A/N: I know, I know, I know. It's been a while. I'm sorry. I one-hundred percent planned to post an update just after Christmas, but then I caught the newest variant of COVID and had to deal with that (I'm feeling fine, luckily I'm double-vaxxed and getting my booster in a few days). Once I was out of quarantine I had to jump right back in to a new semester of school and find my footing here.
Anyway, this chapter lets us see several different characters, starting with the gang at Hogwarts, and it will also explain why Kingsley and Teddy had to pay Katie Bell a visit. Also, we're spilling a bit of tea here.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Recap: In the last chapter Ally took Brogan to Diagon Alley to run errands for his birthday. They ran into Clark and Zach there, as well as an old acquaintance of Ally's. Teddy found an Auror Department release file and took it to Kingsley. At the very end of the chapter we found out there's some sort of secret surrounding Katie Bell.
Surprise, Shock, & Pain
Tuesday, May 14th 2024
8:05 AM
"Ready to go?" Scorpius Malfoy asked Rose Weasley and Albus Potter as he came up behind where the pair were sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall.
Rose nodded and stood up to greet her boyfriend, while Al nodded his head and shoved the rest of his breakfast into his mouth.
"Where are you going?" Hugo Weasley asked curiously from his seat across from his sister and cousin.
Before Rose could reply, Lily Potter interrupted her.
"Whatever it is I want in," Lily announced in a sing-song voice as she took a bite of a lemon-cranberry muffin.
Al raised an eyebrow at his younger sister, "It's about quidditch and inter-house unity."
"Then count me out," Lily responded in the same sing-song voice. She completed her tableau of apathy by taking another large bit of her muffin.
Her brother rolled his eyes at her.
"Aren't the terms quidditch and inter-house unity oxymorons?" Hugo questioned as he stirred a spoon around his bowl of oatmeal.
"Usually," Scorpius replied with a prim nod.
Rose nudged Scorpius with her shoulder, "Which is why we're going to attempt to do something about it."
Lily twirled her finger in the air, "Riveting."
Al scowled at his sister and then followed Rose and Scorpius out of the Great Hall. Their destination was the Head Mistress's Office, and they needed to get there quickly so that they could get everything completed by the time morning classes started. They took a few secret passages to shorten their trip.
"Have you come to the terrifying realization yet that when we graduate in a few months we'll have to hand the map off to Lily and Hugo for safe keeping?" Al asked Rose as they travelled.
Rose nodded her head, "I think Hugo can keep it safe for the next two years . . . have you realized that after they graduate the map won't be needed at Hogwarts until Teddy and Vic's first kid turns eleven?"
"That's twelve years from now at the least. Lily and Hugo have two more years . . . so Hogwarts is going to have a decade between the last of us and the first of the next," Al calculated.
"Now that's a crazy thought," Scorpius agreed.
They made it to the Head Mistress's Office in good time, and since McGonagall was already expecting them, they found themselves in front of her very quickly.
"Good morning, Miss Weasley, Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy, I believe your request stated that you have a proposal that should increase inter-house unity?" Headmistress McGonagall began, getting straight to business.
The trio nodded and Rose began their pitch, "We've developed an idea that involves both inter-house unity and quidditch."
McGonagall looked intrigued, if a bit sceptical, "Interesting, proceed."
They went on to explain that they had developed the idea of creating a 'for fun' end of the year quidditch match that would include players from all four house teams that were in their seventh, sixth, and fifth years. They were confident that between the four house teams there would be enough players from those latter three years to field two entire teams. The idea was for the players to be assigned to either team as randomly as possible, understanding that certain considerations would have to take place for certain positions, and then they'd play a friendly game in front of the entire school where students would be cheering on teams made up of all four houses instead of pitting one house against another.
"Your idea does have merit," Headmistress McGonagall replied thoughtfully, "But can you guarantee cooperation from all four houses?"
Al nodded, "The players from the Gryffindor team are on side, and Kieran Chang's helped me convince the members of the Hufflepuff team to join us. Not that it took too much convincing. The Hufflepuffs were almost more excited about the idea than we were."
"I've got the Slytherin team on board," Scorpius explained nonchalantly, "And with the help from one of my friend's from Ravenclaw, we've got their team in on the plan as well."
"Everybody's willing to give this a shot, we just need official permission to do so. As well as the use of the pitch so that our teams can have the chance to practice at least once before the game happens," Rose added.
Headmistress McGonagall smiled slowly at the three students in front of her, "This is an ambitious plan, but an interesting one. I cannot see any problem with implementing it. I just want to verify that all of the players from the teams have agreed to add on this responsibility on top of studying for their exams and practicing with their teams for the House Cup finals that are both coming up."
The three students nodded; they'd already discussed this.
"Then I can see no reason why this cannot go forward, when would you like to do this?" McGonagall inquired.
"Graduation is on the 19th of June, exams for N.E.W.T.s and O.W.L.s will be done by the 14th, so anytime after our last exam and the graduation ceremony," Al suggested.
McGonagall nodded, "Will a month's time be sufficient to organize everything?"
"Yes."
"Then you have permission to implement your plan."
Rose, Al, and Scorpius thanked Headmistress McGonagall politely and then left her office. When they got to the bottom of the stairs they started to celebrate.
"Whoooo!" Al cheered as Scorpius picked Rose up off her feet and spun her around in a circle.
Their first class of the day, History of Magic, was going to start soon, so they quickly made their way to the classroom.
"I can't believe we get to do this! If this goes well, we might just have started a new tradition for Hogwarts," Rose told the boys excitedly.
Scorpius wrapped an arm around his girlfriend's waist, "You did most of the heavy lifting for this, it was all your brilliant idea from the start."
Rose looked up at her boyfriend, her brown eyes shining brightly, "You were the one who got Lincoln Edwards to convince his girlfriend to get the Ravenclaw team on board. They never would have agreed to take time out of their studying if we didn't have their captain in on it."
"And don't forget that I was the one who thought about brining Alice and Kieran into this whole thing to help us get the Hufflepuff's approval," Al retorted only somewhat sarcastically.
Scorpius smirked at his friend, "True, only you would be stupidly brave enough to convince Alice Longbottom to talk to her ex while they were on a break, just to get him to get his friends on the Hufflepuff quidditch team to agree to play along side the Slytherins."
