"So. Much. Food!" Dreogan moaned, lying on the sofa holding his belly with both hands. Even his, usually, flat abdomen now bulged out, even if slightly.
"This puts House Elves to shame!" Claudia remarked, feeling nicely full.
"You barely ate! Oh gawd…" Emerick exclaimed, regretting it.
"No one told you, you had to eat so much", She fired back matter-of-factly.
"You are one to talk! You eradicated the cinnamon rolls!" Charles lay on the sofa, legs up, head down, his hands on his sides.
"Doesn't count. Those were, just, too good to pass up", Claudia replied, sitting on a chair, her legs crossed, hands on her knees, sitting slightly lower than ninety degrees.
"How can you not be suffering?!" Dreogan asked, astonished.
"Half Italian. I grew up with family dinners that'd make an army feel sick after, you kinda get used to it…and learn how to make it look like you're eating while you're not", Her lips formed a faint smirk.
"Doubt it…" Emerick said, his head lying on Dreogan's legs, his legs over the sofa's arms.
"What can I say, I have a good metabolism, then."
Alfred and William were too much fed to even talk, lying on the floor with their heads on the sofa's lower end.
"My boys? Not hungry? What sorcery is this!" Helen teased them.
"I guess we must have awesomeballs birthday parties more often", Charles groaned content.
"It, really, was amazing Ms. Blake, thank you!" Dreogan breathed with as much energy as he could muster.
"Don't mention it, love. Oh, looks like you have an owl-letter."
Dreogan took the letter from the owl's leg, opening it.
"Mr. Dreogan, you are a persistent child. We have conducted our investigation and have concluded there is no means with which your father or brother can or could, as you claim, blow up the Ministry. Please, finish your vacations and have a nice year back in Hogwarts.
Kind regards,
Deputy Ministry Public Relations Officer,
Mariana Knowle"
"In other words, piss off…" Dreogan finished reading the letter, aloud.
"They have far more pressing concerns, I'm afraid", Charles had left the room, coming back with a copy of the Quibbler, Britain's alternative magical newspaper to the Daily Prophet.
"What could be more important?" Dreogan sat up straight, upsetting Emerick.
A Quibbler exclusive!
Ministry's Mass surveillance scheme revealed!
Ministry of Magic with aid from Muggle government officials have created a mass surveillance system of all of Britain's Wizards and Witches.
Dreogan kept reading the ten pages long article to its end going pale. "Oh…this is bad."
"It's the Quibbler, last week's exclusive was on extraterrestrial creatures sucking off human brain matter with magical means", Emerick tried to jest.
"If it's not rubbish, the Daily Prophet will have it by tomorrow", Claudia said, her eyes betraying her worried state.
"The muggles, as you call us, have been doing it for decades now. I don't see why the wizarding world wouldn't catch up, eventually", Peter shrugged.
"Geeze, thanks dad", Charles poked his tongue at his dad.
"One of my father's pretext for starting the whole affair with the Imperium Arcana, is that the Ministry is corrupt and turned vile against "us". If the Daily Prophet runs it, he'll have his proof as well."
"That's not, exactly, corruption though", Charles said, in a serious tone.
"He won't care, and neither will his supporters. It may very well be what he's been waiting for, to come out in the open", Dreogan said.
"So, you think he's instilling fear and gathering followers, while waiting for proof of his accusations so he can strike openly?" Peter asked, thoughtful.
"Yeah, something like that", Dreogan nodded.
"Are you all going to stand there and talk about something we can't do anything about, or do you want to stand up, and get ready to go to the Glastonbury festival?" Helen asked.
"The musical festival?" Emerick stood up, interest peaked.
"You are correct, and from what I've been reading there's a mount there with Arthur's tomb we can visit, as well", Helen replied.
"I wonder if his Goblet from Tintangel castle was buried with him", Charles said, also standing up.
Some three hours later Helen drove near the exit to Glastonbury.
"Turn! Turn the car around!" Dreogan, who sat in the front, yelled at her.
