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I apparate home in a dejected mood, landing with a thud in my messy kitchen that is really never used. I think I have some moldy bread, stale milk, and some butter somewhere in my cabinets. Sighing, I toss my robes into the pile of laundry that is overflowing the laundry room. I need to send that out soon. Luckily, I have about ten sets of plain black robes from my school days that still fit. I loosen the buttons on my plain white button down, untucking it from my knee length black skirt as I kick off my shoes.
"Hello," an odd airy voice greets me, coming from my sofa. I jump, bumping my hip into the counter painfully. Seated on my couch, long blond waves, big blue eyes, radish earrings and all, my bestest friend in the world!
"LUNA!" I cry, rushing to the couch and hugging her with all my might. "What are you doing here! I thought you were going to Zimbabwe to hunt for Three-headed Tusked Zinkyloos!" I've known Luna since the first night of Hogwarts when we sat next to each other after our sorting. On the first night she told me that she and her dad were magizoologists, and she had studied all sorts of interesting creatures like Wrackspurts and Crumple Horned Snorklacks. For a whole term I believed her and sucked up her stories about exotic world travels and fantastic beasts. Until I went home and my mother said it was all nonsense, and that her father was the man who published the joke publication the Quibbler. My mother literally thought the Quibbler was intended as a joke. I have never had the heart to tell her that the Lovegoods think everything they publish is honest to Merlin truth. Once I confronted Luna, with a library book on magical creatures, and pointed out that none of the things she claimed to study were real. Unabashed, she said they simply hadn't been documented yet.
"I know! And I am, but I just had to stop in France to see you on the way! I barely see you anymore you work-a-holic! You're so thin! And pale! Have you been sick? You have been using the wrackspurt and nargle protections I gave you?"
"It's just a blip at work…they are going to name a new partner soon…"
"Ah, a big promotion!"
"Actually, I'm not getting promoted, Helios is…"
"But he doesn't work half as hard as you do?"
"Well, father thinks he can handle the greater responsibility, and he's stationed to take over father's half, and well…" Luna doesn't understand as her father has never placed the female limitations on her that most pureblooded parents do. I wonder what it would be like for her if her mum hadn't died so tragically. "Anyways, once Helios gets his big promotion, I'm sure things will settle down for me a bit. It's just been crazy with the rest of the partners lowering their caseload in preparing to take on another partner. Someone had to pick it up."
"Yeah, your brother, who is going to have to pick it up when he gets the promotion. He should be proving himself!" I shrug evasively. I know she's right. "You are twenty years old for Merlin's sake!" You should be seeing the world, enjoying life, going on dates with muggles!"
"LUNA! You aren't!" I squeal. I'm not so sure even Mr. Lovegood would be okay with that.
"No, but I wish I was, there's this one on the floor below me… Alas, it was never meant to be, he's married, and I believe the wrackspurts have gotten to him. But really, you should be able to do something spontaneous! Not tied to that stupid job of yours where they treat you like a slave. Come with me on the Scamander Expedition. See the WORLD! We could use someone with your brains! It's rumored he has a super hot grandson…. I'll let you have him." She pleads with those big blue eyes of hers.
I smile… Loony Luna they called her… "I can't just take off, but I appreciate the offer. I know you'll tell me all about it, and you have to promise to kiss him for me, just to see if he's a good kisser. You know… like for scientific purposes."
"Just a month!" she begs.
"Luna, you're crazy. Seriously. You're crazy, but I love you." I say giving her another big hug.
"You're no fun anymore Stori, what happened to that girl I knew it school?" She laughs hugging me again. "Remember when we stole all of Goldstein's hair potions and switched them with hair removal solutions. Or when we broke into professor Moody's office to free the boggart! Ohh! When we spied on George Weasley in the quidditch lockers!"
"I know, I know! I'll try and be more fun by the time you get back from your expedition. I promise to do at least one spontaneous thing, and to work on my tan."
"And promise not to let your mum get to you too much."
"That too."
