Alternate Endings
Chapter Jump 1.5
Letting go of the Shadows and the Past
By: Deep Shadows (With Commentary and help from MotherofTheHorde and Autumnwings)

She's gone… She's really not coming back… Selena mused, sitting in the living room of the house she grew up in, looking at the portrait above the fireplace. It was crowded once, so crowded that Selena's mother, Artimis, had ordered before her death to have it stretched along the twenty-foot wall. Since that had been done it seemed empty now. She looked up loving at her Uncle Severus, who was sitting in a chair in the portrait reading a book as he pushed his dark gray hair out of his face. Her own mother and father were resting together in a corner, her father holding her mother tightly to him. It amazed her that even with their deaths the portrait still had them in it. The whole of the original family members of Manor Dela Loyalty were there, though her mother was the last to be alive. It was heart wrenching to see the smiles on their faces, but it was also comforting. Even though she would never hear her mother's voice again, she would always see her smile.

At that moment her own visage caught her eye, she and her husband Christoph chasing down their three grandchildren. It was hard to imagine herself now Grandmother in the form in which her own mother had been. Looking away from the portrait that held to many memories, she glanced at the other wall. The piano, the very one that her mother once played her to sleep with sat in the corner. Above it hung Aunt Alexis's violin, the beautiful instrument having not been taken off the wall since Aunt Alexis last touched it. Deciding that this room was just too much for her at the moment with all of it's memories, she walked out into the foyer, mindlessly heading to her mother's library. Upon entry she felt calmer and soothed; this room always felt like a warm embrace from her mother and it still smelt like her. Her desk sat untouched near the back wall, her sword 'Umbra de Triste' hanging over the mantel place to the side, next to it her aunt's heirloom nunchukus hanging on a golden hook. Each of the weapons had plates below them, signifying the things that had been achieved by the two women with them. Both her mother and her aunt had thought of it one day and decided to put it up in their own memory.

Her mother's sword seemed to call to her. Walking toward the fireplace, she lifted her hand and pulled it from its place on the wall. The handle was cool to the touch, but it didn't seem right, like there was something missing. Picking it up with both hands, she held it in front of her, in a pose her mother had used very often. The handle actually was warming up in her hands, something it had never done before. The sword was always cold to everyone, her mum being the only person who it didn't seem to affect. Her mother had always said that a person's weapon choose them, not the other way around. Selena had never felt that way about her bladed fans, they were just hers and she was in no way attached to them like her mother had been to hers. The sword in her hands did not feel like her mother's and that increased the weight gnawing at her chest. She let the tears silently slip down as she placed the disenchanted sword back on its holders. Maybe her soul was tied to her sword and when she left, the feeling in the sword did… Selena thought as she decided some fresh air would do her good, and maybe let her accept the fact that all she had of her mother now was memories, a moving portrait and soulless sword.

Stepping outside she could see her daughter and her grandchildren playing tag in the front yard. It was normal, too normal for her tastes in this somber mood she was in, but she would have to get used to going back to normal life. Life without caring for her mother as her mother did for her, life where a shadow on the wall was not a warning to behave from her mother but just a plain old shadow. She rubbed her palm, the cut from her mother's pyre healed but the mark it left on her emotionally was still there. Her three-year-old grandson, Brandon, was rushing away from everyone else, chasing his bouncy ball toward the road. Selena noticed he was running that direction and called for him to be careful and to not go into the road. He yelled back that he would be cautious and continued on, making a beeline along the side of the road. She turned to see her granddaughters having a tea party on a blanket and smiled, walking that direction. It was just then that she heard the sound of a speeding car roaring down the road. She didn't know why, but her instincts went haywire and she turned to see Brandon just about to dart into the road into the path of the car. Beginning to rush in that direction, calling for him stop, she darted around confused family members. Brandon was a few steps away when she froze, not believing what her eyes were seeing. His shadow seemed to waver and move, reaching up and wrapping around his ankle, causing him fall to the ground and his head hit the grass just before the concrete of the road. With her heartbeat in her ears, she rushed forward, grabbing the crying child up in her arms holding him close.

There was no way that could have happened…Unless…Mum's still here!…

Brandon, bawling, held on to his grandmother as she rocked him, whispering to him that it would be ok.

Thank you mum… Thank you… She thought, thanking her mother for being the protector to the family she had been in life even during her death. Only her mother could have controlled the shadows like that, and that meant her mother was still watching over them in some form. Standing up and holding Brandon to her, she felt relieved as she handed him off to his mother, a smile forming on her face because she knew that they all probably had a guardian angel.

