January 4, 1997
I have been good at keeping up with my journaling over the last several months. Nothing exciting. Reports on my day to day life, my opinions on various news articles that I had taken from the paper about the war, alongside sections that were just me waxing poetic about Percy - Which I immediately hid with a concealing charm because I managed to embarrass myself. If anyone ever finds and unspells my journal I better be dead because I will die of shame!
Or change my name and go to Australia.
It's the scariest place I can think of.
I mean, platypuses live there and they're just… Cute but unnatural.
I had to stop thinking. Really, my thoughts were generally ridiculous.
I was about to go into Knockturn Alley with a proud, prickly werewolf who loved my brother despite the catlike personality shared by the pair. I had to be alert. On my guard.
Nothing could go wrong tonight.
The hair on my arms stood up and my heart threatened to beat free of my chest. I was going to see my brother for the first time in six years! It was like a dream. The darkness of Knockturn Alley seemed to beckon me with promises of what the future would be. A dinner with my brother, perhaps a late holiday celebration? Oh, what would we talk about? I didn't want to immediately put my seeing someone in his lap, he has been gone for six years after all and has no right to be protective or obnoxious.
A distinctive click of iron on stone from behind me caught my attention.
I was several inches taller than Thalia, but something in the way she carried herself gave her the air of a giant. It could make me envious, this ability to call attention and keep it, not from beauty, but from conviction and ferocity. Thalia was a woman who could lead if people would look past her… condition.
"I wasn't sure you would show up."
"I'm not a coward."
"Heh," Thalia's amused grin was predatory and seemed to gleam despite the dark of the late evening. "Could have fooled me."
I felt my jaw set in annoyance. Thalia was such an arrogant creature at times.
"Shall we be off then? I have to meet with a supplier before I take you to the Tunnels."
"I thought we were going to Knockturn Alley?" I followed Thalia as she limped down into Knockturn Alley, her cane tapping on the cobblestone as she pulled the hood of her cloak over her head.
"We are, but the Tunnels are our final destination. Pull your hood up and don't talk to anyone. Remember what I said in my letter?"
That I was a pretty target. That many people here were dangerous. That the rest were desperate and I would stand out and be remembered if I spoke up at all due to my still heavy accent.
It was like the Byrgen House all over again.
"Yes. I remember." I adjusted my cloak, pulling my hood forward to better hide my face and fixing the dingy gray robes I had gotten from a secondhand shop last week for this excursion. I had been told to be inconspicuous, that my usual attire made me look like a Ministry official and that was not acceptable in the places we would be going tonight.
"Good. Stay close to me." She hobbled into the alley with me close behind.
It grew dark quickly as we descended away from the lights of Diagon Alley and became hidden to the view of the stars. The street was cold and dark, full of shifty figures that lurked in the shadows, clad in heavy cloaks and whispers of things I had no understanding of, matters dark and dangerous.
I was not sure I would be able to tell anyone about this, Lucinda and Tavish would wring my neck. Misty and Zara would throw me out the window of their apartment like a quaffle. Percy… Well, I was not sure how he would react if I told him about this. He might end this very new relationship or fall to the floor stone dead. Frankly, I did not like any of these presented options, so it would be best to never mention the specifics of this to another living soul.
I would come up with something to satisfy Lucinda and force Alex to agree to it before he saw her again.
There was something to be said for little white lies that truly did not hurt anybody.
Thalia proved herself to be an exceptional guide through the twisting street of dingy shops that sold a manner of unusual things that I presumed to be dark in nature and intent. A man who was twisted like a tree sat on the step outside of a shop called Drakes and watched us pass with hard eyes that pierced through me with a cold dread. I rested my fingertips on my wand, waiting for the whistling noise that would alert me to danger I could not see in front of me. My wand remained silent and I felt myself relax slightly.
I was frightened, but there was no threat to me at present.
