Mimi cast a doubtful eye at the empty trunk, then looked back to the three first-year boys, eagerly explaining that they'd managed to pack all of Henry's things in Neville's and Winston's trunks, and all she had to do was curl up inside Henry's, and they'd let her out as soon as they were on the train, and that was it, escape accomplished!
"Your parents aren't going to be happy about you bringing me home with you," she told Henry.
"'Course they will!" he scoffed, entirely obliviously.
Mimi had not, at any point in the past three months, since the boys had first managed to sneak into her part of the Castle, managed to find a good opportunity to explain that she was actually his godsister, and she was locked up in a tower (more like half of the Castle, truly) because his parents considered her a danger to others simply by the fact of her existence. She hadn't even managed to convince them that she wasn't some sort of immortal fae princess, going around 'conjuring' tea for them, eavesdropping on their thoughts and emotions, and generally being a bit weird because she hadn't spoken to another child since she was three, and most of the adults she knew were elves or had been dead for centuries.
The most normal person she'd known before meeting the boys was definitely Severus, and if his memories of other people were any measure by which to judge, Severus was...not that normal. Not only was he very clever and tricky and also a legilimens, but he'd spent his entire life, or most of it at least, surrounded by other not-normal people, like Mimi's mother and Thom and Bella, so he had a very high tolerance for weird and had never actually pointed out exactly how odd Mimi could be sometimes.
He thought it was good that the boys had found their way here, because it was bloody criminal of "Albus" to keep her locked up here away from living humans, even though she didn't quite understand why.
He even thought it was a good idea for her to leave with them, as they had so-excitedly suggested nearly a month ago, but she was pretty sure that was mostly because he wanted to resign from Hogwarts himself, and couldn't do so until she decided she was ready to leave and go to New Avalon. He always said that they could stay as long as she wanted to, that she would learn all sorts of things here, from the ghosts, that she never would anywhere else, and that he didn't mind staying for her and for Slytherin, and he meant it, she knew he did, but she also knew that he really hated teaching.
Obviously she wouldn't be able to stay with the Potters. If she did end up going through with it, she would go on to New Avalon later this evening, and if anything went wrong with her plan, Bella could come over and apparate her there. That was definitely only a back-up plan, though, because Mimi didn't want Bella to maybe have to fight Uncle James or "Albus" or a bunch of aurors or whoever over her, even if she wouldn't mind.
The boys had met her through Nemain, and were under the mistaken impression that she was Mimi's mother, only able to communicate with her via a sending because she was in Avalon. Not New Avalon, the original Avalon. Lady Morgen's Avalon. And the borders between the fae and human realms had been closed for hundreds of years, now. Obviously, Mimi had somehow been trapped on this side when the portals were closed. That she was really three-hundred years old but looked like she was their age was apparently believable to them because she was 'unnaturally' good at magic, and spoke Latin, so obviously she had to be ancient. And fae were immortal, everyone knew that.
Children, Mimi had discovered, were very silly, but it was an entertaining sort of silliness. She hadn't had the heart to tell them, no, Crow wasn't actually a fae princess or her mother, and hadn't really refused to tell them her name because she was fae, but actually the Lady of New Avalon, the country in the Irish Sea that their parents all hated, and Mimi would probably be in trouble if they told anyone that she was visiting and teaching Mimi magic right under the Old Goat's nose.
Bella didn't have an opinion on whether Mimi stayed here. They'd discussed it years ago and decided that she could stay until next summer if she wanted to — until she turned thirteen and really needed to start taking an interest in politics and such as the next Lady Black, which meant going to New Avalon and meeting people other than just Bella and Sev. She'd always said that if Mimi wanted to leave before then she could, but she also said she could understand why Mimi might not want to. Growing up with all of the teachers she could possibly want and the freedom to do as she liked, with no consideration for propriety or other people's opinions, was exactly the sort of childhood Bella would have liked to have.
Mimi hadn't seriously started considering leaving early until last summer, when "Albus" had refused to let her have a wand, even though she was eleven and if she were anyone else she'd be getting ready to come to Hogwarts as a student, making it impossibly clear that he just wanted to see her grow up as useless and incapable as possible.
