I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner, why try to figure out how to put a disclaimer in the upload page when I can just write it into the document itself! So anyway, my schedule is a bit mixed up a little due to the fact that my family and I were out celebrating my dad's 60th birthday on Saturday so I wasn't able to upload the last chapter until the following day, but I'll be back on schedule soon. Also, I don't intend to do this story consecutively as I do intend to take a break from this series after I finish the story for Goblet of Fire (There is just too much of a singular subject matter that I could take and I really want to work on some of the other ideas I have before I go back to finish the story). Now storywise, I don't feel like last chapter was my best work. I just feel that it might've been unnecessary to what I was trying to do, but if you folks enjoyed it, I'm really happy about it. Now don't worry, I'm going to introduce the Wizarding World soon and finally get to what you want to see, but I do intend to cut back to the world of Ed, Edd & Eddy every once in a while, as Double-D needs the character development just as much as Harry and Marie do (and yes, he's coming in a bit, think another three to four chapters). I also intend to change up the story a bit, just fix some things that I thought were a little unreasonable, bring in some muggle entertainment to the wizarding world (seriously, they have wireless radio and yet nobody has brought in any vinyl muggle records? Or muggle books?) and expand on a few scenes we hear about but never see, as well as get Marie's take on them. And that's about it for now. I hope you all enjoy and I do not own Harry Potter or Ed, Edd and Eddy as they are the property of J.K. Rowling, At&T and Warner Media.
The Need for a Kind Ear
Double-D stumbled through the trees, searching everywhere for the elusive Kanker. The irony was not lost on him, an Ed chasing a Kanker, but he knew that he would never be able to forgive himself if he didn't make sure that a fellow kid was alright. 'Curse my gentlemanly ways, once again getting me into a situation that puts me in the line of danger.' He continued his search, the humid air beating down on him as he moved through the woods, the sun heating the undergrowth the way hot stones would warm a sauna. He looked everywhere, through the canopy of the trees, in shallow dark hollows and even down by the shore of the Peach Creek River, but he found nothing. Despite this, he continued doggedly, even as the minutes went by and the sun started its descent towards its house at the end of the horizon. He was so determined in his search that he didn't notice where he was going until he bumped into someone, forcing him to fall on his back.
"Are you alright young man?" asked a kind and worried voice. He looked up and saw a middle aged woman with strawberry blonde hair and concerned hazel eyes looking down at him, bending over to make sure that he was okay. The voice was very motherly, as it was the same tone of voice that his mother used whenever she talked to him over the phone in the evening. He moved his eyes a little and saw that she was offering her hand. Grasping it, he was amazed by how rough and strong it felt, the bulge of muscles in her upper arm as she hoisted him up with nary a grunt telling him that she was a very strong woman.
"Yeah, yes ma'am." He replied, quickly remembering his courtesies. "I am so sorry for bumping into you, I wasn't looking for where I was going and I should've been more careful." The woman looked at him quizzically for a bit before chuckling a little. "Well aren't you a gentleman, I dare say that you'll have many women fighting each other to get you one day." Double-D blushed at this. While he wasn't the best when it came to recognizing social cues, even he knew that most of the female population of the Cul-de-Sac had crushes on him. He involuntarily flinched as he remembered last Valentine's Day. 'Never again'. "Anyway ma'am," he said, his flushed cheeks returning to their normal hue, "I would like to stay and chat but I'm afraid I'm busy looking for someone that ran in her a little while ago, so I really must be going." He turned to leave, but he felt the woman grab his arm in a vice. He was turned around and he saw that she was now looking at him with a bit of desperation and worry, though she was trying to hide it behind a strained smile.
"Well, what do you know! I happen to be looking for my daughter, she happened to run in here a few hours ago. How about we help each other, after all two people working together is faster than us continuing to search by ourselves. What do you say?" Double-D was a bit suspicious of the request. Maybe it's because her smile was too broad for his liking, but as he looked into her eyes, he found that he couldn't refuse her pleading gaze.
