Dazed, Gwen had nothing left to say or feel as she passed into another set of hands.
Breakfast was a quiet affair of pumpkin juice and egg-in-a-hole, and then Dumbledore told her she'd be living with those two queers from now on, goodbye. He did her the courtesy of asking if she was alright with the arrangement as well as warning her it might only be temporary. She nodded along. She'd left the crust as she always did but started chewing on it to give her mouth an excuse not to talk.
She couldn't taste anything.
Aidan Somethingwood and the other one showed up not long after that. They spoke with Dumbledore more than they spoke to her which suited her just fine. The awkward part came when the old man took his leave. He'd be seeing her soon, he promised. But he didn't give her a way to contact him. Was she worried about that or not? She couldn't tell.
By this point, Dumbledore was the least of the strangers. She didn't know him but it felt wrong to part ways with him in favour of these…people. He showed up at her cell — insisting, of course, that it wasn't a cell, just a room — and was the first wizard she ever met who didn't scorn or fear her. Logically, though, he wouldn't want to be saddled with her forever and it would doubtless be the same with them.
"Did you want to see the museum while we're here?" Aidan asked as they stepped out onto the street. "Or we could go to one of the Christmas markets?"
"Probably best we just get her home."
The two men shared some sort of wordless exchange — given they were both wizards, maybe they were talking in their heads — and then Aidan agreed.
Walking beside Aidan was as awkward as walking in the same direction after saying goodbye. But the other one, Garrett, was worse. It was as if she picked someone at random off the street and was following them just to see how long it took them to notice.
That aside, he seemed to understand this would be a long journey for her in more than just the physical sense, and that it was better not to drag it out. She could at least give him credit for that.
They walked from Charing Cross Road to Leicester Square and took the Underground to some other part of London so they could cross a street to a train station and finally, they were on their way…to the wrong part of Kent. They would reach Ashford in about forty minutes and change trains there.
"Remind me why we're travelling this way?" Garrett ran out of patience when they mixed up King's Cross with King's Cross St. Pancras. He sounded fed up.
"It's familiar to her," Aidan answered in a hushed tone. "We don't want to overwhelm her. Besides, this gives us more time to talk to her."
"No, it doesn't. We don't live on another planet; we'll have the exact same amount of time at home." Garrett checked the signs, including the one that could only send them back the way they came. Anyone preying on tourists would notice him. "The Haywoods live around here, don't they? I say, we drop in and ask to use their fireplace."
Fireplace?
"No, I want to do it this way." Aidan insisted. "Plus, I think they're in the Bahamas."
"How'd they get there?" Garrett asked dryly. "A rowboat?"
Eventually, they located the train they wanted and when they found a table seat, Gwen tried to sit across from them but Aidan sat down next to her. Now she was trapped between him and the window, watching the city melt into countryside, wondering how she got here. She seemed to be watching all this from deep inside her head where no one could touch her while her body handled the mechanics. A fist ought to come down on her in this state. Or criticism at the very least. Instead, her ears picked up the sound of Aidan telling her about the house and asking inane things.
"Is there anything in particular you might want for dinner?"
"I'm not hungry."
"Later, I mean," he said awkwardly. "It's still morning."
He could have told her it was midnight and she'd have no problem with that. Even with her uncanny ability to always tell when someone was lying. Time was moving on without her and she didn't mind.
"Fine."
The journey went on and not a minute passed by, not for her. Maybe Garrett was wrong and this was another planet. Or a black hole. Yes, that seemed about right. Standing upright against the pull of gravity kept getting harder. She used to walk faster. Now her feet dragged.
Back at the pub, when Aidan asked, where are your bags? she should have laughed. Instead, she felt a tiredness all the way down in her bones. Everything was heavier. It hurt to breathe at times and she thought she might need a doctor. She was brittle. As if she'd make it halfway to cracking a smile and just crack. Did she still have a sense of humour or had she left it behind with the rest of her things?
Gwen looked down at the book in her hands. Out in the cold, she'd been clutching it to her chest the whole way and now her gloveless fingers had trouble letting go. All she owned now besides the clothes on her back was this copy of Hogwarts: A History that Dumbledore gave her.
"You do have a home, Guinevere," he said as he presented her with the book. "I hope this will help you feel connected to it."
It was the second night of her stay at the Leaky Cauldron when she sat down to read by candlelight. What seemed at first to be eyestrain morphed into a trance. It was different from the premonitions that attacked each one of her senses; this drained her of colour and sound and texture. She'd never used a quill before and in her dream-like state, picking up the one in the room, she didn't use the ink. And so now she gazed at the word that was not written but scratched into the title page: Mudblood.
It was a warning.
Cover to cover, she skimmed the book in search of that word and came up empty. Her gut could only tell her it was something bad so she asked Dumbledore and that was when she learned what she was.
A magical child born to non-magical parents was an impure thing. Dirty. That was the belief, at any rate, held by some witches and wizards. Dumbledore insisted for almost an hour that the concept of blood purity was a falsehood, simple as that. They both knew the world didn't work that way. Belief gave birth to the gods and people spilled very real blood in their made-up names. Belief alone made her dirty. Whether or not literal mud coursed through her veins was quite beside the point, beside the power of that word.
Did it hurt? Maybe it did underneath. Gwen had listened intently with all the distant fascination of a scientist. None of it seemed to apply directly to her. She couldn't foresee herself attending Hogwarts, after all, and how else could she stay in the wizarding world? None of it mattered if she was only passing through. Most likely, she was bound for a state-run home where Muggle children threw all sorts of colourful names at each other but not that one. It had no meaning where she was ultimately headed.
Dumbledore stressed how very inappropriate it would be to use such a word in polite conversation.
Gwen brought it up with Aidan just to throw it in his face. She found a vicious satisfaction in the way he recoiled. Even Garrett, with his obvious talent for keeping his composure, tensed up. It was fun. The first bit of fun she'd had in a while.
How far she was trying to drive them away exactly, she couldn't say. Never seeing them again was a welcome prospect but at the same time, she was sleeping in the loft of a pub. Beggars and choosers and all that.
"Where did you get that?" Garrett was frowning at the book curiously.
"Dumbledore."
"It's not officially published yet," he told her. "But Bagshot would certainly give him an advance copy or two."
Good to know she defaced something valuable.
Gwen followed them like living luggage onto the next train and straight onto another platform. She'd lost about fifteen minutes according to the station clock and couldn't recall if Aidan continued his attempts at small talk.
What day was this? How long had she been gone? She kept expecting to wake up from all this. If she stopped waiting, it meant she accepted she wasn't going back and that didn't sit right in her chest.
Lenham was objectively a pretty village. The kind of place she'd seen in jigsaw puzzles. Gwen admired its beauty as they walked the streets. Aidan's running commentary introduced her to the local butchers, florist, and post office as well as the primary school where, according to him, she would complete Year Six. It all looked eerily flat; a town of cardboard cut-outs beneath clouds held up by string.
