One Day at a Time
Marie-Ange
The next day there was a Slytherin versus Ravenclaw Quidditch match. When I got to the stands I was mildly torn as to whether I should sit next to my friend Hagrid, or whether I should sit in the sea of green that was the Slytherins. In the end I decided that I ought to show solidarity with my fellow Slytherins, and took one of the few remaining empty seats near the back. What must have been a minute before the game started, Snape appeared and took the seat next to me; I noticed he had tired-looking dark circles underneath his eyes.
Without a greeting or looking at me he asked in a bored tone "How did the cursed chocolates go?"
"They went well. About three quarters of the students were able to determine the curse and counter-curse. Thanks for the antidote," I said grudgingly, feeling as though by acknowledging his contribution I might eventually owe him something.
"Ladies and Gentlemen!" I heard the speaker's magnified voice booming across the field. "I give you, the Slytherin Quidditch team! Urquhart, Vaisey, Warrington, Crabbe, Goyle, Bletchy aaaand Malfoy!" They emerged one by one, all in their green and silver team robes; I noticed that Draco frame was substantially smaller than all of his other teammates. Makes sense, I thought. Seekers have to move quickly. A smaller frame is less weight to move and less air resistance. I noticed the same build distribution was true of the Ravenclaw team, as they flew onto the field with their blue and bronze robes.
"And Ravenclaw starts with the Quaffle! Bradley passes to Chambers, Chambers is trying to gain some distance, but—oh! Vaisey has managed to steal the Quaffle and is racing towards the Ravenclaw keeper. Pass to Warrington, Urquhart, back to Vaisey. Oh! Did you see that? The Quaffle has been dropped! I've never seen a Bludger hit the quaffle mid-pass! That is some excellent skill on the part of Ravenclaw beater Inglebee. Ravenclaw starts with the Quaffle."
The enthusiastic commentator continued like this for some time. I noticed that Draco was slowly circling the top of the arena, while the Ravenclaw seeker was moving more erratically, staying at the bottom for a few minutes and then passing through the game itself, returning to the near-ground level again, etc..
It had been about a half hour, and there had yet to be a sign of the snitch. The Ravenclaw team, despite their mainly defensive strategy, was ahead of the Slytherin team by forty points. And then, suddenly, Draco made a sudden movement towards the ground of the arena. The Ravenclaw seeker looked at him, and then raced in front of him, but Draco quickly turned ninety degrees, and outstretched his hand. He held up his clenched fist, triumphant and landed the ground. "And Malfoy's first movement was a bluff!" the commentator announced. "But Ravenclaw fell for it, and Slytherin has captured the snitch, for 180 to 70. Just like those tricky Slytherins to bluff." But the Slytherin side of the stadium had already erupted into cheers. There were bangs as some conjured green confetti that exploded from the tips of their wands.
I accidentally (and happily, I might add) separated from Snape in the mass of people leaving the stadium. I was sure that even with a Slytherin victory Snape would still sound bored or cold. I did, however, see Hagrid leaving the stadium, and sure that he would be more positive, I ran to catch up with him.
"Hello, Hagrid!" I greeted the immense man.
"Liseli! Congrats on the Slytherin victory," he smiled.
I noticed that the Potter trio was also walking with Hagrid so I greeted them in turn, before I turned to Harry and said "So what'd you think of the seekers' strategies?"
"That was tricky what Malfoy did at the end, but I remember doing something similar once, so I can't really specifically dislike that maneuver," he smiled.
"I thought the Ravenclaw Seeker didn't have the best strategy," I said, referencing the whole game more than just the end.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, tilting his head.
"It just seems like they didn't have a strategy at all, that they were just flying where their whim took him. You could see that Malfoy had specifically planned to use the Bird of Prey approach, you know, circling the top of the arena. And he combined that with the Inverse Bird of Prey approach, circling the bottom and looking up, but I didn't really see anything like that for the Ravenclaw Seeker," I explained.
"You know a lot about Seeker strategies," Harry seemed surprised.
"When I was at Hogwarts I had a boyfriend who was a Seeker," I replied, wondering if that piece of information was too personal for me to share with one of my students. "He used to talk my ear off going on about Seeker strategies."
