It's my little brother's birthday today, so this is dedicated to him, to Lily Orange who I have awarded another Nobel Prize for updating, because she reviewed millions of times AGAIN! and for Joelle Spark eight, who not only read and reviewed this story, but also my Merlin one, which has been sadly neglected. And to anyone else who reviewed - you have a special place in my heart (and more importantly in Sirius'!). Hope you enjoy this one. :p
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there." - Jalal ad-Din RumiCara's face was a mask of horror as Roddy stepped out from behind Ethan with a huge smile on his face.
"Carissima, darling? Is that you?"
"I am not your darling, Mancinelli."
"But you will be. One day." He smirked at her.
"No, I will not."
Sensing the tension, my Mum moved between them and told me to show Cara up to my room. I acquiesced, leading Cara up the stairs.
Once in my room, she turned to me.
"I'm so sorry about that. He's just this idiot who thinks that if he asks me enough times, I'll fall at his feet in adoration."
"No worries," I assured her. "My friend has this guy just like Roddy – he follows her around, asks her to date him endlessly, sends her birthday, Valentine's Day and Christmas cards, tries to find ways to be alone with her, and often the people she does date end up he- pranked in some way or other."
I caught myself before I uttered the word "hex". Cara spoke good English, and although she might not understand the word, I was worried that she might ask me or worse, someone else, what it meant.
"Huh. Men, right?" she asked.
"Yeah. Men!" I agreed, although secretly thinking that with her looks, she probably had had cause to rant about more men than me. I suddenly felt a bit awkward, with this glamorous, older girl standing in my bedroom, her nails perfectly painted, her eyebrows two thin, long lines above her fluttering eyelashes, her feet still encased in the soft leather of her Manalo Blahnik espadrilles.
It was tantamount to having Titia in my room, something which filled me with horror as I imagined her looking in disgust at the stuffed animals on the bed and the pictures of my friends and I on the wall. I hadn't even got my Tom Cruise poster at that point, and the room looked like it could belong to an eleven year old. I had no idea what this sophisticated girl would make of it.
My worrying was interrupted as she began to speak again.
"Thank you so much, Rose – I can call you Rose, right?"
I nodded.
"Right. Si – I'm just so grateful to be out of that house and away from that girl. You must think I'm a very... proud – it means not pleased with things, thinking yourself to be above them?... as well as pathetic for being homesick when I'm sixteen – I'm such a bambino, a child."
"No, you're not." I moved to sit on my bed, and she sat down beside me. "I've heard my brother complain about how awful Melanie Fforbes is before; he even told me that once she set fire to this girl's hair in Chemistry when all this girl did was wear the same dress as her to a party that weekend. Plus I get homesick all the time – I've been to boarding school for the past three years, so you'd think I'd be used to it, but I still get homesick from time to time."
She smiled at me. "Thanks. I know I keep saying that – it must get really annoying, but I'm so grateful that you stepped in like that. At first, when she started to make all these... what's the word... mean? That means... bad, yes? Yes, mean comments, I ignored it and thought it will be over soon. But it just got worser and worser, until I just wanted to back to Italia and get away from that awful girl. You will correct me if I speak the English badly, won't you, Rosa?" she added.
"Sure. Although I think you're amazing at it. How long have you been learning it?"
"Since I was... five, I think. In Italia, it is very important to learn and speak English well – it is the language of business and dip... diplomacy, so we learn to speak it very young."
"Wow – I wish I could speak Italian as well as you can speak English – it'd be awesome."
"Awesome – this means great, right? It is... slang?"
"Yeah – slang. It means something is very good."
"Ah... I see. Well Rosa, I think you are awesome."
"Oh – thanks. It was nothing – I can't imagine being in a house with Melanie Fforbes for as long as you were – I'd probably have put a dead mouse in her bed long before."
She laughed.
"I like you, Rosa. I think you have a good sense of fun, yes? I think you not like Melanie, who I know is scared of mud, and spiders, and mice, and doesn't eat bread because she says it will ruin her figure. How people can live without bread, I do not know. For me, a fresh Panini, or Ciabatta is what I look forward to."
My Mum popped her head round the door. "Oooh – all this talk of Panini is making me hungry. Do you want to sort out a bed for Cara, Rose? I'll just go and get some sheets and a pillow and duvet."
I began to pull the spare mattress out from under my bed. Then I grabbed my pillow and duvet off my bed.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm just making my bed." I replied, slightly puzzled.
"But is this not your bed?"
"Yes, but you'll be sleeping on that, and I'll have this mattress. You are the guest."
She frowned at me.
"Nonsenso! You have been kind to take me into your house and look after me for three weeks, but it is too... too much for you to have to give up your bed as well. I am molto felice, how do you say... very happy to sleep on this mattress."
