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London
August, 1995
Resilient
Albus Dumbledore was nothing like she'd guessed he'd be. As the original creator of the Order, she'd imagined him to be like Alastor – tough, a Winston Churchill type.
Instead, he appeared to be more Wizard-like than anyone else she'd met. A true Gandalf, with a long, white beard and kind, priestly blue eyes. He wasn't dressed in the robes that everyone else wore though. He was actually dressed in 'Muggle' clothes, albeit from thirty years ago, in a deep green, corduroy suit and navy waistcoat. If not for who he had accompanying him, she might have broken a smile.
Severus, still in head-to-toe black, although sans his vampiric cloak today, stood stone-faced beside him.
"Good evening Professor. Severus." Lupin welcomed as the pair came through the hall while Black leaned in the kitchen doorway, pretending not to be anxious.
"Evening, Remus. Sirius." The Professor smiled, and then glanced at where she'd been quietly lingering by the staircase. "And Daisy Evans, was it?"
Settled at this point with the amount of people she'd never met knowing her name, Daisy merely came closer to a more polite distance and offered her hand to shake. "That's what my clothing tags say, sir," she said.
Dumbledore's eyes wrinkled more with his smile and he took it, shaking her hand firmly. "Allow me to properly introduce myself, Miss Evans. It is Miss, is that correct?" He asked her so skillfully, that the question didn't make her roll her eyes.
"That's right, sir." Daisy affirmed cautiously, having the feeling that her answer was going to be catalogued somewhere.
"Allow me. I am Albus Dumbledore – you may know that I'm the current Headmaster at your nephew's school... As I was when your sister attended." His words held a deeper gravity when on Lily. From her few days remaining in the Order's Headquarters, she had guessed who knew her sister personally and who hadn't. It was in the way they looked at her, as if they'd seen a ghost. Lupin was egregious of this - he always looked at her so sadly... But Dumbledore merely had the shadow of a man who had already lost many friends, a look older folks often had.
"Professor, the drawing room is cleared out now, if you'd like?" Lupin asked.
"Certainly." The old wizard said agreeably, allowing himself to be led into the drawing room while the Potions Master, who had remained silent during the exchange, strode forward, ignoring the scarred man's polite smile and Black's dark look - and especially gave her no mind.
The slightly olive-toned drawing room was the second most hospitable space in the house, next to the kitchen. It was filled with dark, guillotine-era furniture, weirdly-mottled looking end tables and cabinetry, as well as a particularly sinister-feeling fireplace that had previously been home to the Queen doxies' nest, where her eggs had been laid. Still, without the creepy-crawlies (and the eight lamps they'd filled it with) it was certainly the 'cosiest' place there.
Clink. Her ears perked at the sudden sound.
The Potions Master, Severus, she reminded herself, willing the strange discomfort she had towards his name away, had placed a potion in a large, pear-shaped vial, on the ancient glass coffee table.
"Oh." Lupin said, sounding surprised. "Thank you, Severus." he said it gratefully, picking up and pocketing the large bottle in his cardigan pocket while Black gave it (and him) a distrusting glance.
"What is that?" She asked curiously, before she could stop herself. What potion could Lupin need from Severus?
"A pepper-up potion." Black said sharply, shooting a glare at the Potions Master, who matched it with a more impressive-looking sneer.
"Sirius, stop." Lupin sighed.
She waved her hands shortly between the two wizards. "Hey, hey, I don't have to know. Seriously, forget it, and let's just get on with whatever we're here to talk about, okay guys?" Her interruption appeared to sour Black's expression, and even Severus' face reverted back to that quiet stillness that appeared to be his neutral expression. The mutual disdain was palpable. "Albus." She heard herself say. Her godmother would have scolded her for addressing him so casually. "You wanted to talk to me?"
The old wizard had been quietly watching her throughout the short-lived conflict, it seemed, as he was already looking at her when she turned away from the tense men. His expression was hard to discern, and she had an uncomfortable feeling that he had been evaluating her.
