Chapter 35: The Golden Hour
Lily's head was swimming as she exited the classroom belonging to her House Head, and she wasn't sure how much of it was fumes and how much was confusion.
"How do you think you did?" Pretty Parveen Rama, who had forgotten her text, jogged up alongside her, long black plait bouncing against her shoulders as she walked.
"...Alright," Lily replied after a second. She thought she had passed, at least - she understood the theory behind Potions even if the actual process of brewing one still frazzled her nerves a bit with Professor Ambrose staring her down. So even if her actual potion was toss, the written portion of the exam would probably save her. Professor Ambrose had been in an especially good mood the last couple of weeks, so maybe, just maybe, he would have some mercy on the lot of them. They were still only first years, after all.
"I'll bet Kubo passed it," Karyn Harper had been talking before that point - probably something else about the Transfiguration substitute - but Lily hadn't been listening. Not because Karyn was necessarily wrong in saying the Transfiguration substitute was handsome… it was just that Karyn had mentioned the bloke about twice a week since he had shown up, and it was frankly getting a bit tiresome, if Lily was being honest.
Also, the last time Lily had pointed this out, Karyn's snarky, knowing, out loud response was to say, "I thought you liked blond guys," which Lily did not appreciate, thank you very much. That wasn't anybody else's business.
She had seen him a little earlier that day. He looked to be in as good of spirits as she had seen in some time. The conversation between him and his two best friends had turned to his birthday, which was apparently coming up soon, so maybe that was why. Nonetheless, Lily immediately hid behind Parveen and Karyn as they all passed each other so he wouldn't see her...fat chance, with as red as her hair was.
"Hey, Lily, are you going back to the Common Room?" asked Parveen. "If so, would you mind taking my book back to our dorm? I was going up to the library and that's a bit of a walk lugging this around."
"Sure," Lily agreed, taking the thick Potions book from her classmate. Parveen wasn't kidding - it was very heavy. She had brought it with her to do a last-second read-up before the exam, only to be disallowed the minute Professor Ambrose walked into the classroom. "Karyn, are you coming with?"
"Of course I am," Karyn replied. With a yawn, she added, "I could do with a nap after that."
"You could always do with a nap," Parveen quipped.
Karyn glared at Parveen. Lily buried her face in Parveen's book so Karyn wouldn't see her snickering. They parted ways at the Grand Staircase, with Parveen ascending alone, and Lily and Karyn starting down toward the Slytherin dungeons.
"So have you talked to your brother since everything happened?" asked Karyn.
"Which one?" asked Lily, frowning. "I have two."
"Either of them," answered Karyn.
"I saw James a couple of days ago at dinner," Lily replied.
"Do you think they'll start doing Unity Weekend again now that Wenster is gone?" asked Karyn. "Maybe you can visit."
Lily and the other first years had heard of this mythical event - a weekend where students could stay over in dorms from other Houses - but had never been to one. The upside of that, she guessed, was that there was nothing about it she could miss, given that she'd never experienced it before.
"They'll be too busy for me, I'm sure," answered Lily with a wry smile. James and Brynne had been sitting together at dinner every day since Wenster was sacked, and as for Albus - well, it was only a matter of time. On top of that, April was notoriously busy. Even the first years had been set several exams in the first two weeks after Easter. O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s were coming up in a matter of weeks for fifth and seventh years (poor Dominique looked tired literally all the time now, Lily had noticed). On the upside, the weather was finally somewhat better - when it wasn't raining. Trees and flowers had begun to sprout all over the grounds, beautifying everything except a rather dead-looking one that Lily had seen in one spot, completely by itself, which looked as bare and as gray as it had in winter. Apparently nobody went near that tree, not even to try to get rid of it. Lily always wondered why.
"Passsssssword?" Lily and Karyn had arrived before a door bearing a large stone snake.
"Uh…" Karyn stammered. "Oh...crap. Lily, what's the password? They just changed it."
Lily sighed. "Honestly, Karyn… Ophiuchus!"
Lily cringed, knowing that she had fumbled somewhat on the pronunciation - but apparently she had done a fair enough job for the stone gatekeeper, who hissed its approval, its eye-holes shining with pinpricks of green as it and the door to which it was attached both creaked aside.
The common room was still relatively empty. With the exception of Amarilys Pucey, who gave them a tired wave before going back to a very ponderous-looking textbook, they seemed to have been among the first to return to the dungeon after the week's classes.
"O-phi-u-chus?" repeated Karyn, fumbling the pronunciation far worse than Lily had. "Who set that, anyway? How's anyone supposed to remember… O-phi-u-cus?"
"Saying it over and over again, I guess," mused Lily, sputtering as a few strands of her ginger hair drifted too close to her mouth. "O-phi-u-cus. Ophi-ucus."
"Bless you," Karyn joked. Lily laughed.
"Keep it down, girls," the insistent voice of Amarilys Pucey drifted from across the common room.
Lily exchanged a glance with Karyn, and both rolled their eyes in tandem, making for the staircase down to the dormitories. If anything, Pucey had been in a worse mood than usual over the last month or so. The story hadn't taken long to circulate around the common room. The day Lily's brothers and a few other students had gone to the bridge to fight Lucan Wenster, Phillip Bletchley had cursed Pucey for trying to block the way out of the dungeon. Since then, Pucey had been… trying to reassert her authority, Lily could only guess. Which was really quite unnecessary. Bletchley had been punished harshly by Professor Ambrose for his actions - to the tune of fifty points, three detentions, and a suspension from the last Quidditch match of the season. If that didn't make it very clear that it was a bad idea to attack a Prefect regardless of circumstance, nothing would.
The girls reached the bottom of the staircase at last. Lily put her hand to the door and turned the knob. When it gave way to their green-curtained dormitory room with the four four-poster beds, Lily's brown eyes scanned for any sign of motion in orange. But Fiamma, it seemed, wasn't much interested in coming to greet her this evening. In fact, Lily found the cat curled up on her bed. Probably hearing the noise of the door opening, Fiamma raised her head, looked straight at Lily, very obviously registered her presence… and then went right back to resting.
