Chapter 4: Here For Kicks, For Now

If I've made my life sound exciting and social up to this point, well, it's not. Scout's honor. Most of my friends are incidental—I talk to Slytherins at the house table over mealtimes, fourth years during classes, and Weasleys when sister-Molly gathers us all up together. Most of us are assholes, anyway. I make enough effort not to be totally pathetic, spending most of my downtime lounging around the Slytherin common room yelling out commentary on everything happening around me to make it look like I'm a part of my surroundings, and sometimes McLaggen or Smith or Hakim will join in, but really I'm just cruising, blending in with the scenery.

So when the first Hogsmeade visit of the year rolls around, I don't have a lot of people I could ask without feeling like a dumbass, and it's not like anybody's going to ask me. Eventually, on the Tuesday before the trip, I decide to track down Dom in the Great Hall before the end of dinner. She's the one Weasley in this castle that I honest-to-god get along with—I'm trying with Al, but he seems determined to treat everything even remotely related to Slytherin (including himself) like it's radioactive—and I'd rather kill time with her at this thing than have to spend another second wondering what the hell's going on between me and McLaggen.

"Oh, Lucy, that's so thoughtful of you," she says when I ask her, "but I'm already planning on going with friends from Hufflepuff."

"Yeah, of course!" I say. My voice sounds natural and jolly. "I'll hit you up later, then."

"Actually, why don't we sneak down to the kitchens this week—say Sunday night? You can tell me all about—well—everything."

Something inside me unclenches. "Cool. That sounds good. Hey—are you good with me bringing Al along? He's, uh, not fitting in great in Slytherin."

"Yeah, definitely," says good old Dom. "I'm glad you're making an effort with him. I think it's good for him to see that you can be a Weasley and a Slytherin and happy."

That stops me short. Weasley? Check. Slytherin? Check. But happy? It's not so much that I'm unhappy, but I guess I never really had enough metacognition about the way things make me feel inside to be properly joyous about anything. Things don't tend to stick on my consciousness, whether I like them or not. I'm here for kicks. I don't deal with anything. Even the things that I hate with a fiery passion—my sister, for instance—I just don't consider them much in between encounters, and I'm bitchy and snarky about everything else.

Maybe that kind of living in the moment looks like happiness on the outside, but if you asked me to put a name to it, I'd call it nearsighted. Repressive. Foolish. Good thing I don't plan on giving that much thought, either.

As it turns out, I'm not the only one to want to bring along a plus-one this weekend. I end up asking Angelina to meet me again at The Three Broomsticks during the Hogsmeade trip, and when she writes me back, she asks if it's okay with me to bring along my mum-ancestor, like there's any way I could say "no" without causing a shit load of family drama.

It's not that my mum-'stor is so bad to be around. She's not an asshole like most of the people I know. Kind of quiet, low self-esteem, still has nightmares about the Second War sometimes. Honestly, her service in the war and Dumbledore's Army is the most interesting thing about her, but she clams right up when you try to get her to talk about it. My dad-'stor doesn't like to talk about it, either: he'll be the first one to tell you about all the cool shit he did as a rogue inside the Ministry the last year of the war, but he doesn't bring up any of the mum-'stor's stories, like he can make her depression go away just by pretending that the causes of it don't exist. Everything I know about mum-'stor's Dumbledore's Army days comes from Aunt Ginny and Uncle Neville, by which I mean Professor Longbottom.

Every time I have tea with Uncle Neville, I feel like I'm cheating on Slughorn. This is ridiculous, of course, because besides the obvious, it's not like I'm not allowed to have a relationship with Uncle Neville just because he's Head of Gryffindor. He's my prof, too, and he was friends with my mum-'stor during Dumbledore's Army, and that kind of means I had a leg up when I first met him.

Uncle Neville, Slughorn, Angelina—why are all my real friends old people? Maybe I'm just incapable of knowing how the hell to act around people my own age. Maybe old people are just nicer. Of course, that wouldn't explain why I don't see them hanging out with anybody else I know from fourth year or from Slytherin.