Al grinned broadly and chose to take Scorpius's somewhat insulting praise as just a full-on compliment.
As the three of them entered the classroom, which was already mostly full of a mix of seventh-years from all four houses, and immediately Norah Summers; Alice Longbottom; Kieran Chang; Rhys Clinton, captain of the Hufflepuff quidditch team; Lincoln Edwards; and Lola Wickersham, captain of the Ravenclaw quidditch team; were upon them.
"What'd she say?"
"Are we a go?"
"Did she say no?"
"Do we finally get to forget this childish plan?"
The last question was by Davinia Selwyn, who had snuck up behind the group and was specifically addressing her quidditch captain and choosing to ignore everyone else from the other three houses.
Scorpius frowned at his left-wing chaser, "You don't have to play in the game if you don't want to Davinia."
Davinia crossed her arms against her chest and pouted, "I take it this means that McGonagall's let Weasley have her way then?"
Rose knew from experience that it was best to just ignore Davinia Selwyn's bad attitude. Accordingly, she pretended that she didn't hear her boyfriend's teammate and instead replied to the classmates surrounding her that were more excited about their endeavour.
"Headmistress McGonagall has given us permission to organize a friendly quidditch game with members of all four houses."
There was a happy chorus of cheering sounds, and Norah Summers pumped her fist and exclaimed, "Score!"
"When do you want to draw for team members?" Lola Wickersham asked Rose, the Ravenclaw captain had a habit of getting straight to the point of a situation.
Rose thought about it for a moment, "Can everyone get their latter year players together for the last half hour of our lunch break today?"
Lola Wickersham and Rhys Clinton both nodded in agreement, and Al and Scorpius did the same despite the fact that Rose knew that they were already in.
"Meet in the courtyard then? The nice weather from this morning's supposed to hold out."
There were anther series of nods, and then Professor Cooke strolled into the classroom.
"Everyone take your seats please."
Rose sat down at a desk near the middle of the room, Scorpius sitting on one side of her, while Norah Summers slipped into the other. Al took the seat behind Scorpius, and Alice sat in the one next to him and behind Rose.
"Last class we left off at the take over of the Ministry in August of 1997. Who can tell me three different organizations or committees that quickly took place . . ."
As Professor Cooke started to lecture about Lord Voldemort's take over of the Ministry of Magic during the second wizarding world war, Rose, Al, and Scorpius slunk down a little in their seats. Professor Cooke would never think to put them on the spot and ask them questions that they may feel uncomfortable answering, but that didn't mean that their classmates didn't often look towards them when questions concerning their families came up.
"And who was the head of the Muggleborn Registration Committee?" Professor Cooke asked the class at large after Lola Wickersham answered the last three questions in a row.
Nobody raised their hands to answer the question, and the longer Professor Cooke's silent pause went on the more stares Rose could feel on the back of her head. When it felt like almost everyone in the room was staring at either her or Al, Rose heard a loud sigh exhale from the person to her right.
Norah Summers' hand shot into the air directly after her long-suffering sigh, and Professor Cooke called on her.
"Delores Umbridge."
"Correct Miss Summers," Professor Cooke replied before going on to talk some more.
Rose glanced at her housemate beside her and mouthed the word 'thanks'. Norah gave her a small smile in response.
The rest of the lecture portion of class time went by without incident, and Professor Cooke allowed them the last half hour of the class to work on their end of the unit essays that were due by the end of the week. He usually allowed a little discussion during this time between students as long as the class didn't get too rowdy.
Rose pulled out her essay roll and quill, while beside her Scorpius audibly shifted his desk closer to hers until they were touching. She looked up from her essay and raised an eyebrow at her boyfriend.
"Peer edit my essay for me?" He asked innocently, ignoring her look.
She glanced down at his unrolled essay and a second eyebrow rose up to join the first, "You haven't finished yet."
"Edit what I have then?"
Rose smirked at him, "Only if you tell me the real reason why you've moved your desk so close."
Scorpius grinned at leant towards her, his arm moving to rest on the back of her chair as he moved his face close so that he could whisper in her ear.
"This was all an elaborate ruse so that I could get close to you and tell you that I love you."
She turned her head so that she could look directly at his face, but her expression was distinctly teasing, "This entire History of Magic class is an elaborate ruse, is it?"
Scorpius rolled his eyes at her, "No you Dork. Just the past minute or so."
"Oh, well in that case," Rose replied as she leaned close so that she was the one whispering in his ear this time, "I guess it would be okay to tell you that I-"
"What are you guys talkin' about?" Alice asked the pair as she popped her head in-between theirs.
Rose jumped a little while Scorpius shifted his expression from one of desire, to annoyance as he looked at Alice, "None of your business Longbottom."
"You're really going to need a thicker spine if your relationship with Rose is going to last outside of Hogwarts, Malfoy. Her family's nosier than I am," Alice told him in a tone that sounded as though she was trying to be helpful.
Rose pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation, "Thank you for your concern, Alice, but he's aware."
"I still don't think that you-"
"Miss Longbottom!" Professor Cooke called Alice's name, interrupting whatever her next comment was going to be, "Come see me please."
Alice jumped up from her desk behind Rose and then skipped to the front of the classroom where Professor Cooke was standing near his desk. He often spent the time set aside for them to write their essays as an opportunity to discuss with students where they went wrong on their previous assignments and to give them insights on how to do better on their next ones. Professor Cooke only spent about five minutes talking to Alice before she came striding back to her desk and collapsed into her seat with a pout and a huff.
"What happened?" Al asked Alice, not even bothering to look up from his essay as she let out another dramatic and drawn-out groan of irritation. He didn't particularly care about what was going on, but he knew that she would keep pouting and huffing if someone didn't ask her about.
Alice let out another sigh but turned to face Al so that he could hear her better, "Professor Cooke told me that I need to properly cite the information I put in my essays instead of just saying 'my parents told me this'."
Al had the time to add two more liens to his essay before Alice swatted him on the arm.
"Wha–Oh," Al exclaimed as he finally looked up and realized that she was waiting for him to say something else about the subject, "Um . . . how dare he?"
She rolled her blue eyes and folded her arms across her chest, "The correct response, Al, would have been to say 'that's stupid, anyway, would you like some help citing this essay?'."
