Hello and please enjoy the prologue to a much longer and more involved story that I will never ever write.
The premise started off asa combination of: wouldn't it be cool if Dick Grayson's mum left behind a little sister when she ran off to join the circus and 10-15 years after his parents deaths Dick finds out he has cousins. Who are involved in their own terrible terrible world-might-end adventures. And: what if Harry Potter had another non-magical cousin that he never knew about who chose the emexact worst time/em to try and reconnect? Said worst time being right at the start of OotP when like 90% of the magical world is out to get him (not to be confused with HBP when only 50% of the magical world is out to get him or DH when 70% of the magical world is out to get him except this time if he gets caught everyone dies for sure and the 30% that aren't out to get him are a little busy trying not to die).
I thought it would be cool to combine these ideas, which automatically means Dudley spontaneously has a new cool older cousin who will big brother him but who also hates bullies. Except I know very very little about anything DC/Batman/etc related that is not from the fandom here and on tumblr. So there was no way I was going to write a whole story surrounding it. Except I still really liked the premise. And thus this oneshot was born. It's been lying around in my drafts for nearly two years at this point so I figured it was about damn time I posted it. Enjoy.
(Also shout-out to Reid Phantom for helping me to come up with a title and summary)
This is how it starts:
There is a boy who is in turns the darling and the detested of a world and who wants nothing more than peace.
No.
There is a boy who was raised to hate his cousin (his would-be-brother-could-have-been-friend) and who doesn't learn any better until the world turns cold around him and a monster tries to eat his soul.
No.
There is a boy who saw his parents fall to their deaths and who took what that made him and became a symbol of hope and justice for others.
No.
It starts like this:
There are three sisters, all as different from one another as fire to ice to air, all as similar as three cuttings of the same plant.
The youngest sister has eyes the colour of the killing curse and would rather die fighting for what she believes in than allow herself to live on her knees.
The middle sister has hair the colour of the sun in high summer and knows how to make people do what she wants them to.
The eldest sister has a smile like quicksilver and can fly through the air as though gravity is non-existent and she herself is weightless.
.
Each sister has a son.
The youngest sister's son is born as July dies, subject to a prophecy that has only just come to fruition and she begs the world to assign it to someone else.
The middle sister's son is born just over a month earlier, scant hours after the summer solstice, and she ignores the implications of a firstborn son being born at midsummer.
The eldest sister's son is born mere weeks before Christmas, in the middle of the first snowfall, and she calls him her little Robin after the bright spot that she sees picking its way through the snow.
.
Each sister has a gift.
Each son inherits their mother's gift.
The youngest sister can use magic. They call her muggle-born and mudblood in turns and she lets their comments fly past her like smoke on the wind. Her son inherits her eyes, her magic, and her stubborn defiance in the face of unbeatable odds.
The middle sister can read people like books. They call her nosy and rude and she ignores them and makes sure they see nothing she does not intend. Her son inherits her hair, her ability to know what makes people tick, and her determined disdain to those who she deems lesser.
The eldest sister can weave stories so real that you can almost believe they're true. They call her fanciful and airheaded and she laughs at their refusal to believe in dreams. Her son inherits her smile, her story-telling flair, and her insistence on smiling in the face of tears and laughing in the face of despair.
.
Each sister has a husband.
Each husband is as similar as they are different.
Each husband fell in love instantly.
The youngest sister's husband first saw her on the Hogwarts Express, defending her friend from him. He knew he was going to marry her one day. He told her this on their wedding day, she laughed as he spun her and told him that she should have seen that coming.
The middle sister's husband first saw her from a distance at school. She was a year below him and even though everyone looked at her, no one saw her. They saw what she wanted them to, but he saw her, and he wanted to be the person she chose to share herself with. He told her this when he asked her to marry him, she smiled and kissed him and said, "Of course I will" and refused to regret it.
The eldest sister's husband first saw her flipping through the air in the space reserved for the acrobats and trapeze artists and felt as though he'd suddenly hit the ground after falling for miles. He saw his sister-in-law approach her and retreated back to the dressing area to hide and hope that he'd get to see her fly again. He told her this when she ran away to join their act, she called him silly and jumped off the platform to grab the trapeze and flew next to him for the rest of her life.
.
Each husband is cursed.
Each husband sees their curse as a gift.
The youngest sister's husband is unfailingly loyal to his friends and family and is incapable of believing that they in turn are any different. He could not even conceive of the possibility of betrayal from his friends. He does not consider this a curse. This gets him killed, when he trusts the wrong person.
