A/N: You know the old(?) Capital One Credit Card cliche, "What's in your wallet?"? Well, now you know where the title came from. Aren't you proud?
Disclaimer: Original story. Plagiarized setting concept in general.
All related to Harry Potter would be his relatives, n'est-ce pas?
Chapter Nineteen: What's In Your Cellar?
Orion sighed heavily as he apparated into the foyer of his home. The day had been entirely too long for his liking and all he was interested in was curling up in a pair of soft, warm arms for the rest of the night.
Dropping his briefcase on the floor near the door, he look around for any sign of the soft, warm arms he planned to spend his evening with, along with the soft, warm body they came with. But the foyer was dismally silent.
"Katlin?" He called out. "I'm home, Love. And all I feel up to is bed. What do you say?"
Orion listened hopefully. But the same silence answered his call. With another sigh he slipped off his coat, resigning himself to the prospect of a lonely evening.
Katlin never told Orion what she had told Voldemort about her change in living arrangements, or if she told him anything at all so far. Every time he approached the subject with her, she was quick to steer him away from it. If he pressed the issue, she would clam up all together. So after a few days he dropped the matter and accepted she would tell him when she was ready. For all he knew, where she lived may actually be known to very few people as that most in the wizarding world were after her either for the reward or on general principle.
Living with someone also wasn't exactly living up to his expectations. While having Katlin in his house on a regular basis was pure heaven to him, having her there on a regular basis would be equally nice.
But instead he was finding he knew even less about her life than he thought. For one, he was rarely sure when he got home if she would be there or not. Usually she did get home before him. But there were days when he found himself heading off to bed alone, only to have her creep in next to him in the early morning hours. Often with a whispered apology and a comfortable cuddle that somehow seemed to make the wait a bit more worth while.
But on nights like tonight, all he wanted was to have her with him so they could both turn in early and just spend some time alone curled up together in bed. Comforting arms usually worked wonders on an otherwise dismal day.
Thinking again about those soft, warm, comforting arms, Orion called her name again.
Once more silence answered him.
But before he could even speculate what was delaying Katlin getting home, a sudden, loud scream tore through the house.
Orion's head snapped up in an instant. The sound seemed to have come from the direction of...
...the cellar.
A second air renting scream confirmed the location for him.
"Katlin!?" Orion headed for the door to the cellar. Yanking the door open, he lit his wand as he flew down the stairs. What in the name of magic was she doing down here?
"Katlin?" He called again, hitting the bottom of the stairs as he quickly looked around. But a sudden streak of light cutting in front of him, followed by several others drew his attention to one corner of the room furthest from where he was. He quickly dropped to the floor to avoid three other seemingly random shots that flew past him. Looking up, Orion saw a small group of people converging on the corner. Pressed against it, firing off spells as quickly as she could, was Katlin, looking as frightened as Orion had ever seen her.
Katlin looked up just in time to see Orion behind the mob pressing in on her. "Orion!" She screamed.
Orion got quickly to his feet and approached the group, who all seemed to have stopped their advance on their intended victim as a single unit.
"Bo!" Orion shouted.
The whole group turned about the face the man approaching them.
Orion was somewhat surprised to see that several of the people present he actually recognized. Almost all of them were Deatheaters.
"Bo!" Orion shouted again at the group. "Bad! Very bad! Very, very bad!"
The group suddenly vanished. But in its place, slowly seeming to absorb each person's fading shape as it vanished, stood a black robed figure.
"Very, very bad!" Orion repeated. "Leave her alone! Now!"
The figure stood for a moment, then suddenly it shimmered slightly and faded, reforming as a man, slightly larger, taller and much older than Orion.
"What do you think you're doing?!" The man yelled back at Orion.
Orion was slightly taken aback at the sudden appearance of the man. But he quickly set his expression as he fixed a hard stare on the man.
"Do you really want to play this game with me, Bo?" He asked.
"Answer me!" The man shouted back at him.
Orion kept his stare fixed on the man before him, but he slowly extended his hand out to Katlin, who sat huddled on the floor in the corner.
"Katlin," he said softly, never taking his eyes of the man before him, "come to me, all right?"
Katlin got to her feet without a word and shakily stepped around the man and over to Orion, falling into his arms in relief. But Orion quickly detached her from him and pushed her towards the stairs.