We passed a small group of hags, gossiping together in the dark with sharp teeth and customary warts on their faces and hands. One was barefoot despite the winter weather, the four toes customary to her species on full display despite the cold as she warmed them by a small jar of fire.
"The Tunnels are down this alley here." Thalia pointed down a thin, damp alley that barely had enough room for us to pass through one at a time. It sloped down to a place far darker where I could see only the barest outline of a door.
Ugh. Creepy.
"Is there another way?"
"There is, but this one will take us right into the Undercroft." Thalia stepped forward and squeezed herself into the passage, appearing more stuffed than I anticipated. "C'mon!"
"Undercroft?" I asked as I squeezed myself in behind her, shimmying along the walls that pressed against my shoulders as we moved. The close walls kept me from sliding down on whatever muck was under my feet. There was no answer from Thalia until she reached the door at the end of the passage and pushed it open with her cane and strolled inside as if she owned the place. I continued to follow, an immense relief of feeling free of the compressing walls that I could feel closing around me as if to keep me in this place through entrapment.
Thalia tapped the bricks in a steady rhythm and pattern with her cane before tapping the lone stone head of a wizard with a long beard and a chipped nose.
"Password?" The statue croaked, its voice grainy with a lack of use.
"Tombstone."
The statue closed, its eyes and the blank wall opened to reveal a set of twisting stairs that led deeper into an oppressive darkness that closed my throat in dread and excitement.
Thalia gave a mocking bow as if she were a stage performer, "After you."
I lit my wand and stepped into the darkness, allowing it to swallow me on what could easily be my descent into hell.
The stairs creaked and groaned with each step, making me wince and mutter prayers for the first time in ten years. Don't let me fall through the stairs, it's a long way to the bottom. I'll find a reputable charity to donate to if I can see my brother tonight. Please let this turn out right for once.
After what felt like an eternity my feet hit something solid and I released the breath I had been unconsciously holding. I turned to give Thalia an extra bit of light as she lumped down the last few stairs with her usual, unfazed expression as she brushed her fly away hairs back behind her ears.
Thalia pointed down the tunnel where there was light at the end that echoed with elated shouts and cries of excitement.
"Welcome to the Undercroft."
"How is all of this under London?"
"London is a very old city, it's been destroyed and rebuilt many times. It's full of secrets because we keep rebuilding on the ashes."
"So, this is an old part of the city then? Like the catacombs in Paris?"
"Right! A subterranean underground for people who tire of judgment. If you need anything the Ministry can't find out about, it's here." Thalia froze, seemingly remembering who she was talking to.
"I do not care what you all do in your free time. I have no desire to attain clout in that way. Your secret is safe with me just like your other one."
Thalia nodded, turning to assess me with new eyes as we stepped into the light.
The roar of the crowd became overwhelming as we entered the space. The tunnel we entered through closed behind us as if it had never been there at all. I found myself looking down upon an arena in a medium sized pit where illegal duels were taking place for the entertainment of the crowd. A display of flashing lights made the cold stone of the room almost warm and inviting with the crowd of fifty roaring encouragement to the participants that sounded of continuous white noise to my ears.
The woman duelist moved her wand in a manner that was elegantly aggressive, fast and certain, the very manner that Lucinda had been trying to instill in me for months. She avoided a blood boiling hex with a quick turn, retaliating with a flock of canaries that burst from the tip of her wand, blinding her enemy with the sheer number she had produced before hitting him with a stunner to the chest. The witch held her wand aloft in victory as the crowd truly erupted in crows of triumph and I found myself swept away, applauding her cunning victory.
"Alex won't be here for an hour yet and I believe I see my supplier in that nook over there." Thalia pointed away from the arena towards something on the other side of the crowd. It took me a moment to see what she was pointing at, a collection of small stalls with curtains draped over the entrances while items on jars were on display on small tables in front to entice visitors. "C'mon, Shaw's a creep, but he sells things I can't get legally for my potions."
