Disclaimer: Santa didn't bring me the HP cast this year, so I don't own.
It was morning when Marron finally reached the Malfoy home. The house was big, but nowhere near the size of the Manor, where Nana Narcissa still lived. The brown owl stopped at the kitchen window, where it began to peck at the glass.
"Gin, we've got an owl," Draco said as he let the bird in.
Marron flew to the table, where he landed on the back of a chair. Ginny stroked the brown plumage gently as she untied the letter. Offering the owl a bit of toast, which it took with a pleased hoot, the redhead opened the letter.
Dear Mum,
Please send my red jumper. I forgot it and it's beginning to get chilly. I'm fine, well as fine as one can be with what has happened recently. Classes are good and the Ravenclaws are only trying to study me a little bit. According to Becca, fourth year and up are having a ball near Christmas; I plan on looking at dresses at the next Hogsmeade weekend. Bryan is trying out for the Slytherin team tomorrow. I hope he makes it. Becca and Connor say hello, and Becca wants to know if you could send her some of your homemade chocolate biscuits. She would prefer them slightly stale, which I think is a bit mad.
Love,
Alison
"She didn't mention me once," Draco says from where he was reading over his wife's shoulder, "She hates me, doesn't she?"
"Of course not," Ginny says hugging the man tightly, "Look how messy the handwriting is, the letter had to be written in a rush."
Draco nods and hugs back. That had to be the reason; Alison was still his little girl, even if her face had changed a bit. The blonde quickly summons the jumper and ties it with twine. "Take this with you please," Draco asks the owl, "I'd hate for her to catch cold."
Marron hoots in agreement, and prepares to take off when Ginny stops him to attach a quickly scribbled note. With one glance to make sure that he will not be stopped again, Marron leaves.
The sad truth is Ginny wrote her response it a matter on minutes, Alison had wrote and rewrote the letter three times before she decided it good enough to send.
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Rain had forced Marron to take shelter for two nights, so it wasn't until Sunday afternoon that Alison finally received a response. By that time she had borrowed one of Becca's jumpers. It was an old grey one that was long in the sleeves and didn't flatter her figure at all, but Alison was desperate.
When she heard Connor call, 'Marron is back!' she raced down the stairs almost crying with joy. She quickly spotted Connor and Becca sitting together on one of the sofas, a package in-between them. Alison dived over the back the couch and landed in Connor's lap. "Gimme," She said, grabbing the package and tearing it open.
The red sweater fell out, slightly damp and smelling of home. The dark haired girl hugged it. "It smells like wet dog," Becca says, holding her nose.
"Shut up. It's better than this ugly thing," Alison glares and tosses the grey pullover at the girl; it smacks her in the face.
"Oh ha ha," Becca rolls her eyes, "Now get off Conner, I think he's dying."
Alison crawls off the boy and into the chair next to him. "Sorry mate," She apologizes and slips on the red jumper.
Connor glares and Becca jabs him in the face with her foot. "What is this? Let's Abuse Connor Day?" He asks.
"Of course not silly," Becca answers, "That's on the twenty-seventh. Today we plan."
Her friends stare back at her, confused. Marron had long since flown out the still open window. Finally Alison spoke, "Why are we planning?"
"You two can't be that thick," Becca groaned, silence reigned proving that yes the two could be that thick, "The ball! We need to decide what time will leave for it, who were going with, what we'll wear!"
"Has she gone mad?" Connor asked Alison quietly.
"I do think so," The green-eyed girl thought for a moment, the said, "Shall we go to the kitchens for some cocoa?"
DdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDdDd
"Bit early to be studying for exams, isn't it sis?"
Alison looked up from where she was carefully taking notes from a book; Bryan was standing next to her table, an amused smile playing across his face. His cheeks were tinted a pale pink and he seemed to be short of breath, as if he had run all the way to the library.
"Not exams. I researching Dad," Alison yawned and stretched.
"Couldn't you just owl him asking for the information you needed?"
"I meant my dad," Mumbled the dark haired girl.
There was a short pause, and then Alison asked, "Why are you up in the library?"
"To find you," Bryan replied tentatively and adds in one breath, "I'vemadetheteam."
Alison blinks, "Run that by me one more time."
"I made Seeker. My first game will be against Gryffindor, try not to bloody me up too badly." Bryan grins at his older sister, who has jumped out of her chair and is embracing him fiercely.
