PART THIRTEEN: THE CUCKOO

Nora's P.O.V

xXx

The floating fruit from the bowl span around the air, twisting and curving, carving out their own orbital trails through the kitchen space before Nora lowered her wand and one by one, apples and pears, grapefruit and oranges, came drifting back to their glass nest to rest.

Nora held onto her wand tightly, thumb stroking at the handle as the tip died from its flare of pale blue light, eyeing the three people around the kitchen island, Lena having left to play in the garden outside by Smurf's urging.

"So magic is real and you're a… Magician?"

It was J who spoke, and Nora sort of wished he hadn't. His voice sounded flat, dull and lifeless. The kind of voice a news presenter gave when describing a mass-suicide or house robbery gone wrong on the six o'clock broadcast. Distantly describing horror and grief in colour by number sounds.

"Witch. We… We, uh, call ourselves Witches and Wizards."

Really? Nora thought. Now, of all times, Nora was willing to obstinately play semantics over word choice? But she does, not especially because she cares a whole lot what about what she's called, sorcerer, magician, witch, the enchanted cunt, they're the same thing really, but because she abruptly found herself with nothing else to say.

Was this the part where she apologized? Said sorry for turning J's world view upside on its head? Forlornly justify her existence and hope beyond hope J would come to understand?

Nora has never had to explain what she was to a muggle before, and she doesn't know the etiquette, the propriety, what to do to make it go smoothly, and to ease whatever whirlwind of emotion J must have been feeling. Petunia and Vernon had always known what, even if they never would have acknowledged it, Nora was. It was why they had hated her so fuckin' much, the freak in the cupboard, and-

And suddenly, swiftly, Nora's heart was hammering behind her ribs. What if J came to the same conclusion? What if he took one look at her now and saw what Petunia did? Something wrong and immoral-

Maybe that was why Nora was playing with semantics. If she did, she wouldn't have to face what came after J understood what she was exactly, when he learned what Witch really meant.

She was scared.

Quickly, horribly, Nora was terrified.

The Adam's apple in J's throat bobbed up and down, a sharp rise and dip that Nora followed with great interest. It seemed J's spit wasn't the only thing he was having trouble swallowing down by the ashen wash of his face.

"And Witches and Wizards live amongst us, but don't… Interfere?"

Nora thumbed her wand harder, hoping the warm wood would give her some form of comfort. It didn't, of course. It was simply elder wood with a thestral hair core. Bits of broken pieces that had once belonged to a whole, once belonged to something alive.

Dead in her grasp now.

Just like her bond with J if she didn't get this right, get her words straight, get herself together.

"The statute of secrecy means we're not meant to reveal ourselves to muggles-… Non magical folk. We can under extreme conditions, if we were being attacked or if there was a life-or-death situation, and if… And if they're family."

And, of bloody course, Nora doesn't get it right even when she tries desperately to. She had never been much of a speaker. Yet, here, now, she had practically admitted that she could have told J the truth weeks ago, came clean and washed her hands, had sat in the back garden with him like a hypocrite and asked him not to hide her while she hid something as big as this, and Nora feels foul, terrified, dirty.

A lie by omission was still a fucking lie.

The scar on the back of her hand burned in old pain.

J blinked, and then his chair was screeching backwards. Nora flinched with the thud of his boots striking tile.

"J, I swear I was going to tell you. I just couldn't think of a way or time when-"

But J wasn't listening. J was standing. J was walking away, over to the hallway off to the right, gone and away in more ways than one. Nora stood too, making to follow, always willing to fight on even when it was a losing battle, still calling for J to just wait one moment, please, to let me explain, but a hand was suddenly on her elbow, pulling her back from the lost fight.

"Let him go, baby. Trust me, it's a lot to take in in the beginning. Let him breathe and get his head on straight, and he'll come around."

Smurf was smiling at her gently, rubbing at her arm lightly, but it was Pope who caught her attention.

He was still looking at the fruit bowl. He hadn't moved an inch, hadn't said a word, hadn't so much as cringed, even as the fruit had started to unnaturally fly around their heads at Nora's hand waving.