Thalia took off at an energetic limp and nudged her way through the crowd that was beginning to amble away from the arena until the next match, a bookie calling out for fresh bets on the next match as he dolled out the winnings to the lucky few.
It was a small nook, the kind of thing I would label a shack with its heavy covers and dark interior. I was ushered inside quickly before I could ask Thalia if she had the right place.
While Thalia spoke with her supplier, a man called Shaw who had an assortment of plants, I had been granted permission to wander around his shop to see his wares. It was an odd place, tight and cramped with an assortment of plants that I recognized to be heavily regulated by the Ministry of Magic for reasons varying from dangerous to being dangerous cross breeds that had not been approved by the import office yet, or ever.
Though, Shaw also had something else of interest.
The snake was large, almost five feet long with scales in varying shades of orange and brown, trapped in a cage that allowed the three heads to pop out from between the bars to flash their fangs. I watched the snake closely while Thalia spoke with the shop owner. The six glimmering yellow eyes held my attention as if I was hypnotized, I had never seen a runespoor before and I never expected to see one with all three heads intact, it was common for the left and center heads to grow tired of the cynical head and bite it off. They would live for a time after this action, but cynic offered the council the other two heads, the planner and the visionary, a grounded base to stop them from doing stupid things.
It seemed a metaphor for human nature in a way.
Thalia was speaking quietly to the shop owner, I disliked him more as time went on. He tended to leer in my direction, eyes moving over me slowly as if I were a piece of meat.
'We should escape this place,' the center head spoke, it's hiss commanding and vibrant. 'We could return to the forest.'
The left head spoke next, its hiss quiet. 'We need to take the keys.'
'Fool!' The right head sounded gravelly, like an old man who was hard to surprise. 'We would need hands for that to work!'
The left head whipped around to face the right head with narrowed yellow eyes while the center head followed suit with an equally peevish expression. 'You've never had nothing good to say in any situation!'
'Such is my nature. Yours is one of false hopes and airy ideas.'
I looked back at Thalia and the shopkeeper who were deeply engrossed in their discussion about ingredients in the makeshift storeroom while Thalia continued to barter.
The left head spoke, a cool intent in its words. 'Maybe we could do something if we were two instead of three?'
Oh I did not want to see a murder today!
"Perhaps I can help?" Parseltongue felt foreign and strange on my tongue, like a coat that was too small and too big all at once. Like it was a second skin that was itching with the need to shed for whatever new form lay underneath.
I had not knowingly spoken parseltongue in years, I was twelve and needed to protect a Herbology project and enlisted some small garden snakes to keep the bugs out of my corner of the greenhouse using rocks with warming charms on them as a form of payment. The herbology teacher praised me for my little moment of cleverness. When I had done this, it could hardly have been called an intentional act. I had stayed late to try and save my plants, the little voices catching my attention. When I looked at the garden snake, my snide little complaints escaped my throat as something other than English. I had been able to dismiss the incident at the zoo as my imagination in the years since the event, but that moment told me otherwise.
There were different kinds of parselmouths in the world, most were only able to understand the snakes, like Isolt Sayre, and often taught themselves how to speak properly by bonding with a serpent of higher intelligence and magical origin and sometimes not even that would take. If a snake could not be found to act as a teacher for those who wished to embrace their ability, a career in wildlife protection was the next best thing for that kind of education, it would expose speakers to the wilderness and wildlife protection worked closely with many indigenous communities or cultural groups who were more accepting of the ability. There were some like me in the world who could speak to snakes without training, it was just something inborn to who we were as wix.
I made sure Shaw and Thalia were out of sight before quickly removing the lock on the cage with a spell, catching the iron in my hand and setting it down on the floor near the cage but out of sight so it would look as if it was not put on properly.
"There! Maybe now you can leave tonight."
There were noises of thanks from the three heads, who for once seemed to be in agreement.
I looked away to find Thalia staring at me with something akin to horror in her eyes.
"Rannulf," Shaw stepped out from the door where he kept the more sensitive plants, holding a bag containing Thalia's selections. "Always a pleasure."