"Yes, I did." He said, removing a bumpy wand from his sleeve and giving it a wave. From his wand came a large, luxuriant looking armchair, shiny like silk and looking like it had no place in such a depressing drawing room.
A loveseat and an amusingly modern-looking couch joined the armchair, and their creator gestured for them to sit.
Remus and Black took the couch.
Daisy was left to sit besides the Potions Master, who left her not only just room to sit, but wiggle room. Nice, she thought grimly. Now I've pissed off the one wizard who can spill my guts whenever he wants.
"We have just come from Little Whinging." Albus informed her delicately.
Tuney. "Are they - did Lord Vold-whatever - ?"
"She is fine. She and her family are safe." He attempted to placate her. "However, we have now relocated them to a safe house out of the area." He removed an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her.
Daisy took it and breathed shakily when she saw her sisters handwriting on it.
"Why did you relocate them?" She demanded, now scared and defensive, treating the man like an enemy.
Dumbledore rested his elbows on his knees and his long beard touched the floor as he considered her with his priestly eyes. "That has to do with the final piece of magic that your sister left on Harry, all those years ago. You see, Daisy, your sister put herself in front of Harry on the night that Voldemort came for them. That act of love, of her sacrifice, lived within him, protecting him for the years to come. It also resided within her familial blood. Within you and Petunia. And as long as Harry had called the Dursleys house his home, Lily's protection would survive there."
"When I took him. When I said he would live with me from now on - " She realized with dread, a chill dropping down her spine.
"It removed their protection. Which now resides within you, Miss Evans."
"I signed their death warrant by taking Harry." Daisy braced herself, and the letter in her hand crinkled
"No, you haven't." Came Severus' dark voice, in a matter-of-fact tone. "If you had, they would be dead right now. Currently, they are being taken to a two-bedroom cottage in the South of Wales, where their biggest concern should be the rising tides on their doorstep." His description was hardly designed to soothe. Actually, it sounded like he thought she was an exaggerating idiot who was making a fuss about nothing. And if not for the horrifying topic of her sister and her family being massacred, she might have gotten incensed about it. Instead, it settled her to hear him talk about it like it was so mundane. A simple task, like the Dursleys were moving to the countryside rather than in hiding.
On the couch, Black narrowed his eyes, and muttered something rudely beneath his breath, only to be silenced by Remus.
"Can I see them?" Daisy then asked, hesitant. "Or call them, at least?"
"As soon as they are settled. Telephone lines are scarce in their area, but I may be able to arrange a private Floo call on occasion."
Too scatterbrained to say that she had no idea what 'Floo' meant, Daisy merely nodded grimly and looked down at her letter, which she flattened before placing in her pajama pocket.
"Which does return me to the topic of your living situation." Dumbledore prodded, taking an interested glance around the greenish-drawing room. "I would be interested to hear your plans, as wherever you do choose to live will require a few enchantments, protection spells."
London. The Nightingale. Bill, who needed a new chef.
It all came tumbling back and amusedly, she realized that she had an on-the-job interview in two days, which she'd practiced zilch for.
"You can live here." Black then suddenly spoke, sounding deeply determined.
"No, I can't." Daisy immediately retorted, alarmed.
"Yes you can." He insisted, with more fire. "You don't have to pay rent, and Harry would be able to live here with – with both of us."
Sensing that this was an argument that he'd practiced before, Daisy grit her teeth and lowly said, "No, Sirius, I can't. I have an interview on Friday, and to have this job I need a valid home address and this townhouse happens to not actually exist in my world."
Black rolled his eyes and gave an toothy grin that oozed his most annoying brand of arrogance that just screamed, 'Go for the nads on this one, jenks!'. "What, a job interview? What do you need a job for, Evans? You want money? I have money! You can exchange as many galleons as you want into pounds! If you wanna move out of this dump? Happy to pick up the bill on any house you want, hell, you, me and Harry can pick up and move to Spain if you wanted to." His words wreaked of desperation the longer he spoke, and she could only guess what was fuelling him. Surrogate fathering Harry, freedom...
