TW: threats of sexual violence; childbirth; abortion
Lucius
The morning after the Dark Lord questioned him about Nicander, Lucius and Narcissa rose early and shared a cup of tea in their room. Narcissa sat in an armchair across from Lucius with her bare feet in his lap, pressed against the warmth of his stomach. It was too early, and Lucius watched her as she slowly fell back asleep while he stroked her ankles and warmed the tops of her feet with his palms, losing himself in his thoughts.
The Dark Lord, thank goodness, had been interested to hear of his association with Nicander Burke. He agreed with Lucius that the man could be useful again and told Lucius that if Nicander was ever found, that he may be informed of Lord Voldemort's return.
Lucius needed redouble his efforts. Really, he hadn't worked nearly as hard as he could have in his search for Nicander.
Narcissa stirred in her chair; Lucius squeezed her feet, but she remained asleep, so he returned to his thoughts.
Where was Eira, and what was she doing nowadays? Lucius had been rather hesitant to contact her. There was a word people used for witches like her in the old days: shennies, or les Chiennes Noires—literally, the Dark Bitches—young women attracted to the upsurge in the Dark Arts and those responsible for it. Lucius remembered how they roamed the streets of Knockturn Alley and Hogsmeade, many barely out of school, searching for Dark wizards to drink and flirt with, and more often willing than not. Sex was everywhere in those days, and for Voldemort's followers the amount paid for a bottle of sweet elfish wine was the same as the price of a fuck. Those girl's had been mean and tough and willing to do all kinds of things for them, sexual and otherwise, but by the end of the war, the lucky ones had either retreated from the lifestyle, gotten married or pregnant, or both; the unlucky ones were thrown into Azkaban during Crouch's reign over the Law Department, or else killed during violent struggles between Death Eaters and the Aurors. There were rumors that one or two had been murdered by the very wizards they sought. Nicander's little sister, Chrysandra, had been more or less a chienne-noire, but Eira became a regular fixture in the scene after she'd met Nicander.
Lucius had been there that cold, snowy day in Hogsmeade; students wrapped in cloaks and scarves for a last Hogsmeade trip before their Christmas holiday bustled past him and Nicander to the castle as the afternoon grew dark. Lucius and another Death Eater had been meeting with Severus and two more Slytherins they knew—Slytherins who understood some things and could be trusted with a conversation about the future—the Dark Lord's future for the Wizarding race. Nicander had met them afterwards. He wasn't a Death Eater, had claimed he was 'considering' it, but in the end he would tell them he couldn't be loyal to a master for life. Lucius felt himself joining Voldemort's circle to be noble, not to mention the smarter thing to do. The Dark Lord's powers had grown legendary, and Lucius's new connection with a band of like-minded wizards had been a wondrous, heady experience. Nicander preferred an untethered way of life.
As they'd walked towards the Three Broomsticks for a drink, a group of girls who looked to be seventh years crossed their path, nearly bumping into them. One girl threw them a haughty look and cried, "Hey! Watch where you're going!" before marching into the tavern. It hadn't been Eira. As the girls passed through the door, Lucius looked them over, and another snarled, "What're you looking at, dickhead?"
"'E's not used to lasses pretty as you." Slender, blonde, and flushed from the cold, Eira had caught Nicander's ever-wandering eye. She must have been only seventeen at the time, maybe eighteen; Nicander himself was barely older than the students they'd passed that day, and Lucius wasn't even seeing Narcissa. Lucius probably should have been a better mentor to his friend and pulled him away from the callow schoolgirl, but the banter between the disgruntled Welsh witch and the randy Yorkshire wizard had been too amusing to watch. Lucius didn't remember how long they'd all stood outside the Three Broomsticks nattering back and forth, but by the end of it, Nicander convinced her to have one drink with him. Lucius shook his head and thumped his friend's back before turning up the High Street to go elsewhere. He recalled Nicander telling him that Eira was "not a virgin, but not experienced either." He would recount their multiple trysts to Lucius and the rest of their circle over the winter holidays and the weeks to come. Occasionally, he would show Lucius the descriptively filthy letters they wrote each other. Later on, when students returned to Hogwarts from their Easter break, Eira Cadwallader was not among them. Eira, for all intense and purposes, had become a chienne-noire, enamored of the Dark Arts and the exciting life they offered. She and Nicander didn't even become true lovers for a while; he liked to spread himself around, and Eira wasn't exactly virtuous.
Neither of their parents approved; Arbrand and Deverra felt Eira degraded their eldest son, while Eira's parents, Lwyfen and Rhoslyn, saw Nicander as having lured their naïve, pretty daughter away from home and school. Lucius now rather respected their view, for what had Nicander done if not lured the barely eighteen year-old Eira into his lifestyle? Still, Eira was no shrinking violet, and she held her own against the violence that had swirled around them all in those days. She wanted to be there, and there she was until Nicander's family fell apart with his sister's death and his brother's imprisonment. Add to that a two year-old Branda and his parents' continued disapproval, and Eira finally stopped coming around when she and Nicander were allowed to stay with her parents. The war had gotten bloodier than ever and as he wasn't a Death Eater, Nicander saw Lucius and the others less and less until the Dark Lord vanished in Godric's Hollow, after which nobody saw Nicander.
Lucius was drawn back to the present as Narcissa stirred, her head lolling to the other side of the winged armchair. Still holding her feet in his lap, he squeezed and caressed them until her eyes fluttered open. Once she was properly awakened, Lucius poured her more tea as he said, "Cissa, I might go to Wales, soon."
"Eira! Deffrowch!"
Eira Cadwallader groaned and rolled over. The pounding at the door only grew louder.
"Eira!"
She recognized her cousin Cleddyf's voice between his furious knocks. She got up, pulled on a dressing gown, padded through the chilled cottage, and wrenched open the door.
"Beth?!"
"Finally," Cleddyf muttered in Welsh before pushing his way inside. Outside, the air was grayish-white with falling snow. Eira shut the old wooden door against the cold and went into the kitchen where Cleddyf was lighting the fire. White flecks of snow were melting into his black hair.
"Whew! It's fucking cold out there! Make us some tea or something, eh?"
"Shut up." Eira was already filling the kettle. In a minute she handed him a mug of hot water before dropping a teabag into it, making Cleddyf hiss as scalding droplets touched his fingers. Eira got her own tea and sat next to him.
"Why're you here?"
Cleddyf reached inside his black woolen overcoat and pulled out a clinking sack. He counted out a number of gold and silver coins, then handed them to Eira.
"Thanks for holding those calves for me."
"Ia, sure." Eira pocketed the money and sipped her tea.
Cleddyf glanced at his cousin, the orange glow from the fireplace throwing her scars into relief. She sensed him looking at her and asked warily, "What?"
