Good Advice
A/N: Happy New Year to all! I commandeered FA's laptop since my PC crashed. (Sorry, we watched PotC the other night. Great movie, unless you end up spending like 2 ½ hours listening to your girlfriend, your cousin, and your brother go on about how sexy Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom are.) And FA just yelled that chapter 5 of OAS and chapter 12 of WtWS should both be up by next Wednesday.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Audrey's POV
I'm living in some kind of dream world; this can't be really be happening.
I hate being the oldest, the sensible one. It's not fair that I don't get to grieve in the way the way I want to.
Abby can snap at whomever she likes and act pissed off at the world. But I can't. Why? Because I'm the sensible one, the one that has to hold everything together. Because I have a husband and two small children to take care of. Because I'm the rock they all rely on and if I fall apart, then there's no hope for the rest of them. I'm the strength of the Toussaint-Johnson family. Not my laid-back father, nor my overly emotional mother. But me.
I look over at Matt and my husband gives me a half-smile and squeezes my hand. I need him so much; he's the only that understands that I need to mourn, too. Every night since the… incident, after I've tucked in the kids, I've broken down in his arms. Yes, this rock has cracked under pressure.
It wouldn't be the first time. Being good ole reliable Audrey Annabelle has always forced me to act older than my age. As a kid, I more or less raised Angie and Abby (and Lee, during the summers). When you're dad is a Quidditch legend and your mum is a famous actress and the house elves are really only supposed to cook and clean, tending the younger children is your job. (The plus side is that it prepared me for motherhood.) And becoming Quidditch Captain in my third year? That was hell; me running around trying to control kids up to four years older than me. And when I got that Head Girl badge in Seventh Year, I wanted to mail it back to Madame Maxime. Instead I locked myself in my room for an hour, banged my head against the wall, cried "Why me?" a couple of times, and came out. Why? Because being grace under fire is my place in the Toussaint-Johnson status quo. And I thought that it could prepare me for anything. But I was wrong. Nothing could prepare me for the death of my sister.
Angelina. Sweet, intelligent, talented Angelina. What on earth could have made her take her own life? I noticed she was so close to the edge a couple months ago. Angie had agreed to baby-sit since Abby was out somewhere with her latest flavour of the week – er, month – and she was staying in the guest flat (hiding from Fred, most likely). I don't know what it was but she was devastated, thisclose to the breaking point. She looked like she needed to be at St. Mungo's.
Flashback
My husband of almost four years and I stand outside our Tudor home in Windsor. Matt looks at me and shakes his head as I rummage through my handbag for my keys. "I know they're in here somewhere," I mumble as I make my way through the clutter at the bottom. I really need to clean this thing out, I think.
"You know, we could just Apparate," he says in a matter-of-fact voice.
"No, we can't. We live in a Muggle neighbourhood. They'd get suspicious if we just disappeared into thin air."
"We live in a mansion on top of a hill. You know the philosophy of the nouveau riche: you don't mess with us, we don't mess with you."
"But no family out here is nouveau riche. Us included."
"Which brings us to the motto of those with old money. We don't give a damn about you, so do whatever the hell you want. Just don't lower our property values." He chuckles at his own joke before turning back to me. "You haven't found them yet?"
"No. There's too much stuff in here."
"You know what? For someone supposedly so brilliant, you're more daft than your sisters." My eyes narrow at him, but he doesn't notice. "Screw this. I still say we should've Apparated or gone by Floo. Accio keys." The keys to our home fly out of the mess in my bag and he unlocks the door.
"I could've done that, you know."
"Yes, but you didn't."
"Shut up."
We walk into the living and the first thing I see is my youngest sister smoking a fag. I clear my throat (as I do not approve of smoking around my children) and she quickly disposes of it with an apologetic look on her face. When I see the expression on her face, I can only wonder how many fags she's gone through.
"A little less than a pack and a fifth of Ogden's," she says suddenly.
"What?"
"I was answering your question. You had the 'How much did she smoke now?' look on your face."
"Do you want to talk about it?" What a stupid query. If she wanted me to know, she would have told me something by now. If there's one thing I've learned about my sisters, it's that they will keep their problems bottled up inside and won't say anything. And if you try to get them to talk, you can expect a nasty hex in return.
"Do I EVER want to talk about it?"