"Go upstairs." He told her, still never taking his eyes off the man before him.
Katlin gave the man behind her one quick last look, then hurried up the stairs.
As soon as he heard Katlin's footsteps going up the stairs, Orion pulled his wand out and pointed it at the man before him. "You have three seconds to a Ward Spell." He informed him. "One."
"Have you lost your mind, Orion!" The man shouted at him.
"Two."
"Who do you think you're talking to?"
"A boggart who is one second from a Ward Spell. Now, what's it going to be, Bo?"
The man stood in front of him in silence now, as though thinking over the situation.
"Three." Orion stated sharply.
The man suddenly disappeared and just as quickly reappeared once more as a figure in dark robes.
"Now go to your room." Orion stated evenly.
The figure sighed heavily under its robes and sulked off across the floor.
"And sulking doesn't win you any points either." Orion informed him as he went past. "You knew better than to do something like this There was no excuse."
The figure stopped and turned towards him. A pale, thin hand extended from the robes and pointed up the stairs as the figure quickly shook its head emphatically.
"What do you mean you didn't know?" Orion asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
The figure pointed again and shook its head harder.
"Didn't she tell you?"
The figure looked up, shaking its head quickly.
"Did you give her a chance?" Orion asked.
The figure paused, making no further gestures. But suddenly it burst into a flurry of activity, gesturing and moving about the floor.
"All right, all right." Orion stated. "I understand. You're suppose to protect the house. I know that, Bo."
The figure stopped its gesturing and came back to stand in front of Orion. It pointed more sharply to the stairs and shook its head again, then shrugged.
"You didn't know she was allowed here?"
The figure shook its head.
"Didn't I tell you?"
The figure again shook its head.
Orion sighed to himself. "All right. Point for your side." He said. "Katlin is a guest, Bo. She is allowed to be here. And how do we treat guests?"
A small popping noise echoed in the dim cellar, and abruptly a small potted flower appeared on the floor before Orion.
"Much better." He replied.
The plant disappeared with another pop, and the black robed figure reappeared, this time bouncing slightly in front of him.
"All right." He stated. "I'll make introductions one day. But not today. I think you just about scared the knickers off of her. Let me go calm her down."
The figure bounced harder in front of Orion, who now favored it with a small smile before heading up the stairs.
"Show-off." He called back to it as he headed for the foyer.
Upstairs Katlin was a great deal more composed when Orion joined her on one of the benches in the foyer. But she still had looked up quickly when the door had opened to the cellar.
"Are we feeling better?" Orion asked as he seated himself next to her. "The baby is all right?"
Katlin nodded slightly. "The baby is fine. Why didn't you warn me about him?" She said, still a little breathless.
Orion pointed to the warning sign hanging on the door to the cellar. "It says 'Warning', Love. And I did tell you I had a boggart in the basement."
"You didn't tell me that was specifically where you kept your boggart, Orion."
"Where did you think I kept him?"
"You said he was to protect the house. I thought he was just.....around the house. Not kept in the basement."
"He likes it there."
Katlin shuddered slightly. "And....and boggart's...they like to hide in things. Not stand out in the open."
"So why were you even down there?" Orion asked. "I mean, there was a warning sign."
Katlin turned to him. "I heard a noise." She said in a flat, level voice.
"A noise?"
"Behind the door. And I wanted to know what you kept in your basement you felt you needed to warn people away from."
"Well, I can't fault you on this one." Orion replied. "Bo would have done just about anything to get you to go down those stairs once he felt he had a chance."
"Would have done anything to get me to go downstairs?" Katlin gave him a questioning stare. "You mean he set a trap for me? That....that noise, that was a deliberate act?"
Orion shrugged. "Bo felt you presented a potential danger. And he felt you were near enough and curious enough to lure you down the stairs."
"But....but boggarts don't lure people into traps, Orion."
"Mine does." He announced proudly.
"But...."
"Katlin, Bo isn't just your run-of-the-mill, average boggart." Orion explained. "He's really quiet sophisticated."
"He's a boggart!" Katlin stated.
"Well, technically, yes."
"Technically?"
"I told you, he a bit more sophisticated."
"Well, he looked all boggart to me."
"If it's any help, I think he really does like you." Orion offered.
