PART ELEVEN: THE HYENA
J's P.O.V
xXx
The patio door across the backyard slipped open, the smooth whir accompanied by the soft thudding of footsteps making their way closer. J didn't need to turn his gaze away from the swimming pool from the brick ledge he sat on to know who it was who came across the lawn and plonked down beside him. The breeze brought with it the scent of spring daisies and sweet lemons.
Nora.
All was silent for a long while before the girl beside him broke it gently, her voice as low as the daisy-lemon wind that carried her voice.
"you didn't know I was coming, did you?"
J would admit that it was a surprise to come home after school to find Nora sitting at the outside dinner table surrounded by his uncles and grandmother, as if she belonged there, had always been there, and between the time of J asking what Nora was doing there and Smurf cutting across J with a cheery smile and a demand hiding as a request to help clear the dining table so desert could be brought out, the shock of having Nora here, in this house with these people, still hadn't fully worn off.
J kept his gaze dead ahead and looked out onto the glistening waters of the pool.
"No… No I didn't."
Nora let out a small breathy chuckle that bounced along with the sunshine.
"I didn't think so by the face you pulled."
J didn't know what to say to that, though he still desperately wanted to know what she was doing here exactly, he already knew it must have something to do with Pope. Pope who had kept badgering him about the contact request, Pope, who J had been lying to about hearing nothing back for weeks, Pope, who was always one foot off the ridge of psychosis, yeah, that Pope.
Nora tells him as much.
"Pope rang me up this morning off your phone. He said you wanted me to come over for dinner to get to know the family, that you would be late due to an exam you couldn't miss. I didn't think nothing of it, so I agreed."
Pope must have swiped his phone while J had been in the shower that morning. It was the only time during the entire day that his cell had been out of reach. If Pope had… Then he'd seen the photos too no doubt, the ones from the quay and the bar and Nora's home. Nora and J's little moments together in snapshots in his camera folder. Pope knew he had been lying.
They all did.
Against his better judgement, J found his gaze drifting over to the patio windows, sweeping over the open planned kitchen inside, seeing the figures of Smurf and his uncles busy inside, clearing plates and dishes and cups.
Acting as if they weren't glancing their way.
"Look, J, I'm just going to lay it all out, alright? I can't do this whole pussy-footing around thing. It's not in me."
J snorted, about to say no shit, nothing about Nora could remotely be called delicate, but Nora didn't give him much time to let the snort bleed into a chuckle.
"Was today nice? Yeah. I won't lie. I… I think you know by now that I didn't… I didn't have the best childhood. My adopted mum and dad they were… They died when I was nearly two, and I was dumped on my adopted aunt and uncles doorstep in the dead of night in the middle of fuckin' October like trash taken to the curb."
J's gaze snapped over to Nora but now she was the one looking to the waters, trying to find her words in the blue. He hoped she had better luck than him.
"Today was nice. My aunt and uncle… They hated me. Really, truly hated me. I still don't quite know why. Maybe, despite the adoption, I reminded Petunia of my mum Lily. Maybe I was… Too much. Too ginger. Too skinny. Too loud… Too much of everything that you shouldn't be too much of. I don't know but they hated me. They used to… I-… They used to lock me in the understair's cupboard for days. It was dark and it was damp, and I would have to sneak out and steal food from the kitchen until they began locking the cabinets on me when they found food missing, and then I had to go into the trash-"
Nora shook her head violently, trying to dispel the memories. J wished he could do the same. The image, the thought-
It feels like sick in his throat.
"It wasn't… It wasn't the best time of my life. What I mean to say is… Today was nice, you know? It was nice to meet family that didn't try swinging a frying pan at my head at first glance."
Nora, again, chuckled, but all the sunshine warmth had turned frigid. Finally, she met his eye. They were green and bright, and nearly unbearably soft.
"It was nice, and it doesn't matter."
J frowned.
"Doesn't matter?"
Nora smiled.
"Smurf, Pope, Deran, Baz, Craig, Lena… They're like confetti. Nice confetti, yeah, but confetti all the same. I didn't come all this way, across a bloody ocean, into a new fuckin' country, for them. I came for you."
Nora's hand came up to rest lightly on his shoulder, the scarred one, the one J had spied before, the one Nora kept mostly hidden.
I Must Not Tell Lies.
Was that her aunt and uncle too? The scar on her forehead also? How about the one peeking out her boot, the one that looked like a burn scar winding up her calf? The one on her forearm, the nasty slash as if she'd been stabbed by a spike of some kind? Or the hint of one peaking out the collar of her shirt over her chest, red and scarlet and round?
