Fairborn Adventures
AN: Hey guys!
Welcome to Chapter 99.
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Chapter 99
October 31st, 1979
The old grandfather clock in the living room chimed its melody, its hand hitting the number seven, letting the muffled tune drift over to her.
She lifted a slim silver chain around her neck off her head and balanced it on her finger. A ring dangled at the bottom of the chain, slowly spinning clockwise. Hundreds of tiny diamonds sparkled in the low light of the chandelier, depicting a thestral at the very center of it.
She curled her fingers around it and clutched it against her heart, feeling the faint ripples of warmth lance into her chest.
'It's almost like a small part of you is still somewhere in there.'
A soft snap echoed through the silent kitchen. Feet shuffled behind her over the tiles.
"Mistress Marly?"
Marlene tore her eyes from the ring and lifted the chain back over her head.
"Mistress?" Dobby carefully probed again.
She slowly turned in her chair, meeting the elf's bulging green eyes. Most of their enthusiastic, radiant sparkle had perished roughly a year ago and only some of it had returned since then.
"What is it, Dobby?"
"Little Master is awake again, Mistress." Dobby swallowed and hung his head, fidgeting with his fingers. "Dobby thought he'd let Mistress know."
"Thank you, Dobby." She forced a smile on her lips and straightened, wrenching the kitchen past her and apparating up into her bedroom.
An elegantly wooden-carved crib rocked gently next to her large, empty bed. Small runes glowed in a faint golden light at its bottom, flickering each time the crib swayed from left to right.
Wailing sounded from within it. Marlene stepped closer and crouched over the edge and peeked inside.
A small baby, wrapped in a bundle of velvet blankets, flailed and screwed its tiny face up, twitching in attempts to break free. Her very own sharp blue eyes blacked back up at her, sparkling with large tears.
"Ssshhh, it's okay." Marlene carefully scooped the bundle out of the crib and into her arms. She held it against her breast, steadied the tiny head with one hand, and plastered it with small kisses: "It's okay, everything will be okay, Mommy is here now."
She walked over to her bed and sat down, swaying the bundle from side to side until the loud wails faded and she could place him on her lap.
"That's better now," Marlene whispers, brushing the first wisps of ebony hair from her baby's forehead with a soft smile: "Now, what is it, Tristan? You can't possibly be hungry again, can you? I only fed you an hour ago."
Big blue eyes and a toothless smile stared up at her.
"Your appetite rivals your father's." Marlene smiled, a distant memory dancing through her thoughts. "He once planned on growing as tall as the Headmaster. Do you want to be that tall as well?"
A small, chubby fist struck out from underneath the blanket. Tristan clutched onto one of her long, golden curls, stuffing the tip into his mouth and chomping on it with a small frown.
"You're just like your father, aren't you?" Marlene chuckled, blinking away a tear and gently tugging her hair out of Tristan's tiny fists: "Although he preferred playing with my hair instead of chewing on it. Gold had been his favorite color ever since he met me."
Her son frowned when the golden curls were pried from his grasp.
"Don't worry." Marlene bent low and placed a kiss on his forehead. "Tomorrow I'll make you something different to play with. I promise you'll love it."
Harry's ring fell out of her décolleté, now freely dangling over Tristan's face, whose tiny hand immediately struck out again, seizing it.
"Nice catch," Marlene chuckled faintly, watching him tuck on the chain and chuck the ring into his mouth, chomping on it with rosy gums. "It was your father's. But before that, it belonged to an old, secretive family, who passed down a very rare gift to their direct descendants. Your father also possessed it and in a few years we will see if you inherited it too."
'I bet you will. You've got only the best of both of us after all.'
"One day I will tell you more about your father, Tristan." Marlene sucked in a gulp of air and attempted to keep the tears at bay, rocking her baby back and forth until his eyelids shut close over large blue orbs. "I just know there's so much of him in you. And how could there not be? You're everything the two of us had ever wished for..."
Careful not to wake him up, she placed Tristan back down in his crib and tucked the blankets securely around him. With a flick of her wand, the runes at the bottom activated again and returned to their gentle, rhythmic swaying.
"One day," Marlene murmured, striding to the window and letting her eyes roam into the distance.
'Another sunset without you, my love.' She forced the world past and apparated down onto the balcony: 'Perhaps I should bid you a good night and catch up on some sleep myself.'
A warm orange tinge clung to the sky. The fading sunlight spilled over the distant mountain ridge, casting long shadows through the valley and dancing in the peaks of the faint waves that rippled over the dark lake.
She pulled the Elder Wand, Harry's wand, from her sleeve and flourished it at the tiles of the balcony, right where, what felt like a lifetime ago, they had exchanged their wedding vows.
"It works much better for me now, my love." Marlene trailed her finger along the length of the wand, before placing her open palm over her belly. "Perhaps because I carried a part of you, a part of your magic, in me for nine months?"
