I don't think I've given people enough credit for how difficult it is to write cute kid/family stories. The darker stuff is coming unfortunately, so we'll see how upbeat I can keep this for the time being. The first half of this is going to be rough, but it'll get lighter, I promise.
Rating for this chapter: T to be safe (mostly for darker mentions in this one, more than anything else)
Timing for this chapter: After the first war, we'll put twins and Tori at 4-5 (about a year before Carla's demise if I'm remembering my timeline correctly).
Chapter Three
Carla could hear the giggling and whispering even with her bedroom door closed, and she tried to savor the sound of it despite the tears she could feel running down her cheeks.
It had been so rare in her childhood home to hear laughter of any kind — screaming, crying, pleading was more what she'd become accustomed to as a child. It was something she refused — and had worked very hard to avoid — to let her daughter experience as well, but she wasn't always the best at ignoring the overwhelming feelings this time of year.
Not anymore.
Sirius had always been particularly adept at keeping things light — he'd had such an optimistic outlook on life, no matter how bad things had gotten in the fight outside their door. The two of them had bonded over their horrible home lives — although the fact that she'd been a Slytherin had nearly been a deal-breaker for him. Not that she'd blamed him, really. As the only Muggle-born to have been sorted into Slytherin house at the time — an "example" that the houses were merely divisive and everyone had the potential to be great, according to the Sorting Hat — she was well aware of the cruelty of her housemates.
Carla had always preferred to think of the Sorting Hat's "example" as a horrible mistake. Perhaps an example that could have been made in a way that didn't subject an eleven-year old girl escaping her father's abuse as a punching bag for her peers. But she'd been used to that sort of treatment by that age, and well on her way to believing that she did not deserve a better life than the one she'd had, so maybe it didn't really matter.
She wasn't entirely sure she'd have made it out of that school alive if it hadn't been for Lily.
Lily Evans had been the nicest person she'd ever met — her only friend — and had saved her life, in more ways than one. Listening to her rant about James Potter had been the highlight of her Hogwarts years, made more amusing by the fact that she'd fallen in love with the idiot by the time they'd graduated.
Fallen in love with him and gotten pregnant.
Perfect, Head Girl Lily Evans knocked up by her worst enemy, and entirely smitten with him. Of course, James was — had been — a horrible sap until the very end. Carla had never seen two people so perfectly in love before.
The entire thing might have been more amusing, if Carla hadn't gotten herself knocked up as well. An entirely idiotic mistake on her part, despite the fact that it had given her one of the biggest blessings of her life. She and Sirius hadn't been in love — or at least they'd told themselves that they hadn't been — and had never even wanted to be in serious relationships, but she'd let her feelings for him cloud her judgment momentarily. She had no idea what his excuse had been anymore, but they'd decided to remain friends despite the fact that she'd gotten pregnant.
At any rate, she'd had to stop making fun of Lily after that for not being able to control herself around James Potter, when she'd landed herself in a very similar situation.
Vanessa and Victoria had only been separated by two weeks in some weird twist of fate, although James and Sirius had found the entire thing amusing — a "sign" that their kids would be the best of friends, as inseparable as their fathers. Lily and Carla had joked once that they might be doing the world a favor by separating the two girls before they could destroy Hogwarts together.
The thought now made her heart twist in her chest, and made her wish for all the world that she could see Sirius again. She needed that stupid, dog-like laugh and crooked grin to remind her that the grief would ease. That this was merely a bad day, a reminder of the day she'd last spoken to her best friends — thanked them for coming to celebrate with Tori, told Vanessa that she'd see her as soon as she could, kissed little Harry on the cheek as they'd all been leaving Godric's Hollow.
She hated the reminder, wished she could remember if she'd even told Lily that she loved her or told James that he'd grown into someone she was proud to call her friend. But she couldn't remember any of it, really.
And now, two years later, she was celebrating her daughter's birthday alone — Peter was dead, Lily and James were dead, Sirius was in Azkaban, and she hadn't seen Remus in months — not since they'd had a falling out over what had really happened that night.