"Nothing," he shrugged and drank his tea. Then he asked, "What do you think of all the weird stuff that's been happening?"
Eira frowned; "Beth ydych chi'n ei olygu? What weird stuff?"
"You know . . . all the shite in the Prophet about Dumbledore and the. . ." Cleddyf cleared his throat, "the little rumors going around about some Lord. . ."
Eira shook her head. "I haven't looked at the Prophet in a while." She looked tiredly out the window before turning to Cleddyf, suddenly annoyed. "And why are you talking about those stupid rumors? That's all they are. That bastard's dead."
Cleddyf nodded his head before replying, "Ia; just try telling that to some people, though."
Eira shook her head and scoffed as though Cleddyf were the stupidest person she'd ever met.
"You seen Nic?"
Eira sighed but didn't look especially troubled. "No, he hasn't come around yet."
"I thought he visited home when it gets cold."
"It isn't winter yet," said Eira.
Cleddyf jerked his head at the snow-covered window, "It looks pretty fucking wintery out there!"
"It's barely November," said Eira. "Anyway, the full moon's next week; he'll probably show up after."
Cleddyf nodded. It made sense. Then he said, "Anyway, those old Death Eaters who skipped jail—they've been getting together lately. I guess the rumors got them excited or something." He drained his tea and stood. "I thought you should know. . ."
Eira looked away, clamming up the way she did when she was told something she didn't want to hear.
"Have you seen Tonwen at all. . .?" asked Cleddyf as he threw his coat on.
"Ugh! Cleddyf, your ex-wife fucking hates you! Give it up!"
Cleddyf winked as he made for the door. "Tell her I said hallo! Wela i di!"
"Ta."
Eira stayed in the kitchen drinking her tea, watching the fire burn until she felt livened enough to wash and get dressed. At nearly thirty eight, her dark blonde hair shone dully in the pale light from her bedroom window. She'd long stopped trying to attract certain kinds of attention and simply tied it back at her neck. She dressed warmly to go outside and check the animals she kept, mostly for the tiny income they provided, except for the horses. The old gray gelding was a holdover while the newer, tetchy sorrel mare kept him company and hoofed the slopes Eira didn't want to while in search of plants during spring and summer. Most of her neighbors, which included several relatives, kept a horse or more as people always had in the area. They had broomsticks they could fly, but some old habits never died.
She gave hay to the goats and let the horses out to scratch through the snow with their hooves; they'd have hay if the snow turned to crust. The chickens ventured outside when she opened the latch to the coop, but the ducks refused. She checked the fox trap behind the coop, which was empty, and dug up a snare from the snow near the barn, which was also empty—all the chores she'd tried to run from when she was a teenager. She hadn't wanted to be an Ingrediwitch; she'd wanted to live in Hogsmeade or London or somewhere things happened!
It had been an adventure; going out at darkest night—even after the bars had closed—dressed in shimmering silk slips beneath long robes, clattering across the cobbles of abandoned alleys and, sometimes, if one was familiar with a particular set of Dark wizards, across polished wooden floors in country manors and grand houses in the city where groups of the Dark Lord's supporters sat about drinking, chatting, and arguing, some with a girl on their lap or their arm, others with wives. Some of the wizards played it alone which often lent them a mysterious air to the women in the room. That was what they had all liked: secrets and mystery; Dark magic; smoky parlors and red wine swirling against crystal. The wizards . . . some were just thugs while others were sophisticates. Either way, ghosts of violence hung about the rooms they entered like vapor, titillating the witches and the hangers-on with futures under the Dark Mark. It was the headiest perfume.
Nicander had been her first lover—her first real lover. Sex before then had been a fleeting hobby with schoolboys who could hardly maintain an erection past a minute. Nic was only a year and a half older than Eira, but he'd learned a thing or two in his time out of Hogwarts. The first time they slept together—in a room in Hogsmeade when she should have returned to school hours before—he hauled her into different positions until he had her moaning and bucking with her first full orgasm. They spent the night in the room, and in the morning when they woke he took her hand and wrapped it around his cock while he kissed her mouth, her neck, her breasts, until hot liquid jetted across her hip and stomach. After, he put his mouth on her, coaxing shudders and moans that probably woke the guests next door. The trouble she was in when she appeared at the school gates!
He found her over Christmas break (it had barely even started). She led him into the snowy wood when her family wouldn't notice her absence. They humped against the trunks of trees; he laid his cloak down beside the stream and made love to her while snowflakes sprinkled their hair; she took him in her mouth and learned to please him that way while he gasped and shook with pleasure. They exchanged letters, usually short and containing filthy hints. They became drunk on one another, and by her Easter holidays, Eira had decided that she loved Nicander. Aboard the Hogwarts Express to go back to school, Eira waited until her parents disapparated from the platform, then with a knowing grin and a few giggles with her girlfriends, she hauled her trunk off of the train and waited until Nicander appeared at her shoulder, his eyes alight with mischief and triumph.
Her parents were furious: a small pleasure in itself. No one could be sent to fetch her as she was long of age, but she also refused to say where she was. She was in dozens of different places, staying wherever Nicander found a space for them until a stupid fight over something equally as stupid had Eira packing her bags and staying with her new girlfriends. She slept with other wizards, mostly those who were interested enough to pay for a meal or a few drinks. The Death Eaters were a whole other breed of Dark wizards, simultaneously offering danger and protection, and the secrecy of their organization . . . the power of their leader . . .
When Eira thought of those times and closed her eyes she saw black and silver, the burgundy of wine, and royal purple. The one color she tried to block out whenever her memories surfaced was the glittering emerald of the Dark Mark floating in the sky.
When she and Nicander made up and began drifting together again, Eira eventually fell pregnant. She thought about ending it, but the thrill and romanticism of the times went to her head, and she continued with the pregnancy and the partying. She wasn't twenty years old yet when she gave birth. Branda was a deceptively easy pregnancy; when the time came for her to enter the world, she separated the front of Eira's pelvis, then the skin tore from Eira's vagina nearly to her anus—she wasn't even a large baby! Branda was born screaming with her eyes open as though angry she'd been brought into the world at all, fixing her pain-dazed mother in a newborn's unfocused glare, accusing; enraged; disgusted, as if to say, "You whore! You stupid slut! Why did you have to bring me into this, too?!"
Nicander would often hold his new daughter and mock her outraged wailing: "Waaah! Waaah! Wha' you cryin' abou'? Nobody's thrown you down a well, 'ave they? Wah, wah, wah!"