I stared at her in consternation. Although it was at that moment I knew I was going to like this Cara Russiani. Beautiful she may be, but I knew what they said about judging a book by its cover. How often had I judged someone to be boring or stupid or annoying merely from their appearance? Just because Cara was as beautiful as someone like Titia, it didn't mean she was anything like her.
During those three weeks, I learnt a lot about Cara. She was wonderfully kind, very charismatic, although perhaps one of her flaws was that she was quite overbearing. She carried me along in her wake of confidence, sweeping away my soft oppositions. But it was good for me: as I went along with her, as she pulled me into talking to random people, doing things I would never have dared to do before, I began to grow in confidence.
Perhaps that was why, a year later when I went to stay with her for two weeks over the summer, I sang a few songs in front of over two hundred people. Not family or friends, like at the Logan Summer Barbecue, people whom I hadn't met before that would judge me on my performance.
During that first summer that she spent with us, I began to examine the dynamics of her relationship with Roddy. Although he was rather annoying, and constantly persistent in his chasing of her, having gotten to know him before Cara, I detected real affection for her. With a few hints, a few less flowery compliments and more sincere ones, by the end of their stay with us they were friends. By the end of my stay with Cara the next summer, they were tentatively dating.
Roddy's grandmother, a fierce old lady who was the matriarch of the Mancinellis, adored me. The Mancinellis and the Russianis were old friends, and had hopes of marrying their children, Roddy and Cara. Before my arrival upon the scene, Cara wouldn't even look at Roddy, but after... I'm sure you can guess.
Perhaps that's where my idea for helping James came from. It's not like I want to set random people up together, just two similar circumstances in which I thought that these two boys could make each of my friends happy.
Although I do admit it was quite fun to see the fruits of my labour – Roddy and Cara make a great couple without being sickly sweet. Roddy is quite a charmer, but the way she manages him is absolutely hilarious. For example (imagine with Italian accents):
"Cara, my darling! Have I told you how utterly ravishing you look today?"
"No, you haven't. Perhaps it slipped your mind when you where looking at that other girl over there."
"What girl? Oh – her? She is walking very close to the edge of the bridge, isn't she?" (And the thing is, that is true. If it were any other guy, I wouldn't believe him, but Roddy only has eyes for Cara, although they do like to tease each other a lot).
The following summer, Cara came back to England with Roddy to stay with us, and she accidently mentioned something about Steve Jenkins, the seeker for the England Quidditch team. I'm not too up on Quidditch, but I did know the English team players.
It was impossible that Cara could know about Quidditch without being aware of magic. I decided to see if she really had mentioned Steve Jenkins or not. A few minutes later I managed to slip into the conversation about our favourite desserts the following remark.
"My headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, has a passion for sherbet lemons. The few times I've been to his office he has always offered me one. I think it's great that just because he's old, it doesn't prevent him from being able to buy and offer sweets."
As remarks go, it was very random, but it had the desired effect. Roddy and Caras' eyes met and widened. Then followed the most cautious conversation I have ever had.
"Your Headmaster is Albus Dumbledore? What is the name of your school?"
"Hogwarts."
"And where is this school?"
"Up in Scotland."
"Oh. Whereabouts."
"North. Near a village called Hogsmeade. We go there some Saturdays to shop, and have a Butterbeer in the pub."
"A butterbeer? I love those!"
To anyone who had no idea that magic existed, the conversation was fairly innocuous, but to those who knew about magic, obviously it was a very loaded conversation. After about ten minutes more of this, we were finally able to come clean and admit that we were witches and wizards.
My parents and brothers were trying to follow this conversation with bewildered looks on their faces. It turned out that Cara and Roddy were on the exchange not only to improve their English, but also to get used to acting around muggles. Later, I found out that the Mancinellis and the Russianis were amongst the crème de la crème, or should I say the crème de la crema of pureblood wizarding Italian society, although they did not hold the prejudices against muggles and muggle borns that their French and English counterparts did.
The next year, it was my turn to go to Italy and I spent a fabulous two weeks flirting with Roderigo's friends and brothers, all of whom where hopeless womanizers, and then came back to do my holiday work and prepare for the "year from hell".
On September the 1st, we had a slight problem in the fact that the car broke down on the way to King's Cross, and so I arrived at the platform at two minutes to eleven, hurriedly throwing my trunk onto the train and hastily kissing each of my family goodbye, with promises to write.
I was just in time, as the train began to move, and I waved goodbye to my parents, just beginning to process the fact that this was the last September 1st I would be on the train to Hogwarts on. Annoyed with my moping, I decided to go and find my friends.
Halfway down the train, and with very sore arms, I heard Lily screaming "WHAT! WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD MAKE YOU HEAD BOY?"
Leaving my trunk in the corridor, I ran up to the carriage where I heard Lily's voice issuing from.
James stood in front of Lily, looking angry, whilst Lily glared right back at him. This, however, was not what drew my attention. Standing by the window, looking like a character from a Renaissance painting, stood a topless Sirius Black.