This was it.

He was going to get up too, leave without a word, turn his back on the freak, and Smurf would realize what she had let into her house, come to her senses, kick her out and-

But then he was moving, just a fraction, hazel eyes darting up and meeting her own green, locking into place with what felt like a slap.

"Magic is real. You're a Witch?"

Nora bit down hard on her tongue, bit down so hard she tasted a flare of salted copper on her taste buds, trying to drown out the voice in her head, the one that sounded like Petunia, the one telling her she deserved this, she deserved the hate and the revulsion, that this is what she did, all she was good for, hurting people or, worse, getting them killed, and all Nora could really do in answer was nod.

"Ok."

Pope nodded in return. Nora-

Nora nearly swallowed her salty-copper tongue.

"Ok?"

Pope hummed low in his throat, stealing from his own seat, tucking it in neatly as he tugged on the hem of his button up shirt to straighten the creases out.

"You were born this way?"

"I-… Yes. Yes I was."

"Ok then."

That… That wasn't what Nora had expected. Shock? Yes. Yelling? Perhaps. A hand in her hair and a short, sharp throw to the curb? Definitely. This… This unrestricted, no-strings-attached sort of acceptance?

Certainly not.

Never.

No one had really ever accepted Nora like that before, not her adopted aunt and uncle, not Hogwarts and the wizarding world, not even Hermione and Ron when they thought she was going insane, and maybe Nora was the one in shock now by the way she tripped over her own thoughts.

"I-… This-… You see…"

Smurf gave her one last gentle pat on the back before nudging her closer to Pope.

"Why don't you two head out to Julia's spot? Get some fresh air, clear your head, hey?"

Pope dipped a hand into his pockets, pulling out his car keys, already turning for the hallway towards the front door.

"Come on, it's not a long drive."

Smurf chuckled.

"Plenty of time to get back for the party."

Nora stumbled, shaking her head.

"We're still having a party?"

Smurf was making her way around the kitchen island when Nora glanced back, cleaning the dishes.

"Of course we are, baby."

Pope paused by the bookcase in the hall, head peaking around the bend to look at her.

"You coming or what?"

"I… Yeah."

Well, Nora thought. Two out of three wasn't so bad. It could have gone better, yes, but it could have gone worse.

Then why did it still feel like J had punched a hole through her chest when he hadn't glanced back once?

Time. Maybe Smurf was right and he just needed time. Nora could do that. She wasn't known for her patience, she never had much of that, but she could do this for J. It was the least she owed him after dropping this on his head without warning.

Nora followed after Pope.


Baz's P.O.V

Baz waited by the garage door out front, kicked back against the brick wall, watching idly, keenly, as the green Scout came through the gate and pulled up out opposite. Ready, set, go. Craig was the first out the passenger side, slinging a bag over his shoulder, three other grocery bags clasped in the other hand.

"Oi, give us a hand!"

Baz huffed and made his way towards the car, just as Deran cut the engine, the warm whir stuttering to silence.

"Nora still here?"

Baz nodded at Deran's question, making his way towards the back where more bags were waiting to be carted inside. Most of them, from the prudery glance he peeked inside with, containing bottles of alcohol.

The only thing Deran and Craig would think was needed for a party.

"Smurf's in full Mary Poppins mode for the neighbourhood orphan."

Baz heaved a few bags out with a tut and a jeer.

"She wants the girl to stay over the night."

Craig and Deran must have known what that meant, just as much as Baz did. One night would turn into two nights, two nights would bleed into a week, a week into a month, and, just like J, there would soon be another set of eyes and ears to worry about in the house, another mouth to make sure wouldn't roll on them, another cut to be made in the takings.

The Cody's house was getting rather too fat for Baz's liking.

"You serious?"

Deran asked, and Baz hummed along as he hip-checked Deran's car door closed.

"Deadly."

Deran locked up the car, shuffling his own bags into his hold.

"What is she again? Sixteen? Bit young, right?"

