Chapter Twenty: A Hat
I must admit, that was one of the choicest exit lines I've ever delivered. Even Mom's movies can't compare to some of the stuff we witches get the chance to say –just casually suggesting my friend commit a felony (to say nothing of bending the laws of time and space into a kinky pretzel,) for the sake of dating a guy, sneaky as you please. The thought of it still makes me giggle a little bit.
Of course, it's never a good idea to give one to a Ravenclaw. They have an unseemly way of improving on a perfectly good plan for perfectly normal mischief until it turns into a tactical maneuver worthy of the Aurory. And then they usually fuck it up. Gryffindors at least have the courtesy to fuck up through a respectable lack of contingency planning. Ravenclaws think of every little detail in what could go wrong and then forget some little necessary on the way to carry it out. Sam, for instance, once planned to swipe back some tiddly thing Filch had confiscated. She nearly made a clean job of it, except that Professor Snape was a little curious as to why she was heading back from the caretaker's office without a skirt on.
That wasn't even Sam's worst incident of forgetful near-nudity. She showed up for her Care of Magical Creatures O.W.L. in a school jacket, skirt, little bobby socks, her House tie and a red brassiere.
I'm digressing as bad as Jess does. I swear, if she went to buy groceries the way she goes to tell a story, we'd find her in Belgium having tea with the Prime Minister.
What I was getting to, it's likely a bad job I suggested the Time-Turner idea to Jess. I can't see as how I made things any worse, though, and if nothing else, it probably also gave her the notion to use the damn thing to get some sleep. There were times that year when I nearly asked her to sell me an illegal one…you know, because we don't get enough illegal ones in our shop. That's a sticky thing to have in inventory, you know, and it's a good job we can just call Jess when that happens…
Anyway!
I had a surprisingly easy time telling my sisters what they already knew. They hugged me and asked me why I'd taken so long and we all got a bit teary-eyed. You know how we girls are when emotional things happen. Then Sam suggested we celebrate, and I brought up Muggle Madness Night, and then we jumped up and down a lot, clapping our hands with glee and looking stupidly excited at the thought of dressing like Muggles and going out to play in almost the dodgiest nightlife available. We do that sometimes when an idea sounds good –the jumping up and down, not the playing in dodgy spots.
After a bit of discussion of just which Muggles we wanted to go as, including a tense moment when Sam and I had to explain to Kendra that Dame Edna Everage is, in fact, a man, we got to work arranging our costumes. Kendra was bitching about all the Muggle performers she liked turning out to be men (which we really can't fault her on, unless it's to question taste,) and Sam was trying on a spectacularly tarty pair of leather pants when we heard the sudden whooshing of an authorized Floo entrance.
And given that there are only two people who have automatic authorized entrance into our fireplace, we scurried over to it posthaste, Sam hopping a little as she tried to pull up her pants. The smoke cleared and a figure with shopping bags and a large ladies' hat appeared.
"Darlings, I'm here! Are you busy?"
"Mum!" We ran to hug her –and then helped Sam up, and then kept going.
"Oh, it's so good to see you girls! I've just had a run-in with the second-most impossible woman in the history of the world." I took the bags on her right and Sam got the ones on her left, as we always do. "Isn't your shop open?"
"Not at this hour–"
"We may be open twenty-four hours in theory, but not when there aren't any customers. It's nearly dinnertime."
"That's right! Stupid time zones…" Mum slid the second face on her watch up to reveal the third. "Yes, it is after five here…huh. I love this watch, by the way. I was shooting a cameo appearance on one of the crime dramas and the director asked me wherever had I gotten it? I hope Jessie won't mind, I told him it was Gucci…Thing is, I don't think he believed me. Do you suppose she might sell me one like it, for a man, though?" Mum looked at the watch again. "There again, he might just prefer it with diamonds, I think he's seeing that adorable guy from the revival of 'Gypsy' I saw last week."