"Got it."
He wrote down another line on his parchment, and she slapped his arm again.
"Oh, you meant now?"
"No, I thought we'd work on it next Christmas. Yes, I meant now."
Al rolled his eyes at her dramatics but scooted his desk closer so that he could get a look at what she had already written and figure out if he had a textbook that she could work from.
The rest of the class period passed with almost no incident, expecting the last ten minutes of class. Since their busy eyes were following the clock, some of the students started to pack up their stuff when they saw that class would be over soon. As students packed up, they began talking to their friends. Usually, Professor Cooke allowed the students to wind down at the end of class, but it was a habit he would regret that day. Near the front corner of the room there were a handful of Hufflepuffs chatting to each other. Kieran Chang said something to make his Hufflepuff house mates laugh, and his friend Brecht Mertens thought he'd try to one up him. The Hufflepuff made a joke at the expense of Professor Cooke's pregnant girlfriend, which just so happened to be a topic of gossip that had only just died down a week ago.
Professor Cooke obviously heard Brecht Mertens' words, the seventh-year had a rather booming voice for a Hufflepuff, but before he could reprimand the student for his inappropriate language, another student decided to come to the poor pregnant woman's defense. Norah Summers sent a stinging hex at Mertens and yelled at him for being such a rude Svoloch; some Russian sounding insult that nobody seemed to understand except for Norah's friend Christen Lazar, who had choked a little when she heard her friend's outburst. Norah's insult was quickly followed with a reprimand that, while frighteningly scolding and most likely very effective, perfectly illustrated why Rose Weasley has been chosen as the female Gryffindor prefect for their year instead of her.
The bell tolled a few minutes later, signaling the end of the lesson block, and the students quickly vacated the classroom while Professor Cooke loudly called for Brecht Mertens and Norah Summers to stay behind.
Rose, Scorpius, Albus, and Alice stopped just outside of the classroom.
"Bugger," Al mumbled as he eyes the closed door to the History of Magic classroom, "I need to talk to Norah when Professor Cooke let's her go. Need to make sure she hasn't just gotten herself suspended from our next quidditch game."
Alice frowned at Al, "Have you forgotten that we have Care of Magical Creatures next? We need to get to the edge of the Forbidden Forest within the next fifteen minutes."
Al sighed, "No I haven't forgotten Alice. I guess I'll just be late to class because as the captain of the Gryffindor team I'll need to speak to Norah-"
"Rose can do it," Alice interrupted the middle Potter child. She placed her arms over her chest and continued, "She has Ancient Runes with Norah next anyway."
Al looked at his cousin and Rose nodded her head. She doubted that Professor Cooke would be much longer disciplining Norah, and her classroom was much closer than the other's next lessons anyway.
He thanked her cousin and then allowed Alice to drag him away to the nearest staircase that would take them to the Castle's back courtyard. Scorpius gave Rose a brief kiss on the cheek and then left so that he could make it to the Astronomy tower on the other side of Hogwarts in time for his next lesson.
Rose only had to wait about five minutes for her housemate to be released from the classroom. Norah was pouting when she opened the door, but her expression brightened a little when she saw that Rose was waiting for her.
"Did our dear quidditch captain ask you to wait for me and check on whether I'd gotten suspended from our next game?" Norah asked Rose cheekily as they began to walk away from the History of Magic classroom.
"Yes, but it didn't take too much convincing. I wanted to make sure that you were okay," Rose replied honestly.
Norah nodded her head, "Everything's fine. Professor Cooke had to discipline me and take off house points because I did hex a classmate and swear at him in two different languages, but Mertens' isn't going to get off as easily."
"I'm glad you spoke up, even if you might have gotten into more trouble for it. Mertens was being rude and crass and it was awful the way he spoke about Auror Donaldson. Her being pregnant doesn't give him permission to be so derisive. I know he was trying to make fun of Professor Cooke, but the language he used was inherently sexist," Rose told Norah with a bit of a conspiratorial look.
Norah chuckled, "I'm glad you approved. Granted I don't personally know Auror Donaldson, but from what I've heard from my cousin Hayden, she's the last person who deserves ridicule."
The two girls were just jumping from one staircase to another when they heard someone calling out Rose's name. They stayed on the staircase they had just landed on and waited as Hugo Weasley competed a rather majestic leap and joined them on their particular staircase.
"Pigeon brought this for you during breakfast, but you'd already left with Al and Scorpius. I took it from him and kept a hold of it until I found you," Hugo told his sister as he held a simple-looking letter out to her.
An eyebrow rose on Norah's forehead, "A pigeon brought you a letter?"
"Pigeon's the name of our family owl," Hugo explained with a smirk.
Norah rolled her eyes, "Of course it is."
"Our Dad named him when we were young," Rose explained offhandedly as she looked at the letter her brother had handed to her.
Hugo quickly explained that their father wasn't the best at naming pets, and then he waved goodbye quickly and took off for Potions.
The girls continued their journey to their Ancient Runes lesson, but they moved at a slower speed as Rose turned her letter around in her hands.
"Worried that it has bad news?" Norah asked her dormmate curiously as she glanced at the letter.
Rose let out a heavy sigh, "Yes . . . although I'm also worried that it may have good news."
"Well, that didn't make much sense. If you'd like to talk about it, I'm here for you. Of course, if you don't want to talk about it, I can just nod and pretend like what you said made perfect sense. I did it often during quidditch practice when James used to explain his extremely complicated chaser-based plays to the whole team. To be honest, I think Selene was the only person who actually understood what he was talking about during those times."
Rose fiddled with the still unopened letter in her hands, she had a good idea of what it contained.
"Do you still plan on being a curse-breaker when you graduate?"
Norah nodded enthusiastically, "Definitely. I've already sent in my application; I'm just waiting to complete my N. E. W. T.s and get those results. My cousin Hayden's been trying to convince me that it's too dangerous, but I have a trump card whenever we argue about it. I just remind him that he's an auror, so he can't say anything about danger."
"What if it was more than just your cousin who was trying to talk you out of your future career choice . . . what if it was everyone in your family?" Rose asked her housemate.
"I'd tell them to stop being such nosy zhopa and that I'm a big girl who can do what she wants," Norah answered quickly.
Rose let out a sigh, "You make it sound so easy."