"Wonderful."
"Bo doesn't usually like people."
"Fine. We'll have him 'round to tea one day and make proper introductions then."
"No point. He'd just come as something frightening."
"Like your father?" She asked, raising a questioning eyebrow, indicating the figure the boggart had transformed into when he faced Orion.
"Anyone in their right mind would be afraid of my father, Love."
Katlin quickly held her hands up. "I'm not disagreeing with you, Orion. I know Talon Black. And you're right. No person in their right mind wouldn't be afraid of the man. But he's your father."
"It's more than that, Katlin." Orion explained. "I told you, Bo is a bit more sophisticated than your average boggart. He doesn't just go for the 'fear factor'. That," he added, pointing to the cellar, "he likely thought was 'funny'."
"Funny?"
Orion shrugged. "It's his idea of a joke. And believe me, the little blighter will laugh for days about it."
Katlin gave him a skeptical stare. "But that can't be much of a joke. I mean, you would know if it was your father or not."
Orion huffed slightly. "Don't bet on it, Love. Those two have actually gotten together and worked it out to make sure that I wasn't."
"Your boggart plans jokes?"
"I told you he was a bit more sophisticated."
"So what's with the warning sign?" Katlin asked, pointing to the sign on the door. "Why not have one that says 'Warning - Boggart'."
Orion shrugged again. "I give people fair warning. I don't feel I have to be specific about it."
Katlin sighed as she let her gaze drift away from the cellar door, wrapping her arms tightly about her body.
"So?" Orion prompted. "You're afraid of your friends?"
He had expected her to deny it, offering some other explanation for Bo's take on her fears. But instead she simply nodded.
"Really?" He questioned in surprise.
"It's more than that." Katlin replied in a soft whisper. "It's people I know.....people I trust, suddenly....attacking me. And I can't fight them...or stop them...or reason with them. They won't listen. They just keep coming."
"Sort of a strange fear."
Katlin shook her head again, turning to the floor. "No. It's not. Not when the fear is something real." Katlin took a deep breath, still staring fixedly at the floor before her. "When I was a little girl," she said quietly, "I lived with my parents in a small, but very peaceful little village. My Mum was a witch, and my Dad was a wizard. Both of them very powerful. But the best part of my life there was that we didn't have too hide what we were. Everyone in the village knew about us."
"They knew you could do magic?" Orion ask.
Katlin nodded. "It was very common knowledge. My parents used their magic to help the people of the village. My Mum was very good at curing illnesses. And my Dad could turn away bad weather and kept animals from destroying crops. No one in our village was rich. But everyone had all they needed to live comfortably. Something they had come to attribute to my parents. After I was born, the whole village watched as I grew up. And when I first displayed my own magical abilities emerging....it was like a royal holiday in the village. The whole town celebrated 'another witch in the village'." Katlin smiled at the memory as she shook her head slightly. "They were all so proud of me. And my Mum and Dad especially. I started doing magic very young. And I quickly showed my natural ability to follow my Mum's. I was a healer." Katlin quickly held up two fingers. "That was a second holiday to the village. They had worried what would happen when Mum got too old to cure people anymore. Now they didn't have to worry anymore. And I would grow up, have children of my own, and the cycle continued. There would always be witches and wizards in the village.
But, of course, there were some small problems. I was always trying to prove myself. The village was depending on me to take care of them. Just like they looked to my parents to take care of things when they went wrong. One day, a friend of mine came over. She had a very bad cold, and she was suppose to see Mum that day when she got back from tending another person in the village. Well, I didn't see any reason my friend should have to suffer any longer than necessary. I could do magic. I was a healer."
"Uh oh."
Katlin sighed loudly. "She ended up bright blue. Took Dad three days to set her right.
And in the end she still had her cold.
I got lectured from one end of the town square to the other for that."
"I would guess the townspeople weren't too happy either?"
"My friend didn't speak to me for days. But in the end everything straightened itself out. And everyone admitted it was a bit funny. But Dad decided right then and there that it was time for me to start learning to do magic properly. And so my 'official' training started. And in a very short amount of time I was allowed to go with my Mum and work cures on farm animals and pets. But I wasn't allowed to try to cure a person again for a long time."
"Sounds like a pretty idealistic existence."