"Thank you, Shaw." Thalia took it quickly, her expression forcing itself to something closer to her more neutral, regular expression before facing me once more. "I'll see you in a few weeks."
Thalia hobbled towards the door, her wolfish gaze upon me, wordlessly telling me to follow her.
She led me away from the stalls, away from the crowd and made sure we were alone before she spoke, her voice low.
"You're a Parseltongue!"
"I…" Any response I may have had froze in my throat.
"You think I'm a monster and you hide a forked tongue behind your teeth?" Thalia smiled darkly, her eyes seeming to glimmer in the dark or maybe that was my own imagination. "Well, well, well, pot meets kettle indeed."
"I'd not call it the same thing."
"Oh, I think it is," she leaned on her cane, her thumb moving over the snout of the wolf head handle. "How many people would crucify you as a dark witch if they found out? The same people who would do the same to me for existing."
I bit my lower lip. I knew the truth of her words, even without truly understanding it.
"Two completely different things!"
"What about Potter?" Thalia's voice was a whisper and I felt myself begin to shake. "I'm sure you heard about the press eviscerating the boy over the fact that he can talk to snakes, and that was before everyone thought he was crazy. They'll do worse to you. The daughter of a MACUSA leader living overseas in a country where some snake looking freak is trying to kill us all. You're too smart to have not given that consideration."
I was sure I understood that far better than Thalia could ever imagine.
"They say You-Know-Who has a snake. That he speaks to it in its own language. That he may be one of the last true parseltongues since those inbred Gaunts who claimed to be descendants of Slytherin himself."
I froze. I had heard that Voldemort could speak to snakes, I heard Harry Potter could as well after I first began to work at the Ministry. I had long wondered what it would be like to meet another Parseltongue.
"Parseltongue is rare, but you don't have a lot of snakes in this country. I imagine some people could go their whole lives without knowing they could do it."
I had never spoken about my ability openly. I mentioned it to Jack as a child, but he only told me to be quiet because it would upset my mother. In Jack's defense, he was probably correct. Alex never said a word about it, just threw an arm over my shoulder as we continued through the zoo. I understood the reaction and the silence more as I got older. It was a way to protect the family's reputation and myself from a society that would not react kindly to a prominent family showing what was often considered in many circles to be a stereotypical idea of dark magic. I could not even be sure my father remembered anything about it.
"Very logical."
"The US is a bit more accepting, people who can talk to snakes have a place out west where most of our venomous snakes are. Parseltongue shows up in the tribes once in a while, occasionally in those of African descent and some Indian immigrants brought it over with them when they were being persecuted by the British Ministry during colonization."
These groups who valued the ability were not treated well by our very Eurocentric culture, while we had been more accepting in many ways then our No-Maj counterparts, the idea of parseltongue and its dark connotations were a thing that was shared through various european immigrants and permeated the dominant culture of Magical America. There were incidents when America was really becoming a powerful country, dark wizards and fast spreading rumors mixed in with the truth of what a dark wix was in this new, wild country and often that added stories of serpentine servants. America was a dangerous country in many ways, having allies in unusual and unexpected places was often a boon and those who could speak to snakes never really mentioned it, because even wildmen have to return to society for a time.
"Why keep it quiet if America is so accepting?"
"It's not… common or accepted outside of some very unique circles, some religious groups and the like. Parselmouths are always regarded with suspicion, and those who have the ability generally don't mention it."
Dark and dirty were words I heard whispered about the serpent tongued while I was growing up. A politician my father worked with once openly stated on the floor of the Senate that the parselmouth registry law from the 1800's should be reinstated because the craft is clearly a sign of a powerful dark wix and the speakers needed to be watched. He was immediately shouted down as a racist.
My father was one of ten senators from his party who voted against the motion to enact the process to restore the registry, breaking what would have been a tie along mostly party lines, which was a bit out of step for his politics, though I had wondered occasionally if it was for more reasons than a presidential run he was already considering.
