One Day at a Time
A Downright Family Reunion
It was a warm spring night, and the stars twinkled merrily overhead. The only weather that would have been in more contrast to my mood would have been if it was daytime and cheerfully sunny. As it was, I was thankful for the cover of night as I tried to walk surreptitiously to apparate to the Death Eater gathering. I hadn't set foot in Hogsmeade for a few weeks, since I was there to purchase the chocolate frogs for my class, and the light from the store fronts now seemed potentially incriminating instead of cheerful. I walked fully through Hogsmeade, and once I had reached a quiet, unlit dirt road I touched my Dark Mark.
I reappeared in a dark alley, as to be expected; dark alleys were almost always our meeting spot. I noticed that our regiment seemed to be a few people smaller than last time, but the commander paid no attention to the arrests that were no doubt the cause of our depleted numbers. He loudly started an introduction to the summons, "We're here to attack a collection of wizarding shops. It's nowhere as near as large as Diagon Alley, but it's one of the known shopping streets in Manchester. We'll be coming from one end, and another regiment will be sweeping in the other way. We're expecting trouble in the form of aurors, so don't get cocky."
We swept into the well lit street, one that reminded me rather too much of Hogsmeade for my taste. The commander set off a loud bang! with his wand and, as if it was a response, another bang! echoed from the other end of the street. Screams immediately broke out and people started running every which way, some grabbing onto loved ones, some ducking into shops, others running out of shops, and yet others simply running aimlessly, as though too terrified to think clearly. Most of my regiment set about attacking or torturing the wizards and witches unfortunate enough to be present. A few duals started, but most were too afraid to fight back, and those that did were quickly overpowered by the larger number of attacking Death Eaters. Not wanting to attack actual people if avoidable, I sent hexes towards the shops to break their windows, lending the street a more chaotic, terrorized appearance without actually causing any harm. There was little resistance and we quickly swept through the street and spread out. We had just met the other regiment at the halfway point, when suddenly many hexes started flying in our direction.
"Aurors!" I heard a Death Eater cry in a fearful voice, just as a wizard on the street yelled the same word, only in a joyous, hopeful tone.
I glanced in the general direction of the commotion and realized with a sinking feeling that it wasn't just aurors, it was the Order of the Phoenix, which was generally regarded as better trained than the Ministry's aurors. I continued attacking the buildings while watching the ongoing duals out of the corner of my eye to make sure they were a safe distance away. To my dismay, I saw the Death Eater to my left fall from some disabling curse and the wizard who had been fighting him rush in my direction. I set off a stunning spell as I whirled in his direction, and I almost gasped when I saw who the wizard was. I was about to engage in a dual with none other than Remus Lupin. He easily reflected the stunning spell, and quickly sent a beam of red light in my direction that I shielded. I had a rather sick feeling in my stomach at having to dual somebody who I not only knew, but somebody who I knew from my Hogwarts years to be a relatively pleasant person. If I had to use an Unforgivable on him…I couldn't finish my thought, and I glanced over my shoulder to see where my commander was, to see if I would be able to use harmless curses the entire time. In that instant though, a stinging hex from Lupin smacked into my right arm, and almost made me drop my wand. Another Death Eater quickly joined my side and sent a curse towards Lupin while I lifted my wand again.
We started simultaneously sending curses at the auror, not timing our attacks, not talking with each other, but simply attacking as though we were both alone in the dual. Despite all of the emotions worming their way around my stomach, I couldn't help but notice that Lupin was an extremely talented dualist; he was easily holding off the both of us, and the Death Eater next to me seemed to be becoming more and more frustrated.
One of my hexes finally hit Lupin. With the break in his spell casting, the Death Eater next to me yelled "Sectumsempra!" and the slow-moving spell easily made contact with the Order of the Phoenix member. I felt my blood freeze, but not because of the sight of Lupin's blood. I felt as though the word "Sectumsempra" was hanging in the air, as though I could hear it reverberating in my ears. The voice that said it…I would recognize that voice anywhere. I looked at the Death Eater next to me with wide eyes. He was very tall, and even through the loose fitting Death Eater robes, I could tell he was skeletally thin. I was too shocked at realizing that I was standing next to my brother Tarazet to pay attention to the dual, and the immobilizing curse that hit me felt like a bag of bricks to the chest. Only a second later, the magnified call for retreat rang out and I felt a surge of terror at the prospect that I might be left on the street immobilized, to be taken to Azkaban. No, no, no, no, I thought frantically, my reputation, my life, my everything. Tarazet, thankfully, seemed to be a well-trained Death Eater, for he grabbed onto my arm with lightning speed before he apparated from the street.