Giving birth made Eira miss her parents. Not only had she not seen them for two years, but the way she mothered revealed how entrenched she was in her parents' Aconitor customs. Eira was gifted a lovely pram to push her newborn about, which Eira used once. She'd felt ridiculous strolling along Diagon Alley with the baby-buggy before her, so cumbersome and silly. Ingrediwitches carried their babies in special shawls so they could continue working and to take care of baby without having to go far. Eira had no plans to become an Ingrediwitch, but she dug out her old, patterned shawl and hauled Branda about at her breast.
Perambulators aside, Eira had also expected to be able to bring her baby along wherever she went. Instead, she found herself shunted aside or given strange looks when she went to her usual haunts with Nicander or her friends, especially at night. She didn't see what was wrong with it: Branda was kept warm and fed, her nappies regularly changed; Eira didn't see why she should have to stay at home all night or pay money for someone else to watch her baby when she could easily carry Branda around with her, but apparently that was an Aconitor's view. All the people she'd met through Nicander expected they would rarely see her about after the baby arrived. What nonsense!
She brought Branda back to Wales for a visit, where Nicander was made to stay outside in the February cold while Lwyfen and Rhoslyn looked over their bastard granddaughter and helped their wayward daughter think of unique Welsh names. Eira and Nicander had been calling the baby by a plethora of meaningful nicknames: 'Caterwauler' was a favorite, the similarity between 'caterwaul' and 'Cadwallader' being too good to pass up. 'Overdone' was a close second since the birth had been expected some days earlier. Eira sometimes grumbled about the little 'Fanny-flayer' owing the God-awful injuries she'd sustained during birth. Rhoslyn told her she was served right for what she'd been doing the past two years; Lwyfen could only shake his head and throw tired, disapproving looks at Nicander, who stood outside an open window, trying his best to look like a harmless puppy in need of a good home. They ignored him until nightfall, when Lwyfen finally allowed the young man in, throwing him a blanket and offering the sofa in the living room as a bed. Eira protested that they could at least give him something to eat, but her parents pushed her into her bedroom and shut the door behind the three of them. No doubt Nicander could hear their arguing as her mother and father tried to make her see sense and come home with the baby—they would help Eira raise her, they insisted. In the future, they would indeed do just that, but at that moment, with the man she loved being treated so poorly, Eira had no plans to stay with her parents. Past midnight she stomped out of her room holding a squirming baby and demanded Nicander take them someplace where "people don't wipe their arses with torn swatches of the Daily Prophet!"
If Eira and Nicander had thought her parents unwelcoming, they had nothing on Mr and Mrs Burke. They may have let Eira in the house, but immediately it was made clear that she and the baby were a blight on their son's life. They tried to convince him to leave "that trouble" as they referred to Eira. They claimed Nicander couldn't know for certain that the child in his arms was actually his and not some other wizard's. She was his; Eira and Nicander knew because they could count, they said. When he pointed out to Deverra that the baby might even look a bit like her, they were summarily thrown out. Luckily, Nicander was clever enough to pull money through the kind of work the Death Eaters wanted done by someone other than themselves. They didn't exactly approve of their situation (not that either of them cared), but because they were friends (of a sort, anyway) and purebloods, they were given something of a break.
At Easter, when Branda's name was officially on paper with a double surname and no middle name, Eira and Nicander went to a Naming Seer. The old man said their eldest daughter would always be the one to "call back the father"; he did not smile when he said this, and what made it all worse was that he refused any other prediction for the baby. But he pulled out a tome bearing Latin words and particles and offered a list of suitable combinations . . . based on his cryptic premonition. After, Eira and Nicander couldn't say why they didn't toss the parchment away. Finally, after a sleepless night of tending to a fussy Branda and pretending they weren't thinking of the Naming Seer, Eira pulled out her daughter's Birth Certificate with the empty line labeled middle and pointed to the most conglomerated pairing on the parchment from the Seer: Pater—father; revoco—call back. And so, Branda's middle name became Patreva—'recall the father,' more or less.
Not half a year after Branda was born, Eira realized was pregnant again, a definitive 'no'. Eira surprised herself by writing a short letter to her mother, who wrote back that she agreed and told her daughter to come home so she could help her. Rhoslyn brewed a fast-working potion that made Eira's guts feel like they were going to fall out of her arse, but it was only blood and viscous globs. She worried the potion hadn't worked well, but her mother only gave her a look and said, "It worked; nothing comes out this early."
Eira convinced her parents to let Nicander stay in the house with them, and while they relented, their reception was cold. Nicander first weaseled his way into their affections when he convinced Eira to stay with them when he went out that night and the next, and the next night after that. Still, he sometimes brought her with him while they left Branda with her grandparents. Lwyfen and Rhoslyn Cadwallader seemed to accept this arrangement as the best they would get, so their door was left open to Nicander and their ungovernable daughter. Eventually, the war grew more terrible and unpredictable; Nicander's sister died; his brother was incarcerated, and he himself disowned by his parents. Eira stopped hanging around the Death Eaters and the other witches who followed them while Nicander slowly and quietly drew further away from his friends until the night Lord Voldemort disappeared; then, Nicander kept himself at home with Eira and her parents, avoiding the chaos that followed as the Death Eaters and their connections were hunted down and rounded up, tried, and punished. No one ever came for Nicander and neither Lwyfen nor Rhoslyn offered him up: they'd accepted him. Nicander stayed away from his old crowd, made himself useful, and became a part of the extended community where they lived.
Eira was grateful for a lot, but deep in the corners of her mind, she knew she resented Nicander for leading her back to her parents' lifestyle—their Aconitor's grind—back to dirt and isolation, steaming innards and biting fumes, and a reason for other witches and wizards looked down on you. Nicander reveled in it; Eira was simply used to it. Her happiest times became when the two of them were alone, perhaps somewhere in the wilderness, drinking by a fire, pulling each other's clothes off for a hot fuck in the middle of an ancient forest or a heathery, whistling moor. Those became the moments Eira lived for.
Of course, everything changed when, in the early hours of a full moon night, she received an urgent summons from St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.
Nicander had decided to work that night. There were many ingredients best collected during a full moon; that's why he'd been out.
Perhaps if the werewolf hadn't torn open his stomach before he'd pulled out his wand and scared it off, Nicander might have disapparated to the cottage to heal his bite, and the Werewolf Capture Unit would have been none the wiser.
In addition to an exposed gut and a bite with a sixteen inch circumference between his neck and shoulder, Nicander's collarbone had been snapped, and skin and muscle had been torn away to leave him shivering from blood loss and shock. If he hadn't forced himself to disapparate to St Mungo's, he'd have likely died. The Healers sealed the bite; replenished his blood; grew missing flesh back; the broken clavicle was mended with Skele-Gro, and the tear in his belly seamed shut. They said he'd scar where the werewolf's teeth had punctured and ripped, as well as on his stomach, but everything would work the way it had before—the shoulder, of course; his life, however. . .