But when I track down Angelina in The Three Broomsticks on Saturday, her long black braids instantly recognizable anywhere, it's not my mum-'stor who's sitting at the counter next to her. Instead, it's Aunt Ginny.

"Hi, Aunt Ginny," I call out as I elbow my way over to them. They both turn around on their stools to face me and grin. "Hi, Angelina. Where's my mum-'stor?"

Angelina says, "Your mum couldn't make it, Lucy." There's about a 99.9% chance that this means she's laid up in bed, crying or staring at the ceiling, but okay. I hadn't heard it myself, but there must have been something funny in my voice because she adds, "I didn't realize you were so looking forward to seeing her."

"I'm not. I mean, I wasn't."

Angelina opens her mouth, but Aunt Ginny tugs on the elbow of her robes and mouths drop it. If anything, this makes me more mad, but I'm nothing if not cool and sarcastic in the face of—I don't even want to call it disappointment. How can it be that when, A, Mum-'stor is proving things I already know about her, and B, I didn't even want her to crash my day with Angelina? Aunt Ginny is one thing. Aunt Ginny and I get along just fine. But Mum-'stor?

So I just say, "Why would I look forward to spending time with somebody who ignores me the whole time she and I are in a room together? She's lucky she's has an army of Weasleys ready to step in for me and Molly's whole lives, because if it were up to her, we'd have been taken away on neglect charges a long time ago."

Angelina frowns. "That's not fair, Lucy. She loves you more than anything. Your mother—"

"She can feel how she feels, Ange," says Aunt Ginny quietly. "Just, Lucy—make sure that, first, you understand the context of why your mother is the way she is. I was there with her that year, you know, and it wasn't easy."

"So some Death Eaters cut her up for a year. Tough. You know, you survived the same thing that whole year, and you were there for your kids. Uncle Neville had to go into hiding in the Room of Requirement, they wanted him dead so bad, after he took worse than my mum-'stor ever did. Aunt Luna got abducted and was locked in the Malfoys' basement for months—"

"If you don't care that she's not here," Aunt Ginny says gently, "then why are you so angry with her?"

"I'm not angry," I insist. "I'm just saying. You can't blame me for being real about who she is and the way I grew up."

"You know," Angelina points out, "your mum is a lot like your Uncle George. They both have demons that get the better of them sometimes, honey. But they didn't ask to be made this way. This was done to them."

"Why do you stay with him? He won't even call you his girlfriend. He didn't even want the baby."

Angelina looks stricken, and I'm pretty sure I've crossed an invisible line somewhere. "Let's not talk about this," says Aunt Ginny quickly.

"Why, so we can have a nice chat about what are my favorite subjects in school and what I want to do when I get my N.E.W.T.s someday?" I drawl.

"Okay, so you're not in the mood for small talk," Aunt Ginny says. "So let's flip it around. What's really going on in your life that you could do to vent about?"

I consider this for a second. "Promise you won't tell my ancestors?"

Angelina sticks out one of her pinky fingers. I shake it, then Aunt Ginny's.

It's cool, having aunts like Ginny and Angelina (who technically isn't my aunt, but she's as good as one, as far as I'm concerned). I know from experience that they actually won't tell my ancestors what's up if I explain about McLaggen and the kiss in the Hogwarts Express bathroom last Christmas and the almost-banging we did in the prefects' bathroom last month, and wow, if anything else happens between us again, I really need to make sure it doesn't happen in a bathroom. If I tell them, they won't slut-shame me and try to tell me I'm too young to be having sex or that I shouldn't have started doing it with Chandni when I was only thirteen, and they'll have all sorts of non-judgmental opinions trying to help me figure out what to do next, about my sex life and about McLaggen.