Thalia looked at me with a discerning eye as she adjusted her cloak..
"Maybe we have more in common than I thought, we're both creatures of darkness in society's eyes no matter how you look at it."
She wasn't wrong. It felt like there was a bridge of sorts being built between us off the shared perceptions of the world. A wiser, more generous person may have been able to see Thalia as someone who would have understood the fear of a dark secret being released into the world if I had not been so overcome by my own prejudice during our first meeting.
I could hide what I was, Thalia never truly could.
"You're right." I paused, deliberating over my thoughts and trying to organize them to coherence with care.
"Glad we're starting to see eye to eye."
"And I'm sorry."
Thalia looked at me with a wide eyed expression. Her usual skepticism and brash speech laid aside for a confused kind of silence.
"For what?"
"When we met, I was frightened of what you are and made assumptions about you because of a condition you can't hide and should not define you in any case. I should have looked at you as a person, not with fear and not as a monster in the way I have been taught. I am the worst kind of hypocrite."
"Yes. Yes, you are."
She smiled, but it was no longer something I found gleaming and predatory, it was a teasing kind of smile that leant itself to a gentler interpretation of her character. A distant, but warm personality beneath a layer of hurt and contradiction who wore a veil of friendly mockery and I suddenly understood how my brother had fallen for this woman. Alex had been able to see the heart of Thalia Rannulf when I was only able to see the werewolf.
When Thalia and I had finished talking, the time arrived at last. She pointed directed me down a wide alley off the stall row and told me she would be along shortly and we deserved a few minutes together.
I found myself doing as Thalia bid and walking alone down this alleyway, my heart fluttering and stomach twisting into knots.
A figure staggered out of the shadows, their cloak making them shapeless and wraithlike, a faint red glow from the vicinity of their mouth.
"Alex…!"
The man turned, yanking down his hood to look at me with a wide eyed expression, a lit cigarette between his lips.
"Audrey?"
He looked older than I had last seen him, more like a man than a boy. The last of the puppy fat had left his face long ago and the five o'clock shadow lined his jaw and cheeks in a dark gray that made him look the part of a busy, stressed out journalist. His eyes were the same steely gray I remembered and the errant lock of black hair was still flying in the opposite direction of the rest of his hair that was quickly falling to a stark gray with a hint of silver that would take its place on his temple in the next five years or so.
Alex had always been tall, thin and looked like a younger version of our father if I went by the pictures I had seen of Jack at a similar age. Though Alex's eyes were different from Jack's, a different shape and color, something more Ainsley than Graves, but his stance and posture reminded me very strongly of our father. He was thin. Worn in his face in expression with lines from stress at the corners of his eyes that made him look older than his twenty eight years.
I wanted to throw my arms around him at this moment, but I drew my wand instead. The knowledge of what my brother had been doing over these long months and years left me cautious and pushing myself to logical decisions.
"What are you doing here?" Alex exclaimed, his voice waspish and raspy from the dust of the alley, slightly clipped from the cigarette between his teeth. He pulled out his wand and looked at me with a stern, tense expression.
"Hello to you too, Alex." I breathed as I took in my brother for the first time in six years.
"Who gave me my favorite quill?"
"I did, it was a graduation present. What was the name of my childhood teddy bear?"
"Mr. Stuffington, do you still sleep with that thing?"
I felt my face color, the answer was no but I had slept with Mr. Stuffington until I left for Ilvermorny. He made the trip with me of course, but he became a fixture on my desk and guardian of my freshly made bed. He was in my apartment now, sitting on my dresser in a badly crocheted scarf I had made for him when I attempted to take up the craft at fourteen.
I shook my head, trying to hold back the bubble of laughter that threatened to escape my chest but not being entirely successful.
Our wands lowered, returning to our sleeve pockets or holsters and I could no longer contain myself. I closed the distance between us and threw my arms around his neck in a hug I had waited six years for.