"Well ma'am, I am more than happy to be of assistance." He saw that he had made the right choice when he saw her relax into a more gentle smile. "Thank you young man, I'm grateful for your help." She stood up to her full height, grinned, moved her head in one direction and moved into the trees, Double-D following behind her. They walked for a little bit in comfortable silence. Double-D didn't know why but he felt safe in this woman's presence. There was just something in the way she held herself that put him at ease, almost as if this was just a normal occurrence for her. The fact that she never seemed to hover over him was positive factor in this, as he didn't particularly like people invading his personal space without permission, not even his friends.
As they started to crest a small rise in the treeline, the woman slapped her forehead and chuckled a little, shaking her head as she did so. "You must forgive me, but I completely forgot to ask you what your name was. Why don't I start, my name is Barbra." Double-D blushed, quietly berating himself for forgetting his manners. As he climbed over a fallen tree trunk, he responded. "Oh please forgive my manners again, for some reason I'm being very forgetful about my etiquette today. My name is Eddward, spelled with two D's, though most people prefer to call me Double-D."
Barbra looked over her shoulder at him, appraising him as if he were some piece of strange furniture. "Eddward huh? You wouldn't happen to be Dr. Vincent's son would you?" Double-D was slightly taken aback by this, as most people don't tend to make that connection with him, even his neighbors. "Yes actually, would you mind me asking how you made that connection?" Barbra smirked at him and leaned back against a tree, taking on a pose that looked very familiar to Double-D. "I happen to be part of the night shift of the nurse division at Bellin Hospital and I've worked with your mother on many occasions. We hit it off one day while we were in the cafeteria a few years ago and we've been friends ever since." She walked over do Double-D, bent down to his level and pinched his cheeks. "She told me so much about you," She said in a sweet voice. "But she never told me that you were this cute."
Double-D batted away her hand and pouted, his face as red as a traffic light. Barbra chuckled at how cute he looked, causing Double-D to huff before giving a slight smile. As embarrassed as he was, he felt giddy on the inside. Knowing that his mother talked to others about him with what he could see a since of love and even pride was a huge boost to his confidence. "Well ma'am, it really all comes down to the fact that mother taught me how to lead a healthy lifestyle. Proper dietary and hygienic habits tend to have a better overall effect on ones complexion afterall."
Barbra by now had to cover her mouth to keep herself from guffawing. "Polite and modest, you really are your mother's son." She slowly brought herself to calm down, before she looked over to the side, a sad and even forlorn look on her face. "I wish that she was more like me." She whispered. She then turned and started to walk further up the incline. Double-D, worried about his companion took off after her.
"Why do you wish that your daughter was more like you?" he asked, trying to keep up with her long strides. "Because she has too much of her father in her. I much as I loved him for his sense of humor, loyalty, intellect, craftyness and kindness, he was stubborn, abrasive, bull headed, vindictive, confrontational and could hold a grudge like no other, not to mention he was also a bully in his school years. Unfortunately for my daughter, she not only picked up his good traits but also his bad ones." By this point she was stomping through the forest, clenching and unclenching fists in an attempt to release some excess rage. They left the treeline and reached the top of the hill.
They had come to the top of a tall hill that soared nearly completely above the treetops. Flowers of red, yellow and lilac dotted a field of yellow grass, a small corpse of Basswood trees plopped right in the middle of it. The two of them walked across the field towards the corpse, Barbra stridding quickly towards the tree line while Double-D followed at a more leisurely pace. Every once in a while he would look at some of the fauna, snip a piece of New England Aster or Columbine flower from off the stem and place it in one of the plastic bags he kept on his person for further study but he eventually reached the corpse of trees where he found Barbra sitting underneath the shade of the trees.
He didn't notice it the first time he looked at her, but now that he was able to see her emotions completely exposed, he saw how tired she looked. Her entire weariness was unveiled, her body slumped against the tree, giving up all sense of effort of motion, other than the rise and fall of her chest with each exhausted breath. Her eyes were swimming in fatigue, prominently displaying her deep indigo bags and the two inch deep crows feet that framed her eyes. Her hair was a tangled mess, her calics sticking out over her face and twisting in many curls. And her face was a combination of despair, regret and self loathing. Double-D watched as tears built up in her eyes before cascading down her cheeks, letting out years of pent up grief.