"They revived 'Gypsy' again?" I asked.
"Oh, darling, they have to. Every six years in America, we need a celebrity murder, a major sex scandal and a revival of 'Gypsy.' It's the circle of life, darling." Mum quit smoking when she was expecting us, but she still carries the holder and gestures with it. Looks a bit like Cruella De Vil, really. "We have the murder for the men, the scandal for the ladies, and 'Gypsy' for the gay male community. That's why I like them better."
"Mel's out now, Mum."
"Really?" Even as I glared at Sam, our mother's face lit up like Christmas morning. "Oh, sweetie, I'm so glad."
"…Huh?"
"We've known for years, dear. It takes a lot of nerve to come out. Oooh, and just in time for the new premiere!" She did the very same hand-clapping, hopping thing we do when one of us gets a good idea. "I know the most adorable bass player from this all-girl rock band –they did a song in my latest movie, you'll love it, and my personal assistant's sister is also out, and quite the feisty little minx, if I do say so myself. The male lead tried to hit on her and she broke his jaw."
"Really?" We set down Mum's bags as Ken poured some apple cider for everyone. There were enough chairs in inventory to provide a comfy seat for each of us…probably why we never sold a stick of the 'furniture section' in three years.
You'll notice we don't say much in the first few minutes when Mum visits. Can't blame her, really. Her line of work's so blasted lonely, it's like a pressure gauge of conversation when she gets home. You just have to wait it out, let the worst of built-up isolation steam off, and then she's more like everyone else's mum…well, sort of.
"Oh, yes! Held up production for three solid weeks and then the screenwriters all but cut him out –probably because the drunken bastard hit on one of them, as well…so now it's a very Ophelia-centric updated version of 'Hamlet' with motorcycles…oh, and she doesn't die this time, he does, right after he kills the rest of the main characters. She pops the Fortinbras-equivalent with a Desert Eagle and seizes control of the post-nuclear wasteland empire, Evita-style, with Horatio as her Che. Oh, and they've managed to make it a musical."
We stared.
"Mum…that sounds like utter crap."
"Crap, yes, but cult-classic crap!" She grinned. "Look at your Aunt Molly, she did nothing but cult-classics and now she's got a DVD empire. The residuals alone will send your children to Hogwarts."
"You've got to stop doing movies just because they're fun," Sam observed. "Whatever happened to serious drama?"
"The economy's too robust. The only serious drama America will see this year…I'm thinking the Brit-pics are going to take it. Comedy's doing well, but it's airheaded fluff, pretty much, with the exception of a few delicious little indie films…other than that, it's mostly action. When Americans are comfortable, they want Bruce Willis and Jean-Claude Van Damme blowing up badguys, 'cause it's not too real then. When Americans are poor, they want drama. It's a question of 'someone-has-it-worse'n me.' With this dotcom thing, though, it's all thrillers and shoot-em-ups…and indie flicks!"
"Always the indie flicks…" Sam mumbled.
"What happens to culture in the middle of a terrorist-based war, though?" I asked. "I mean, what's wizarding Britain going to do in the next few months?"
"Probably shit out more sunshine than a middle-school guidance counselor with Paxil diarrhea."
Kendra got a bit of cider up her nose at that.
"I'm serious. When people are scared, they want comfort and snuggling and warm fuzzies. It's enough to make you sick. You'll get cutesy, chopped-down versions of musicals that were edgy ten years ago, sometimes with a bit of the original cast thrown in for extra pathetic points. You'll get sequels to action franchises that should have been shot like a sick dog fifteen years before. Horror movies go entirely to pot –not that that's much of a drop, but still…oh, and you don't want to see what that kind of mess does to children's films. The talking animals all take 'ludes. I saw it all at the end of the Seventies. Between the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the 1980 Olympics when our hockey team finally popped the U.S.S.R., movies kinda sucked."
"I do seem to recall some massive suckage, yes, at least if the video collection back at home indicates."