But even as he said it, Deran knew it meant very little. Nothing at all in truth. Craig and Deran had been pulling jobs since they could walk in one form or another. Maybe even back in their pushchair's with their sticky little hands good for pinching wallets from back pockets and the carriers good for hiding stash. And Baz? Baz had been helping since he was eight, and Smurf had taken him under wing.

Some days, Baz was still thankful for it, unsure where his life would be without the Cody's, where he would have ended up with his dead mum and his alcoholic abusive father. Most days, though, with Cath missing and Lena drifting away, and Smurf still, still, calling the shots, he sort of hated Smurf for even looking at him twice.

Craig, nevertheless, shrugged and began lumbering for the front door with sure, straight strides.

"I don't know man. Nora seems alright. Tough and shit."

Baz glared at Craig's back, slowly following suit.

"Really?"

"What?"

Craig rolled, kicking open the front door with his boot.

"She stepped right on up to me, didn't she? Have you seen how small she is? That takes balls. I respect that."

Baz's head cocked to the side, eyes squinting under the hot Oceanside sun that was slowly beginning to set, or, perhaps, just perhaps, squinting for an entirely different reason.

"Respect?"

Craig glared back just as hotly as the sunlight above their heads.

"Oh, fuck off man. You're just pissed that you're now outnumbered by Cody's six to one. Seven, if you count your kid."

Craig slipped in through the door, and Baz swivelled to Deran.

Clearly the smarter brother.

"You can't be ok with this. You know what we do. You know the risks it involves. Another tag-along, and those risks triple."

Deran shrugged at him half-heartedly, and went to shadow Craig into the house.

"I don't know. We don't really know the girl yet. It's hard to say either way."

Clearly not the smarter brother, then. Baz's teeth clenched behind his closed lips, as he too made to follow the brother's into the house.

"You two can't be serious-"

And he swiftly cut himself off, voice dying pitifully in the crux of the door.

Pope and Nora were in the hallway as Baz breached the threshold, heading for the garage outside. Nora froze for a split moment, a fleeting half-stepped-slip, before her shoulder's ostensibly straightened, hardened right before Baz's gaze, green eyes bright even in the shade of the hallway.

"You know what, I'm just going to save us all time."

And then Baz's world was turned on its head, heaved up in pale, freckled, tiny hands and then smashed, because one moment Nora had been down the hall, far down the hall, beside Pope, walking for the door, and suddenly there was a crack, as if the air itself had been ripped apart and-

And Nora disappeared in a blink.

Just like that.

Gone.

No smoke, no mirrors, no strings, just gone.

"Fuck!"

Baz wasn't sure who it was who swore loudly, Craig, as he skidded backwards and crashed into the door, Deran as he shouldered into the wall in disbelief, or himself, as he slid on the welcome rug and nearly landed on his arse.

A high keening whistle bloomed from behind him, and Baz whirled.

Nora was standing outside, fingers still in mouth from her whistle, in the sunshine her ginger hair was on fire underneath the golden glow, grinning toothily, wildly. Then she bowed, hands out, bent waist, she dipped almost sarcastically at Baz.

"Magic is real. Surprise!"

She didn't waste much more time at Baz's gaping, swivelling on her heel as she did, not waiting for an answer or a reply to come from a flapping jaw, and stalked towards Pope's car.

Baz was still dazed when Pope came strolling passed, squeezing through the stunned and silent brothers, unperturbed by what had just happened.

"Talk to Smurf."

Pope said before he shut the front door closed behind him with a resounding click. Baz waited until his heart didn't seem to want to leap out his chest before he scrambled for the kitchen, dropping the bags at the door, maybe even breaking a few bottles.

"What the fuck was-"

Smurf, standing at the sink, hands covered in suds, glanced over her shoulder, grinning.

"Magic. Nora's a Witch."

Seeing Baz still standing in the entryway, Deran and Craig numbly coming around the corner still looking back to the front door, Smurf sighed and wiped her hands off before reaching for the top shelf of a cupboard above the sink, pulling down a bottle of gin and four glasses.

"Sit. All of you. You look like you could use a drink."


