Disclaimers: Most of these characters, and indeed the entire world in which
Cursed takes place are the intelectual property of J.K. Rowling and
publishers. Even if perhaps, by the letter of the law my characters being
in a work of fanfiction might not technically be my property, I'd like to
think that the spirit of the law makes them mine anyway. Not that I can
stop you effectively if you take them.
- - -
Interlude
Four (Unpleasant) Days With the Order of the Pheonix
- - -
It had been nearly four entire days since Julianne had come to Number 12 Grimmauld Place, and she was beginning to be rather impatient. At least they'd had the decency to let her go home and get some things, as if preparing for an extended stay. That paticular thought had not appealed to her very much, especially in light of the total occurrences of the four days.
Supposedly she was staying over because Dumbledore was much too busy to give her the details on the request to soul-chase for Sirius Black and return him physically from beyond the Veil. Perhaps it was unfair of her to be so unforgiving of a person who had so many more crucial issues on his hands but it was a bit upsetting to be enduring such a disruption in her normally well-ordered life for his polite request.
Judging from the many copies of the past many weeks' Daily Prophet she'd perused through, there was another Great War getting started. Just her luck to have missed out on the short period of peace for the wizarding world that had just been so cruelly shattered by the plans of Lord You-Know-Who and his followers. Considering that her last vivid memories from the wizarding world were of all the horrors the 'Dark Lord' had wrought, especially the indirect effect it had on her cousin Pyrane it wasn't all that surprising that Julianne still winced visibly whenever his name was mentioned. At least it seemed to be a sentiment shared by many here. Although for every person who flinched away at hearing the name, there was one who insisted on saying it at every possible moment.
She remembered enough of what her more politically liberal Ravenclaw friends used to say to know that sometimes it was best to read between the lines of the Daily Prophet. They had written enough misinformation on cursed families (whenever the more earth-shaking current events were coming in too slowly), occasionally her own during the fifteen years she'd lived in that world for her to know that it wasn't always the most reliable source of accurate information. However, reconstructing those articles in any possible way still resulted in the same solid conclusion. That these were truly dark days for the world she'd once lived in.
Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody had ordered a 'guard' to accompany her back home to pack. Either bcause there was some reason in his paranoid mind that she might be attacked or because he suspected she was a double-agent of some sort. Julianne wasn't exactly sure which it was. It was a rather nervewracking experience being anywhere near the Auror. Mostly because of the spinning magical eye. Seeing Moody take the eye out for cleaning was enough to send Julianne pratically running out of a room when he so much as asked for a glass of water. Seeing the enchanted eye spinning about madly in said glass of water was no picnic either.
Nymphadora Tonks hadn't been at all obstinate about being assigned as an escort, and she was pleasant enough. She was quite gifted by anyone's standards, it appeared, and the talents of an Animorphamagus came without a curse. An entirely unique girl too, insisting that Julianne call her 'Tonks' instead of Nymphadora. Perhaps a name like Nymphadora was rather off-putting, but most girls would rather be called anything than just 'Tonks'. If those had been Julianne's only choices for names, she would have gotten a legal name change no matter how long it took to be processed at the Ministry. (Being the monument to swift efficiency that it was, the current record for processing speed for minor issues like name changes stood at something around a year and a half. Since one had to stay at the Ministry headquarters for the entire duration of the process of be bumped off the queue, it didn't come as much of a surprise that few people got their names changed in the wizarding world.) As it was, Julianne didn't mind her name all that much, although she occasionally wanted to give Trevan a slap to the head for calling her 'little' or 'dear' Julia.
Getting to the point, she'd waited politely in the living room when Julianne had gone upstairs to pack for a possible extended stay. Julianne had smiled genuinely at seeing the other witch's interest in her Muggle things, like the laptop computer and the ceiling fan. Come to think of it, the staid beiges, tans, and whites she'd decorated in probably weren't seen all that much in the wizarding world either.