Somewhere past the town library, they turned and took a long walk down a road just wide enough for one car, lined on either side by hedges not pavements. She warned them before a tracker came around the bend and they had to squeeze by.
"Don't even think about it," Aidan, leading the way, didn't bother looking back at Garrett.
"I'm not thinking about it."
He was thinking about cursing the driver. Gwen was on board with that.
Hidden within the hedges was a gate. They climbed a steep gravel driveway to a lonesome cottage, passing a sign that read, The Thicket.
A green door appeared in her mind the day Dumbledore fetched her from the Ministry. She'd expected to see it wherever he took her next but the Leaky Cauldron was all brown wood and grey stone and chipped white paint. It appeared again when she first saw Aidan only to vanish when she locked eyes with Garrett. The finer details of the door grew clearer after dinner that night. The vertical letterbox above a bow handle; the ornate knocker shaped like a bird, a woodpecker; and finally a snowy wreath to mark the festive season. That last detail told her she would stand before this door sometime soon.
Now, here she stood.
"Home sweet home," Aidan announced with forced cheer and a hand on her back, urging her on.
The door opened by itself to let them in. As Gwen crossed the threshold, she felt what she might have mistaken for static shock coupled with the unfriendly sensation of being watched. The house had seen her. She couldn't explain it but she knew. It judged her and she must have passed its test because instead of killing her or blocking her path or whatever might have happened, it swallowed her whole.
"What was that?" she asked with a shiver. All she got in response was a perplexed stare. "The magic we just walked through?"
"We didn't?"
"The wards," Garrett offered.
"Oh, right! Yeah, there are wards in place to protect the… Wait, you sensed them?" Aidan waited for her to nod. "Huh. Didn't know people could do that without a wand."
"For you to enter unescorted, we'll need a few drops of blood to—" Garrett began explaining before Aidan cut him off.
"We can deal with that later."
Later, indeed. It was something they could put off indefinitely.
"Let's give you the tour and get you settled in, shall we?"
"The tour? There's only four rooms."
"And I'm psychic."
"That's not the right term."
"Please save your questions till the end of the tour."
The tour dragged on a bit considering there were only four rooms. The downstairs was one big slab of the North Pole. She'd seen people go all out with decorations before but never anything like this. There was snow falling from nowhere and never landing, just vanishing. The fireplace roared to life as they drew near and the smell of roasted chestnuts wafted forth. That was when she realised everywhere else smelled like cinnamon and, away from the crackling wood, she could hear bells jingling despite there being no bells in sight. If a reindeer trotted through this living room, it would not look out of place.
"Strictly speaking, it's a listed building so we can't change it," Aidan told her. "We took the walls down with magic. We'll put them back the same way if we need to."
Looking past the lights and beneath the ornaments, there was in fact a house with furniture and carpet. And of course, the most crucial aspect of any home: photos.
Each time they moved, the first thing her mother did was put up the photos. It's not a home without memories, she always said. It was not only their photos but the ones inherited from Gwen's grandparents, along with framed finger paintings from her younger years, and the fridge was covered in dog-eared postcards sent by aunts and cousins. Holidays they could no longer remember in full, oddly enough.
The photographs here were bizarre. They were film. They had to be because they were moving and yet they appeared to be in regular frames. People danced and blew out birthday candles. Three photos in a row captured all the colours of a sunset as the tide rolled in. Next to those, a wave washed gently over writing in the sand, Sicily, 1987.
Aidan had more memories than Garrett, it seemed. There was a family of four with two brunette boys. There were no children sporting jet black hair, not in one single frame. A sweaty teenager kissed a giant trophy, his eyes sparkling just as brightly as they did today. Garrett, meanwhile, came into existence as a grown man, immaculate and poised, and more often looking at Aidan than the camera. Photographed alone, he had the look of a man being made to walk the plank.
One particular photo stood out. There was nothing formal about it. Both men were dressed casually and looked more at ease than in any other image. They were gazing into each other's eyes and might not have known the photo was being taken. Gwen watched the world fall away in the way they looked at each other. She knew what day this was. Anyone would know. The men were smiling lazily as if they weren't making an utter mockery of marriage.
Gwen stood frozen before it. She wanted to look away and scrub her eyes clean but she kept staring so intently, the men in the photo actually turned their attention to her. Gone were the relaxed expressions; they looked nervous. As if her stare alone could ignite the image.
If she burned this place to the ground with them inside, maybe her parents would take her back.
On second thought, probably not. It was a listed building.
Gwen tore herself away from the photo before they started asking questions.
Upstairs, there were three doors, the farthest of which led to a bathroom. Pretty straightforward, Aidan claimed, except it was big enough to fit both a shower and a clawfoot tub. The floor tiles were enchanted to always be warm. Frankly, that was the most brilliant application of magic she'd come across so far.
Moving back down the hallway, they passed a door they didn't open.
"Master bedroom," Aidan explained. "You're welcome to come in, obviously, maybe just knock first."
He led her to the last door and showed her into a room so lacking in character, it could belong in a hotel. Never mind the fact it was too neat, there was no trace of anyone's presence in here. Just as a person's scent would seep into the sheets, their essence would permeate every corner of their space. This room didn't belong to anyone.
Gwen wondered for a second where the other man slept before logic pointed out that they shared a bed. Bile rose up the back of her throat.
"This is the guest room?" she forced out the words as she stared at the white and honey-gold furnishings.
"This is your room," Aidan insisted. "We'll do it up to feel more you, you know?"
"I could do with being less me right now."She met his gaze tauntingly."You know?"
Garrett, loitering in the doorway, huffed and walked off, and instantly, Gwen kicked herself for antagonizing him. It was a bed with a roof over it. She could keep her damn mouth shut for the sake of something like that.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"
Gwen jumped at the voice shrieking at her from behind. Her mind had wandered so far-a-when, she didn't sense anyone come in. Turning, she was greeted with quite possibly the worst sight of her life and that was saying a lot. Leathery skin, big floppy ears, nose like a snout, and whiskers. Chupacabras were real, apparently, because one was standing on her chest of drawers with a bloodthirsty fury in its eyes.
"Putting Tup out of work, are you? Wicked little Muggle-child."
Gwen's brain finally got in gear and she realised her hands were in the process of making the bed. Seemed reasonable enough; she did that every morning. She returned her attention to the mangy dog who had a problem with it for some reason.
"What in the bowels of Hell are you?"
"Isn't it obvious?" The thing leapt down — it only came up to her hip and she'd been told she was short for her age — and got to work making the bed. "Pfft, ignorant Muggle. Tuppence is a house-elf, of course."
That didn't really tell Gwen anything but the explanation stopped there. One thing she knew in her gut, though, was that this thing wasn't a threat to her. Not a serious threat…
"You are the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life."
The elf-thing threw a pillow at her and chased her out the room.
Downstairs, Aidan wasn't pleased to hear about the creature in their house. Gwen took that to mean this was the wizarding world equivalent of a rodent problem. She was wrong.