Eira's blood boiled whenever she remembered those cunts from the Werewolf Capture Unit; the Aurors they brought in too, in case Nicander had been bitten by a werewolf who was at large enough to warrant 'normal' law enforcement, as well. The looks they gave Eira . . . The Healers had allowed her to stay in the ward with her husband (how else was she to refer to him?); they were pleased, they said; usually werewolf-bite victims received hardly any visitors, not even from family.
"Don't worry; his injuries won't affect him beyond the bite. His mind won't be affected at all—it's not true what they say about that! He's still your husband and he'll always be. The bite doesn't change that," said an assuring, middle-aged Healer, and she wasn't the only one. Looking at the man she loved in the hospital bed, bandaged and pale, he didn't look, smell, or breathe any differently. When he woke up some hours later, he was very much the same wizard, even with the knowledge of what had happened to him. The Ministry and its goons, however, held a different view. They added him to the Werewolf Registry while Eira's parents were visiting. As the Registry grunt and the Capture Unit wizard took his information, they kept glancing at the Cadwalladers in confusion; Lwyfen standing beside the bed, arms folded, his eyes challenging; Rhoslyn stoic and silent in a chair away from Nicander but a hand on her daughter's knee; Eira sitting beside her husband directly on the bed. When she slipped her hand in his she saw the wizard from the Werewolf Capture Unit bite his lip, as though holding back something he'd really have liked to say. Well, he could get fucked. When they asked Nicander where his address would be after his release from the hospital, Lwyfen interrupted; "The one he's got now. He's staying with us, of course."
Eira breathed a sigh of relief while her mother's hand on her knee stiffened. The room was totally silent. Nicander looked at his almost-father-in-law and tried to protest.
"Shut up! It's one day a month we've gotta worry about you!" Lwyfen glared at the Ministry wizards; "He's staying with us."
Not a week had gone by when what would become a steady stream of Ministry witches and wizards from the Capture Unit and the occasional pair of Aurors started banging on the cottage door. At first they attempted to act friendly, pretending to care about Nicander's wellbeing and his family, but as their weekly visits went by without a hint of what they expected to find—anger; bitterness; a degenerating temperament; something to justify their harsh treatment of werewolves—they dropped any pretense of respect for his family (really, they couldn't understand why they'd accepted him back) and the harassment began. They couldn't—and didn't— believe that Nicander never showed a violent side to his family, that he didn't turn to some animalistic urge to lash out and spill blood. They kept asking Eira and her parents if Nicander was making 'new friends' as they put it. Did they suspect he might be keeping company with others of his 'kind'? Werewolves tended to lean toward crime, they said, did they suspect anything like that? Eira laughed bitterly at the memory; if anything, becoming a werewolf had kept Nicander out of the criminal world! Before, they used to sell the rarer kinds of ingredients they found at inflated prices on the black market; doing so while on the Werewolf Registry was even more risky, they knew, so they'd stopped.
The Cadwalladers learned that the Werewolf Capture Unit were little more than Ministry-sanctioned werewolf hunters. They wanted Nicander to be a danger. They wanted there to be a reason to chase him down. And what made things all the more difficult was that they believed they were righteous. Sometimes one of these wizards would look at Eira with an expression of stumped expectancy: wasn't she grateful to them? Wouldn't she show them this gratitude? Why wasn't she stumbling over herself in hospitality? Eira was rather proud to say that she never offered them a single drop of tea. As for gratitude, well, she knew what sort of 'gratitude' some of these men wanted from her; it was no different from the favors she and other excited young witches granted the Death Eaters during a wild night out. These Werewolf Capture Unit bastards were just as filthy and entitled with their own expectations. She was offended when they tried to play with her children, then a nine year-old Branda, a three year-old Llon, and a newly born Gwenyn. They would smile and tickle Llon beneath his chin, offer to lift Branda up to the top shelf when she tried to climb up for biscuits, or they would get close to Gwenyn in her blankets, even when Eira held her, to coo and baby-talk over her. Every time, Eira told Branda to go outside and play with her brother; she would turn away with Gwenyn and place her in her cradle. At every opportunity, Eira and her parents made it known their visitors were unwanted.
Six months after he was bitten, the Werewolf Capture Unit finally won. Eira pleaded with Nicander to stay, tried to stall him with sex. She tried to put a sleeping Gwenyn in his arms, but he only kissed his baby daughter and lay her back in her crib. Eira begged on her knees, but he wiped his face with his sleeve and slung a rucksack over his shoulder. He said they wouldn't be left in peace until he was gone; if he stayed, it would only grow worse. He believed he was saving them, and maybe that was true, but their lives felt wrong with his absence. The Werewolf Capture Unit still visited occasionally, hoping to catch Nicander so they could accuse him of something and rough him up a bit, but he didn't return, and they stopped—mostly. He came back during the following winter, much to everyone's delight, and that became their routine: Nicander would appear every few months and stay two or three nights until he left again, never saying where or with whom he went.
In the Spring after Branda turned ten, Lwyfen was bucked off his horse and knocked unconscious when he hit the ground. The coming night did the job, and Lwyfen Cadwallader was pronounced dead from exposure. He hadn't reached his sixty third birthday. Nearly two years later in January, Rhoslyn passed in her sleep at only sixty one. She'd been coughing horribly that afternoon, and the Healer who examined her body said she appeared to have been in the early stages of bronchitis. The Healer surmised Rhoslyn's struggle for breath had caused her heart to give out. Usually, a witch's magical immune system overrode such a mundane illness, but Rhoslyn was getting old, and she'd ceased to be as active as when her husband was alive. That same week, Nicander reappeared, and he stayed a longer time for Eira. She begged him to stay for good, but he left again. Then the unthinkable happened: Eira was pregnant, and she hadn't even realized it.
The first time Eira and Nicander had sex after he was bitten, they sat at the edge of the bed and stared at the wall.
"We can't do this again," he'd said.
"No," she agreed.
The following night, they fucked again, and Eira ended the resultant pregnancy.
Ffionwen was an accident. The week in March when Nicander came around, Eira had been on her period. She always felt she should have known better: Mother Nature was a fickle bitch; every woman knew this. Eira's cycles had run into each other, and she'd not kept track. By the time Eira realized she was carrying, she was five months along. She'd tried—God, she'd tried—but Eira couldn't end it this time, so she gave birth in secret and maintained she hadn't known she was pregnant, which was half true, anyway. She said she didn't know who the father was, which was easy for her neighbors over the ridge to accept—she slept around anymore—but she knew: Ffionwen was Nicander's. There were so many days when she couldn't look at Ffionwen, knowing how stupid she'd been—and what her daughter carried in her blood. But in the back of her brain she remembered what she'd learnt: every record of werewolf research made one thing abundantly clear: you had to be bitten; you couldn't be born a werewolf. The fact remained, however, that she'd done something the Wizarding world wouldn't accept. When she gave birth to Afon, she'd expected him to be dead after she'd stopped eating much the week before, and walked about the house barefoot in a cotton slip with no fires lit. She thought he'd stopped moving, but her fifth child slipped out of her like an eel and immediately cried for her touch. Anytime after, when Nicander visited, Eira ingested the most powerful contraceptives she could get her hands on. She wouldn't have been shocked to find out she was sterile, anymore.