"My family's smaller and less likely to hold a grudge. Hayden and I are the only ones who were sorted into Gryffindor, the others are much more forgiving Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws."
"You have a point."
Norah's gaze travelled to the envelope in Rose's hands again, "Although your family is so huge, I can't imagine there's an occupation out there that they aren't involved in, let alone one they would want you to stay clear of. . ."
Rose bit her lip anxiously, "Another good point, however my family not wanting me to have a certain occupation is directly related to their experience in a particular department. I've applied to be an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries."
"Wicked, you'd definitely be great at that," Norah said with a nod and a facial expression that said that she was completely sincere.
"Some members of my family would disagree. They believe that magical experimentation and advancement should be done in the open and available for everyone to use . . . whereas Unspeakables in the Ministry are subject to Ministry rule and oversight," Rose explained.
Norah nodded again, "Ah, bureaucratic oversight, not exactly the favourite pastime of most Gryffindors."
"No, it is not."
"I can see why you're worried to open the letter now," Norah said as the pair came to a stop outside of their Ancient Runes classroom.
Rose let out another sigh, this one an exhale of relief. It felt nice to tell someone what she was worried about and how she felt. She had told all of this to Scorpius before of course, but besides him she hadn't told another soul.
Not even Al or Hugo.
"Thanks for listening to me."
"No problem," Norah replied with an unconcerned shrug, "It's nice to hear that other people have similar problems to mine in their life."
5:24 PM
Xavier and Ally walked into the Wood house six minutes early. Katie and Oliver had asked them to stop by their home before the Puddlemere game that was set for seven o'clock that evening, and as always the pair was punctual.
They found Oliver sitting at the kitchen table when they entered the house. He was already dressed in his Puddlemere United polo shirt, but instead of looking over plays last-minute like they would have expected, he was sitting with his head in his hands and staring at the woodgrain of the table.
"Dad?" Xavier asked quietly as he and Ally entered the kitchen.
Oliver looked up and plastered an obviously fake smile onto his face, "Hey kids."
"Where's Katie?" Ally asked politely.
"She's getting Brogan set up with a craft kit in his room."
It was an odd explanation, not that Brogan was doing some crafts, but that he was in his room. Usually, Katie and Oliver preferred for him to make a mess in the kitchen instead of his bedroom. Xavier was about to ask his father if he'd like him to go ahead and make a pot of tea, when two more people came into the house, this time via the kitchen's backdoor.
Cecilia seemed just as surprised to see her brother and his fiancée, as Xavier was to see Cecilia and her boyfriend.
Ally and Louis nodded at each other, and then stood a little away from the members of the Wood family.
"What's going on Dad?" Cecilia asked Oliver quickly. She was able to clear about an hour from her schedule, but after that she really needed to get to Holyhead and to her next writing assignment for her magazine.
Oliver sighed and gestured for everyone to sit at the table with him, "Family meeting."
Louis was surprised to be included within Oliver's definition of 'family' but didn't say anything against it as he figured that including him in whatever Katie and Oliver wanted to talk to their children about obviously meant that it also had something to do with him.
Ally had just offered to get a pot of tea started when Katie came down the staircase sans Brogan.
"We've probably got forty-five minutes at most before Brogan gets tired of his craft, let's get this done quickly," Katie announced as she sat down at the kitchen table next to her husband.
She hadn't bothered to greet any of her house guests, which only worried her children and their partners even more.
"What's going on Mum? Dad?" Xavier asked them gently.
Oliver grabbed Katie's, while Katie started talking, "There's something we've kept a secret from you kids, and well, now it's past time to tell you about it."
Their mother took a deep breath, and then she began to explain to her children and their partners about their recent visit from a pair of aurors.
"The–they told us that a man by the name of Marcus Flint is about to be released from Azkaban. He was sent to Azkaban over two decades ago after he was convicted of stalking, uttering threats, and attempted assault. We were informed about it because I am the person, he was convicted of trying to assault."
The kitchen was quiet enough that they would have been able to hear a wand drop.
"What?"
Oliver tersely explained that Marcus Flint had been a classmate of theirs while they were at Hogwarts, and that when they had graduated, he had joined the losing side of the Second Wizarding World War. He wasn't an outright Death Eater, but he definitely helped them along from his position within the Ministry of Magic and agreed and encouraged what had transpired under Lord Voldemort's regime. Flint hadn't been a fan of Katie and Oliver's while they went to Hogwarts together, and after his chosen side lost the war, all of his anger with the Order of the Pheonix had transferred to Katie. He had started stalking and threatening her, and had attempted to assault her on multiple occasions over a span of two years. It took the Auror Department almost two years to create a concrete case against Flint for his harassment of Katie.
"How are we just hearing about this now?" Xavier asked incredulously once he was able to string some words together.
Katie took a deep breath, "I was pregnant with you at the time Xavier, and as your father and I were professional quidditch players, we had to keep everything quiet so that nobody would find out. It wouldn't have mattered that I was the victim. Flint was from a powerful pureblood family and even though most purebloods were still keeping a low profile after the war, they still had influence. We couldn't risk the information going public."
Cecilia had an expression on her face that still held a lot of confusion, "But you told me that you chose not to go public about Martell harassing you because you were pregnant with Xavier and you didn't want any rumours to start about you or him."
"There was a time of overlap between Martell harassing me and Flint's vendetta . . . it was another reason why at the time I chose not to say anything about Martell. I thought that if Flint's lawyer had somehow found out about my situation with Martell, that he might be able to use that to twist my intentions and shed doubt on my consistency," Katie explained with a pained look.
It was obvious that this had been a decision she had agonized over in the past.
"Mum, we had no idea-"
Katie cut Xavier off before he could finish. They hadn't told their children this new information because they wanted pity, they did it to warn them.
"The main reason why Kingsley brought the news to us yesterday was because we have one month to get the paperwork in order to reinstate a new restraining order against Flint," Oliver explained, his face sour as if he'd sucked on a lemon. He obviously wasn't happy about the news Kingsley had brought to them the day before.
"Kingsley explained that my restraining order will be easy to reinstate as I was the principal victim in the case. My restraining order will extend to Oliver as we work together and live together and because Flint had threatened him as well in the past. Brogan, as a minor will also be included within the scope of my restraining order. However, since you and Cecilia are adults, your situation is a little more difficult," Katie described.
