It had been three years since the last time Brynne had been home for Christmas.
The last two years she stayed at the castle during the winter holidays; mostly so her aunt didn't have to make the trek all the way to London to get her. Packing a trunk just to go back for a couple of weeks was a pain. Also, Christmases were typically muted affairs at the Orchard, oddly enough. The weather was typically in the spirit (and even now, only a few days before the holiday, a fresh coat of snow had fallen upon the village overnight), but it wasn't what one would call a festive atmosphere. Morgana's Orchard was a sleepy little town more often than not. But there was a deeper, heavier reason that Christmas there had the slightest tinge of sobriety.
Morgana's Orchard was a village for lost folk. Some of those lost folk had lost their previous homes - that is to say, their families. Some others (like the handful of children at the orphanage on the other side of town) never had any to begin with. Christmas typically threw those sorts of deficits into sharper relief, and that was why some at the Orchard did not consider it 'happy', despite their typical polite wishes to others.
She skipped to her closet in the small bedroom and cursed the general incompatibility of dressed with winter temperatures. Something caught her eye at the closet's corner, though; something that had not been there before…
"Aunt Flora?" she called vaguely a few minutes later as she stepped into the cottage's small living room, almost instantly feeling herself start to sweat. Her aunt had started the hearth already and that combined with the warm leggings under her gray dress, making it almost uncomfortably hot.
Flora's head emerged, red and frizzy, from underneath the small ring of countertops they called a kitchen.
"You're up," she remarked, smiling warmly.
"You didn't wake me," Brynne remarked.
"You needed the rest," Flora replied. "I notice you haven't been sleeping particularly well." Her face fell into a frown of concern. "It's not the nightmares again, is it?"
"No," Brynne answered immediately, her own face falling. She was no longer having nightmares - at least nothing more than the 'falling down a bottomless pit' dream that seemed to happen to everybody at one point or another. But she knew someone who was. Silently, she wondered how the girl was doing now that all of them were home. "I've just had a lot on my mind."
"Is it school?" Flora asked.
"...Sort of," Brynne replied noncommittally, not wanting to give too much away.
"Well…" Flora paused. "Try to relax. Whatever it is, you're not there now, so there's only so much you can do about it."
Brynne tried to affect a smile and found it surprisingly easy.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Both Brynne and her aunt jumped. Flora emerged from the kitchen.
"That's odd," she commented as she walked toward the front door. "I wasn't expecting anyone…"
It had been over ten years since Flora's life had been in any sort of real danger; but Brynne could still see brief peeks of fear and panic from her whenever a loud noise sounded or something seemed otherwise amiss.
Slowly, she pried the door open and took a step back.
"Oh. Um… wow," she uttered. "When'd you getmmfff…."
Whoever had been at the door did not allow Flora to finish the sentence, instead stepping across the threshold, cupping her face, and capturing her lips in a slow, deep kiss.
Brynne smiled. Her eyes darted to a nearby clock… six… seven…
She heard someone gasp for air and looked back. By that time, a boy was there along with the new guest, leaning against a wall, just then looking up from what must have been a watch on his wrist.
A few days back, when Flora had arrived to retrieve Brynne from King's Cross Station, she had not come alone - and it had taken but a few minutes of observation that evening to confirm what she had been told.
"Flynn," Flora said breathlessly. "You didn't tell me you were coming."
"I thought I'd surprise you." Flynn was in his prime, tall and handsome, with a lion's mane of wavy, golden-brown hair (tied back into a bun and crusted with white flakes today) and a stubbled face. Rowan glanced at Brynne and gave a barely perceptible shake of his head, wordlessly teasing his uncle.
"I wish you hadn't," sighed Flora. "I don't have any food ready or anything."
"That's no problem, Rowan and I ate before we left Cardiff. No rush. We can go for a walk around the village while you do that," Flynn answered, waving his hand.
"Walking? In this weather?" Flora inquired.
"It's not that cold, really." Then, a pause. Flynn turned his head meaningfully and looked directly at Brynne. "Actually, I was hoping you would come with us."
Brynne's jaw dropped open for about a second as she hadn't expected this. Flora looked from her and then back to Flynn with a similar reaction. "Me? Erm… sure. What for?"
Flynn's mouth set into a line for a second, and Brynne picked up on it. Whatever it was, he didn't want to discuss it directly in front of Flora. Maybe he's planning a Christmas surprise for her and wants me to be in on it? Brynne thought. With a mixture of bewilderment and curiosity, she raised a finger, indicating that she needed just a moment, and darted back to her room for her winter coat.
Either the leggings her aunt had procured for her closet were extraordinarily warm, or it wasn't quite as bitterly cold as Brynne had assumed. She was glad she had thought to wear boots, though. The 'coating' of snow the Orchard had donned overnight was, in fact, a couple of inches thick. It appeared, though, that Flynn or someone else had cleared the path leading back up to her cottage.