"You really missed me, didn't you?" deadpanned Lily, scoffing as she made her way over to the bed she knew to belong to Parveen. There, with a sigh of effort, she heaved Parveen's Potions text atop it. She let out a groan. "Couldn't Professor Ambrose have assigned a smaller book? The term's almost over and we're not even halfway through this thing."
Karyn shrugged her shoulders as Lily crossed the room to her own bed.
"Where's Ophelia?" queried Karyn. Ophelia Bode, their other roommate, was a quiet loner and didn't really socialize with the other girls. But she was typically around. Her absence, therefore, was noticeable. "She wasn't in class today."
"Not sure," Lily answered. "Not like she ever tells us anything. Budge up, you, I need to sit down," she added, gently nudging her cat out of the middle of her mattress. Fiamma hissed at her indignantly as she jumped aside. "Oh, my God. This bed is huge. Quit whinging."
Karyn snickered as she watched Lily take up a quill and rummage around in her bag for a scroll. She began writing, and a couple of sentences in, felt a furry weight on her left shoulder.
"Oh, now you want to cuddle?" Lily glanced at the feline face just off her cheek. "Or are you just being nosy?"
Nonetheless, she took a moment to scratch Fiamma's chin, which Fiamma seemed to appreciate.
"You're just spoiled rotten, aren't you?" Lily giggled as Fiamma's nuzzling tickled her face. Fiamma mewled in response - then promptly separated from Lily to hop off the bed, curling into a little orange ball at Lily's feet.
"Is that Crawford's assignment?" asked Karyn. Professor Crawford had set the first years a foot on basic household charms, due at the beginning of next week… but Lily was going to do that sometime on Sunday, probably. Maybe it was because they were still in their first couple of months of Hogwarts at the time, but it felt like Professor Gladstone - well, Headmistress Gladstone now - never set them as much homework as Crawford did.
"No," she replied. "I had to send an owl to someone. Would have done it Wednesday, but with all these exams…" she trailed off, continuing to write.
"Gotcha…" Karyn drawled, flopping back on her own bed. "I wonder if my parents got busy, too? They were supposed to send me pictures from the party a couple of weeks ago and never did."
Karyn, unlike Lily and her siblings, had gone home for the Easter holiday - mostly because it also coincided with her little brother's fourth birthday. He was a wizard, too, but was too young to understand things like his big sister having to leave for several months at a time. She could sympathize somewhat. It was only two years ago that she found herself the only sibling left behind as both of her brothers went off to school. She was nine then and that autumn before they came back for the holidays seemed to take years. Her parents must have decided then, she thought as she looked down at the little orange ball at her feet, to get her a cat so she wouldn't feel as lonely. She hadn't gotten a particularly large haul of birthday presents when she turned ten, a bit before Christmas, because her parents said they were 'saving up' for her Christmas present...
Speaking of birthdays… Lily wrote some more. She tried to think of anything she was forgetting… this would be it for a couple of months, so she had to make sure...
"I think the last owls leave at six, so I've gotta run this up to the Owlery," Lily informed Karyn fifteen minutes later, jumping to her feet. (This spooked Fiamma, who jumped out of the way and glared at Lily mutinously for disturbing her relaxation again.) Karyn, on the other hand, did not move.
"Well, have fun with that," she said languidly.
Lily frowned. "I'm probably going straight to the Great Hall after. You sure you're alright by yourself?" She had to ask. There had been a point this year where Karyn had been quite afraid to walk the halls on her own.
Karyn sat up. "It's all over, right?"
Lily smiled. "I guess so."
She started toward the door. A mewl stopped her at the last second, and she turned around to find Fiamma at her ankles, eyes wide with supplication.
"You don't want to come with me, do you? You hate the Owlery." Fiamma's head dropped in disappointment.
"Fi really understands you," noted Karyn. "Almost like a person. You ever think she might be part-Kneazle? I hear they're more intelligent than normal cats."
"I doubt it," Lily disagreed, crouching down to scratch Fiamma's chin again. "Fi's much too pretty to have any Kneazle in her… you stay here, okay? Karyn will look after you."
"I'll be looking at the inside of my eyelids, to be honest," Karyn admitted. She was already sliding up to her pillow, in fact.
Lily rolled her eyes. "I guess Fi's going to be watching you, then. Don't oversleep."
"There's no such thing," Karyn said, closing her eyes.
"There is if you miss dinner," Lily reminded her. Karyn's groan indicated that she got the message. Satisfied, Lily departed.
She ran into trouble about halfway up the stairs in the vast form of Marsha Flint.
"Budge up, princess," snapped Marsha as Lily, by unhappy accident, found herself between her and the third years' door just as Marsha was arriving.
"Lay off - she's not bothering you," another voice joined the conversation as Amara Zabini came down the spiral staircase. She didn't meet Lily's eyes, but this brief pause did give Lily enough time to slip past the both of them and up the stairs before Marsha found another excuse to harass her. Amara had been… well, perhaps 'kinder' wasn't the right word, but certainly less nasty to Lily since Wenster was ousted several weeks back. Lily wondered if her father appearing at the school in person that weekend had anything to do with Amara's changed behavior.
Or maybe Brynne got hold of her, Lily thought. Again. Brynne had never explained what she had done or said to the other two girls in her room to make them very obviously afraid of her. In any case, if it helped keep them off her back, Lily was thankful for it. For now. One day, I won't need her help. I'll be doing the helping.
The trip from the Slytherin Dungeons, the lowest part of the castle, to the Owlery, in a tower on the grounds separated from the main building, was a bit of a hike. Although Lily no longer felt remotely afraid to walk the grounds on her own anymore, by the time she'd been walking for a while, she did start wishing she'd been able to have some company. Being all on her own was a bit odd. She, Parveen, and Karyn were almost always joined at the hip before Wenster's sacking. There was safety in numbers. At least in theory. Maybe the fact that Karyn and Parveen felt more comfortable branching out on their own now was a good thing, Lily mused. It hadn't always been that way.
It bothered Lily somewhat that she had never quite figured out what Wenster's deal was. What was it that made him hate Slytherins so much?