Xavier frowned and shared a look with Ally, "Do you think I need a restraining order against Flint?"
"I wouldn't trust Marcus Flint to do anything so smart as to leave me and our family alone. He can hold a grudge, but he's also patient. Just because he may not act out right away doesn't mean that he may not try to pester us later. It would make me feel better if you both tried to get one."
Louis didn't want to be the one to voice this thought, but he felt it necessary, "The burden of proof for a restraining order against someone who's never directly threatened you can be . . . difficult to meet."
"Kingsley told us the same thing," Oliver said in a calm tone, "Xavier might have a case as while Katie was pregnant with him, Flint had threatened both Katie's safety and specifically the safety of our unborn child. It's one of the main reasons why he got so many extra years in Azkaban. Kingsley and McKenny argued that Flint should be charged doubly for all threats of bodily harm against Katie since he was also threating our baby at the same time."
Katie glanced at her daughter and swallowed thickly, "But getting you a restraining order against him may be near impossible Cee-Cee. Unfortunately, you probably will not be able to get one until he shows his face and starts more direct trouble. But I still want you to complete the paperwork."
"Of course," Cecilia agreed softly.
All of the information her parents were sharing was making her head whirl.
"You needn't worry about keeping all of this from your parents," Katie told Ally and Louis specifically, "They were aware of it when it was happening all of those years ago."
Oliver nodded, "In fact, if it hadn't been for Fleur and Angelina, Xavier probably would have been born very prematurely. During the worst of Flint's harassment, the stress caused Katie to start going into labour early. Fleur had been over for a visit and she noticed the signs and contacted Angelina about it right away, between them they were able to stop it."
"Xavier being born that early would have been very hard to explain away. It would have been difficult to explain how he was able to survive birth that prematurely without people finding out the truth," Katie told Oliver as almost an aside.
Xavier frowned at his parents, "The truth about what?"
Oliver and Katie shared a look before his mother began speaking again.
"Well in the theme of airing family secrets, we have another one. Xavier, you know how you were born exactly nine months after your father and I were married?"
Xavier rolled his eyes, "Yes, I distinctly remember Duncan and Domnall's teasing about it as well."
"We lied. You weren't born nine months after we were married, you were born two weeks late. The best explanation Angelina had was that the magic she had preformed to stop me from going into labour early had also slowed my natural labour from starting."
The eldest Wood child's eyebrows were scrunched over his hazel eyes, "How could I have been two weeks late? When I was born, you'd only been married for nine months-"
Xavier's words trailed off as the realization of his mother's words hit him. Ally patted her fiancée's hand comfortingly, while he looked like he'd been hit with a stunning spell.
On the opposite side of the table, Louis schooled his features until they were expressionless while Cecilia audibly gasped.
"You were already pregnant when you married Dad," Cecilia said as she stared at both her parents with wide eyes.
"I was, although I wasn't aware of it at the time, we found out soon after," Katie explained casually.
While Xavier looked like he still hadn't fully grasped the concept that he'd been conceived out of wedlock, Cecilia suddenly understood why her father had been so paranoid that she'd accidentally get pregnant.
"And since we were also keeping that a secret, there was a lot that we were trying to keep out of the press at the time," Oliver said a little awkwardly after he cleared his throat. It was obvious that he hadn't expected his wife to out their secret to their children, but he seemed as though he was trying to go with the flow.
Ally looked at her future in-laws, "I take it that Brogan has not been told about this development with Flint yet?"
"Not yet. I asked Kingsley if he could get us a current photo of Flint, one that wouldn't haunt Brogan's dreams, so that when we tell Brogan that he needs to be more wary of strangers, he can have a visual to help him," Katie explained.
"Kingsley's also putting an extra-strength tracking charm on a piece of jewelry for us. We'll give it to Brogan for his birthday this weekend and make sure he always wears it," Oliver told them, "It goes without being said of course, that we're going to have Brogan stick very close to us for the next few months."
The four younger people nodded, and then Xavier slowly mentioned that he needed to go home to get ready for their game that evening. Ally stood up to go with him, and the pair gave Katie and Oliver tight hugs before leaving.
Cecilia rose from her seat to also leave, but Katie asked her and Louis to stay just a few moments longer.
"As we mentioned earlier, we're going to keep Brogan closer to us for the foreseeable future. We're planning on taking him with us to all of the upcoming away games as well, but this means that the nights that we're all away at an away game, you'd be here alone Cecilia," Katie explained.
"And we don't feel comfortable with that. Knowing that you are a responsible adult who can take care of herself doesn't give us much comfort when we know what some people are capable of when they're angry. We think you should move in with Louis for the time being so you're never alone," Oliver told Cecilia.
Cecilia froze for a moment before she gave her parents an incredulous look, "You can't be serious."
"What do you-"
"You can't be telling me that you'd like me to move in with Louis. Especially not after the fact that I've tried to bring up the topic of moving out three times in the past two weeks, and each time Mum acts like the conversation's been obliviated from her mind," Cecilia accused her parents with a scowl.
Katie folded her arms across her chest and met her daughter's angry gaze, "Then this should illustrate how serious we believe this situation is. The last thing I want is to push my children out of my home, and I may be guilty of trying to hold onto you a little too tightly recently. I may or may not have been ignoring the topic of you moving out, but I know that we need to discuss it now."
"So, when it's my idea to move in with Louis it should just be ignored; but when it's your idea for me to do so because it's safer, that's fine," Cecilia said petulantly.
"There is safety in numbers Cecilia, and the fact that you won't be alone brings me comfort. If you don't want to move in with Louis, like you've been trying to talk to me about for weeks, you could move in with other friends-"
Cecilia scoffed, "This isn't about whether or not I want to move in with Louis. This is about you telling me that I can't do something, only to change your mind when you feel it has a benefit for you."
"Cee-Cee," Louis said softly as he placed his hand on hers, "Your parents are telling you that they'd like for you to move in with me. Perhaps we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth."
"This isn't about us, this is about a double-standard," Cecilia insisted as she continued to glare at her mother. She knew that her mother didn't exactly deserve her scorn, especially since she was already dealing with her own personal boogeyman being released from prison, but she'd been burying this anger for a few weeks and was ready to burst.