Double-D sat down next to her, squashing down the slight dislike of touching the damp dirt underneath. He looked at her, trying to find the right words to say. "Um, ma'am, I'm sure that we'll find her soon, you don't need to cry, it will be alright." Barbra gave a dry chuckle, the lines of her mouth flickering upward for a second before returning into a frown. "It's not finding her that I'm worried about. I'm worried about something else." Double-D was curious. He normally wouldn't intrude on another person's private life, but Barbra was clearly distraught over something important and although he had just met her, he felt that if his mother trusted her enough to become her friend, than there was nothing wrong with prying into her struggles.
"Do you want to talk about it ma'am?" Barbra sniffled, and reached up to wipe away her tears with her left hand. "Well, I was rather blunt this morning. I have been getting concerned about my daughters behaviour recently." "Daughters?" Double-D asked. "Oh, right." Barbra said, shaking her head and pinching the bridge of her nose. "I forgot to mention that I have three daughters, I'm currently trying to find my middle child." Double-D couldn't put his finger on it, but for some strange reason a shiver of dread flew up his spine. 'Could she be, no no Eddward, it's probably just a coincidence. There are many people that have three children who are all daughters, that doesn't mean that she is the Kanker's mother.'
Silently, Double-D prompted Barbra to continue. "They've been getting a bit...rough I'm gonna say. I've been getting calls from both other parents and the school administration over the past two years. I've been getting accounts of my children cutting class, skipping school, bullying other children, home invasion, even a few counts of sexual harassment. And I've been willing to have an observant but relaxed hand with them. They were kids and I knew that this wouldn't last forever, that I or someone else would break them up and stop their antics, or that they would mature and stop what they were doing on their own. And that day eventually came when my daughter got an acceptance letter this morning."
"Is that why we're looking for you daughter, because she wasn't happy that you're sending her to a different school without her knowledge?" Double-D asked, a sense of foreboding building with each word they exchanged. 'Didn't Marie say that she was going to an out of state school back before the Spinner burned down?' he thought, trying to remember what she had ranted about a few hours prior. It was difficult to do so, as he had been more attentive to the destruction of his hopes and dreams that nearly killed Plank and Johnny. His thoughts were interrupted by Barbra sighing before she continued her explanation.
"Well really it was her father that put her in the fooreign school she's going to. I wanted her to go to a school in Salem, Massachusetts or to Ilvermorny in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, but her father wanted her to go to the same school he went to as a child, so a few months after she was born he registered her to attend Hogwarts." "Hogwarts? Why would anybody name a school after a swine fungus?" Double-D quired. Barbra smirked, her eyes glinting wistfully as she looked into the distance. "I admit I thought it was stupid too, but the school was founded more than 1,000 years ago, maybe the word ment something different back then." The smirk vanished as a more apologetic look moved into her retinas. "I can understand why my daughter is upset about going to a different school without her family, especially since my husband told me than the school is located far north in the Scottish highlands. I don't like knowing that she's going to be an ocean away from home for ten months every year until she graduates."
Double-D was now starting to panic. Everything Barbra has said and everything Marie had told him earlier had pretty much confirmed to him that Barbra was Marie's mother (though he did feel a rush of joy when he heard that he wouldn't have to deal with Marie for most of the year). Trying to quash the strange mixture of unease and jubilation that he was feeling, he looked at her with eyes blazing in keen interest. "And, how long would Mar, I mean your daughter be staying at Hogwarts?" he asked, hoping that Ms Kanker had missed the slip in his voice as he didn't want her to know that he knew who she was. The resigned look she gave him was evident, but he couldn't tell if it was because she did catch his slip up, or if because she had already resolved to make the best out of a situation that she had no choice but to be in.
"Her term starts on September 1st and ends on the 17th of June, every year for the next seven years." Double-D felt a sudden urge to dance a jig, but looking at Ms Kanker's longing gaze and melancholic posture, he mentally beat that feeling down and buried it as deep as he could into his soul. "You don't want her to go, do you?" Barbra wiped her eyes again, her hand coming away once again with tears. "No Eddward, I don't. If I had it my way, I would have my daughters go to the local public school with the rest of the kids and keep them together as long as possible, but my hands are tied on this, I have to send my little Paddie to a different school, far away from me. And that scares me."