It no longer mattered now, she supposed. Her family had seen to that.
"No, I'm serious." Lily passed by a boy and a girl that looked like they were both maybe fourth or fifth years. The boy looked familiar. It seemed that she saw him everywhere despite the two being in different years and houses.
"...Oh. Um..." Lily vaguely recognized the girl, a somewhat mousy one with quite large, round glasses and dark hair tied back in a long braid, as one of the many faces she occasionally encountered in her own common room. Said face was typically buried in a book, to the point where the only way Lily really recognized her was by the braid and the large glasses. In proper daylight (or something close to it in the late afternoon), she noted she had freckles. "I dunno," she mewled. Lily wasn't surprised that she sounded quite as shy as she looked.
Lily moved on from the scene. As curious as she was about the result, she had to get this letter off before the evening owls left.
She had heard some time back from one cousin or another that the Owlery's stairs were dodgy during the winter. Aside from the obvious icing problem, the tower and stairs, which were old to begin with, had taken some damage during the war, and no one had bothered to repair them properly. She therefore looked down at her feet as she ascended, reminding herself that Hugo had turned an ankle tripping on the castle stairs back in the autumn…
Without warning, something slammed into her. Her heart stopped for a second as she felt herself teetering backward, before a hand took hold of her wrist and pulled her back to balance.
"Oh, my God. I'm so sor-"
The boy - another familiar-looking boy - stopped dead in his tracks when he got a good look at her face. With amber-gold eyes and a golden-brown mane of waves, Lily's first thought was that the boy looked like what a lion would look like if you turned him into a young human and put glasses on him.
"Merlin's pants," he uttered, looking horrified. "You're James's sister. I'm sorry - I should've been watching where I was going."
"Oh!" Lily exclaimed, now realizing from where she recognized the boy. "Rowan, right?"
"Yeah," the boy answered, adjusting his glasses, which the impact had knocked slightly askew. Looking up and around himself at the ascending spiral staircase, he mentioned. "You're well in time. There are still a few owls left. I'm assuming you're sending a letter home, right?"
"Not quite." Lily corrected him. "London."
"Still pretty far," Rowan pointed out. "I'd avoid the one with the dark-ish feathers. It looks kind of old and you need one up to the trip. Same reason I didn't choose it. If he made it to Wales, it wouldn't be very quickly."
"Is your uncle still there?" Lily queried. Brynne had mentioned Rowan and his uncle a few times. Judging by the look on Rowan's face, he seemed to be picking up on this fact.
"How much has Brynne told you about me and my uncle?" he asked.
"Just the basic stuff," replied Lily. "You both crash-landed in front of her house back in the summer, and that her aunt and your uncle are dating now."
"Oh." Rowan put his chin into his hand. "Can you keep a secret? From Brynne?"
Lily's head jerked suspiciously. What an odd thing to ask. "Uh…. I guess?"
"Don't tell her I was here," Rowan requested, smiling nervously. "Truth is… I just sent an owl to my uncle Flynn wishing him luck. He's, uh… he's planning on proposing soon."
Lily blinked. "Oh, really? Wow."
"Yeah," Rowan said, chuckling. "On the off chance she says 'no', I don't want to get Brynne's hopes up. It would make things kinda awkward, you know?"
But Lily knew from Brynne that there was almost no chance of that happening. "I think it'll be alright."
"I sure hope so," Rowan answered, smiling. "Well, see you around. Stay safe."
"You, too," Lily replied, watching Rowan descend the stairs past her. She smiled after him, hoping she could be there the moment Brynne found out that her aunt was engaged. Brynne was going to be absolutely thrilled.
And it was a good thing that Lily had thought to bring a One-Use Quill with her on the trek. She needed to add a postscript to her letter.
That Monday, in London…
The gangly shadow crossed the threshold of the dimly lit building, throwing the door shut behind him and leaving the elements out there where they belonged. Removing a helmet, he exposed his hair, wild curls of a teal even brighter than normal. The world needed some color, after all, on this gray, drab day in London.
Maybe one weekend, he mused as he started up the violently creaking stairs, he'd take his first crack at Apparating straight from inside the flat to the Leaky Cauldron for practice. After all, he couldn't very well limit himself to taking the bike - as much as he loved it. It had been 'in the family', so to speak, for the better part of four decades. It was even older than he was - yet ran like a charm.
At least, in dry weather. Biking in London rain and traffic, he had found out the hard way, was dodgy at best. He would have had an intimate date with the pavement for sure if not for the Balancing Charm that one of the bike's previous owners had put on it.
CREEEEEEAAAAAAAAAK.
He felt lucky he could return here at a reasonable hour of the evening, as opposed to late at night. The walls in this building were thin, and he frankly wasn't sure how the hell anybody could sleep through the racket of someone climbing the stairs in the dead of night. The worst ones sounded like nails against a bloody chalkboard.
One of the doors he passed by on the second floor, opened behind him.
"Evening, laddie." A man about his gran's age stuck a bald, bespectacled head and moustache out of the doorway. "Dreich today, isn't it? Work go alright for you?"
"Same as always. Still slow for now," he replied.
"Well…" the man said, "Rent's due on the first. Don't ye forget, Eddie."
And without a further greeting, he popped his head back inside and closed the door. The young man sighed.
"Bloody hell, I just got here," he groaned. "And that's not my name."
He tried not to be too upset at his old landlord - a man's got to earn a living, after all. He understood that. The building was a bit rickety, but he got a great deal here. The old landlord was a Squib from somewhere up near Aberdeen, and the uncle of an old school friend's new girlfriend. It was about as 'wizard-friendly' of a home as one could get in this part of London. Squibs had no magical power of their own, but typically were brought up around wizards and were familiar enough with magic not to raise a fuss. Also, Squibs (being by definition children of wizards who could not perform magic) were a legal exception to the Statute of Secrecy, too. Which meant, among other things, that he could operate his new 'side business' without getting himself into trouble with the Ministry.
Passing a landing and an upper window that was blurred with the hard rains falling outside, he finally arrived at the third floor. Sticking his key into the lock and jiggering with the knob a bit, he finally pried the door open.