"I freely admit to taking more time than usual off to look after you three when that shit came down. You're the best excuse I've ever had to bail out of a sinking ship in the spinning blue water of Hell's toilet."
"And yet you stayed on for a post-apocalyptic bombed-out update of 'Hamlet' that sounds like the 'Vagina Monologues' on speed."
"And a musical!"
"Jeez, Mum, couldn't you say one of us had cancer?"
"You're just saying that because I make you watch my movies."
"Frankly, yes." Sam looked pained. She's always been the most vocally critical of us when it comes to films. She understands movies better, so she demands more from them. I usually find so many logical errors in the first ten minutes of a movie that any sense made after that makes it good. I also enjoy hot actresses who aren't my mum. Kendra is a fangirl, plain and simple. If her favorite actors and writers make a film together, she'll happily watch it seven times before realizing anything can possibly be the matter. "Did you screen it already?"
"Yes, and it doesn't suck as badly as you'd think. If you take it as a spoof of the 'Kendra: Warrior Babe of the Outland' movies, or of anything Kenneth Branagh ever did, it actually works pretty well. And the soundtrack is amazing. You will like that."
And then the pressure ran down.
"So, I ran into this horrible woman outside your father's shop. Apparently he's been selling banned books again and the Ministry had their panties all in a twist over it."
"Which books?"
"Oh, a couple of sex manuals, some bodice-rippers, a werewolf's memoirs and most of the Muggle Studies section...you know, the good stuff. She even objected to those adorable Japanese comic-booky ones I picked out."
"Well, that one manga you sent had more guns in it than some hunting stores…" Kendra remarked.
"The vampire one? I liked that!"
"Mum, I love you, but your taste is a little too …highbrow for the Ministry of Magic." I attempted to be diplomatic.
"Highbrow as in raised." Sam snorted. "The Ministry's not used to movie stars, or Muggles, or anything that brings joy and light, pretty much. If it can't be found in your better British raisin ranch, the Ministry doesn't want to see Muggle stuff."
"Strictly senior-center," I agreed.
"They don't even appreciate 'Fanny Hill,'" Kendra sighed mournfully. Mum, Sam and I stared at her. Ken frowned. "Okay, are you lot surprised I like classic smut, or that I can read? Because one of those is going to end in smacking."
"Classic smut!"
"Good answer!" She may not be the sharpest nail in the gun, but Kendra does have some badass working for her. She is, after all, named for one of the most fascinating cult heroines of the Seventies bombed-out wasteland action film era. Molly Michon is one of Mum's best friends, and since Sam and I got somewhat more respectable names, we like to rib Ken about living up to the action-queen stereotype. Of course, we find it a bit iffy on the occasions when she actually does.
Incidentally, Samantha Endora Gillian Redfern is called that because Mum figured the first witch in her family should be named after the best-known witches in America. Sam's never forgiven her that one. My full name is Melanie Belle, after 'the two strongest women in 'Gone With the Wind,' that PMS headcase and her ilk be damned.' (I suspect the reason why I've only the one middle name is because they never say what Mammy's real one is.) Ken's right name is even worse, once you know the middles.
This is, of course, why Jessie's family –and their grand total of four names, doesn't faze us much. We know full well it could be worse.
Oh, yes, and in case my description was a bit lacking, my mother is tall, strikingly pretty and blond –but I think you might have guessed that last bit.
"I've always been proud of you girls for being able to handle adult topics," Mum remarked, taking off her long fur stole (faux, with a knife-holster in the lining for overly-zealous PETA folk,) and draping it on our hatstand. "I bet you know more than most women twice your age, simply because you refuse to let your minds be constrained by other people's morality." She set the big hat onto the hatstand's ball and cocked her head to the side, as if pleased by the look of it. "The Ministry seem like a lot of ignorant weasels and what's more, they're cowardly."
