"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."
Films About Ghosts
Chapter 16: The Best Christmas Present
Ariane was a bundle of nerves by the time she got off the train at Platform 9¾, full of thoughts about what Ron's family would think of her. She wasn't sure that Ron had bothered to tell his parents that he was bringing home another person who they had never met. She didn't even know if his parents would like the presents she had picked out for them with Hermione's help: a bright red box of tiny plastic cubes that interlocked called 'Legos' for the father and several skeins of very soft wool for Ron's mother. Her trunk was full of candy for Harry, Ron, and all of Ron's brothers, and on the sly Ariane had bought a very nice used set of books about Animagi, a topic she knew Hermione was keen on.
She needn't have worried. Mrs. Weasley wished her an exuberant Happy Christmas and remarked that Ron had failed to mention how very pretty she was, and Mr. Weasley was a bit like a taller, balder, more serious version of Ron in an equally worn maroon sweater. He shook her hand with a grin, and then they all loaded into a dilapidated van that held all of them (Ariane, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and Ron's brothers Bill and Charlie) and their trunks and animals with no trouble due to a lot of spells.
Ariane had never been in a car before, and thus had never seen how people drove these thousand-pound constructions so haphazardly. After five minutes of imagined near-misses and really near-missed, Ariane put her head between her knees so that she wouldn't have to watch.
"I didn't realize your father got a new car," Harry whispered to Ron behind her. "How did he manage it?"
"Got it for free," Ron replied. "Didn't run at all when he dragged it into the yard. He's been working on it like mad."
"It needs a new muffler," Harry observed. Ariane didn't know what a muffler was, but she suspected that the lack of a good one was what made the van sound like a growling animal. It may have just been the light, but Ariane could have sworn that the van did a complete 360-degree turn. She clapped a hand over her mouth.
Ginny leaned over next to her. "It's alright, we're nearly home," she said reassuringly, then sat back so that she wouldn't get whiplash as Mr. Weasley fought with the old vehicle.
To occupy herself, Ariane listened to the whispered conversations going on behind her and in the front seats.
Behind her, Hermione, Ron, and Harry were discussing someone she'd never met.
"—surely he'll come for Christmas, since he's realized that Fudge was wrong the whole time," Hermione whispered soothingly.
"You don't know him. I think he'd rather drink bubotuber pus than admit he was wrong," Ron lamented. "I don't know. George was right. We're well shut of him."
"He's still your brother," Hermione lectured him in an undertone.
"Your mum still thinks he's coming?" Harry asked quietly.
"She's made him a sweater and everything."
"But did Percy send her a letter or something? To let her know if he's coming or not?"
"Nothing. She still thinks he'll come," Ron grumbled.
Ariane lurched forward as Mr. Weasley turned right very quickly and caught the end of a worried conversation between Mrs. Weasley and Bill, Ron's eldest brother.
"—He's not still depressed about Sirius, is he?" Bill asked, forehead furrowed.
"No, the dear, he's still very sad if anyone mentions his name, but he's not in that state he was last summer," Mrs. Weasley replied with a fond glance over her shoulder. "When Ron asked me if he could invite that lovely little girl home for Christmas I thought he was doing it on Harry's behalf, but he seems to treat her just like Hermione."
"Mum," Bill warned, "Don't meddle. It never comes to any good."
Ariane felt like adding that she was hardly little and nearly a whole inch taller than Harry, but it would mean that they would realize she could hear everything they were saying. She didn't want to start her holiday with the Weasley's branded as an eavesdropper.
The van rumbled up an unpaved road and Ariane sat up, risking a look around her. The Weasley house lay in front of her, a jumble of rooms piled around and on top of each other like building blocks, with several chimneys perched crookedly on various rooftops. It looked like a picture, and Ariane told Ginny so. "It's charming," she said enthusiastically.
Ginny made a face. "You probably won't think it's so charming after spending a week living in it. It's a mad old house."
"At least it isn't boring," Ariane responded fairly. "Too much peace and quiet could drive a person insane."
It was probably this attitude that held Ariane together through the next two days. The Weasley house was full to the brim and couldn't have held any more human interaction without someone taking out a wall. She met Ron's twin brothers for the first time the day after her arrival and couldn't tell them apart at all; on their account she spent a full five minutes completely immobile thanks to a Paralyzing Pastille that nobody had told her about. Fred or George apologized profusely for it, but it was clear that they had run out of test subjects in their family. Ariane didn't touch anything she hadn't served herself after that.