She'd only really stuck around after that because Helena and the other ghosts and the elves were reluctant to see her go. They were like family to her. They had watched her grow up, and when she left she probably wouldn't ever be able to come back. But they knew she didn't really belong here, like they did. Not really. When the boys suggested 'escaping' and she admitted that she was actually thinking about it, they had encouraged her to go, or at least not to stay on their account. They hadn't told Dumbledore about her visitors or that she was thinking of leaving, because they agreed with Sev that no matter how much they loved her and would miss her, she really should be with her own kind. They'd all had a big party yesterday as a farewell, because she was almost certain that she was going to do it.
That was before the boys had come up here all proud of their plan to smuggle her onto the train in Henry's trunk, though. "So you intend to shrink me and carry me aboard in your pocket or some such?" she asked. Because she could see the shrinking enchantment on the trunk, but that sounded like a terribly unsafe plan. Especially since it was completely unnecessary. She could just port-key to New Avalon from anywhere. Bella had sent her one with Nemain when she'd decided she was serious about leaving, finally. Sneaking out with the boys would just be for fun, and so she could give Uncle James a piece of her mind before she left.
"No, see, that's the brilliant part," Winston explained. "We just have to get you back to our dorm and say okay, Henry's all ready to go, and the elves will take you down to the train!"
"And we're going to get you to our dorm levitating the trunk, not trying to shrink it, we know that would be dangerous," Henry added.
Outside, the clock tower sounded the hour. Nine. The train left at eleven. Students were expected to be ready to go by ten, so the elves would have time to move the luggage to the platform. According to Winston's older brother, they would load their trunks themselves, because the elves couldn't possibly guess who would choose to sit in which compartments.
It wasn't a surprise that Neville said, rather anxiously, "If we're going to do this, we need to go now, Calla."
She climbed into the box without another word. What more was there to say?
She watched through their eyes as they carefully made their way through the deserted corridors and back into the school part of the Castle. They were nearly stopped by a group of older Gryffindors, asking them what they were doing as they brought her into their common room — all three of the boys froze, uncertain of what to do, because they'd expected everyone to already be down in the Great Hall, and terrified that they would be caught — but she turned their attention away from the firsties and the trunk before they could say anything. It wasn't even hard — she had figured out how to do this even before Uncle James brought her to Hogwarts, and their minds were just as open as Winston's and Neville's. Uncle James had taught Henry occlumency, so his was trickier to get into, especially without him noticing, but she knew him well enough by now that it was only a little tricker.
Keep going, she whispered into the boys' minds. They won't see us.
This did not in any way help to convince any of the boys that Mimi was not, in fact, an Avalonian fae-child with powers beyond mortal ken, but none of them were about to question it, since she was keeping them from getting caught. They didn't think they were technically breaking any rules, rescuing the princess from her tower, but they were absolutely certain that they would be in trouble if they were caught, because someone had locked her up in the first place (albeit for no good reason, as far as they could see).
Henry wasn't actually convinced of that until she followed him off the train — trying not to be too distracted by the hundreds of minds all around her (she spent most of the train ride holding herself in as tightly as possible to avoid being overwhelmed by the excitement of everyone she could feel on the train around her, but that didn't mean she wasn't aware of them — they were visible to her magesight, glowing like little suns in her mind's eye, shifting and sparkling like tiny universes, tempting her to reach out and touch them) — and over to his parents.
They didn't notice her at first, because she didn't want them to notice her. It would be nice, she thought, to let them say hello to Henry and his friends before they were distracted by her presence. She did, however, have to reveal herself before they left the platform, because they couldn't apparate her to the Cottage if they didn't know she was there.
Between his parents' and younger siblings' excitement, Henry didn't manage to get a word in edgewise to introduce her until they were halfway back to the designated apparation area.
"So, Henry, love, how have you been? How did exams go? Anything exciting happen in the last few weeks?" Aunt Tiffany asked.
"Well, yes, actually. Um. You know how I told you Nev and Winner and I were exploring the school?"
"Find any good secret passages?" Uncle James asked, laughing because he and his friends had explored the whole castle when they were in school, and even made a map — he wasn't sure what had happened to that old thing, actually...