Katie got up from her chair and came around so that she could hug Cecilia around the shoulders, "I'm sorry that I've been avoiding having this conversation with you Sweetheart. I know that you wanted to talk about moving out of the house and moving in with Louis for a while, and I apologize for evading the topic and causing whatever unhappiness those actions created."
"Thank you, Mum, I appreciate that," Cecilia said as she hugged her mother back, "And I'm sorry that all of this is happening. You don't deserve any of it."
Katie squeezed her daughter tighter, "We'll be okay Cee-Cee. Everything we've spoken about with you and Xavier are just precautions. I don't think that even Flint is stupid enough to do something to any of us after such a long stint in Azkaban, he's not going to want to go back anytime soon."
Oliver cleared his throat.
"Your father thinks a little differently, but we both believe that these precautions are necessary," Katie continued.
"Yes, so if you don't want to move in with Louis, Cecilia, we'll need to find other arrangements for you-" Oliver began saying only to be interrupted by his daughter.
"I never said that I didn't want to move in with Louis."
Oliver blinked, "Then what exactly were you mad about?"
"The fact that you were trying to take away my choice in the matter."
"Ahh," Her father replied as if he understood what she was saying.
He still didn't.
Not fully, but he did grasp the general feeling. Oliver went on to mutter something under his breath about 'raising ruddy Gryffindors' and that he 'didn't think it'd be this hard'.
Cecilia turned to glance at Louis, "How do you feel about another roommate?"
"I'll have to run it by Baxter first, but I can't see him not agreeing after he hears the whole situation," Louis told her softly.
She gave her boyfriend a shrewd look, "You're going to go home and double-check all of your security wards now, aren't you?"
"No . . . I'm going to ask Teddy to come by and check all of them," Louis admitted easily.
Cecilia held off on rolling her eyes and gave her boyfriend a quick kiss on the cheek.
"I need to get to Holyhead," She said before pushing away from the table.
Katie gave her daughter another tight hug, "Be safe, yeah?"
"Yes, Mum."
10:20 PM
"Merlin it's been a long day," Victoire sighed as she collapsed into a chair behind the main desk of St. Mungo's Emergency Medical Ward.
Healer Spencer Green, who had been leaning onto a section of the main desk and had been filling out a patient chart, visibly flinched at her sudden appearance, "Jesus H. Christ Elsa, how many times do I have to tell you not to sneak up on me?"
"Who's Elsa?"
Spencer, who had been given quite a fright, had recovered enough to roll his eyes at his colleague, "A Disney princess turned queen. She has magical control over snow and ice."
"And there wasn't a Disney princess with control over fire that you could equate me to, instead?" Victoire asked her friend.
"Not yet."
"Sounds like an oversight to me."
Spencer nodded and then went back to filling out his chart, "I didn't realize that you were assigned to the EM ward tonight too. You must have been busy if I haven't seen you since now."
"Oh, I'm not assigned to the EM ward tonight," Victoire said airily as she spun around in her chair.
Her friend's quill stopped writing, "Then what in the world are you doing here?"
"I'm assigned to be the healer on duty in the DAR ward tonight, but it's so boring up there right now. I came down here to see if there was any way I could help," The Dark Arts Reversal healer announced.
"I'd offer you some of my paperwork to complete, but I have a feeling that you're specifically down here so that you can ignore the presence of your own paperwork," Spencer replied.
She scoffed, "Healer Green, I'll have you know that I am up to date on all of my paperwork. I even finished the paperwork for my experimental case that I'm not going to be completing until next week."
"Wow," He responded as he closed his patient chart and looked up at his friend, "You must have really been bored the past few hours."
Victoire spun around once more in her chair, "It's been a boring day –not that I want someone to be attacked– and I've been here since six this morning."
"So, you volunteered for a double shift?"
"I was conscripted into a double shift. It was requested that I visit the OBGYN ward around noon because someone needed a frater ad fetura test and the ward's only pureblooded healer was busy delivering triplets. When I came back, I had lost the chance to bow out of the option to do the night shift today as well," She explained.
Since Victoire had yet to dig up any possible blackmail on Donnie, he was still suggesting the Obstetrics ward call for her anytime they needed a pureblooded healer to complete a frater ad fetura test. It wouldn't have been so annoying if it wasn't for the fact that most of the purebloods she was running tests for were people she went to school with. She didn't have the best relationship with many of them to begin with, and when they saw her, they weren't the happiest at finding out that self-righteous Victoire Weasley was going to be the healer telling them whether or not their unborn child could potentially be carrying a debilitating genetic disease.
The couple she had dealt with that day were unfortunately familiar to her. Lorenzo Steed had been a Slytherin in her year at Hogwarts, and Victoire would have called him the bane of her existence if Colton Knott and Austin Pennington hadn't shared that title already. Lorenzo was a close friend and crony of Colton's during their Hogwarts years, but when Victoire asked Colton about him when they started spending more time together (not that they were friends or anything), Colton had explained that Lorenzo had gotten married and had a child in the meantime and that they had slowly drifted apart after graduation. Lorenzo and his wife were on their second child and were even more mad about having to have a frater ad fetura test completed than they were the first time. Apparently, they had a difficult time grasping the concept that just because their first child was cleared of possible inherited genetic disorders from their bloodlines, didn't mean that their next child would be. Victoire vaguely recognized the wife as a Slytherin student who had been in Ally's year while they were at Hogwarts.
"Have I ever mentioned how happy I am that I'm not a pureblood?" Spencer asked her with a smirk.
She rolled her eyes, "Only every time I tell you that I get stuck doing the test."
"So, you haven't had any cases at all tonight?" He asked her curiously.
"I've been called down to Spell Damage about four different times for unknown spells, but by the time I got there the healers on duty were able to figure out what the spells were supposed to be, and decided that they weren't dark in nature."
Spencer grabbed a new file from the desk, "I could think of worse ways to rack up some overtime."
"Which is the main reason why I didn't complain-"
The was a scoffing sound.
"Directly to Healer Seward. I had to ask for Sunday off in addition to Saturday this weekend, and now that I've done some overtime, I'm guaranteed to get it."
"Are you really that excited about your Sunday night family dinners that you didn't want to miss one?"
