Finding her had been a veritable Hail Mary, or it had certainly felt as such, considering how little she knew of her mother’s friends. At least the process had been simple enough: After making contact with Concordia's Headquarters in London and, after explaining their situation, the staff had readily agreed to make inquiries on their behalf using the list of people her father had provided.
No promises were made.
It was three agonizing days before they were contacted again: Holly was staying with a woman named Penny Arkwright, who by all accounts valued her privacy, and Cleo was told she would ring soon using the phone number she'd left behind.
But "soon" has been perhaps too optimistic a descriptor; a full sixteen hours had passed since the initial call. In the interim, Cleo had kept as busy as possible: her room was cleaned and ordered (twice), the bathroom was scrubbed raw, the books were alphabetized and magazines were stacked neatly, the tablecloth was cleared of debris, bins were emptied, floors were swept, blankets were folded, plants watered, dishes cleaned, shelves dusted, rugs beaten--
Cal had witnessed all this with bemused patience, content to regale her with a running commentary of nonsense. But neither the chores nor the affability of her friend had done much to calm her nerves. Before long, she was laid up on the kitchen floor, legs propped over top a nearby counter, chemistry text abandoned beside her, and hard glare affixed to the mounted phone on the wall opposite.
It was amazing how, with a word, she could conjure fire into existence, but couldn’t will a phone into ringing.
“Oi, when’s old Sour Grape Snape coming, again?” Cal addressed her from where he was laying across her father’s favorite chair, his legs flung over the armrest and the box of pizza they'd ordered hours ago balanced on his knees.
“He’s dropping by after his afternoon classes,” her voice rose up from the hardwood.
His head drooped to the side, facing her. “Remind me why he’s part of this at all?”
“Does it matter?”
“Sort of?” Cal shrugged. “I mean… As your friend and moral support, I’m contractually obligated to tell you that Snape is neither friendly, nor morally supportive.”
Her eyes closed. “Okay.”
She heard the wan smile in his voice. “Just so long as you know that, I’ve done my due diligence.”
A soft sigh shuffled out of her nose. “Thanks.”
“Any time, Captain.”
“Mhmm.”
“Hey?” There was a rustle, followed by the sound of his boots meeting the floor. “How are you feeling? It can’t be comfortable down there.”
“Same as before,” was her wearied answer, the sound of her voice rubbing against her eyelids as it passed. “Like I’m going to puke and pass out at the same time.”
"Anything I can do to help?"
“Do you know a spell to skip forward in time?”
"Merlin, I wish," he lamented, stretching his arms over his head. Then, he paused. "Um. Maybe this isn’t a good time, but--” Cal frowned. “Are you still angry about me barging in and having a go at Snape before?”
“Are you going to be panicky if I say yes?”
"I'm not panicky," was his good-natured grouse. "I'll just-- mope around. Y'know. As you do."
“It wasn’t how I wanted to tell him, you know,” she criticized. “I didn’t really want to be forced into the position of telling him my sob story about nearly dying in childbirth.” Her head tilted backwards to look at him, upside down. “He thought I was an idiot.”
"If that's what he thought, then you'd think he wouldn't agree to advise you, hm?" he pointed out, casual.
“They’re not mutually exclusive, Cal.”
She could practically feel him making a face across the room. "But honestly Cleo, you should have heard yourself-- just… giving up your dreams on account of Snape, of all people--"
“I wasn’t giving up on my dreams,” she scoffed. “I can literally become an obstetrician in the non-magical world. It wouldn’t be a loss. Just an adjustment.”
"But it would be a loss: a loss to the whole of Wizarding Britain! " was his vehement proclamation. Cal hunched over his legs toward her, planting his chin in his hand. "Though I completely understand if you think we don't deserve you. Because, well-- have you seen us? We're a bit of a mess."
She rolled her eyes. “Well, isn’t it just lucky for everyone that I’m still here?”
"A divine gift, indeed," he said with mock-solemnity. "But, um. So. Are we…?" He waved a vague hand. "... Okay?"
“I wouldn’t have called you over if we weren’t.”
"True enough, I suppose." The pizza box slid to the floor as he fidgeted. "Just figured I'd ask."
Her eyes closed as she settled back into place. “Pick that up, please.”
She could hear the smile in his words as he teased, "What? Thought you'd be happy to have something else to clean."
“Get on my bad side and I’ll never buy you a pizza again,” she warned.
His gasp could rival a thespian's. "Clyde, no! You can't introduce me to the miracle of pizza and then steal it away! Have mercy--! "
A short series of knocks, clear and succinct, interrupted him. His brow furrowed in the direction of the door. “Is that--?”
Cleo grunted as she sat up. “Yeah, probably Snape.”