The month following Afon's birth, Branda, by then fifteen, didn't return to Hogwarts after her Easter holidays ended. Nicander had stopped coming round since the past summer, and Eira'd been drinking so much heavier in those days that she could no longer recall why her daughter stayed. It had made things easier, that she remembered, but eventually her lack of restraint resulted in her children being taken away by the DMFC.
Eira now knew that her being an Ingrediwitch hadn't helped, either.
The decade after Voldemort disappeared was a hard time for Aconitors as frequent crackdowns on their lifestyle became common. Apparently the Ministry feared their habit of wandering all over the countryside put the Statute of Secrecy in yet more jeopardy! Well, Aconitors hadn't exactly been great supporters of the Statute for most of its existence, but it wasn't as if they went out of their way to attract Muggles' attention! The Ministry's crackdown on Aconitors continued into the early nineties and tore several families apart with the purpose of encouraging them to abide by stricter laws—laws that hadn't even been passed yet. It never had the effect the Ministry hoped for and as of now, Eira knew she had a relatively good chance of gaining custody back from Donius.
The truth was that Eira no longer felt capable of being a mother. She remembered every detail of her children, each of their unique sounds and smells, the foods that made each jump up and down in anticipation, and which ones made them scrunch up their faces in disgust, but she generally avoided thinking about them. They never wrote her after they'd been taken away, and she never wrote them. Who could blame them? Eira didn't; if she'd been them—especially Branda—she wouldn't have spared her a drop of ink. Whenever Eira needed to go to Diagon Alley, she went in at the earliest or the latest when they were likely to be at the apothecary. She also avoided people who might recognize her, as they might ask questions she didn't want to answer—easy enough since the Christmas following her children's removal.
Eira shuddered at the memory of broken glass as it glanced off of her teeth.
She was quite good at avoiding old acquaintances, so it was a bit of a jolt when one morning in mid September, Walden Macnair shouted to her across the cobbled street in Diagon Alley.
"Oi, Eira! Where you going?!"
She'd just left the upstairs flat of a junk shop after sleeping with the owner, mostly out of boredom than for any real desire. Eira could hardly believe she was seeing Macnair across the street from her, but it was definitely him: big, tall, black mustache and all. She turned her head and walked determinedly towards the Leakey Cauldron; the junk shop just had to be at the very end of Diagon Alley, didn't it?
"Oi! I'm talking to you, woman!" Macnair laughed and followed her along the opposite side. "You know I know it's you! Haven't seen you in a while! Been some time, innit?" When Eira didn't respond and continued walking, Macnair turned lewd; "You know, your arse still looks good!"
Eira couldn't help but scoff; he'd always been hungry for a shag, that one.
"Awe, don't you miss me even a little bit?"
Eira struggled between picking up her stride and acting as though she didn't give a damn he was there.
"Come on! I know you're listening! I'll give you ten and buy you a round! Just like in the old days!"
Eira couldn't take it anymore. "Fuck off, idiot!"
Macnair only laughed. "I'll give you twelve just for a blowjob!"
"Kiss my arse!" she snarled, fighting nervousness.
Macnair chuckled. He didn't shout anything more across the street for a minute, then, "You know people are looking for your man, yeah?"
What the. . .?
"Some people want to know where Nicander's gone, love! We ought to get together to discuss him, soon!"
"Get the fuck away from me, Walden!" Eira's anxiety grew; she'd heard him alright: people were searching for Nicander, and Macnair was the one informing her. How could either of these things be good?
"Come on, ya old bitch! Get over here and do what you're good at!"
Eira stopped suddenly and turned on the spot, catching a glimpse of Macnair hurrying towards her as she disapparated.
The following days saw Eira pacing and worrying about her dead parents' cottage. Why would someone be searching for Nicander? Had he done something he shouldn't? Ha! He was always doing that; what a stupid question; but had he been caught? Had he crossed the wrong people? Was it a matter that the Werewolf Capture Unit was concerned with? None of these questions were answered—at least not in full detail—when she ran into Macnair about a week later in the same junk shop she'd exited before; he must have bribed the owner to get with her, because that turncoat wasn't anywhere in the little building on the rainy evening he'd asked her to come.
"What do you want, Macnair?! I've got better things to do than this!"
Macnair smirked at her. "I want to reminisce. Don't you miss me, too?"
Eira sighed in frustration and looked out the shop's grimy window. Macnair leaned forward to get a better look at her.
"Jesus—what happened to your face?"
"It's none of your business, you dick," said Eira tiredly. She realized she would have to talk to Walden sometime if he were dogged enough to pay a shopkeeper off to get to her.
"Why don't you tell me over a drink?" He stepped nearer and slid a hand up her arm; "I'll bet it's a helluva story. . ."
"Fuck off!" Eira shrugged his sneaking hand from her shoulder. "Just tell me what the fuck you want so I can go home!"
"Bloody Hell, you used to be a lot friendlier than this! You need a fucking drink—or something! Here—" He dug into his pockets and pulled out several coins, holding them out to her. "Come on—take it. Save it for tonight and meet me at the Cauldron; you know . . . the leaky one . . ."
Eira snorted at his stupid joke. He pressed the- fistful of money into her chest and she finally took it, not looking at him.
"There you go! I'll see you at seven, yeah?"
"I'll do nine." Eira made sure her tone brooked no argument. She was afraid to let him have all the power in whatever this might turn into.
Macnair shrugged. "Alright, then. I'll come early in case you remember how good we had it—"
"Shut up, you wank!" Eira rattled the doorknob angrily and cursed again before pulling out her wand to unlock it. She looked pointedly at Macnair. "After you."
He feigned a simpering look of gratitude as he passed her, only to lean forward suddenly and kiss her wetly on the cheek. She yelped and slapped him. He laughed and walked up the street with an extra skip in his stride.
A month and a half later, Eira had met with Macnair several more times. He didn't talk as much about Nicander as she'd expected, claiming he'd only heard people were searching for him in passing.
"I thought it would get your attention when I saw you," he quipped over a bottle of firewhiskey, winking at her.