After the second of limbo where I was no longer on the cobblestone street, I landed with a thud on a grassy hill, and I saw him almost lose his balance, clearly not used to apparating somebody that could not move. Any doubt that the masked, hooded Death Eater was Tarazet disappeared: he had apparated us to the hill behind Mother and Father's house. Rather foolish to apparate somewhere so identifiable, I thought, before realizing I wasn't really in a position to be calling anybody a fool. The thin figure I knew to be my brother approached my still form and with a wave of his wand cast the countercurse. I got to my feet and politely nodded, saying "Thank you." Tarazet froze and I had to keep from gasping aloud in horror and clapping my hands to my mouth. No! Why did I say anything aloud?! my horrified thoughts frantically raced through my mind. I couldn't have done a stupider thing! If I can recognize his voice, he can undoubtedly recognize mine! A breeze blew through the cold night air and I realized with a further pang of horror that my hood had fallen off when I stood up, revealing my long, braided chestnut hair. I couldn't see my brother's face beneath his Death Eater mask, but I could imagine it as easily as if the mask was transparent: his bulging blue eyes trying to take in every detail of the Death Eater who was standing in front of him, surveying my height, my frame, the way I stood, my hair whose color was identical to his, to try and grasp if this Death Eater was really his sister. I was sure his mouth was slightly ajar, shocked, too shocked to say anything, but also afraid to say anything aloud lest he somehow be mistaken, an impossible feat because he had seen me thousands, millions of times, even if he had never seen me wearing the Death Eater uniform before. Horrified that another person had discovered my well-guarded secret, and unsure what to do, I immediately turned on my heel and apparted back to Hogsmeade.
The next morning at breakfast I received an express owl from the post office, and dreading what the attached letter might say, I very slowly unraveled the piece of parchment.
Liseli,
I want to talk to you. Lunch again? ASAP, preferably.
Tarazet
I closed my eyes, exasperated. He knew, I was sure of it. I couldn't imagine what to say or do, but I knew I couldn't avoid the confrontation forever. Gritting my teeth, I scrawled, "Fine," and then, desperately hoping it was as innocent of an invitation as other lunches, I wrote "Saturday, same time and place." If we're in a public place he won't talk about it, I hoped against hope as I rubbed my temples.
When I walked into the Hog's Head that Saturday, I mentally winced and felt a sinking feeling of disappointment at seeing Tarazet already seated at our corner table; I didn't realize until I walked in the door, but I had been hoping he wouldn't show. I slid into a seat and greeted him in a neutral tone. He returned the salutations before saying in an offhand sort of tone, "You know, I was in Manchester a couple of days ago, and I could have sworn I saw you there."
"Hm, really?" I said innocently. "Must have been somebody else. I haven't been to Manchester in years."
"No?" he raised his eyebrows and gave me penetrating glance that said he clearly didn't believe me. "Well then I definitely saw you on that large hill outside of Mother and Father's house that we used to run up and down when we were kids."
"Hm, nope, I don't know what you're talking about," I said lightly, eying the corner of the ceiling. "Really, Tarazet, you must be going delusional or something."
"Really?" he said as he leaned over the table and rested his chin in his hands, determinedly looking at my face while I just as determinedly avoided his eyes. "Well I certainly heard your voice there, and if your voice is there, then you must have been there."
"You must be hearing things," I said, starting to get annoyed.
He leaned even closer and said in a barely audible whisper, "Funny, because I was coming back from a Death Eater attack, and I certainly wasn't alone on that hill."
I froze. Even if he had whispered the last sentence, I was terrified somebody might have heard it. "Let's go somewhere private to talk," I snapped, and he gave a smirk in return. I was sure that had been his goal; realistically, there was no way we could talk about such a subject in public. "Where do you want to go?"
"I've been spending an awful lot of time at Mother and Father's house, so how about your place." He stood up and we walked out of the disreputable establishment. I grabbed onto his arm before he could apparate by himself, and with a crack we materialized in the alley behind my apartment building.
