10. New Year's End
"Isadora!"
A long lump, somewhat resembling a body, moved slightly and groaned from under layers of dark fabric. Strands of black hair were snaking out from under the blankets, but Isadora refused to open her eyes or budge from the warm, comfortable spot she had made for herself.
"Isadora!"
She peeked out from beneath the covers and squinted at the clock: 8:45am. What on earth could her mother possibly want from her at such an early hour?
The blankets were abruptly wrenched down from her head, and Isadora had to bury her face in the pillows to avoid the blinding daylight. As her eyes adjusted, she made out the shape of her mother, fully dressed, staring impatiently down at her daughter. "How many times do I have to shout before you answer?" Adelaide Starbuck demanded, throwing the blankets on the floor at her feet.
Isadora opened her mouth, trying to think of a witty retort, but failed miserably; it was far too early. "Sorry," she sighed, running a hand through her hair.
"Do you realize what day it is?" Adelaide whispered as she hastily gathered her daughter's covers and placed them back on the bed.
"Well, I know I got presents a few days ago, so it can't be Christmas," Isadora answered, still lying flat on the bed.
She felt a sharp pain in her leg as her mother began throwing an assortment of dress robes (and the hangers they were on) at her from the closet. "The Blacks are coming for dinner tonight!" Adelaide hissed. "How could you possibly forget about this?"
Isadora wanted to tell her mother that she forgot about the Blacks coming for dinner because she was not nearly as interested in trying to arrange a marriage between her and Regulus as the rest of the Starbuck family seemed to be. She also wanted to remind her mother that it was the holidays, and she wasn't necessarily focused on anything in particular at the moment other than enjoying her time off from school. Instead, she merely shrugged and crawled out of bed, making for the door.
"You're to go straight to the shower," Adelaide said angrily, sweeping in front of Isadora. "You can eat breakfast after you're presentable."
The sixteen year old made a sharp turn and headed for the bathroom, her fists balled as she slammed the door behind her. Steam began to fill the crisp white tile bathroom, and after a few minutes of standing under the hot jet of water emitting from the wall, Isadora was finding it particularly difficult to extricate from the shower. Staying under the water meant she could relax and think about what she could do with the last two weeks of holiday; getting out and dressed meant going downstairs, which inevitably meant dealing with her parents.
"Do you plan on drowning yourself before lunch, dear?" her father's pleasant voice asked from outside the door.
"I was unaware that was an option!" she answered, turning the water off and quickly drying her hair with a wave of her wand. Dressed in a soft black bathrobe, she opened the door to her father leaning against the railing, smiling gently at her.
"Please try and forgive your mother's behavior today," he said as he walked with her back to her bedroom. "You're her only daughter."
"Do I have a brother hiding somewhere?" Isadora asked offhandedly as she stared, repulsed, at the various dress robes her mother had chosen for her to wear. "Really, dad, does she expect me to wear something like this," she held up a deep purple robe which was completely bedecked with silver rhinestones, "to dinner? Or in general?"
Zachary smirked and suppressed a laugh. "Just put on your usual clothes for now," he whispered as Adelaide's heels clicked noisily in the hall below. "I wouldn't worry about the dress robes until tonight." He closed the door; Isadora could hear him walking back downstairs.
A soft hooting came from the open window as Mab soared through, landing on the wooden frame of Isadora's bed. Grasped in her beak was a letter; the owl dropped it onto the bedspread and took off again, back into the chilly December air.
Finally, Isadora thought, glancing at the letter as she pulled a jumper over her head. She recognized the handwriting immediately as Severus'.
"Are you planning on eating today?" her mother's voice echoed from the hall.
Isadora rolled her eyes and snatched the letter up from her bed before leaving her bedroom. She gave the window a look of longing, wishing she could fly away like Mab had. It would certainly make life easier.
"Who is that from?" Adelaide asked as Isadora sat down and ripped open the letter, a piece of toast held between her teeth. The tone of her mother's voice suggested she was hoping it might be a love letter from Regulus.
"Severus," Isadora answered dully, pouring herself some tea and secretly relishing in the disheartened look that swept across her mother's face.
Zachary sat down across from his wife and asked, "How is that dear boy, anyway?"
Isadora raised an eyebrow and put the letter down, making sure it was out of the reach of her mother. "He's fine," she answered, confused. "Since when is he a 'dear boy' to you?"
Her father's smile twitched briefly. "It's just very respectable of him to continue these lessons with you, is all," he said rather fast, obviously covering his tracks. He looked down at his plate, suddenly finding a keen interest in buttering his toast.
"Right," Isadora whispered, and picked the letter back up. She had been waiting for over a week now for Severus' answer to her letter. Scarlett and Callum had both gone away with their families for Christmas and were practically unreachable; even Erik Strathborne was proving difficult to contact. But Isadora had found that she didn't really want to hear from any of them – ever since the kissing incident at the lake, she and Severus had seemed to have a deeper friendship. It seemed more worthwhile than the rest.
A single chocolate frog slipped out of the envelope, struggling against the packaging. Isadora smiled and unfolded the parchment.
Isadora,
Holidays at Hogwarts are fine, as usual. Professor Dumbledore gave us all crackers on Christmas Day – they were filled with particularly garish hats, which he then made us wear for the duration of dinner. It was unbearable.
I'm not supposed to say anything to you, but your father wrote after you left. I can't go into the details in this letter, though, in case someone else reads it, but…well, we'll talk when you get back. I dare say you'll have a better idea of what I'm talking about by then.