He didn't bother her as much as she'd feared, but he made enough passes at her that she gave in just to shut him up. She'd had plenty of sex with him in their younger years; she wasn't intimidated by his advances now so much as annoyed. He was the same boring fuck as before (hadn't he learned a thing or two?) having her suck his prick to life before pushing her back and going in for it until he came. Unsatisfying sex aside, Macnair was more or less pleasant to Eira. He had connections on the black market that he extended to her so she could sell whatever she'd scrounged up in the wilderness or her garden at a higher price. He talked his way into her own bed and began to help her pay her trimonthly rent to her uncle, who'd inherited Lwyfen's property after his death. Macnair didn't insult the changes to her body; at thirty seven, she was still spry from working as an Aconitor, but multiple pregnancies had left her with a slack belly that would morph into a vertical trough when she got on her hands and knees. She thought he had a little too much fun jiggling her fleshy, elongated breasts the first time he saw them since she was twenty. He even left her facial scars alone.
Eventually, Eira came to her senses and requested they meet only at his house. Nicander had avoided his old friends for a reason, and she didn't want Macnair to come upon him when he showed up unannounced at the cottage. Macnair didn't protest much; she knew how to convince him.
She didn't tell anyone she was seeing him. Not Cleddyf, not her other cousins, and not her uncle Aelhaern, to whom she paid rent and whose wand was stuck up his arse. Macnair was far from sweet, and she sometimes felt uneasy around him, but still it was—nice— to have something different to think about. She knew it was pathetic, but God, it was something new!
Looking back, Eira would find it hard to forgive herself for how easy it was to be weak.
Lucius
Lucius apparated and slipped on flat shale, slamming his arse onto stony ground. He hauled himself up, cursing, and viewed his surroundings.
He was standing on a ridge overlooking several combes and glens, most treeless and littered with broken shale. To his left, the ridge dropped into a scree of that same gray rock, but to his right, which he reckoned to be north, the ridge ran parallel to a wide cirque covered in yellowed and browning grass. Ahead, the path along the ridge continued jerkily towards the west and northwest, dipping and rising as far as he could see from his current spot. Behind him the ridge had broken down into another scree, dripping rock and other natural debris into the cirque below. Lucius was rather glad to see higher peaks in the distance; the view surrounding him was imposing enough. He set of along the ridge, keeping his eyes peeled for any signs of human life.
When Macnair admitted to Lucius that he'd been getting his leg over with Eira for nearly two months, Lucius had wanted to hex him into the next week. It was the night following the one the Dark Lord had questioned Lucius about Nicander: he, Crabbe, Macnair, and Avery were all in a booth at a late-night café in Diagon Alley. Lucius divulged what had been discussed between himself and their master, and when he told them that he planned to contact Eira "Wherever the slut's been hiding," Macnair hunched his shoulders and told them sheepishly that he'd been sleeping with her since September. It was currently the final week of October.
The entire table went silent as Lucius's shocked expression metamorphosed into a death-glare; then Crabbe and Avery burst out laughing.
"She's still doin' it, then?!"
"Does she still do the—" Avery wiggled his fist in an up and down motion in front of his mouth.
Crabbe patted Macnair's arm to grab his attention, "Man—does she—" he leaned closer to Macnair's ear, but they could all hear him ask, "She let you jizzum inside o' her?!"
Macnair let his guard down and laughed at that. Crabbe leaned away and wiped tears from his eyes with a meaty hand, his face red with mirth. Avery nearly fell from his seat onto the floor, spilling his beer all over his lap. Lucius snatched a napkin from the table's edge and lobbed it into Avery's face without a word as he continued to glower at Macnair. The laughter died down.
Macnair looked at his drink as he muttered, "I was going to tell you—"
"Indeed? When, I wonder?"
Macnair opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by a still smirking Crabbe; "She available, then?"
Macnair sneered; "Aye if you want. Her face is all fucked up, though—just a warning."
Lucius frowned. "What do you mean?" He was still angry, but knew he needed to keep Macnair amenable if he were to find Eira.
"She got into a fight a few years ago; tried to give her a smiley, they did—" Macnair drew a finger down his cheek to the corner of his mouth, "Got half of her face, anyway."
The men at the table winced and shuddered. So someone had carved up Eira's face, had they? Lucius wondered what she'd done to earn that. He drank and thought in silence while the others went on about Eira and her various qualities. Then he told Avery and Crabbe to get lost so he and Macnair could have a little chat.
Macnair immediately poured his story out, swearing he was going to tell Lucius—he was just having so much fun with her! Good pussy was hard to find anymore, wasn't it? Lucius wouldn't know: he was married! He, Macnair, had no wife and it got lonely by himself, didn't it? Why shouldn't he take his comforts where he could get them? And Lucius hadn't exactly talked about contacting her more than once, had he?
That last was probably true, and likely so was the rest of it. Lucius quietly sipped his drink and let Macnair ruminate on his mistake. Both wizards knew he ought to have told Lucius, but he hadn't; it was a thing done and part of the past, now; what use was there in punishment when Lucius knew he'd have all he needed, soon?
The reddish, rosy dim of the café's lights washed his hair and pale skin in a bloody glow when he looked up from his drink and asked, "Did she take you to her house?"
And so at present, Lucius found himself at the top of a Welsh mountain in search of Eira Cadwallader, in the hope of locating Nicander through her.
A juvenile eagle flew past Lucius, startling him and making him curse. This was the general area that the Cadwallader family and others had settled in after the Statute of Secrecy was implemented, according to the records Lucius had found. As he walked, his thoughts wandered back to the history lessons he'd had on magic in Britain and the implementation of the Statute of Secrecy, to which most of Wales had been opposed.
In 1689, the Wizarding world saw the first draft of the proposed Statute of Secrecy. Many country's witches and wizards supported the proposal; but other nation's magical populace was not in agreement; Wales had been one of the latter. In 1692 the International Statute of Secrecy was formally established, and all those of magical ancestry were to join their brethren in hiding from the Muggle world, or rather—according to many who opposed the new law—the world.
From the sixteenth century to the mid seventeenth century, England and Scotland together saw, roughly estimated, five hundred to a thousand people executed for witchcraft, and thousands more had been tried.
Wales's estimated executions for witchcraft: five.
The witches and wizards of Wales (by then a colony of England) didn't want to leave their lives behind—what for—because the Muggles of other nations had gone insane? No, said most of the Welsh Wizarding community: we don't need to hide, nor do we want to; you all do what you must, but leave us in peace with our Muggles; we've little to no quarrel with them, and they with us (usually)!
Then there was the fact that when Wales was invaded by England, many English wizards were part of the invading army, so many Welsh witches and wizards felt little love for their Anglo neighbors. As the Statute of Secrecy drew nearer to being ratified—needing every nation in compliance—the resistant Welsh were dragged along by their Saesneg invaders, and in 1692 the Welsh, along with all other nations' witches and wizards who'd opposed the Statute of Secrecy (there were those who'd wanted war against the Muggles) were told, under threat of legal proceedings via their new Ministries of Magic that they must now hide—or risk punishment.