She missed all of her friends, of course, but Sirius was the one she missed most. An odd thing, considering he wasn't even dead, although she certainly knew that he wished he was. She'd visited him in Azkaban only once, to ask what the hell had happened that Halloween night, but he'd been too distraught, too angry, to tell her anything.
She'd been angry then herself — had for a horrible, regrettable moment believed that he'd gotten James and Lily killed, had gotten Harry and Vanessa sent to Lily's horrible sister's home to be cared for because they would be "safer" there, according to Dumbledore.
But the look in his eyes had kept her awake that night, until she'd come to accept that there was no chance Sirius Black would ever have betrayed the Potters that way. She refused to believe it even now, two years after the war had officially ended under unexplainable circumstances. She'd not seen him since, however; he deserved to know that she knew he hadn't done it, but she was a coward, and seeing him — a man so full of life and laughter — stuck within a place worse than Hell itself…she couldn't do it again.
So, she tried to remember him as he'd been — tried to tell Victoria stories about him that were more upbeat, more optimistic than the actual truth. It was what Sirius would have wanted for their daughter, she knew, but it was such a difficult thing…pretending to be happy when she was so abhorrently miserable.
Her daughter was the only thing that got her up in the morning, a bright spot of joy in the middle of inky blackness. The sound of her laughing with the Weasley twins — although more likely just George, while Fred frowned at the two of them petulantly — in her living room was usually enough to pull her out of her funk.
She needed to pull herself out of her funk; it was the day before Halloween, and Tori's fourth birthday, and she'd promised herself not to be so emotional this year. She'd promised herself she wouldn't be caught in her bedroom closet, looking at old pictures of her and her friends and wondering how different it all might have been.
Clearly, she'd misjudged her own emotional stability because now she had three children in her house that she should have been paying far more attention to, considering their proclivity for getting into things they shouldn't be.
Tori had begged her to let the twins come to stay with them — she'd told them about trick-or-treating and they'd wanted to join them this year. Fred and George so rarely visited her home, but Molly had needed a break — they'd gotten ahold of a Muggle razor that Arthur had brought home with him, and had shaved a line down the middle of poor Percy's head — and as Molly was Carla's only friend at the current moment, and the woman did more for her than she could truly begin to list, she'd not fought her daughter on having the twins come over for the weekend.
It also had served as an excuse not to have Molly throw her daughter a party herself. A truly wonderful woman, a fantastic mother to boot, but she was very perceptive and very nosey, truth be told. And Carla was nowhere near prepared to be around her when she was barely holding it together as it was.
But she had no doubt that if she didn't get off of this floor soon, the woman's twin boys would rat her out somehow. They were nosey themselves, and they followed rules about as well as James and Sirius had at three times their age.
They scared her a little, really — not that she'd ever admit it out loud.
So she wiped her cheeks and shoved the pictures back into the shoebox she kept on her closet shelf, forcing herself to a stand with a heavy breath. Forcing a smile on her face, she left her bedroom in search of the mischievous threesome.
"Hi, Mummy!"
The smile was genuine as her eyes fell on her daughter, some of her previous grief smoothing over into a dull pang.
She looked so like her father — black hair, curly as his cousins' had been, and big, gray eyes that were always twinkling. They had very similar personalities as well and she'd been a happy baby, and an even happier toddler.
"What exactly are the three of you doing?" Carla said, trying to determine if she was supposed to be scolding them or laughing at them.
It had been a poor idea to leave them alone for too long, even if she had spelled the room before she'd left. She certainly remembered spelling the closet to remain closed to them, but they'd clearly gotten into it somehow because Tori was now hanging upside down, like a sloth, from her toy broomstick as Fred and George sat wobbly on top of it. She was entirely certain that Fred was only barely managing to control the broomstick because Tori was using one of his wrists to keep herself from falling and George was holding onto the back of his shirt in a way that looked terribly close to suffocating him.
"Trying to see how long I can hold on," Tori said, grinning at her from her upside down position, her curls long enough that they dragged across the floor. "Pewcy fell off already last time."