"I asked Tup to make herself scarce for a few days to help ease Guinevere into all this," he berated Garrett over an elaborate spread of breakfast foods.
"It's been a few days."
"It's been a day and a half! You're hopeless. And I was going to introduce them to each other properly, not just let Tup spring herself on the poor kid."
"I'd argue there's a difference between easing her into our world and hiding it outright," Garrett said without bothering to look up from his newspaper. "Besides, food poisoning won't do any of us any good."
"My cooking is adequate and flavourful."
It wasn't.
"So, house-elves are basically housewives, is that it?" The picture was fairly clear to Gwen. As she loaded her plate with perfectly crisp bacon and freshly baked, still-warm croissants, she wished Aidan hadn't sent Tup away at all. This was several steps up from soggy scrambled eggs and burnt toast.
"That's one way to phrase it," Garrett said before folding up the paper and putting it aside. "Elves are bound to serve wizard families. They can be called upon for any sort of task but it generally comes down to household chores and running errands."
"And they just go along with that? They don't get bored?"
"Domesticity suits them. In the wild, they'd be caring for the woods whilst also falling prey to other magical creatures." Garrett went to take another sip of coffee only to pause abruptly. "Historically, that is. There are no woods to tend to now that Muggles have paved over everything."
"Must you get political at this time of day?" Aidan groaned into his cup.
"She's awfully rude for a servant," Gwen pointed out.
"Well, strictly speaking, she doesn't serve you because you're not—"
Aidan choked deliberately and loudly on his tea. He shot a warning glare at Garrett.
"I'm not part of the family."
And there was the awkward silence that punctuated all their interactions.
"In any case, Tup's been that way for years. You'll get used to it."
"Will I?" she blurted out, tone challenging.
There it was again. Aidan was so on the brink of speaking, she felt the words on the tip of her own tongue. He wanted to reassure her but that decision didn't belong exclusively to him. If one of them wouldn't promise she could stay forever, then neither would the other.
She'd tested their bond — she couldn't stomach calling it love — pressing on the emotion to see how easily it might bend. It was like running into a brick wall. Her parents were the same. There was no wedging herself between them to play one against the other.
"That's too much bacon," Aidan suddenly landed on something to say.
There was magic behind his words. Slice after slice of meat floated off her plate to make room for a banana which he directed towards her with a flick of his wrist. Having found some small way to parent, Aidan eased back into his usual relaxed self. His eyes darted to Garrett in a split second search for approval but the other man was unmoved. He didn't care about her cholesterol levels one bit.
Gwen hated bananas but eating was more important than spoiling Aidan's good mood. She peeled it methodically and took grudging little bites.
"You have to eat right to get on the Nice List," Aidan joked only to panic. "Do you—I mean—uh—Have you written your letter this year?"
"You're trying to ask if I still believe in Santa without giving it away."
"I should have started with whether or not you celebrate Christmas." He sighed with relief when she confirmed she did. He would have taken down all the decorations otherwise and that'd break his heart. What a missed opportunity. She should've lied and said she was Jewish. "I take it you don't, then? Believe in Santa?"
"I always knew he wasn't real."
Claudia.
The whisper came from Garrett's mind and drew her attention to where he sat studying her. Meeting his gaze, Gwen caught a glimpse of herself through his eyes: a child shell with something full-grown and monstrous inside. They both shuddered and looked away.
"That keeps it simple, I guess," Aidan said. "I can't remember how old I was when I figured it out. I think my little brother actually knew before I did. Point being, I don't know what the normal age is."
"We don't know what we're doing at all," Garrett muttered under his breath as he got up from the table. He left his dishes where they were and in doing so, summoned the elf-thing to clean up after him. Not a bad deal if you could stand the sight of it.
Stepping into the fireplace, Garrett disappeared into the green flames that took him to work each day while Aidan called him out for the lack of a proper goodbye. A proper goodbye meant a kiss and Gwen was thankful they skipped it. She'd rather look at Tup than that.
Aidan was giving her an apologetic look."Full disclosure, we've never done this before so…" he trailed off a little. "You might need to bear with us."
Waiting for a man to get good at raising children would prove an eternal wait. Everyone with common sense knew that. Gwen didn't bother pointing it out.
"While we're at it, there's something I've been meaning to bring up with you." Whatever it was had him radiating hesitation. "I don't want you to feel embarrassed, it's just we do need to talk about your clothes."
That was coming sooner or later. Gwen started that morning the way she did yesterday, dressing quickly in the clothes from the day before. December wasn't the best time to sleep in nothing but her knickers and socks but sleeping in her clothes was worse than the cold.
"Dumbledore used magic to freshen them up. More than once," she admitted to him.
"It's OK," he hurried to say. "You haven't done anything wrong, I just didn't anticipate this."
The words you haven't done anything wrong sent a chill down her spine.
"So, here's what I'm thinking," Aidan went on. "We need to get you some new clothes and some things to decorate your room so you can really make it your own. But we probably want to avoid how hectic the shops are right now so we'll wait till after the new year and take advantage of the sales, how does that sound?"
By New Year, she might not be here and he'd be off the hook.
"Sounds like a plan."
He smiled at her as if they were starting to connect.
"In the meantime, you can borrow my clothes."
Gwen had to work extremely hard to keep her face neutral. She channeled so much thought into it, she didn't notice the seconds passing until Aidan frowned and she realised she must be staring at him blankly.
"Thank you," she forced out. "That's really thoughtful."
He smiled again and led her up to the master bedroom where she had yet to enter. A place she'd hoped to avoid. Gwen noticed herself take a deep breath before crossing the threshold. Despite the room being quite obviously not underwater, she couldn't get her lungs to cooperate until they burned with the need for air. She breathed in their mingled essence and gagged.
All the while, Aidan was rummaging through his side of a wardrobe, asking for her input and soldiering on when he got nothing from her.
It was a walk-in and it took her a stupidly long time to figure out it didn't make sense. The space he was walking into was the hallway. The wardrobe itself appeared to be an ordinary piece of furniture, perfectly moveable away from the wall he'd phased through. If he ventured deeper, past the suits and robes and excessive number of shoes, perhaps he would find Narnia.
Perhaps the same was true of all wizard wardrobes. Who was she to presume otherwise? They used fireplaces to get around, after all. Next she'd be learning they flushed themselves down toilets.
Having made his selection, Aidan laid the clothes flat on the bed and held a hand over each in turn. He made a gesture of drawing his fingers closer together and one by one, the garments proceeded to shrink. He then held up a T-shirt in front of her to judge the size.
Even just that proximity made her itch and she had to remind herself it could be worse. At least his skin wasn't brown.
"OK, that was a rough guess but they should fit you now. We can keep adjusting if we need." He put it back down. "Sorry they're still, you know, boy clothes. Garrett's obviously better at transfiguration than I am."
Why was that obvious? What even was it?