It was relatively empty, save for a few trinkets, and a couch and table his grandmother had insisted he take with him when he left. But it was home.
And it was his.
A high-pitched, barking hoot made him jump. The main room's other 'decoration', if it could be called that, was a cage suspended from the ceiling. Inside this cage, large, golden eyes peering at him from across the room, was an owl with white and black plumage.
He walked toward the cage. "Hey there, Helga," he said, stretching a finger toward the cage, which the owl put her beak through and nipped at by way of a show of affection. Helga had, in theory, been a gift from his grandmother on his eleventh birthday. In practice, she had been a silent insistence that he make sure to send her and his godparents letters from Hogwarts every so often once he left. "This weather's complete shite."
Looking at the cage's floor, he noticed something - the bones of a mouse. He had definitely forgotten to leave behind some food for Helga this morning when he'd left in such a hurry - a fact that he remembered lamenting at one point in the middle of that day. So where had…
"I'd say."
He whirled around. Rising from the couch, blonde hair slightly wet and lank against her forehead and shoulders, a stunningly beautiful young woman was approaching him. His jaw dropped, a second before she leapt into his arms, giving him just enough time to catch her…
"Vic," he breathed - as soon as his mouth was free, which took some time. "How'd you get in?"
The blonde sighed and rolled her eyes, reaching down into her shirt (a white button-down that would have looked quite professional if not for the fact that it was slightly damp and therefore leaving little to the imagination) and pulling out a key. His spare key.
He grabbed at his teal hair and laughed nervously. "Oh. Yeah. That's right."
"I decided I'd try and surprise you," she replied.
"Well, it worked," he said simply. "I'm surprised. How was work?"
"A nightmare," she groaned. "One of our idiot admins assigned me to a visitor from Brazil."
"Brazil?!" he repeated. "Wait… do they…"
"No," she replied flatly before he could finish. "Portugese. Which isn't even close to French."
"Geez…" he sighed, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Sorry, Vic."
She put her head into his chest. "It's alright. Hopefully before too long they'll put me on official duty and I won't have to deal with this kind of bollocks. 'Official duty' is state reps only. They're a lot better about assigning people to the right translator at that level."
"Yeah, I'd guess so," he concurred. "Can't come off rude to visiting ambassadors by not having all your ducks in a row."
"Nice pay bump, too," she pointed out, smiling dewily.
His own smile flagged, but he managed to keep it up. She already made half again what he did. "Don't remind me."
She must have seen his failure to keep a straight face. She reached her hand up to his cheek. "Oh, Teddy…" she sighed. "You're too hard on yourself."
"Not as hard as your parents," Teddy pointed out.
"Mum and Dad love you," she tried to reassure him.
"They'd love me even more if I wasn't skint and dating their daughter," Teddy commented.
"You could always ask for your share from -" she said.
"Nope. Not doing that, Victoire," Teddy interrupted. "We already talked about this. And, besides - that's not mine. Not really."
"I know you want to earn your own way, Ted. It's what I love so much about you," Victoire answered. "But it's perfectly fine to take whatever help you can get. I mean… I got eight N.E.W.T.s coming out of Hogwarts a couple of years ago, so I did the work. But the Minister knows my family, too, and that's part of what helped me get the job I've got. I'm not ashamed of that. He was friends with your parents, too - remember?"
Teddy sighed. "Yeah, but that was years ago. Before I was born."
Victoire gave an apologetic smile and went back to the table.
"You've got some mail, by the way," she said, bringing back a letter. "From Hogwarts. Who could that be?"
"The whole family's there now, right?" chuckled Teddy, his mood improving somewhat. "Your guess is as good as mine."
He flipped the letter over, and saw the sender's name in a neat cursive. His heart leaping, he pried it open.
"Dear Teddy,
Congratulations on your new flat! Sorry I'm so late getting this to you, but I was on Easter break last week and the school owls are out of service during breaks. Also, our teachers set us about a hundred years worth of homework and exams to study for and I'm just now getting some time to breathe."
"Poor thing," Victoire moaned piteously.
"James's broom is flying good as new. You've really got a knack for this broom repair thing. Maybe you should open your own shop instead of working for Ms. Robins on Diagon Alley. You'd probably make more money."
Victoire glanced at Teddy knowingly.
"Maybe in a year or two," Teddy mused. "Being a business owner is a huge commitment."
"Yeah… how about that?" he could have sworn he heard Victoire mutter.
"What?"
"Nothing…"
Teddy ignored it, and kept reading.
"Hogwarts has been great in the last month, except for all the work. But it doesn't feel like a war zone anymore, so that's an improvement. I still can't believe everything that happened with Professor Wenster. It's kind of scary thinking that somebody like him had worked here for years with nobody knowing what he did."
"I never liked Wenster," commented Victoire, peering over Teddy's shoulder. "There was always something about him."
"Yeah. The 'something' was, he was a dick," Teddy muttered. Victoire sniggered. He continued reading. "Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I'm fine, and the boys are fine. It'll be summer again in a couple of months, so maybe Mum and Dad will bring us to visit now that you're all settled in London. Hope to hear from you soon. Love, Lily."
Teddy paused. Then, Victoire read ahead before he could start again: "P.S.: I'm not sure if you knew this already but James has a girlfriend now. He's going to beat you if you don't get a move on. 'Beat you'? At what?"
Teddy quickly yanked the letter away. "Yeah - good question."
Victoire gave Teddy a suspicious look for a moment, but then they both moved on. "Everyone's getting so big now. Seems like Lily was a baby not that long ago. You remember that? Her first birthday?"
"Yeah," laughed Teddy. "That's where we first met, I think. You were blubbing for some reason…"
Victoire scowled mutinously. "Because James threw a chunk of the cake at the back of my head when I wasn't looking and it got all in my hair. But then I saw you and stopped. More because I'd never seen a boy with green hair before. You were trying to cheer me up. You kept doing the pig snout thing with your nose," she recalled, tapping a finger gently against the nose in question.
"Are you sure? I thought it was a duck bill," Teddy disagreed. "I don't think I got the pig snout down until I was about nine or ten."