Yeah, she definitely should have invested in some padding for this room. Or a bomb shelter.
"You'll look far less pretty with a broken neck, love," she said with a hard look. "We've talked about using that broom, Victoria."
"Haha, she called you Victoria," Fred squealed delightedly.
Tori stuck her tongue out at him and George, who started cackling.
"Boys," Carla warned, raising an eyebrow at them. She was not stupid enough to believe the innocent smiles they sent in her direction. Not since she had the first time and they'd put caterpillars in her cereal. "Off the broom, please. Victoria, put it back in the closet."
"Are we making cookies now, Carla?" George asked innocently. "Tori says you make cookies."
Weasleys, Carla thought with a snort.
They were thinking about food at every point in the day. Fred and George were so rarely at her house, but they ate her out of house and home every time they were.
"I want to make a dog, Mummy," Tori said excitedly, throwing the toy broomstick into the closet haphazardly and shoving the door closed before it could fall back out.
"I want to make a dog too!"
"You can't make a dog too!"
"Why not?"
"Because it's only for the birthday girl!"
"Who's that?"
Tori stamped her foot in frustration, and pointed a chubby finger directly in Fred Weasley's face. If Carla had been a better parent, she would have done something other than lean back against the frame of the door and watch in amusement as her daughter went head to head with a boy who was two inches taller than her and clearly had a death wish at the measly age of five.
"Don't be stoopid, Fwed," Tori said huffily. "You told me happy birthday already."
"I had my fingers crossed behind my back," Fred said, shrugging.
"He did," George said helpfully, nodding as seriously as anyone might if they had to tell someone they had cancer. "I saw him."
Carla covered her mouth with her hand as her daughter swelled like a bullfrog.
"Alright, you three," she said before Tori could have a conniption. "If you're going to argue then I suppose I'll just eat all of the cookies myself."
"We're not argu-ing!" Fred and Tori said at once.
It might have been more believable if Tori hadn't given Fred a very pointed hug to prove her point, and he hadn't scrunched his face up in disgust, using a hand to push her away by her forehead.
Carla chose to pick her battles with the three of them, however, and Tori wasn't crying, so she decided not to mention it.
"Into the kitchen then," she said, waving them in the direction of the kitchen doorway. "Wash your hands before you go touching that sugar, Fred Weasley! You too, George!"
It was hours later that Carla had a true understanding of why Molly Weasley needed a break from her twin sons. They were a rowdy bunch, and entirely too curious for their own good. By the time they'd finished baking the cookies, there were flour and sugar everywhere — both Fred and George had eaten handfuls of sugar by itself when Carla wasn't looking, so there was sugar caked in between their chubby fingers and stuck to the sides of their mouths — and Fred had put the flour bowl on top of Tori's head. Carla assumed it had been meant to enrage her daughter, but she'd merely giggled delightedly and wore it as a hat while they'd cut shapes into their cookies.
Carla had somehow managed to convince them that all of them could have a dog without eliciting another argument between any of the children, and she was considering that her biggest accomplishment to date.
By the time the cookies had been cooled and iced, the boys were a sticky mess and Tori was covered head to toe in flour. Bath time had been its own nightmare — getting the twins to sit still for long enough to wash their hair was like keeping two dogs in a bathtub and she was soaked through by the time she'd managed to bathe all three children.
Truthfully, Molly deserved a medal. Or a week's long vacation.
She was thoroughly exhausted by the time she managed to get them into pajamas, brush their teeth, and corral the three of them back into the living room, with one dog cookie each. She'd debated heavily where to put the three of them to sleep, but Tori had wanted to pretend like they were camping, so she'd taken all the blankets she could find and set them up like a fort while the three of them had been brushing their teeth for an outrageous amount of time that surely meant her bathroom was a disaster.
"Do you know any scary stories, Carla?" George asked, ignoring his cookie entirely in favor of licking off all of the icing.