Double-D looked both quizzically and understandably at Ms Kanker. He saw that she was about to essentially send one of her children and send her out into the world on her own without being able to guide her. To him, it was like a parent having their children go to college on the other side of the country. He scooted closer to her. "Paddie?" He asked in an attempt to improve her mood. She turned and gave him a pleasant smile. "Oh, her father had a nickname from school that his friends and I used to call him by named Padfoot and when she was born, I would call her Paddie." Double-D had to hide his smile behind his hand, knowing that if Eddy ever found this out he would use it as blackmail.
"Well, my middle name is Marion, so I can't really say anything about your daughter's nickname." They both chuckled, the tension built between them dissipating into the wind as they relaxed in the shade. They sat there, feeling the breath of the wind as it touched their skin, the arrival of the cool air forcing away the torrential heat that plagued the day just an hour earlier. Comfortable silence settled over them, the swaying dance of the tall grass cresting the horizon as they lay under the canopy, lost in their own thoughts of questions and times long past. Double-D's eyes would flicker towards Ms Kanker as he tried to build up the courage to talk to her again. He knew that he shouldn't have such difficulty talking to her as he hadn't earlier, but that was before he knew that she was the mother of his tormentor and there were just some suspicions that were difficult to bury.
Eventually, he decided to go with what he hoped would be an innocent topic. "You must have really loved him, if you still call him by his nickname after all these years." Barbra frowned and Double-D saw a mournful sadness consume her. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories." Ms Kanker waved him off. "It's alright kid, you didn't know and you didn't mean any harm." She looked up into the canopy, lost in thought. Double-D thought he saw her eyes widen slightly, but it disappeared quickly. 'Must be imagining things.'
"Though, you aren't wrong. I loved him. Heck, in some ways, I still love him. There are times when I'm working late at night at the hospital or during a slow day at Antonucci's when I can't help but think about him. I see him everytime I see my daughter mess around with her sisters, when I hear her laugh and when she talks to me with excitement about any subject she's interested in. She looks and acts so much like him at times. She has his smile, his eyes, his loyalty, his humor and so many of his little quirks. In fact when she was younger and she let her hair grow out and before she dyed it she had his long wavy black hair." She said all of this with a sense of nostalgia, her voice filled with yearning and her eyes unfocused, gazing into a time gone by, a happier time, back when she was in the springtime of youth rather than the autumn of middle age.
"You miss him, don't you?" Double-D asked sympathetically. Barbra jolted out of her semi-conscious trance before slumping back, depressed once again. "Yeah, I do. The problem is I don't know if he misses me as much as I miss him." Double-D felt really uncomfortable. He didn't feel that he should be prying into Marie's paternal issues, which he could clearly see were at least partially caused by parental abandonment. "If you don't want to tell me I completely understand. I can see it is a very sensitive topic for you." "No, no." She muttered. "I've been keeping this inside me for nearly ten years now, I need to get it off my chest. Besides," she added, chuckling as she did so. "You're a lot cheaper than a psychiatrist. 25 cents right?" Double-D laughed at that. "No, not for this. Besides, the school counselor would tell me that I was charging too much if I asked for a quarter for psycho analysis." Ms Kanker chuckled before laying her arms over her chest and returning to looking at the canopy of the Blackwood trees.
"I can understand why he left. He was part of a special anti-terrorist group of the English police and his life was always on the line. Over time I guess he thought that if he distanced himself from me, I would be safe and I wouldn't be used against him. He would still come over to where I lived at the time every once and awhile, his friends from before I met him would check up on me every week but there were times when I wouldn't see or hear from him for days on end. It was...difficult at times, to deal with it, my children, an irant boyfriend and the constant worry that he or the friends I made because of him would be alright. Sometimes, *sigh* they wouldn't come back." Double-D felt a familiar sense of dread build in his gut, but this time it was because he didn't like where a tale was heading, rather than because he was about to be pounded into the asphalt.