"I am not living off of you, Sirius." Daisy uttered as firmly as she could, panic bubbling as the man bounced up from the sofa and began to pace angrily behind the furniture, making Remus twist behind him, trying to calm the man himself.
But only Dumbledore, with his quiet, but authoritarian, "Sirius. Sit down," actually did the deed.
"Can I get back to you on housing?" Daisy asked the older man, while still staring towards the on-edge Sirius.
"Certainly. I'll assume you'll be staying here until at least the start of Harry's school year then?" He inquired. She nodded her disgruntled agreement and Dumbledore reached into his pocket, pulling out an ancient-looking watch.
"Wait. About Harry – his hearing." Daisy said quickly, when he looked as if he was about to inform them of his departure. "I can go with him – right? So he isn't there, looking up at adults who wanna convict him alone?"
"I am sorry." He said, considering her. "While as Harry's guardian, you would be allowed to be with him... However, I would strongly suggest you remain unnoticed by the Ministry."
"What? Why?"
"Currently, the Ministry of Magic has deemed your nephew as a danger to society." Severus' dark voice informed her, still expressionless.
"And myself an 'ancient old loon.'" Dumbledore added, amused at his own title.
"Because of what happened a few months ago." Daisy realized grimly. The man who murdered my parents.
Came back to life.
"Yes. Lord Voldemort's return has set our government, and in particular the Minister, in a panic. During his first rise to power, Voldemort caused fear and destruction. Fudge is determined to not let that happen again, and if that means dragging Dumbledore's and Harry's names through the mud, then he will take no chances to do so." Remus murmured, and then seemed to realize something. "Which is why they can't know about you, Daisy."
"What – if I put myself into your governments eye, they'll talk shit about me in some newspaper?"
"It will put you on the Dark Lord's radar. At risk of being targeted, especially if they believe you know Potter's whereabouts." Severus said, which stunned her for a moment, because he'd just used a 'muggle' term, something that even Sirius and Remus struggled with.
"So the good news just keeps on coming." Daisy couldn't resist her sarcasm, reaching up to drag her hand through her hair, almost wanting to pull a move like Vernon – start yanking out her own hair, just from the pure frustration.
"Welcome to my bubble." Sirius offered her with a grimace.
/~/
That night, she slept terribly. She couldn't bring herself to read Petunia's letter yet, so she'd kept it folded up in the tall dresser that growled whenever she opened it's drawers.
Daisy had attempted to sleep for a few hours, but gave up after the fourth hour passed. So, she'd pulled on a robe and crept down the stairs to the kitchen – where Kreacher stood, glaring at her.
"The muggle-born stands there, staring at Kreacher." He muttered. She'd thought he was a cat the first time she saw him, just out of the corner of her eye the day before. And then he'd moved and talked, and she'd nearly flown six feet into the air. And then, she'd actually listened to him. He was like a crotchety old man in a public park, talking to himself, nearly all of his words racist or sexist ones. "In the middle of the night, walking the house like a red harlot."
"I'm just making something to eat, Kreacher." Daisy forced herself to say, with more patience than he deserved for his comment, while mentally throwing him through a window.
"Eat." Kreacher scoffed to himself, making his way out of the kitchen. "Why doesn't it just starve itself, let it's dead body rot on my poor Mistress' floorboards?" He crept away, the floorboards creaking.
"Go and fuck yourself, Old Man Elmer." Daisy muttered after he was gone, shaking her hands out, as if the hateful elf had left ugliness in the air.
The Nightingale had a handful of particular items that weren't your standard fish 'n chips.
Aside from their shepherds, cottages and 'wild' tikka masala, the Nightingale owner was a pursuer of both elegant and very inelegant foods. A menu with both an 26-ingredient Spanish paella and loaded, pulled pork tater tots, was enough to worry her.