By Christmas Eve, the house was groaning at the seams with friends and family. Ariane shared a small room with Ginny, Hermione, and occasionally Tonks and considered that her most private time of day, because after going downstairs she was surrounded by eight Weasleys, Hermione, Harry, Remus Lupin (who was very nice despite his lycanthropy), a few Aurors that dropped by after their shifts at work, Professor McGonagall (though she didn't stay long), Charlie's wife Aurelia and one-year-old son, Jerome; a smelly old crook by the name of Mundungus, some friends of the family that Ariane didn't know by name, and once, very briefly, Professor Snape. He hadn't stayed long enough to shake the snow off his coat, but his presence seemed to be peculiarly significant to the Weasleys.
"It's nearly as bad as having Malfoy here, perched next to the Christmas tree," Ron said later that day. He, Hermione, Harry, and Ariane were keeping a collective eye on Jerome, who had a knack for eating the most unusual and hazardous things within reach. Jerome was very loud, very cute, and very redheaded, and his favorite thing to try and bite was Crookshanks' long bushy tail.
"What makes your family hate the Malfoys so much?" Ariane asked. "I mean, I know that Draco is a posh git, but what about the rest of the family?"
"Lucius Malfoy is a Death Eater," Harry told her, "And Narcissa is as good as one. They have a grudge against the Weasleys because they aren't trying to stamp out Muggles."
Ariane rolled her eyes. "A whole family of posh gits." Her fingers twined in her short hair. It had grown from her awful pixie cut to an odd, earlobe-length mop of silver curls that made her look like a sheepdog. Jerome took notice and tried to grab a chunk of it, but Ron foiled him.
"So who's actually coming for Christmas?" Hermione asked Ron, carefully pulling her own hair out of Jerome's reach. "Everyone who's here today?"
"Mostly," Ron replied. "I think most of the Order—" he broke off and shot a look at Ariane.
"I know what it is," Ariane told him in a bored tone, "But I've kept it to myself."
"Which one of us did you lift it off of?" Harry asked, giving her a piercing look that she avoided.
"It was an accident," she muttered. "I was taking notes in Transfiguration and it just slipped in." She shot Hermione an apologetic glance.
"It's all right, since it's you," Hermione reassured her. "And since you weren't really trying to snoop—unlike some people—it's perfectly fine." She raised her eyebrows at Harry, who had the grace to look ashamed.
"What were you snooping for?" Ariane asked him curiously. When he didn't answer right away, she applied some mental pressure.
He glared at her. "Don't do that," he complained. "I was trying to see what they wanted for Christmas."
Ariane laughed aloud, which made Harry throw one of Mrs. Weasley's knitted pillow shams at her. She ducked and it hit Nymphadora Tonks in the back of the head, which launched a short and furious pillow fight that ended when Mrs. Weasley shrieked at them all from the kitchen. There was no fear that she would reach them through the crowded living room, but in the interest of a happy Christmas they decided to stop.
Giggling (or, in Harry and Ron's case, snickering), the four of them exchanged gift ideas for the more obscure members of the household (nobody really knew what to get for Fred or George, and Ariane suspected that they would receive enough candy that Christmas to open a sweets shop). It was idyllic until someone realized that there was always an Auror posted outside the Burrow to make sure that no Death Eaters joined the Christmas party.
Ariane knew by the expression on Harry's face that he blamed himself for bringing trouble to his friend's family, but she couldn't really say anything—Harry would probably accuse her of reading his mind. She shrugged it off and hoped that Harry would stop looking so troubled sooner rather than later.
Ariane had a nightmare that night. She was running through a forest in the dark of night, branches tearing at her arms and clothes, and she could hear the people—or creatures—chasing her. They were breathing heavily and harshly, like beasts, and sometimes when she glimpsed them in her frequent looks behind her they looked like they had horns.
She remembered the legend of the Minotaur and ran faster, her heart beating too furiously, dripping with icy sweat that burned her cuts and scrapes. Her pursuers increase their speed too, until one of them was running alongside her easily, watching her from within a cowl, faceless and cold. Ariane gasped for breath and lengthened her stride again.
Something behind her screamed long and shrill, like a dying animal, and Ariane sat dead upright in bed, her short curls absolutely soaked with sweat, her breath coming raggedly as though she had really been running. "It was a dream," she murmured to herself in the dark. "Just a dream."