"What? Why? We are in the motorway I can't do th…", Explosions in the festival's tents in the near distance shot up in the sky, coming closer and closer to them. A red beam of light shot from above them caught a car two cars in front of them making it explode.
"Watch out!" Dreogan screamed as pieces shot all over the place. "PROTEGO!" He yelled at the last moment, fishing his wand from his pocket.
A wheel deflected off the protective charm.
Then the explosions went back the other way towards the tomb mount and the festival area.
Helen floored the breaks, turning the steering wheel to avoid the cars in front of her.
"What was that!" Charles yelled over the sounds of the brakes screeching, as a black cloud-like entity passed over them.
"Mummy, I'm scared!" William whined, ready to cry.
"That's what travel by apparition looks like. Muggles can't see it", Dreogan said, looking to his left and right.
"I can see it!" William and Alfred said simultaneously.
"Well, I can't see it!" Helen drove them to the exit.
"Mum, what are you doing! We don't want to go to Glastonbury anymore!" Charles yelled from the back seat.
Helen ignored him, taking the overpass instead, to the opposite direction and the way back to Cornwall. Just then another car exploded near them. "Well, I saw that!" She said, flooring the gas.
A man dissaperated behind them, standing in the middle of the motorway, looking at the speeding car.
Behind them white smoke streams appeared sending jets of light of their own at the dissaperated wizard, leading him away from the motorway.
"Aurors! Aurors from the Ministry!" Claudia yelled.
Hellen drove for a few meters more, before pulling over the hard shoulder lane.
With shaking hands, she got her mobile phone out and called Peter. His hologram appeared, ejecting out from the screen.
"My god Helen, are you okay? Are the kids okay? I just saw it on the news!"
"Y-y-yes…" She took a deep breath. "We are okay, everyone's okay. Please, please come."
"I'm already in the car, love. I'll fly there if I must. Hang tight, I'm coming. Keep talking to me, everything will be okay", He tried to sooth her as he drove to them. By the sounds coming from the background he must have been running as fast as his car would allow.
It took him less than two hours to get to them.
Ten hours later, after police and Auror interrogations, and the congestion in the motorway due to all the traffic alterations because of the attack in Glastonbury, they arrived home.
Peter had stuffed them all in his SUV and had had Helen's car towed. She had sat on the back, holding her youngest ones, as much to reassure them as her. Dreogan sat in front.
Peter parked in the garage, so the tow-car could leave Helen's car on the roadway.
"Charles, Emerick and Claudia take Alfred and William upstairs. Dreogan bring the stuff in from the car", Peter told them, getting Helen inside, under his embrace.
Dreogan brought in the various bags of stuff Helen had prepared for their time in Glastonbury for the day, leaving some in the corridor and others in the kitchen before he headed in the living room, timidly.
Peter and Helen sat on the sofa with Peter hugging her close, whispering in her ear.
They took notice of him as he entered.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you", Dreogan made to turn to leave the room.
"Why would your brother attack the festival?" Helen asked him, stopping him.
"Wasn't my brother. To learn to apparate and dissapparate one learns it from the Ministry and then passes a test, he hasn't. Also, assuming he has learned on his own, he still prefers to travel as a large black raven with white eyes. He's an animagus. No, that was my father", He looked away. "I'm sorry."
"You didn't attack us", Helen told him. "I saw both how you tried to protect us during the attack and how you tried to shield Alfred and William from it after, when the police and the Aurors…? Had come. You have empathy, which your father and brother lack. Do you know what that is?"
"I think so, it's being able to understand emotions?" Dreogan furrowed his brows, thinking.
Helen took a sip from her tea. "Being able to understand and share another's feelings. You are afraid you are like your family. Empathy and compassion is why that will never be true."
"How…?" Dreogan felt heavy-headed, how on Earth did she know his deepest fears.
"I might be scared out of my knickers, presently, but I'm still a psychologist, and a damn good one, if I might say so meself", She replied his partly-asked question with a faint self-assured smile.
"Muggle government just mobilized the army, to better deal with the ongoing threat of the attacks", Emerick entered the room, freshly showered and wearing his PJs. "It was just on the news feed."