If I even want to take that job anymore, she thought, unnerved still by the argument earlier that evening. Daisy considered it, now able to breathe freely without Sirius shouting at her and the Potions Master watching her every move and expression... Either in this dingy house, with Kreacher calling her a whore in every room, or finding some house around the Nightingale and having to live with Sirius making snide comments while she went in and out. With Harry in a goddamn boarding school. She'd promptly go nuts. At least in Grimmauld Place, there were people coming in and out for the Order meetings. Things to do, house to clean.
And the Potions Master, her mind conjured.
"Enough." She muttered, shaking the confusing vision out of her thoughts before throwing herself into her work.
Daisy had decided to craft puff pastry. And not rough puff, either. True puff pastry – which was one of the most pain-in-the-ass things to make in the world, and where even full professional chefs would give up and get store bought. It was all layers of butter, kept perfectly cold but not frozen. Folded over itself almost hundreds of times. It kept her moving. In and out of the freezer, folding and rolling the building layers of pastry. It ate up her attention and hours of her time, until the morning light crept in through the kitchen windows.
It was ridiculously easy, by comparison, to griddle a handful of muffins and whisk up a hollandaise.
She may not have had a wand, but it was hard to say that she hadn't a magic of her own as the items came together.
By the time others began to trickle downstairs into the kitchen, she was hovering over a steaming pot, lowering an egg at a time into the swirling water. It was just difficult enough to warrant her full attention, giving her a free pass to only give Mrs and Mr Weasley (the first to bustle in) a passing smile before fishing out her finished egg and settling it in it's water bath.
"I've never seen eggs like that before." Mrs Weasley said politely, though she sounded a bit perturbed.
"They're poached. For eggs benedict." She explained simply, fishing out another egg.
"Interesting!" Mr Weasley said, far more cheerful than his wife as he inspected her bowl of poached eggs. So, she made him a plate of two, pouring the hollandaise over top and sent him on his way.
When the children came, only Harry, Hermione and the twins had two. Harry loved them, Hermione had had them before, coming from a muggle family of her own, and the twins liked that they looked strange. Ginny helped herself to everything but the eggs, and Ron was iffy over the hollandaise, so he instead slathered his egg with yellow mustard.
That morning felt the most pleasant since she'd arrived. So, of course it was destined to end.
"I've ironed your best clothes for tomorrow, Harry." Mrs Weasley informed her nephew as breakfast came to an end. "And I would like you to wash your hair tonight, it wouldn't hurt to look your best."
The color drained out of Harry's face, even as he struggled to keep his expression from falling. "How am I getting there?" He asked, putting on an unsuccessful air of nonchalance.
"Arthur's taking you to work with him."
"You'll be able to wait in my office until the hearing starts." Mr Weasley said, giving him an encouraging grin, but Harry looked towards her and Sirius then, who'd slunked in the kitchen ten minutes prior without acknowledging her, even as she'd plated his breakfast.
Daisy swallowed and set down her coffee, prepared to explain herself, when Mrs Weasley cut across with, "Professor Dumbledore doesn't think it's a good idea for Daisy and Sirius to go with you, and I must say that I – "
"Quite agree." Sirius growled into his coffee.
/~/
"Lucius will be haunting the Ministry again this afternoon." Narcissa said lightly as they walked the Malfoy gardens. "You wouldn't hint as to why, would you, Severus?"
The Malfoy gardens, in the previous year, had been full of twisting vines and dark ivy. A remnant of Lucius' father on the Manor's grounds, one of the few left. Once Narcissa had claimed her prize in Lucius, she had made quick work of gutting the building to her will. It had gone over many changes over the years, in the one instance that Severus had seen the Manor before their marriage, he was certain that around every corner was something that would happily send him into an inescapable hell. Now, under Narcissa's thumb, it was merely every other closet that would kill him.
The gardens had been a' thorn' in Narcissa's side for years – put off, again and again in favor of the more offensive rooms in the Manor. Until recently, when a particularly discomforting guest had pushed her into it.
"He's told you nothing?" He asked. Her expression didn't even ripple.