But she had never had ordinary dreams, not since she'd been brought back from the dead. She shivered.
"Only a dream," she told herself firmly. Ariane punched her pillow and lay back down, but it was a long time before she slept again.
Christmas dawned bright and crisply cold. A foot-thick layer of snow greeted Ariane outside Ginny's window when she ran to it. From the floor above she heard Jerome's already-unmistakable morning noises, along with some thick grunts from Charlie as he attended to his son.
"Happy Christmas!" she called into Hermione's ear, then pounced on Ginny's feet.
"Damn it, Ariane, open your presents and leave us alone," Ginny moaned into her pillow, but she sat up right away and surveyed her presents (and Ariane's) with a critical eye. "I think Mum may have found the time to knit you a Weasley sweater."
Ariane crept back onto her bed (there wasn't enough floor space to stand comfortably). The biggest, bulkiest package was indeed from Mrs. Weasley, and it was a long scarf knitted in all sorts of colors, predominantly green and red. Ariane wrapped it around her head and shoulders and found it warm and not at all scratchy. She received candy from Ron; a book entitled Occlumency and Legilimency for Practical Purposes from Harry, and a stack of wizard comic books from Tuyet that must have come in the night. Daphne had given her a small bottle of petal-pink nail polish, but a larger and more mysterious bottle came from Hermione, Fred, and George. Surprised to see the strange combination of names on the gift tag, Ariane asked Hermione, "What's this?"
"You have to drink it and see," Hermione said with a mysterious grin. "Fred and George invented it, and I bought some specially made for you."
"I made a personal vow never to eat or drink anything from Fred and George after my stint as statuary," Ariane replied, looking at the liquid inside the blue bottle with misgivings.
"It's not from Fred and George, it's from me. And Ginny, technically, but I forgot to put her name on the tag." Hermione unwrapped the books on Animagi and squealed. "Excellent! Thanks Ariane!"
"You're quite welcome," she replied.
Ginny pulled a thick blue sweater over her head, shaking her red hair out over the collar. "I see that Mum has once again captured bitter irony with knitting. Nice scarf, Ariane." They shared a laugh over the scarf, which did indeed point out Ariane's switch from Slytherin to Gryffindor.
"I will get both of you if this gives me boils or something foul," Ariane swore, then uncorked the little flagon and downed it. It tasted pleasantly of strawberries, but had no effect as far as Ariane could see. She flexed her fingers to make sure she wasn't freezing up or turning funny colors, then felt her face to check for boils. Hermione and Ginny were watching her closely as well.
"Nothing's happening," Ariane said after a minute. Ginny's face suddenly contorted as though she were trying not to laugh, and Hermione's eyes widened appreciatively. "What?" Ariane demanded. "What's happening?" She felt her face once more, up to the headband she used to keep her short curls out of her face, and found—hair. And lots of it.
She vaulted off her camp bed in a single spectacular leap that shook the floor and planted herself in front of Ginny's mirror. To her delight, the curls that a minute ago had barely reached her chin hung in silver spirals to her shoulders. And they were still growing, curving down like staircases, helixes and double helixes of hair. When the growth slowed and stopped a minute later, Ariane once more possessed silver curls down to her elbows.
Hermione squeaked in surprise as Ariane, who usually avoided physical contact, tackled her in a massive bear hug. "Thank you so much," Ariane told her. "This has got to be the best Christmas present I've ever gotten."
"We debated getting you a wig," Ginny said dryly. "I had my vote in for something floor-length and jet black."
"Oh, shut up Ginny, I'll hug you too," Ariane giggled, frog-hopping over to Ginny's bed and knocking her over in her glee. "I'm never ever cutting my hair again!"
Which, she decided after trying to put it up without success, might have been a stupid thing to promise. Frustrated with her lack of hair-styling abilities, Ariane braided her hair and tied it off with a length of ribbon from Mrs. Weasley's gift. Hermione said it looked festive; Ginny said that it made Ariane look like a Puritan. Some explanation was required as to what a Puritan was, but Ariane had to agree with Ginny in the end, and was feeling quite self-conscious by the time the three girls made it downstairs to breakfast.
"Happy Christmas!"
"Good Lord, where did you get that hair Ariane?"
"She looks female! Halleluiah!"
"Fred!"