It was a ways from the house that Flynn dropped the bomb:
"So Rowan tells me you've been having issues with Lucan Wenster?"
Brynne stopped for a moment. She glanced at Rowan when answering and said, "Why would he tell you that?"
Why the hell would you tell him that?
"He was trying to figure out what I knew about him," Flynn answered. "Which is quite a bit. He was my Head of House."
This hadn't occurred to Brynne at any point, and now that she really thought about it, she felt a bit foolish for failing to put two and two together. She didn't know Flynn's exact age but knew that he was around the same age as Malcolm and Gladstone. Rowan mentioned during one of their many conversations that summer that the three had gone to school together.
"I never liked him, personally," commented Flynn, as if he knew Brynne was going to ask this question. "He was nice enough to us Gryffindors… as nice as he ever gets anyway. But he was a complete knob to the Slytherins. I can still hear him and Slughorn rowing in the Great Hall."
"Slughorn?" Brynne vaguely remembered seeing a portrait of a tweedy walrus of a man in the Slytherin dungeon. She didn't remember much except the man's name, his look, and the fact that he had died only a few years before Brynne started at Hogwarts.
"He was Head of Slytherin back then. A good enough old bloke. I mean, he came back to fight for the good guys against the Death Eaters, so he couldn't have been all bad, right? Although, just between you and me…" Flynn paused. "...I think the bit about him fighting Voldemort face-up in the last battle is a load of dragon dung. If you'd seen him… doesn't look like the type. Anyway… Slytherins had a hell of a time right after the war. A lot of them didn't even bother sticking around Hogwarts. Or Britain, for that matter."
"You think that was because of Wenster?" asked Brynne.
"Not really," Flynn admitted. "Wenster was a prick, but Hogwarts was still the safest place to be - for anyone, really. It was outside where they had so many problems. But I guess…" The smile had faded from his handsome face. "I guess you know that much already."
Brynne grimaced. "Yes." Then her mind turned toward a question. "Was he going out of his way to pit the Gryffindors against Slytherin when you were there?"
"Nope, not at all," Flynn replied quickly, and rather surprisingly. "He didn't need to. There was hardly anyone in that castle that didn't remember what the Death Eaters had done the year before in taking over the school. From all the stories I heard, it was Hell. The students had pro-pureblood and anti-Muggle propaganda shoved down their throats, they were taught Dark magic, even forced to practice it on their own classmates… usually those who the 'administration' thought were unruly, to bring them back into line. And a student or two would even disappear every few weeks. But all of this seemed to pass over the Slytherins - even the ones that had the decency not to torture other students. So, as much bad blood as the other Houses had with Slytherin even before that year…"
He trailed off, but there was no need for him to say anything else.
"Aunt Flora still won't talk about that," Brynne admitted. "Even though she was there. She's fine talking about what happened to my mum, but…"
"I'm not surprised about that. A lot of people were scarred for life. Of course, after it was all over, the governors voted Madam McGonagall in as Headmistress. Probably thinking they were doing right by her, but they weren't, really… she got handed a hell of a job. Especially that first year. '98 was a mess. Crime shot through the roof in Britain, there were still a handful of Death Eaters running around causing trouble. Not to mention the anarchists that just wanted to see the whole country burn… Hogwarts wasn't too much different in a lot of ways," Flynn explained. "The cauldron was already stirring itself well enough without Wenster's help."
"But he didn't help to stop it, I bet," Brynne surmised.
"Not at all." Flynn shook his head. "Definitely made it worse. That's when the Hardliners started popping up. And Wenster made no bones about the fact that he was a sympathizer. It didn't keep him from getting hired - then again, Hogwarts had lost a huge chunk of staff to the War and McGonagall didn't have a long list of options. The one that got him in trouble, though…"
He stopped and, oddly, gave an almost wistful smile.
"...He was quoted at one point as saying the Slytherin students should be questioned by the Ministry. The whole lot. Since, you know, a few of them had friends or relatives that had rubbed shoulders with the Death Eaters," Flynn went on. "He was lucky the Prophet didn't or couldn't confirm it. Might've cost him his job back then."
Might have made things much easier for us, Brynne thought bitterly to herself.
"Who were the Hardliners, anyway?" asked Rowan. "I've seen that term a couple of times."
"They were - I guess you could call them a political faction," explained Flynn. "To make a long story short, they didn't think imprisonment in Azkaban was enough for captured Death Eaters. A lot of them, Wenster included, wanted a clean sweep of any and all convicted Death Eaters."
"Clean sweep?" Rowan repeated.