"Better! We found a fairy princess locked up in a tower!" he said, grinning and pointing at Mimi. She supposed that was as good a cue as any to let them notice her. "Mum, Dad, Munchkins—" Betty was almost eleven, and Charlie, she thought, had to be eight or nine, but there was a third little Potter she hadn't known about until Henry started visiting her, because she avoided paying any attention at all to Uncle James when he visited — Arthur, who was only five. "—this is Calytrix."
She stopped redirecting their attention away from her, which didn't quite make her appear out of nowhere all of a sudden, but was more like they suddenly realised she'd been standing there the whole time, remembering her being there, and everything. Uncle James's and Aunt Tiffany's moods — excited to have their eldest son back home with them, anticipating spending time together as a family over the summer holiday — plummeted, fear and anger escaping their best efforts to contain it. The littles were mostly just confused.
"Where did you come from?" Betty asked, her voice nearly lost in her parents' startled exclamations.
"I just said, she was locked up in a tower! We helped her escape, and I told her that she could stay with us, because you're always telling me that we have to do the right thing, right? And I couldn't live with myself if I just left her there!" he declared dramatically.
Mimi, for her part, thought she ought to add, "I didn't make him think that, I swear. Hello Uncle James. Aunt Tiffany." She even gave them a proper little curtsy, which she wouldn't have if it were just Uncle James — he'd long since worn out his welcome with her, and no longer deserved politeness, but Aunt Tiffany hadn't done anything wrong, really. She'd wanted to send Mimi to New Avalon in the first place, and she was thinking even now that she'd thought Mimi was safe with Severus. (Or rather, everyone else was safe from her, because she was with Severus. Or she was supposed to be, at least!)
"Mimi," Uncle James said coldly. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but this was very naughty of you. Come, we're taking you back to Hogwarts right now." He reached out to take her arm and apparate her away, but she ducked behind Henry, who was now very confused.
"What? Dad, what are you doing? You can't just— Calla, what's going on?"
"I told you they wouldn't like me coming home with you," she told him. Then she added, "If you touch me, Uncle James, I swear I'll make you go to sleep!" That was, she thought, probably the least scary thing she could do to him to make him not apparate her back to "Albus". Well, she could hex him — it was hard to say whether he would find her compelling him to sleep more scary than realising that yes, she could do wizardry, and had had a wand since she turned seven — but pulling her wand on him would be escalating the conflict, which Lady Gwendolyn said was not an effective, diplomatic negotiating strategy.
"God damn it, Jamie! We are not having this discussion in the middle of King's Cross!" Aunt Tiffany snapped. "Mira, Henry, give me your hands so I can take you home. Jamie, I'll come back for Art."
If it were Uncle James holding out his hand, she wouldn't have trusted him for a minute, but Aunt Tiffany really didn't like hearing that Mimi had been "locked up in a tower" any more than Henry had liked the idea of leaving her there, and she was taking Henry at the same time. She let the older witch pull her through the crushing darkness of apparation space — much worse than Severus's memories of apparating. She stumbled, disoriented, when they reentered realspace.
Henry didn't feel much better, though she was more concerned about the sense of betrayal she was feeling from him than either of their discomfort with side-along apparation. As soon as Aunt Tiffany went back to help apparate his siblings home, he demanded again to know, "What's going on here, Calla?"
"I told you, I'm not a fae princess, and I told you your parents don't want me to stay with you! I'm Mira Black—"
"You said your name was Calytrix!"
"Yes, Mira Calytrix Black, for my parents. Calytrix are star-flowers. Sirius is the star and Lily is the flower, and they both really liked bad puns, apparently. I used to live with you, when we were babies, but when Uncle James and Aunt Tiffany realised I'm a mind-mage like my grandfather, they decided I was dangerous and couldn't stay with you, so Uncle James took me to Hogwarts, and Albus decided to just keep me locked up in the Castle so I'd grow up useless and afraid of my magic."
"But you're not— You're better at magic than I am!"
