Chapter 3: Watchwolf
"Welcome to Diagon Alley," Helen and Ruby chorused as the archway opened.
"Wow," Marie breathed, staring in awe.
"I remember my first day here," Dad said reminiscently. "That was my reaction too."
"Come on, everyone, there's a lot to do," Mum said, taking Ceddie and Mary Jane each by the hand.
"Oh, Mum, can't we go to WWW first, please?" Ruby begged.
"No, fun comes after work, girls. You need your Hogwarts things first. Then we can go visit those reprobate brothers of mine."
"I'll take Sirius and Jamie to Gringotts," Dad said. "They like the carts, and I know you don't, Gin. Where should we meet you?"
"We'll wait at Madam Malkin's." Mum and Dad kissed good-bye, then Dad set off with the two oldest boys, and Helen, Ruby, and Marie trailed after Mum.
Marie was getting a six-year-old's explanation of Diagon Alley from Evan, who had fallen in love with her five minutes after her arrival at the Den and went everywhere with her. "That's the ice cream place, Florian Fortes... something, it's the best, and that's the Quidditch store, it's my favorite, and that's the bookstore, Mum likes it but I don't, and that's..."
How Marie put up with it, Helen had no idea – she loved her siblings, but Evan's habit of going five minutes without finishing a sentence drove her up the wall. Yet there was Marie, listening and nodding and apparently giving all the right responses, because Evan was smiling and talking even faster.
She'll make a really great nanny. But I wonder if that's all she'll ever do?
"You girls go in," Mum said, stopping outside Madam Malkin's. "I don't want these maniacs running wild in there, and you're old enough to tell them what you need by yourselves."
Helen opened the door, and the girls entered the store.
"You two for Hogwarts, I'm sure," said the plump, friendly-looking witch behind the counter before they could say anything. "Come right on back, we'll get you all fixed up."
Ruby stepped up on the pedestal first, which was fine with Helen. She sat down on one of the comfortable chairs and watched her sister don a long black robe.
That's what I'll look like. Scholarly. Grown-up.
Magical.
The curtain on one of the changing cubicles was shoved aside, and another girl emerged. She had long, straight, reddish-brown hair and skin so fair, it was almost porcelain. Helen knew it was rude to stare, but she couldn't help it.
"This one fits," the girl said to the witch who had obviously been waiting for her, handing her one of the two robes she was carrying. "The other one is too big in the shoulders."
"That's what I thought, love – step right up here, we'll get the length set for you."
The other girl mounted the second pedestal, which Helen hadn't occupied because there had been no one to help her there. "Are you twins?" she asked, looking at Helen and Ruby.
"Yes," the Potters answered in unison.
The girl smiled slightly. "I guess you must be. Going to Hogwarts?"
Ruby nodded. "We're really excited. We want to be Gryffindors. What about you?"
The girl shrugged. "My father would never tell me much about the Houses," she said. "Only that everyone gets Sorted where they belong. So I don't really know. Do either of you play Quidditch?"
"I do," Helen said. "I want to be on the House team next year. I play Chaser. Do you?"
"I've never played much, but I'd want to be a Beater if I'd be anything." The girl turned to allow the witch pinning her robes to get to the other side. "My letter said first-years aren't allowed their own broomsticks," she said, craning her neck to see them as Ruby got down and Helen took her place. "But my dad told me about a boy he knew who got onto the House team in his first year by showing off how good a flyer he was."
"Our dad told us about that too," Helen said quickly, cutting Ruby off. "And he said that boy got in loads of trouble later for doing all kinds of stuff he shouldn't have."
"You're finished, dear," said the witch pinning the other girl's robes. She waved her wand, and a hem appeared around the bottom of the girl's robe, while the pins flew out and arranged themselves neatly in the pincushion. "I'll just do your other two to match, and you can take them up to the front and pay for them there."
"I guess I'll see you on the train, then," the girl said, accepting her three plain black robes from the witch.
"See you," Helen and Ruby said together.
"She was talking about Dad!" Ruby said heatedly as soon as the other girl was out of earshot.
"And you really want everyone to know who our dad is?" Helen returned. "They'll find out soon enough, with him and Mum being teachers – can't we be normal and anonymous for just a little while?"
Ruby sighed, but nodded. "I keep forgetting you didn't grow up with it quite the same way I did," she said. "You were here as much as you could be, but it wasn't the same. I guess I got used to being a little bit famous. You'll get used to it too. It just takes time."
"Thanks." Helen could never be really annoyed with her twin for long.
After Madam Malkin's, they visited all the other boring shops – Flourish and Blotts, the Apothecary, and so many others that Helen lost track. She spent the time thinking about her birthday and the three weeks between then and now.
Dad had been livid about them listening at his office door, and had threatened to Obliviate them all, but they had sworn not to tell anyone what they'd heard, no one, ever, not at all, and in the end he'd let them be. But they had been grounded for two weeks, with double chores. It hadn't been the greatest way to start her new life.