Pope's P.O.V

xXx

The gravestone had sunk a little into the soft soil, the engraved words, so new and fresh, were still a shiny gold. There was no grass over the turned grave yet, no plants or wildflowers or weeds, just upended dirt. Still, it was… Nice for a gravestone. Clean, marble, inlaid.

Pope's last gift to his twin.

Nora stood at the end of it, side by side with Pope, hands in her jean short pockets.

"You know, I'm kind of jealous of J."

Nora shuddered underneath her jacket, slouched in the grave dirt, and shook her head, reproaching her own choice of words.

"Not like that. What he went through… It couldn't have been easy. I've never met an addict myself-… I just… I think I would have liked to meet her. At least once. I'm always just a little too late, aren't I."

It was not a question. Pope knows that much by the drift of her voice, caught in a storm of a memory. A whistle in the wind.

Pope fought down the urge to snort when he heard the word addict. The Cody's… They were addicts, all of them, in one way or another. Money, sex, drugs, the adrenalin, the chase, all of it was a high they kept on hunting.

A shoot up with more bullets and less needles.

Pope turned away from the gravestone, eyeing Nora's profile, the slope of a nose and the curl of a lip and the explosion of curls down her back. She'd taken her bun out in the car, wound her window down, and let the wind do its job in clearing out the, plainly, worried thoughts whirling in her mind.

Pope hadn't pushed her to speak. They had drove to the graveyard in silence. They had both seemed to have needed that more than anything else.

One last gift to his twin.

"Do you think she knew what I was and that was why she kept J and she gave me-…"

Gave me up. That, undoubtedly, was what Nora wanted to say but couldn't bring herself to.

"We… Me and Julia, we didn't know our father. I didn't know his name until today. We didn't know about your…"

Pope struggled for the word, the right one, the one that wouldn't sting. Nora glanced over, and smiled softly.

"Kind?"

"Kind. Julia… Julia was a lot of things, but afraid? Never. If she knew, she wouldn't have given you up because of it."

One last gift to his twin.

One last gift to his twin that she couldn't give away.

"What was she like? Julia?"

Pope shoved his own hands into his pockets, deep in the dark, fingers clenching, and maybe Nora was doing the same, hiding the fact she was trying to hold onto herself to keep it all together.

"Julia was wild. She used to be the first to climb a tree, and she would always climb it highest. She always had grass stains on her knees, and twigs in her hair-… She was wild. That's what I remember most. Running with Julia felt like trying to run with the wind."

And just like the wind, Julia had blown herself out to sea. Pope looked to Nora then. Really looked.

She wasn't the wind.

She wasn't Julia.

Neither was she like J, a cloud in the sky, high above, watching everything down below as it trundled passed with a distant sort of fascination. Not like Baz, a tree, tall and towering, and so sure it could survive any storm. Not like Deran, driftwood floating along, going with the flow but always looking for land once more. Not like Craig, a mountain face, steady and unyielding, but brittle when shook.

She was like him. Like a wave. Sometimes lapping and small and tickling toes, and sometimes raging, so high it could swallow buildings and cities and skylines.

One last gift to his twin.

"Do you think she would have been okay with what… What I am?"

Nora was back to looking at the gravestone, head turned, hair so twisted and generous it hid her face. A home-grown shield she had learned to use to protect herself from prying eyes.

Pope stepped closer, reached out, paused, and forced himself to finish the journey and wrapped his fingers around a thin wrist. Her hand came out of her pocket easily enough with a tug, and then Pope was folding his fingers through hers, holding a hand at the edge of his twins grave.

One last gift for his twin.

"Julia always believed in magic. She was fifteen before she began to think the tooth fairy wasn't real. If anything, she would have said I told you so before-"

Before the drugs had whittled her down and worn her out and scrubbed any magic out of the world when the hit wore off. Possibly that was why she had liked drugs so much. For just a little while, for one little wide-awake dream, they had given her the magic that adulthood had stripped from her eyes.

Pope swallowed deeply.

He was still struggling to understand this himself. Magic. Witches. Wizards.

It's-

A lot.

But it was also Nora.