Victoire snorted, "Godric no. Family dinner is actually cancelled this week. A lot of my family members have to work, and I'm taking about half of my cousins with me to France to search an old mansion for books with dark curses in them."
Spencer stopped looking at his file and raised an eyebrow at her, "Yeah, 'cause that sounds like a wholesome alternative."
"Selene gave me the idea a few days ago that the spell that I'm looking for that liquefies internal reproductive systems may originally be an old French spell and that to find it I'll need to look in old French spell books-"
"Who's Selene?"
"And the only old, French, dark-magic containing spell books I'll be able to get my hands on are the ones in the Lestrange family library in their estate in France. Teddy hates visiting the house, so I figured all-hands on deck while searching for the spell would be the most expedient way to go about this," Victoire finished.
Spencer had already forgotten about his first question and was thinking about a second, "How are there still dark-magic spell books in a house that James Bond owns? He's an auror."
"He may be an auror, but ancient pureblood estates have some weird, centuries old magic running through them. It's impossible to remove them from the premises. Uncle Harry was able to help Teddy put up a spell that locks away the library and makes it impossible for anybody but him to enter the room when he first inherited it. He said he'll be able to take the spell off for us on Sunday."
"Fascinating, so who've you conscripted to help in this endeavour?"
Victoire smiled, her cousins and friends had really stepped up when she asked them for their help that upcoming Sunday, "Ally and Xavier are in, and Dom of course since she can read French. Louis has work so he can't come, Cecilia's got a game to write about, but Baxter said he'd give us a hand. Kyle and Sandra are going to help since Kyle has gleaned a little bit of French from growing up with his mother. Molly's invested in the research since she wasn't able to find me anything through her work, and Lucy is begrudgingly curious about the whole thing and has offered her help as well. The wild-cards though are Colton and Anastasia, apparently Stasia's familiar with some French, and at this point even a little is better than nothing."
"That sounds like quite the party, no James or Freddie to give you a hand?"
"Freddie's busy working Sunday, it's his one Sunday a month to work I guess, and James has practice."
Spencer frowned, "And Xavier doesn't?"
"James has self-inflicted extra practice."
"Ahhh, still trying to prove himself?"
"It's a full-time job when you're part of our family."
"Oh, I believe it."
Victoire was just about to offer to give Spencer a hand with his charts, when there was a bit of a commotion in the ward. A new patient was being rushed in, an act in itself which wasn't too out of the ordinary, but the size of the entourage attempting to follow the patient into the ward was odd.
The Emergency Medical First Responders were calling for neurological healers. Spencer grabbed a quick piece of paper and wrote a message for the neurological ward. There weren't usually any on direct duty on the floor of the EM ward, they were often called down for specific situations, similar to DAR ward healers. Victoire jumped into position to help the patient, and she was at his side and listening to one of the Emergency Magical First Responders explain the injury before she actually had a chance to get a good look at him.
He had a large gash on the side of his head and he was currently unconscious, the obvious reason why a neurological healer had been paged, as well as a few broken bones that must have happened when he fell off of his broom. His Puddlemere United jersey was covered in blood, most of it from his head injury, and even though the Emergency Magical First Responders had put stasis spells on him to stop any more blood flow, she cast several more to make sure that they would hold until a neurological healer could get down to them. Victoire and another healer who had been on duty that night had just finished running basic neurological diagnostic spells that informed them that it was safe to heal the secondary broken bones when she noticed Healer Sarah MacGregor running towards them.
"What happened?" The neurological healer enquired authoritatively.
"Twenty-four-year-old man. Preceding injury was a bludger to the head. Received secondary injuries after falling 40 feet out of the air and off of a broom. EMFR completed initial first aid scans and stasis spells until patient was transported here."
Victoire quickly took over the recital while healing the man's broken fibula, "Healer Norris and I completed nerve damage testing before we began to heal the broken extremities. We've followed basic protocol of healing smallest breaks first and are moving our way to larger ones."
Sarah nodded at her and she immediately had her wand out and was doing magic over the gruesome head injury, "No cardiac or pulmonary problems from the fall?"
"EMFR placed stasis spells right away and we didn't take them off yet to check how those systems would run without them," Healer Norris explained.
The neurological specialist nodded again and glanced at her DAR ward colleague, "I'm going to ask Healer Norris to release him from the stasis spells –it's the only way I can get an accurate assessment of cerebral and cerebellar brain damage– but it may make his heart or his breathing stop. I'll need you to keep those going if they do."
Victoire nodded.
Healer Norris released the stasis spells on Healer MacGregor's signal and Sarah began running her spells to check the extent of possible brain injury. She had only completed about three of her rapid spells before Victoire noticed their patient's heartbeat stop. Victoire cast the spell that would make the heart beat again, and she breathed a small sigh of relief when it only missed one beat.
Sarah completed another spell before the patient's head wound began bleeding profusely.
"Stop the spell! His cardiovascular system is going into overdrive-"
Victoire had started working before Sarah could complete her directive. She took the cardio spell off and started the next best thing, muggle chest compressions. It would keep the heart beating but it would not have the added side effect of creating too much additional blood flow like the cardio spell did.
As she counted out the seconds between compressions in her head to ensure that she was completing them fast enough, Victoire could hear Healer Norris ask Sarah if she wanted him to cast a spell to make the head wound stop bleeding. Sarah replied in the negative, stating that the spell would restrict the capillaries too much and make her diagnostic spells more difficult, and asked him just to apply pressure to the wound.
"Do you need to switch to electric stimulation Healer Weasley?" Sarah asked her a moment later.
"I can do a few more minutes if you want to complete your diagnostics first."
Sarah replied in the affirmative again and ran two more tests before intrusting Healer Norris to remove his hands and telling Victoire to try the cardio spell again. Victoire did as her colleague asked, and the patient's heartbeat started again without her manual assistance. A half a second later the head wound had stopped bleeding, and Sarah was tossing out spell after spell in a very fast and practiced manner that sealed up the head wound within minutes.
"He can be moved to our ward now for further testing," Sarah announced as she and the rest of the healers pulled away from the patient, "Come with me to my ward, Healer Weasley?"
Victoire agreed, while Healer Norris said that he was going to deal with the patient's entourage which it seemed hospital security was having a hard time keeping under control.
Healer Sarah MacGregor got down to business as she and Victoire followed the patient's gurney to the neuro ward, "I take it you know him?"
