A/N: If anyone has any questions or suggestions please feel free to message me.
"We can't just allow her to leave!" said Addie as she paced the length of her bedroom. The life within her didn't exactly like the sudden movements but she didn't really care at that moment. Earlier that week Persephone announced her plans to leave and now she was packing.
"Addie please stop, you'll hurt yourself." Said Peter feebly as he sat down on the bedspread. An imported copy of the daily prophet was there next to him, and Albus Dumbledore's screaming face was on the front page.
"I will not stop! Peter, how are you alright with this?" said Addie still pacing. She cursed as she bumped into her vanity table. The dragons on the Oriental rug at her feet ran from her presence and hid under the bed.
"I'm not. I haven't been alright with anything for a very long time." said Peter looking past his wife to a photograph on the wall of him, her, and their little family before he joined the Order and sent his life spiraling out of control.
"So do something!" said Addie delivering a swift kick to the vanity, its contents littering the floor. The smell of orchids filled the room as a perfume bottle spilled its contents onto the plush Oriental rug.
"Why don't you? I'm not her father and she's made it quite clear to us that she doesn't want to live here." Said Peter absently feeling the paper. Dumbledore threatening the statute of secrecy? What was this world coming to?
"Because she doesn't listen to me and she likes you better. The children have always liked you better." said Addie
"That's not true and you know it. Why do you want her to stay, anyway? She's not our daughter." Said Peter
"I'm well aware of that fact but in case it escaped your notice I have come to care for her over these thirteen long years." Said Addie picking up her things from the floor. She really should have had a servant do that but doing things helped her to calm down.
"So have I but I know that at this point in her life I have no real power over her. She's grown up now and she's making her own decisions." Said Peter not quite sure if he really believed that. He loved her like a daughter but he was her uncle, not her father or her jailer.
"Peter…she's thirteen years old. At thirteen the most I was doing was sneaking off to see you on those Hogsmeade weekend trips and the most we ever did then was neck. She's supposedly married and with child for crying out loud!" said Addie kicking the bed this time. Now the birds on her bedspread were flying away. Did everything have to be so bloody annoying?!
"I know how old she is but first of all we're not her parents-" started Peter before Addie cut him off.
"We're the closest things she has at the moment. Your dear sister married my dear cousin, her half-brother-" said Addie
"She didn't know that at the time." muttered Peter. At least he hoped she didn't. Her reputation had been destroyed when she had Galatea and all that disappearing and then reappearing and ranting and raving about all sorts of nonsense didn't help matters.
"And she stuck around long enough to teach the girls Merlin knows what and also to annoy me until you came back-" said Addie running a hand through her hair, setting much of it free from the confines of the braided bun at the top of her head.
"I left for your safety." Said Peter looking her in the identical blue eyes. Addie sighed.
"You left also for your penance. Four years as rat." Said Addie practically spitting poison as she got to the word rat.
"A lifetime penance, Addie." Said Peter in shame. He didn't like to think about what he had done all those years ago out of a childish desire to prove himself.
"Your place was here with your family." said Addie lowly and dangerously.
"Addie-"
"Why did you have to go off to that stupid war that had NOTHING TO DO WITH US?!" Addie screamed that last part as tears began to show in her eyes.
"Because I was young, Addie, young and foolish. We've has this argument before." said Peter reaching over and taking her bare hand in his. Her gloved had been torn off and thrown across the room long ago.
"I know, I know we have. I know you joined Dumbledore because he offered you something greater than what you thought you had." Said Addie now having lost much of her steam. She sat down next to her husband and put her head on his shoulder.
"I was an idiot Addie. People were dying left and right, people I had known for years, and stupid seventeen year old me wanted to help." Said Peter feeling the softness of her hair and the warmth of her body.
"I know, Peter, you've told me this before." said Addie. Peter wasn't going to stop, it was about time everything, and he meant everything, got out in the open.
"All of my friends were joining up with Dumbledore…we were his golden Gryffindors after all…even though we were terrible, terrible, people." said Peter
"D-Don't say that. You don't have a terrible bone in your body." Said Addie, her head still resting onto his shoulders.
"Addie, in my boyhood I was terrible. Paulette raised me but she was still a servant, don't you realize? I still outranked her. My parents…they indulged me whenever I went over her head. I was a brat, Addie, a spoiled brat." Said Peter
"Peter, we were all terrible. When I was a girl we went through so many servants…by the time I was five the only person who was willing to put up with me was a muggle born who literally had no other options." Said Addie
"I bullied and tortured the other children when I went to Hogwarts, not as much as Sirius and James but worse than anything you can imagine." Said Peter
"Peter, you couldn't have possibly been that bad. When I was a school girl all of us in our dormitory ganged up on this one girl one day and hid all of her clothes, uniforms and all. We made her go searching through the entire common area in her nightgown before we told her it was in the boy's common room." Said Addie in equal parts nostalgia and shame.