One last gift.

He wasn't going to let something like magic take that away.

One last gift.

One Pope wasn't going to give away like his twin had.

"J will come around. He's like Baz. Something unforeseen happens, and he needs a moment to regroup. It's not you."

Nora's fingers tightened around his own, and still she wouldn't look directly at him.

"You've handled this really well."

There was no other option to handle it well for Pope. It was either accept the seemingly impossible and keep Nora, or do not accept it and lose her.

No other option at all.

The rest-

The rest could be figured out later.

"You recognized Alphard's name. You have his bike."

Nora shuffled again, boots leaving winged imprints in the soil.

"I never met the man myself. He was dead before-… His nephew, the one he gave the bike to? His name was Sirius Black. He was my Godfather. He helped raise me when my adopted parents died and I was… He was like a father to me."

That sits funny in Pope's gut. Like bile and vitriol bubbling in his throat, threatening to rise to his brain and wash away his reflections.

Like a father to me.

Julia had given that away too, hadn't she? And it hadn't been her right, hadn't been hers to give away. Not fully. Pope stands at the edge of his twin's grave, and he's-

He's angry, but most of all, he's hurt.

But he hears more too from Nora.

Was.

"He's dead?"

Her fingers twitched in his hold, a tiny tremble, and her voice was low again, whistle wind and thorny brambles.

"This isn't the first grave I've visited, no."

"At least you had some family looking out for you."

It's a small comfort. For Nora and Pope. Small and pale, but there all the same, and it made Nora smile.

"Yeah, I did. Does it ever get any easier?"

Nora looked his way, green eyes bright like Julia's, like Deran's, but more intense, deep.

The bottom of an ocean.

"Visiting graves? I don't know."

And it was the truth. Pope didn't know. Standing here now, it felt exactly has it did the day he had found out Julia, his twin, his other half, was gone.

Not fully gone. There was a hand in his own. Julia wasn't completely out of his reach. Not here, not with them, not now.

"I sort of hope it never gets any easier."

Pope nodded.

"Me neither."

Nora's hand gently slipped from his, and she marched closer to the grave stone, using the same hand to dip into her pockets, pulling something out, hunkering down on her haunches where she draped it over the cold, lifeless stone.

It was a necklace.

A broken necklace.

The chain was old and worn, rubbed bare in place, and the pendant, a small, golden Eleanor flower dangling from a broken clasp. When she stood, she smoothed a hand over the head of the grave and patted it gently.

"I've had that necklace since I could remember. Never knew where it came from until the adoption agency got in touch with me. Apparently Julia gave it to me before she handed me over to-… Before."

One last gift given away.

Pope knew that necklace. It had been the one he had gotten Julia for their sixteenth birthday, and the numbers churn in his gut, a sixteen year old necklace for a sixteen year old girl, seeing it there, aged as it was, lovingly worn by another gift given away, does something else to Pope entirely.

It doesn't make him angry. It doesn't make him hurt.

It makes him determined.

It seemed every gift Pope had given Julia; known or unknown; she had offered away in the end. Given away and Nora had brought back right to him. The thing about Julia and Pope, the one thing that separated the twins-

Pope was selfish. He never gave anything up. He wouldn't with this either.

Pope took a step forward, and another, and another. He reached out, placed a hand on Nora's shoulder, and squeezed. She was real beneath his fingers.

It felt good to feel that too.

"Julia might be gone, but I'm not. You have-"

Me-

"Family here. Family who cares. If there was one thing that came from Julia's-… From this, I'm glad it was you."

Nora stretched up and rested her hand over his, grasping.

"I'm glad-"

Ringing rang out across the graveyard, and Nora winced before scuffling out of his hold apologetically, reaching into her back pocket for her cell.

Her face lit up at the flashing screen.

"It's J. I better take this."

Pope nodded, and Nora strode away, heading for the shade of a tree for some coolness and privacy, bringing the phone up to her ear as she went.

Pope turned to Julia's grave, stepped even closer, and-

And swiped the necklace, pocketing it.

"One last gift, right?"