"Brilliant! You've got to send out owls! Mum will be so pleased she played reserve Seeker. I think in her fourth year. I knew you'd make it squirt-"
"Dad." Bryan's voice was muffled by Alison's arm.
Releasing him, the Gryffindor said, "What?"
"Dad, he played Seeker since his second year, but you've seemed to have forgotten that," The boy turned away from his sister, "I think I will send an owl. My dad will want to know I made the team."
"That stupid brat!" Snarled Alison as she snatched up her books and stomped back to Gryffindor tower.
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"This is the stupidest thing I ever heard of," Complained Becca as she grabbed the Marauder's Map, a Christmas gift from her father.
"No one is making you come," Snapped Alison, "I can make it to the loo by myself. I don't need the Map."
"Calm down, I'm just saying trying to get Moaning Myrtle to tell you about Harry Potter is not on the top of things to do on a Friday night list," Becca said.
"Shame it's Wednesday," Connor replied, jogging slightly to catch up to his friends.
"You can't come with," Alison tells him as they step through the portrait hole.
"Why?" Connor grins, "Are the little girlies sneaking into Hogsmeade to get me Christmas gift? Or are they off to be naughty?"
"Get your mind out of the gutter, twat," Becca says, playfully shoving the boy into the wall, "We're off to talk to a little dead girl who haunts a U-bend."
Connor blinks, "That sounds less naughty and more…morbid."
"Indeed it is," Alison replies cheerily, "'Sides Myrtle lives in a girl's loo. You'll get in terrible trouble if someone sees you coming out."
"Ah well," Connor shrugs, "What's life without a little adventure, lassies?"
It is a true sign of Connor's loyalty, Alison decides, that he is willing to face a ghost who chooses to live in a toilet, a girl's toilet at that. She will have to make him some type of medal of courage. It shall be scarlet and gold, in honour of Gryffindor, the supposedly bravest house of all.
The steps under her feet disappear, Alison has forgotten to jump the trick stair, "Damn it," She swears as she is swallowed up to her thighs, "Well don't just stand there like idiots, help me out!"
Connor and Becca hadn't missed the step and are failing in an attempt not to laugh out loud at their fallen comrade. They can't help it the picture is funny. Alison, who was what Nana called 'vertically challenged', was glaring at her friends knees and she couldn't look up, because Becca hadn't changed out of her uniform and it would lead to an extremely awkward moment.
Finally, Becca offers a hand and is shocked when it is not bitten off. Instead, Alison latches onto it like a drowning woman to a life ring. There is a squeak and gravity decides to be a son of a hippogriff and makes Becca fall on her friend. While Alison doesn't sink father, she gives a horrified half-shriek and only makes Connor laugh harder. Becca has slipped down a few stairs; the redhead has hit another sinking stair.
Connor finds this positively hilarious. Both girls swear at him, but Becca gives an example of her French, "Le condamnez! Nous aider hors vous le bâtard!"
"Surely you didn't learn that in my French class, Becca?" Professor Lupin gives a wry smile and offers Becca, who is blushing and stuttering, a hand up, "Now seeing as you were using inappropriate language I'll have to deduct five points each, however, Becca, since you obviously did your own research to learn the phrases you chose and you are pronouncing them all correctly I think ten points is in order, no?"
Becca, who was too shocked to speak, nodded. Professor Lupin smiled warmly, "No harm done then. Connor kindly help Alison out of the staircase and you three can be on your way. Careful though, Peeves is hiding in a suit of armour near the library. I think he's planning on emptying ink bottles on the next students heads."
The grey haired man side-stepped around Connor, who was pulling Alison out, almost not hearing his three students breathe, "He is the most brilliant teacher ever."
It was moments like that he would use to encourage himself not to beat his head repeatedly on his desk when all his classes seemed hopeless.
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The trio decided that fate was obviously against them, so they decided to give up on the plan to visit Myrtle, for tonight at least. All three had a painfully long essay due in Transfiguration on Friday, but they decided that a nice stress relieving game of Exploding Snape was just what the Healer ordered.
After she received a rather painful burn to her ear, Alison announced, "I like my body parts where they are and will read happily while you two reduce yourselves to piles of ashes."
"Yes," Becca winced as a card exploded in her hand, "And I'll laugh when you inhale too much book dust and have an allergy attack so violent your nose will shoot off and Bryan will have to use his Seeking skills to find it."
"Pah," Alison flopped onto the floor, since no couches were available, "Bryan is a terrible brat. Let's talk about something else."
Connor raised his eyebrows, "The Malfoy siblings feuding? Must be the end of the world as we know it."