Flynn grimaced, as if frustrated his nephew couldn't catch his meeting. This time, he said it more plainly: "They wanted the lot of them executed - and told the Minister as much."
Rowan's eyebrows popped upward. "Executed?" he blurted in astonishment. "But the Ministry hasn't carried out the death penalty in… a century or more."
"Technically speaking, no," Flynn said. "And it definitely wasn't something our current Minister was too keen on."
"Current… wait, how long has Shacklebolt been Minister?" asked Brynne.
"Since the end of the War," Flynn said. With a shrug, he added, "He keeps running. And he keeps winning. Honestly, at this point, short of some sort of awful scandal, he's going to leave when he's ready and not a moment sooner…"
"Well, all due respect to him…" Rowan said, "but he's not going to be able to do us much good at Hogwarts."
"Yeah, that Non-Interference Act…" Flynn elaborated. "It's to where the Ministry can't even step on Hogwarts grounds without the Headmaster's consent unless they have hard evidence of a crime."
Brynne stopped walking. She glanced at Rowan, who glanced back.
"'A dire breach of law,'" he recited. "I think that's how it's worded." He looked up at Flynn. "What would that take?"
"Magical Law isn't my strong suit," Flynn laughed. "I just generally know enough to get us through our work without getting arrested."
But the glance Rowan and Brynne exchanged with each other after this was meaningful.
Do you think we can bring that off?
I don't know, but it's better than having no play at all.
"Anyway," Flynn drawled. "I didn't bring you out here to talk law and politics."
He was looking at Brynne. A smile twitched onto and then off his face quickly. Suddenly, he seemed a bit nervous. That wasn't like him, from what she knew of him. This must have been a big deal - at least for him. So she listened.
James
James peered through the steam rising from his hot bangers and mash to the other side of the table. Lily looked up from her own plate for a moment, then, scowling, immediately turned her head to the side. They'd had an awful row the previous afternoon. She hadn't spoken at all to their parents about what had happened at school, and James wanted her to. She had refused - several times over the last week or so, in fact. This particular afternoon, however, she agreed - under one condition. She would tell their parents about the troubles at school, and he would teach her how to duel. He turned her down flat, of course. It was already alarming that his brother (sitting next to her and looking up at James every so often as if he wanted to say something but didn't think it was a good idea) had been forced to draw his wand to fight. To see his sister have to do it… that was more than he could handle. She was just twelve (as of a couple of weeks ago). Only a first year.
She, of course, protested that he couldn't be around to protect her forever. Which was fair. But then she said that he hadn't been able to last time. Which hurt.
"Why's everyone so quiet?" Their mother strode into the room. There was a stain on her shirt from having prepared their breakfast earlier. Such was the risk for someone who hated wearing any sort of aprons. They were, in her words, 'too housewife-y.'
"Just wondering where Dad was," Albus remarked - possibly because he was genuinely curious, and possibly because he was trying to keep either of his siblings from saying something about their earlier fight.
"He got called in," their mother answered, her eyebrows joining at the middle of her forehead in a betrayal of obvious displeasure. Her brown eyes jumped to the ceiling for a moment and she shook her head.
"He's supposed to be on holiday," Lily pointed out sourly.
"Yes, that's the same thing I said. Apparently, though, it was 'urgent.'" Ginny Potter walked over to the sink, where a floating rag was busying itself scrubbing out a floating pan. "It's always 'urgent,' isn't it? I wish he'd go ahead and name someone that could fill in for him so he didn't have to be there all hours of the day, but he likes doing things himself. Always has. And we've been trying to get him to stop trying to do everything himself for the better part of thirty years now - oh, for God's sake…"
There was a splashing sound. James whipped his head around. Apparently either the pan or the dishrag had spilled a large quantity of soapy water onto the countertops. Ginny gave a sigh, then said, "Might as well have those done, too…"
She pulled out her wand, muttered an incantation, and then watched as another rag conjured out of thin air began to wipe down the countertops around the sink.
"I did get some good news this morning, though. From your Gran," she said brightly to the children.
"Did Teddy propose to Victoire?" asked Lily immediately. Ginny chuckled.
"Not quite yet," she answered. Lily deflated. "Both of them should be around for dinner, though, so maybe you can tell him to get a move on. No - Gran just told me she got an owl from Uncle Charlie saying they've let him off assignment. He gets to come home and spend Christmas with us this year."
James smiled, and then felt the smile disappear as he remembered the expensive dragon scale arm bracer Uncle Charlie had gotten him for his Quidditch kit. A Quidditch kit he could no longer use now that he was off the team.
"That's nice," Albus commented.
"It's great," Ginny agreed. "Uncle Percy's not traveling this year and Uncle Bill's staying home, too, instead of going to visit Aunt Fleur's family in France. We'll have everybody here. I couldn't tell you how long it's been… four, five years? Hopefully your father doesn't have to work…"
"That's never happened before, has it?" Albus asked.