Dragging out her old school trunk, she frowned at how much smaller it seemed to her now. Still, it would do since she was definitely not planning to stay long. Just because it would have been rude to keep Tonks waiting for longer than she had to, Julianne tried her hand at magic again. Simple spells, just to pack her clothes quickly but neatly in the trunk. Her wand seemed to be a bit more cooperative than when it'd first been taken back out, leaving half of the clothes folded in the trunk but sending the rest to be strewn in a mess across the floor. Not too shabby for a second try at spell-work. Although it did somewhat defeat her purpose of speeding up the packing, since it did take some time to gather up and fold all the clothes again. She sighed heavily as she considered whether or not she should take the laptop from her living room. Ultimately, she decided against it. Finding a socket for the eletric plug wouldn't be so easy in what seemed quite conclusively to be a wizard-built house. (The permanently stuck painting and Black family tree rendered it useless for anything else anyway, short of burning the whole place down.)
Now what sort of charm could make taking the trunk downstairs an easier and quieter task? "Wingardium Leviosa!" She said with a wave of her wand.
Perhaps she had pronounced it wrong, or maybe her swish and flick maneuvers were more rusty than she thought. It certainly did levitate, but it also moved in the opposite of the desired direction, knocking right into her and sending her to the floor to land in a rather undignified heap in the second-floor hallway. It hadn't hit her too hard but she muttered a string of unladylike expletives under her breath anyway. At least the whole accident hadn't generated too much noise, Tonks wasn't rushing up to see whether or not Julianne had managed to kill herself with a misfired spell.
Things had gone downhill from there. The only thing to be really thankful for was that because of the overabundance of empty rooms, she didn't have to share. Not that Julianne had anything against roommates, after all her Hogwarts years had placed her in a dormitory with four girls who occasionally acted all too much like teenage girls every once in a while but she hadn't ever felt too much desire to eviscerate them. It was just that she wasn't sure she was very ready to be spending too much time with a full-blown witch as a roommate yet. (The fact that the most simple charms and spells were giving her so much trouble didn't help that general intolerance.) Under such living arrangements, if things ever got to be too much, she'd just flee in here and think longingly of the quiet life she had so foolishly left behind, if only for a few days.
Even if she found Trevan's constant inane chatter to be on the side of aggravating sometimes, she always missed him when he was off on business. It was hard to not have a somewhat familiar face around. Remus Lupin was alright, he hadn't explained much but he was relatively calm and predictable when compared to some of the other noticeable personalities that were constantly breezing in and out.
One major disadvantage to the apparent secrecy yet easy accesibility to their current location. People rang the doorbell - quite often, and even if there were no door-to-door salesmen the doorbell was the direct cause of a rather undesirable effect. It woke up the painting of the twisted woman (a thousand times worse than poor Pyrane at her worst state) and she would then commence with ranting anew. Some of the mudblood slander was probably directed to Julianne though, as people of her family tended to marry Muggles or Muggle-born since the Adhlar name was occasionally associated with bad luck of the potentially fatal sort. Being associated with death, even revival from it before it had completed it's work, did wonders for one's reputation.
First day had brought two red-haired boys into the immediate vicinity. Twins they said, not that the two hadn't looked the part. Fred and George Weasley, may there be a plague on both their houses. (On second thought, they're part of the same one.) Julianne had known Weasleys once though, she was sure there had been a William and a Charles Weasley, both of Gryffindor during her school days. She had never met the other one, but after meeting Fred and George she was reasonably sure she didn't ever wish to, if those two were any sort of indicative for what the rest of the family was like.
They'd started out alright, introducing themselves politely with the leisurely air of people who weren't all that busy. Most people who occasionally popped in here at Number 12 often did not have time for such indulgences, and after general introductions would go off on their business much like Trevan had. Both had been dressed in jackets of rather loud green reptile skin of some sort, which didn't match that well with their bright red hair, but they'd had a nice easygoing expression on their very closely matched faces. (Julianne was still a bit put off at how they could wear the skin of some poor creature.) At breakfast, they'd handed her a sweet and in trying to be polite, Julianne had taken a small bite of it.