Bitter and furious, Welsh witches and wizards did hide . . . and many never emerged. From the Statute of Secrecy onwards, most witches and wizards lived in and around towns and villages largely populated by Muggles. In Wales, however, many Wizarding families took to the remotest parts of the country, which became properties passed down from those who'd been forced to abandon their original communities. Why bother, said the Welsh, living in the Muggle towns when they now had to hide their magic from even their most trusted neighbors? Why bother moving to a village with more magical people where, still, most of their neighbors would be Muggles? Why live a life where one had to always hide, hide, hide, or be punished? Why live like that when they could fly onto the mountain slopes and into the highest cwms? How many hills and moors and craggy valleys did Wales hold where its magical descendants could secretly live, where they could build new and secret homes from the Muggles under the Statute of Secrecy that was so damned dear and precious to the Saesneg bastards in London?
And so, in a strange and bitter twist, the Welsh magical community—once the most secure and open towards the nonmagical—became the most isolated and mistrusting in Britain. As generation after generation of Welsh witches and wizards grew up away from the Muggle world, the old feelings of camaraderie towards them faded. The old, ambivalent feelings towards the Ministry of Magic and the Statute of Secrecy however, remained. By the late eighteenth century, Wizarding Wales had been split into two camps: those who'd adjusted to the new laws and lived like most other witches and wizards in Britain: one comfortable and happy among ignorant Muggle neighbors, and another that remained in the most isolated parts of the country, mainly in the north, lending little support to the Ministry of Magic and having little to no contact with Muggles at all.
No contact with Muggles was commendable, thought Lucius, but did they have to hide themselves thousands of feet high in the middle of fucking nowhere?! He sighed and righted himself when he tripped over a stone he thought loose.
The house he was looking for was labeled Ty'n-y-cwm—the House in the Combe—the combe house. Translations and descriptions across centuries placed the ancestral Cadwallader home in a shallow valley many miles from any villages in Snowdonia near an Unplottable lake called Llyn Canol, also near a summit called Crib Llithrig. Lucius couldn't see any lake, but the path of the ridge soon came to a higher point from which he could make out the black mirror surface of a small lake nestled at the base of three low, round-topped mountains some distance to the north. He looked straight ahead, west, and saw the edge of a group of trees—evergreens, owing their continued verdancy on the first of November. He walked on and noted a faint smell of smoke on the air—chimney smoke—and his confidence grew. Suddenly, the path ended.
Lucius found himself at the crosspoint of three ridges, one going north, the second going east back the way he came, and the third branching west by southwest. The combe beneath the southwesterly ridge held the forest he'd spotted, which lay farther west down the slope and into the valley. The combe to his right appeared to be the widest and most easy to navigate on foot, while the one facing west between the north and west ridges was the smallest, leading down into a narrow, wooded valley. Which one did Eira live in? Hadn't Macnair said to go left?
Hoping he was right, he disapparated and found himself on the scrubby slope of the southerly combe, the head of a glen tucked between rolling, craggy mountains. Further down the slope where the ground evened out sat a cottage and a number of outbuildings. It was whitewashed; long and low, only one story except at one end, which appeared to have been built just big enough to add an extra room or storage space. A drystone wall ran waist high at the front of the cottage, built to a man's shoulders at the back; perhaps that was where the wind blew worst? Lucius approached the house and turned into the path between the ends of the wall, which overlapped. He entered a spacious yard covered in melting snow and yellowed grass. A barn had been built right up against the outside of the drystone wall; Lucius saw a pair of horses some way in the distance, freed of their confines to dig through the snow for sustenance. He saw the sorrel one lower its ears and kick the gray one with her hind legs—probably a mare, then. He turned his attention back to the cottage. He'd been in a number of different houses throughout his life; this one he wasn't sure to describe as quaint or crumbling. The whitewashing was less obvious up close, the stone beneath showing through in patches. The door, window sills, and jambs had once been painted a cheery red, but the paint had long begun to strip. Shaking his head, Lucius drew himself up and rapped smartly on the faded red door.
He heard a faint call from inside that might have been "Coming!" and after a minute the door was pulled open to reveal Eira—older, and somewhat drawn, but Eira all the same.
"Ia—"
She stopped cold as recognition dawned on her. Lucius smiled as he watched her hazel eyes widen.
"Good afternoon, Eira" he drawled lightly.
Eira stared at him, and he took her in for the first time in over fourteen years. Her blonde hair had darkened to a dull shade against her scalp, her youthful yellow tendrils held on only near the ends. She was wearing a fitted black robe without a belt, but even so he could see she'd gained weight on her once supple frame, and her face bore the telltale pink blotches of someone who favored their drink. But of course, the most obvious change was the scars that marred that same face. A faint line bisected her left cheek at a crooked angle, coming to a pink dent near the corner of her mouth. There was a shorter, less obvious scar on the right side as well, a jagged white line that went, again, from the corner of her mouth but ended downwards at the jawline there; perhaps the person who attacked her was interrupted as they tried to cut her right cheek? Lucius had seen worse, but he couldn't say she looked good.
"It's been some time, hasn't it? Surely you're going to invite me in?"
Without waiting for an answer, Lucius swept past Eira into the house. The little entryway where hats and cloaks were hung on pegs opened into wide room room where a fire crackled pleasantly in the wide hearth. Wooden chairs sat haphazardly about the living room holding nondescript items while a russet sofa leaned against the wall near the fireplace. Portraits of family members sat atop the stone mantelpiece. He heard Eira close the door and pass him directly to the other end of the room, which was both kitchen and dining room. Lucius thought the cottage could have been cleaner, but he didn't think Eira was ever the homemaker type.
He turned to her and asked, "May I sit down?"
Eira only stared at him some more. Lucius unfastened his cloak and Eira seemed to be pulled back to life.
"What the fuck are you doing here, Malfoy?"
He supposed asking for some tea would be pushing it. He folded his cloak and rested on the back of an empty chair near the fire so it would be nice and warm when he left. "Oh, I've been reconnecting with old acquaintances—" he scrutinized the pictures on the mantelpiece—none of her children appeared, only older relatives in mostly black-and-white portraits, "—and I wondered that I haven't seen you or Nicander in so long! We used to be such good friends . . . or so I thought!"
He watched Eira carefully; did a shadow just cross her face, or did her scars play tricks on your eyes when you looked at her? Was she hiding something?
"So, I decided—" Lucius strode across the living room to examine an old and elaborately carved lovespoon that was hung on the wall beside the door, "—to make a little trip over to Wales to see how old friends are doing!"