"Have a great trip, Luna. Write me every week! Or… or I'll come down there myself and hex people until they tell me where you are!" I know she won't, but if I threaten, she'll write me at least once a month.
"I will, and I'll miss you so so so much! It's going to be our longest time apart since the war," says Luna sadly. We don't speak about it, not really at all. But I know she has scars, and I try to help her, but some things you just have to accept. I'm not the nosy type, or the judging type. And I love Luna for Luna, even the parts she can't share with me because it's too painful.
"I'll miss you too. Have some laughs, Loony Luna!"
"Get that smile back! Sayonara Silly 'Storia!" I laugh at her as she apparates out.
Falling onto the recently vacated sofa, I realize I'm not going to make it to the bed. That's how exhausted I am. Pulling out my wand, I summon a blanket from the bedroom and roll onto my side. I'm not moving till morning.
The next morning I stagger into work. I probably shouldn't have slept on the sofa. I barely have time to drop off my bag before I head to my dad's office.
"Morning Daddy," I say less than cheerfully as he lets me in. He nods to the chair and gives me a quick tight lipped smile.
"Lady Greengrass," he says, causing me to sit up straighter. This obviously isn't a casual meeting. "I'd like to talk to you about Helios' impending promotion this afternoon." I nod, this is it. This is when he tells me that I've worked just as hard, and deserve just as much recognition for it. "You've really been picking up a lot of slack with contracts, and paperwork that the current partners have been pushing off on others as we prepare to take on a new partner. Therefore, I've decided that you deserve a position change too."
I grin, I'm getting a promotion. Helios used to be a Senior Associate, and I'm just a regular Associate, perhaps I'll get Helios' old job. I was sure it would go to that Franz who just came out of Bauxabatons but whose father is a Partner. This is too good to be true.
"We would like to make you Helios' Senior Assistant."
"Senior Assistant?" doesn't he mean Senior Associate.
"You would be in charge making sure his files remain organized and up to date, you'll keep track of all meetings and appointments, attend them with him, take adequate notes, make necessary updates on client files, take dictations, read and answer mail as appropriate, maybe tidy up his office a bit sometimes, tea…"
"WHAT?" I blurt out. "You mean… like a…. a secretary?"
"No, a Senior Assistant…"
"No, what you are describing is a glorified secretary."
"It comes with a pay raise."
"It's not about the money! Merlin! You… you think that this is what I want. I deserve the partnership! I do TWICE the work Helios does. I got THREE more bloody NEWTs than him! I SINGLEHANDEDLY nabbed the Glazerbrook account!"
"Really, Ria," he says gently, using the name only he has ever called me. "I've humored you, you've actually done a decent job, daughter, but it's time that you got a little more respectable. You turned twenty last month, it's time you got serious, settled down, met a nice man. Your mother is right. And Helios is going to be working rather closely with Michelangelo Montressor, he was a year above you at the Academy. I don't know if you know him. He has taken over his father's business, and his father trusted us explicitly with their finances and legal matters."
Tears are building up in my eyes, he was humoring me. I put all this bloody work in for nothing! I should never have joined the firm with Helios! I should have become a healer or something! I have never loved this job, but I took it, thinking I could make my dad proud and my mother eventually respect me a bit for something more than a pretty face. I thought I could prove to myself and others that I was just as good at dealing and wheeling as my dad. I thought a man would look at me one day and say, she is more than breeding stock. She is my equal in every way. "Mum put you up to this!" I accuse him, standing up, pointing at him, which I of course know is rude.
"Well, your mother and I discussed things with Lord Montressor, and his son is very interested, but…"
"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!" I know at first he was a little more supportive of me, but now I can't believe what he's doing. She finally cracked my father's meager support in this. I'm going to have an arranged marriage with Michaelangelo Montressor if I don't put my foot down now.
"Ria, darling…"
"I QUIT! I QUIT!" I sob, giving him a glare and storming out of the office. "You're such a BASTARD!"