"Oh, my god. It was, like, twelve years ago," groused Victoire. "I don't remember all the details."
"I do," Teddy said.
"Good for you," Victoire said sarcastically. "Do you want a biscuit?"
"I wouldn't mind one, actually…" Teddy replied, knowing it would wind his girlfriend up.
"Well, I'm shit at baking, so you're out of luck," Victoire answered.
Teddy shrugged his shoulders with a smile.
"Never mind the biscuit, then," he said. "I wonder what James's girlfriend is like?"
James
"That's checkmate." Rowan Lester's voice rang out rather languidly in the compartment.
"'Check, mate' as in, 'buddy' or 'checkmate' as in 'game over'?"
"Well, you look at the board and tell me."
Richard Murphy's eyes scanned the chessboard floating in front of him. His black king stood alone, surrounded on all sides by Rowan's white queen and several other pieces. The match hadn't been close. Murphy, realizing he was beaten, let out a groaned oath, reached a hand up, and swatted his king to its side.
"You did better that time," commented Rowan. "Fancy another go?"
"I'll pass," Murphy replied mournfully. "We're almost to London and I'm… 0-4, by my count."
"Five." Murphy looked at Rowan, who didn't seem to want to meet his eye suddenly. "You're… you're 0-5."
"Oh, am I? Well, that drives home the point, doesn't it?"
A tinkling laugh rang in James's ear.
He leaned his head against the hairy weight on his shoulder. She looked up at him with her big, blue eyes.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing," said James. "It's just… nice to hear your laugh again. That's all."
Brynne smiled.
"Get a room, will you?" Murphy quipped from across the compartment. Rowan did a bad job of hiding a smile as he put away his chess set.
"A room?" repeated James. "We're lucky to have this compartment after all the bollocks that went down this year."
Murphy glanced at Rowan, who raised his eyebrows in wordless agreement. "Fair enough."
James took a peek out of the window. He was starting to recognize the way the hills rolled and undulated across each other. A stray farm was next. London was getting close.
"So, James," Murphy started. "Dad says we might spend a few days in London this summer. You think we could maybe meet up?"
"Maybe," James guessed. "I'm sure I'll be working the shop at some point."
"The shop?" queried Brynne.
"My uncles' shop - Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes," answered James. "I did a couple of weeks there to get some Galleons last year. Now that you mention it, Uncle George and Aunt Angelina might take a holiday themselves this summer. The twins are seventeen now, so they can look after things on their own."
"Does that mean we may finally get a Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes Belfast branch some time soon?" asked Murphy.
"You mean Cardiff, right?" queried Rowan.
Murphy scoffed.
"What's wrong with Cardiff getting a branch?" asked Rowan, a bit hotly.
"Cardiff's got Scheid's already, right?" Murphy teased.
Rowan shrugged. "Nothing wrong with a bit of competition. Makes everyone better."
"You'll have to talk to Uncle George about that. That kinda stuff's above my pay grade," admitted James, waving his hand.
"I'd prefer Cardiff, honestly," Brynne opined.
"Well, I know you would," Murphy snapped back. "But when would you have time to visit this summer? You're going to be getting ready for a wedding, right?"
He glanced from Brynne to Rowan and then back.
"I've been to a couple of weddings in the Orchard," Brynne commented. "They're thrown together in about a week, most times. There aren't that many of us."
Rowan frowned. "We will have to go to Cardiff at some point to get fitted. I haven't worn dress robes in… come to think of it, I've never worn dress robes."
"I think you'll look quite fetching," Brynne commented. Rowan sighed. Apparently she was looking forward to it a bit more than he was.
"So how's that whole thing going to work?" Murphy asked Rowan. "Flynn Lester is your uncle, but he's also your godfather. But Flora Carrow is Brynne's aunt and also her godmother. So when they tie the knot, you two will be… step-god...sibling...cousins? Or something like that?"
"I try not to think about it too much," Rowan admitted, closing his eyes. "It makes my head hurt."
"Not me," Brynne said brightly. "I always wanted a baby brother or sister."
"Easy with the 'baby'," Rowan said rather sharply, opening his eyes again.
Brynne cringed. "I mean… you are younger than me, aren't you?"
"Barely," retorted Rowan. "Your birthday's in October and mine's the following August. That's not even a year."
"You'd be a second year if you'd been born two weeks later," Brynne pointed out.
"Yeah, that's like my cousin Louis," James piped in. "His birthday's September 2nd."
"That's brutal," laughed Murphy. "So he missed it by two days and had to wait an entire year?"
"Pretty much," James replied, grimacing with pity. "You have to be eleven by August 31, no exceptions. But then, you missed being a fifth year this year by not that much yourself, right?"
"That's true," agreed Murphy, who turned sixteen this coming September, a few weeks after term started. "Although I can wait. I'm trying really hard not to think about our O.W.L.s coming next year."
"Oh, yeah, that's right," Rowan remembered.
"I guess we're lucky, though, that we've got another year left," James commented. "Imagine trying to revise for O.W.L.s this past term with all hell breaking loose around the school."
Murphy grit his teeth. "Yikes."
"Here's to a normal school year next year," James chuckled. "Or as normal as Hogwarts ever gets, anyway. It'll be different. Again."
Among other things, the students of Hogwarts had left the castle this year not knowing who would greet them as Headmaster when they returned in September. Professor Flitwick returned to the school for the End-of-Term Feast, and that was only to announce what many had suspected already for months: He was retiring, and it would thus be up to the school governors to name a new Headmaster over the summer.
"Better, hopefully," Brynne added. "Hopefully Malcolm's the lesser of two evils."
James grimaced. He had been asking himself lots of questions in the last two or three months; one of them was whether he had gotten Clint Malcolm all wrong from the beginning. It was such a tricky thing… maybe it was a side effect of being brought up around an entire family that had been heavily involved in the War, but there was a part of him that had always bent toward expecting the worst out of people. Maybe part of him just felt like he needed an enemy to fight, or at least a cause to fight for - and didn't know what to do with himself without one. He glanced down at her again. She had come looking for him, about a week after the battle. He wasn't too surprised about that; she, unlike him, had an abundance of mercy.