"Yeah, we wanna see Tori scream," Fred said, his approach to eating his cookie entirely opposite from his twin; he merely shoved the entire thing into his mouth. "Wike 'at 'ime she fell 'to 'e pond."
"Chew with your mouth closed, Fred," Carla snorted, although she got the gist of what he was attempting to say. She also recalled that Fred had pushed Tori into the pond because her daughter had been upset with him for taking the purple arm floaties.
Molly was concerned that their constant bickering meant that they didn't like each other, but Carla had heard Tori defend Fred on many occasions. It was an odd sort of relationship they had — they were so very similar in personality that they clashed quite often, but Carla had seen Fred Weasley throw a rock at Charlie's head when he'd made Tori cry after saying he thought her dress was ugly, so she was entirely certain that Fred was either angering Tori intentionally because he thought it was funny or just unwilling to admit that he had a best friend other than George.
Regardless of the reason behind their madness, Charlie Weasley had paid the price with a huge bandage and a lump the size of an ostrich egg on his forehead.
"Mummy knows lots of scary stories," Tori said, yawning and rubbing one of her eyes with her fist. She curled her tiny body into George's side, who was only just now beginning to munch on his cookie. Fred scowled at her, but Carla spoke before he could get up in arms about her proximity to his twin.
"It's a bit late for scary stories," Carla said. "And I need the three of you to sleep before we go trick-or-treating tomorrow."
"Pleeeeease, Mummy," Tori begged. "I told Fred about hairy toe. You has to told them about hairy toe."
"We'll go to sleep," George promised. "We're very brave now. I play with spiders."
"And caterpillars," Fred grinned at her. "We like caterpillars."
"I recall," Carla muttered to herself before sighing heavily. A more mature adult would put their foot down and insist they sleep for the evening — she had a long day ahead of her tomorrow with the two hooligans in front of her. They looked very cute in their striped, collared pajamas, but it was conclusive proof that looks could be deceiving. But, truth was, her friends — Sirius and James, in particular — would have taken every opportunity to frighten the daylights out of these two young pranksters and she was still a bit morose after everything. She could use some amusement, even if it meant she'd end up with three children in her bed before the morning arrived. "Alright, you three, one story."
Fred clapped excitedly, hurrying under his blanket and pulling it up to his chin, looking at her excitedly. Tori crawled over George, dragging her pillow and blanket with her and putting herself in between the twins. Fred sighed and moved over to make room for her, pulling his teddy bear, Spike, away from her.
The bear had been Ron's once until he'd broken Fred's toy broomstick and something had happened with the bear that had rendered him terrified of it. Fred had had it ever since, and he was very protective of the thing.
Tori was not allowed to touch Spike under any circumstances, Carla had been told earlier that evening. He was sensitive to girl cooties, apparently, and he only liked him and George. The last time someone had stolen him, he'd gotten angry and turned into a tarantula. Carla had not had the heart to point out to Fred that this was merely his own magic — not Spike's — that had turned him into a giant, hairy spider, assuming that the younger boy was telling her the truth about the incident at all.
When George had finished his cookie and climbed under his own blanket, and Carla had tucked each of them into their chosen spots, she flicked off the table lamp and used her wand to send a ball of light into the corner of the room, bright enough to keep them from being too afraid of the dark, but dark enough that they'd still fall asleep.
"Once there was an old woman who went out into the woods to up some roots to cook up for dinner," she started, lips twitching at the rapt attention the children were watching her with. "She spotted something funny sticking out of the leaves and dug around until she uncovered a great big hairy toe —"
"Who's toe?" Fred whispered to her, face alight with excitement.
"She didn't know who's toe," Carla answered, leaning forward to tuck his blanket back under him from where he'd pulled it up from sitting up so quickly. "But she was hungry and there was some good meat on that toe, so the old woman put it in her basket and took it home. When she got back to her cottage, the old woman boiled up a kettle of hairy toe soup, which she ate for dinner that night —"
"Yuck!"