Cal whipped around to face her, a breathy laugh escaping him. "Snape? " he inquired, mirth suffusing his tone. "Knocking, like a normal person? I can't even imagine it! I expect him to burst through the door and startle everyone, like in Potions, or-- I don't know, fly in through the window on a carpet of smoke, surrounded by ravens--!"
She shot him a look as she approached the door, pulling at the latch. A blast of cold air rushed into the house when she opened it.
He had all the appearance of dread, even standing there in casual slacks and black turtleneck. It was odd how his robes had ingratiated themselves into his person, giving the impression of being part of his silhouette even though they were entirely absent.
“Professor.”
"Miss Croft." The neutrality of Snape’s attitude soured when his gaze fell on Cal. "Mr. Dedrick."
Cal performed an awkward, curt little bow from where he was seated. "Mr. Snape," he addressed the man with an air of pompousness. "A pleasure, as always."
The professor's bland stare moved back to Cleo. "Have you heard from Concordia?"
She rubbed the butt of her palm over an eye socket. “Yeah, yesterday.”
"I assume the news was unfavorable."
“No, not at all,” she asserted, standing aside so he could enter. “They confirmed and gave me the name.”
He raised an eyebrow as he stepped across the threshold. "But?"
"No address," Cal butt in.
“I’m still waiting to hear back from her,” Cleo added.
"I see," Snape intoned, keeping quite still in the center of the sitting room. His posture was in direct contrast to Cal, who was, by then, lounging with his feet on the coffee table munching on a bag of crisps that had come with the pizza.
"Been waiting for quite a while," he remarked ahead of a wide yawn. When Snape only stared at him, openly disapproving, a smile briefly curled Cal's lips. "What? You want some?" He waved the bag in Snape's direction.
Cleo scowled. “Cal.”
"They're cheese and onion flavored," he expounded with a persuasive shake of the bag, as if that was somehow a relevant selling point.
“Cal. ”
There was an unflinching impishness about him when he replied, "Yes? "
She turned suddenly to the older man, brute-forcing a change in subject. “It might be a bit until she calls. I’m sorry about that. But I appreciate your willingness to be here.”
"It is nothing," he said, surveying the rest of the room briefly. "Is your father at home?"
She shook her head. “No, sorry. He couldn't get more time off work.”
His acknowledgement was only a brief nod. They stood in uncomfortable silence for a moment, the only sound in the room Cal's bag of crisps. The boy in question was watching them both with rapt attention.
"Quick question," he piped up, "were you planning to sit down any time this century? The chairs won't bite your arse, you know."
The man’s sneer was undercut but the sudden shrill of Cleo’s voice. “Cal, seriously? ”
He raised his eyebrows and his hands simultaneously. "Well it's all a bit awkward, isn't it?"
“Stop it.”
“Oh, please-- ”
“I mean it.”
Cal shrugged, kicking up his legs before he stood, the crisp bag rolling up in midair with a magical flourish. "Fine, fine, have it your way," he sighed, crossing to the cupboard to toss them in. "I'm off to the loo."
When she heard the door close in the hallway, she sighed. “I’m sorry about him.”
Snape’s expression was inscrutable, but he only said, “Have you a place suitable for writing?”
“Uhm, yes--” She stepped away from him, gesturing toward the kitchen. “The dining table, if that’s alright…?”
Rather than replying, Snape promptly moved across the room, settling himself at one end much like he would during class time. From a pocket, he pulled out what appeared to be a marble paperweight, oval-shaped and weighty, if the clopping sound it made when he placed it on the table was anything to go by. With a tap from his wand, the stone unfurled into a fan of parchments. Quizzes, looked like.
What he likely wanted was to be left alone. So when she spoke, she bit through the tail end of her words with a grimace, knowing it was a mistake. “Paper into stone, huh? That’s, uhm, useful--”
"For travel, yes," he remarked, conjuring an inkpot and quill, which oddly complemented the aggressively floral tablecloth. Then, unexpectedly chatty, he quipped, "Some are better off remaining transfigured, but it is still my duty to assign a grade to them."
Surprised by his candor, she ventured, “What year are they for?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “N.E.W.T. level.”
“Is it still that bad? This far into the year?”
“These are advanced concepts, Miss Croft,” he told her, dipping his quill. “Not all are up to the task.”
“This class is more specialized with regard to people’s future careers,” she pointed out. “At least some of them have to be taking it seriously?”
Snape looked at her, then. “It is not ‘seriousness’ which dictates success.”
She squinted. “Success isn’t the only factor. They’re just supposed to be able to understand the material.”
“Your performance is sufficient, Miss Croft,” was his pointed reply. “You need not trouble yourself on that front.”