Katlin smiled happily at the memory. "It was. We were....like the guardians of our village. We were absolutely loved by them. And if strangers came, no one would say so much as a word about us. They were determined to keep us to themselves. If the outside world ever found out, they were sure they would take us away from them. And they were probably right."
"So what happened?"
Katlin sighed again. "One day a man came to our village. He was....I don't know...some sort of traveling preacher or something. The people just regarded him as an amusing sort of oddity. You know. Something out of the ordinary to listen to. But no one paid him much mind. Usually, when strangers came to town, all magic was banned immediately. I was told I wasn't to so much as float a stick in the presence of anyone outside of the village. And I was never to draw my wand out in front of a stranger. But one of the villagers cows was very ill while this man was in town, and I had been called to go see if I could help. I was about 15 at the time, and was allowed at the time to go on my own then to do healings on animals. The cow's owners agreed to keep the cow in the barn, and out of sight, just in case this man was about. Well, as luck would have it, he was walking down the road while I was at the farm. The healing went well enough. But right afterwards, something spooked the cow, and she ran from the barn. I went after her, trying to stop her. As soon as she burst through the barn doors, she started for the open field. But right in her path was the farmer's small daughter. The poor child was to frightened by all the commotion to move. I quickly pointed my wand at the cow and placed an Impedance spell on the animal, which gave the parents enough time to get the child out of harms way.
Unfortunately this stranger saw me."
"What did he do?"
"At first he just watched. He saw how the farmer and his family reacted to me. To what I had done. Then he just continued down the road. I didn't think much of it at first. The family hadn't even seen him. And I thought, by his reaction, maybe he just past it off to some strange occurrence. Maybe he thought I was calling the cow by name, and that was why it slowed its charge.
But the next day, the man appeared in the town square. It was a market day, and a lot of people were there buying their supplies for the week.
It wasn't unusual for him to be there. He was there most market days for a few weeks now. He preached about sin and evil. The usual stuff.
But that day....that day he came with something new. He started telling the people in the square about evil people in the world. And how these people would disguise themselves as kind, gentle people. Offering to help. Offering to fix things right when they went wrong. He told the villagers that these people were making them soft. Making them depended on the ways of evil.
On magic."
"But surely the villagers didn't listen to him. Your family was a part of the town. They knew you weren't evil."
"At first they didn't listen to him. Then one day I was in the village square. I had been told by my parents to stay away from there whenever this man was there. But I was curious to hear what he was saying to the villagers. Well, this man saw me as I stood by one of the wooden posts near a small shop.
He started....pointing at me....and yelling. He said some of the most horrible things to me I have ever heard in my life.
I got scared....and I ran. I ran back to my mother and father and I told them what happened. I told them the horrible names this man had called me. They were all horrible things....except one.
He called me a 'witch'.
Well, I saw nothing wrong with that. It was what I was. It was what all the villager called me. But I couldn't understand why he mixed it in with all those other words."
Katlin wrapped her arms about herself and hugged herself tighter. "He made it sound like I was something dirty.
My father went back to the village square that very instant where this man was now standing, still shouting things at the people passing by. I had never seen my father so angry.
I heard....he and this man got into some sort of argument. That in the end, my father.....pulled out his wand.....and he cursed the man."
Katlin sat for a long time staring at the floor. "My father had never used his magic against another person as long as I could remember. He was a kind, gentle man. He had never hurt a soul. But this man... goaded him into what he did. And the man fell to the pavement screaming in pain. My father walked over to him, pointed his wand at him, and told him to leave. To never come back to our village.
But the man didn't leave. He practically lived in the village square after that. He preached to the people that came daily to trade there, practically yelling at them that they were fools, reminding them of what they had seen my father do to him, and telling them that someday, if they didn't obey us, we would do the same to them. He started telling them stories of other witches and wizards. One's who enslaved whole villages to do their will. That they fooled the people in these villages, by being kind to them, and then turned on them when they were weak and trusting.
At first people laughed at him. But the man was persistent. And slowly, a few at a time, people began listening to his stories. Soon people were telling their own stories. Not of how my mother had helped cure a child of a fever, but how she had caused it. Of how my father had caused a fire in a grain shed."
Katlin paused again as a tear rolled slowly down her cheek. Another glistened in her bright violet eyes.