Anyway, enjoy the rest of the holiday. Happy Christmas, hope you enjoy the frog.
Severus
PS: Good luck with dinner. Don't think I feel any sympathy for you, though.
PPS: Don't forget to buy those ingredients before you return. Breaking in to Slughorn's personal storeroom is not something I really feel like doing this term.
She flipped the parchment over, half hoping to find that part of the letter mysteriously found its way onto the other side. It was typical, of course, for a letter from Severus to be so short; he wasn't interested in holidays, or explaining in detail what the castle looked like on Christmas Day. Isadora was sure he was far too busy cooping himself up in the empty Potions classroom, experimenting. Why had her father written to him, though? She cast a curious glance at Zachary, whose face was half hidden behind the Daily Prophet. What was going on, and why did Severus seem to think she would have a better idea once she returned to school?
The rest of the day seemed to fly by, although how it did, Isadora was unsure. At one point she had to leave the house and walk the grounds of the Starbuck estate just to resist the temptation of setting her mother's hair on fire. As the day progressed Adelaide became progressively more controlling, demanding at one point to see Isadora in various dress robes to determine which would suit her best for dinner. A casual remark about her hair had sent Isadora reeling into the garden, clutching her wand, stupefying hedges as she went.
The Starbucks lived to the north of England, in a sleepy town in Derbyshire. Isadora frequently commented that it was lucky the family was a wizarding one; without the Floo network and brooms, getting to London on such a frequent basis to visit Diagon Alley or catch the train to Hogwarts would be exceedingly difficult. The grounds were not gated in, and eventually Isadora found herself staring out along the vast expanse of rolling moors, now covered in a thin, crystalline layer of frost. It was absurd for her to have come out this far without a cloak, but one glance back down the hill to the house made her stomach turn. She didn't care that the Blacks would be arriving within the hour, nor that the sun was quickly disappearing beyond the horizon, taking with it all warmth its feeble rays could give.
"Aren't you cold?" a familiar voice asked from behind her.
Isadora turned once again to face the house, but was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of Regulus, wrapped tightly in a thick black cloak. "I suppose a bit, yes," she answered. Her fingers were going numb.
"I can only imagine what sent you out here," he whispered with a smirk, removing the cloak and draping it around Isadora's shoulders.
She gave a feeble laugh as his hands cupped her face and kissed her lightly. "I suppose your whole family is here?" she asked, although she would have been perfectly happy to stay out on the moor and freeze with him, alone.
Regulus nodded. His hair hadn't been cut since she last saw him, and was beginning to take on a rather shaggy look. "Everyone except Sirius, of course," he answered. "Your mum was acting rather strange; she's probably worried where you've run off to." He gestured back to the house, his arm around Isadora. "Dinner's ready anyway."
"Well, shall we go suffer through it, then?" she said with a sigh.
"Yes," he said quietly. "But I thought afterwards we could slip in to town and I could buy you that coffee I promised?" A smile appeared on his pale face.
Isadora almost slipped on a patch of ice as he said this; she had nearly forgotten about their date. "That'd be great!" she said, almost with too much enthusiasm. "As long as I survive this dinner, that is." Regulus laughed as they continued down to the house, where they were greeted with a mix of worried confusion and excitement.
"That was dreadful," Regulus moaned as he walked hand in hand with Isadora up the High Street of town, searching for a pub that was still open. "I thought my mother was bad, but…no offense."
Isadora shook her head as they entered a room lit with too few candles; a barmaid suggested with a wave of her hand that they sit anywhere they like. "None taken, believe me," she whispered, leading the way to a table at the back. "I'm just sorry you had to sit through that."
Regulus smirked as they ordered their coffees. "Does your mother expect us to get married or something? I'm not even sixteen yet!"
Isadora paled at his comment, and she hissed, "What kind of rubbish idea is that?"
The boy across the table raised his eyebrow at her inquisitively. "She clearly wants us to be together," he said. "It was pretty obvious. I can only imagine she's expecting you to marry into a pure-blood family, and considering the fact you only have a year left of school, it's no surprise she's trying to marry you off sooner rather than later." There was a slight hint of disdain in his voice as he said this.
She felt compelled to bandage the situation. "I'm her only child, Regulus," she started, stirring her coffee absentmindedly. "I don't agree with it at all. I like you, a lot, but I have no interest in marrying anyone at the moment. Not to mention you and I have only been seeing each other for two weeks!"
Regulus' face darkened as he hunched over his steaming mug. "I don't plan on sticking around after I graduate, anyway," he said quietly. "I already know where my allegiance lies."
"You're…you're joining?" Isadora asked. Her drink remained untouched.
He nodded, taking a sip of his coffee and wincing at the heat. "Of course I am," he answered. "A whole load of fifth years are already talking about it. I thought for sure that you'd be interested."
Isadora stared down at the table. Her father had mentioned before she and Regulus had left that a discussion needed to occur between father and daughter when she got back home. She had suspected what the conversation was going to be about, but now she was positive. "I am, I suppose," she said in a hushed tone.
Regulus took her hand in his and stroked her palm with his thumb. Neither of them spoke another word on the subject, or at all, until their beverages had been finished and they decided Isadora needed to return home for the night.
"I know you're father's going to talk to you tonight," he said at the door. "Don't be frightened. It's an honor to be asked to join the Death Eaters, and with Zachary already such a prominent member, you'll be accepted instantly."
She smiled fondly at him as they walked through the door; he would need to use the Floo network to get back to his mother's house. Standing at the fireplace, the two of them kissed, and with a whoosh and a flash of green light, he was gone.