Shortly thereafter, her nose had started to bleed quite profusely. She'd given out a rather undignified shriek when it had first started, it being far too sudden, something that caused some confusion when everyone currently situated in the house had come to the kitchen, brandishing their wands thinking that one of their number was being attacked. Julianne had been thoroughly embarressed.
The rest of that day had been spent in a panic trying to get the constant nosebleed to stop. It had been rather alarming, to say the least, to see a steady trickle of blood coming out. She'd done everything she could think off, and been desperately trying to calculate how long it would be before she bled to death through the nose. Finally, one of the twins had taken pity and given her something else, another prank sweet to stop it. After eyeing it and the offerer with suspicion, difficult as that was to manage when holding a wad of napkins under your nose, she's eaten it and thankfully the twin hadn't lied. Although because of that incident, Julianne now viewed every bit of food from this place with similar suspicion, a she also heaved a great sigh of relief when Fred and George left for places unknown the next day.
Other introductions had been much less eventful. Moody wasn't that bad, she admitted grudgingly, even if she had to come to the conclusion that too many altercations with forces of darkness hadn't been too easy on his mental health. Tonks was still a very nice person, and the only one to incite a genuine smile or laughter from her. Metamorphmagus powers seemed to be a lot of fun and she used them well. Lupin was still looking like a reasonably level-headed person. Julianne had also been introduced to a matronly woman named Molly Weasley, who'd said that Julianne looked 'a tad peaky' and Mundungus Fletcher who she categorized as being rather odd. ( He'd tried to sell her Ashwinder eggs, for cheap, he declared, but Julianne hadn't been in possession of any wizarding currency, either way she no longer remembered the properties of Ashwinder eggs.) Then Mrs. Weasley had as good as thrown him out, citing as a reason the fact that those were liable to burst into flame at any time.
Yesterday, Trevan had come back for a short stint, and she supposed things had been a middling average from there on out. He'd brought her an assortment of books, saying with a brotherly smirk that he knew how bored she would get, with nothing to do, yet having to sit around and wait. Well, she'd been resigned to waiting until Dumbledore had the time to explain things further. Trevan was right, of course, she had been bored. Meeting too many new people distressed her marginally, and she had taken to hiding in the room she'd been assigned. Although, she noticed with some annoyance, he'd brought her quite the motley assortment from some Wizarding bookstore's bargain-bin selevtion that included many things she wouldn't normally touch out of intellectual snobbery. Gilderoy Lockhart, romance novels that made her blush madly a chapter or two in yet were at some point Witch Weekly bestsellers, and some older edition schoolbooks she remembered all too well. Still, boredom was boredom, and she'd gotten through most of it.
Then there was today, Albus Dumbledore finally had the time to explain things. Finally, Julianne would know why exactly she was going to help out someone who was a convicted criminal and know the whole story behind the current plight of Sirius Black.
- - -
Author's notes: In which we have just found out that while Julianne generally acts very polite, when she's in a less than generous mood her opinion of others suffers. This is moving at about a snails pace, but I haven't ran out of steam yet! Sirius will be brought back soon, around part 9 or so.
Although the more I write, the more far-fetched the dynamics of the actual Veil and soul-chasing become. (By the technicalities set by yours truly, with no amount of twisting can it be remotely possible to pull anyone physically through the Veil, don't we all just love the universal theme of you can do anything if you set your mind to it? That's a major theme of Cursed, whether it spawns a multi-part saga or not, sufficient will begets endless possibility.) I can't resist putting in a typeface. ^_~
I'm not sure if I should include a sort of Gatekeeper in the world beyond the Veil, although it's one that has extremely limited means of communication. (Quote that part without too much spoiling too much. "Far from the angelic old St. Peter of some major Muggle theology, this 'Gatekeeper' mentioned in others' accounts, was a sort of being that was clearly there yet without substantial form." Also, on a slightly unrelated note, are there any people interested in beta-reading? Or who know a source for a beta?
In response to MWPP and Lily, and with gratitude, indeed, to all of my generous reviewers so far, I'm glad you like it so far, and I'm very uncertain as to whether or not there will actually be SBxOC in this, it all depends on how it goes in later parts and when we actually see Sirius returned. As it is, it looks like the best they can do is a platonic friendship with. Also, thanks again for reviewing and I'd obviously love to hear any comments on this chapter too.
