Sorry for the longer wait! I was on vacation and sans wi-fi, but now I am home. Here is the next chapter! :)
19. Playing Detective
There was a trail of heat left behind when his hands moved away from a spot on her legs, her back, her stomach... it wasn't a searing heat, either. It was more like a tingling warmth and it ignited something in her. A need to cling onto him like her life depended on it.
Then everything seemed to flash forward and they were just a mess of limbs and sheets, accompanied by a whole lot moaning and sighing. A whole lot of a certain tingly, quavering feeling that -
Audrey's eyes snapped open.
She let out a small sigh of relief when she realized she was lying on her stomach in her bed, a large lump of the covers gathered under her arm. Alcohol before bed always gave her the most strangely pleasant dreams.
These are not my sheets.
These are not my sheets.
In one swift movement, Audrey rolled over and sat up with a startled expression on her face. Her eyes skimmed the foreign room until they landed on the man lying next to her, naked as far as she could tell - which was a whole lot thanks to her talent at hogging the covers.
The rest of the night flooded to her in the next second, all coming to her in one, big headache - the drinking, the happiness, and, of course, the great shag.
"Morning."
Audrey's eyes met Percy's and she felt her features softening into a smile.
Until she realized what day it was.
"Damn it! I have training!"
Audrey jumped from the bed and scrambled around the bedroom in search for her muggle clothes. Oh, how dearly she hoped that Allison would have spare robes.
"Nice tattoo."
"This is not the time!"
With a frustrated groan, Audrey reached a hand under the bed until her fingers wrapped around her left sneaker. She pulled it out and got dressed in record time, then turned to Percy with a satisfied huff.
Audrey felt the smile returning to her face, despite her panic. "Are we - ?" she started, gesturing wildly between them. She let out a defeated sigh and said, "You know what? For the next eight hours, I couldn't care less. We'll talk about it tonight - your place?"
Percy smiled. "Sounds good to me."
"Good morning, everyone!"
"Well, she's cheery," Allison muttered.
Audrey looked up from her hands and ceased fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. She may have earned a one week break, but that meant that Audrey came back on the last day of training with the year one and year three trainees. She only hoped that the Auror that had entered the room was not as pushy as Connell.
That certain training session was being run by the year three supervisor, and it was already off to a mysterious start. Everyone had been issued a short-sleeve cotton shirt and a pair of sweatpants for the session, which was a change from the usual robes. Audrey thanked her lucky stars that she didn't need robes the one day she didn't have them.
Audrey's eyes skimmed the room until they landed on the lively supervisor, and she nearly stumbled backwards in shock.
The woman looked very young, and she was dressed in the same attire as everyone else. Her skin was deeply tanned and she wore her brown hair short, almost shaved. Her face was set in a smile, but it looked more mischievous than kind.
"I am quite pleased to see you all in one room like this," she continued. "My name is Teodora Gabor, as the year three trainees know, but you may call me Teo."
"She's pretty relaxed, too," Audrey muttered in reply to Allison.
"Now, let's get started on some combat training! Leave your wands on the benches at the sides of the room."
"Forget what I said about relaxed," Audrey added as she made her way to one of the benches along the walls of the room with Allison.
"I'm ready for training with Halloway again," Allison replied in agreement.
"I can't believe I'm saying this but... I second that."
Audrey and Allison made their way back to where they were first standing and made sure they were spread out from the other partners. Teo gave them some basic instructions on moves and ordered all of the trainees to take turns repeating them a few times before starting to actually fight.
"Oh, and keep your eyes open - you never know what combat may bring!" she reminded cheerfully before stepping to one of the sides of the room and observing everyone.
Combat training had always been one of Audrey's dislikes. She knew how to fight with a wand well enough - that was the world she grew up in, after all - but with her hands?
Well, that was another matter entirely, if the bruises forming on her abdomen were anything to go by. Or maybe she was just tired. It wasn't like she got a whole lot of sleep the night before.
"How... are you... so good at this?" Audrey asked Allison in disbelief, breathing heavily. Her partner was a bit shorter than her, and Audrey was going for defensive moves, yet Allison still managed to land numerous punches and kicks.
"You know what they say," Allison started with a smug look on her face. "Aim high, hit low."