"I'm not Fred, Mum."
"George!"
"Mum!"
"Does the jumper fit all right, Ginny?"
"It fits perfectly. Thanks Mum."
"You're very welcome, dear. Arthur, put those away."
"I should tell you, Molly, these Legos things are brilliant."
"Arthur!"
"Molly!"
"Charlie, watch out!"
"Get that thing away from Jerome!"
"Happy Christmas!"
"I'm hungry."
"Me too."
"We're all hungry, so stop chatting and sit down!"
"Hullo, have I missed anything?"
"Tonks!"
"Aurelia! I haven't seen you in hours!"
"Happy Christmas!"
"Oy Tonks, is Kingsley coming?"
"I don't know, he might be working. Remus, how are you?"
"Very well, thanks."
"Moon not troubling you?"
"Not for another eight days or so."
"Angharad isn't coming, is she?"
"Ye gods, I hope not. She's a step below Satan."
"Ron!"
"Hermione, it's true."
"Watch it, Ginny!"
"Bill, watch where you're shoving plates!"
"Catch him!"
"Gotcha! Jerome, go sit with your dad."
"Thanks Ariane."
"No disturbances of an unnatural sort, are there?"
"Happy Christmas to you too, Alastor."
"Ha! That's what you may think, but in the past I—"
"All right everyone, find a seat or prop yourself against the wall."
"Yes, here comes Molly's excellent breakfast."
"Finally!"
"Ron!"
"Er...am I late?"
A shocked silence spiraled as every one of the people crowded into the kitchen turned to stare dumbly at the young man who had just come in through the front door. He was tall, like Bill and Ron; with a darker version of red hair that was more like Ginny's than anyone else's. His hair was curly like Charlie's, and the glasses that perched on his nose were nearly identical to his father's. The sweater he wore under his coat was unmistakably a Molly Weasley creation, and his long, freckly arms were full of neatly wrapped presents. He was clearly a Weasley, but something about how he held himself was unlike the rest of his family.
"Percy?" Mrs. Weasley whispered faintly.
It was a very awkward moment. Ariane got a strong impression that Percy had done something to make himself unwelcome in this cheery household, though she couldn't imagine what it could be.
"Hello," Percy replied.
"What are you doing here?" asked Fred in a rude tone. Mrs. Weasley shot him a look but Fred squared his shoulders stubbornly.
"I was given the day off work," Percy returned just as obstinately, "and I guess I've finally wised up that Christmas is supposed to be about family." He shifted uncomfortably and one of the small packages tumbled off the top of his armful. Aurelia, used to Jerome's habits of flinging things around, caught it expertly. She peered at the long package without any sign of discomfort. "It's for you two," she told the twins, her pale face expressionless as she tossed it down the table.
George caught it and glared at the tag, then at Percy. "Don't try—"
"I'm not trying to buy you off," announced Percy patiently. "Open it." A small smile flickered around his too-serious face.
Still looking irritable, George rippled off the paper and unfolded the envelope inside. "Hey!" he half-shouted in surprise. "These are blank patents!"
"What on earth for?" Mrs. Weasley asked Percy.
"For their inventions—the joke stuff. Other manufacturers will copy it if it isn't patented."
Fred counted through the sheets of paper. "Five blank patents. That's worth at least fifty Galleons," he stated expertly.
A silence stretched, as though Percy were waiting for thanks, but just when it looked as though the twins would thank him he turned to the other members of his family and handed things out. The largest (and most oddly shaped) package went to Mr. Weasley, the second largest went to Ron, and a round, soft package was passed all the way back to Mrs. Weasley. Bill and Charlie were a bit warmer to Percy than the rest of the family and took their gifts with smiles and thanks.
Mr. Weasley held up a large metal object that looked far too oddly shaped to be any use to anyone. "What's this?" he asked his son.
"A new muffler for your car, Dad," Percy called down the table. Mrs. Weasley was sitting in a kitchen chair with what looked like her first set of brand new robes in years and tears in her eyes. Ron had just unwrapped a sleek black box with the words 'Broom Care Kit' stamped in smart silver print on the side. He was apparently beyond words. Of the family, Ginny was the only one who hadn't gotten a gift from Percy. She looked undecided about her estranged brother's new attitude.