"Not since you and James were babies," Ginny answered, looking up wistfully at the ceiling. "You were only a few months old, Al, so you definitely wouldn't remember…"
"That was 2006," James blurted out. Ginny glanced at him. "Christmas of 2006, wasn't it? That's the year Al was born."
"Yes," Ginny replied slowly.
"The Gladius Leo case," James said.
Ginny's mouth opened a bit. "Who told you about that?"
"I, erm... " James cringed. Ginny had made it no secret that she preferred James and his siblings to know as little about the specifics of their father's work as possible. He wasn't allowed to talk about it in front of them (not like he was typically inclined to do so anyway). Even their House was under protection, the exact location known only to family members and close friends. Being any member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement came with a degree of danger. The Head of the Auror Office naturally had enemies. But probably not many with the balls to come after my dad, James reminded himself fairly often. "A friend of mine…" There went that 'F' word again. But then, they hadn't had the chance to discuss anything else, had they? He, mostly by his own choice, had hardly seen her since that afternoon. "...she knew some things about it."
"Some things?" Ginny repeated suspiciously. "Like what?"
"...We probably shouldn't talk about it over breakfast," James sidestepped.
"Too right, we shouldn't," Ginny said, her voice now somewhat stern. "If what goes on at your father's job becomes your business, he'll let you know."
"Yes, mum," James said deferentially, looking down at his cooling breakfast.
If you only knew…
POP!
Albus and Lily both jumped; instantly a tall, black-haired, bespectacled man wearing a duster appeared just inside the front door.
"Dad!" Lily, breakfast forgotten, jumped from the table and ran to go hug her father.
"Hello, Lily," Harry Potter held his daughter tightly. His fatigue was obvious. James wondered if he had been gone since last night. He drew back and kissed Lily on the forehead.
"Harry," Ginny walked over to him as well. "Do you want to go upstairs?"
"It's alright," Harry sighed. "It'll be in the Prophet this morning or next anyway. There was an assassination attempt. He survived, but..."
Ginny gasped. "God. Who? Not Kingsley, I hope?"
Harry shook his head. Then, tersely, tiredly, he uttered: "Robards."
James's eyebrows jumped at the name as he heard his mother uttered a, "Merlin's beard."
There was a pained look in Harry's face as he looked down at his wife. "You're going to hate me for this, Ginny, and I'm really, really sorry."
Then he looked up at James.
"Hurry up and eat your breakfast, James," he said. "I need to talk to you. Alone."
Less than ten minutes later, with a roiling, full stomach, James approached the door to his father's study. Slowly, he pushed it open - although this only served to make the almighty creeeeeeeeak the wooden door gave off longer and louder. By the time he closed it behind him, both he and his father were wincing from the nails-against-blackboard-like noise.
"Needs oiling, doesn't it?" his father queried with a tired smile. James took a moment to study his father's face and, with a pang of sadness, noticed a few streaks of gray hair and a wrinkle or two he hadn't seen before. Forty - which was what his father would be in the summer - was not yet old, certainly for a wizard; neither, though, was it any longer very young.
His father straightened and pointed his wand. James, in a brief moment of panic, thought his dad was about to use a spell on him, but a flick of his father's wand indicated wordlessly that he was to step aside so his father could aim at his real target. "Muffliato."
A glow surrounded the door for a moment and then faded.
"Did you just lock us in here?" James asked.
"Why would I do that?" asked his father. "C'mon. Have a seat."
His father seemed… well, still fatherly. Which was a good sign, James thought. It probably meant he himself was not in any terrible trouble for anything. Although, curiosity finally got the better of him, and James had to ask: "Why am I here?"
"I need to ask you something important," Harry said. "It's to do with Robards."
"I haven't seen Mr. Robards in, what, seven or eight years?" replied James. He had turned up once when James was quite a young boy to deliver a message to Harry Potter. Ginny was extremely cross about this and, long story short, he wasn't allowed to deliver messages in person anymore.
"Yes, I know," Harry conceded. "It's just that… well…" Harry sighed reluctantly. Obviously, whatever he was about to share with James, he was doing it because he felt he had no other choice. "Robards was stone cold when our people found him, and barely breathing. Like someone had literally frozen him over."
James's eyes widened. "Just like Neville was last year."
Grimly, Harry nodded.
"Garrick Claudius is still in Azkaban, right?" James asked at a whisper.
"No need to whisper, James," Harry explained. "The charm I've cast on the door will keep anyone nosy from eavesdropping."
"Even Mum?" asked James. Harry chuckled.
