Gemma

The Moors

"You are over an hour late," she said pulling the door open and fixing her wayward brother with her best glare.

"That's what I need to talk to you about," he replied, calmly walking into the room.

"I really hope you're not planning on making a bunch of excuses, I'm not in the mood to hear them, it hasn't been the best day and I can't promise I'll stay civil if you do. There are very few rules I expect you to follow and if you have such a hard time keeping to them…" she didn't finish her thought, purposely leaving it open ended.

"No excuses, I promise. Although nine is a bit early don't you think? I am almost sixteen after all," he said flashing a bright smile, the kind he used when he charms people into giving him what he wants. Good thing older sisters were immune to the charms of little brothers. If she wasn't he would have the run of the house.

"Wipe that smile off your face, you little prat. My house my rules, we've been over this more than once. If you don't like it, you can always go back to living with that wonderful mother of yours," she retorted. The words wonderful mother so heavy with sarcasm it sounded like a curse.

"She's your wonderful mother as well."

"Eh, semantics," she shot back waving his comment off. "I stopped claiming her years ago."

"Right… well listen, I didn't come to argue I came to talk to you about something that happened tonight… Hey, is that Church? I didn't know he could float."

She followed his gaze and indeed it did look as if Churchill was floating in the air. The Puffskein had made his way to the invisible Harry Potters lap. The last thing she wanted was for her brother to investigate the floating fur ball and find Potter sitting in the room. Her brother didn't yet know of her association with the Order of the Phoenix, and she wasn't sure she was ready to tell him. When she did finally tell him she wanted it to be less shocking than; 'oh hello, yes that's Harry Potter in our house. Just so you know I'm a member of a secret organisation run by Dumbledore behind the Ministry's back, whose mission is to bring down the Dark Lord and his followers. By the way I suppose I'm a blood traitor now.' She knew that he wanted nothing to do with the Dark Lord or being a Death Eater, but he'd been raised with the pure-blood ideals, and she wasn't quite sure he'd completely learned to form his own opinions yet. So she went with distraction.

"I got you something tonight," she picked up the animal carrier and handed it to him. "Her name is Baset, after the feline goddess of ancient Egypt. She half Kneazle I thought you'd like her. If not, I'm sure she'd be happy to stick around and help us with the gnome problem in the back garden."

"Well thanks I guess… she is sort of cute I suppose. When did you get her? And why is Church floating? Wasn't that where the yellow chair goes?"

Damn his over observant personality, he notices everything and he's impossible to distract. "I moved the chair to my bedroom, I've been thinking about rearranging the furniture in here and I've never seen Churchill float either. I stopped and got Baset this evening on after I left the Ministry."

"What else did you do tonight? Because, no offence sis, you look like shite," he said looking her up and down.

"We'll get to that in a bit. First you're going to tell me why you were so late, and it better be good or you just might spend the remainder of the summer restricted to the house," she said directing him to sit on the settee across from her.

"There was a bit of a problem and Draco went into full meltdown mode tonight, I couldn't leave until I was sure that he was calmed down. What kind of best friend would I been if I left when he needed me?"

"What kind of meltdown? Are we talking first year Harry Potter got on the quidditch team meltdown or third year Granger punched him in the face meltdown?" she asked, knowing just how volatile Draco's moods could be.

"Worse," he answered.

"Worse?" she gasped, "what happened?"

"Well the Dark Lord came by the Manor tonight…" he started.

"WHAT?" she shouted in shock, cutting him off, "Tell me everything."

So he did, he told her about the Dark Lord's visit as they were flying, about the fight between the two older Malfoy's, about the talk with the house-elf, and about Draco's breakdown. When he was finished they sat in silence, she was stunned to say the least and he was waiting for her to say something. When she finally spoke her words sounded much harsher than she'd intended.

"Well first things first, you are no longer allowed to visit Malfoy Manor unless I am with you. Not if the Dark Lord just shows up unexpectedly, in fact I will be having words with Lucius about this. I will not stand for something like that happening again. If he wants to expose his son to that monster that is his choice, however misguided and appalling it is, but he has no right to expose you to that sort of danger. The last thing I want is for that psychopath to take notice of you, and Lucius Malfoy knows it. At least Narcissa seems to have kept some sense. I always thought she was too blinded by her love for that man to see his faults; thankfully it appears I was wrong. Good for her I say, and I hope for his sake he takes her threats seriously."

"You really think she'd kill him?" he asked more than slightly startled at the confidence her statement held.