"What are we--?" he started, confused.
"We can't apparate to directly in front of my apartment," I explained. "There's a family of Muggles that live across the hall, and my apartment itself has an anti-apparition charm."
His face had the beginnings of a sneer as he said, "I forgot you lived in a Muggle apartment building. Not successful enough to live in a wizarding area," he lashed out. I felt a flash of annoyance, but just pursed my lips instead of saying anything.
We had just trudged up the three flights of stairs to my apartment, when I saw my Muggle landlady walking down the hall. I winced; we didn't like each other very much, to put it lightly. "Colburn!" she barked in her shrill voice. She frowned and glanced at Tarazet up and down. "What, you're bringing strange men to your apartment now, too? Going to play Dungeons and Dragons or something, what with those funny outfits and all the weird objects in your apartment?"
"I don't believe her brother qualifies as a stranger," Tarazet said acidly, eying her Muggle clothes. She wore tight pants and a shirt with the words "The Beatles" mysteriously written on it; I vaguely wondered why she was so interested in insects, and if the Muggle dialect of English was different enough to warrant different spellings.
"Hmph." She was still suspiciously eyeing his robes. She turned towards me and said in her high-pitched voice, "The Johnsons say you haven't been living here, Colburn. They say they haven't seen you in months."
"Well clearly I still do live here," I said coolly. "Seeing as I've been paying rent, and I'm here now. Perhaps the Johnsons are not very observant, or perhaps we have been leaving our apartments at different times of day," I lied. The way she had accused me made me wonder if there were some Muggle regulations about having to actually live somewhere if you were renting it. The landlady thought I was beyond odd, and she would have been more than happy to have some "normal" family (by Muggle definitions) live there instead.
"Hmph," she repeated. "Fine," she added, before walking down the flight of stairs. I waited until the sound of her footsteps had fully faded before I took out my wand and tapped it on the door handle to open it.
When we walked into the foyer/living room/dining room, I saw the scorch marks on the floor by the dropped cauldron and suddenly remembered that I hadn't been back here or cleaned up since Seginus and Matar had attacked me in January. I mentioned this to Tarazet, including that I had just about emptied my closet looking for that cauldron and not yet put anything back. He shrugged and said, "I'll help clean up."
"You don't know where anything goes," I hesitated for a split second.
"Neither do you," he said pointedly, and an amused smile was tugging at his thin lips.
I almost let out a laugh, "Good point."
Together we threw the various books, boxes, and clothes back into the closet rather haphazardly. It felt good to be doing something active, and it was also an excuse to push off the Death Eater conversation a bit longer. As it was, we only had scraps of a conversation, asking if it mattered where something went, or occasionally pointing something out, as in the one set of Muggle clothes I owned. We had put (thrown, whatever) just about everything back into the closet when I saw Tarazet pick up a scrap of paper and quietly trail off, "Oh, look…" I felt my stomach constrict; it was a photo, one that Mother and Father had kept an enlarged version of on the mantel for many years. Many wealthy pureblood families had a portrait of their family done by prestigious painters which they would then prominently display. We were neither, but my parents liked to think of us as both. My family was too poor to afford a painting, though, so ours was instead a color photo. We were all wearing our best dress robes, and attempting to look into the camera with regal, dignified looks befitting of a pureblood family. My mother and father were both seated in ebony colored chairs, the matriarch and patriarch of the family. Behind father's chair stood his favorite child, the first born son: Seginus. Immediately to Seginus's left stood Matar, inseparable and devoted to Father even in the photo. In the middle of the photo, between Mother and Father, stood the middle child, Deneb. Then came Tarazet and finally me, standing behind Mother's chair. Tarazet and I were alternatively smiling and chatting or giving each other annoyed looks and shoving each other's shoulders. "Huh. Memories."
"Yeah," I replied to his comment, unsure what else I could say. He threw the photo unceremoniously into the closet and closed the door, now that we had finished cleaning up. We walked back into the foyer/living room/dining room, and started scourgify-ing the carpet that was scorched from Seginus and Matar's Dark Magic. There was the sound of quietly scuffling feet outside of my door and I shared a frown with Tarazet. When the door handle started moving we both drew our wands and pointed them at the door as it slowly creaked open. With a feeling of rage, I recognized the bearded faces of Seginus and Matar as they walked unabashedly into the room. They both already had their wands out, and seemed only mildly surprised at seeing us.