But I did deserve it. I could have left, I could have told Sirius no, I wasn't going to listen. I listened, I got caught, and I took the punishment for it.
And now it was over, so there was no sense worrying any more about it. Although Helen couldn't help wondering if she'd ever meet the mysterious man's daughter, whose name started with a hissing sound, like an S or a soft C...
Finally, when the afternoon was half over, Mum said, "Now you can all go say hello to your cousins."
Sirius was off like a spell before she'd even finished the sentence. "And don't buy more than you can carry!" Mum shouted after him.
Helen and Ruby laughed at their brother's eagerness to get inside the walls of probably the most infamous store in Diagon Alley.
"I know your uncles own the store," Marie said as the girls walked a bit more sedately up the crowded street. "And your aunts work there. Do your cousins?"
"It's how they earn their spending money," Ruby said.
"And they spend most of it in the store anyway," Helen added, making all three girls laugh. "And here we are!"
The storefront was bright blue, with the three interlinked orange W's standing out horrendously. A large sign in the window cautioned:
Shoplifters beware:
WATCHWOLF ON DUTY
"Watchwolf?" Marie asked.
"You'll see," Ruby said. "Come on, let's go in."
The store was large and crowded, with shelves that always looked as if they were going to tip over, but never quite did. A bell jangled as the three girls entered.
"Ah, cousins!" exclaimed Craig Weasley, looking up from the display of fake wands he was restocking. "Come right in, ladies, we have a special today. Ten percent off anything for anyone with one parent surnamed Weasley."
"And what he's not telling you is that our usual family discount is twenty percent," Vanna Weasley added from behind him. Although Craig was Fred's son and Vanna George's daughter, the two squabbled as amiably as any brother and sister, and always had, from the day the newborn Vanna had cried at the sight of a not-quite-one-year-old Craig, making him cry as well.
"So you're bilking us, and that's what makes it special?" Helen demanded, hands on hips.
"No, what's special is that we're up front about it," Craig said. "Usually we just overcharge without telling people."
"I was wondering," Marie said, cutting Helen's indignant reply off, "what's a watchwolf?"
"Ask her yourself," Vanna said. "She's right behind you."
Marie turned and made a small squeaking noise. Helen turned as well, knowing what she would see – an almost full grown gray wolf, sitting in the middle of one of the aisles, regarding Weasleys, Potters, and Elliot with its habitual happily bemused expression.
"It's a real wolf," Marie said shakily.
"No, it's not," Ruby said.
The wolf stood up, reared onto its hind legs, and changed forms.
"Cate!" Marie looked awestruck. "How'd you do that?"
"No one really knows why I can," Cate said mendaciously. "I was born with it." In actuality, of course, she, and the whole of the Potter-Weasley clan, knew perfectly well why she had been born a wolf Animagus. But Marie was still somewhat of a stranger, and new to magic besides. She was handling all the upheavals in her life quite well, Mum and Dad said, but she wasn't to be told anything secret unless they said she could know. And there was no reason she needed to know about Grandpa Remus.
The bell over the door jangled again. "Did a black-haired moron named after a star just run in here, or am I seeing things?" said a blond boy with brilliant blue eyes and a smile to match.
"Hi, James," Helen said, since Ruby seemed unable to speak. "Sirius should be in here somewhere, I don't know where..."
"Hey, ugly idiot!" Sirius launched himself from a nearby aisle at his friend. "When'd you get here?"
"Just now, and you're the ugly idiot," James Black replied, punching Sirius on the shoulder. "Hey, Craig, what's new?"
"I'm already in trouble with Professor Fleming and the year hasn't even started yet."
"I said, what's new."
"Erm, Screaming Spellotape?"
"That'll do – lead me to it."
"You didn't tell me about the Screaming Spellotape," Sirius complained as he followed his cousin and his friend.
"You didn't ask," Craig pointed out.
"Ruby, are you all right?" Marie asked with some concern. Ruby was approximately the same color as her hair.
"She'll be fine," Vanna said with all the authority that being a year older than Marie or Cate and three years older than Helen or Ruby gave her. "She just likes James."
"I do not!"
"You do too."
"Do not!"
"Then why do you blush every time you see him?" Cate challenged.
"I don't!"
"Yes, you do," Vanna said. "And when Sirius brought him home for Christmas, since his parents were going to be away over the holidays, you didn't say a word the entire time unless he was in some other room."
"And you spied on him for hours while Sirius was trying to explain to him how the Floo Network works," Helen recalled. "You like him, Ruby, admit it."
"Oooooh – " Ruby slumped, defeated. "All right, yes, I like him some," she admitted very quietly. "He's nice, he's smart, and he's dead gorgeous. But he's older, and he's my brother's friend. He'd never even look at me."
Cate giggled.
"What?" Ruby demanded.
"Nothing. It just sounds familiar." Cate put on a voice several notes higher than her usual alto tones. "Oh, he's so nice, and smart, and good-looking, and he's famous, but he's my brother's friend and he's older, and he rescued me from the terrible snake..."
"It's not the same as Mum and Dad!"