"He can change these into whatever you like to match your style."
Gwen didn't have a style. She wore the clothes her mother picked out and—It hit her like a blow to the stomach. Her mother would never buy clothes for her again.
"They're fine," her voice barely worked. All the air was knocked out of her. The room was starting to spin.
"Are you OK?" Aidan reached out his hand and the thought of him touching her gave her the momentum to escape.
"I'm fine," she said, recoiling. Her legs managed to carry her out the door. "Headache. I get them a lot. I'm going to lie down."
Gwen reached the guest room and collapsed onto the expertly made bed. She curled into a ball as if she could feed herself to the gnawing sensation in the pit of her stomach. Her body trembled, racked with ever-worsening sobs that made no sound. Taking little gasps of air, the most she managed was a pitiful whimper. Like a dog tied up at the side of a road after its owner drove away.
The noise of voices and laughter, glasses clinking, and Christmas songs filled every corner of the house. With the kitchen transfigured into a bar for this occasion, the entire downstairs was a hybrid Santa's Grotto lounge club. Most of the guests were friends from school, plus their dates, and about half of them were drunk enough to sing along to Wham!. The other half were joining in anyway.
At Slughorn's parties, Garrett spent the evening with people who were wealthy and willing to fund his research. This thing happening in his living room was no networking opportunity, just a bunch of people enjoying each other's company for the sake of it. An actual party.
"What do I normally do with my hands?" he quietly asked Aidan at one point.
Aidan, the useless lightweight, leaned in close to his ear and recounted sordid things that made Garrett's blood run especially hot.
With a low growl, he promised, "I'm going to make you pay for that."
"I certainly hope so."
That was the highlight of the evening.
Feeling overdressed in his most casual clothes, Garrett watched from the shoreline as Aidan did laps through a sea of ugly Christmas jumpers. He made it look effortless. His bright eyes, his easy smile, the way he drew laughter from others. Garrett couldn't tear his eyes away.
Tup was in her element, too, serving guests to her heart's content. She commanded the floating trays of hors d'oeuvres and drinks like the conductor of an orchestra. Flitting about, she left no one wanting for even a moment too long. In a way, this was her party. Her masterpiece. And she oozed pride. She practically skipped over to him.
"It's so kind of Master Aidan to share his friends with you, sir, knowing you don't have any."
"Yes, you've said that on numerous occasions. I remember."
Tup was never more pleased with him than when he brought Aidan into their lives. She made no secret of her appreciation for occasions like this giving her a full house to dote on and Aidan to thank for it. But as much as she poked fun at him, she understood why Garrett struggled to share that sentiment.
None of these people had ever warmed to him. They'd not expected they might need to. He wasn't supposed to still be around. None of them saw what Aidan saw in him, they only saw how he could do better. Aidan always told him he was projecting. No one ever said anything like that, after all, to his face or behind his back. Of course they didn't say it. It went without saying.
Mistletoe hung from one of the wooden ceiling beams, in the same spot it did every year. Any real husband would kiss his spouse beneath it like he knew they wanted. Not Garrett. Not in front of people.
The only feeling kissing Aidan would arouse at this moment was a bitter, stomach-twisting shame. It was embarrassing to love him and Garrett couldn't bear to feel that way for even a second.
He couldn't even take a shower anymore without that old guilt rearing its ugly head. The messages they used to leave each other on the fogged bathroom mirror were now impossible to write with someone else in the house.
Speak of the devil. Garrett watched Aidan shift, as he so rapidly could, from perfectly at ease to fretting.
"She knows she's welcome to come down, doesn't she?" he asked, eyes darting to the stairs.
"Undoubtedly," Garrett brushed him off and took a deep swig of Firewhisky. His spirits dropped even lower. He didn't want Aidan worrying over someone who was choosing their own lonely fate. He should be enjoying himself.
"I should go check on her."
"No, I'll go. I need to get out of the way so Periwink can flirt with you."
"You're just doing that thing where you sneak off partway through. But more importantly, which Periwink, the brother or the sister?"
"Both."
"Alright, just be back in time for the—"
"I know." Garrett brushed his fingers over Aidan's as he passed, letting his touch linger too long to be an accident. Long enough to say, I mean this. I'm with you. It wasn't the kiss it should have been but it felt Herculean just to do that in front of a crowd.
Especially when the crowd was right. Aidan really did deserve better.
At least Garrett had a better excuse than usual to make an escape. This was the first good thing to come from having the girl around. Garrett reached the door to the guest room and paused. He had to remind himself he wasn't scared of her. Only a little unnerved and only some of the time. He knocked, waited, got no response, and let himself in.
He found her sitting on the bed hugging her knees to her chest. The lights were out so he couldn't easily make out her face but she seemed to be staring blankly into space.
"Guinevere," he greeted her curtly.
Again, he got nothing back from her. So far, the days she spoke five words or fewer outnumbered the days she held a full conversation.
"I'm not one for social gatherings," he said. "I hope you don't mind if I hide out in here for a bit?"
"It's your house."
They fell into awkward silence as the sounds of people having a good time floated up from downstairs. Each peal of laughter added insult to the injury of being in each other's unhappy company.
What was he supposed to do with her? Would it help if she joined in? She didn't strike him as the social type but caging herself up this much couldn't be healthy. And that was him thinking that. That said it all.
"Aidan wants you to come downstairs," he said then quickly added. "We both do."
To his instant, stomach-dropping regret, this got her to look at him. She fixed him with her blade-like stare, her accusing eyes calling him a liar. And she was right. He swore he'd never get used to the way she looked straight into him, leaving him nowhere inside to hide, and he fought hard to ignore the sensation of insects — or maybe it was her — crawling around beneath his skin.
"Surely, this isn't your idea of fun?" he tried to reason with her. "Sitting alone in the dark, doing nothing?"
The girl ignored him so completely he didn't expect her to answer.
"I have a headache."
"Little Madam has to leave her room today."
"Why?" Gwen was perfectly content lying in bed, staring at the wall. Not even her full bladder seemed like reason enough to move.
"Because it's Christmas Day," Tup announced. "And that means everyone must sit together and overeat before tearing paper off of boxes and pretending to like the thing inside. And crackers. We must tell each other jokes that aren't funny."
The elf's tone made it sound like all these things were obvious — which they arguably were — and Gwen was simply too dim-witted to realise.
"Why do wizards even celebrate Christmas? Was Jesus a wizard?"
"If Little Madam goes downstairs, the masters can answer her questions about the wizarding world."
"Little Madam doesn't care that much."
Sooner than later, joining the festivities became the lesser evil than the elf's pestering. Gwen didn't bother getting dressed today. She stayed in the old sports jersey in which she slept. Aidan was fading from it the longer she wore it which was a relief in more ways than one. The first few nights, she'd dreamed of flying on a broomstick and being chased by a bowling ball. She was back to the nothingness of her own sleep now. The only place that offered any peace.