They'll be cool about it if I tell them, but of course, I don't tell them. "My sister is a freak of nature," I say instead. "Got anything for that?"

x

Let me tell you everything I know about my mum-'stor's PTSD. She's had it since the war. She ended up hiding out in the Room of Requirement with Uncle Neville a couple of months before the big confrontation between Voldy and Uncle Harry, not necessarily because she was in any real danger of being imprisoned or dying, more because she and her friends had been Cruciatused more time than she could handle and she needed to slow down. Problem was, she never really sped back up in life to keep pace with what was happening around her.

She met my dad-'stor through Aunt Ginny, like I told you, after she had dropped out and Aunt Ginny had graduated. I get the feeling he always liked her more than she liked him. Or—no, that's not it. She liked Dad-'stor plenty. He just couldn't compete with what was already happening in her brain. When he wanted them to start going out together, she held back for a few months before caving. When he wanted them to get married, she rushed into it to make him happy, got pregnant with Molly right away, and then proceeded to spend all her time shut up inside her bedroom and wouldn't let him in except at bedtime and to bring up meals. I think Grammy Weasley used to come over a lot, even when she was babysitting Vic, partly to make sure Mum-'stor was still eating and partly because Dad-'stor asked Grammy to try and get through to her, because he was pretty sure he couldn't do it himself.

Nobody has outright confirmed this, but I'm pretty convinced that she almost aborted the baby during the first or even second trimester of her pregnancy. We all know she wasn't ready to be a parent, and so did she, and all the grown-ups in this family always allude to some big conflict between my ancestors that went down right around that time and almost broke them up. Honestly, I wouldn't have blamed her if she'd aborted Molly, dumped Dad-'stor, and run off somewhere she didn't have to feel like a disappointment anymore. (Well, I guess if she'd done that I wouldn't be here to not blame her for it, but you know.)

I wonder if Molly knows this, or if knowing this has affected the way Molly acts. Maybe she's a little homemaking social climber because she thinks she's got to prove that there's a reason for her being here. Doesn't really make me like her any better than the brown-noser she is, but I guess I would have a hard time if my mum-'stor wanted to abort me, too. Then again, Mum-'stor probably didn't want me any more than she wanted Molly, and I turned out—if not just fine, then at least a hell of a lot less annoying than Molly did, I like to think.

Anyway, Mum-'stor doesn't really fly into rages the way I know Uncle George sometimes does, but sometimes she spaces out and starts crying and talking to you like you're Amycus Carrow with his wand out. Whenever Molly or I would start pitching a tantrum when we were kids at home, Mum-'stor would just shrink back and flinch while we screamed or threw things or beat our little fists on the floor, until Dad-'stor or Grammy or whoever would catch us and ground us for a week or something. Back then, I didn't get why. I get it now, but it isn't any more fun for it.

I don't really get how Dad-'stor puts up with her, just like I don't get how Angelina puts up with Uncle George. They love each other, obviously, and that usually seems to make people willing to deal with a lot, but who would want to stay with somebody who obviously isn't happy with them?

x

When Sunday night rolls around, I track Al down in the common room and drag him by the elbow away from his conversation with what's her face, Batool. "Wha—hey! I'm kind of in the middle of something here!" he cries out, trying to get free.

"Bathsheva can wait," I say loftily, "although it's great to see you actually talking to other Slytherins like we're, like, not actually lepers."

"She's my Herbology partner. Uncle Nev—uh—I mean, Longbottom gave us a pairs paper."

"Good on Longbottom for getting you out of your dormitory on the weekend, but you have a prior engagement."

"I do?"

"Snackage in the kitchens with Dom and me. Move your scrawny ass, Albus Sever—"

"Don't even," says Al. I laugh at him but leave off any additional names, for now.

He doesn't say much on the walk from the dungeons to the kitchens, which is hella awkward since Hogwarts is a big place and it's a long walk from one to the other. It gets better when we reach the kitchens and find Dom already down there. She waves us over to where she's sitting near a gaggle of house-elves; I recognize Darby and Rudy and Keeley all carrying over a big platter of sandwiches. "Hey, gang," I say, reaching over to high-five Dom before grabbing a sandwich. "How's it hanging?"