"We called them pranks. Sometimes they'd be funny like when we got into the laundry room and changed all the Slytherin uniforms to Gryffindor colors but most of the time it was cruel. We were absolutely terrible to this one boy…we even stripped him and hung him upside down." Said Peter
"These are just school boy things; I bet our children got up to and will get up to things just like that. Things that happened almost twenty years ago, school things, are over now." Said Addie trying to reassure her husband and herself.
"I did those things originally because I wanted so very badly to fit in. For the first time in forever I had friends, not just you and Margaretta, friends who chose me. Can you imagine what it felt like, going from an empty estate to a castle full of children?" said Peter
"We both lived through the same dragon pox epidemic, Peter, and we both went to boarding schools. I know just as well as you the shock of going from a world half empty staffed by a skeleton crew to a building full of people who you haven't know your entire life." Said Addie
"Then you know what it was like but there's something you don't know." said Peter, a pregnant pause in the air.
"What do I not know?" asked Addie when the silence began to sit too hard on her. Peter took both of her hands in his.
"James Potter." Said Peter before Addie cut him off.
"That was school boy stuff too. You think girls don't go through the same thing? Well not all girls, obviously, but do you honestly think that boys have the monopoly on…that…?" said Addie feeling a bit uncomfortable.
"I loved him, Addie. I loved him almost as much as I love you. I hung on his every word, I studied his every move. I so wanted him to love me back, Addie, that it physically hurt." Said Peter
"You think I've never felt that for another person? You think Portia hasn't?" said Addie
"Please, I don't want to think of our daughter involved with anyone in such a context." Said Peter. It wasn't just that she was his daughter; he didn't want her to know that pain.
"Peter, she's fourteen, married, and pregnant. I think she's loved in her time. I know Harry has, and possible Galatea as well if she truly did reciprocate. There's a reason we have so many arranged marriages, Peter. The point is that you should not be beating yourself up over this." Said Addie
"I think that you're just interrupting me so often because I'm saying things that you don't want to know." said Peter
"It's nothing I didn't know already, alright? I knew you joined the Order because you were a stupid seventeen year old boy but now I know you joined because of James fucking Potter!" said Addie jumping to her feet.
"He knew how I felt!" said Peter standing at his full, but still short, height. It didn't matter, he felt like he towered over Addie at that moment.
"W-What do you mean?" asked Addie. Peter sat down heavy on the bed and sighed.
"He knew how I felt. I'm not going to go into physical details but he knew how I felt. There was a time when I thought he felt the same way. It all changed that day at the lake when we stripped that other boy. The girl he fancied, or said he fancied, or whatever. Harry's mother. She dug into him so badly because the boy we tortured was her friend. She dug into him until he called her a mudblood." Said Peter
"What does that have to do with you?" asked Addie
"I'm getting to that part. So after he called her that James, he was really cruel. He almost suffocated the boy with soap bubbles and was about to dump him in the lake and hold him under the water when Hagrid, the groundkeeper, put a stop to it. You know, looking back, its actually funny how we thought the half giant grounds keeper was harmless." Said Peter
"What did he do?" asked Addie
"He ripped the wands out of James and Sirius' hands and carried them both to Dumbledore's office. Remus had left a while ago and I slipped into the crowd. I don't know what happened in there but when they got back James screamed at me. He said that it was my fault that it went so far, that my cheering had gotten them caught up in the moment." Said Peter
"Nothing is ever Sirius Black's fault." Said Addie under her breath. She loathed that man more than anyone else save for Albus Dumbledore.
"It wasn't just that. He called me a…well a derogatory word for someone who prefers the company of men." Said Peter sadly. Addie threw her arms around him.
"Peter, it's alright." Said Addie
"The next few days were like walking through a fog made of rice pudding. We departed at the train station and the next year he was with that Lily Evans. It was like I never existed. I hated her so very much and I wanted so badly to be with him. I honestly think I went a little mad there. I joined the Order, became a spy, not only for him but in some attempt to protect our family…Margaretta fed me that part." Said Peter
"That woman." Muttered Addie
"I…He…The Dark Lord wasn't a complete madman then. The things he said made sense. Not the senseless killing and snake langue but things like we shouldn't have to hide and that we should have a society worthy of magic." Said Peter
"We do." said Addie
"No, we're still hiding. Our islands are tiny and our colonies house more of our people than the homeland does. We still hide from the muggles. I'm not saying we should kill them, nobody should have to live in a world half empty, but we shouldn't have to hide." Said Peter
"So you agree with Galatea." Addie sounding vaguely disappointed.