- - -
Interlude
Four (Unpleasant) Days With the Order of the Pheonix
- - -
It had been nearly four entire days since Julianne had come to Number 12 Grimmauld Place, and she was beginning to be rather impatient. At least they'd had the decency to let her go home and get some things, as if preparing for an extended stay. That paticular thought had not appealed to her very much, especially in light of the total occurrences of the four days.
Supposedly she was staying over because Dumbledore was much too busy to give her the details on the request to soul-chase for Sirius Black and return him physically from beyond the Veil. Perhaps it was unfair of her to be so unforgiving of a person who had so many more crucial issues on his hands but it was a bit upsetting to be enduring such a disruption in her normally well-ordered life for his polite request.
Judging from the many copies of the past many weeks' Daily Prophet she'd perused through, there was another Great War getting started. Just her luck to have missed out on the short period of peace for the wizarding world that had just been so cruelly shattered by the plans of Lord You-Know-Who and his followers. Considering that her last vivid memories from the wizarding world were of all the horrors the 'Dark Lord' had wrought, especially the indirect effect it had on her cousin Pyrane it wasn't all that surprising that Julianne still winced visibly whenever his name was mentioned. At least it seemed to be a sentiment shared by many here. Although for every person who flinched away at hearing the name, there was one who insisted on saying it at every possible moment.
She remembered enough of what her more politically liberal Ravenclaw friends used to say to know that sometimes it was best to read between the lines of the Daily Prophet. They had written enough misinformation on cursed families (whenever the more earth-shaking current events were coming in too slowly), occasionally her own during the fifteen years she'd lived in that world for her to know that it wasn't always the most reliable source of accurate information. However, reconstructing those articles in any possible way still resulted in the same solid conclusion. That these were truly dark days for the world she'd once lived in.
Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody had ordered a 'guard' to accompany her back home to pack. Either bcause there was some reason in his paranoid mind that she might be attacked or because he suspected she was a double-agent of some sort. Julianne wasn't exactly sure which it was. It was a rather nervewracking experience being anywhere near the Auror. Mostly because of the spinning magical eye. Seeing Moody take the eye out for cleaning was enough to send Julianne pratically running out of a room when he so much as asked for a glass of water. Seeing the enchanted eye spinning about madly in said glass of water was no picnic either.
Nymphadora Tonks hadn't been at all obstinate about being assigned as an escort, and she was pleasant enough. She was quite gifted by anyone's standards, it appeared, and the talents of an Animorphamagus came without a curse. An entirely unique girl too, insisting that Julianne call her 'Tonks' instead of Nymphadora. Perhaps a name like Nymphadora was rather off-putting, but most girls would rather be called anything than just 'Tonks'. If those had been Julianne's only choices for names, she would have gotten a legal name change no matter how long it took to be processed at the Ministry. (Being the monument to swift efficiency that it was, the current record for processing speed for minor issues like name changes stood at something around a year and a half. Since one had to stay at the Ministry headquarters for the entire duration of the process of be bumped off the queue, it didn't come as much of a surprise that few people got their names changed in the wizarding world.) As it was, Julianne didn't mind her name all that much, although she occasionally wanted to give Trevan a slap to the head for calling her 'little' or 'dear' Julia.
Getting to the point, she'd waited politely in the living room when Julianne had gone upstairs to pack for a possible extended stay. Julianne had smiled genuinely at seeing the other witch's interest in her Muggle things, like the laptop computer and the ceiling fan. Come to think of it, the staid beiges, tans, and whites she'd decorated in probably weren't seen all that much in the wizarding world either.
