, and he was just the same misfit that he had always been. At Hogwarts their school robes had hidden the differences between them. He had been able to pretend to be someone he was not, and never could be. Someone Guinevere could love.
She had a teenaged girl with her, obviously her daughter, looking exactly like her mother had when she was fifteen. She had been dressed in expensive white dress robes, and had eyed her mother strangely when she talked to the ragged stranger.
Edgar poured himself another drink. He was already drunk, and it scared him, so he drank more to forget why.
For she had talked to him. Her voice had been friendly, though distant and without the warmth he had once known. She was so much more than him and still she had taken time to speak with him. Then the girl had gone inside the shop to look at some new dress robes, and her demeanour had changed.
"What has happened to you, Edgar?" she had asked him, in a voice filled with concern.
Life. Life is what happened to me.
He had wanted to say so much. To tell her how sorry he was. How he had thought about her for more than thirty years but never dared to seek her out. How the thought of her cool slender hands touching him still aroused him, now that nothing else would. But Edgar was not a man of words; he had no way of telling her how he had yearned for her. He could only hope she had seen it in his eyes, like he had seen something in hers.
Then a man had emerged from inside, followed by the girl. He had spoken to her, but Edgar could not recall what he had said or what he had looked like. He was not important, the only things that had mattered were her eyes. Those grey eyes of hers, into which he had gazed so many times. He could still see them so clearly, they had been concerned for him.
She had been sad.
Then the man had grabbed her by the arm, and she had gone with him.
His feelings confused him. He felt disgusted with himself for making her sad, but still there was something inside him that felt joy. Because she had cared. He was gone from her life, but she had the memories too. They had shared something that had marked them both, a secret they would take to their graves.
It was holy to him.
He had been a proud Gryffindor back then, with his life ahead of him. He had laughed, like the happy children out there in the Alley. They were playing with a ball now, with their mother's brooms between their legs. Pretending to play Quidditch, throwing the ball between them. No one in the Alley could afford a real broom, but the children were happy nonetheless.
But he could not live his life over again.
She had been in Hufflepuff, a thorough worker she had been. Stubborn as a bludger, and shy as a deer. It had taken him a long time to come near her, to break through the defence she had built up around herself. And behind it he had found a soul.
It had been his fault. On the summer holiday before his last year, he had got drunk, and slept with a girl from the Alley. She had become pregnant, and the girl's parents had demanded that he do the right thing. He had quit school and lived with the girl for some time, but he refused to marry her. The child had died before it's first birthday, and the girl had gone.
Guinevere had refused to accept his letters. Every owl came back with the paper still attached to its foot.
If. There were no ifs anymore, only these cold, empty rooms –and the bottles that allowed him to forget what he had become. He still had the dreams, but dreams couldn't keep him warm through the night. Only Madam Ogden would give him rest.
His dead baby daughter would have been thirty-one this spring; only when he was drunk could he allow himself to mourn her. Born into misery, out of misery; unwanted, like he himself had been, like Mundungus was.
As if on cue the boy came home, finding his uncle crying by the kitchen table. He had a package under his arm, which he put down on the table. Gently he took his uncle by the arm and urged him to stand up.
"It's night now, lets get you in bed."
"I'm sorry, Dung," the man was snivelling, leaning into the little boy beside him. "I'm not a good uncle to you. I'm not a father, I never was."
"Come on," Dung encouraged him, moaning under the weight. After a little fumbling he achieved to open the door to Edgar's room, and pushed his uncle on top of the bed. Edgar kept on muttering incoherently while Dung removed his shoes, and pulled a blanket over him.
"You sleep now, uncle."
****
Edgar woke early in the afternoon the day after, and for half an hour he stayed in bed before the call of nature forced him to get up. He put the chamber pot back under his bed and held his head in his trembling hands. He reached for his bottle, and after a couple of shots he was beginning to feel human again. There was a knock on the door, and with a hoarse voice he muttered 'Enter'.
It was the boy. "I made some soup," he said.
"Where did you get the money to buy food?" Edgar said gruffly.
"Got a few potatoes and a nap bone from Jack."
"So it's Jack now, is it?" He was in a terrible mood, but he needed something to eat; he just hoped he would manage to keep it down. Slowly, he shuffled himself into the kitchen. The soup smelled good, actually, maybe he could try to eat a little. Dung had already poured him a portion in his soup bowl; his spoon placed beside it and water in his cup.
Edgar sat down in the chair, and with a sigh he emptied the cup out of the window. The cup now empty, he poured himself a generous drink and the smell of the firewhisky mixed in with the scent of the food. Meanwhile, the boy was standing by the door, and Edgar eyed him with irritation.
"You aren't gonna stand there staring at me while I'm eating, are ya?"
"No, I've already eaten. I'm going out."
"Well, go on then!"
Dung shrugged and left, and Edgar could concentrate on the food. It smelled even better now that he was alone. Perhaps he was a little hard on the boy sometimes. Nah, it was for his own good.
He finished his drink and poured himself a new cup. Then he grabbed the spoon; if he ate slowly...
The soup bowl exploded in his face, sending soup over the whole kitchen. Sputtering and swearing, he jumped up from the chair, soup dripping from his cloak and his hair. The spoon had fallen to the floor, with a mousetrap attached to it.
He stared at it, while he tried to calm his pounding heart. Then the familiar anger welled up.
"MUNDUNGUS!"