It was an educated guess on Sarah's part. She knew about Victoire's connections to Puddlemere, so the chance that she personally knew the patient was strong.
"Yes. His name is Christopher Mullin . . . we went to Hogwarts together."
Sarah glanced at her from the corner of her eye, "We're not supposed to heal family or friends."
"We're also not supposed to let patients' injuries worsen when there's something we can do to fix it."
"Any way you can get your friend's family to keep quiet about your involvement? Advertising your connection may bring unwanted attention to your, admittedly limited, contribution."
Victoire knew that Sarah was just being cautious and trying to look out for her, so she didn't take the request too personally.
"We're not exactly friends, so if you don't mention it to them, I won't."
Sarah mimed zipping her lips and then followed her patient into the room that had been prepped for Chris.
There was no reason for her to hang around the neuro ward, so Victoire went back up to her floor in an attempt to avoid the guests that may be entering the EM ward. Chris's injury must have happened during that night's game, so that meant that everyone had a front row seat to it and that Giavanna and the rest of Chris's family were probably right behind him.
She's barely sat down at the desk in her office when there was a knock on her door. She waved her hand to open it, and was only slightly surprised to see the four individuals who were behind it.
"Are you here to share information or to ask for it?"
Ally sat down in a chair across from Victoire's desk, while Xavier, Clark, and Mark chose to stand.
"It depended entirely on what information we thought you might have," Xavier replied honestly, "Your reply makes it seem like you know something."
Victoire folded her hands together, "Maybe if you share what you know, I could share what I know."
It seemed like a fair enough trade-off, and Xavier explained the situation. Since they were playing a game in which their outcome wouldn't matter for their standings (because the team they were playing were so far behind them) the coaches had decided that they would play several members of the reserve team that night to give them the chance to play a real game. Xavier and Chris had been kept in their respective positions of keeper and seeker because their coaches did still want to win, but everybody else –excepting James since he was technically a reserve player anyway– were from the second-string team.
One of the reserve team beaters had made a horrible mistake and miscalculation as he hit a bludger, and it resulted in said bludger careening at top speed towards their team's seeker. Chris lost consciousness immediately after the bludger made contact with his head, and he plummeted towards the ground almost seconds later. Xavier of all people had been closest to Chris at the time, and he'd done his best to wandlessly slow Chris's fall to the pitch. It didn't slow it enough to stop all secondary injuries, but it definitely explained why he wasn't as badly injured as Victoire had thought he should have been considering he'd fallen off of his broom.
At this point Victoire took over the story, "Emergency Magical First Responders brought Chris in, triage was completed and Healer Sarah MacGregor got him stable and took him up to the neuro ward. From there she'll have a lot of work to do to assess the potential damage, and even more once he wakes up."
"But you think he'll wake up?" Mark piped up.
"I hope he wakes up, and I have full confidence that if it is possible, Sarah and her team are the ones who can do it," Victoire replied truthfully.
Clark groaned, "If he doesn't wake up Giavanna's going to kill us."
"Why? It's not your fault. You weren't even playing," Victoire reminded him.
"That's her whole point," Mark explained.
"She thinks that if we had been playing instead, her husband wouldn't have gotten hurt," Clark continued.
Victoire tried to comfort them, "I'm sure that she doesn't believe that."
"Well, I'm sure that she does," Clark complained, "After all the minute he got hit with that bludger she started telling us that to our faces. We were all in the Puddlemere United family box tonight so we were all together when it happened."
"And we were right there for Giavanna to blame. She started in on us before he even hit the ground. Mrs. Tracey-Mullin was so distraught about her husband that she was still laying into us by the time the Emergency Magical First Responders got to the pitch, and almost missed their presence entirely," Mark added with just a smidge of sarcasm.
Victoire sighed. Giavanna Tracey-Mullin wasn't the easiest person to deal with on a good day, she could only imagine how she was acting having witnessed her husband's head getting smashed in.
"Healer MacGregor is excellent at her job. She'll take care of Chris, and she'll calm Giavanna down."
Ally, who had been silent since they entered, asked Victoire the question that was bothering her the most, "Do you think Chris will have lasting brain damage?"
"It's too early to tell Ally. I don't even know what's really wrong with him or how extensive the damage is. People with similar injuries have had lasting damage . . . and people with similar injuries have made remarkable recoveries."
"Well let's hope he's one of the latter," Mark said with a long sigh.
"For all of our sakes," Clark added with a mutter.
A/N: Well THAT was a busy chapter. What shocked you the most?
Thank you to everyone for sticking it out with me. As long as you guys are reading I'll keep up with this story.
Next Chapter: Brogan's sixth birthday party! We get to see a LOT of our favourite characters interacting with one another.
Next Update: I'm actually close to finishing the chapter, so within a week or two.
Thanks again to everyone who follows, favourites, read, and especially reviewed!
BIGGEST thank yous as always to:
Janeth16, Katie2001, , Guest (1), Lenkner0407, CrackHeadBlonde, Guest (2), TheQueenofTheSheep, Liza, GrandmaBeth, geane, HufflepuffDADA, Guest (3), iceangel360, Coralsea, and Guest (4).
Janeth16: Thank you, I know that I put a lot of different things into this story plot-wise, I'm glad to see that it doesn't all feel like it's shoehorned in or unconnected :)
Lenkner0407: Eli would have been a good guess, unfortunately I didn't give you guys enough information on this one. It's the first time it's mentioned.
CrackHeadBlonde: No James and Selene in this past chap or the next one, but they will be in the one after the next.
TheQueenofTheSheep: That's definitely a theory . . . but it's important to remember that pregnancy affects every person differently.
geane: Welcome to my wizarding world, I hope you enjoy the ride :) Also, if you haven't read my earlier stories I do suggest you do if you'd like to get caught up on all of the drama.
iceangel360: We are not done with the trainees yet ;)
Coralsea: Welcome to my wizarding world! When I'm my best self I have an updating schedule, but with COVID and my starting back up at uni again I'm not quite living my best life at the moment. for now my updating schedule is, whenever I get a chapter finished. I hope it will be roughly once a month, but I can't make any promises at the moment.
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter,
Please leave me any questions or concerns in a review or PM,
Stay safe everyone,
Until next time, DFTBA!