The middle sister's husband has a family that is insistently normal and scorns anything that is different, and he must live with that. He is not normal by his family's standards but pretends that he is. This teaches him to hide, to blend, and lets him see the truth of his wife. He does not consider this a curse. This leads to a lifetime of lies for himself, his wife, and his son, and a childhood of torment for his nephew.
The eldest sister's husband falls in love deeply and irrevocably and never looks back. He never considers loving anyone other than his wife and when he meets his son he falls in love all over again and will do anything to keep his family safe. He does not consider this a curse. This causes his death when he is too busy worrying and fussing about his son's first proper performance going well to perform his customary double check of the lines.
.
Each son inherits their father's curse.
The son of the youngest sister is loyal to the point of treason and cannot conceive of any less from those closest to him, no matter that he has seen the result in his family history. He does not consider this a curse and in a world where his friends are less protectively paranoid this nearly gets them all killed. In the end this curse saves many people for if you have that much faith in your friends, they will have equal faith in you in return, and faith can move mountains, or destroy dark lords, as the case may be.
The son of the middle sister has the same family as his father, for by the time he is old enough to remember, his younger aunt has been murdered and his elder aunt has dropped off the face of the earth, with no letter explaining why. He does not consider this a curse, for his family loves him and surely that is all that is important? In the end it is this curse that eventually lets him see the truth of himself and his parents, and that lets him befriend the cousin that could have been his brother, without whom he never would have learned the true depravity of his behaviour and pushed himself to do better.
The son of the eldest sister dives headfirst and irrevocably into love without checking for a safety net and never thinks twice. He does not consider this a curse and in another world this breaks his heart and his spirit when he falls in love with the wrong person, someone who is not in love with him back. In the end this curse changes nothing, for in love with the wrong person or not, he loves his family, his team, his friends, too much and too deeply to allow anything to stand in his way when it comes to their protection.
.
For all that they are similar in the ways that matter, the sisters would never be sorted into the same house.
The youngest sister is sorted into Gryffindor. How could she go anywhere else when she chooses bravery and defiance without hesitation and lets nothing stop her fury at injustice, least of all something as insignificant as fear?
The middle sister has no magic, but if she had been sorted, she would have been a Slytherin. How could she go anywhere else when she chooses how people see her and what they believe and lets nothing get in the way of getting what she wants, least of all something as insignificant as an inability to do magic?
The eldest sister is not a witch, but if she had been, she would have been sorted into Hufflepuff. How could she go anywhere else when she chooses loyalty above all else and to spread the joy she feels when flying and lets nothing stop her from doing so, least of all something as insignificant as hard work?
.
Their sons are similar too, but they are not the same, their histories and personalities are too different to let them wear the same house colours.
The youngest sister's son follows his mother into Gryffindor. He has his elder aunt's loyalty, and his younger aunt's determination and resourcefulness, but he is a Gryffindor, nonetheless. Bravery is not something he chooses so much as it is his default state of being, and how could he ever let something like fear stop him from helping someone who needs it?
The middle sister's son has no magic, but if he had been sorted, he would have been a Hufflepuff. He doesn't have his mother's ruthlessness or talent for manipulation, but he has his elder aunt's ability to find the good in a bad situation if given the opportunity and his younger aunt's fury at injustice once he learns what it truly is. Loyalty to his beliefs is less a choice and more a gut instinct, and how could he ever let something like needing to work hard stop him from doing better and being better and preventing what happened in his family from happening to another?
The eldest sister's son is not a wizard, but if he had been, he would have been sorted into Slytherin. He has his mother's loyalty and his younger aunt's bravery, but he has his elder aunt's ruthlessness and resourcefulness. Cunning and outthinking his opponents is not so much a choice as a need when he fights people who are stronger-faster-more-powerful than him, and how could he ever let something like self-preservation stop him from protecting people (the world) when they need him?
.
Each sister is as different to the others as fire to ice to air.
Each son is equally different.
The youngest sister is fire. She burns brightly and is a beacon in the looming darkness. Her son is fire too and burns no less fiercely, for all that he is younger and the world he lives in sadder and darker.
The middle sister is ice. She freezes those that touch her and takes up more space than she logically should. Her son is less ice and more water and lets the current sweep him away, he is more adaptable, for to be frozen is to refuse change and doing that leads to nothing but pain, this he knows.
The eldest sister is air. She gets everywhere and touches everything and moves as though gravity has no effect. Her son is air too, moving the same way she does and touching everyone in some way, for all that the people he touches have much higher walls to breach.
.
Each son is similar, for all that they are different.
The three sons are all earth.
The youngest's son is stubborn and unmoving in the face of the world telling him to break.