"Suddenly any ill that befell anyone was my parents fault.
Steadily the atmosphere in the village began to change. My mother began to get scared, and she wanted to leave. To go somewhere else to live. But my father insisted that once this man left, that the villagers would see how foolish they were being, and that things would eventually return to normal. My father, being the kind and gentle soul he was, couldn't even conceive how far these fools would go.
One night, I awoke to someone banging on our door. I remember my mother grabbing me and taking me into the cellar. She showed me where to hide, and told me not to come out until she came and got me. That they would speak to the men at the door, and when they had gone, I was to hurry and pack my things and we would be leaving that very night.
I hid in the darkness. And I listened to the sounds upstairs. Horrible sounds. I heard my father yelling. I heard my mother scream once.
Then I heard a lot of voices. Angry voices. They were all over the house upstairs. I listened to them for a long time, and then they moved away. I listened to them fading into the distance. And then......I heard only silence. For a long time I didn't know what to do. I was terrified. Where was my mother? Why hadn't she come for me?
Just as I started to crawl out of my hiding place, I suddenly smelt something. A thin haze was already filling the cellar and it was getting harder to breathe. Then I heard the fire burning upstairs.
They had set the house on fire!
I pulled out my wand and hurried up the stairs. With any luck I thought I could blast open the cellar door and escape. But as soon as the door gave way under my spell, a backlash of fire burst down the stairs and knocked me back. I was sure I was dead. I had never felt so much pain in my life. But I still got to my feet somehow and made it up the stairs and through the fire.
I had to get out.
I had to find my parents."
Katlin stopped for a moment and Orion could feel her growing ever more distant from him. A blank, emotionless sort of expression overtook her features as she went on.
"When I got up the stairs," she continued in a low, inflectionless voice, "I found two bodies laying in the hallway. I could still make out enough of the features to see the faces of my parents.
I didn't even want to think of how they had died.
All I remember was standing there, staring at their bodies. At the blood. I didn't care if I lived or died anymore. I think I was just waiting for the flames to claim me as well.
I remember feeling someone grab me suddenly, and drag me backwards.
I screamed at them. Told them to leave me alone. I screamed for my mother. For my father.
And then the world around me simply disappeared.
When I woke up I was laying in a large bed. It was soft and warm, but I was far from comfortable. I was in agony. My whole body still felt like it was on fire. My vision was a horrible blur. All I could make out were shadows. I heard a voice telling me to lay still, and that everything would be all right.
That was the first time I heard Voldemort's voice.
He told me that I had been in a fire and I was badly burned. But that he had rescued me in time, and he was going to take care of me until I was well.
I literally had to force my voice up from my lungs, asking him where my parents were. And in a soft, kind voice, one so much like my father's, he told me that my parents did not survive the fire.
I stared to cry. And he gently brushed my hair back, and whispered that it would be all right. But I didn't see how that could ever be so again.
I think I must have cried for days. I don't remember sleeping, I refused whatever this stranger tried to feed me. I refused to drink....all I wanted to do was die. That was the only cure I saw for my pain.
One day, Voldemort came to my room. His voice was so kind and gentle......but also so afraid. He told me he understood my pain. That he had lost people in his life too. And that laying down and giving up sometimes seemed like the easiest thing in the world to do. But he told me that when you reached that point, that that was when you had to make a decision. You either stayed where you were and you let the evil beat you....., or you stood up again and you faced it.
He taught me a new concept that day. One that had been utterly alien to me until then. And he taught me that when the evil didn't destroy you, that you came back stronger for having not given in to it. And you faced it again....but this time stronger.
I told him I didn't know if I could face it again. That the pain was simply too great. The pain that came with the utter betrayal of the people I had thought of my whole life as my friends. That they had turned out to be the very people who destroyed my whole life without thought, or caring, or memory of all my family had done for them over the years.
And Voldemort made me a promise then. He told me if I would try.....if I would work to get better....eat what he brought me, and drink the potions he made for me....that he swore that he would make the pain go away forever."
"And?" Orion asked carefully.
A small smile crept across Katlin's lips. "And he did."
"How? By teaching you to hate those who......."
"When I was better," Katlin suddenly spoke up again, cutting Orion off abruptly, "he took me back to the village."
"Why?"