Dragging out her old school trunk, she frowned at how much smaller it seemed to her now. Still, it would do since she was definitely not planning to stay long. Just because it would have been rude to keep Tonks waiting for longer than she had to, Julianne tried her hand at magic again. Simple spells, just to pack her clothes quickly but neatly in the trunk. Her wand seemed to be a bit more cooperative than when it'd first been taken back out, leaving half of the clothes folded in the trunk but sending the rest to be strewn in a mess across the floor. Not too shabby for a second try at spell-work. Although it did somewhat defeat her purpose of speeding up the packing, since it did take some time to gather up and fold all the clothes again. She sighed heavily as she considered whether or not she should take the laptop from her living room. Ultimately, she decided against it. Finding a socket for the eletric plug wouldn't be so easy in what seemed quite conclusively to be a wizard-built house. (The permanently stuck painting and Black family tree rendered it useless for anything else anyway, short of burning the whole place down.)
Now what sort of charm could make taking the trunk downstairs an easier and quieter task? "Wingardium Leviosa!" She said with a wave of her wand.
Perhaps she had pronounced it wrong, or maybe her swish and flick maneuvers were more rusty than she thought. It certainly did levitate, but it also moved in the opposite of the desired direction, knocking right into her and sending her to the floor to land in a rather undignified heap in the second-floor hallway. It hadn't hit her too hard but she muttered a string of unladylike expletives under her breath anyway. At least the whole accident hadn't generated too much noise, Tonks wasn't rushing up to see whether or not Julianne had managed to kill herself with a misfired spell.
Things had gone downhill from there. The only thing to be really thankful for was that because of the overabundance of empty rooms, she didn't have to share. Not that Julianne had anything against roommates, after all her Hogwarts years had placed her in a dormitory with four girls who occasionally acted all too much like teenage girls every once in a while but she hadn't ever felt too much desire to eviscerate them. It was just that she wasn't sure she was very ready to be spending too much time with a full-blown witch as a roommate yet. (The fact that the most simple charms and spells were giving her so much trouble didn't help that general intolerance.) Under such living arrangements, if things ever got to be too much, she'd just flee in here and think longingly of the quiet life she had so foolishly left behind, if only for a few days.
Even if she found Trevan's constant inane chatter to be on the side of aggravating sometimes, she always missed him when he was off on business. It was hard to not have a somewhat familiar face around. Remus Lupin was alright, he hadn't explained much but he was relatively calm and predictable when compared to some of the other noticeable personalities that were constantly breezing in and out.
One major disadvantage to the apparent secrecy yet easy accesibility to their current location. People rang the doorbell - quite often, and even if there were no door-to-door salesmen the doorbell was the direct cause of a rather undesirable effect. It woke up the painting of the twisted woman (a thousand times worse than poor Pyrane at her worst state) and she would then commence with ranting anew. Some of the mudblood slander was probably directed to Julianne though, as people of her family tended to marry Muggles or Muggle-born since the Adhlar name was occasionally associated with bad luck of the potentially fatal sort. Being associated with death, even revival from it before it had completed it's work, did wonders for one's reputation.
First day had brought two red-haired boys into the immediate vicinity. Twins they said, not that the two hadn't looked the part. Fred and George Weasley, may there be a plague on both their houses. (On second thought, they're part of the same one.) Julianne had known Weasleys once though, she was sure there had been a William and a Charles Weasley, both of Gryffindor during her school days. She had never met the other one, but after meeting Fred and George she was reasonably sure she didn't ever wish to, if those two were any sort of indicative for what the rest of the family was like.
They'd started out alright, introducing themselves politely with the leisurely air of people who weren't all that busy. Most people who occasionally popped in here at Number 12 often did not have time for such indulgences, and after general introductions would go off on their business much like Trevan had. Both had been dressed in jackets of rather loud green reptile skin of some sort, which didn't match that well with their bright red hair, but they'd had a nice easygoing expression on their very closely matched faces. (Julianne was still a bit put off at how they could wear the skin of some poor creature.) At breakfast, they'd handed her a sweet and in trying to be polite, Julianne had taken a small bite of it.
Shortly thereafter, her nose had started to bleed quite profusely. She'd given out a rather undignified shriek when it had first started, it being far too sudden, something that caused some confusion when everyone currently situated in the house had come to the kitchen, brandishing their wands thinking that one of their number was being attacked. Julianne had been thoroughly embarressed.