"He hasn't." Narcissa paused at one of her freshly planted rose plants, inspecting the peach-colored petals with a perfectly manicured finger. "He believes he must act alone. Foolish." It would have been. It certainly reeked of Lucius all over. Narcissa was an asset. Smarter than most, sharper than any other wives in her lunch clubs, and Lucius was wasting her as a resource by taking on his mission alone – however, he also knew what would befall him should he fail. Leaving his wife in the dark was the only wise decision Lucius made thus far.
"The Minister is desperate for all of the approval he can get." Severus said carefully. "Lucius is quite generous."
Narcissa knew that he was filtering the facts for her. But she merely lowered her hand from the rose and took his elbow with it, now strolling with him in tow. "I see. Thank you, my dearest one."
They came around the newly installed fountain and Narcissa artfully swept herself to the marble benches she'd installed. Then, her expression ever-so-slightly twisted. A Narcissa-frown, but not enough to cause wrinkles. She reached down, and plucked a small flower from her manicured grass, twisting it between her fingers. It was a chamomile daisy.
"A weed." She said, like the daisy had offended her. Even in such an inhospitable and completely controlled environment such as the Malfoy Gardens, daisies were resilient enough to sprout up, they were resistant even to the strongest of weed killers. It was it's durability that they were used in Shrinking solutions – without them, they were unstable.
He had yet to tell that Lily's sister was living up to her own namesake – like her two sisters so far had. Names were prophecies in themselves.
like the one you doomed her to
Petunia, jealous and resentful. Lily, dying young. And the final Evans sister, the youngest. Stable? Resistant to being snuffed out? Did that show in a burst of emotional strength, so Gryffindor-ian?
The girl had met his stare with a daring that was prone to show in her age group. Just old enough to feel confident, but young enough to move easily throughout whatever discourse she might find herself in. Her interaction with Black had proven her skill in that department. And, amusingly, not unlike her sister, the dislike was clear. She had no patience for Black's games and attempts to lock her down in a place where he could get what he wanted and hadn't hesitated to stomp over him. It had pleased him as much as it had when it had been her arguing, fighting with the brutes of her house. Even after the fight, Lily had never really warmed up to Black like she had Potter, and disputes between them had been plentiful even in their final years at Hogwarts, much to his childish enjoyment at the time.
He'd enjoyed her fury at the time. She had a temper – and the same fire breathed in her sister.
Severus had known the youngest Evans when she was a toddler, though he almost never saw her, as Lily and he hadn't been given babysitting duties until the child was walking, and even then, the girl had mostly kept to herself or Lily, only being given to him to hold awkwardly once in order to pull burrs out of her pigtails.
He'd given Lily's baby sister little thoughts since then. However, seeing her again, it had hit him like a brick. She favored Lily far more than Petunia, the differences too slight or too blurred from his aging memories – until catching her eyes. They were all wrong, they were Petunia's eyes, the Evans' Mother's color. Weak blue, and round, making her look all the younger. They grounded him, kept him from projecting. He'd focused on them while administering her Veritaserum, which had distracted him enough for her to surprise him. She'd held out her hand to him – craving control from the unusual situation, stalling him. It was bold – certainly Gryffindor-ian actions.
Dumbledore had liked her. He'd appreciated her 'spirit' (of course he would, the Gryffindor-adoring fool) and outgoing attitude. And by saying his opinion outloud, the manipulative Headmaster had been openly testing the waters. He was not the only one to notice the resemblance between sisters, and was trying to prod him. There was no need, obviously. As if the child's presence would ever change things. Severus was still Dumbledore's man, no matter what, and he knew it from his dismissive breath as they'd left Headquarters.
"Dispose of it." He told Narcissa, who had been staring at the back windows of Malfoy Manor, with worry in her eyes. She was waiting for a dark figure to cross the same way a prisoner might be cautiously watching for a shank.
Narcissa nodded, and her features reconvened into her classic, pure-blooded nonchalance. "Lunch?" She asked airily.
dipping into snape territory