"I agree with her up to a point. I see too much of Sirius in her…the recklessness and the arrogance." Said Peter feeling a little better.
"She's not that arrogant." Said Addie
"Oh? What was it she said? 'Thank you for your consideration?'. Well, I'm told you had to be there but she is-" said Peter
"The Great Galatea Black." They finished at once, the mood in the room now much lighter.
"I see so much of the Dark Lord in her as well and I fear for what she can become but I also know there's nothing any of us can do to stop her or any of the children. Whatever will be, will be." Said Peter
"But if someone had tried to stop you…" said Addie
"You and I remember that time very differently. As I recall you tried to stop me every day. Paulette even went to work for some distant Pettigrew cousins in Australia for a time after Portia was born. My parents were long dead by then and it was my older brother who was head of the Pettigrew family before his mysterious passing. There was nothing anybody could do to stop me at that time. I was full of anger and hatred and desire and I let it consume me until…I never should have done that…" said Peter
"Done what?" asked Addie fearing the worst
"There were two families that had thrice defied the Dark Lord and one of them was the Potters; the other was the Longbottoms. I…I if I had been better I could have stopped him…I should have pointed him towards the Longbottoms…not that it helped in the end. Sirius' crazy cousin drove them mad under after torturing them for days. I heard that the Aurors obliviated their son so badly he still has memory problems to this day." Said Peter
"That's not your fault. None of this is…entirely…your fault." Said Addie
"I just…I just want you to understand." Said Peter
"For the first time in forever I really do." said Addie
In Persephone's not so humble opinion everything was terrible. Being pregnant was terrible. Being in a dubious marriage to a man who might not even be who he said he was, was simply terrible. Being pregnant with a dubious marriage and no husband in sight was terrible. But the absolute worst thing about it was being pregnant whilst in a dubious marriage and carrying the half vampire spawn who not only craved rare meet but also had an aversion to sunlight was the absolute most terrible part of this entire thing.
"I don't like you." Said Persephone with a hand on her stomach. She was currently sequestered in her room in the plantation estate at the height of the Indian summer with no open windows and minimal cooling charms because she had magically taxed herself. The baby decided to deliver a jab to her internal organs.
"Fine, I like you. Happy, Claudine?" asked Persephone not entirely sure if the baby could understand her in any way. She was currently packing herself up. Earlier that week she had decided that her stay in India was coming to a close and subsequently decided to visit her mother in South Africa. That was before her skin broke out in boils and she began to suffocate.
"Do I need this? No, well, maybe, who knows how long I'll be staying." Said Claudine as she went through her school trunk and pulled out her winter cloak. She had no intention of returning to school so it made sense to sort out its contents. It also made sense to be with her sister and cousins in her time of need, not the mother she barely knew and the Aunt and Uncle who so obviously disapproved of her. Galatea was her big sister, she'd understand.
"Might as well take all my nice shoes even though I'm not sure when I'll be able to wear them." muttered Persephone looking down at her stocking clad feet. They were too sore and swollen for the boots she usually wore. This baby was taking its toll on her body. She didn't recall Galatea having such problems but then again Galatea was a lot stronger than she was.
"She's the healthy one." muttered Persephone as she caught sight of herself in the mirror. It seemed as though when her belly got bigger the rest of her got smaller. Her skin was sallow, her hair like yellow straw, and her height still miniscule. She flicked her wand and a sheet covered the mirror. It would do no good to dwell on these things. Sure there were all sorts of cosmetic charms and procedures she could use but she didn't for the same reason her sister did not dye her hair.
"They all know already, no point in hiding it." said Persephone feeling her belly again. Whether she referred to her child or herself she wasn't sure. Outside the laughter of children could be heard. She longed to join them but she couldn't, not only because of her condition but also because she was a child no longer.
"Growing up is the most terrible of all." Muttered Persephone as she went over to her old toy box. She looked into it for a moment before slamming the lid. She was thirteen, almost fourteen, now. She didn't need those childish trinkets. Eventually everything that needed to be packed was shrunk down and put into one big trunk. Well, everything that could be shrunk down that is. Soon she was summoned to dinner and decided to grace the family with her presence for the last time in forever. As she left her room she gave the heavy, old, mourning costume hanging from her wardrobe a long look. That was not going to be fun to wear. It was going to be terrible.
In Hermione Granger's opinion it was far too hot to be wearing this many layers. She had just gotten off the boat and taken her first steps onto the island, or at least one of the islands, that made up the nation of Remordere and outside of the ship's cooling charms the unusual level of heat could be felt. She mopped the sweat from her forehead with her lace clad hand, not caring that it wasn't at all ladylike.