“I-- wasn’t.” She blinked. “I know I’m doing well.”
A hint of amusement twitched into his expression. “Good. Modesty is unbecoming on you.”
Her bewilderment was plain on her face, taken aback by his comment. “I, uhm-- was wondering about Harry, actually.”
She didn’t realize how relaxed his expression had become until a sudden downturn in mood pulled it dour. “And why should he be any of your concern?”
She shifted against the threshold of the kitchen. “Because I like to hope that maybe my tutoring is helping improve his performance some?”
“I see.” He turned his gaze back to his quill, scratching something on the page in red ink. “I will admit to some progression in his brewing strategy,” Snape intoned grudgingly. “His attitude, on the other hand, still leaves much to be desired.”
“Well, maybe that wouldn’t be much of an issue if you didn’t try to provoke him so much--”
“I expect my students to have a minimum level of competency, Miss Croft,” he cut across her. “Noble as your efforts are, the N.E.W.T. level class is not the time for Mr. Potter to be learning fundamental skills he ought to have learned years hence.”
“Well it’s not for a lack of desire to learn,” she argued. “He tries really hard with me. Just the other week I had him do a Headache Draught completely on his own and it was good. Genuinely good and--”
“Be that as it may,” Snape retorted, “that work ethic has no staying power in my classroom. An inability to perform under pressure is unlikely to recommend him to the Auror program.”
“Maybe not,” she conceded, going to sit in the chair near his. “But--”
“Potter does not belong.” His stare was direct. “And amongst students like you who have worked themselves to the bone and earned their place, he is merely a parasite. A single ounce of effort at the eleventh hour is hardly going to sway me in his favor, Miss Croft.”
Her frown grew more pronounced. “That’s really harsh.”
He leaned back as if he’d only just realized how far forward he’d crouched over the table. “I do not take kindly to those who buy their way into my classroom.”
Her posture straightened. “And yet you agreed to the transaction.”
Dangerous ground, she realized belatedly. Snape’s glower said as much. “Quite.”
Without knowing, she’d stumbled upon the precipice of something delicate. Looking at him, it was obvious. His glare was a challenge. Push me again. See what happens.
And she didn’t know if Harry Potter was worth messing up what she had, whatever it was, with Severus Snape.
Her limbs loosened as she stepped away; the first breath she took tasted strange.
“I miss work,” she diverted.
His posture didn’t exactly change, but the air about him seemed to unwind, his gaze returning to the page in front of him. “I suspect you will be returning to it soon,” was his neutral reply.
“I don’t know how you’re going to convince me to leave again when I get Gabriel back.” A horrendously honest thought, when she considered it. But she’d been preoccupied by it for days now.
Despite the strained moment they’d just shared, there was a touch of levity to his tone when he mentioned, “Your sentiments are conflicting, Miss Croft.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “You can see why this dilemma existed in the first place.”
Snape paused, and Cleo could see beyond that raised eyebrow of his that he was formulating a reply. But, before it could find voice, Cal burst onto the scene holding aloft a hollow cylinder, the prismatic swirls of color in the glass catching the afternoon sunlight from the window. "What is this?" he questioned Cleo directly, enthused. "It looks wicked!"
Her face slammed into the palm of her hand as she leaned forward on the table. “Please put that back where you found it.”
"What?" His smile was bemused. "Is it something important?"
“It’s my mum’s?” she replied after she uncovered her face, her arms plummeting to the table with an unseemly thump. “And it’s not supposed to be out in the house. So will you please put it back?”
"Ooh, mysterious," Cal replied with a waggle of his eyebrows. He was gripping the thing strangely, holding it upside down so the bowl of it was at the top, before turning it over. "Is it… some kind of… beaker?"
The nod she offered him was curt. “Yep, got it. Put it back now.”
The look he shot her was full of skepticism. "C’mon, you know I’m not that easy," he oozed, beaming.
“Why do you want to know so badly?”
He looked inside as if the thing was a microscope, peering at Cleo through the glass with his one open eye and shrugging. "Because it's interesting?" he replied, as if that were explanation enough. Knowing him, it probably was.
“It’s something she uses for rituals, okay?” she offered with a disapproving scowl.
Cal's face scrunched and he expelled a short cough. "It smells wild."
“Can you just go put it back in her room, please?”
"But Clyde! Seriously, I have to know what this does--"
"No you don’t--”
Cal's grin only grew wider, twirling the rainbow-colored object in his hands. "The more you protest, the more curious-- "
"It is an apparatus used for the consumption of cannabis," Snape remarked with no small amount of irritation. "Now cease this tedious back and forth, and return it to its place."
She didn’t know what was worse, the knowledge that Snape understood what a bong was, or hearing the way this fact tumbled from his mouth, horrendously unrestrained.