Rolling her eyes, Becca asked, "What did he do?"
"He said something horrid to me. End of story. Change of topic," Alison said forcefully and returned to her book.
Connor and Becca exchanged a worried glance at their friend's expense, but it didn't last more then a moment, because from behind her book Alison had jinxed all the cards to all explode in a great fiery blast. Everyone in the common jumps slightly at the blast. When the smoke clears, the two sixth years are covered in soot.
"I'm off to bed," Alison yawns and pinches out the small flame that was burning in Connor's hair, " 'Night all."
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Midnight, the sky was dark and the occasional owl hoot filled the air. Restlessness had taken hold of Alison hours ago, flipping over she sighed and sat up. From her basket Nassau hissed, "Where are you going Greeneyes?"
"Just a quick walk. Don't worry," Alison pulled on her trainers and tiptoed to the door.
No late night crammers haunted the common room, so Alison slipped out unnoticed. The Fat Lady didn't even stir when her portrait was carefully closed. She wandered around for a few moments, and then decided to return to the dorms. Unbeknownst to her, the stairs had shifted when she had stopped to study a portrait of a sleeping baby; it had looked strangely familiar to her mother's baby pictures.
Following the path that would usually lead her back to her dormitory, Alison instead found herself outside a wooden door. "Curious," Alison whispered to herself, "I don't remember this."
The little voice that always told her to do the right thing, and sounded disturbingly like Uncle Percy, was screaming, 'Don't go in there! It's bad enough you're out after curfew, but sneaking into rooms! What would you mother say?'
This voice however was quickly drowned out by the sound of her own curiosity pounding like a drum. Open it. Open it. Open it. Alison gave in and slowly turned the handle on the door, which she identified as mahogany. The room was small, holding only one window and a mirror. There is an inscription across the top, in a language she can't read and as if pulled by invisible strings, Alison walks foreword and raises her hand to trace the letters with soft fingertips.
But, she stops, hand still outstretched. Alison stares at her reflection, she is not shocked by her own appearance, though it is what she calls her 'new body'. Same black hair that is slowly becoming more hopeless to get a comb through. Green eyes that are sparkling happily. But the mouth is a warm smile, not open with the clichéd 'o' of surprise and her arm is at her side. Slowly a figure materializes on her side, a man, tall and wearing glasses. She recognizes him instantly. Harry Potter.
He has a fatherly type of handsomeness about him. He is talking and Alison struggles to read his lips. Watch. The girl obeys and suddenly two more appear. Another man resembling Harry, only with hazel brown eyes and a woman who's hair is a coppery red. With a small gasp, Alison notices that their eyes are the same. They must be related to Harry. Related to her.
Somewhere a clock chimes, signalling that Alison has been out for an hour. It is one o clock. Regretfully, Alison tears herself from the mirror, but vows to return. She slips out the door and tries her best to remember the path she took in the first place. After a while Alison finds herself in front of the Fat Lady, who is not pleased to be awoken.
In the afternoon Alison will be in the library again, pouring over books and taking notes. She knows somewhere in the library there is something that can point her inn the right direction. She will owl as many people as possible and set up interviews. She plans to ask the villagers of Hogsmeade if they remember a boy who once walked down the streets and visited their shops.
It had started as a curiosity of what type of a person her birth father was. Quickly it turned into an obsession of who she was. Where everything she knew about the Malfoy family history has resided for sixteen years in her mind there is now a strange empty feeling circulating around a new surname, Potter. The empty feeling quickly turned into an ache, like hunger, only it lived in her mind and heart instead of stomach and couldn't be satisfied so easily.
What Alison saw in the mirror only increases the longing for knowledge and makes the empty feeling seem vast, but for now she will sleep. Perhaps dreams can fill the emptiness, if only for a little while.
A/N: WTF? An update in less then a week? It must be a post-holiday miracle! Anyway since I know it will be asked, Becca's phrase is very roughly translated to: 'Damn it! Help us you bastard!' I mean it when I say roughly; I can't speak French if my life depended on it. So I hope it never does.
jimmy-love-hermione: Bob is a name the evokes universal happiness. In my opinion anyway. :gives out smore:
Nymphadora: It's not James or a love interest, but that's all I can say. :gives out smore:
rasberitwist: The Ravenclaw, they entertain me. Glad I'm not alone in that. :gives out smore:
Sailor Stella: I wish I could say, but I can't. My cat says it's top-secret information. Sorry. :gives out smore: