Chapter 11
A red-haired, green-eyed woman stalked through the hallways of Calvin Klein's New York office, eyes flashing in fury and everyone who noticed her ducked into another room to avoid the anger that was emanating off her. "Rose," a blonde woman that ran up behind her yells to get her attention and the redhead stopped, turning to look at the woman who slid to a stop just in front of her. "I found your concept sketches. Now there's no need for you to go start a fight with Olivia because she didn't take your sketches, I just misplaced them."
Rose stared at the blonde a moment before running a hand over her face. "Really Sara, I'm starting to believe you'd misplace your head if it wasn't attached," she breathes closing her eyes and running a hand through her hair. "Let's go back to my office and get some work done."
Sara nodded, grey eyes apologetic as the two of them turned and headed back down the hallway to a door with 'Rose Mills' written on a plaque on the door. "My son, Olliver, is obsessed with the new GI Joes and seems to want everyone of them for Christmas," Sara murmurs taking the seat across from Rose as the redhead sat behind her desk.
"Didn't you buy him three of them for his birthday a couple of months ago?" Rose asks grabbing the sketchbook Sara held out to her and opening it up to an empty page.
Sara laughed and nodded, playing with a ring of different cloth swatches as she went over the sketches Rose had decided to run by the rest of the designers at the meeting next week. "Apparently, they've created several new ones and Oliver wants all of them," Sara chuckles playing with a square of crimson cloth and a square of gold. "What do you think of these two for the test shirts?" Rose looked up from her sketching to see what Sara was talking about and she just stared at the two squares of cloth with a far away look in her green eyes.
A ratty, tattered old hat on a stool began singing as a small, red-haired, green-eyed girl surrounded by several other children around the same age stood in a huddle, watching it. A severe-looking older woman stepped up next to the stool as the hat stopped singing and unrolled a piece of parchment. "When I call your name, I need you to come up here and I will place the Sorting Hat on your head," she says and the red-haired girl child looked around her at the other children. "It will sort you into Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin." The little girl watched as children were called up, the hat placed on their heads and the hat shouted which Hogwarts House they now belonged to. She wasn't really paying any attention to where they were going as she waited for her own name to be called. "Lily Evans," the older woman calls out and the little girl stepped forward, slowly moving towards the stool.
Sitting on the stool, she took a quick breath as the woman placed the hat on her head. 'Frightened are we?' the hat asks inside her mind. 'Yes, very frightened, yet you still came up and that took courage but let's see what else is up here.' The hat went quiet and the little girl began to silently freak out. "Gryffindor," the hat shouted and Lily waited for the woman to lift the hat off her head before walking quickly towards a table flooded with the colors red and gold.
"Rose, hey Rose," Sara's voice floats to her like a fog as the woman snaps her fingers in front of her face. The blonde woman gives a sigh of relief when her best friend comes out of wherever she'd been. "You okay, Rose?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Rose murmurs giving Sara a small smile as she ran a hand through her hair and decided to put the weird flash of thought out of her mind.
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In the empty Headmaster's office at Hogwarts a small tendril of white light began swirling in the center of the crystal lily on the shelf between the stag and dragon figurines. The light wasn't bright enough to be noticeable to anyone who wasn't concentrating on the figurine.
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Remus looked around himself, seeing the disastrous state of his mind and sighed, not knowing how he was going to be able to fix this. He didn't seem to notice the grey, smokey form AJ took inside his mind and she cocked her head to the side. The man looked like he wanted to just give up and as she caught flashes of the memories surrounding him, she understood. He thought he'd ruined his life, ruined everything good in it anyway and she made her way over to him, making a little noise so he heard her coming. As she approached, Remus looked over his shoulder and stared at her, amber eyes confused. "Who are you?" he asks and she suddenly stopped when a large, brown wolf materialized from the shadows a little away from him.
"Aurora Snape-Black," she answers moving her hands out from her sides, fingers splayed to show that she wasn't a danger as the wolf came closer to her.
Remus laughed, amber eyes glittering cruelly before he went quiet again. "Severus and Sirius' daughter died when she was two, a month before James and Lily were killed," he growls amber eyes pinned on her. "Try again."
AJ flinched when the wolf snarled, baring it's fangs and she closed her eyes, taking a deep, calming breath. "I'm telling the truth," she breathes putting her hands out on either side of her head, "Unca Oony."
She watched as his face went blank and the wolf disappeared, fading back into the shadows as he stared at her. "How..." he begins and she shakes her head.
"Long story, you'll have to wake up first," she says moving forward with her hand held out to help him stand up. "And to do that, we need to fix this mess."