"I take it this happened often." he stated. Barbra looked over at him, grief oozing from her eyes. "More than you think. The Prewett twins were killed, my old friend Amelia lost both of her brothers and her sister in law, the entire Mckinnon clan was wiped out. Those terrorists were ruthless. Man, woman, child, if they didn't fit into their world view or opposed them, they were killed, tortured or both. Some of the victims bodies were never found and others, only a few pieces were found." Barbra hiccupped, tears cascading down her face. "I remember going to church a lot in those days." she choked, a strangled sob on her lips.
Double-D was horrifyingly enthralled by Barbra Kanker's tale of woe and pain. She told him about how the government took harsh actions against suspected terrorists, how it got to a point where nobody was trusting anybody and about the nights when Padfoot would come to her apartment and collapse into her arms with grief. It amazed him how violent things got, and was even more amazed by how strong Barbra Kanker was. 'I don't believe I would've been able to stay so emotionally stable for as long as she has through all of that. Though granted it sounds like she didn't witness most of what she's describing.' He let her talk for ten minutes, taking mental notes as he did, until he felt that it was just getting too nauseating for him.
"What stopped them? How were these terrorists beaten? And how does this all tie into Padfoot's disappearance because frankly it sounds like he's…" "Dead? No, I know he's still alive at least. He promised me that I would have access to his vault when he died. I even saw him put it in his will. But every year I go to the bank and I ask if I'm able to access his account and they say I'm not, so he's still out there somewhere, where I don't know. For some reason nobody will tell me, not even his old friends." Barbra puffed out her cheeks and breathed out in frustration. Clearly this is something that had been bugging her for awhile. "I mean if he's being held somewhere against his will, fine I understand but I would like to know where he is damnit!"
She paused, breathing quickly and shallowly for half a minute as she tried to calm herself. Double-D saw the branches above them shake slightly, but he decided that it was a squirrel walking along the branch. He turned his focus back to the seething Kanker, wondering if he should test the rough water before him, cause as much as Ms Kanker said Marie took after her father he saw that she, like her sisters, had inherited her mother's temper. Ms Kanker was just better at controlling it. He did not like the look she had in her eyes, or how her teeth were grinding so hard that sparks were shooting out of her mouth. Visions of fire emerged from the depths of his subconscious. He shook his head drove them back to the dark cavern where they came from.
He waited for about five minutes for Ms Kanker to lose her visible desire to punch something before he steered the discussion back to what he wanted to know. "When did you last see Padfoot?" Ms Kanker winced, the memories of that night so painful to her that it was like a barbed knife had been dragged across her heart. She drew her knees up to her chest, trying to comfort herself before she started her sordid tale.
"I told you that Padfoot had many friends back then. Some were closer, some were distant, but there was one he was closest to most of all and that was his friend Prongs. Those two were inseparable, almost like brothers. They called each other everyday, we went on double dates with Prongs and his wife, Prongs even made Padfoot the godfather to his son. They went to school together, they worked in the same department, hell when Padfoot had run away from home when he was sixteen he lived at Prongs's house for a while. They had such a close bond that there were times where I felt like I was on the outside looking in. The problem was, while Padfoot had a target on his back, he was mobile and to most people was single. He could go to ground and disappear with little concern for others, Prongs couldn't. He had a wife that was just as involved in fighting terrorists as he was. Padfoot was the outcast son of a prominent family that supported the terrorists ideology, Prongs was the head of a family that had a history of being justice warriors. Eventually, Prongs and his family tried to go into hiding."
Unbenounced to her, she had gotten up and started pacing, moving in circles as she attempted to keep herself from breaking down. Double-D was regretting getting into this discussion, in fact he was trying to figure out a way to get out of this situation without upsetting Ms Kanker even further, but she continued before he could even utter a grunt. "Very few people knew where they were. Unfortunately, one of the people that knew betrayed them to the leader of the terrorists, a man named Tom Riddle. Riddle then went to where they were hiding and killed Prongs and his wife. Their son was the only survivor of that attack. Padfoot arrived at the aftermath, had his godson sent off to live with Prongs's sister in law and then came to me."