"Sooo…" Murphy drawled, standing up and stretching. (Rowan leaned out of the way of one of Murphy's long arms.) "We've probably got an hour until London, if that - so I'm going to go find the loo before there's a queue."
"Dabbling in poetry now?" Rowan quipped. Murphy sniggered as he made for the compartment door.
"You probably should, too, Rowan," he said, with an odd emphasis on each word. "I don't know how you get to Cardiff from London, but I'd guess it probably takes a while."
He paused, and stared at Rowan for a long time.
"Oh! Yeah, right," Rowan finally jumped to his feet, and the two of them left the compartment together.
"They do know there's only one toilet, right?" Brynne commented a few moments after the other boys were gone. "At least, that's how the girls' is."
The train chugged along as James elected not to respond to this. Then a hand of hers, small but warm, found the one of his that had been resting on his knee.
"So…" Brynne started, a bit similar to how Murphy had a few moments ago. "I hear the trial will be at some point next month."
Wenster had been taken to holding at the Ministry in London in the meantime. James was frankly surprised that the process ever took this long. At the very least, Wenster was up for several counts of attempted murder, and that was if nothing in the Pensieve was allowed as evidence for his older crimes.
"You'll have to be a witness, right?" Brynne asked.
James shook his head. "Nope. Gladstone and the other Professors can handle all the trial rubbish. Dad doesn't want me anywhere near unless they absolutely need me for something, and I'm alright with that."
"...Are you afraid you'd get in trouble for the curse you used on him?" asked Brynne.
If there hadn't been an entire conversation about that incident some time ago, James would have thought Brynne was a Legilimens or something.
"Technically, if it's a curse you invented, there can't be a law against magic the Ministry didn't even know existed yet, can there?" Brynne pointed out.
"No, but…" James muttered. "Using magic the Ministry doesn't know about is frowned upon. Especially if it's Dark magic at that level."
"At that level?" repeated Brynne.
James frowned. He thought he'd already explained this. Also, he had no wish to bring up… bad memories. "You know why the 'Unforgivable Curses' are 'unforgivable', right?"
Brynne herself frowned. "They're supposedly a reflection of the person who used them," she finally answered.
James nodded. "You can't use certain magic effectively unless there's… darkness, I guess. Darkness inside of you, I mean."
"Maybe…" Brynne acknowledged. "But there's plenty of ways to hurt and kill people without using Unforgivable Curses, aren't there?"
James knew the answer to this question. And he knew that she knew that he knew the answer to this question.
"Just because you think I did it for you… doesn't make it right," James finally said.
"I don't think you did it for me," Brynne replied. "I know you did."
"I thought that, too," confessed James. "But the truth is… when he was sat down there, at my mercy after all he put everyone through, and I had the power to decide what happened to him… that felt…"
He had almost said 'good'... but that wasn't really the word. He didn't know how to describe it, really. He just knew that he didn't hate the feeling. More like he hated himself sometimes for not hating the feeling - whatever it was.
"I wonder if that was the only reason I wanted to become an Auror," he said. "To have an excuse to fight and be in control of people's fates. Maybe there was part of me that did think Dad was too soft on criminals he caught. Maybe Wenster was right about me. Maybe I'm not that diff-"
A loud noise interrupted James's self-loathing rant. His head jerked toward Brynne, who had a hand over her mouth… yawning.
James's jaw unhinged.
"Sorry…" she apologized. "But… we had this conversation back in March. It's… well, boring now. If you don't want to be an Auror, then don't be an Auror. That's simple enough, isn't it?"
It was almost frighteningly simple, James thought. Except for one snag…
"But then what?" asked James.
Brynne frowned again, thought, then reached her hand up to James's cheek. "You're self-aware about your weaknesses. Honestly, I think, if you became an Auror one day, you'd be brilliant. Brilliant. But maybe… not happy. It would be a burden on you."
"It's a burden on everybody that does it," James pointed out. "But someone has to do it."
"Someone… but maybe not you," Brynne suggested. "People like your parents worked so we wouldn't have to fight if we didn't want to. If you feel like you have to, then that's almost like telling everybody that lived and died fighting Voldemort twenty years ago that they failed after all, isn't it?"
"It's not that I feel like I have to because things are just that bad," James told her. "It's that… well… I don't know what else to do."
Brynne smiled and looked away from him. "Don't overthink it, James. What are you happiest doing?"
James frowned again, getting a bit annoyed but trying to hide it. "Flying. But I can't…"
"Can't you?" Brynne asked. "Are you totally, completely, a million percent sure about that?"
She had asked the question like a particularly precocious seven-year-old would have done. But it made James think in a way that he hadn't before.
"I, uh…" he stammered for a moment before finally deciding: "No."
A few silent seconds later, he felt Brynne peck him on the cheek.
"It's still the same for me," she mentioned. "I'm going to become Headmistress of Hogwarts one day."
As strange as it was, this almost seemed too small a dream for Brynne now, based on what James knew about her. "What about Minister of Magic?"
"What?" uttered Brynne, seemingly taken aback.
"I think you could," James assured her. "You're a natural leader. People are drawn to you and you know how to… set things into motion, I guess."
But Brynne shook her head. "Politics isn't for me. That's going to be-"
The conversation was cut short; the compartment door slid open and Rowan strode in quickly, followed by Murphy. The latter looked a bit perturbed as he said, "What part of 'ten minutes' did you not-"
He pulled up short immediately after seeing James and Brynne watching him, though, and Rowan didn't respond, either, leaving James to wonder exactly what the context of that discussion had been.
"It won't be long now," Murphy commented when he saw them, reassuming his old seat.
And indeed it was not; a half-hour-that-passed-like-several-seconds later, the Hogwarts Express was chugging to a stop at its platform at King's Cross. As was the custom, first years were allowed off the train to begin with; James wondered if his parents had already arrived. Or maybe it was going to be just Mum; or Uncle Ron, if Dad had to stay at work late…
The second years were called next. Brynne and Rowan had begun to pull together the things that they had brought with them into the compartment.