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Several years later…

Selena was clearing up the mess her brother's children had made of her mother's old room. No one had really occupied the room since her mother died, Selena occasionally slept in there when she wanted to remember how her mother smelt. The boys, who did not have permission to be in there, had been trying to brew their own batch of potions to turn their sister green, and it failed miserably, leaving two very upset green boys and one very mad Selena. Her husband had just left the room with the shards of the glass from the vials and she was mopping up the rest of the concoction that had spilled on the floor. She was just standing up when there was a loud crash through the wall and what she could only describe as a beast was standing there. It reminded her of one of the stories her mother once told her of the woman and her hunter bursting through her wall, but Selena had never really believed it until now. Acting on instinct, she pointed her wand at the eyeless beast and yelled a curse to immobilize it. What frightened her was that the spell simply bounced off of it and hit the wall behind it.

Oh boy… This doesn't look good… She thought as the beast raked a clawed limb toward her. It caught her on her shoulder, raking across her chest and sending her flying onto the bed. She was bleeding badly and called out for help as it rooted around on the floor, obviously looking for something. Suddenly, the house elves armed with their own sort of weaponry, appeared much to her glee, but just as they did the thing spoke a word and they disappeared out.

"Oh crap." She thought as she heard pounding on the door from the other side and the yelling from her husband. The beast or whatever it was, turned from the floor and set its eyeless gaze on her, making her shiver as it moved toward her with deadly intent. Reaching a claw out, it hit the bed solidly, making the frame simply crumble down into nothing. Another claw aimed for her came and Selena began fearing for her life.

Just before the blow touched her, something snapped inside of her. The room suddenly turned black as she willed the beast to stop from deep within herself. She could feel everything freeze in its place, her clothing pushing off from her body as power leapt from her. She was covered in a darkness so black, it made the shadows seem gray in comparison. There was an ever burning anger just within her chest, along with an attitude of 'I don't think so', and she moved forward to the beast. All her fear was gone as she placed her hand on its head. Its energy and everything with it just dissipated. It was completely gone the second she touched it with her hand. Standing there, in wait for something else to attack her, she could see the shadows putting things as they should be, how they were before the beast entered. After a moment, she could slowly feel the darkness waning, giving way to the light from the windows. Just as the last of the shadows flowed back into her, did the door burst open, her two auror grandsons and her daughter standing there with a look of worry and seemingly prepared to take down anything in their was. She turned her head to them and gave them a calm smile.

"Don't worry dears, Grandmother took care of it." And with that she collapsed softly to the floor in the completely repaired room.

Her daughter, Lena, had no idea what she should do. Her mother had just looked at her with the eyes that her Grandmother once had, solid black with no color at all and she was in her Grandmother's room, stark nude, when moments before she had left her mother completely clothed. Not willing to question anything, she ushered the boys out and went to her mother, covering her with a blanket from the bed.

"I wonder if the shadows weren't just Grandma Artimis's, but a part of our bloodline." She spoke as the house elves entered, looking ready to fight but then hurriedly exiting the room. The house all of a sudden didn't seem as tense, like the air had cleared of something she hadn't noticed before. Shrugging, she called in her father to come take care of her mother, who was just waking up.

The house made a soft groan as everything seemed to settle, the house no longer having to be in charge of the safety of the family as the new head of the family FINALLY came into her own power.

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Artimis was with Blane at a concert where the mud was up to their ankles and the music was mostly about love. They were in the back of a van, helping a girl with long blonde hair with a tye-dye headband give birth. Artimis was busy making an herbal rub to go on the mother's stomach, while Blane was being mid-wife. There were enough drugs around to make sure that the mother felt none of the pain. Going through all this with the woman, it made her think back to her own daughter's birth. She had always wondered if she had done the right thing, if it would have been better if she had stayed as ghost to watch and protect them. Yeah it would have been boring, but she would have known they were safe. She knew a part of her was always with them, but she was always the worry wort. The turmoil was also fueled by the fact that she knew she could go back if she wanted to, and at times when she was feeling homesick she wondered what would happen if she did go back.

The birth was painless for the mother as expected, Blane rubbing the antibiotic Artimis had made on the eyes of the child, so it would not go blind. In the background, the crowd was singing lines from a song being broadcast through the field.

"A time to gain, a time to lose

A time to rend, a time to sew

A time to love, a time to hate

A time for peace,

I swear its not too late" It was a soothing lullaby for the child and it made Artimis think even more about the turmoil raging in her mind.

Just as she was thinking about it all, something in the back of her mind relaxed, settling into a gentle wave of comfort. A small ball of tension in her was now gone, even though she didn't seem to know it had been there. It was as if something was right all of a sudden, and the thoughts on whether she had done the right thing or not, disappeared. It seemed to her that there was a voice telling her that everything was okay now in the back of her mind.

Blane looked at her with a smile and asked "Ready to go outside and listen?"

With a soft smile on her face, Artimis nodded as they moved out of the aged, colorfully painted auto. Climbing up the ladder on the back of a van to the top, where some people were sitting on tie-dye blankets and wearing peace signs. Artimis enjoyed the music, finally relaxed for the first time in her entire existence. There wasn't any pressure anymore to be anything but herself, whoever she wished that to be.

A/N: The song is Mamas and Papas... Thats all the hint im giving as to where they were..