"Hold on a moment," Percy murmured to Ginny. Fishing in the pockets of his overcoat, he pulled out what appeared to be a handful of cotton batting. It sat motionless in the palm of his hand for a moment, then a bright pink paw stretched out and a moment later a tiny white kitten stood yawning on Percy's hand.
Ginny melted entirely. Ariane had known that she had a soft spot for cats of all sorts, but she hadn't realized how much Ginny adored kittens until then. Within minutes she had christened the kitten Rupert and it had adopted her. It curled up in her lap and went to sleep, its miniscule pink claws kneading her trousers contentedly.
"My goodness, the food will be stone cold!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed suddenly, jumping up and rushing towards the stove. Tonks looked utterly horrorstruck. She'd been holding herself back for ages, waiting to eat but at the same time realizing the moment happening between Percy and his family.
"Sit down, Percy," Mr. Weasley ordered matter-of-factly. He might as well have said 'apology accepted'. Percy squeezed in between Aurelia and Bill and everyone started passing plates and baskets full of food that, despite the delay, was steaming hot and looked excellent. Ariane helped herself to toast, jam, and some sort of sweet roll. Ginny and Hermione spent ten minutes picking apart the pomegranate that Hermione had gotten for Christmas from her former boyfriend, Krum.
Ariane tried a pomegranate seed and made a face. "It's so sour!" she coughed, spiting the seed into a napkin. "Disgusting." Hermione and Ginny laughed.
Percy, who until that moment hadn't really seen Ariane, blinked across the table at her. "Do I know you?" he asked, passing a dish of baked apples to Charlie.
"I doubt it," Ariane said frankly. "I've only just moved here."
"To Hogwarts?"
"Yes."
"What year are you in?" Percy queried. "Sixth? Which House?"
"Yes. I'm in Gryffindor now, but I was in Slytherin before then because"—she caught herself before she could say 'because my brother was Salazar Slytherin'—"one of the teachers thought I would make a good Slytherin."
Percy's eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. "Apparently you were a terrible Slytherin." The light reflected off his glasses, hiding his eyes. Ariane suddenly wanted to know what color they were very much.
"Yes, I think I may have been the worst one to date," she replied lightly, piling jam on her toast and sprinkling sugar on top of it until it was gritty.
She took a huge bite just as Percy asked, "What's your name? I didn't catch it." Ariane contemplated her possible courses of action: spitting the toast onto the floor or into a napkin—no napkins in sight—or swallowing it and possibly choking to death on the bite.
Ginny took a break from grinning helplessly at Rupert and said, in a voice that didn't entirely lack irritation with her older brother, "It's Ariane, Percy."
Looking back, it was at this moment that everything changed.
Percy suddenly had an epiphany. When he had come into the crowded, noisy kitchen full of heat and talk and motion, it had taken him only a second to see the slight fair girl seated at the end of the table next to his sister. At first he had thought that it was simply the contrast between Ginny and this strange young woman that had made him notice her: Ginny was short and sturdy with hair like dark copper wire, where the girl was taller, slimmer, and had silky-looking silver hair. When he'd sat down, he'd had the childish urge to reach out and pet it, as Charlie's son wanted to do, to see if it felt as nice as it looked. The more he watched her, out of the corners of his eyes or directly, he felt as though he knew her. When she tasted the tart pomegranate seeds, he had known that she wouldn't like it, because she hated sour things. How did he know that? Percy could have bet his job at the Ministry that he'd never met anyone with that sort of hair before, or that peculiar way of smiling and darting her eyes to one side—but he did know her, as though he had been a very small child when they'd last met. Percy would have recognized that smile anywhere. But then Ginny had done something extraordinary. She had stopped cooing over the kitten—Rupert; she'd named it Rupert—and spoken the girl's name.
Ariane.
It was though he were remembering a dream all in a flash, another life rushing blurrily before his eyes as though the one he had lived up until that point was dying. Percy didn't much care if it did disappear forever, because he knew that he'd been living his whole life looking for Ariane. And here she was, sitting across from him in his mother's kitchen eating what seemed to be sugar lumps and bread, her hair falling out of her braid to spiral around her face and hang in her eyes—purple velvet eyes that he would gladly drown in given the chance.
Percy shook himself and pushed his glasses up his nose. He was a rational person; he had always thought that love at first sight was the most ridiculous fantasy invention every dredged into existence by corny romance novels. This wasn't really love at first sight, it was more abstract than that. Percy almost thought that he might have always loved her; from the moment he'd had clear, comprehensible feelings. The problem with that love was that it had never had an object, and he'd been searching twenty years of life (or was it longer? It felt like an eternity) for the object of his affections. And here she was, a few feet away, chatting animatedly with Aurelia, smiling that close-lipped, darting smile.