"I feel like I'm melting." Muttered Hermione as she felt the sweat pooling on her brow once again. She was weary of using any kind of cooling charm for fear of ruining her dress and ending up naked. Her first time in this country and she gets arrested for indecent exposer. Well, did India count? She was pulled from her internal debate by a small voice from behind her.
"You think you're hot, try being dressed in all black." Said a young voice from behind her. Hermione spun around quickly, her pale yellow dress rising scandalously to her calves. A few men openly leered at her. The girl dressed in black snapped off some unkind words in a foreign langue.
"Who are you?" asked Hermione. The figure before her was dressed in a heavy black dress, wide black hat, and black mourning vale. A black parasol shaded her.
"It's me, Persephone Demeter Pettigrew De Lion-Court." Said Persephone quickly as she raised her mourning veil quickly enough so that her face was visible but not for so long that the sun could hurt her. She hated the mourning veil but it kept her alive…stupid vale.
"Oh, umm…hello. Did they send you to collect me?" asked Hermione. She was confident she could find her own way there. She had changed her money into their currency so she could pay a driver and she had the most up to date map she could find.
"No, I wasn't sure that you'd be joining us or was I even informed that you were coming. Then again I did sort of invite myself here. Either way I'm here, you're here, and it's very hot. I do hope this goes well, for everyone's sake. The last time Harry had a guest over it ended quite badly." Said Persephone holding Hermione's arm and leading her away from the salty docks. Hermione allowed herself to be led without question; Persephone was surprisingly strong all things considered.
"Oh, well I'm sure that it'll be a great holiday, you know, to relax before school starts." Said Hermione as Persephone led her to a line of idling carriages. Persephone took some bills from a hidden pocket in her mourning dress and pulled Hermione into the carriage.
"For you, yes, I'm not going back." said Persephone as the carriage bumped along the cobble stoned road. Claudine didn't like it and neither did she.
"Oh, may I ask why?" asked Hermione. Persephone raised her veil so that her face could be seen as she motioned to her stomach with her other hand.
"Oh, sorry…about…that. I didn't realize that um…expecting….girls could still be kicked out of school in the wizarding world." Said Hermione
"Depends on the school. Lower schools will kick a girl out but premier schools like Hogwarts and Spellwicks will just sequester you in a married student dorm and have an endless parade of tutors descend upon you." Said Persephone
"I don't recall reading about that in Hogwarts: A History." Said Hermione
"Nobody gets married at our age anymore." Said Persephone self-consciously feeling her own wedding ring underneath her heavy black glove.
"May I ask why you are, if I'm not overstepping that is." Finished Hermione quickly. Persephone gave out a little chuckle.
"Hermione, please, we're friends now. Power, mainly. An unmarried woman is worth less than a married one, even in our so called progressive society. Besides, Claudine needed to exist." Said Persephone
"You consider us to be friends?" asked Hermione surprised at this turn of events. She considered the Pettigrews to be very good acquaintances and had asked to come visit as more of an impulsive lark than anything.
"No, I'm just using you because you're so smart and therefore useful to me and the cause…also and fate had entwined us together." Said Persephone sarcastically. After a beat she started laughing and so did Hermione; the latter much more nervously than the former.
"Since we are friends, may I ask, why are you dressed like that? Did somebody die?" asked Hermione. They looked like either mourning clothes or something religious and she didn't know any religious wizards but there was a first time for everything after all.
"I'm allergic to sunlight, many of the more inbred Pettigrews are, and while the condition can be made manageable but not curable my half vampire daughter has exacerbated my condition and my energy reserves to the point that this is the only way in which I can walk in the daylight. Whether this is from the pregnancy or because of her parentage I do not know." said Persephone. Hermione waited a beat and let out a sound that might have been a laugh at some point.
"You-you were kidding, right, about your daughter being half-" started Hermione before Persephone cut her off.
"Look, we're here." Said Persephone pointing to the estate she used to call home. It hadn't changed on bit, on the outside anyway. The same plats were there, the same stained glass windows, just much less staff. The driver carried their bags to the door as Persephone and Hermione lived there.
"This is all…theirs?" asked Hermione in aww. Persephone nodded. The estate was massive and if books were anything to go by, which they were, it was probably bigger on the inside. These main houses were built when the island was settled in the early middle ages and built up later to bring them up to what was then a modern style. They were large places built to house the entire family, the entire house of Pettigrew. Now it held only Harry and Portia Potter.
"Well come along then, let's not wait for the grass to grow." Said Persephone breaking Hermione out of her stupor. The house in India had been impressive but that was built later on when England colonized India and it was only built as a plantation house for one family. She made her way to the front door, trailed by Persephone. The rope to the doorbell had only just been pulled when a blue blur threw the door opened and enveloped them both in their embrace. Hermione was startled but Persephone was just glad to be home.