"Why not?"
Ruby took a breath to speak, paused, and finally let it out with a reluctant whoosh. "All right, maybe it is. But it probably won't end up the same way."
"James and Ruby, sitting in a tree," Marie sing-songed, grinning.
The other girls joined in.
"K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
"First comes love,
"Then comes marriage,"
Ruby was bright red again and starting to shake.
"Then comes a baby in a..."
"STOP IT!" Ruby leapt at Cate, who was closest. Cate jumped back out of the way, tripped over her own feet, and went over backwards, crashing into one of the shelves. She yelped, turned wolf, and hid her head under her paws as Skiving Snackboxes (still one of WWW's biggest sellers after all these years) cascaded down on top of her.
"Serves you right," said Ruby, breathing heavily. "Anyone else want to tease me?"
Cate was just fine, and highly apologetic once she had been extracted from the pile. The mess had been picked up and Helen was trying to decide between a quill that stained the user's fingers red and one that stained them blue when the bell on the door jangled again.
"Hi, Uncle Harry, hi, Aunt Ginny," Vanna said happily. "Are you looking for Helen and Ruby?"
"Hello, Vanna, yes, we are," Mum said. "I just remembered we haven't been to Ollivander's yet, and that's no good, they're going to need wands for school."
"Here I am, Mum," Helen said, stepping out of the aisle with the red-staining quill in her hand. She'd make sure to slip it into Sirius' things before they left. "I'm just going to buy this, and then I'm ready to go."
"I'll be right there," Ruby's voice called from the back of the store. "I'm just deciding lemon or cherry."
"Uh-oh," Dad said. "Lemon or cherry what?"
Helen lost Vanna's answer as she headed for the counter. "That's four Sickles, thirteen Knuts," Craig said, "with your discount, of course. Thank you for shopping Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, have a nice day, and are you planning on giving this to Sirius?"
Helen nodded.
"Let me fix it up for you, then, so he won't notice it." Craig drew his wand and changed the quill to a darker shade of grey. "There, now it looks like the one he bought to give to you."
Helen raised her eyebrows.
"Oops, I shouldn'ta told yeh that," Craig said, with an almost-perfect imitation of Grandpap Hagrid's voice.
Helen laughed. "Don't worry, I won't tell him who told me."
"Four Lemon Freezes," Ruby declared, coming to the counter.
"Ah, excellent choice," Craig said, ringing them up. "Freeze someone's mouth shut. Keeps them from chattering. Is it just a coincidence that you have exactly as many here as you have younger siblings?"
"Craig, this is us," Ruby said, grinning. "When is anything a coincidence?"
"Ah, the Misses Potter," Mr. Ollivander said. "Yes, I thought I would be seeing you two soon enough. Wand hands, please."
Helen and Ruby both held out their right hands, and Mr. Ollivander's tape measure began to take their measurements. He seemed to be choosing wands from the shelves almost at random. Helen hoped he knew what he was doing.
It took several tries, but both girls finally found their matches – Ruby's was ash, unicorn tail hair, nine and a half inches, somewhat whippy, and Helen's elm, dragon heartstring, ten and a half inches, and flexible.
"But I thought we'd be the same," Helen said, feeling oddly disappointed.
"The wand chooses the witch, remember," Mr. Ollivander said. "Even blood siblings are often very different indeed. And I will tell you a secret, young ladies. The trees from which these wands come grow side by side in the forest, with some of their branches intertwining, until it can be hard to tell which branch grew from which tree."
Ruby smiled. "Thank you, sir."
"Thank you," Helen echoed, feeling a bit better.
It doesn't matter what, or who, I was. It matters what, and who, I become.
But deep down, inside, she wondered if she'd ever really be free from the Dursleys.
(A/N: (smiles sheepishly) Er, hi everyone. Don't hurt me, please... because then I won't be able to update for another REALLY LONG TIME... my apologies. (rants at professors)
Anyway...
Lady Cinnibar: I'm so sorry to keep you waiting so long... did you see her? She was there!
Quillian: Oh, I think you can figure him out without too much trouble.
Gyre: No comment. ;-)
gallandro-83: All fixed!
MAndrews: Sorry.
avalon64: You know, I would have, but... never mind, you don't want to hear it.
mello80: I tried, I really did!
Silver Warrior: Yes.
Reflected Dreams: Yes, more – and yes, it was Tonks. (sniffles)
blueJosh: Afraid you'll have to wait and see about that one!
Telos: You're not totally wrong. But I'm not saying which ones you got!
Barkeeper: Not a bad guess, but no, sorry.
Rubber-duckiesofdoom: That is the most awesomest name.
Silvra: Yes, he's one of them.
Wolf's scream: Unfortunately, yes, but I am trying here!
ERMonkey Burner of Cookies: Yes indeed.
jbfritz, ktwesterna, Athena Dumbledore: Thanks!
So, yeah, ATTEMPTING to get back on course and update more often than ONCE A FREAKING MONTH. Sorry, again, and hope you liked it!)