"Merry Christmas," Aidan wished her brightly as she made her appearance. He looked positively dapper in a burgundy turtleneck with his tousled locks combed for a change.
"You too."
Gwen hadn't the faintest idea what to do or which part of the room to occupy so she loitered near the bottom of the stairs and picked at her cuticles.
"Come here," Aidan beckoned her like a stray animal over to the sofa. "We're opening presents."
She joined the pair of them in the sitting area by the fire. Garrett had taken the nearest armchair and she'd have to walk past the space Aidan made for her on the sofa to reach the other seat. Thinking better of making a fuss, she pushed her body down next to him.
Dozens of presents waited beneath the tree. Each one beautifully wrapped in different paper, sporting shining bows, and boasting an array of sizes. It was more than she'd ever seen under her parents' tree. At least they spoil each other, she could say that much for them.
With a wave of his hand, Aidan summoned one of the gifts and placed it in front of her. It took a stupidly long time — especially for a psychic — to figure out it was intended for her.
"Oh." She studied the box like a maths question she couldn't puzzle out. "But I didn't get you anything."
Aidan faltered. "We know. We didn't expect you to."
"That would require money and going outside," Garrett said bluntly then raised his hands in surrender when Aidan shot him a look.
"We know you've been through a lot," Aidan turned his attention back to her. "And this is probably going to be a tough day for you so I don't want you to worry about us, OK? You don't need to get us anything. Does she?"
"Did I say she had to?"
"It's our job to worry about you."
"I didn't say she had to."
"Open it," he urged her. "Go on."
It went on like that. Gwen listened quietly while they traded remarks and all three of them took turns opening gifts until she had herself a small pile. Mostly the British sweets she'd never tried — you said you've never tried them — along with a diary and a name necklace that read Guinevere not Gwen.
When she told Aidan he could have saved his money, she meant it in the sense that he didn't have to buy her any of this. What was the point? But he looked crestfallen and she felt it in her own chest where she stung him, and Garrett shot daggers at her. She considered apologising but she didn't see the point in that, either.
Dinner was an awkward affair. Aidan made a valiant effort of putting on a smile but Garrett ate like a man who had somewhere better to be once he reached the last bite. It was made easier by Tup asserting herself as the one in charge, summoning them to the table when the meal was ready. But she insisted they all wear their paper crowns the whole time.
All Gwen could think about, as she dutifully swallowed bites of turkey without tasting or chewing it, was sea lions. It was the one visit her family ever made to an aquarium where the animals were forced to wear stupid hats and perform for their food. What they felt wasn't unhappiness, per se, it was the crushing absence of feeling. A numb resignation to the difference between surviving and being alive. All the normal children loved it but Gwen embarrassed her parents by storming out halfway through the show. When she next wanted to go somewhere — a pop concert, if she remembered correctly — they refused.
"You OK over there?" Aidan brought her attention to the fact she'd stopped eating. She'd frozen solid. "Is it another vision?"
"No, I'm fine."
Gwen put a Brussels sprout in her mouth to prove her point. She couldn't stand Brussels sprouts but she was a sea lion and this was the show.
After dessert, there were more presents to open. Aidan, apologising profusely, explained he could only steal so much time to buy her gifts and so now there were none for her. That was fine by Gwen and she tried to get that across without sounding rude. She didn't succeed and he didn't believe her. His guilt gnawed through him into her. Gwen really didn't see what all the fuss was about. By next Christmas, she'd be nothing to them but a vague, unpleasant memory.
"Remember that girl who stayed with us for a few weeks? Kind of creepy, always sulking? What was her name, Genevieve?"
"Oh, yeah! Christ, she was annoying. Glad we dodged that bullet."
Gwen was probably just imagining their voices rather than hearing them speak in the future… But she wasn't always sure.
"You know what, on second thought, let's save it?" Aidan couched it as a suggestion when his mind was made up.
"Save it?" Garrett's voice was the very sound of displeasure. "Till when, next year?"
"You can't save it," Tup shrieked. "The colourfully-wrapped boxes must be unwrapped today."
"We can finish off the presents tomorrow. Spread out the fun a bit. Today should be focused on family."
"I agree." Garrett's urge to bite his tongue was an ache in Gwen's teeth but he didn't take it back. Christmas was indeed about family and that meant they shouldn't be interrupted by an outsider.
"I really don't mind you opening presents," she offered. "It won't bother me."
"No, it's not right to leave someone out."
Pieces of LEGO flashed before her mind's eye and Gwen was flooded with the desire to see Aidan's reaction. He'd shown her his extensive collection that somehow fit inside a single drawer; his enthusiasm was admittedly infectious. This latest set was Garrett's gift for him. His main gift. The men had easily exchanged a dozen presents so far with a dozen more to go. This one in particular, though, the thought of neglecting it tugged savagely at the heartstrings. So much so, Gwen wasn't sure if the disappointment belonged entirely to Garrett or partly to her.
"Tomorrow is for sleeping in and eating leftovers and enjoying the presents, not opening them," the house-elf insisted. "What's wrong with you?"
Watching Tup fight alongside Garrett in the argument made Gwen realise this was her first time seeing that happen. Not once had she observed Tup take Garrett's side against Aidan before. And while Garrett often held back, Tup was ruthlessly upfront.
"If the little urchin is to live here, she has to do things properly."
The sentiment wasn't all they shared. Gwen didn't need to be psychic to pick up on their resentment. It was in the way they spoke about her as though she wasn't standing right there. It was in every stolen glance. Their Christmas Day was going rapidly downhill and the blame rested with her.
"I have to pee," Gwen announced and walked away.
Climbing the stairs and walking the length of the hall gave her something, even just a small something to do. The stillness of standing in a locked bathroom left her mind with nothing to distract itself.
She noticed herself breathing strangely. She felt the vague impression of nausea and yet her stomach felt empty despite all she'd eaten. She couldn't justify throwing up; food was one of the few reasons she was here at all. Her skin was clammy all over and when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she looked pale. At this point, the bruise on her cheek would go unnoticed by anyone not specifically looking for it.
That was the last time her father touched her. It was fading away.
The bizarre rhythm of her breath kicked up a notch and her body trembled as she curled in on herself. On her knees, she fought both the urge to be sick and thoughts of them. Her parents. Somewhere out there, they were having Christmas without her. What did that look like? The answer tried to come to her but she pushed it away. There was really only two things they could be doing right now, missing her or not missing her, and neither possibility would fill this strange emptiness.
A knock at the door startled her. It was Aidan, checking she was alright. Apparently she'd been gone a while.
"I'm fine. I'll be out in a minute."
A minute or so later found Gwen at the top of the stairs. She managed to will her body this far but no further. The door to the guest room was just to her left. The temptation to turn away, go back to bed, remove herself from the day was almost irresistible. Why couldn't they just leave her alone? She was only getting in their way and she didn't want that any more than they did. It was stupid for her to join them, for them to insist.