She choked, steadying herself up against a nearby trunk. Double-D got up and grasped her hand. "It's okay, it's okay." Barbra looked up at him with tear stained eyes and smiled at him. As much as she didn't approve of what her daughters did, or in the scam artist her daughter Lee was pursuing, she saw why Marie would fall in love with the intelligent Ed. 'If she had acted less hostile or assertive with him, they would've already been friends by now.' "Thanks, I needed that. I just, I knew them so well. Prongs and his wife would babysit, I would have playdates with our children and they were just so wonderful to me, they didn't care that I was destitute or a single mom, they were the best people I've ever met. And when Padfoot came to me and told me that they were dead, I just. I just." She pulled Double-D to her chest and started bawling into his shoulder. Years are pent off grief was released in one huge blast of emotion, breaking the dam, if only temporarily, that kept her anger, sadness, pain and broken hope hidden behind her strained smile and kind demeanor. Double-D stood there, unable and unwilling to release himself from her hug. After all he was a gentleman and a gentleman always offers a helping hand, or shoulder in this case.
Double-D let Ms Kanker let out all of her tears, recognizing how strongly she felt emotions and that she had kept those emotions bottled up for far too long. He even felt some drops hit the top of his forehead, though he did wonder where those had come from initially, he ignored them quickly in favor of giving his undivided attention to the woman grasping onto him like an anaconda. 'Never thought I'd see the day when an Ed is providing emotional support for a Kanker, but I've been in weirder situations. How were we able to affect the production of that episode anyway?' He felt Ms Kanker's grip tighten and relax, and heard her breath start to steady. By this point his shirt had gotten really damp and his chest was getting rather cold. She moved back from him and saw that she had been crying so much that her mascara had run down her face. 'Did she?' he thought. He looked down at his shoulder and saw that his worst fears were confirmed; his shirt was stained with black eye-liner. 'Filthy, filthy, filthy!' he thought, trying his hardest to keep himself from freaking out.
He looked up and saw that Ms Kanker was trying to keep herself from laughing. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she chortled, trying to cover her laughs with her fist. "But you looked so much like your mother there. How she ended up becoming head of surgery I have no idea as after every operation she's constantly panicking and washing her hands for fifteen minutes afterward and she had a complete mental breakdown one time blood ended up in her face during surgery. I'm surprised she was able to finish it successfully before she fled out of the room to the hospital showers." She was now openly guffawing now and even Double-D was giggling along with her. "God, she was in there for a whole hour scrubbing herself, shouting about how she was unclean and that she should be quarantined."
The two of them laughed for several minutes, letting the tension between them dissipate like embers into the air. After a bit, Barbra smiled thankfully at Double-D. "Sorry about that. I'm not usually a crier but I just can't help it today." Double-D waved her off. "Oh I understand ma'am, this has been a rather intense day for you." he then felt dark clouds come over him. "I certainly didn't make this day any easier for you." He looked back up and paled as he saw that Ms Kanker was looking at him crossly. "Young man, you did nothing wrong here. If I didn't want to talk about my relationship with one of the father's of my daughter's, I wouldn't have, no matter how hard you'd have tried." Double-D blushed and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. It felt weird being reprimanded by a parental figure that wasn't a teacher. His mother worked long shifts and his father was often on business trips, so having a disciplinary action like this was something he wasn't used to. It was an embarrassing and yet oddly pleasant experience.
"My apologizes, I'll try to keep that in mind." he placated. It seemed to be enough, as Ms Kanker gave a nod and a small smile afterward. They stood there for a few seconds before Double-D completed his inquiry. "Did he say anything to you before he left?" This time, there was little to no emotion on Ms Kanker's face. Instead, she answered normally, even a little blandly. "He told me that he was going after the traitor. He never told me who it was, as he told me that he would explain the full story once he caught him. He said that he didn't know how long it would take and that he'd return once he brought him to justice. And I haven't seen or heard from him since." She turned away from him and looked out towards the setting sun that was starting to touch the tops of the trees with its fiery hand. "I don't know if I'll ever see him again, and if he misses his daughter growing up I'll never forgive him, but I've come to terms with why he left. I don't regret meeting him and I'll treasure the moments we've had together but I've moved on. I would like to see him again, but I don't think I need him in my life anymore."