Then… "THIRD YEAR STUDENTS, PLEASE DISEMBARK THE HOGWARTS EXPRESS." A female voice rang through the train's compartments. Brynne was just then pulling her shoes back onto her feet.
"That's us," Rowan stated. He'd been wearing a jacket as he tended to find the train somewhat cool, but had divested himself of it and thrown it over his shoulder. "Reducio." He pointed his wand at the chess set box on the ground, shrinking it to one small enough for him to stuff into his jacket pocket.
"Try to get some sun this summer," chuckled Murphy. Rowan simply rolled his eyes.
"You try staying out of trouble," he said.
Murphy smirked. "Where's the fun in that?"
Rowan shook his head. Then he glanced at Brynne significantly. Brynne stared at James for a long, long time, bit her lip…
Then darted away and out of the compartment door.
Rowan, who seemed much less shocked at this than Murphy and James did, shot them both semi-apologetic looks and simply said, "See you all in September."
He calmly followed Brynne toward the compartment door, leaving James and Murphy.
"Still complicated, huh?" queried Murphy once both of them were out of earshot.
James frowned. "She's complicated."
Murphy smirked. "But you wouldn't have it any other way, would you?"
James managed a weak smile as he began to gather his things; all of that was true, he thought, but that still wasn't quite how he had envisioned their goodbye going. He thought she would leave him with a warm smile, at least…
"FOURTH YEAR STUDENTS, PLEASE DISEMBARK THE HOGWARTS EXPRESS."
"Welp, that's enough of this for now," Murphy said. "After this year, I could use a break."
"I think we all could," James replied wistfully.
They exited their compartment, started down the narrow hallway to the doors that would let them out onto the platform and back into the outside world. James could still hear muffled conversations between older students, stopped near a compartment when hearing some familiar voices…
One of the doors to this compartment slid open.
"Don't dawdle." Tommy Jordan loomed over them in the limited space, a large golden 'P' in a shield of red visible on his black Hogwarts robes.
"You can't order us around anymore, Jordan," Murphy cheeked him.
"I can until you leave the train," Tommy Jordan said, with an equally large smirk.
And with that, he closed the door - but not before James caught the shortest glimpse of a familiar-looking, pretty blonde in Tommy's compartment.
"Wait…" he muttered. "Was that-?"
"What?" queried Murphy. James shook his head.
"Nothing."
The sound of a stumble got their attention after that. They both turned their heads toward the train car's nearby exit. A girl had fallen just at the door. Hissing in discomfort, she pulled herself to her feet. James froze for a moment - but then felt a hand in his back, shoving him forward and causing him to trip himself.
Brynne rushed James in an instant and nearly tackled him to the ground as she buried her face in his shoulder. Taken a bit off guard, James wasn't sure what to do except for put his arms around her. Then, he heard the oddest noise - a sharp stab of breath. And then another. He looked down at her, tried drawing back to give her space, but she kept her face hidden in his shirt almost insistently. At last he reached down and, hoping she would find it comforting, ran a hand gently through her cinnamon-copper hair.
She was still trembling as she finally drew away from him. Fat tears spilled down her cheeks as if weighed by anchors, despite her obvious attempt to blink them back.
"I was… I didn't…" she stammered uncertainly. She seemed to be trying to tell him something. Only, she was having trouble with the words.
"Whatever it is…" James told her. "Don't worry about it. Just… promise me something."
"What's that?" she asked, with the request barely out of James's mouth, her blue eyes peering up at him.
"Try to get some rest this summer," James said.
Silently, Brynne nodded, before throwing her arms around him again. She put her hands on his shoulders, stood up on her tiptoes, kissed him, and then backed away, walking backwards, keeping her shining, blue eyes locked on him until the last moment, where she turned and bounded off the train.
"What was she trying to say to you?" Murphy asked.
James smiled, and shook his head. "It'll be alright. We've got time."
The day outside was warm and golden-orange; the train had left the station at Hogsmeade early in the morning and it was now well after seven in the evening. James's hazel eyes jumped around the crowded platform, taking in the sights of families reuniting. Some distance away, he saw Dathan Rama and his sisters, Madhari and the youngest, who was roommates with Lily and whose name escaped him at the moment, exchanging hugs with a younger boy and a woman James assumed to be the children's mother. A dark-skinned man approached and startled her before she gave him a friendly hug. James couldn't them see from here but he could have sworn he recognized the man, who was accompanied by a caramel-skinned teenage girl.
A bit closer to him, a black-haired boy was standing with a red-haired girl, who seemed to be trying to get the former's attention. She snapped her finger in front of his face repeatedly, but he was frozen, staring vaguely toward the father and daughter and the Rama family, his hand lightly touching his cheek.
"Al?" the girl repeated as James approached. "A-Al? Allllll-buuuuuus. James, help me. I think he's broken."
James came up on the other side of his brother, who didn't register his presence, either.
"Whatcha staring at?" James asked casually. He glanced across Albus, at Lily, who wordlessly shrugged her shoulders.
Sighing, James cupped his hands around his mouth and put it to Albus's left ear. "OI!"
Albus jumped at this - and then shoved James rather hard, knocking him into Murphy and nearly knocking the both of them over.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked petulantly, not meeting either of his siblings' eyes.
"With me? You were completely spaced out," James remarked. "What were you looking at, anyway?"
"Nothing," Albus replied, fidgeting with his hands for a second before stuffing them in the pockets of his jeans. "You seen Dad yet?"
"He's working late and couldn't get away," their mother's voice joined in on the conversation as Lily whirled around.
"Mum!" she squealed, throwing herself at her mother, who gave her a tired, one-armed hug. She went for one with Albus as well, but Albus detached quickly, looking over his shoulder, almost as if concerned that someone was watching.
"Hullo, Richard," Ginny Potter said coolly.
"Mrs. Potter," Murphy replied respectfully. Looking nowhere in particular, he blurted out, "I think I see Anna trying to get her trunk. I should probably go help her. See you around, James."
"See-" James started to answer - but Murphy was gone already.