Alex's arms flailed for a moment, the force of my impact unbalancing him for a moment. He took more than a few shocked seconds to put his arms around me in turn as I buried my face in his chest, taking in the familiar smell of sparkers cigarettes that clung to his clothes. Alex had been a borderline heavy smoker since before he left the house, sparkers had a smokey sharp smell with a sweet undertone. I allowed myself a moment to take it in.
"I've been trying to find you for over a year." I muttered into his black robes. "I missed you."
"Yeah, me too." He squeezed me tightly before we stepped apart. Alex looked down at me with an expression too tired for a man of his age. Though, I supposed being close to the heart of war was an exhausting endeavor.
"Valencia is worried about you," I started quietly. "She asked me to deliver a message since you've been unplottable for a year."
"You spoke with Val?"
"And Thalia too."
There was something in Alex's smile at the mention of Thalia's name that softened him for a moment and made him look his age.
"Val thinks you need to give this up because it's too dangerous to continue and frankly I agree with her."
"I'm getting close, I'm gaining their trust and I can't stop now."
"Gaining their trust?" I repeated slowly as Alex gave a tired smile.
"Fascists are stupid. Especially if they're Purists too. If you say the right things at the right time they will think you're one of them without too much effort. Hell, these clowns are so focused on bloodstatus and this 'pureblood superiority' rhetoric I merely mentioned I was a pureblood, said some disgusting things and they welcomed me right in."
Grandma Ophelia was a Seed, a muggle-born to use the local vernacular. Grandpa Atticus often said she was a woman of steely will because she had to leave most of her life behind for the call of magic. Something that he very much respected. She had been dead for five years, but Atticus was still wistful over her memory.
I was not sure how this calibration for pureblood really worked, but no one was going to check an American family tree. That would involve industrious effort and being physically in America.
"And, what did you tell them? About Jack?"
Alex bit down on his cigarette, a hard look in his eyes. "I said he was a cousin. Used it to build my story to get in with these people."
"Why?" My voice was low and firm. "Surely, you have more than enough information by now to put these people away? To write whatever article you want to write about it? We're at war with them now!"
Alex was quiet, his demeanor grim. "I don't think the Ministry is going to win this war, Aud."
"Why do you say that?" I took a step back as Alex took a long drag off his cigarette, blowing perfect rings of sparking blue smoke as he exhaled. "You've been off the grid for over a year."
"Which is why I don't think they're going to win. The only hope this country has against a powerful warlock is a teenage boy and I must admit that the idea does not instill confidence."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"They've left it too long, I've met the people being recruited to this nightmare and these are not just mindless sycophants at the core of this." Alex blew more smoke before speaking again. "I saw the Dark Lord."
I felt myself grow cold.
"Not up close, there was a gathering and I happened to talk my way in. When he walked into the room, I never felt anything like it in my life. I've met powerful wix, but not like this. Remember Sarah Maka?"
"She defeated a dark arts practitioner in the seventies. She's from the Sioux tribe right?"
Alex nodded, "I met her during a lecture before I left for London. Powerful wix have an air about them, it makes your hair stand on end. Sarah Maka has it, and I would be willing to bet she is the most powerful wix in America at this moment, but Voldemort is something else entirely." Alex took a deep breath. "He walked into the room and it was like I had been electrocuted and he was yards away from me. The power he has just fills the room."
I gulped and wrung my hands quietly as Alex looked down at me. I gathered myself to say things my brother may not wish to hear.
"You… Sound a bit enamored by this power he holds."
"There's a difference between being enamored and respecting something." Alex gave me a hard stare, his eyes bore into mine with a stern intent. "So what are you doing these days?"
I did not think this reunion was going very well. "I had a fight with dad and came here. I met Lucinda, she does miss you and I think she's worried in her way, and stayed with her for a while when I started work at the Ministry." Alex gave me a look. "I have a flat now! I pay my own rent."
"The Ministry huh?"