A radiant shimmer of magic rippled through the stones of the balcony, leaving a bright white tomb in its wake. Crystals stretched over its top, revealing the obscured, shimmering outline of a pale face and dark hair, kept from withering by countless pieces of magic.
"You would've definitely known why, Harry." Her lips curled into a faint, sad smile: "Obscure magic was always your forte, wasn't it?"
She crouched down, bushing her thumb over the crystals covering Harry's face.
"Your Ring began working for me as well." The band of gold with its dark gemstone sparkled in the last rays of the sun on her finger: "Each day it becomes harder to fulfill my promise to Lily and not just use it to see you."
'One day I will fail its temptation.'
"I miss you so much, my love. Sometimes I feel like there's nothing left for me in this world. But I know I have to stay strong for Tristan, for our son." A tight fist of emotion clamped itself about her throat. "It's what you'd have wanted me to do, isn't it?"
She lifted the silver chain over her head, curling her fist around the metal and bringing it to her chest, listening to the distant echo of Harry's magic within it.
"So much has changed, and at the same time so little. Voldemort's fall didn't solve any the issues we had before. The bigotry, the corruption, the greed of those in power..." A brief laugh burst from her lips, traveling off the balcony in the sunset. "But at least it's different from your first victory over him. You'd probably prefer it. No one is hailing you as a hero now. Half the country hates us for what we did, the other half for how we did it…"
Marlene's fingers clutched around the ring that lay over her breast, sending faint ripples and muffled whispers through her skin, straight into her heart. "If you were here with me we'd probably laugh about it together..."
"So why did you have to die?" She whispered, hot tears now trickling freely down her cheeks: "Why did you have to leave me, leave us, alone?"
The last rays of sunlight vanished behind the distant hills. A faint tingle traveled over her skin, causing shivering goosebumps.
'The wards.' Marlene's eyes snapped up, fingers flexing around the Elder Wand. 'Has the Ministry finally found a way in?'
A shadow of black mist wrenched over the lake towards the Manor, curling up over the railings of the balcony, straight towards her, towards the tomb.
'It cannot be true.' Her breath caught in her lungs and she pressed the ring into her skin over her heart, attempting to crush the swell of hope with it. 'Don't let it be yet another cruel nightmare.'
Hissing shadows crept over the tiles to the tomb; distorted, faceless, and dark. They effortlessly evaded her protections, soaking through the crystal surface like water into soil, fading away like the smoke of a candle in a gentle breeze.
A crack echoed over the balcony, spilling the tomb's crystal surface in half, then it burst open.
Marlene threw up her hands, shielding her face. Sharp splinters cut into her arms and neck. She felt her skin spitting them right back out, splattering them over the tiles of the balcony.
Her heart pounded frantically in a mix of fear and excitement, her lips trembled madly. A veil of tears obscured her vision when she finally lowered her arms and stared at the open tomb.
Harry's preserved body, dressed in the very robes he had worn on the happiest day of her life, twitched and pulsed. Dark mist poured out of his nose and crept over him, sinking into his dress robes.
"No, it can't be." She shook her head, eyes never leaving him.
The ring above her heart, Harry's ring, abruptly burned hot, tearing through the fabric of her dress with angry hisses and searing deep into her skin.
Suddenly his lips spread open, sucking in a deep breath that heaved his chest. He leaped up right out of the tomb, eyes widened in fear, staring straight at her.
The world stood still, stopping the rippling waves of the lake, thwarting the gentle breeze that traveled over the balcony, freezing the clouds and stars in the night sky.
"Marlene..."
Her name almost sounded foreign on his pale lips, like the word caught in a dry throat, rasping off a parched tongue.
"It's just another dream, a cruel nightmare," she whispered: "You died, Harry. I watched you die in my arms."
"You-you're right." Harry's hand lifted, slowly reaching out to her. "I did die..."
She remained right where she was in front of his tomb. Frozen in place. Unable to do anything while his cold fingers touched her chest and closed around the slim silver chain, cautiously prying his wedding ring out of the hole it had burned through her dress.
"I died," Harry repeated in a distant whisper: "But before that, I kept a little secret from you..."
Black, hissing smoke poured from the band of gold, wrenching around his fingers. It laced into his skin, darkening his veins as it surged up his arm.
'A secret.'
She stared up at him, up into emerald green eyes that slowly regained some of their bright gleam. A thousand different thoughts flooded her brain, pounded inside her skull, bringing dizziness to the forefront of her mind.
'You promised to do anything. Anything...'
Sharp, ice-cold fingers tightened themselves around her stomach, piercing through to her spine.
"You fulfilled your promise," Marlene gasped.
Suddenly a loud wail cut through the silence from a window above them, echoing over the balcony and the lake.
Harry's head snapped up in surprise. His green eyes widened. His body quivered when his eyes found her again. The question hung in them, off every line in the shock upon his face.
"Yes. my love," she choked and hurled herself against him, dragging him into her embrace and clinging to him desperately, curling her fingers deep into his robes.
" I kept a little secret as well."
THE END
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