"I'll say this," Ginny started once Murphy was out of earshot. James winced, knowing what was likely coming. "If you're going to go into mortal danger doing something stupid, at least you've got the sense not to go by yourself. It took your father years to figure that out."
It was a long story, James thought, and he didn't feel like explaining. "That'll be the last time. I hope," he said instead.
"I hope, too," she replied seriously. "But somehow, I doubt it."
But, honestly, she sounded more sad and resigned than angry.
"You're going to turn my hair white like your Gran's, James Potter, and then you'll be happy, won't you?" she muttered, not entirely to James -
"Aunt Ginny!" a girl's voice rang out across the platform, and everyone looked up.
"Victoire!" Ginny cried enthusiastically, jogging to hug the young woman. "What are you doing here?"
"Louis and Dominique - whenever she gets off the train, that is - are coming to stay the night with me. Mum and Dad are coming to get them tomorrow evening," Victoire answered. Louis was indeed in tow, but he was having a conversation with someone else -
"Teddy!" Lily broke from the group and threw herself at Teddy Lupin, whose short, peaked hair was an eye-searing shade of platinum blond today.
Teddy looked up with a winning smirk and greeted them: "How's it going?"
Ginny looked at him as well, and gave an exaggerated blink before squinting. "Wow, Teddy. Too much."
"You think so?" Teddy replied, still wearing Lily for a necklace, as the platinum blond darkened to a more moderate golden tone. Looking at Lily, who finally let him go, he commented, "I got less stares from the Muggles in the station than I did with my normal color."
That would follow, James thought. Teddy's idea of a 'normal' hair color was a loud tealish turquoise that was not usually to be found atop the head of a human being.
"Fewer stares, Teddy," Ginny pointed out, correcting his grammar.
"Alright, 'Professor'," Teddy shot back sarcastically.
But Ginny just shrugged. "I'm a writer. It's my job to pay attention to these sorts of things."
"Are you here for us?" Dominique's voice - telltale because of a slight oddity in how she pronounced her 'r's - sang from behind James. She was biting her lip and had more than a touch of pink on her pale face.
"What took you so long?" asked Victoire. Dominique didn't look at her.
"N-nothing," she stammered. "I just… I was… saying goodbye to someone. That's all."
"I know that look," Ginny stepped in front of all of them. Wearing a knowing smirk, she asked, "...What's his name?"
"What are you talking about?" Dominique cried, now blushing furiously. "Someone I know was graduating, so I won't see them again for a while."
Ginny raised her eyebrows, not looking like she believed Dominique for a second. "If you say so."
"How in a hurry are you lot?" Teddy asked.
"Actually," Ginny replied, "Harry's supposed to be meeting us at the Leaky Cauldron at eight before we all go home together."
"Maybe we can tag along?" queried Teddy. "...Celebrate Vic's promotion?"
Ginny gasped. "Oh, Victoire, you got official duty?"
"Yes. Finally," Victoire replied. "They're going to start training me next month and I'll go over full-time in September."
"That's wonderful!" Ginny exclaimed, hugging her oldest niece tightly and then taking her hands in both of her own. She glanced at Teddy, who suddenly didn't seem to want to look at her. "I don't see why not. I'm sure Harry would love to hear Victoire's news and see you for once. You never come visit anymore."
"I've been working hard," Teddy defended himself. "Trying to save money and such. It's not an easy thing, being on your own."
"I get it," Ginny replied.
"You get any customers yet?" asked James. It had only been when he received a letter in the package with his repaired broom that James had found out that Teddy had not only moved into his own apartment in London, but was doing broom repairs on the side of his job at Quality Quidditch Supplies. (Why didn't a place like Quality Quidditch Supplies have a department for broom repairs? That would have made a lot of sense…)
"Working on it," Teddy replied nonchalantly. Then, with no warning: "So, where's this girlfriend of yours?"
"What?" uttered James reflexively - less because he hadn't heard the question and more out of shock.
"Girlfriend?" repeated Ginny.
Lily made an obvious attempt to slide behind her mother to hide herself. But James saw it and shot a glare at the one brown eye of hers he could still see.
"Yep. Lily told me last time she wrote. Our ickle James is growing up," Teddy teased, walking up to James and putting an arm around his shoulder.
"Geroff," James snarled, feeling his face go hot with embarrassment.
"You should thank her," said Teddy. "Apparently, she begged your dad to find any way he could to get your broom fixed."
"...Wha-?"
Not long after they had met almost three years ago, Brynne had shown up to watch James's first Quidditch tryout. He had never really told anyone how nervous he had been that morning, and how stressed he was because living in House Slytherin's quarters instead of Gryffindor Tower at the time had thrown his daily routine into a tailspin. But she had shown up that day to root him on - wearing a bad wig because they both thought she might be caught out and sent off by the Gryffindors and their Quidditch Captain. He barely knew her then; still, knowing that she was there, supporting him in secret, gave him something - something he couldn't quite put his finger on until recently.
Ultimately, in the intervening years and all they had gone through together, she had changed - as much as anyone aging from child to teenager does - but the core of her was still much the same. She was still that little barefoot girl with the giant-sized heart that he had decided was worth doing anything for almost before he realized it himself.
Getting justice for her did feel good - in fact, maybe more so now than it did a few months ago. But peace felt even better. And, for her sake… for all their sakes... he hoped peace lasted for a good, long time.
END
Thanks so much to everyone that has read, reviewed, and supported Fabula Post Bellum: The Schism Revival.
Join me for our next journey into the wizarding world, coming very, very, very soon:
The 'doing magic' bit aside, wizard teenagers aren't much different than any others. They go to school, prod the dangerous beast of adolescent romance, play sports, and try hard to make their parents proud - or in some cases, try very hard not to.
To be human is navigate the points between ourselves and others; the ties that bind us to our connections, and the connections of our connections, the web of bonds that comes with existing as and around humanity. The realization that this web is a kaleidoscope of many colors: Love, hate, forgiveness, revenge, and the ambition every person has to, in some way unique to ourselves, leave our mark upon the world.
FABULA POST BELLUM: THE GIFTED CHILDREN
RETURN TO THE WIZARDING WORLD
9/1/2020