"For her son? There's no doubt in my mind," she said with a nod and a heavy silence hung in the air as she rubbed her index finger over her bottom lip, something she did involuntarily when she was thinking. Tonight had not been a very good one, exciting obviously, but in terms of what made an enjoyable evening in her mind; peaceful, pleasant, safe, and perhaps exciting in a positive way, the events of this evening had been decidedly not enjoyable. She'd already begun to puzzle out how she way going to deal with the ministry and the dementor incident, but dealing with Lucius Malfoy was going to prove a challenge. Her words would have to be carefully chosen and threats would do absolutely no good. Lucius was a formidable opponent in any given situation, a dangerous one if wands were involved, and anyone who ventured onto his bad side should treat him with a measureable amount of caution if not outright fear. Well, that's to say if they are smart enough to realise whom they are dealing with in the first place. All of that aside, she has no particular reason to fear Lucius Malfoy, and it was her profound hope to keep things that way. Normally she would approach Narcissa with this, confident that the Malfoy matriarch would deal with her fussy husband. At the present though, that would be less than effective, as she would hazard a guess that they are not currently on speaking terms. So she was back to the thoughts of choosing her words with the utmost care. This was one of the times when she found herself profoundly envying her younger brother's natural ability to say exactly the right thing precisely when it needed to be said. This was just what she needed on top of the Dementors.

"Now that that's out of the way, tell me about your night," her brother queried, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"Well I've nearly finished the first part of my internship at the Ministry and now I will need a mastery to continue and that will take at least two or three more years," she started.

"Well, that should be easy enough, you're great with charms. Just go for a charms mastery," he interrupted raising an eyebrow at her.

"That would be the easiest course yes. Unfortunately it's not that simple, it seems quite a few people in my chosen field already hold a charms mastery. I was given a choice between potions and transfiguration," she replied, rather glumly.

"Right, but you have NEWT's in both subjects, and you're smart. So I fail to see the problem."

"It's not an easy process, trust me it makes the NEWT's look like a child's game. It requires working with a master of the subject, a dissertation, field studies and the creation of something new, like a spell or potion," she shook her head. "Of the two potions is my best subject. I'm decent with transfiguration, somehow I managed to scrape by with an E on my NEWT whereas I got an O on for potions, but I'm not particularly strong in transfiguration. I know enough and have enough skill in the subject to get by just fine for the rest of my life, but by no means do I have the talent required for a mastery in the skill. And potions are just so messy and foul, you know it was never a favourite of mine."

"How long did they give you to decide?" he asked.

"Three days," she answered.

"That's it? That seems ridiculously short. Three days to make the decision that will probably set the course for the rest of your adult life… right – that seems fair,"

"I know… but, that's not even the most interesting part of the night."

An owl flew in the window effectively cutting her off. It landed on the sideboard, and did not want to give her the letter, pulling away from her and nipping at her hands. She assumed that this meant it was for Potter and her assumption proved correct when she saw the name on the parchment. She debated over reading it or not, it wasn't addressed to her after all, but decided on reading it. Her brother would notice if she didn't, and was bound to question her on it. Nothing got past him and they shared everything, so he would wonder if she suddenly started acting secretive.

"What's the letter say?" he questioned just as she'd finished reading and slipped it in her pocket returning to her seat.

"There is a Ministry hearing on the 12th and I will need to be there as a witness. They are trying to expel Harry Potter," she emphasised the word trying in hope that Potter would understand, that somehow Dumbledore had talked the Ministry down and they reversed their initial decision to expel him straight away.

"So what's that got to do with you?"

"I was just getting to that when the owl came. After I left the Ministry today I went to meet Mrs Arabella Figg, a squib who lives in Surrey, about the kitten. We happened upon a few Dementors who decided our happiness and souls we too good to pass up."

"What the fuck were Dementors doing in Surrey?" he asked.

"Language!" she admonished. "Although, that was pretty much my first thought upon seeing them as well."

"What's Potter got to do with any of this?" he questioned clearly confused.

"Well my dear little brother, I owe the fact that I've still got a soul to Potter. Turns out that he lives in the area, and he hadn't been there… well you can imagine."

"So you owe Potter…" he started.

"A life debt, yes I believe I do. The Ministry is trying to charge him with a breach of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and expel him from Hogwarts. Since he saved my life I can't let that happen."

"No, I guess you can't, that would be bad form wouldn't it. You've got to figure out what the Dementors were doing in Surrey to begin with. Do you think that the Dark Lord did it? You say Potter lives in the area, maybe he knows and that's why the Dementors were there," he said looking very serious.

"Yes it would be terrible form," she replied. "But no, I don't think this was the Dark Lord at all. The Ministry still has control of the Dementors, if that had changed I would have heard about it at work. I think this was someone else, I don't know who would be foolish enough to set Dementors free in a Muggle neighbourhood, but I mean to find out."

He nodded in agreement but he was clearly thinking hard. After another long silence she decided it was time for him to call it a night.

"Listen it's late, go get some sleep now and we'll talk more about this in the morning."

He didn't argue like she expected, instead he nodded his head, got his feet, told her good night, and headed for his own bedroom. She waited until she was sure he was out of hearing distance before she turned to face the invisible chair and the seemingly floating Puffskein.

"You can come out, Potter. I expect you have even more questions now. Give me a few moments to take care of a couple things then we'll talk."