The prospect of going back down there…to intrude today of all days yet play along like she wasn't some alien object in their home…to sit among strangers who tolerated her presence about as poorly as she stomached theirs… It was simply too much.
Gwen rose up on the balls of her feet on the carpeted edge of the top step, and let herself slip.
Her whole weight slammed into that step as she landed on her rear. She bounced down the stairs with heavy thuds before her feet got caught under her and she flipped forward. Her face smacked the wall. Thwack. After that it was a whirlwind of turns and twists until the floor came up to meet her back with a brutal slap.
"Shit!" Aidan's voice heralded the thundering of his steps towards her. His faces appeared above her, each one wide-eyed. His next words were breathless with panic. "Guinevere, are you OK?"
Blinking, Gwen's eyes focused him into a single being. Her head pounded. "I slipped."
"Where does it hurt?" Garrett joined them.
"I'm fine." Gwen went to sit up but Aidan gently pinned her down by the shoulders.
"Just hold still, OK? We need to make sure nothing's broken."
"Tup, double check for me how much yarrow root we have," Garrett sent off the elf then spoke to them. "It's doubtful anything's broken. I'll whip up a batch of Edgar's Elixir—"
"That only works for bruises."
"It'll set right any minor fractures and then there's—"
"And it does nothing to relieve pain."
"Would you let me finish? We've got fresh painkiller potions in the medicine cabinet."
"Honestly, I'm fine. I don't need anything." There was a throbbing ache starting up in Gwen's left hip that she didn't want to lose.
"I think we should take her to St Mungo's."
"Saint who?"
"It's a hospital."
Well, that was overdoing it. Papa taught her the sensation of a bone breaking enough times for her to say with confidence, "It's just a bruise."
It took a fair bit of persuading from Garrett for Aidan to let her go to bed and simply rest. The door was left ajar and Gwen could hear the subdued festivities carrying on without her. With every remark and sideways glare, Tup reminded her how very put out she felt missing the day. As if Gwen couldn't feel that already. And even with the disgruntled house-elf on watch duty, Aidan checked in periodically. He was fretting over the possibility of a concussion and that she shouldn't risk sleeping.
Gwen held up her fingers in the Vulcan salute and promised him, on her psychic's honour, she would wake up. Aidan relented at that and left her alone.
Mercifully, it wasn't Christmas in her sleep. She dreamed of her parents in a room with no decorations. So empty it was nothing but white.
Gwen hadn't set foot outside the Thicket since the day she arrived. Every offer to walk around Lenham and get to know the town was rebuffed. Today, though, she wasn't given a choice. Apparently, neither was Garrett.
"I don't see why I'm needed here." He was using both hands and his chin to carry a stack of food containers. "These people can smell I come from money. I just piss them off."
Did he have to mention smell? Gwen was already struggling to resist pulling up her scarf to cover her nose.
"No, see, as it turns out, the world doesn't resolve around you so they won't notice at all," Aidan told him cheerfully. "They have rather more pressing concerns. That's why we're here. To help."
"Don't you get sassy with me, you slag," Garrett kept his voice low. "I know how helping works. I've done it at least twice."
"Successfully?"
"Hush now. These people need us."
By the looks of things, they really didn't. Christmas had left overeager shoppers — Aidan — with a surplus of food, and the hunger to feel righteous — again, Aidan — drove them here. The shelter appeared perfectly well-stocked.
How noble, after a year of walking by these people and pretending not to see them, to go out of one's way to feed them scraps.
Gwen retreated to a corner while the two of them spoke with whichever do-gooder was running the place.
Oddly enough, it was Garrett who kept an eye on her while Aidan handled the conversation. It was getting a little insulting. She knew perfectly well how to stand in a corner and be quiet.
Over the past few days since Aidan went back to work, Gwen had been in Tup's charge and was immensely glad for this reprieve. The house-elf had stolen every last chore that might have helped Gwen feel normal. Making her bed, putting her laundry away, and god help her if she touched a single utensil in Tup's kitchen. Even tying her own shoes! Apparently, her knots were not up to the elf's standard.
"The masters won't be happy if Little Madam has another fall."
Maybe that was true of Aidan with his evident saviour complex. But Garrett had been dragged here as unwillingly as Gwen, and she didn't need him pretending to care where she stood or if they could still see her.
It was bad enough that he'd forced healing potions down her throat. The only pain she felt now was when she dug her nails into her palms. And Papa's last bruise was completely gone.
It was a bizarre thing to miss and to lament that he might never lay hands on her again.
Maybe she should've stayed quiet, all those times she spoke about the things she saw. Those people got hurt anyway. No one ever listened. If she'd only kept her mouth shut, Papa might have liked her. She might still be welcome beneath his roof.
Of all the places to be right now, she was in a homeless shelter and it was a little too on the nose for her tastes.
Gwen was nothing like these people. She wasn't lazy or careless with money. She would rob a bank if she had to. Find dirt on a rich man and blackmail him into marriage. Join the military. Put up with faggots. Whatever it took to survive.
Why, then, did they feel so much like her?
Back at the Thicket, she was oil to water. Here, the longer she stayed, the more she noticed the energy of the crowd blending with her own. They, too, were detached. A nuisance to a world that didn't want them. Like her, they had gone without the touch of family only they'd been going longer.
It was not a feeling that got easier with time. She wished she didn't know that.
Somewhere in the shelter, someone was projecting their thoughts: a prayer. Gwen bristled. They were thanking Allah when they should be thanking the hardworking British people who brought them this food.
Worse than that, they were begging forgiveness for praying in the wrong place. They were unsure if it was clean enough. What an absolute joke. If they wanted to pray in the right place, they could go back to their own lice-infested country.
Gwen caught Garrett's eye as he checked on her again and at that point enough was enough.
"I'm going to get some air."
She was already walking away when Aidan called out to her.
"Wait, Guinevere, you can't just go stand out on the street alone."
She looked back over her shoulder. "Why not?"
"Something could happen."
"Something won't happen." She carried on walking.
Outside, the relief of being alone quickly morphed into the sting of being alone. Adrenaline burned like acid in her tissues and she paced furiously back and forth. She didn't want to think about her parents anymore. If she could only move fast enough, she could escape these thoughts, this feeling.
She walked.
She took one step further from the shelter each time before cycling back.
She walked faster.
She tried to turn back but pivoted in what became a full circle, pointing her away from the shelter again.
She walked.
She made it halfway down the street before accepting she simply wasn't going to turn around.
She ran.
Her heart pounded in her chest and the air scorched her lungs and she barely heard a horn blaring as she sprinted across a road and this was the closest she'd come to feeling well in days. Weeks.
She is in no physical shape to keep it up, though. Before long, she slowed to a jog and then a stroll and then a stop.
The feeling followed her. Of course it did. It was inside her. Wherever she went, she would bring it with her.
It was a slow, crushing realisation. There was no difference between where she stood right now and where she'd stood outside the door a few minutes ago. Nor the Thicket and the Leaky Cauldron. Not Hogwarts if she ever went.