I nodded, "The Minister's office isn't too bad."
"So you basically left one political lap for another."
"Don't be crass."
"It's not crass, Jack's handling of Yellowstone was as useless as Scrimgeour handling this war."
I agreed to an extent, but I needed to change tactics.
"Alex, you have to understand the danger you're in if anyone finds out about Jack."
Alex ground his jaw, his expression tight as he looked down at me the way our father did when I left Brygen House.
"If you get caught by the Ministry, you'll be all over the news as a conspirator! An accomplice to Voldemort! MACUSA will not help you! Elihu Weathers may be my friend, but he will not pull springs to keep you out of Azkaban."
"So it's just politics with you is it?" Alex scoffed, "You sound just like Jack. I was afraid he got his claws into you and I guess I was right!"
I was going to ignore how much that stung.
"This isn't about that at all!" I was trembling. I gripped my robes to steady myself as I pressed forward. "Those people are going to hurt you, use you in ways I can't even comprehend, and we won't be able to help you if you keep shutting us all out!" The words poured from me like a cloud burst.
"Do you think I don't know the risks of what I do? When this is over, I will educate people about these purists so that we can begin to put an end to the concept of blood purity for good! And you think it's not worth the risk?"
"It's a brave, noble thing you're trying to accomplish but please walk away from it and be content with what you have! Thalia misses you. Valencia is worried she's sent you into something you can't handle. I just want to have my brother back. I came here to find you so we could be a family again and you're turning it into something it's not." I barely noticed the hitch in my voice. "You accuse me of politics as if it is a crime and not the reality of the situation."
I could hear Thalia tapping her way up the alley behind me. She was moving quickly at the sound of our raised voices. I did not look away from my brother.
Thalia's voice broke through the wall that was building between Alex and I with a stern, demanding tone that made the two of us snap to attention.
"What's going on here?"
Alex's eye moved to Thalia as she stepped into the low light. A look on his face that I imagined people wore when seeing the love of their life, an elation and warm joy that simmered under the surface. It put Alex in perspective for me in some ways. In this, Thalia held more power than I ever could to sway my brother, who clearly still believed me to be a child while I was beginning to see my brother's ability to be a reckless fool.
"Hey Thalia," Alex's voice was quiet and anticipatory as he put out his cigarette, crushing it under his shoe. "It's been a while. How've you been?"
"Worried sick over you." She put a hand on her hip and looked up at Alex who moved towards her like a magnet to kiss her.
I looked anywhere and everywhere else only looking back when Thalia spoke again.
"It's been a nightmare handling Greyback without knowing you're somewhere to back me up."
"Sorry, you know how it's been." He took a half-step away from her, they were still close enough for the other to touch if they felt so inclined. I could not help but think they would be if I was looking at them.
Thalia nodded, "Which is why I think you need to come home."
"You too?"
"Alex, you've done more than you ever had to and the situation has been changing. Audrey is right. It's too risky for you to continue."
"Thalia, if I leave now, I'm going to lose out on information that could save people from being hurt. I can't leave this half finished!"
"Then what does finished mean to you?" Thalia's voice was low, "Does it mean you have put people away with evidence you've gathered over the last year and a half when this is done or that you're dead in a ditch somewhere?"
Alex took another step back, looking aghast at the fact his girlfriend and his sister were teaming up against him.
"We're done talking about this. I'm doing the right thing and I can't stop now!"
"You're no different from the day you left." My voice was sharp and rising in frustration. "Everything you do is to piss off our father! You're not your own man, Alex! You're as stuck in Jack's shadow as I am!"
"How dare-!"
"AURORS!"
The tunnels echoed with screams from the Undercroft and the sounds of spellfire.
"ON THE GROUND! ON THE GROUND NOW!"
Alex swore and Thalia shifted closer to him as the noise grew louder. A herd of footsteps growing closer and more threatening.
"SNAKE!" A woman shrieked and I winced at the memory of the runespoor I had released from Shaw's tiny shop. I guess he got out.