Double-D knew then that the subject was closed and as he saw the naked moon hanging isolated in the afternoon sky, he knew that they couldn't delay their search. "Ma'am, I think we should get back to searching for my friend." "You mean Marie?" Double-D froze in shock as Ms Kanker turned back to him with a sly smile, not so dissimilar to her daughter on her face. "Kid, I've been around the block plenty of times and she told me everything about you. I knew you knew who I was an hour ago." Double-D shivered a little. He now knew where Marie got her cunning and patience from. Ms Kanker frowned for a split second, before going over and putting her hand on his shoulder, causing Double-D to flinch.
"I know that this was difficult for you to do, and I'm glad that you care about Marie enough to see if she's alright, but sometimes it's best to let someone work through their issues on their own. Marie is stubborn and she tends to need to work things out on her own, something that unfortunate all of my daughters have. Don't worry, I'll find her soon. You should probably get home before it gets dark." Reluctantly, Double-D started to leave. After he went a few steps he turned around.
"Ms Kanker." "Oh please, call me Barbra. Ms Kanker just makes me feel old." Double-D blushed. "Right, um Barbra, there was an incident involving a ride I built and she might've accidentally set it on fire." Barbra's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. 'God I must've made her really mad for her to perform that level of accidental magic.' She shook herself out of her shocked state and settled into a firm neutral pose. "Don't worry about it. I'll have a talk with her and make sure that she doesn't do it again." Satisfied, Double-D left, leaving Barbra standing seemingly alone under the shade of the trees. She chuckled, "Alice, your son is going to become a fine young man some day, I hope you're prepared to beat off all the girls that'll be coming after him." She then got sheepish and scratched her chin, a blush dusting her cheeks. "Oh if I was only twenty years younger."
She walked over to one of the Blackwood trees and looked up into the canopy. "Did you catch all that?" she asked. Through the roof of the tree a few locks of blue hair could be seen. "Yeah." came a tired and slightly bitter reply. Barbra wearily sighed. "Look, I admit that I could've told you what you were better. I definitely shouldn't have told you on your birthday just after your letter arrived." No response came from the tree. "If you want, I'll just write a letter back saying that you didn't want to go." A hopeful reply came from the tree. "Does that mean I can go to Peach Creek Junior High?" Barbra winced, knowing that her daughter wouldn't like her answer. "No," she said weakly. "I've heard that terrible things have happened to young witches and wizards who didn't train their magic properly." She quickly tried to placate what she knew was an angry and depressed young girl. "But that doesn't mean you have to leave the states. I've heard that Ilvermorny is a great school. It's in Massachusetts and you can come home for Christmas and we'll call on the phone everyday and." "No, I'll go to Hogwarts." Marie jumped down from the tree and looked up at her mother's dismayed face. "If dad wanted me to go to Hogwarts, there had to have been a reason. Besides, I might be able to find out what happened to him if I'm closer to where he lived." She turned and started to walk away. "And besides, I need some space. I just need sometime to myself."
Barbra watched her daughter leave mournfully, before grasping her face with her hands. 'Great job Barbra. You better hope that you haven't lost her forever because you kept putting off telling her.'
GOD this took forever. I kept writing and getting distracted and before I knew it, a whole week had passed. So yes, Sirius Black is Marie's father. But she isn't going to know until the end of the third book. Will I make her think that Pettigrew is her father, God no. I feel gross just thinking about it. No, I'm going to make that Lupin. It will help with some strained drama I have for the third book. So I have most of the plot points set up. Strained mother daughter relationship, check. Double-D open to more positive interaction with the Kankers, check. And I'm finally getting to the wizarding world. I'm going to spend one more chapter in the muggle world before taking us to Diagon Alley and introducing the Harry Potter plot point and following it wherever it takes me. If you have any questions about the story, leave it in the review screen or send a message and I will reply to it at the beginning of the next chapter. See you next time!