But—and now the thought hit him like a sack of wet cement—did she love him? Percy's heart, which he had thought was paralyzed by work and school and rules, twisted painfully in his chest. He actually rubbed his ribs as though he could sooth a hurt that wasn't physical.
God, he thought, if she doesn't love me—I might die. That idea was so hopelessly melodramatic that he nearly snorted aloud. Percy was not at all melodramatic, if anything he thought of himself as a bit serious. The thought of not being loved in return was enough to make him want to be corny and thespian, to quote suicide speeches and Shakespeare. It scared him more than a little, but he relished the feeling of risk. That emotion, risk-taking, was at least something he'd done before.
"Percy, are you feeling all right?" his mother asked from down the table. "You look a bit flushed."
"Bit of heartburn," Percy said, and laughed quietly to himself. If they only knew what had caused the burning in his heart. Finding Ariane was without a doubt the best Christmas present he'd ever had.
Ariane, however, had not had any such revelation. She had, of course, noticed that Percy was looking at her when he didn't think she was looking at him. And she had noticed that he was behaving rather strangely, as though he were having a passionate internal argument with himself. A thinly veiled red flush kept creeping up under his glasses, and then vanishing slowly, and occasionally one of his hands would make a sharp movement, as though he were physically punctuating his mental conversation.
Ginny reluctantly agreed to let Ariane hold Rupert. He was a feather's weight in her hands, and only when she ran her forefinger down his back did she feel the bones that must support that amazing growth of white fur. Rupert purred noisily and nudged her hand with a pale pink nose, his fluffy tail waving high in the air. Ginny cooed at him besottedly. Ariane barely suppressed an eye roll. She liked cats quite a lot, but she didn't lose her head completely like some people—Hermione or Ginny, for example.
Across the table, Percy's face echoed her thoughts almost exactly. Still turned towards Ginny in a display of attention, Ariane glanced sidelong at Percy and smiled companionably.
The flush returned under the rims of his glasses, worse than ever. It highlighted all his orangey freckles, and as she continued to look at him she saw a tiny round scar on the bridge of his nose, half hidden under the nosepiece of his glasses—a nose rather like Ron's, but Percy's was only a little long, where as Ron's was nearly a probe. The scar looked especially white when his face was so red. In fact, he had several of the miniscule round scars on his face, invisible except when he was blushing.
BAM.
Ariane tipped off the bench she'd been sitting on and hit the floor with a smack that shook the house. Ginny shrieked and grabbed Rupert away from her, and Harry and Hermione helped her up. Ariane could see them laughing, but it was like someone had turned the sound off inside her head. For one blinding moment she realized something she'd suspected was true.
And then her mind went utterly blank for an instant. For a terrifying moment it was just as though she'd reawakened in her tomb and was just rediscovering the sensation of breathing. White fog spiraled behind her eyelids and filled her brain, leaving nothingness.
"Ariane, you must be dead clumsy," Harry said, pinching her hard on the arm where no one would see. The sharp pain and the familiar voice pulled her back into the present day.
"I don't know what it was," she replied truthfully. "I guess I was halfway to an epiphany and got lost." Ariane picked up her toast and peered across at Percy and Charlie. "Sorry about that. You two are brothers, then? Who's older?"
Percy tried not to look too disappointed. She didn't recognize him after all, even though he had been so sure that she had noticed him in the same way he had noticed her. Damn it all.
Well, she didn't recognize him yet. Percy dug into a pile of potatoes with renewed energy. He would just have to give her another couple of chances, that was all.
Author's Note: Aha! Yes, Laramy has been revealed—but Ariane doesn't recognize him yet. Curiouser and curiouser. Chapter 17 is currently...er...not yet started, really right now it's just a fragile shell of ideas with no filler. So the next update should be in a couple weeks, barring illness, writers block, and excessive school projects. Review if you read.
PS. Nestle, your review made me smile. Brightened a rainy Saturday. The song is called 'Mrs. Potter's Lullaby' and it's not particularly well known. It should be on the Counting Crows CD This Desert Life, but it's fairly easy to find if that's not one of the CD's you've got.