Anywhere that wasn't home was all the same.
Why bother running? She was just as lost everywhere else as right here.
A loud thud and the screeching of tires drew Gwen's attention to the road. Right there in the middle of the tarmac, she saw herself lying in a broken heap.
"What happened?" came a voice with no body.
"I don't know! I don't know! She just walked out onto the street! Oh God, please wake up..."
Headlights appeared in the corner of her eye; her unsuspecting killer was on their way. It struck Gwen as unfair to them, this random stranger whose day would be ruined. That person hadn't wronged her. There was no need to be rude.
Her corpse vanished beneath a car as it drove past, and did not re-emerge. Gwen continued to stare at the empty spot in the road before finally turning away.
She didn't realise which direction she was walking until she eventually found herself back at the shelter. Garrett was stood outside waiting for her.
"Welcome back."
That was a joke. There was no way to feel welcome when she could feel his resentment even now. He was so like Papa in that way. He didn't want her in his house, simple as that. And every time he lied about it by calling her down to dinner or telling her to help herself to the books on the shelf or just not saying it outright, a hot surge of anger coursed through her. She wanted to scream at him, why don't you just get it over with?
If she had things, she wouldn't bother to unpack.
"How far did you get before you realised you have nowhere to go?" There was no sympathy in his tone, as expected, but he wasn't mocking her, either. He said it precisely how it was. She appreciated that.
"Does it matter?"
"No," he said. "What matters is how Aidan would blame himself and the authorities would blame us both."
Finally, some honesty.
She returned the favour. "That doesn't mean anything to me."
"I don't expect it to," he shrugged. "But we need to figure out a way to navigate this situation that doesn't involve you throwing yourself down the stairs."
"You could lock me in my room."
"You could try leaving your room," he shot back. "Get some fresh air, stretch your legs."
"I just did."
Unimpressed, Garrett fixed her with a pointed stare. "It's not going to get easier by stewing in it. Believe me."
His sincerity rang in Gwen's ears, undeniable and yet she was determined to reject any notion that he understood how she felt. They had absolutely nothing in common. It was disgusting to suggest otherwise. And so, Gwen lifted her chin and sauntered back into the shelter, never deigning to glance his way.
Granted, she'd lost a fair bit recently. Most things could be taken. A precious few, however, could only be surrendered and she'd sooner be out on the street than give up her pride.
Every morning, Gwen woke up to a moment of cruel bliss.
It was such a fleeting thing, getting shorter by the day, that very first instant when she opened her eyes and didn't remember where she was.
Her first morning at the Thicket, she'd been so groggy it took her a full minute to piece together the foreign nature of the room. She was convinced her family had moved, as they so often did, and her brain simply needed to catch up.
Then she remembered. And then she couldn't breathe.
Over the past three weeks, it became routine. Today was no exception. She lay there and looked around, confused but unconcerned. Not even sure what country she was in yet secure in the belief that things were normal. As her waking mind found its bearings, she grew eager with anticipation for someone to come and convince her parents that magic was real. Hope bloomed in her heart that today would be the day.
All at once, there was Aidan and Garrett and Tup; Dumbledore and the Leaky Cauldron and the Ministry; what she'd done to her parents; what they did to her; the man who came to her door and the other man inside him, the one who wanted her dead. It all came flooding back, trying to drown her.
She wanted to let it.
Gwen sank her teeth into the pillow as her body quaked. There was a heavy, burning weight in her chest bearing down on her lungs. Her limbs screamed at her to flee but the truth paralysed her: she was homeless. Where could she go?
Once her body calmed down, she was able to get on with the rest of the morning routine.
Locking the door to the bathroom was fast becoming her favourite part of the day. She liked it in here. There were things to do in here that made her feel powerful. It seemed a silly feeling at first. She figured it was just because she was washing away the sweat of her morning fits. But day by day, she came to understand that what she was feeling was control. They might only be little things but they were personal things and she was in charge.
The moment she left the bathroom, the elf was in charge.
"Well, it's about time!" Tup shoved Gwen towards the table and sat her down. "Tup doesn't cook Little Madam's breakfast just for fun, you know."
"It is your idea of fun, though. It's pathetic."
A towel under the elf's command snapped at her then resumed drying a pan.
"Mind your manners."
"Get a hobby." The towel hit her again. "Please."
Both Aidan and Garrett had already left for work and Tup dove into the agenda for the day: she was to prepare the house to go magic-free by the time they got home that evening. Gwen was to observe and learn.
The main lesson was that Muggle devices didn't function properly in the wizarding world because a magical atmosphere invariably interfered with electricity.
"So you're telling me there's no one on this Earth with the power to set the clock right on a microwave?"
Tup didn't have a clue what she meant.
"Some wizards live like this all the time," she tutted at one point while preparing tray after tray of party food. "The ones who don't have elves and can't do magic. Poor souls."
"What do you mean, they can't do magic?"
"Well, of course, they can. They're not Squibs. But they're no good at most spells. Not everyone's as gifted as the masters. So they fill their homes with those horrid Muggle inventions and make do."
Inventions like washing machines and vacuum cleaners, apparently. Throughout the entire morning and afternoon, Tup made sure every chore was completed to such a high standard that it wouldn't need doing again for days. That was normal behaviour for the elf, though.
What was out of the ordinary was how she set up battery-powered heaters around the house and built a fire using matches. The warmth within the stone of the walls and floors receded once the spell was removed. One by one, the enchanted decorations lost their charm and it didn't smell like cinnamon anymore.
If the next thing Tup did was board up the windows, that would've seemed perfectly reasonable to Gwen. It was as though they were preparing to hunker down during a storm.
All this to set up a television.
Tup explained that a single outburst of uncontrolled magic, typically from underage witches and wizards, often resulted in blackouts. One such instance caused chaos over in Canada and the States back in the sixties. It affected so many millions of people for so many hours that MACUSA — America's answer to Britain's Ministry of Magic — had to cobble together a non-magical version of the event as a cover story.
That was one of the more major incidents. Most of the time, magical interference was contained to a single house or street. More often still, just one particular object.
Gwen recalled her parents needing to replace a landline after she spent the afternoon on the phone with her granny. The old woman's voice carried a vision through the receiver and by the time Gwen was done watching her die, the connection was reduced to static.
She gave them a warning and they refused to give her dinner for six days straight. After that, they were too busy planning a funeral to worry about her.
"I can't turn it off," she told the elf. "I can block it out sometimes but I can't stop it completely."
"Seers never can," Tup asserted and Gwen could hear years of experience backing up her words. "The message is more important than the messenger."
"Are there spells to stop it?"
"There exists a potion to blind Seers. Tup has never seen it brewed or used, but she has heard of it. Not too tricky to make, from the sounds of it, but who is there to drink it? No one, usually."
"Will they use it on me?"
That stopped the elf in her tracks.