Katlin turned to him with a strange sort of smile. "To show it to me."
"Show it to you?"
Katlin's voice suddenly took on a harder edge than Orion had ever heard in it before as she turned back to the floor.
"Nothing was standing any longer." She told him in a very hard, cold voice. But one laced with satisfaction. "Every house, every tree, every shrub, every rock, every blade of grass had been leveled. The earth was scorched black and the air was thick with a smell I will never forget in my life. It was rank, and putrid. I expected to see corpses. But there were none. In fact, there wasn't one living thing that I could see.
I never asked him what he had done to the village...or to the people that lived there. I didn't care. All I knew was that he had kept his promise. He had made the pain go away."
Q&A
ENEMIES
Semmel: Still, I just love that name. I have no idea why.
I felt the same way about algebra. I mean, I doubt standing on a corner one day I will be called upon to figure out the degree of the left side of a right triangle when intersected by a trapezoid.
And if I am, you are going to be mighty disappointed, folks.
Very true, Dear. When I went after my master's, the market for my degree was great. When I actually finished, the bottom had fallen out and I couldn't find a job with decent pay.
Congratulations! You are the only person to point that out! Yes, indeed, our boy Orion can be down right cold. Just like Katlin, the man didn't get voted into his position, folks.
Actually, the majority of Chapter Seventeen was built around Katlin trying to explain to Orion what 'I'm late.' means.
I would think between them neither Orion nor Katlin would want to see their child join either group. They would likely do everything they could to see the poor kid just has a normal life.
Silverfox: I was about to give up an FictionAlley, but annoying them is such fun. And they make it so darned easy.
I take it 'skyehawke' is another fiction sight?
Orion isn't hiding Katlin. But one would think they would do everything possible to hide the potential baby from Voldemort.
Actually, I have found the most annoying people on earth to be those in the psych field. The only thing worse are the amateurs. the ones who have been to 'sessions', and now they suddenly have a degree. Man, they are annoying.
You think Voldemort would have problems with this? What about Orion's boss? His top agent is now not only sleeping with, but living with, the enemy. This does not look good on your department's yearly assessment.
And the poor man has so much to be nervous about.
Sailor Sol: So glad you like the dialogue, Dear. My editor used to tell me it was the one thing I did really well.
I have large sums of money on Lupin being the next to bite it. And for several reasons.
1. He has no real purpose anymore without Sirius there. He was sort of Sirius' 'keel' in life. Keeping him anchored in the here and now. With Sirius gone, Lupin is little more than spell fodder, folks.
2. He's a comfort to Harry, and we all know by now the poor kid isn't allowed to have any of that.
3. He's one of the original marauders. Spell targets if ever there were any. Worse risks to sell life insurance to since Star Trek security guards.
4. Rowling would likely see his death as 'significant and necessary to advance the plot of the story'. (Pffffft!)
5. He's done about all he can for the story. He's just excess printed material now.
I kind of support the Lupin/Tonks ship. Unfortunately, as we all now know, poor Lupin has no future. So tough, Tonks. (Of course, being related to Sirius, she's kind of spell fodder too, I think.)
Never drink and derive. Heehee! Cute!
skahducky: Do I have any idea when Family Relations will be out? Pretty much. I'm the one writing it.
But Dear, I ran you down the list last time. And the stories have to run that way because they are all inter-connected. I could put Family Relations out after Enemies, but it would be somewhat confusing. Be patient. We'll get there.
And keep in mind, that's only book two of a three book story arc. After that one comes Family Ties.
Family Life
ChibiGyouza: Well, I'm glad you liked the story.
I don't think the 'incident' with Sirius went over well with many fans. And I am certainly one of those who did not appreciate seeing one of my favorite characters whacked for what appeared to be next to no reason at all.
Actually, yes, Family Life is being sequaled in a story called Family Relations, due out next year. However, it is previewed at the end of the chapters of some of my other stories. But being old and having a bad memory, I have to say you'll have to look for those yourself, since I have no idea anymore at the ends of which stories I put them. The previews are the first three chapters of Family Relations, titled Meetings, Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. What can I say, I wasn't much for title ideas at the time.
Dear, there's not enough ego stroking in the world for this person.
All reviews are as of 10042003.
And remember,
When life gives you lemons, keep them, because hey, FREE lemons!