"It was the best meal she'd ever had!" Carla said dramatically, pinching George's toe between her fingers from under his blanket. He squealed and pulled his knees up to keep his toes from him and Tori moved closer to Fred, who was staring at Carla with horrified attention. "The old woman went to bed that night with a full stomach and a big smile. But later that night, a cold wind started blowing in the tops of the trees around the old woman's house. A large black cloud crept over the moon and from the woods a hollow voice rumbled 'Hairy toe! Hairy toe! I want my hairy toe!'"
"It's a monster," George whispered as the other two sat in horrified silence next to him.
"Inside the house, the old woman stirred uneasily in her bed and nervously pulled the covers up over her ears. From the woods there came a stomp-stomp-stomping noise as the wind whistled and jerked at the treetops. In the clearing at the edge of the forest, a hollow voice said, 'Hairy toe! Hairy toe! I want my hairy toe!' Inside the house, the old woman shuddered and turned over in her sleep. A stomp, stomp, stomping sound came from the garden path outside her cottage, and a voice howled: 'Hairy toe! Hairy toe! I want my hairy toe!' Inside the house, the old woman snapped awake. Her whole body shook with fright as she listened to that angry voice in her garden. She jumped out of bed and ran to the door to lock it, and then lay back down to sleep. But suddenly, the front door of the cottage burst open with a bang —"
"It's a giant!" Fred said loudly, causing Tori to jump and smack him on the arm with a whispered "shhh!"
" — There came the stomp, stomp, stomping noise of giant feet walking up the stairs. Peeking out from under the covers, the old woman saw a huge creature filling her doorway. It said: 'Hairy toe! Hairy toe! I want my hairy toe!' The old woman sat bolt upright in terror and shouted: 'I ATE your hairy toe!' 'Yes, you did,' the giant figure said very gently as it came into her room —"
"He ate her," George said, pulling his blankets up to his ears, so that all she could see were his blue eyes.
"We don't know what happened to her," Carla said casually. "No one ever saw the old woman again. The only clue that was left was a giant footprint in the dirt in her garden. The footprint was missing the big left toe."
Carla awoke later that night by a loud noise, her heart pounding. She reached over for her wand and listened intently for a repeat of the noise, praying that one of the kids had merely knocked something over on their way to the bathroom. There was a long moment of silence, with which she tried to remember if she'd locked the doors and windows, before she heard the pattering of feet and quiet giggling.
The breath blew out from her lungs immediately and she sighed heavily, setting her wand back on the nightstand and staring up at the ceiling above her.
"This is exactly why people don't have children," she muttered to herself, opening her mouth to ask the three of them what they thought they were doing up so late. Before she could say anything, there was a loud stomping noise from outside her door. "This is my own fault."
"Hairy toe! Wait, how does it go again?"
It took a great deal of effort on her part not to laugh at the ridiculousness of her current situation. She should have known that telling them a scary story would only come back to bite her in the ass. Sure, they might have been afraid, but the Weasley twins took every available opportunity given to them. She'd made it far too easy.
There was a smattering of whispered giggles before the stomping started again.
"Hairy toe! Hairy toe! I want my hairy toe!"
Carla pulled her blanket up over her head and waited as the stomping got closer and closer to her bed, each of the three children trading off who got to say the line. Tori was the last of them to say anything as they all came to a stop next to her bed. She could see the shadows of them shaking with laughter and neither of the twins was doing a very good job about giggling quietly.
"Hairy toe! Hairy toe! I want my hairy toe!"
Carla gave it a moment for their giggling to settle before she sat up and reached blindly for the child closest to her. It was Fred, who screamed in surprise.
"I ATE your hairy toe!" she yelled loudly, erupting into laughter when George and Tori screamed in fear and shot immediately into her bed, scrambling to get as close to her as possible.
The three of them did not return to their blanket fort that night, instead fighting to sleep as close to Carla as possible in case the giant monster came back.
I enjoyed this one far too much.
As a general disclaimer, the "scary story" is definitely not of my own creation. It is a retold folklore that is copyrighted by someone who is definitely not me. All rights belong to them and them only.