"Captain Obvious to the rescue," Sam gulped at her cider. "What-all did they try to do to Dad?"
"Oh, this little toad of a woman thought she was going to close the shop."
"WHAT?"
"Oh, don't worry, my dears. Mummy took care of it." With the empty cigarette-holder in her teeth, she really did look rather formidable. "I informed the little froggy that in order to close the shop, she would require a declaration submitted by the Hogsmeade Chamber and signed by a sixty percent majority of the Wizengamot, so she buggered off."
We stared again.
"…Well, and I did threaten her a bit…"
"Mum…how do you know about-?"
"It was in your History of Magic textbook. I get a bit bored on the set sometimes, so I've taken to reading some of your old books. Astonishing how much is in the footnotes, too, though I still haven't found out what that 'Chamber' is…"
"You've been reading our old textbooks?"
"Darlings, exactly how much screen time do you think Gertrude gets in 'Hamlet'? Even in this new version where she's schtupping Claudius with the intention of killing him, there wasn't a lot to do on-set. I got a lot of nice reading done."
"But why those?"
"Just because I'm not a witch doesn't mean I'm not interested in my family's world, you know." Mom looked a little hurt. "That, and to an outsider, it's really quite fascinating. Escapist, in a way. Everything the wizards have better than Muggles feels like happy fantasy, everything they have worse –well, those are usually the bits I stash it away to rib your father about later. And the structure of your government is really interesting. Apparently it grew out of English common law as well as foundational documents, so while there is a decided resemblance to American government in theory, the end result is much more akin to the colonial governance of the old Empire."
Oh. That's another odd thing. Mum has a law degree with a political science minor. She left college to make her first movie and finished up when we were toddlers. Mainly she's used it for sense memory when playing Attractive Female Attorneys, but occasionally she will spit out a bit of remarkable jurisprudence and startle everyone during cocktail hour. It also comes in handy around contract negotiation time –which probably explains her position in the Screen Actors' Guild. She can appear fairly ditzy, but our Mum is not your stereotypical Hollywood actress.
"You were saying something about the Chamber," I interjected.
"Yes. According to the first charter of London in your world, there's something called the Chamber that used to house masters from all the guilds –you know, trade and service and all of that. The Ministry's charter was actually granted by them before the Magna Carta."
"So the Chamber created the Ministry before the Crown allowed the creation of Parliament?"
"Exactly."
"What does that mean?" Kendra looked confused.
"Well, ducks, I'm no expert, but it seems to me that if your friend Jessie's Chamber of Commerce is the same Chamber your textbook was on about –which is possible, if not extremely likely, well, then it would mean she has, in theory, the power of judicial review and executive veto over any action imposed on guild-controlled lands, persons or holdings by your Ministry."
We stared for a moment.
"We studied magic, Mum, not Legalish."
"In theory, anything the Ministry does wrong in Diagon, Jessie could chuck it out," I translated. "But it would have to be the same Chamber."
"Yes, and she'd have to be a Master within her guild, that's another thing," Mom explained. "Is she, that you know of?"
"I'm not sure."
"Because there's also a provision for the head of the chamber to become Lord Mayor of London in the event the Ministry should violate the original terms of its' charter, fail to meet quorum for any legislative action, or fall victim to what the documents call 'catastrophic State or Emergency risking Life, Limb and Propertie.' That's spelled with loopy f's for s's and all-italics, incidentally."
"Do we even have a Lord Mayor of London?" Sam inquired.
Before Mum or I could answer, the bell over the front door went off. "Kendra! I thought you were locking up!" Sam scurried over to the door, only just managing to button those preposterous leather pants before the customer entered. "I'm so sorry, we're actually…hi."
Standing just inside our doorway was a tall, dark-haired man with a lopsided, hopeful smile.
"Is this… Redferns' Pawn and Secondhand?" he asked, smiling a little more. "They said it was on the left…"
It isn't often we see Sam speechless.