If Julia wanted to give that all up, give every last bit of Pope away, then Pope would take it all back for himself.


Nora's P.O.V

"Hey, Nora, listen-"

J's voice crackled through the line, and Nora kicked at a loose rock by a tree root, already talking as soon as she hit the pick-up button.

"Look, I swear I was going to tell you-"

They both stop, wait, line buzzing in their eardrums, and then they both speak again, over each other, rambling.

"I just needed a moment to wrap my head around the whole… Magic thing. It was a lot. I didn't mean to just walk out. To be honest, I think I was a little in shock. Finding out Wizards are real isn't something I expected to discover on a Monday afternoon-"

"It was just complicated. Magic is… Complicated. There was a-… There was some bad stuff growing up. Real bad stuff, and a lot of… Bad stuff, and I just didn't want to that bad stuff to taint our good stuff, you know? I just wanted to feel normal-… I just wanted to enjoy having you around without you looking at me like I was some sort of freak-"

Again, they stop, again, there was only the buzzing, like little dragonflies hovering around their heads, but then-

Then J chuckled and suddenly Nora thought she could breathe in an actual lungful of air without it feeling like lead and dread.

"Freak? You really thought I would think you were a freak?"

Petunia did.

Vernon did.

Dudley did.

Even Hermione had when Nora had heard the Basilisk and no one else did. Hermione had thought she was hearing voices, had looked to her for just a split second as if she was insane, a look Nora could never truly forget despite how much she loved the other Witch.

Every single muggle who had ever found out about what she was had thought Nora was wrong.

And maybe it was incorrect of her to lump J in with that, unreasonable and ridiculous, but Nora was human, and fear wasn't rational, and every time she had thought about coming out to him, explaining what she was, all she could see was Vernon's angry face, red and flappy, feel his hand in the collar of her hand-me-down shirt as he dragged her to the dingy cupboard for doing something strange again. The dark and the cold and the lonely.

"Don't you?"

J's scoff bounced in her ear.

"Of course not. It's pretty fucking cool actually, when you think about it. I mean… Are we talking broomsticks and cauldrons and pointy hats?"

Nora laughed, feeling like a weight had been suddenly shifted off her shoulders, as if she could fly right up to the sky in her weightlessness.

"Actually… Yeah. Broomsticks, cauldrons, pointy hats, but thankfully no warts. Well… Mostly. I've seen a few Witches who would turn a toads head in my time."

J was silent for a while, but only a little.

"Do you think your dad was one?"

Nora kicked at the rock again, watching it bounce away with her worries.

J wasn't angry. J wasn't disgusted. J was still on the phone speaking to her. That must mean something, right? J was still there, and yes, Nora told herself, that meant something wonderful.

"Maybe. Maybe not. If our grandfather really was Alphard Black and I'm not a Muggleborn, then the magic could have came from him and skipped a few generations. It's rare but it can happen. It just means I have more of Alphard's blood in me then-"

Then you.

Still, it was strange, Nora supposed. If it had skipped J, their generation should have been skipped entirely. That was how magical families worked. Wizards and Witches were born in generations, and even if J and Nora had different fathers, they shared the same amount of Julia blood, Cody blood, that meant if Nora was a Witch, J should have been a Wizard. The fact that he wasn't and Nora was meant, somehow, she was closer, genetically speaking, to Alphard someway and-

And that was how a migraine began.

Possibly it was something to think about later.

"So you inherited other-worldly powers, and I got a birthmark on my ass. Doesn't seem justifiably fair, to be honest."

And that was J. Blithely calming over the anxiety. He didn't hate her for what she was, he wasn't even jealous, he was trying to make light of it, trying to build a bridge to meet halfway with jokes and jabs.

Nora loved him all the more for it.

"I know a spell that could make it look like the statue of liberty if that would help?"

J's responding snort sounded puppy-ish over the connection of the phone.

"I was hoping for a rocket ship. Really have a story to tell the ladies."

Nora chuckled, but the line fell silent before J edged in cautiously.

"You're coming back, right?"

Ah. He thought she had run. Nora didn't even hesitate.