He turned to look Eira, who hadn't moved from her spot at the edge of the kitchen. Her face was set in a way that suggested she was trying to hold it together. Good, thought Lucius. He smiled at her and walked toward her with his hands clasped behind him, perfectly at ease. He stopped just short of her when he saw her flinch backwards a bit.
"Aren't you going to say anything, Eira? Surely you remember me?"
Eira shifted uncomfortably, replying in a cool voice, "Nicander left me and you and I were hardly friends."
Lucius pretended surprise. "Left you, you say? But you were both so—infatuated—with one another!"
"He left" said Eira, staring firmly into Lucius's eyes. "You missed him by almost ten years, so you can go; nobody here for you to talk to."
Lucius eyed her; she held herself stiffly, almost too stiffly; and the way she held his gaze felt less genuine than—desperate? Yes: desperate, thought Lucius.
"May I have some tea?" he asked.
"Haven't got any," said Eira flippantly, a smirk playing at the corner of her lips.
"My goodness, but you have fallen on hard times, haven't you?!" Lucius ambled past Eira to look about the kitchen, feigning interest. Eira sighed, and looked at him hard.
"Nicander's gone, Lucius. I'm sorry you want to see him, but he's gone from here! You and I never got along so I'd rather you just leave—please."
She'd gained some of her confidence back, speaking in a firm voice with an equally firm expression. Lucius could almost respect her.
"Don't you miss me a little?"
"No!"
He smirked at her, enjoying her frustration. "Do you ever see any of the old crowd? I recall you had a particular circle of friends you were frequently seen with. . ."
Eira cursed in Welsh. "Get out, Lucius."
"Is that how you dismiss Walden at the end of a night?"
Eira closed her eyes, shook her head slightly, muttering, "That bastard couldn't ever keep it to himself."
"I've kept good company with Walden, you know? He's also rather curious about Nicander's whereabouts."
"Well, you and him can get together and go looking for Nicander, because I don't fucking know where he's gone!" She turned away from Lucius, but added, "Could be dead for all I know."
Lucius raised an eyebrow. "Dead? Knowing him, I doubt—"
"He's gone, Lucius; left to a different country or fucking dead when he fucked off the wrong person! And I don't want to talk about him, so you can fuck away off!"
"You were always a delight to be around, Eira; it's good to see you haven't changed—well . . . at least not in spirit," Lucius sneered, looking pointedly at her scars. Eira only glared at him. He strode out of the kitchen and sat on the sofa with a leisurely sigh. Eira remained standing, tense and uneasy.
"Are you sure you don't know where Nicander might've gone, Eira?"
"Bleeding fucking Christ, Lucius! I don't want you in my house discussing this kind of thing! It's none of your fucking business! And you know what, you can tell Macnair to go fuck himself with a hot poker, too! I'm done with him! Now will you please leave?!" Eira said all this with her face growing steadily pink; her breast had started to heave, and her eyes had a wild, agitated sort of look. It was like she was holding back—words? Information? Lucius lounged against the sofa, staring at her, a feeling of small satisfaction filling his chest. He had her in a good spot; he just needed to keep her from escaping it.
"I had to scale a mountain to get here. At least let me rest a moment."
Eira snorted. She grabbed his cloak from the back of the chair and threw it at him. Then she strode to the door and opened it. Lucius got up and gave the cottage another disdainful look. At the threshold, he stopped and shook out his cloak before putting it on at a leisurely pace. Impatient for him to be gone, Eira rolled her eyes and looked away.
"If you're ever in need of intelligent conversation, or wish to, ah—divulge anything on your mind, I'd take you to breakfast—"
"I eat," clipped Eira.
And isn't that ironic? Thought Lucius.
"Oh. Well, that's more than your children can say," he muttered as he fastened his cloak, smirking to himself as he brushed the fabric off.
There was a pause—a very loud pause. Then: "What—the—fuck—did you just say. . .?"
He'd thought Eira was on tenterhooks before—now she looked angry.
They stared at each other in silence; Lucius watched Eira fight with herself to stay calm.
"It strikes me that while you appear to be— alright—though perhaps not prosperous—you're children have been left in a more, ah—precarious situation."
Eira was exhaling so hard through her nose, she sounded like a winded horse.
"What? D'you have something to say?"
She only watched him with a look that grew more tormented, so Lucius sneered at her and turned to exit the cottage. He was going to say something else but Eira opened her mouth first.
"You should have fucking been killed—"
Lucius spun around so fast she didn't have time to react.
"What did you just say, cunt?"
He pushed her so hard against the wall the back of her head bounced. The door shut behind him as he stepped back inside. She was about to reach for her wand but Lucius was too fast. He grabbed her wrist and punched her in the stomach at the same time, seizing her wand and shoving it in his back pocket. He pushed her, doubled over, to the sofa and shoved her onto it so she was facedown, her wrist pinned against her back with one of his knees pressed into her spine. She squirmed against him, and Lucius was surprised by her strength, but he only needed to add more force.
He held her neck in a vice-like grip and snarled down at her through gritted teeth, "Listen, bitch—I used to put up with you because I liked Nicander, and you were fucking other people I respected. Now you're just an old slut with too many brats you couldn't care for. If you come at me like that again, I'll fuck you, then hex you until you don't know which hole is which for a month!" Lucius scoffed and added, "Not that it'll matter, I expect; you're such a fucking whore, you probably won't care that much!"
Eira tried to lurch up, but he held her fast.
"Fuck you!" she spat.
He took his hand off her neck and fisted it into her hair until she cried out.
"I can tell you're withholding something, Eira. If it's about Nicander, I'd start talking, if I were you."
"He's been gone for ten years! Ahhhh!"
Lucius gripped her hair harder. "You've already said that. I think you've got something else to say about it."
She nearly lifted him off her as she again tried to get up, her one free arm shaking with the effort. Lucius pressed his knee harder against her spine, shoving her face into the sofa as he did. He'd forgotten how strong she was; Nicander had always liked them tough.
"Stop—or I'll call Macnair over to help me, I promise you. . ."
Eira's breath was trembling, now. Lucius leaned over her and he felt her seize. He made sure he had her eye as he said, "You're lucky I came today; I've got other business to see to, and I don't have the time play around with you. Don't worry though—" he took his knee off her back, "—I'll come see you again a week or so—maybe even less." He released her hair and stood up, then he let go of her wrist. She didn't move as he looked down at her.
"Here's your wand back." He pulled it from his pocket and dropped it on the sofa in front of her. She remained still, not bothering to take it. Lucius straightened his robes and backed away a little before turning towards the door. When he glanced back at her, she still hadn't moved from the sofa. Lucius wrenched open the door and called over his shoulder, "I'll see you soon, Eira."