"Yes. Even Mum," he replied. But then his face fell as he added, "Then again, she recognizes the spell, so I can't imagine she'll be too happy with me when we get out of here. But you understand why I had to talk to you, right?"
James nodded. "If you want me to tell you what Morris Beal looked like, then…"
"We know already," said Harry matter-of-factly. "Do you know if Beal was a Gifted Elemancer?"
A pause.
"Elemancer?" asked James. "It's possible. He learned loads of magic under Malcolm…"
Harry shook his head. "This isn't something Malcolm would have been able to teach him, even for all his skills. You know what a Gift is, right? It's a specific power a wizard is born with - beyond simply the power to cast magic. Like being a Metamorphmagus, for instance."
He must have known James would understand it that way; Teddy Lupin had been able to change his hair color from the day he was born. As he grew, so did his abilities. But no one had taught him; it was simply something he had known how to do.
"I'm not sure," admitted James. "What's the difference between a 'Gifted' Elemancer and someone that's just learned how to use Elemental magic?"
"I'm not that well-versed on Elemancy myself," admitted Harry. "We haven't dealt with that many since I started working, let alone many that have gone Dark. But one thing I have heard and read is they won't be affected by their element."
"Their element?" James repeated in query.
"I mean… typically a Gifted Elemancer is naturally attuned to one, maybe two, of the four classical elements. Those being air, earth, water, or fire. So if you have one, for example, that's attuned to fire, it might mean…"
"That fire or extreme heat don't affect them the way they do other people," James finished.
"Right," Harry replied. Then, with a smile, he said, "You catch on quick."
James couldn't help but be a bit mollified by his father's compliment. But his smile disappeared as he remembered the business at hand. "Where does ice figure in? That's where Beal had his powers, as far as I could tell."
"That's a good question," Harry admitted, stroking his chin. "Ice is frozen water, so there's that part solved. But how does one freeze the water?"
Silence. Harry had no idea, and James didn't, either.
"Anyway," Harry said very suddenly. "You've been a big help, James. I mean that."
"If he's the one that did it…" James said, not meeting his father's eyes. "I hope you catch him. I hope you take him down."
Harry offered no apparent disapproval of his son's badly veiled desire for revenge. Only smiled. "That reminds me… how's your friend Brynne doing?"
James looked up and hesitated. There was that 'F' word again. "I… we haven't spoken a lot lately. Things at school have made it a little bit difficult."
"I can imagine," Harry said, although, behind his glasses, there was a look in his green eyes that suggested that he knew James wasn't telling the whole truth. "I hear you were kicked off the Quidditch team. Yes, Neville and I talk from time to time. Of course we do. We've been friends since we were boys."
"Did he tell you what happened with Lily?" James asked.
"Yes, he did, and that's the only reason I haven't punished you for what happened," Harry said sternly. "You have to be careful, James. There are other ways of doing things besides picking a fight. I thought I told you to try to stay on Professor Wenster's good side."
"That's impossible," James spat, some of his bitterness finally showing. "That codger doesn't have one."
"I'll admit, the man's misguided," Harry said. "He and I have had differences of opinions on a lot of things."
"He thinks you were too soft on the Death Eaters," James blurted out, wondering if this revelation would change his father's opinion. "Too soft to be in charge of the Auror's Office."
"As he's been kind enough to tell me nearly every time we've spoken in person," replied Harry, not able to contain a roll of his eyes. "But you shouldn't blame him just because of a couple of students that went out of control…"
"I do," James interrupted. "Even if he didn't actually put his hands on Lily… he's the one that gave the order. I think he knew what would happen."
Harry frowned. "If he sent those two lads, clearly he made an awful decision - and should probably be held accountable for it. But you know the rule…"
"There has to be a dire breach of law," James replied. "Yes, I know the rule. What if there was one?"
"I doubt a decision to order another student brought to him for questioning, even if it was ill-advised, would hold up in court," Harry said. "I've seen a fair few of these court cases, so I know."
"What if someone found something else?" asked James.
Harry lowered his bespectacled face into his hand. "James, we've been over this," he said wearily. "I know there's Professors in the school you don't get along with. That doesn't mean that they're all criminals."
"But suppose someone did find something." James pressed the issue.
"Like what?!" Harry raised his voice, yanking his face out of his palm. James jumped. Harry must have seen fear in his son's eyes, because he muttered. "I'm sorry, James. It's been a long night. But in all seriousness, what could you possibly have on Lucan Wenster that no one else has found? He's been a well-respected Professor of Magic both here and in America for longer than I've been alive. Madam McGonagall didn't even get on with him personally and still hired him and made him Head of Gryffindor House right after the war. That should tell you something about how highly he's thought of."
James paused, and remembered that he typically got further with adults by asking questions as opposed to making statements. "Dad," he started calmly. "When you took down Gladius Leo thirteen years ago… did they have a leader?"