"The masters would never do such a thing."
"What if I break their TV and ruin their night?"
"Never."
Tup turned the latter half of the afternoon into a history lesson. She described how magical and Muggle practices had intertwined in the days before secrecy, before wizardkind went into hiding. And then the brief period between that and the Industrial Revolution into which Tup was born. By the end, it seemed it was all just set up for her own personal history with, as she called them, her family.
"The Ethelbanes are pure-bloods. A proud old family, they are. One of the Sacred Twenty-Nine."
Gwen didn't know what was so sacred about being one of twenty-nine but the elf didn't pause to explain.
"Tup served the illustrious House of Ethelbane all her life, like her mother and her mother's mother and her great-grandmother, too. All the way back to their victory over the dark wizard, Ætheldryd. An honour it was, to serve such a grand bloodline. Raised Master Garrett, Tup did." Her tone abruptly changed from smug to bitter. "A rotten job of it, she did, so they say, and out they threw her. Out forever."
Gwen's mouth was moving before her brain kicked in.
"Well, you did let him bring home a Mudblood so they can't be too happy."
With a snap of Tup's fingers, Gwen's mouth filled up with liquid soap. She ran to the kitchen sink to spit it out.
"We never use that word in this house," Tup said sternly. "Master Aidan forbids it."
Gwen was barely listening. She was more concerned with sucking handfuls of tap water into her mouth and rinsing out the taste.
There wasn't much left of the day between the last of Tup's work and Garrett coming home. Gwen retreated to the guest room with a "headache" in anticipation of his return. Aidan would be back hours later than his husband and there'd be no avoiding them then.
Gwen wondered, if they both happened to die on the way home, was there any way she could keep the house?
These were the thoughts she used to occupy her mind. Beyond that, she could only stare listlessly at the ceiling, fighting with everything she had not to think of her parents, what day this was, and what it would mean when the clock struck twelve.
From downstairs, she could hear Garrett and Tup discussing the plan for the evening and setting up a whole new set of decorations. Balloons and streamers, mostly. A mixture of silver and gold. Gwen could already see it in her mind. It actually looked rather decent but on principle she thought of it as tawdry.
Garrett complained the whole time, having to blow up the balloons the Muggle way but when Aidan arrived and took in the sight of what they'd done, there wasn't a bad word between them.
"Do you like it?"
"Of course! It looks beautiful. Thank you." There was a pause. They were probably hugging; she didn't want to know. "Where's Guinevere?"
"Where do you think?" Garrett's tone went back to irritated.
Aidan called her down and seemed to expect a reaction to the decorations. When she barely glanced around the room, he pressed the issue, asking her what she thought.
"I've seen it."
Resentment rolled off Garrett and Tup without them saying a word.
Aidan then asked if she was squeamish which was laughable considering the nature of her visions. He explained they needed to take down the wards for the evening and put them back up after midnight, and this would require blood.
"Blood magic," she mused. "Sounds hardcore. I'm in."
"It's not as intense as it might seem. We only need a few drops so the wards can recognise you. Besides that, it's good practice to renew long-standing spells. They can get worn down," he explained. "And a new year is one of the most powerful times to do it."
"What happens when a witch dies?" Gwen heard herself ask. "Do all her spells break?"
Aidan was visibly put off by the question. "That depends."
"On?"
"On a number of factors," Garrett stepped in. "Certain magical practices can cause lasting, even irreversible effects. Others are more volatile. As a general rule, though, only the most powerful sorcerers exhibit self-sustaining magic. The founders of Hogwarts, for example, many of their spells remain active to this day."
At that, Gwen remembered her copy of Hogwarts: A History sitting on the bedside table in the guest room. Still waiting to be read.
The two men led her to the green front door which they explained was the seal for the wards. Any part of the house could serve as the anchoring point for the spell but the main entrance was the obvious choice.
"But if someone wants to break in, they'll assume the door is the seal and destroy it?"
"Technically, yes, but it takes a lot of magic to manage that," Aidan told her. "And the more wizards who put up the wards, the harder it is to tear down. Anyone with that kind of power is getting in no matter what."
They both pressed a hand against the frame and together they chanted in Latin. A gentle glow of white light emanated from the door then faded to nothing. That was it.
"That's it?"
"Reversing your own spell is always easier than someone else's."
For all her insight and instincts, Gwen had to admit she'd learned more about magic over the past month than she'd ever known before. She felt the need to thank them but couldn't push the words out of her mouth.
All the while, a sense of apprehension steadily radiated from Garrett.
"I don't want to dawdle putting them back up," he said to Aidan. "As soon as we're done with the Muggle television, we get fresh wards in place."
He was worried about her. Well, not so much about her but that someone might come for her and the danger that would bring to the house.
What a strange fear. No one was coming for her.
"Sure thing. Again, Guinevere, you won't need to do anything for the spell. Just a little cut and then watch us and learn."
She nodded then finally told them, "It's Gwen, by the way. Just Gwen."
"Oh. OK..." Aidan was wondering why this hadn't come up already. "Sure."
The time finally came to sit down and watch the standard New Year's Eve programming. Gwen's family hadn't always had access to British networks so the BBC's idea of fun was still relatively foreign to her. Nonetheless, this was the first thing to happen in the Thicket that perfectly matched anything she did back home. Sitting on the sofa with two grown-ups she didn't get along with, biting cubes of cheese and pineapple off toothpicks, and watching the clock.
The elf was an odd touch.
According to her gut, her parents were still in the same time zone. They would be watching the same countdown.
Ten...nine...eight...
The last year she had a family was ending.
Five...four...three...
In 1991, she'd be an orphan in full.
"HAPPY NEW YEAR!"
Seeing two men share a kiss, Gwen launched off the sofa with the need to physically remove herself. Only she didn't have anywhere to go so she ended up wandering towards the kitchen, trying to make it seem deliberate.
"Gwen, you OK?"
"Yeah." She refused to look at them. It was a wonder she could speak instead of letting out a cry of disgust. "Just getting some ice."
It was the only lie she could think of that made even a scrap of sense. The table was laden with snacks, after all.
"There is no ice…" Aidan said uncertainly.
Oh, of course. Just that afternoon, Gwen had watched Tup evaporate the magic that kept the water solid. All week, they had eaten and donated the frozen foods in anticipation of this.
"Right." She retraced her steps and sat back down, feeling foolish.
Gwen picked at the skin around her nails while Aidan tried to move them past the awkward moment and Garrett privately stressed over getting the wards back up. The conversation centred on resolutions and plans for the coming year.
The image on the screen flickered for just a moment as a new piece of knowledge slotted into her mind. A simple fact. Her parents were on a new path. One that not only excluded her but might lead them back to her one day. As enemies.
"Oh!" Aidan cried out with the alarm of some forgotten thing suddenly remembered. "Dumbledore mentioned you're turning eleven soon. When's your birthday?"
Gwen kept her eyes on the fireworks.
"It was yesterday."