"No thanks to Albus! He didn't even let me have a wand!" She'd asked him, when she turned eleven, if she might be allowed to have one and join in lessons with the other children, out in the school, and he'd said no. She hadn't truly hated him until then, but that, she thought, was unforgivable. (The fact that she already had a wand and knew more magic than any of the first-years was entirely irrelevant. He hadn't wanted her to, that was the point.) "I had to sneak out to Gringotts to get one from the Black Vault!" She'd only left the school a couple dozen times in the past five years, because the wards would alert the Headmaster if she did. Bella had had to get some of the Death Eaters to make a distraction so he wouldn't be in the Castle to notice that first time. (After that, they'd planned going out — to get potions ingredients, mostly, either from apothecaries or just in the Forest with Sev — around when Dumbledore would be at important government things.)
"Wait! So you didn't need us to rescue you?"
He was so very annoyed about that she couldn't help laughing a little. "No. If I wanted to leave, Bella — Crow is Bellatrix of New Avalon—"
Uncle James (and Betty and Charlie) apparated in just as she said that last part, immediately asking (accusingly), "You've been in contact with Bellatrix? Since when?!"
(She didn't quite hear him, actually, over the crack of Aunt Tiffany and Arthur arriving, but she knew that was what he'd said.) "My seventh birthday," she informed him, glaring defiantly up at him.
He ran his fingers through his hair like he always did under pressure. "Christ, kiddo! Why didn't you say anything?!" he said, as though she thought it was a bad thing that Bella had sent Nemain to her. "We could've— Was this her idea? You befriending Henry and convincing him to help you escape?"
"No, Dad, it was my idea! I convinced Calla!"
Mimi nodded. "If I wanted Bella to rescue me, I could just sneak out and she'd apparate me away from Hogsmeade." Obviously she would actually just use the port-key Nemain had brought her, which she was planning to use to get to New Avalon when she was done here, but she didn't want to raise Uncle James's suspicions and have him do something so she couldn't port-key away and make Bella have to come rescue her for real. "And I didn't say anything because I like Bella! I didn't want you to try to keep her away!" Not that she thought they could really have managed it, but Dumbledore almost certainly would've tried, and probably would've just made it much harder to do whatever she wanted when he wasn't there and practise magic and such.
"How has she been contacting you?" Uncle James demanded, as Aunt Tiffany tried to explain to the littles exactly who Mimi was, in the background. "Has she been writing letters to you?"
"No, and it's none of your business!"
"I'm your guardian, Mira! It is my business! We're going to have to talk to Albus about this," he added, in a tone that was meant to be somewhat ominous, like you're in trouble now, Missy, but mostly just sounded tired.
"No, we're not, because I'm not going back!"
"Oh, yes you are! Sneaking away from the school isn't the sort of good-girl behaviour that is going to convince me you're ready to come home!" he said, but he was thinking he was going to have to take Henry to a mind-healer to make sure she hadn't tried to enthral him or something, and tell the Longbottoms and Ethridges to do so for Neville and Winston, too, and how difficult that was going to be to explain—
"I didn't do anything to Henry and his friends, and how can you possibly still think I want to come live with you? I think I've been pretty clear every time I've seen you for the last eight years that I don't want anything to do with you!"
Her words hit him like punch in the gut from someone a lot bigger and stronger than Mimi. His projected pain hit her back just as strongly. "Mimi..."
"No! Stop it! I don't care how sad and rejected you feel at me, I'm never going to like you! I hate you!"
That was about the time Nemain fluttered out of a nearby shadow to perch on Mimi's shoulder. Bella projected an illusion to ask, "What did I miss?" prompting surprise and fear from Henry's family. Uncle James actually pulled his wand on it, while Aunt Tiffany tried to herd her children away and convince Henry to come hide behind her as well.
"Are you really Bellatrix of New Avalon?" Henry asked, ignoring his mother.
"No, I'm a sending of Bellatrix of New Avalon. Jamie. Tiff. Assorted miniature Potters. I'm one of your mother's first cousins on her mother's side. You can call me Bella."
"Do not call her Bella," Uncle James instructed his children. "Don't talk to her at all. She's the enemy and she's evil, and Mimi, I am very disappointed in you for not telling me that you've been in contact with her!"