Nora hid her scars well by not hiding them at all. There they were for all to see, and by being out in the open as they were, you almost forgot to ask how a sixteen-year-old was riddled in them.
Almost.
"You're why I'm here right now. You don't want me here; I won't come here. I can go. If it's going to be a choice, a choice between you and them, then it really isn't much of a choice at all. I choose you. You're my brother."
J didn't know what to say to that either. He's never been first choice. Not with his mother, who chose drugs over him. Not with Nicky, who chose Craig the first chance she got when it was offered up. Not with Smurf and the boys. J had always been second helpings. To be chosen over something else, everybody else, it was-
It hurt.
It hurt good.
Yet, Nora's smile curled in the corners, a sad, small thing that reminded J of a dead spider on a windowsill.
"But I won't be kept as a dirty secret either, J, and I think I'm being fair there. I won't be-… I won't let someone else put me in that cupboard and only take me out when they need me to do the bloody housework. I can't… I can't do that again. So… So just let me know, okay? Just let me know what you're comfortable with, and we'll go from there."
J reached up and laid his hand over Nora's, threading fingers and threading voices.
"I didn't mean-… I just wanted it to be us for a while, you know? Try and get back some of the time that was-"
That was taken from us.
J shook his head.
"I was being selfish."
Nora jostled his shoulder playfully.
"I can think of worse ways to be selfish."
J thought that was the best thing about Nora he had found so far. Her inability to blame. Anger didn't seem to come easy, if at all, to her. She didn't do grudges, or guilt trips, or find fault. She met closed fists with open palms, and that somehow, some fucking way, made her stronger than anything and anyone else.
J grinned, jutting his chin over her shoulder to the patio window.
"So, which one do you like best so far?"
Nora shrugged, her torn sleeve flashing a pale speckled shoulder as the joint rolled.
"Pope seems nice."
"Pope? I always thought he was a bit creepy myself."
Nora scoffed and pulled her hand away from his, but she was grinning, J was grinning, and suddenly all his misgivings about having Nora here seemed to lap away like the waters in the swimming pool.
"He's not creepy. He says what he thinks and he's a bit… Different. As someone who has always managed to put their foot in it, I get that. Let me guess, you like Baz?"
J rolled his eyes.
"Baz isn't so bad."
"Have you seen his hair? How long do you think he spent this morning gelling and styling it to make it look like he hadn't touched it at all? An hour at least. I saw him checking his own reflection in the patio window three times while I spoke to him."
J laughed, and laughed hard. That too hurt in a good way.
"He has an… Ego, yeah. They all do, it must be a Cody-"
J was interrupted by the sound of the patio door opening again, and he watched as Nicky came tumbling out two steps, caught sight of the siblings sitting at the far end under the shadow of a palm, and-
And turned tail back into the kitchen, slamming the door shut.
J turned slowly to Nora. Nora who was looking far too innocent.
"Tell me you didn't."
"I didn't do Jack shit-"
"Nora-"
"I only maybe, maybe, slipped up and, possibly, called her Narcotic-Nicky. She must have taken it the wrong way."
J huffed and yet, still, here, with Nora and the sunshine, the grin never fell.
"The wrong way? What other way was she supposed to take it?"
Nora half-markedly shrugged.
"To be honest, I don't really care which way she wants to take anything. She's lucky that's all I said or did."
Maybe Nora did do grudges then, and anger too by the bite of her words that matched the tart lemon of her scent, but J doesn't call her on it. Maybe he should. Maybe he should tell her he doesn't need his little sister to fight his battles, but again he was struck by that soft-good-pain. The one that settles between his ribs and blooms. Having someone in his corner ready to throw rounds is… Nice.
It's all nice. Sitting here, side by side with Nora, under the hot sun, with food in his belly and new clothes on his back, and an aching smile on his face, and everything he didn't have as a kid living in a junkies house is nice. Nora must have felt it too, this heat, this warmth, this soft-good-pain, having things she didn't have in her aunt and uncles cupboard.
Nice and new and good.
And the truth was J shouldn't be bothered by how Nicky took things. Nicky had made her choice, as J had made his own, and now, here, there was one last choice to make.
As Nora had said, it wasn't really a choice at all.
"You should stay. Here, I mean. Come and go as you want-… This is your family too. You're right. You're my sister, that isn't going to change because you have a few more relatives to annoy you."
J could do this. He knew he could. He could keep Nora happy, and protected, keep her out of the… Business and the danger, but give her family.