The middle's son is stable and dependable and he learns to always be there for the children he helps, children who have nothing else in a world that is rarely kind to them.
The eldest's son is the universal constant, the touchstone that his family and friends and team rely on when everything else is adrift in a world where the rules are always changing, and yesterday's enemies may be tomorrows allies.
This is how it starts:
Three sisters sit in a garden, all named for flowers. The youngest plays with grass and daisies and dandelions (she suspects she can make them do things that shouldn't be possible but she doesn't say anything for fear that she's wrong), the eldest plaits her hair (she is slowly suffocating under the pressures and expectations of parents that want her to be a housewife but she doesn't say anything in order to protect her younger sisters), the last watches them both and acts grumpy but secretly loves that she is included (she has been watching and knows that her elder sister craves freedom and her younger sister can make the impossible possible but she doesn't say anything in order to preserve their fragile happiness).
In three years, the youngest will be in Hogwarts, having found out she's a witch.
In four and a half years, the eldest will run away from home to join the circus.
In six and a half years, the two younger sisters will be aunts and sneak away from home over Christmas to meet their nephew.
In seven and a half years the middle sister will be engaged.
In nine years, the youngest sister will be dating the head boy of her school, the middle sister will be newly married, and the eldest sister will be planning her wedding.
In twelve years, all three sisters will be married with sons and their husbands and children will all be in the same room for the first and last time at the behest of the eldest.
In thirteen and a half years, the youngest sister will be dead.
In fifteen years, the eldest sister will be murdered, and the middle sister will be left as an only child.
In twenty-three years, the son of the youngest sister will be in Hogwarts, the son of the middle sister will have learned to hate and fear magic, and the son of the eldest sister will be preparing to spread his wings as his own hero.
In twenty-seven years, the three cousins will meet each other for the first time in close to two decades, and a prophecy nearly thirty years in the making will come into fruition.
.
But this is how it starts:
"Is it true, what Sally said? Mrs Samson really thinks you can win the UK Junior Championship?"
"Yep! Can you believe it? Me, a gold-medal gymnast and acrobat?"
"I think you'll be amazing. You taught me how to do a handstand perfectly. Watch!"
"Lilipad, sit down! I haven't finished your plait yet. It'll go everywhere!"
"Do you think Mum and Dad will be pleased?"
"Hah! Mum and Dad wouldn't be pleased if God himself descended from the heavens and told them it was my one true fate to become the best acrobat the world had ever seen. Being anything other than a housewife is a disappointment to them."
"That's because Mum and Dad are stupid!"
"Lily! Don't say that about Mum and Dad!"
"But it's true, Tuney! They are stupid! Mary's amazing at being an ac-o-ro-bat. And she'd be a terrible housewife. She likes adventure and sport and languages too much!"
"I think maybe we should talk about something other than me and Mum and Dad's disagreements about my future life choices, hmm? How about we talk about how Tuney's looking forward to big school next year?"
"I don't want Tuney to go to big school! I'll be all alone at school. It's not fair!"
"But Lily, I'm getting too big for primary school now. I've got to go. Besides you said the same thing when Mary went to big school. You got over that."
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"You only think so because you're a stupid-face!"
"Says you, cry-baby!"
"Oh, come on, you two. Please don't fight. Especially not over something this stupid."
"HAH! Mary thinks you're stupid too!"
"I didn't say that!"
"She said both of us!"
"Lilipad! Tuney! Stop! I love you but you're getting on my nerves."
"We love you too, Mary! Don't we, Tuney?"
"Yeah, we love you, even if you are bossy and annoying."
"And right all the time."
"Not all the time!"
"Most of the time."
"Yeah, big sister's prerogative."
"Marigold! Petunia! Lily! Food's ready!"
"Coming, Mum!"
"Coming!"
"All right, coming!"
"Thank you for doing my hair, Mary."
"Your welcome, Lilipad. Come on, Tuney, don't pout. I'll do your hair later."
"Promise?"
"Promise. And you know I never break my promises."
There are three sisters who have secrets they refuse to share with each other. They are all different and they all lie to each other. They love each other anyway. Desperately, stubbornly, and without reserve. Eventually they'll learn to tell each other the truth, even when it hurts. They'll all still lie to everyone else, including themselves. It won't change anything.
There are three sisters. They would all die for family. Two of them do. One doesn't.
But this isn't how it starts.
It starts like this:
"You know I love you two more than anything, don't you?"
"We know."
"We love you too."
"Good. Because I promise you, nothing will ever stop me from coming when you need me. Either of you. That's what being a big sister means."
If anyone wants to write a continuation of this please feel free, and as always, you can find me on tumblr under the same name.