"Of course I'm coming back. I thought we were having a party? When have I ever passed up free whisky?"

Nora uses humour to smooth over worry too, and she thought she could hear J sigh in relief from the other side.

"I should have known. I'll make sure to keep a bottle of Jim Beam on the ice for you."

"And my old pal Vodka."

J chuckled.

"The last time we had Vodka we got banned from the Cove. You bottled that guy, remember? Or did your ol' pal Vodka make that memory a bit hazy?"

Nora primly sniffed.

"Not hazy enough to forget that the reason I had to bottle that guy was because you tried squeezing up to his wife. I think you might have a cougar thing, J. You might want to speak to someone about that-"

"Alright, I'm going, you absolute malfunction."

Their laughs bled together, mixing and lifting to the clear skies above, but Nora paused before hanging up, thumb hovering.

"J?"

"Yeah?"

"Love you."

A beat. Only one.

"Love you to. Warts and all."

"Fuck you and your none rocket ship shaped birthmark. I'm going to make it look like a dick now. Just you wait and see."

And Nora hung up with a smile, peered over to the car not so far away, and found Pope standing at the side of the drivers door in the setting sunlight, waiting for her, waving, smiling.

It was the first time Eleanora Potter had ever left a graveyard feeling remotely okay.

Nora walked off into the sunshine for what felt like the first time in years.


No One's P.O.V

"You can't be serious."

Smurf scowled and downed the rest of her drink.

"Like it or not, Baz, this is what's going on. Magic is real and-"

Baz pushed away from the counter in a huff, shaking his head as he went.

"Yeah, we get that. I saw the fucking girl disappear and reappear like a rabbit in a top hat myself! But you can't be serious about inviting her in! She's a kid. She should be in high school-"

"Oh, save your preaching for someone who knows it isn't complete bullshit, Baz."

Smurf swore and poured herself another drink, glaring daggers at him from over the kitchen counter and the rim of a half-drunk gin bottle.

"Fine, I'll lay it out straight for you lot seen as it isn't quite sinking in. Do you know what Nora's people are capable of?"

"Fucking teleporting?"

Deran's sarcastic answer earned him a fleetingly heated frown from Smurf that hushed him right up before she continued.

"Yes, teleporting. And many, many other things. They can change faces, baby. One strand of hair, and they can be anyone they want. They can bind a man with a flick of their wrist. They can read your mind with a locked eye and a whisper, skim through every fantasy and thought you've ever had. They can wipe your memory of ever encountering them. They can make you see things, believe things, that aren't there. They can walk into and out a crowded room and not be seen because they don't want to be seen. They can curse and hex items, leave no trail, turn pebbles to fucking gold!"

With a deep swig of her gin, Smurf smacked her glass down with a clank on the counter.

"They're powerful. Nora is powerful. The kid has a skill set that is rare and valuable. Extremely valuable. And you want to… what? Send that packing because your worried about your cut in a taking?"

Baz chortled, suddenly seeing straight for the first time since walking through the door and witnessing the impossible.

"So that's it, is it? That's your angle? It's not about the girl at all. It's about what she can do for you."

Smurf paused with her drink halfway to her mouth.

"And what we can do for her. She's young and by herself. She has no one else. She needs her family. I want to give her that."

Baz ran a hand through his hair, beginning to pace along the breadth of the patio door.

"Say we do bring her in? Who's saying she would want that? She's young, she seems like a good kid, I doubt she will be up for playing cops and robbers because you dangle a cherry pie in front of her. I mean, if it was so easy to bring one of these people in, why isn't Alphard, who, by the way, you've never so much as mentioned before, still around?"

Smurf become stony, face flat and cold and unreadable.

"Alphard is dead, and he's been dead for a long time… Long before you came into this family, baby. He was also older. More stuck in his ways. He had grown up learning not to intervene with muggles, as he called us. As you said yourself, though, Nora is still young. She can… Adapt."

"Adapt?"

Baz barked as he lingered in his pacing.

"Don't you mean young enough that she won't see your claws sinking in?"