"Fine! Be disappointed! I don't care! You don't matter! You're afraid of me! You were afraid of me when I was three, and you gave me to Albus hoping that he would teach me to be weak and helpless and 'good', but I'm not weak or helpless, and if good is locking little girls away from the world and refusing to let them learn magic and not even telling Severus that I was at the school and trying to make me feel guilty and like I'm bad and evil and dangerous just for existing, then good can go hang, Uncle James!"
"What do you— What does she mean, you never told Severus, James?"
"Don't give me that look, Tiff! Albus said he was still cut up about Lily, and I figured it didn't matter if he was looking after her or Dumbledore, as long as she wasn't here."
"And as long as I wasn't with Tom and Bella in New Avalon," Mimi added.
"I thought we agreed that Severus should take her because he's a legilimens!" Aunt Tiffany snapped at Uncle James. "Albus isn't! How the hell was he supposed to teach her to control herself?!"
"You don't have to be a legilimens to teach a kid focusing exercises and scold her every time she tries to sneak into your mind, Tiff!"
"Slapping her down every time she does something you don't like isn't how you teach a child, James, it's how you train a bloody dog! I don't believe you—! You would never have told Henry off for having accidental magic episodes!"
"Accidental magic episodes don't normally involve making our kids forget they're hungry or sacrificing animals to the bloody Dark, Tiffany! And you wanted her out of our lives even more than I did!"
"I didn't want her anywhere near the kids! That doesn't mean I would have condoned just locking her up away from people so she can't hurt anyone! She's a child, not a bloody criminal! And I asked Auntie Dru about it, and she said that for a child legilimens, manipulating other people's emotions and perceptions is instinctive magic! Just telling her not to is exactly like telling our kids not to do accidental magic!" It wasn't quite, because Mimi could stop herself from touching other people's minds, even when she was little, and accidental magic was accidental. It was more like telling her that she wasn't allowed to look at someone or move her hands when she was talking to them, just...awkward and uncomfortable. "It's cruel, and I can't believe you never told me that she wasn't with Severus!"
"Oh, well if Druella says it's normal, then obviously we should just take her word for it," Uncle James scoffed.
Bella's illusion giggled. "Dru wouldn't know normal if it walked up and bit her on the arse, that's true, but she knows that. I'm sure she was referencing published experts on mind-healing and childhood magical development. Not that it matters, since I did tell Sev. It doesn't matter either that the Old Goat refused to let her have a wand and take lessons with the other children, because I arranged for her to get a wand years ago. And now she's coming to New Avalon with me."
"She is not!" Uncle James snapped (incorrectly). "I'm taking her back to Hogwarts—" ("No, Dad! You can't!") "—and then—"
Mimi cut off his attempt to say that he and "Albus" were going to find a way to keep Nemain and Bella away from her. "No, you're not!" She reached into her pocket to finger the little, delicately carved copper disk which was meant to take her home. "I only came here in the first place so I could finally tell you to take your opinion and shove it up a dragon's arse—" That was one of the goblin swears Bella had taught her, much to Lady Gwendolyn's horror. "—and you're not as good a person as you like to think you are, nor is Albus, and asking me to sacrifice being the person I could be because you're scared and think it's for the Greater Good because you don't trust me to not hurt people is wrong! Henry, you're a good friend." She stood on her tip-toes to kiss him on the cheek, making his mind go all surprised-blank-happy-confused. "Thank you for helping me, and I'll always remember you, but I'm going home now."
That was the activation phrase for the port-key, going home. She felt the magic catch her up almost immediately, colours beginning to blur and the world spinning around her. The last thing she heard was Henry saying, "But—" and thinking that he hoped she would write to him.
She rather thought she would.
So, that's it for now. I doubt I'll be adding any more scenes to this background thing. Mimi is off to New Avalon, where she'll continue learning magic and mind magic and politicking, and slowly become accustomed to the idea of not constantly being in trouble just for being herself. Bella and Thom are surrogate parents to her, far more so than Sirius (who allows himself to be broken out of Azkaban when he's told that Mira is now in New Avalon, after being locked up at Hogwarts for the last eight years) or Lily (who is allowed to return after a thirteen-year odyssey). Sev resigns his position at Hogwarts and returns to New Avalon the same summer as Mimi. More details about the next five years or so are scattered through A Sense of Urgency, which again, begins posting tomorrow.