"My, my. Company," Tarazet coolly broke the silence.
"A downright family reunion," Seginus said coldly, as though four siblings having their wands hostilely pointed at each other could count as a family reunion. The tension in the room could have been cut with a knife: none of us were willing to put our wands down, yet none of us wanted to be the first to cast a hex if there was a dual. I vaguely remembered what Tarazet's yelled threat from when he had visited me in the hospital wing in January: "All I know is I'm cursing Seginus and Matar to hell when I see them, because clearly you're unable to."
"I hear you haven't taken our advice, Liseli," Matar's words finally broke the tense silence.
"And what advice was that?" Tarazet said angrily.
Seginus's eyes narrowed as he looked at me and he ignored Tarazet's question, "As the current patriarch of the family, after our beloved father's death, I have a right to be obeyed."
"I'm not a piece of property to be handed off at our parent's death," I spat out bitterly, knowing full well that the only person he ever ordered around was me.
"If you had a husband, I wouldn't have to take charge of your well-being," my oldest brother said with a sneer.
I felt my veins burn with a fiery rage at being condescended to, but before I could say anything, Tarazet angrily said in an elevated voice, "Funny, I don't recall you ever caring about her well-being."
"She's working for Dumbledore," Matar added loathingly. "The man partially responsible for your prison sentence, might I remind you."
I saw my youngest brother's resolve flicker for a second, and I remembered his outrage at first learning that I was working for Dumbledore. "Yeah, well, I'm not going to attack her for it," he said in a steely voice. "She's welcome to work for whoever she wants." I emitted a faint sigh of relief at knowing Tarazet was on my side. I had expected him to be, but I still felt reassured to hear his words.
"No. She isn't welcome to work wherever she wants. She shouldn't be working at all," Seginus stated, as though it was an unchangeable fact. "She is disobeying the patriarch of the family, just as she ignores and disrespects everything Father and Mother taught her."
I felt the fiery anger in my blood reach a boiling point, and I saw a curse fly from the tip of Tarazet's wand just as I hatefully sent a curse towards them. They both sidestepped the curses, which took a few splinters from the door behind them, and then they wordlessly sent curses in our direction. I ducked behind the couch and I heard a loud ripping sound as the curse tore the couch's fabric. We started exchanging hexes; none of us were aiming to kill, but you can do an awful lot of harm to somebody before they actually die. My small apartment was not the optimal place for a dual, and it soon showed, both in substantial damage to the wall and the furniture, and in the shattering of any fragile objects that were out.
I fired another spell just as a jet of purple light from Matar struck me; it felt as though somebody had slapped my cheek with the broad side of a blade. Focusing my attention on my second oldest brother, I angrily sent a hex that would immobilize his wand arm, but he turned and it instead hit his non-dominant arm. "Don't you dare hurt Matar," Seginus barked it like an order. The next word that escaped his lips was not an order. "Crucio," he said coldly. I started screaming, but an instant later the pain disappeared. Tarazet, with a livid look on his face, had started using that curse on our oldest brother. Matar, with an equally livid look, issued the incantation for the Cruciatus curse, and now it was Tarazet who was screaming in pain. A bitter laugh issued from Seginus's mouth, "I remember hearing those screams in Azkaban. I never knew you shared our cell block."
Matar and Seginus were both momentarily distracted by the latter's comment, and I took the opportunity to quickly stun Matar. Seginus angrily turned towards me, but Tarazet sent a curse towards our eldest brother; it threw him against the wall and he crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
"Well that was a pleasant little dual," I panted sarcastically before casting binding spells on the unconscious forms of our Seginus and Matar for good measure.
Tarazet eyed his wounded shoulder; it looked as though blue pus was leaking from his slashed robes. "Pleasant is most certainly not the word I would use."
Suddenly, there was a loud banging on the door. We turned and looked at each other quizzically, but the knocking continued. "Open up in there!" a man's voice came from behind the door. "Or I swear to God I'll break it down!"
…
A/N: Sorry for the wait, hopefully the long chapter makes up for it. And don't worry, Snape's going to be coming back into the story soon. Anyways, thanks so much to Mark Darcy, Leslie, tibys, gothicflower, angelofire and PollyWantCookie for reviewing!