"They're playing right into my dad's hands", Dreogan said, sad.
"Can't muggle weapons kill 'em?" Charles asked, his voice hopeful.
"They can, but they are easy to block or avoid", Just think how easy a first-year kid in Hogwarts just blocked debris from an exploded car. Now think a well-trained adult casting spells, hexes, jinxes, curses, counters…" Claudia said looking gloom. "Muggle soldiers don't even know to look for wizards or witches. What, exactly, do you want them to do against us?"
"Lovely", Charles retorted, less hopeful.
They are blaming it on terrorism, how unoriginal", Emerick commented. "They could come up with a better cover story!"
"Muggles have their agendas as well. I'm just glad you are all okay and safe. My heart nearly flew from my chest earlier when I heard the newsfeed."
"I don't think I've ever felt more scared or helpless before. All I could think of were my babies in the back of the car and getting them out of harm's way."
"It was all rather intense", Emerick affirmed.
"Rather intense?" Charles tried not to laugh. "You were screaming!"
"Was not!" Emerick tried to retain a serious composure.
"Give up, Emerick dear. It is normal to have been afraid under the circumstances", Helen tried to smile.
"Mum…are you okay?"
"Only a scare, sweetheart. I fear things might despair before improving, but always remember. There is dawn after a night's darkness, no matter how long it may last", Charles smiled.
"Well said. Now how about you lot go have a shower, wash off all that grime behind ears and belly buttons and then have some of that hot coco you like before going to sleep? Help you put behind this dreadful day?" Peter suggested.
Coming down from having showered, everyone except Emerick who had earlier, Dreogan walked to the table, across from the holo-curve tv in the living room. Helen watched the news in the BBC while Peter made them all their hot cocoa.
Just then she switched it to the Daily Seer, the Daily Prophet's tv channel. "…during the attack the Glastonbury tomb was desecrated and broken into…" Helen lowered the volume. Dreogan stopped dead on his tracks as a young adult male figure was shown transforming to a black raven, in front of the tomb. He had short black and white hair and stood tall with pale skin and purple lips.
"Azrail..", He whispered, barely audible, the hair on the back of his neck raised.
"That's your brother? Your hair looks similar, but he is…colder."
"He used father's attack to break into the tomb, typical Azrail."
"Look at those green eyes, they're vacant of any emotion or compassion", Helen wrapped herself, tighter, in her yellow silk blanket.
"Can't display what he does not possess", Dreogan lamented.
"You lived under the same roof with him?" Helen asked, realizing.
Dreogan nodded and walked away before she could ask him any more questions.
"You can take the girl out of the office, but not the therapist out of the girl."
"He's such a sweetheart", She said to them. "Did you read Charles' last letter before vacations? I replied well in that letter because of my job", She said with a faint smug smile.
"I did, and you did, and you love helping people and I've always loved that about you", He navigated the conversation with a smooth, self-confident manner.
"You've used the law to help people as well", She smiled.
"Even if you disagree with some of my cases?" The ball was on her court, now.
"Were we to agree on everything, it'd be a most boring affair. We agree where it matters."
"Black", Peter said.
"White", She replied.
"Grey!" They said together.
"I can't believe how fast time flies, it seems only yesterday Charles and Dreogan came back from school for the summer vacations, and in a week, they're going back again", Helen said, standing up.
"Had you told me two years prior that not only magic existed but there are schools for it, and my sons would be going to them, I'd be questioning your sanity!" Peter said with a chuckle.
"Then Charles' Hogwarts letter arrived and considering how both William and Alfred could see things I couldn't, today, I don't think it'll be the only one, Helen said.
"Charles looks more than happy in Hogwarts, I'm sure his brothers will like it as well."
"Cillian and Azrail scare me", Helen walked up the stairs with Peter.
"They're not in my Christmas list that's for sure", Peter said. "Both our worlds have their lunatics and their fanatics."
"I'm exhausted, I'm going to turn in."
"I'll follow you in a bit", Peter gave her a kiss.
7