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A tired-looking man in a coffee-stained, rumpled white shirt sat at a desk going over paperwork by the bright light coming in through the uncovered window behind him. "Bollocks," he growls putting down the report he was reading and stood from his seat, walking out of his office. Knocking on the chief's office door and sticking his head in when she said to. "I'm going to need all of the files on those mystery murders, Boss," he says and the woman raised an eyebrow before nodding. "I'm also going to get lunch so if anyone comes looking for me, tell them I'll be back in forty minutes."
"Of course, Detective Aimes, just be back in forty minutes," she murmurs turning her attention back to the files open on her desk as the man backed out of the office, closing the door.
Heading out of the police station, he glanced towards Big Ben for just a moment before turning away and walking down the sidewalk. Stopping in for fish and chips to go at one of his favorite pubs before heading back the way, he'd come but going to a small park a little away from the station. He sat down on one of the benches to eat and watched the ebb and flow of the people around him. A woman with bright auburn hair passed the bench where he was sitting and there was a sudden flash of something that felt like a memory.
Laughter floated through the air as a girl with auburn hair tossed her head back, laughing at something one of the two boys sitting with her said and he felt a sudden stab of jealousy. "Don't worry about it, James," a boy with wavy, black hair and grey eyes says from beside him. "Lily will come around eventually." He felt himself nod before his gaze shifted back to the girl and her two friends.
Coming back to himself, he shook his head and finished his meal before heading back to work, to caught up in thoughts about the case he was working on to pay much attention to the vision. Detective Aimes tossed the trash from his meal into a nearby trashcan and pulled the coat he'd thrown on over his shirt to hide the coffee stain closer around him as a sudden, cold breeze blew passed. When he finally got back to the station, he grabbed the stack of files sitting in the cubby outside his office before heading in and closing the door behing him, all thoughts of the weird vision forgotten for now.
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AJ was riding down to her vault in one of the mine carts, ignoring the small ache that seemed to be centered in the middle of her forehead and leaned back in the seat. Stepping out of the cart the moment that it stopped moving, she headed into the vault, patting Xaddus between his ears as she passed and paused just inside the doorway. The girls were near the case off to the left and AJ had the distinct impression that they were reluctant to touch anything, for reasons unknown. "You girls doing okay?" she asks feeling the ache in her head ease up a little bit and was surprised when the three of them ran over to her, asking what seemed like a million questions. "He's fine, actually did most of the work himself." That was in answer to Isadora's very loud and shrill question about how her bearer was doing, which caused all three of the other girls to flinch a little at the sound.
"How did your meeting with Tom go?" Hermione asks as AJ led them back over to the case they'd been standing by when she'd entered the vault.
"Fine," she answers running a hand over the selection of jewelry, looking for a set that would match with her dress for the Yule Ball, "Not as bad as I thought it would've been, actually."
The girls finally joined her in looking for accessories that would go with their dresses, Isadora just looking around as they hadn't gone to get her a dress yet and she wandered over to the bookcase. "And the bands around your neck?" Luna asks which caused Hermione to laugh quietly as she lifted a small, pale-colored, teardrop amethyst in a silver setting up to let the light touch it. AJ couldn't help the small flush that crept across her face and Luna let out a small chuckle that had the older teen giving her a mock glare. "Did someone find their last mate?"
"Yes, I did," she murmurs staring at the small elf for a couple of moments. "As you've known since I walked into the Med-Ward an hour ago."
"Just wanted to hear it from you," Luna says quietly as she turns her pale gaze back to the jewelry, looking for anything that would match the white dress she'd be wearing to the Yule Ball. "It feels like invasion of privacy to know things I'm not supposed to about my friends."
AJ grasped her hand when she went to touch a necklace and earring that had shiny, white stones in pale silver settings. "Careful, those are Moonstones," she says when Luna glanced to see why she'd stopped her and the younger teen's eyes widened before she immediately retracted her hand.
"What's wrong with them?" Hermione asks with a concerned frown appearing on her lips as she set the amethyst she'd been looking at down next to the matching earrings.
Luna gave a small shrug before reaching out and placing a single finger on one of the Moonstones in the necklace. The moment her skin touched the stone, it began to give off a small amount of light, like moonlight through clouds and she moved her finger away again, watching as the glow faded. "Moonstones glow when they come into contact with Moon Elves," she answers moving onto a pearl jewelry set. "They also increase the Elves abilities. Though, I'm sure AJ only stopped and warned me because wearing them would cause them to glow, which would announce to anyone who knew what that meant that I'm a Moon Elf."
"Blowing your cover with Dumbledore," Hermione mutters with a sour look on her face as she thought of the bastard old man. "How's that situation been going, by the way?"
This question was directed at AJ who gave her a grimace as she moved onto another case. "Slowly," she answers as she traced her fingers over a necklace made of black metal with dark, almost black, amethysts of all different sizes set into it. "The Goblins fear that if they try to move it along faster, they could miss something or he could figure out what we're doing and destroy anything they haven't found yet."