"Who says that?" Audrey asked exasperatedly.
Allison shrugged. "Muggles."
As Audrey rolled her eyes and let out a defeated sigh, her attention was drawn to something that looked a lot like a crack in the centre of the ceiling of the training room. Audrey narrowed her eyes at the spot, and then widened them when the crack started to spread.
"Audrey, pay attention."
"No, look."
Audrey pointed up at the ceiling. Pieces were starting to crumble out of the crack now, and more people were drawing their attention to it. It didn't take long for the puzzle to come together in Audrey's mind.
She grabbed Allison's arm and quickly dragged her to the side of the room just as a large chunk fell out of the ceiling. Audrey dove for her wand and when she turned, almost the entire centre part of the ceiling was caving with a deafening screech.
Audrey swished her wand and aimed at the falling ceiling. The chunks that were falling bounced a bit, as if they hit an invisible barrier, and surprise filled Audrey. There was no way her magic was strong enough to hold all of that... her eyes skimmed the room and she noticed other trainees in positions similar to hers. Her gaze wandered to the ceiling, and curiously enough, it was right there, all in one piece.
Wait. What?
It was as if there were two ceilings stacked together, and only one of them fell down. As if someone - perhaps a certain supervisor - had transfigured that second ceiling.
Suddenly, Audrey heard a clapping sound from the far side of the room, and Teo stepped forward until she was standing in the middle of the training room with an amused smile on her face.
"Brilliant!" she exclaimed, spreading her arms wide. "I must say, you are all quite good at adapting."
Teo's head snapped towards Audrey and her eyes seemed to sear through her. "And you, Miss Callaghan, are just full of surprises. Only one week has passed since the incident and yet you're performing impeccably."
"What, the Slytherin? That's bollocks!"
Audrey's eyes trailed across the room to the source of the voice - her partner at the beginning of the training year. She couldn't help the scowl that came to her face.
Teo let out a condescending tsk-tsk before saying, "I would be careful if I were you, Mr. Fawley. Miss Callaghan is holding up a sizeable portion of this ceiling."
"She's just a coward."
Coward? I'll show you, you little -
"Hey, don't run your mouth about things you don't understand! Audrey took down three Death Eaters during the incident last week! What were you doing?"
The outburst wasn't from Allison, who was sitting right next to Audrey with a look that was halfway between amusement and alarm. No, it was from someone that was a good fifteen feet away, staring down Fawley from across the room, his face red and eyes narrowed.
Much to Audrey's surprise, it was Ron Weasley.
The first to react was Teo. She laughed loudly and even made a show of wiping tears from her eyes. "My my, what a rambunctious group you are," she said between laughs. Then, with a swish of her wand, the ceiling chunks started to levitate to their original positions and the cracks disappeared. "Get back to work, folks. I'll try not to bring the ceiling down again anytime soon."
"I don't think I've ever missed Halloway this much," Audrey breathed out as she stood up.
Allison laughed and stood up next to her. "I'm going to kiss the very ground he walks on after this."
When Audrey exited the change room, she nearly ran straight into Ron and Harry.
Not that she was really surprised. She had been expecting them to seek her out after training.
With an overdramatic roll of her eyes, Audrey said, "Yes, I'm a Slytherin. Get over it. Honestly, with the way you're staring, you'd think you've never seen one before."
"Well, brave Slytherins are a real rarity," Ron noted.
"Brave - that's sweet," Audrey said sarcastically. The word gnawed at her though, and she was reminded of what Daphne had said. Audrey had a difficult time believing that she had changed that much, though, so it wasn't too difficult for her to continue, "I'm a proud one, too, so watch what you say about my house. You don't give us enough credit."
"I don't think he, er, meant it that way," Harry excused nervously, as if he was scared she would hex the two of them.
Audrey shrugged, her mind wandering to one of her first encounters with Percy that had been awfully similar. "Well, it's not like Slytherin has the best track record for do-gooders, I suppose. Although, if you count Merlin - and I do - he was one of the best do-gooders there ever was, so I guess Slytherin has a habit of producing extremes."
"That's one way of putting it," Ron said. "It's just... good to see everyone making an effort. Really everyone."