Harry buried both hands into his face this time and let out a sigh. "One of the hardest things I've ever had to do as an Auror," he finally replied. In an instant, James realized why his father never talked about the Gladius Leo case despite the incidents being a springboard to his promotion to the Head of the Office. Something had happened during that case - something that caused his father immense grief even now, over a decade later.
"But you got him, right?" James asked. Harry nodded.
"He's in Azkaban," he said, in an uncharacteristically hollow voice. "And because he used the Cruciatus Curse on his victims, among other things, he'll be there for the rest of his life."
James knew that 'his victims' - or two of them, at least - had been Brynne's mother and father. Harry, by the glance he'd exchanged with James, knew his son knew that, too. But it went unspoken.
"And he was definitely the leader?" asked James.
"As far as we could figure out for sure," Harry replied, sadly.
James noticed his father wasn't meeting his eye. He was losing him. He had to act now if he wanted to have any hope of getting his question answered.
"Then what's The Scarlet-"
Harry jumped to his feet. "James, I think we're done. Mum will be looking for us and I'd like some sleep - preferably with my head still attached."
He walked around his large desk, around James toward the doorway. Something clicked into place in James's brain while he was still in the room, though.
"Wait a second," he blurted out, jumping to his feet. "I just realized something."
Harry, almost at the door, stopped. "What is it?"
"With Gawain Robards down…" James talked through his thought process. "That means… that means Aunt Hermione takes over the Department."
"For the time being, yes," Harry acknowledged, with a nod. "The timing couldn't possibly be worse, with the holidays just around the corner, but as Robards is in St. Mungo's, we don't have a choice."
He whisked away. James didn't get up immediately. Could it really be him? Maybe it's him… maybe it isn't. He said he might leave Britain… why would he go after Robards? And if he did… why didn't he finish the job? If you're going to off someone, you just off them, right?
His head was in a fog as he finally left his father's office, gently pulling the door shut behind him. When he made his way out into the living room, he quickly realized that the seat he had been planning on taking on the couch there was already occupied.
Albus was sitting there, arms loosely folded, staring at the lit Christmas tree that was there. Or maybe he was staring at the wall. Wood creaked underneath James's footfall, getting Albus's attention. He turned his head, looked at him, and stood up.
"Where's Lily?" James asked.
"Upstairs," Albus answered laconically, walking past James and in that direction. He made it up two or three of the steps… but then stopped and turned back toward James. "...You can't teach her one spell? What's so bad about that?"
James didn't meet Albus's eye. "I'm not going to be the one to explain to Mum and Dad if Lily got hurt looking for a fight."
Albus looked away from him and bit his lip hard, as if really wanting to say something in particular but ultimately deciding against it. He opened his mouth halfway again; nothing came out. His green eyes shuttered for a moment; when they opened again, there was something different about them - something that James neither recognized nor got the chance to parse. Turning away quickly, Albus took off up the stairs.
James flumped down onto the couch, frustrated that no one seemed to get it.
A quiet meow alerted James that he was still not alone in the room. James jumped for a moment, almost off the couch. Then he looked left. A ginger cat uncurled herself from her slumber. She had been so still before that James had mistaken her for a rather garish pillow.
"What are you doing here?" he murmured. "Lily's upstairs."
Mrrrrow. The cat tiptoed across the couch until she was practically standing over top of James's knees. A moment later, James felt her weight across his legs as she curled up there boredly, her long, orange tail swishing back and forth.
James had never liked cats. He'd always felt that, if he were to have a pet, he would have preferred an owl, or maybe a dog. Unfortunately, those were the two pets his father was dead set against being in the house. He got the reasoning behind no owls. His father was antsy about an owl that could be traced back to the residence, given the nature of his job. (He's probably even more paranoid now, James considered, given the recent news.)
As for why the Potters couldn't have a dog… his dad never quite explained that, except to say that they were rare for wizards. James didn't buy that excuse - they were well off and could buy anything they wanted badly enough. Not to mention it would take practically no effort for his national hero father to call in a favor somewhere. He dared not say either of these thoughts aloud, though, for fear of sounding bratty and arrogant.
Fiamma raised her head and looked up at James appraisingly. She had big, brown eyes to go along with her mane of gingery red, just like her owner. With a nervous hand, James reached up to pet her head…
She was gone.
In a move so quick that James was left stroking at thin air, she turned and bounded off his legs, darting over to the staircase and then stopping. Not long after, Lily descended the steps quickly, dressed and wearing a winter coat. She scooped the cat up into her arms and kept toward the door.
"Lily -" James called out feebly.
"I'm going to Gran's," she said without looking at him, and he could hear a disturbing shadow of a sob on her voice.