"RIA!" I hear him call after me, but I'm not giving him a chance to catch me.
I am barely three steps out the door when I spot my twin, hurrying toward me.
"I sensed, something wrong, Tori?" he pants, sometimes I hate our connection as twins.
"Walk, talk," I direct, speeding toward my office to gather my things. "Congrats on your promotion, dad made me your secretary, too bad we can't have kinky office sex, that'd just be wrong, so I'm quitting, maybe then he'll hire a hot secretary for you, problem solved! He was humoring me, letting me be an Associate until he finalizes a marriage with the Montressors, I can't stay here. I need to get away… Luna said she'd take me to Zimbabwe…"
"Zimbabwe?" asks a confused Helios as I shove my things in my bag.
"I need to get away, make me a portkey, hurry, before dad gets in here. I'm not talking to him! I'm done talking to everyone!" I exclaim a bit hysterically as I hold out a hairbrush. Luckily, Helios has always been one to act first, and ask questions later, and he also has a license to create impromptu portkeys to anywhere in the world.
"Where?" he says frantically starting the spell. I can hear my dad's footsteps coming nearer, and I'm not going to confront him like this. Half hysterical, half insane.
"Anywhere! Just activate it!" I say a bit shrilly as the door opens. I see my dad's purplish face for half a second before I feel the portkey activate, and I'm tumbling through space.
I land in a heap in the middle of bloody no-where. It could actually be anywhere. I'm in a grassy field with a few trees in the distance, wildflowers growing here and there, it's quite pretty. I could be in Italy, America, England, Canada, France, Spain, South America…
Okay, where the bloody hell am I? I quit my job, I'm lost, and, and…. I'm having a panic attack. I sit down quickly as the blood rushes from my head. I'm dizzy, and I can't breathe. Luna…. She would tell me to… in.. out.. in.. out.. I stand up, I have to find someone. I am obviously in no state to be alone. It's like a beat in my head… I QUIT I QUIT I QUIT. Mum was right, I never belonged in the business world… Gabi's right, I need a vacation… Helios is right, I need to relax… Luna's right, I need to smile…
I walk for what seems like hours, my head in a daze, my feet moving blindly. Eventually I reach a narrow lane, surely a sign of civilization. I have no idea where I'm going, just that I'm walking. The sun is beating down on me, it's dusty. At some point, I take off my robes and shove them in my bag with the rest of my things. I have no idea where I'm going, just that I can't stop. Eventually, my wonderings down this forsaken country road makes me thirsty. I'm pretty sure there's some sort of charm I could do, but it's not as if I could do it… really, it's a charm. I gave up on those first year. I swear, whatever I missed that first week of classes… I feel faint, I need to find some place to get some water, get out of the sun. It's late afternoon by now, surely, the sun is getting lower in the sky.
Eventually a high hedge appears along the side of the road, providing a small bit of shade for me to walk in. After a while, a black wrought iron gate appears in the hedge, and I know there must be some sort of estate. Perhaps I can go to the door, find out where I am, arrange for some type of transportation or, perhaps apparate if I have a slight idea where I might be. Most importantly, I remind myself, get a drink of water.
I push open the wrought iron gates, and walk up the drive toward the massive manor house in front of me. The green lawns are immaculate, with well tended gardens and a fountain. I even notice a white peacock meandering through the grounds. The house itself is a bit scary, a large white stone thing, with multiple towers, and balconies, and chimneys, much like Greengrass estate in England, only grander, with towers, and of course without the green roof. I finally reach the door, and gripping the large coiled snake serving as a knocker, I knock loudly.
There's silence. I stand for a while, but the whole house seems dead. I'm about to give up and trudge back out to the lane, when all of a sudden, the door swings open.
Please tell me what you thought. I really really apreciate reviews and they inspire me to post more often for this story and to write more chapters for my other stories too. These chapters are pretty much written and just need some edits and tweaks, and I'll keep posting 1 to 2 times a week as long as everyone's interested! thanks. Ellie