He could.
Nora stretched out her long legs in the shade, freckles scattered like stars on her knees and thighs, the longer she stayed here at Oceanside the more that were appearing like she was getting burnished in copper, feet swinging in her kickers.
"Good, cause I was going to stay for desert anyway. I'm pretty sure I spotted a cherry pie on the counter as I came through. I ain't leaving until I've scoffed at least five slices."
J chuckled, slapped his thighs, and stood.
"Only five? I've seen you devour that many cheesecakes in ten minutes. For someone so small I swear it's a wonder how you fit it all in."
"The secret is hollow bones."
"You've got a hollow head if anything-"
Again, the patio door swung open, but this time little Lena came dashing out, right for Nora who managed to stand and catch the girl as she lunged at her, swinging her up and onto her hip with a spin and a bounce and a giggle.
Another thing about Nora J had noticed, her reflexes were almost uncannily precise and fast.
"Mama Smurf said desert is ready!"
"Really?"
Nora grinned, heading for the kitchen with Lena coiled around her waist.
"We better go get some then."
J followed closely behind. He could do this. Just because Nora was here didn't mean she was going to be dragged into… What they did.
PART TWELVE: THE DOG
J's P.O.V
xXx
J sat down at the island in the kitchen, opposite Nora, surrounded by Baz, Pope, Smurf, and Lena. He turned to his grandmother and took the offered plate of sugar and pastry with a weary question.
"Where's Craig and Deran?"
He stopped himself short of asking about Nicky.
Smurf smiled faintly as she dug into her own piece of pie.
"They're dropping Nicky off at home and then going on a quick errand for me. They'll be back soon."
J had the sense not to ask what sort of errand, when it came to Smurf and the Cody family a chore could range from doing the dishes to hijacking a helicopter, and was thankful, for once, for Baz suddenly cutting in, eyeing his daughter who was currently perched on Nora's lap and refusing to move since the ginger woman had carried her in.
"Come on Lena, why don't you sit in your own seat and leave poor Nora to eat in peace?"
Lena, of course, despite being so young, and perhaps to Baz's disadvantage, was as much a Cody as anyone else at the table, and J watched as the little girls cheeks puffed pink and her small shoulders squared stubbornly, readying to argue back. Fortunately, before a real argument between father and daughter could break out, Nora finished off her forkful of cherry pie and grinned.
"It's fine. She can sit here if she wants."
Lena took that as all the permission she needed, crossing her arms sullenly as she dug further into Nora's lap, practically daring Baz to try and make her move now. Baz, clearly, knew when and how to pick his battles as he sighed and backed down with a gentle smile at Lena, who grinned back in victory.
Smurf carved up another slice of pie for Nora, who had already gone through two, sliding the plate over to the young redheaded woman with a grin and something J couldn't name glimmering in her eye.
"I was thinking we could have a small party tonight. Open the pool up and set out some drinks. Really celebrate."
Nora took the offered treat, but glanced down at her watch.
"It's getting quite late, and if I'm going to make the drive back to mine before dark I should really head out after desert-"
"Nonsense."
Smurf cut in as she scooped up another slice for herself.
"You can stay here tonight."
Baz squinted over, to the blond woman, stare hard and stony, opening his mouth to argue. J stepped in before Pope could.
That was all Nora needed on her first visit. Witnessing Baz and Pope going at it.
"You can share my room, if you want?"
Nora beamed at him but J spotted the slight wince twitching at the corner of her eye.
"I was actually going to head out and visit Julia's grave today."
There was nothing slight about her wince now.
"I haven't been yet and I just… Think it's time."
Pope's fork scraped across his plate.
"I know where it is. I can take you there after you've finished your pie. It's not far, and it shouldn't take long. I can bring you back here afterwards."
Before Nora could answer, Smurf dropped in with a clap and a smile of bright white teeth.
"That's fixed then. Go visit your mother, and then come back. Me and J here can sort the room out before you get back."
"I have no clothes with me or my toothbrush-"
Nora began but was swiftly superseded by Smurf waving her off with a flippant hand.
"We have spare toothbrushes in the bathroom and I have plenty of spare clothes that I've never worn. If you're not comfortable with that baby, I'm sure Pope wouldn't mind making a pitstop at yours before coming back."
Pope shook his head, and it seemed Nora had no more room to argue. Baz's chair screeched across the kitchen tile as it was shoved back, and J watched Nora watch Baz leave the kitchen in quick and sure strides, a frown puckering at the middle of her brows.