The rest of that day had been spent in a panic trying to get the constant nosebleed to stop. It had been rather alarming, to say the least, to see a steady trickle of blood coming out. She'd done everything she could think off, and been desperately trying to calculate how long it would be before she bled to death through the nose. Finally, one of the twins had taken pity and given her something else, another prank sweet to stop it. After eyeing it and the offerer with suspicion, difficult as that was to manage when holding a wad of napkins under your nose, she's eaten it and thankfully the twin hadn't lied. Although because of that incident, Julianne now viewed every bit of food from this place with similar suspicion, a she also heaved a great sigh of relief when Fred and George left for places unknown the next day.
Other introductions had been much less eventful. Moody wasn't that bad, she admitted grudgingly, even if she had to come to the conclusion that too many altercations with forces of darkness hadn't been too easy on his mental health. Tonks was still a very nice person, and the only one to incite a genuine smile or laughter from her. Metamorphmagus powers seemed to be a lot of fun and she used them well. Lupin was still looking like a reasonably level-headed person. Julianne had also been introduced to a matronly woman named Molly Weasley, who'd said that Julianne looked 'a tad peaky' and Mundungus Fletcher who she categorized as being rather odd. ( He'd tried to sell her Ashwinder eggs, for cheap, he declared, but Julianne hadn't been in possession of any wizarding currency, either way she no longer remembered the properties of Ashwinder eggs.) Then Mrs. Weasley had as good as thrown him out, citing as a reason the fact that those were liable to burst into flame at any time.
Yesterday, Trevan had come back for a short stint, and she supposed things had been a middling average from there on out. He'd brought her an assortment of books, saying with a brotherly smirk that he knew how bored she would get, with nothing to do, yet having to sit around and wait. Well, she'd been resigned to waiting until Dumbledore had the time to explain things further. Trevan was right, of course, she had been bored. Meeting too many new people distressed her marginally, and she had taken to hiding in the room she'd been assigned. Although, she noticed with some annoyance, he'd brought her quite the motley assortment from some Wizarding bookstore's bargain-bin selevtion that included many things she wouldn't normally touch out of intellectual snobbery. Gilderoy Lockhart, romance novels that made her blush madly a chapter or two in yet were at some point Witch Weekly bestsellers, and some older edition schoolbooks she remembered all too well. Still, boredom was boredom, and she'd gotten through most of it.
Then there was today, Albus Dumbledore finally had the time to explain things. Finally, Julianne would know why exactly she was going to help out someone who was a convicted criminal and know the whole story behind the current plight of Sirius Black.
- - -
Author's notes: In which we have just found out that while Julianne generally acts very polite, when she's in a less than generous mood her opinion of others suffers. This is moving at about a snails pace, but I haven't ran out of steam yet! Sirius will be brought back soon, around part 9 or so.
Although the more I write, the more far-fetched the dynamics of the actual Veil and soul-chasing become. (By the technicalities set by yours truly, with no amount of twisting can it be remotely possible to pull anyone physically through the Veil, don't we all just love the universal theme of you can do anything if you set your mind to it? That's a major theme of Cursed, whether it spawns a multi-part saga or not, sufficient will begets endless possibility.) I can't resist putting in a typeface. ^_~
I'm not sure if I should include a sort of Gatekeeper in the world beyond the Veil, although it's one that has extremely limited means of communication. (Quote that part without too much spoiling too much. "Far from the angelic old St. Peter of some major Muggle theology, this 'Gatekeeper' mentioned in others' accounts, was a sort of being that was clearly there yet without substantial form." Also, on a slightly unrelated note, are there any people interested in beta-reading? Or who know a source for a beta?
In response to MWPP and Lily, and with gratitude, indeed, to all of my generous reviewers so far, I'm glad you like it so far, and I'm very uncertain as to whether or not there will actually be SBxOC in this, it all depends on how it goes in later parts and when we actually see Sirius returned. As it is, it looks like the best they can do is a platonic friendship with. Also, thanks again for reviewing and I'd obviously love to hear any comments on this chapter too.