Audrey laughed lightly. "Well, if you're sufficiently convinced that I'm not a pureblood supremacist, I think I'll be on my way," she said with a wave.
As soon as Audrey turned the corner, she broke into a run. She had not planned for that encounter, and now she was much shorter on time. Audrey hoped to Merlin and Morgana that she didn't have to wait another day to retrieve Brady's file.
However, once Audrey arrived at the Administrative Registration Department, the Welcome Witch was still sitting at her desk, and Audrey couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as she walked up to her.
The witch gave her a smile and asked, "What can I help you with, Miss?"
"I would like to retrieve the identification file of one Brady Callaghan," Audrey said. "He's my brother."
"I'll need a piece of identification from you in that case," the witch said.
Audrey handed her the Ministry Identification Badge she was given when she enrolled in Auror training and the Welcome Witch checked it over. Then, the witch pulled out her wand and performed an incantation, probably to check if Audrey had any polyjuice potion or some kind of concealment charm.
With a nod, the woman handed Audrey her badge back and said, "Brady Callaghan?" Audrey nodded in confirmation. "Any middle name? That would make it easier to find."
"Yes, Altair."
The witch stood up and turned around. As she headed for a closed door labelled AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, she called over her shoulder, "Be back in a jiff!"
After about five minutes, the woman came back with a file in hand. She sat down again and opened it, probably to make sure that everything was in order. When a frown settled on her features, Audrey could feel worry weighing her down.
"What did you need the file for, Miss?" the witch asked slowly.
"He's been missing, and I wanted to see if there were any updates to it," Audrey explained. She swore that there was a nervous shake in her voice.
The woman behind the desk looked up at her, sadness filling her eyes. "Miss, your brother is dead."
Audrey blinked. Dead?
"Yes, that's what this says."
Oh, Merlin, I said that out loud? "Was anyone notified?" Audrey asked instead.
The woman flipped through the pages of the file and then nodded once her eyes came to rest on the bottom of a page. "Yes, a Missus Valerie Vulchanova. Says here that she was the official guardian of your brother."
"She's my mother's oldest sister," Audrey managed to say. "Estranged sister."
Her mother had not seen hide nor hair of Valerie since the day of her wedding, and Audrey and Brady had never even met the woman. They didn't even know if she was alive, and whenever Audrey's mother would get riled up about the matter, her tirade would always end along the lines of, "Father should have never trusted that Bulgarian idiot, pureblood or not!" then storm out of the room.
However, in the midst of the war, she probably became Brady's automatic guardian when their parents died, and no one bothered to question it.
"Can I get a copy of that file?" Audrey asked quietly.
The witch nodded and copied the pages with a swish of her wand. She handed Audrey the non-magical copy with an apologetic look, but Audrey couldn't meet her eyes. She swiftly turned around and stormed out.
Died on the third of May, nineteen ninety-eight, eighteen minutes past two in the morning. St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Grievous injuries from Dark Magic. Buried at Heroes' Peak, Hogsmeade.
Daphne had been telling the truth. Brady stayed behind to help fight against the Death Eaters. That was a welcoming thought, to know that her brother did the right thing.
The thought that made her feel sick to her stomach was that by the end of it all, Brady was suffering from horrific injuries. Injuries that took hours to finally take his life away, in a hospital that was probably far too swamped to even remember his bleeding name.
With a pained sigh, Audrey closed the folder in her hands and looked up at the apartment building in front of her. She had walked to Percy's place from the Ministry, but as she walked up the stairs to his flat, she suddenly felt very displeased with herself.
What am I even thinking? she thought to herself with grimace. A big part of Audrey was telling her how selfish she was being. How could she just keep going to Percy with her problems, dropping them onto him like an overloaded lorry? Audrey ridiculed the way Slytherins acted, jokingly called it 'The Leech Complex,' but wasn't that what she was doing?
Audrey had changed for the better. She was brave now. She could handle things on her own. Most of all, she couldn't keep leaning her weight on other people. Especially not people that had their own healing to do.
By the time Percy opened the door to his flat, Audrey had buried herself into a tunnel, and she could only say one thing.
"I - I can't do this. To you."
Yeah, things are getting a little angsty. Don't forget to leave a review! :)