I forgot how to breathe as the people from the Undercroft turned down the alley and were running straight for us, blinded by their panic.
Alex shoved Thalia and I down a side alley before he disappeared from my sight in the swarm of bodies consuming my vision as Thalia yanked me away by my arm so hard I felt it move out away from the socket as more people ran into the narrow space we had found ourselves in.
"RUN!" Thalia's voice was high as the war cries from law enforcement echoed off the stone and made me tremble and want to freeze like a rabbit only moving with Thalia's force of will. "RUN DAMMIT!"
I willed my feet to move.
Thalia and I pushed our way through the crowds, the oppression of the noise and the thick taste of dust and fear left me reeling. I was shoved and jostled. I grabbed Thalia to steady her when the force of the crowd shoved her into the wall with a teeth rattling force.
I helped Thalia find her balance and led her into another side alley nearby.
"We can't go back out there," I said with a shaking voice that I did not recognize. "We'll get caught or crushed! Is there another way out?"
"C'mon!" Thalia grunted as she moved down the alley. "All these little tunnels are connected. We can find one to leave."
"Why isn't anyone else using them?"
"They're panicking and heading for the big entrance which may have Aurors waiting outside of it. Humans are stupid animals, we just want to go with the crowd and be someplace familiar. We're not panicking and therefore we will not be arrested today."
I nodded slowly as I followed Thalia down the winding stone alley that seemed to press inward, growing closer to crush us between the stone walls. Thalia opened a passage in the wall by tapping several bricks, we stepped into the darkness and eventually into the open air of Knockturn Alley above.
Oo0Oo0
I staggered into my apartment, my knees weak from the horror of the evening and nearly being caught by the Aurors that would have cost me everything. It was the mindlessness of routine that moved me now, adrenaline got me home and the safety of home would allow me to think.
But I found my thoughts drifting to places I never wanted to be.
I was never enough. Never enough to get my brother to stay. Never enough for my mom to fight for herself. Why was I always second? No, I was never second, I was always last. A forgotten priority. Last on a list of more important things like power, social influence, righteous causes. Why was I never first?
I was not enough incentive for my brother to play nice with our father. To publish under a penname and have an anonymous career for a time, but no, he had to slam his name on the article to stir the pot and tell Jack Graves what he really thought of him and his allies without bluntly stating them to his face until the aftermath.
My mother was sick, terminal with illness and had mentally given up on living probably before I was born. I never remembered her as being happy. She wore a fake smile and was so distant and distracted when I tried to engage with her.
A child should not feel that way!
My mother hated those American virtue names but I ended up with one myself. I was supposed to be a constant presence, in the room but not engaged, a prop in a life of opulence and a stepping stone for promising aspiring politicians that my father approved of to introduce me too, an alliance of marriage where love would be secondary to my own security. Where I would have to play the demure wife and act as a trophy on a shelf, while ignoring my husband slipping off with a mistress or an intern for the good of the family values he was so likely to preach. Audrey Constance Graves was a pawn, easy to sacrifice on the way to a perceived victory because she was supposed to know her role.
Finally, my knees gave out and I fell to the floor, my face damp with tears and chest heaving as I struggled for air through my strangled cries.
My brother hated my father more than he loved me.
I cried when my mother died. I cried when Alex left after I was safely back at school.
My tears now were like a torrent of both events colluding and twisting in my chest as I began to sob.
Oo0Oo0
Author's Note: Fun fact, I gave the Graves men my own family's… er… hair issue. The men start greying very early, my own father has had silver hair for most of my life, he was only properly grey until I was maybe ten. My grandfather began greying at twenty-one, so I'm familiar with the discombobulation or hair color being a bad indicator of age for men. Alex is greying from a combination of genetics and stress, though, I think the stress won out overall as a cause.
Undercroft is the word for the crypt of a church- while not accurate to the space now, it may have been that very thing once.