"Mistress Lucy!" Keeley squeals. "So good to see you!" She squeezes my hand and is wringing it up and down while Rudy adds, "And I don't recognize young master…?"

"Oh! Oh, this is Albus Severus Vincent Gregory Blaise Millicent Potter," I say, talking loudly over Al's attempts to shut me up while Dom chokes on a sandwich through laughter, "but you can just call him Al."

"I will never understand how you're able to come up with names from Uncle Harry's childhood on the fly," Dom remarks. "I would be sitting here for thirty seconds try to think something up, if I cared to torture Al like you do, which I don't, of course."

"O-kay, Miss Goody Two-Shoes. You know, if you really wanted to be charitable, you'd just think of one name a day and use it to swap out that middle name of his. I mean, it's not his fault Uncle Harry was retarded enough to name him after Rapey Snapey."

"Can you please not call him that?" says Dom like she's being very, very careful with her tone of voice and word choice. "I know you don't mean any harm by it, but making a mockery out of rape is actually incredibly demeaning."

"Sorry," I say flippantly. "Just messing around."

"And for that matter, don't say 'retarded.'"

"Right. Sorry," I repeat.

It's not often that anybody my age actually calls me out. Honestly, I'm a little impressed. There are a lot of people whose criticism I wouldn't listen to, but yeah, I respect Dom enough to listen to hers.

She doesn't really seem to be pissed, though, smiling again and saying, "Have some sandwiches. The elves really outdid themselves on these; they're delicious."

Predictably, all the house-elves start bowing and grinning even wider. The thing about house-elves is that they like working, but it only goes over well if you're kind to them. If you're not, then they'll work themselves even harder trying to prove their worth to you and get more and more miserable when you don't treat them with any respect, and it just becomes this whole vicious cycle of self-sacrifice and low morale and junk. Dom, of course, is always a perfect lady to the house-elves, as if Aunt Hermione trained her herself, including them in all our conversations and showering them with praise every time we come down here. I didn't bother giving Al The Speech before we got down here—I've seen him with Kreacher, and he obviously knows what's up. Sure enough, once he manages to talk over me, he asks basically every single house-elf in reach to introduce themselves and gets all excited when twenty minutes later he meets Akina, who is pregnant and leaves bed rest to hobble over and see what all the commotion is about.

I'm full and sated and just starting to think that maybe I can make Al my friend after all when somebody pulls open the painting blocking the entrance to the kitchens—we can hear the creaking as it swings open. Great—just when I was finally getting Al to warm up.

Even worse, the person crawling past the painting is Molly. Her reporting me to McGonagall is exactly what I need. But then it occurs to me—Molly, in the kitchens? Molly would never come down to the kitchens.

"What are you doing here?" I say. Al and Dom and the house-elves have suddenly gone all quiet.

"Some of the Slytherins said you would be here," she says in a tight voice.

"Right, so you—" But the words die in my throat when she's followed into the kitchens by—"Dad-'stor? What are you…?"

His freckled face is blotchy red and white, and his eyes are puffy. He looks entirely out of place here, not just down in the kitchens but back in a Hogwarts that has grown up and evolved beyond the tame, navigable, and righteous place it was back in his school days. "It's your mother," he says, and his voice is hoarse. "She, um… she…"

"What, is she having a crisis? Does she need another Healer to poke around her head again?"

"You heartless bitch," says Molly, but there's so little anger and so much fear in her voice that I'm not even pissed about it. "Dad, I'm going for a walk. I'll meet you outside McGonagall's office."

When she flounces off, I turn to Dad-'stor and raise my eyebrows. "What do we have to talk to McGonagall for?"

"To make arrangements to take you home," he says. He seems a little steadier on his feet now, but still shaken. Al's eyes are round, and Dom keeps looking from me to Dad-'stor back to me again. "Just until the funeral."

Something white-hot and awful clicks into place in my brain. "The funeral?"

"Your mother is dead," he says. "She killed herself. She's gone."