"And that would suck," Luna breathes as she tried on the pearl set she'd been looking over and checking how it looked in the mirror between the two cases the three of them were looking through. "What do you think?"
Both of the older girls looked her over and pictured her wearing them with the dress she'd picked. "Maybe the pink pearl set in the case AJ's looking through, they'll pop with your complexion and all the white you'll be wearing," Hermione suggests and AJ nodded as Luna shrugged, removing the set she had on, placing them back in the box they'd been in inside the case.
AJ picked up the box with the set Hermione had suggested and handed it to Luna, who decided to try them. "This set has a comb and bracelet, not just the earrings and necklace," the pale-haired teen says when she went to lift the necklace out and the velvet underneath it lifted up to reveal the last two pieces of the set beneath.
The eldest shrugged before moving over to her and began messing with her hair, putting it up into what seemed like a complicated updo. Which was only made even more complicated by the amount of hair Luna had before securing it with the comb and stepping back, examining her handiwork. "It suits her," Hermione breathes from where she'd been watching AJ do Luna's hair and AJ nodded before helping her get the bracelet on.
"It does," one of the portraits along the wall behind them says and AJ turned on her heel, looking at the painting that spoke. "They suit the young Elf very well, Aurora."
AJ stared at the white hair and eyed woman sitting in a chair in front of a window that showed a winter's storm outside it's panes. "Thank you, that means much coming from you, Emirra," she says with a slight bow of her head.
One of the portrait's brows rose as the woman tried to discern whether or not her descendant meant it or if she was being sarcastic. "Twelve centuries and you're the first of my descendants I'm unable to read like a book," she murmurs as she stood from her chair and walked nearer to them. "It's actually quite refreshing except for the fact that I know you have the habit of being a smart ass."
The teen felt a smirk pull at her lips before she let out a quiet chuckle. "I actually meant that, after all, the jewelry set she's wearing was yours," she says and Emirra gave a light laugh.
"Yes, well, Winter Demons were never one of the most colorful races," the portrait snickers as she gave a twirl before heading back to her seat, "in fact, most of them look exactly like me." Shaking her head, AJ glanced at Luna to see her staring at the portrait in curiosity as she played with the bracelet aroun her wrist. "Feel free to keep that jewelry set, little one, none of my descendants have the right complexion for it."
Luna's eyes widened at that before she glanced at AJ who shrugged, knowing that it was most definitely true. After all, everyone of Emirra's children had taken after her mate, as did all of her descendants. "She's right," AJ murmurs which caused the woman in the portrait to laugh and she glanced around to check if Emirra's husband was in his frame, huffing when she realized it was empty. "The Sinclair's take after her husband and most of us have never been born with her coloring since her, even Narcis and he was the palest of her descendants."
"Who exactly is she?" Hermione asks watching the painting with same curious look that Luna had been giving her.
Emirra obviously thought that question was a hoot as her laughter increased in volume and AJ rolled her eyes before grabbing both the other girls by the hands. She lead them all the way to the back of the vault, Isadora following behind them curiously and released their hands as she came to a stop in front of the Family Tapestry. "Up at the top, where the first two lines meet," she breathes pointing up near the ceiling. "Their name's and everything aren't in English but her image is hard to miss." Hermione and Luna looked up at where she was pointing, noticing a small portrait of Emirra watching them from beside an imperious man with emerald green eyes and blood-red hair. Their portraits were linked together by golden thread, a symbol that they'd been the first of their line and had cut all ties with their families. "Vlaudin was a Human Wizard whose family didn't approve of him marrying a Demon and disowned him, severing every tie he had to them, which is why his family doesn't appear on the tapestry. Emirra was the third-born daughter of the Ice King, who also didn't approve of her choice in husband and disowned her, as well."
The two of them found the image of AJ and traced the line connecting her to the rest of the family all the way up to the eldest of Emirra and Vlaudin's four girls. "You're the descendant of their eldest, Harry's from their third and so are the twins, what happened to the descendants of their second and fourth daughters?" Luna asks and AJ scanned the tapestry for a moment, not bothering to answer when she cursed softly under her breath, answering her own question.
"They were killed off," Hermione breathes looking back at AJ like she was looking for confirmation and she nodded. "By who?"
"Doesn't matter," she murmurs before taking Isadora's hand when the little one held it out to her and heading back towards the front of the vault, feeling the other two following.
"But you know, don't you?" Luna asks and AJ nods, snapping the case with the dark metalled, amethyst jewelry set in it and putting it into her pocket. As she quickly scanned the rest of the jewelry for something simple for Isadora to wear, she gave the Demon's Eye necklace a glare before looking away from it with a growl.