"Wait a second, I'll get my-" James started quickly, getting to his feet, but Lily interrupted him.
"Don't," she said. "I just need to be by myself."
And she opened the front door, stepped through, and closed it before James could react any further.
Stuck, he glanced back at the staircase, only to find Albus standing halfway up, barely within sight. Albus visibly shook his head. His hand made a fist that gently thumped the railing before he turned on his heel and went back up the staircase.
Suddenly, it occurred to James that his father was occupied, and would be for quite some time. He started back toward the office, hoping that his father hadn't moved one particular book James had seen the previous summer...
Albus
Albus felt the train lurch and then chug into motion.
The girl who had been sitting mutely next to him with her arms folded jumped to her feet and made for the door. Albus silently watched her leave, her auburn hair - now perfectly, unnaturally straight - trailing behind her like the tail of a comet. His eyes jumped to the lad with the cloud of curly, brownish locks, who was leaning against the wall of the compartment. The boy's brown eyes meet his green ones and the boy's eyebrows leapt up his forehead, disappearing behind the curly fringe.
"You go get her, I'm not doing it," he said, settling deeper into his chair and leaning against the wall again. His eyes closed.
Albus could immediately think off the top of his head of several reasons why Hugo was so amazingly grouchy on this, their return day to Hogwarts.
Firstly, and most crucially, Hugo was never keen on Hogwarts to begin with. He'd have preferred to stay home and learn to run the shop with his dad, aunt, and uncle, but his mother insisted on his receiving his formal education. She hadn't come to see him off, either - her duties as Acting Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had kept her at the office. She'd barely gotten off for Christmas, just days after someone or something nearly killed Gawain Robards in his own home, forcing her to step into his role.
This was a double blow as today, the fifth of January, also happened to be Hugo's twelfth birthday.
To make matters worse, the compartments, despite Professor Gladstone's new regime (Flitwick was still in St. Mungo's, from everything Albus had heard), were still divided by House. She probably thought ten hours (the usual length of the train ride from King's Cross to Hogsmeade Station) was still a bit too much time to leave the students unsupervised. Albus knew too well that even before things went well and truly mad, incidents between students of different Houses were known to happen on the train rides up to and back from Hogwarts. The upshot of all of this, of course, was that Lily was not able to join them in their compartment, which couldn't have improved Hugo's mood. Especially after what had happened to them last term. Hugo must have been more than a bit worried on top of being upset.
And, almost as if to put a cherry on the pile of dragon dung that had been this morning for Hugo Weasley, he'd run into someone he had neither been expecting nor wanting to see.
Albus couldn't let it be known how relieved he himself was. That would have caused a fight, in all likelihood. And he had no desire to row with his cousins after everything else that had happened lately. No, peace and quiet for this whole train ride was absolutely fine with him.
The door to the compartment slid open again. Hugo did not respond to this noise; he must have nodded off.
Sylvia walked into the compartment and plopped herself directly next to Albus.
"Where did you go?" Albus, who'd lost track of her as they were boarding, asked.
"Wouldn't you like to know," Sylvia teased.
They sat in silence for a moment. Albus, frustrated at himself, fumbled in his mind for a conversation starter. Damn it, this was so much easier two years ago, he cursed himself inwardly. Finally, at a loss for anything any more interesting to ask her, he decided to go with a safe option:
"So, how was your -"
"Did you talk to him?" Sylvia clearly had another topic of discussion on her mind. And just Albus's luck, it was the last thing Albus wanted to discuss.
He grimaced. "He wasn't in a talkative mood."
"Well, if you're going to wait for Scorpius to be in a talkative mood, you're going to be waiting a while," Sylvia pointed out. Albus almost had to laugh. Almost. "But seriously, an explanation would be nice. He had everyone convinced he wasn't coming back to Hogwarts. I guess his parents wouldn't stand for it."
"I'm not sure about that," he disagreed, glancing out of the window, where the edge of London had just given way to the English countryside. "He always said that his dad was never sold on him coming to school to begin with and said that if he wanted to stop at any point… yet his dad's the one that brought him. I didn't see his mum anywhere."
"What, do you think his parents split?" Sylvia asked.
"Sylvia," Albus groaned.
"It's a thing that happens sometimes, alright?" Sylvia said. "I'm sure you know that by now."
"Of course I do, I'm not a little kid," Albus sighed.
"I'm not saying that, it's just... " Sylvia stammered. "I just feel like there's a lot of stuff you're lucky enough to not have to go through because-"
"-Because I'm a Potter?" bristled Albus. "You think my life's easy because I'm a Potter, is that it?"