"Did I say something?"
Pope scoffed, digging into his pie without looking up.
"Ignore him."
Nora's mouth opened to respond but it was Smurf's voice that came blistering through the kitchen in the wake of Baz's hasty departure.
"You have a nice hair stick there."
Nora blinked and frowned deeper, the muscle in her jaw jumping, chewing words, before she settled for something uncommitted.
"I've had it for a while."
Smurf hummed around a bite of cherry pie, and J found himself glancing to the stick in question. Nora always had it on her, through her hair bun most often than not, sometimes in her pocket or perched behind her ear, a long knobbled bit of wood that, to J, looked like it might have seen better days, might have just been picked up from the floor underneath a tree at some stage.
Smurf licked her lips in a sweep of pink.
"Since you were eleven, I would presume."
J doesn't know what it was about that sentence, it made no sense to him, but it did to Nora. Boy, it did, because she freezes where she sits, fork hallway to her mouth, unblinking, Lena happily eating in her lap, green eyes bright and-
Shooting straight to Smurf.
The fork slowly lowered back to her plate.
"J told me no one else in the family had one."
Smurf chirpily shrugged.
"No one J would have met. Julia and Pope's father, however? He had one just like it. Always kept it on him, never out of reach. He had a London accent too."
Nora's knuckles were bleach white around the grip on the fork.
"I'm guessing, like him, you went to Hogwarts too?"
Hogwarts? What the hell was-
Nora, however, dropped the fork entirely, blinking in quick succession, mental fog seeping out, turning fully to Smurf as she gently lowered Lena off her lap much to the child's grumbling.
"You know what I am."
By the way Pope's gaze was flicking between Smurf and Nora, it was obvious, like J, he had no idea what the two women were talking about either.
Was there something in the pie?
"Oh, yes."
Smurf nodded.
"You know I never thought I would see that bike again. The triumph? It's been years… It was your grandfather's pride and joy before he gave it to his nephew. He must have made some changes to it, before it got into your hands, but I wouldn't mistake that bike anywhere. Me and Alphard spent many nights on the back of that beast, baby."
The name was like a trigger of a gun being pulled, the bullet invisible, unknowable, only to Nora who jolted from her chair as if she'd been shot, appeared ready to bolt only to freeze again, unsure which way to turn or what to do or, maybe, who she needed to punch.
"Alphard-"
Nora finally said after a long beat of silence.
"As in… Alphard Black?"
Smurf, despite Nora's disoriented, sharp tone, happily kept on eating.
"Who else?"
"Nora?"
J asked hesitantly.
"What's going on?"
Pope, too, finally joined in on the conversation.
"What the hell are you two speaking about?"
Smurf finally put her fork down, sliding her empty plate away leisurely, gesturing to a stock-still Nora.
"She's a Witch."
J-
J laughed. Bright, loud, he laughed… And Nora didn't laugh along with him. Instead, she grimaced, cringing, face apologetic.
"I was going to tell you."
Next Chapter: Pope and J witness madness, Nora visits a grave, and a party is started…
I know this chapter was quite short compared to my other ones, and again it's been an eon since the last update, but I've had a rather horrible year or so, and my hobby of writing unfortunately didn't quite have space or time to be worked with. However, I am back now, with this very, very, very small peace offering to you beautiful readers, hoping there are still some of you left for this fic lol. It's not much, I know, but we did have some good drama at the end. Who saw that coming lol? I know, in Canon, that Pope and Julia's father is Colin, but I've changed it for plot reasons, and I always knew from the beginning of this fic that I wanted and needed Alphard to be included. I can't say why, because of spoilers, but I do hope you guys liked this plot twist of Smurf straight out the gate knowing not only exactly what Nora is, but at least a little bit of the wizarding world, enough to know a wand when she sees one. I also knew I wanted Pope, J and Smurf to be the first to 'witness' magic, so that is coming next chapter.
Similarly, I know I promised Craig's P.O.V this chapter, but he was proving difficult, and his section just didn't rightly fit in with the theme of this chapter, so I had to cut him off and save him for next. I hope you all don't mind too terribly, he is coming, just not for this one lol.
So, next chapter we have some muggles and magic, some Pope and Nora bonding over a grave stone, and a good slice of Craig and Nora one-to-one. It's a big one folks, and I'm hoping, if people are still reading this hot mess, to get it out in the next week or two.
Once again, sorry for the terrible wait!
Thank you all for the follows and favourites, and if you could, drop a review and let me know your thoughts.