Harry smiled, and there was a second of silence before Hagrid turned to me and said, "I didn't see you at the Halloween feast. Were you able to come at all? Snape wasn't there, either, but I hope he didn't force you to miss the feast."
"Huh? What do you mean?" I said, feeling as though I was missing the piece of the puzzle necessary to understand what he was saying.
"You know, you said you had to help Snape with something in the evening to repay a favor," Hagrid reminded me.
"Oh, right!" I suddenly remembered the excuse I had given them for my sudden departure last night. "You know, I actually didn't see Snape yesterday. I couldn't find him, and then I started feeling sort of ill so I just went to my quarters and rested."
"Are you feeling better?" Hermione asked, concerned. "You look sort of pale, and tired."
I was absolutely exhausted, but I had hoped it wouldn't be visible. "I'm fine. I think I actually ate one of the cursed Chocolate Frogs, which is quite embarrassing!" I let out a forced laugh and hoped they wouldn't remember that a simple counter-curse would have healed any after-effects of the curse.
The next couple of weeks went by rather smoothly and peacefully. I had begrudgingly set a date to have dinner at Deneb's house, but I had not made any movements to contact Tarazet, even though my thoughts sometimes drifted both to us growing up and to our more recent fight. I knew I was being stubborn, but it seemed it would be the simplest thing to not see him. Besides, I didn't want to be seen with a convicted criminal.
It was a Sunday in late November, and I was chatting pleasantly with Professor Sprout at lunch about the Weird Sister's latest song, when she looked at her watch and stood up. "Oh, dear, I just remembered that I have an appointment with one of my students in about five minutes. I must run," she apologized. "We can just continue our conversation at dinner tonight," she said kindly.
"Actually I'm not going to be at dinner tonight," I smiled apologetically. I didn't want to mention that I was going to be seeing one of my brothers so instead I used only his name and said, "I'm having dinner with Deneb and Marion. Mariana."
"Marie-Ange," I heard Snape's quiet voice from my left. Damn it! I thought. Even he remembers her name, and he only heard it once.
"Alright, I'll talk to you another time then," Sprout said and she waved good-bye.
I spent the hours between lunch and dinner dreading dinner. It seemed as though in no time at all it was 7 pm, and I was throwing a handful of Floo powder into a fire. When I stepped out of the fire again, I was in a well-furnished living room. The floor was covered with a plush, clean white carpet and all of the furniture was made of a dark, expensive-looking wood. A woman with dark blonde hair and a heavily made-up face turned towards me. "Liseli! It's such a pleasure to see you again," she greeted me warmly and gave me a peck on each cheek. Instead of returning the embrace, I just stood there and bore it with a grimace that I hoped could pass for a smile.
Deneb walked into the room, and smiled pleasantly. "Punctual as always, Liseli. Marie-Ange, would you go fetch the children?"
She obediently left the room and quickly returned with two children behind her. "Laurent, Adelaide, you remember your Aunt Liseli, right?" Laurent was only a few years older than Adelaide, and they greeted me with quiet, polite greetings. "Simone and Didier are at school, right now. It's Simone's last year, and Didier's about three-quarters of the way done. They're both top-notch students, of course," she boasted.
"Oh, where do they go?" I asked, hoping that they didn't go to Hogwarts and I was just too unobservant to notice.
"They go to L'École des Sorciérs," Marie-Ange beamed. "It's in northern France. Their professors are absolutely top notch. It's the best school there is. I had a spot reserved for me there, being the talented young witch I was, but my parents immigrated to England when I was only six," she sighed before continuing. "But on the upside, I wouldn't have gone to Hogwarts if we hadn't moved, and that's where I met Deneb, so my life's turned out magnificent after all!" I had to keep my exasperation from showing on my face; I had already heard her life story multiple times, and I didn't want to hear her go on about what a wonderful husband Deneb was.
I wondered if Deneb was also getting tired of hearing that same story over and over again, for at that point he said, "Honey, why don't you go set the table?"
"Of course," she smiled at him with what could only be described as a look of unending admiration and devotion. I wondered if she had any brain cells behind her pretty face. Oh wait, she had been in Hufflepuff. So that'd be a no.