Smurf glowered, mouth screwing tight, and Baz realized he had pushed too far too late.

"Careful how you speak to me, Barry."

Baz deflated, bracing his hands on the counter, shoulders squared, changing tactics.

"Don't you think J's going to have a problem with this? He kept her to himself for a reason, and we all know what it was. He didn't want her here."

Smurf, again, downed her drink for the last time.

"J will see how good it is to have his sister around. Nothing else."

She looked to her sons, skimming over them one by one.

"I'm not saying we drag her into the next job. Or even the next one after that. What I am saying is we shouldn't push her out. She needs a home and family, we have that, and she has talents that would come in handy later on. Just… Test the waters. See how far she's willing to go. How fast she likes to drive-… Or do I have to spell this out for you all again?"

Smurf stepped away from the counter, from the bottle of gin, from the boys and her empty glass, crossed her arms over her chest and examined the room.

"Alright then, let's put it up for a vote, yes? Who wants Nora gone?"

Baz raised his hand.

"Strangers are unpredictable, and if what you say is true and she's capable of… All that, it's too risky."

Baz waited, but no one else raised their hand. He turned to the man beside him.

"Deran? Really?"

The blond shook his head.

"Look, man, what harm would it cause to keep her around a little bit? Magic is fucking real. I want to at least see some of it without nearly pissing myself next time."

Baz turned to the only one hanging, as they all knew where Smurf's vote lied, along with Pope's.

Craig shrugged, swirling his whisky around his squat glass before downing it.

"I told you, she's tough. I say give her a chance. We did with J and that didn't turn out too bad, did it?"

Baz glared and snatched up his jacket from the back of his chair, storming for the door. He heard footsteps beginning to follow before Smurf called out from the heart of the kitchen.

"Let him go and have his tantrum, Deran. He'll be back by tomorrow."

Do you know what the worst thing was? The worst thing was Smurf was right, and they all knew it, including Baz. He'd be back tomorrow, tail between his legs, but back to square one.

Smurf turned to her remaining sons.

"Go on, get. You have a party to set up, and I want the music going by the time Pope and Nora get home."

Deran was out of his chair, heading for the phone without much more prompt, likely readying to invite the whole of Oceanside over. Craig went to follow, likely getting the drinks in the bar ready. Smurf stopped him at the last possible second.

"Craig?"

He paused, only glanced over his shoulder, didn't fully turn around, wouldn't meet her eye.

"She's your niece, sweetheart."

Craig stiffened, answering far too quickly.

"I don't know what you're talking about-"

Smurf smiled and came over, rubbing a red nail dipped hand across his back.

"Of course not… But, if what I've heard from the grapevine is true from what went down over the sea… She's not had the best of times lately. It wouldn't hurt if someone made her smile and laugh tonight. Think you can do that, baby?"

Craig hesitated, but outwardly softened.

"Yeah."

Smurf grinned.

"Good. Now go have fun."

Craig goes down the hall with Smurf's voice chasing his large shadow.

"But don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

Which was, when it came to Janine Cody, nothing at all.


Next Chapter: The Party kicks off…

What's this? Another update in the same weekend? I know some of you don't really like updates that come so close together, from experiences in the past I tend to get less engagement with chapters that are published so close together, but I did this mainly for two reasons. One, you guys waited so long for last chapter, I wanted to get this one out relatively quickly for you all, and I had a spare weekend going. Two, I really needed a full chapter for the party to come because it's quite big and things, of course, happen. So I had to stop this chapter here to give both pieces the proper space and time they deserve, rather than scrunching them down and making them feel flat, and thought instead of sitting on this one while I finish the next one up, I may as well publish this if I have it ready to go. I hope you all understand, but the next chapter is mainly Craig and Nora affairs, finally, pretty much ninety percent of it is just them, and I got to admit it was supper fun writing it, perhaps the most fun chapter to write so far, they really do seem to bounce off each other quite naturally. So I hope you are all looking forward to it! Finally, we're getting to the juicy-juicy stuff!

Thank you all for the follows and favourites, and if you could, drop a review and let me know your thoughts.