I change the subject. "Did the boys give you any trouble?"
"No, Audrey. They were perfect angels as usual."
Perfect angels? My sons? "How do you get them to behave for you?"
"Simple. I gave Malcolm some warm milk right after you guys left. He's been asleep in his crib ever since. And James and I played a few games of chess. The stipulation of the last game was that if he won, he could stay up until you came home and I'd take him out to his favourite restaurant tomorrow and buy him anything he wanted from 3W."
"And if you win?"
"He goes to bed on time like a good little nephew and leaves me to sulk in peace."
"I take it he lost." Here it comes, a variation of her boast about her superior chess skills.
"I'm sulking, aren't I?" Well, that was different.
"So how much do I owe you?"
"Nothing. Look, thanks for letting me stay in your guest house."
"It's no big deal. So you headed back to your flat, now?"
"Nah. I'm headed to George's place. Just remember…"
I cut her off. "I know, I know. If anyone is looking for you, I don't know where you are. I've been doing this for four years."
"Yeah." She gets ready to Disapparate. She's always had a certain disregard for house rules, even though she denies it most of the time.
I grab her arm. "You know Abby and I are always here for you, don't you?"
"Yeah, I know."
WELL, ACT LIKE IT SOME DAMN TIME AND TELL US SOMETHING!!! "I just wanted you to know that you don't have to shut us out all the time."
"I don't shut you out all the time. It's just that this is on a need-to-know basis and…"
"We don't need to know." Apparently George is the only person who needs to know.
She manages a weak smile. "Yeah. Besides if it was REALLY important, I'd tell you." Yeah, right. Obviously nothing in her life is really important then. "Tell Jamie we'll come get him at ten."
She and George. These days, she spends more time with him than she does with Fred. Sometimes, I wonder why they don't just get together. Even James has taken to calling him Uncle George. "Jamie? How do you get away with that?"
"I'm the only one in this family who doesn't ignore him. Talk to your son sometime; you could learn something."
Who does she think she is, telling me how to raise my child?! "Like what?"
"That he prefers being called 'Jamie' to 'James' since he hates both his first and middle names. That's he's actually a better chess player than anyone gives him credit for and a helluva pool player, for that matter. Or that he's well on his way to ending up exactly like his Aunt Lina." Then after giving me that ominous comment, she Disapparates.
End Flashback
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It's the good advice that you just didn't take.
Who would've thought...it figures.
Something told me to go after her, to force her to tell me what was wrong. But I didn't. Just like I didn't heed her advice about talking to my eldest son. I look over at the other side of the church and see James sitting beside George, both of them with tears in their eyes.
Angie once told me about a theory proposed by Ray Bradbury. I forget what it's called, but it goes like this: if a butterfly flaps its wings, it can cause a typhoon on the other side of the world. She said that it meant that the smallest action affects everything else. I wish I could go back in time and find the butterfly that ruined my life. In one fell swoop, it ruined my life completely. It took my sister away from everyone who loved her and took my son away from me.
I glance at James again. He hasn't said a word since her death. Actually, I take that back. He hasn't said a word to his father or me since the suicide (God, I hate that word); he talks to George quite often. He's gotten just as good at keeping his feelings to himself as his favorite aunt. And George keeps his confidence just like he did for Angelina. And believe me, we've tried everything short of truth-telling potion to get him to tell us what James says.
I hear a soft whimper on my right and I turn to see Malcolm in Matt's arms. It really bothers me that in a few years my seven-month-old will look at pictures of a smiling Angelina waving at him and ask questions. Questions like "Why are there two Aunt Abbys in this picture?" Or when he's even older and looks at the same photos: "How come no one told me that Aunt Abby has a twin? How come I've never met her? Was she disowned?" Meanwhile, James will become increasingly withdrawn and Angie's cryptic statement will make sense. And everyday I'll wonder if it will be the day that he'll self-Avada. Matt wants to send him to send him to a shrink, but I don't think it'll do him any good. It didn't help Angie and, frankly, James is becoming more and more like her everyday.
And you know what scares me the most? I can see all this coming and I can't do anything to stop it. That my life is going to fall apart and while everyone feels pity for me, I'll have to keep on going and hide my pain. Because that what the strong, sensible one does.
And isn't it ironic...dontcha think?
Just like Angelina did.