Sylvia recoiled. "Albus…"
"My mum and dad had a huge row right before Christmas," Albus said. "Something about James being involved in one of my dad's cases. And then, on top of that, James and Lily aren't speaking to each other. And then, on top of that, Rose has been acting weird-"
"That I've noticed," Sylvia admitted.
"No, I mean, really weird. I saw her yelling at her dad on the way up to the train. I've never seen that before," Albus replied.
"Well… didn't her mum just take over the Department of Magical Law Enforcement? They must be under a lot of stress, right?" Sylvia reasoned.
"Exactly," said Albus. "Just because I have the family I do doesn't mean my life's easy."
"That's… that's not what I meant. I just meant…" Sylvia let out a sigh. "I don't know what I meant."
This would have resulted in a very long, very awkward silence. However, just a moment later, the door to their compartment opened again, revealing Rose, who strode in and took the seat next to her sleeping brother.
"So where'd you go?" Sylvia asked.
"None of your business, Mum," Rose bristled tersely.
Albus frowned. "Rosie, don't be like that. Everyone's just wondering-"
"Well, stop wondering. If I feel like telling you, I'll tell you," Rose snapped, cutting him off. "Also, don't call me 'Rosie.' I'm not five anymore."
Silence. Albus backed into his seat again. He and Sylvia exchanged looks. She was confused. He was concerned.
"Okay," Rose pouted. "I went to the loo. Happy?"
"No, you didn't," Sylvia quickly said. Albus cringed and turned his head toward her - but she quickly explained herself. "I was already in there."
"Well, I guess that explains why I had to walk to the other side of the train," replied Rose, raising her eyebrows.
"You didn't have to, you could have waited." Sylvia glanced at Albus furtively for a brief moment as she said this. Why, Albus had no idea. "...I wasn't taking that long."
Rose folded her arms and leaned back, rolling her eyes. "...He's not here," she finally said after a while.
"Who's that?" Albus asked.
"Neville," Rose answered.
"Professor Longbottom?" queried Sylvia. "You heard something about him?"
"Yes, he was supposed to be coming back once term started again," Rose revealed. This was news to Albus, who hadn't thought to ask anyone over the holidays. He hadn't seen Neville since that day when he popped up in the castle. He'd left before the sun had come up the following morning and the two hadn't had a chance to talk. "In fact, Dad took us to stop by the Leaky Cauldron and he wasn't there. His wife said he'd already left so I assumed he'd be on the train. There's usually a couple of Professors but I only saw one - Professor Halim."
Professor Halim, Albus knew, was the Ancient Runes teacher. More importantly, he was acting as the substitute Head of Ravenclaw House while Professor Gladstone was filling the Headmistress role.
"You saw James, then," said Albus. Rose nodded. Professor Halim had approached the Potter family to retrieve James before the students boarded. Apparently, as part of his punishment, James had to make the ride up to Hogwarts under teacher supervision. Albus supposed it could have been worse. Halim was friendly enough - and neutral. It wasn't Wenster (whom Albus didn't think he'd ever seen ride the train). Still, though, piled on top of being banned from Quidditch and what James had described earthily as "an arseload" of detentions, it seemed a bit harsh.
Scorpius had received a similar punishment, and since then hadn't said much of anything to Albus or anyone else. Albus had been resigned to the fact that Scorpius was going to withdraw from Hogwarts, and that his parents were going to let him. Yet, when he had arrived at King's Cross that morning and crossed the barrier onto Platform Nine-And-Three-Quarters, he had seen none other than Scorpius standing on the platform with his father. They seemed to be having a deep conversation - one that ended with Scorpius's father giving him a tight hug, which Albus knew to be a rare thing. Scorpius had mentioned more than once that his father, while a good man that loved his family, was not particularly affectionate or emotional.
Conspicuous by her absence, Albus noted, was Scorpius's mother. Maybe, like Aunt Hermione had been, she was busy with work? But the Malfoys didn't work, did they? Scorpius's father had 'independent business ventures', whatever that meant. (It probably wouldn't have sounded quite so suspicious if it hadn't been someone with the Malfoys' history, Albus reluctantly admitted to himself.)
In any case, Scorpius was back. Or, rather, he had never left after all. And given everything that had happened, Albus had the distinct feeling that it wasn't for no reason. He watched silently as Rose reached over to her slumbering brother, running a hand through the boy's curly hair. Clearly, Hugo was dead to the world, as he was likely to have been embarrassed by this had he been awake.
Suddenly, Rose withdrew her right hand and clenched it into a fist.
Sylvia, however, hadn't been looking at Rose's right hand. "Why are you wearing that?" she queried. "It's all healed up, right?"
Rose's left hand was fitted with a black glove. She looked down at it, turned her hand over, opened and closed it a few times.
"No." Her lips pursed as she replied with a cryptic detachment. She looked Albus dead in the eyes. "It hasn't."