"Dinner is ready," she announced from the adjacent room. We took our seats, and she arranged the napkins for the two young children. "It's so lovely for you to join us. You should have brought your husband, too. I assume he was busy with work?" she said vapidly.
"I haven't married since I last saw you, Marie-Ange," I said in a neutral tone, masking my annoyance.
"But Adelaide said you were with a man when she saw you," Marie-Ange insisted.
I frowned, trying to think what she was referring to. It then struck me with a pang of horror: Adelaide had thought that Snape was my husband. "Oh no, I'm not married to Snape," I hurriedly said.
"Oh," Marie-Ange said disappointedly. "But you're in your mid-thirties now, aren't you? Don't forget that you aren't going to be able to have children forever."
"I'm aware, thank you," I said curtly with a forced smile. Merlin, she sounded exactly like my mother: a traditional pure-blood.
"Maman ne l'aime pas, non?" I heard Adelaide quietly say to Laurent.
"Non, elle croit qu'elle n'est pas une vraie femme," Laurent whispered back.
"Elle est un homme!?" I didn't know what they were saying, but Adelaide looked rather surprised.
"T'es une idiote," Laurent rolled his eyes and that ended their brief conversation.
"Their siblings have been teaching them French," Marie-Ange beamed at them. "I'm afraid I've forgotten my French, because I immigrated when I was so young. I have very fond memories of speaking it when I was young and still lived in France, though. I remember going to Southern France in the summer when I was younger, since we had a beach house there. Unfortunately, when we moved we could only bring our House Elf from our normal residence, and we had to sell our House Elf from the beach house."
"What a heart-breaking story," I said sarcastically with a touch of bitterness in my voice. As if she had taken a great sacrifice to live with only one House Elf.
She seemed oblivious to my tone and said "I know, it's so sad."
"How has teaching at Hogwarts been?" Deneb asked, gently switching the topic of conversation.
I turned towards him and replied, "It's been very nice, thank you. It's very rewarding to see the students progressing."
"Have you seen the Headmaster much?" he asked in an off-hand tone, but his eyes moved restlessly, as though scheming.
"No, not very much. He's a very busy man," I replied, wondering what Deneb was getting at.
"You should talk to him more. He's a very kind, interesting wizard. I talked to him often when I was Headboy, and Prefect," he added, as way of explanation. "Do you think he still remembers me?" he said in a falsely off-hand voice again.
"He hasn't mentioned you. And I don't know how much he takes to visitors on Hogwart's grounds," I said lightly, pre-empting anything else he might try.
He nodded lightly and dropped the conversation, choosing a new topic of conversation. "So have you talked with our youngest brother yet?" I felt as though he was going down a checklist of things he wanted to get me to do.
"No, I haven't. I'm not sure if I'm going to," I said hesitantly, sure that Deneb would start trying to convince me to follow a different course of action.
"Oh, but you promised that you were going to," he said in a mildly confused, disappointed voice.
"I said I was going to think about it," I explained in a restrained tone.
"Liseli, you can't just disown one of your siblings. Family is there for each other, through thick and thin," he said in a softly pleading tone. I was sure all of his tones were just calculated acting, but his words still pulled at my heart. "Tarazet really does care about you. Just promise me that you'll talk to him?" I looked into his light blue eyes. His facial expression was softly pleading but his eyes didn't match the expression; they had the restless gleam they always had.
"Fine. I'll owl him," I said curtly. When I flooed back to Hogwarts that night I was both frustrated that I had allowed myself to be manipulated, and secretly glad I had been forced to take such a course of action.
…
Disclaimer: I don't own the magical world the Colburns live in.
A/N: Thank you very, very much to Berry64, PollyWantCookie, Mywaychan and argyle owl. for reviewing! For a few quick comments on the chapter, I want to clarify that I don't have anything against French people: Marie-Ange is French so her children have a reason to not go to Hogwarts. Secondly, I didn't translate the French conversation in-story, because it's not important to the plot, but in case you're curious here's a translation.
Adelaide: "Mama doesn't like her, right?"
Laurent: "No, she thinks that she isn't a real woman."
Adelaide: "She's a man!?"
Laurent: "You're an idiot."