Cal, on the other hand, looked enraptured. "Really?! But it's so--! I mean, I've heard of it, sure, but-- How does it work? Is there…?" he trailed off, talking over himself several times as he peered closely at the glass.
His excitement was hardly catching; Snape looked quite severe. "You are aware it is highly illegal and dangerous."
Dangerous was overselling it a bit, but --
“I’m not showing you how to smoke weed,” she objected tiredly. “Put it back.”
Cal looked between them for a moment, as if he were assessing their resolve, but then rolled his eyes. "The both of you are no fun at all, you know," he informed them, matter-of-fact. Then, with an excess of pomp and circumstance, he made a show of finally, finally, turning back down the hall.
With him gone, however briefly, the professor asked her point-blank, "Why is that fool here?"
Because he’s my best friend.
That’s what she should have said.
Instead, some measure of shame weighed her down as she looked at the man and confessed, “I don’t know.”
Snape did not directly reply, but the look he gave her clearly expressed his dissatisfaction with that answer. Cal emerged once more, plopping himself down at the table beside them and eyeing Snape's stack of papers boredly, ignorant of the exchange.
His head popped back up as if it were spring-loaded. "Oh! I almost forgot-- My mum gave me some stuff for you." Cal abandoned his seat to retrieve his satchel from the sofa before returning to rifle around in it.
"She's got it in her head to get rid of a whole heap of things she's kept around after Dad--" At that, his expression twitched, eyes flicking briefly in Snape's direction before he continued: "Well anyway… Here--"
He dumped the whole lot on the table, apparently having given up on scavenging them individually. A cavalcade of fabric sprawled across the tabletop, but before she could get a good look she was distracted; from out of the folds of clothing a small, orange corn snake wriggled its way onto the tablecloth, its head performing an inquisitive wobble as its tongue flicked at the air.
"Er… oops," Cal laughed. "Forgot about that little habit of yours."
Cleo’s eyes widened as she reared back in her chair. “What the hell, Cal?!”
"What?" he parroted back, scooping up the snake. "I'll clean everything up, don't get your knickers in a twist--"
“That’s not--” She paused and forced herself to take a breath. “You can’t keep an animal in a bloody bag, Caleb! You’re going to kill it--”
"It's fine!" he insisted. "She likes it in there."
“You’re kidding, right?”
Cal glanced at her, his smile tipped sideways. "You can ask her yourself, if you like," he remarked, holding up the snake as if he were offering it to her. "Isn't that what you lot do in Slytherin? Commune with serpents? Endlessly plot the demise of your enemies? Hold dark rituals in the dormitories?"
His pause was more him attempting not to laugh and less his searching for a real answer. For her part, she was ready to give him one, anyway. About how stupid that entire notion was, even for him.
But the phone shrieked nearby and Cleo passed him without hesitation. The receiver was to her lips in an instant. “Hello?”
“Good afternoon, ma’am. Could I take a moment of your time to discuss a new weight loss--”
The mounted box shook as she slammed the phone back into the cradle.
Both Snape and Cal were looking at her, the former with waning interest, and the latter with concern. "Who was it?" Cal asked, his tone subdued.
“Bloody sales call,” she seethed.
"Oh." The snake coiled about his wrist.
Cleo’s return to the table was emblematic of how finished she was with everything: When she slammed back down into her seat, she burrowed her forehead into the table, arms barricading around as her fingers furled into tight fists.
“Miss Croft,” the professor prompted just above her head.
Her voice was nothing more than a soft grunt that dispersed across the chintzy tablecloth. "What?"
“Grade these.”
When she looked up, she noticed that Snape had halved his stack of papers and placed them at her elbow.
“But--”
"Now, if you please."
Cal, perched opposite, frowned at this exchange. Ready to protest, she could tell.
However, Cleo lifted her head, the movement almost mechanical, taking the extra quill Snape passed to her without hesitation. With a fluid brush of his knuckles, he pushed the inkwell closer to her before resuming his own work.
At the sight of her quiet compliance, Cal appeared to deflate. Looking between them one last time, he sighed before reaching over to sift through the pile. He picked up a few things to stuff back in his bag, most notably a large floral mug filled with dirt which had tipped over and spilled and a thin wooden flute with decorative carvings at one end. Then, half-standing, Cal deposited the snake into the bag as well before busying himself with sorting the rest of the items he’d unceremoniously scattered.
Several minutes passed in silence, each of them occupied with their own tasks. The test before her bore a name at the top she didn’t recognize; she supposed it stood to reason that he wouldn’t allow her to grade for her own peers.
And besides, there was quite a lot wrong.
Guar gum, not honeywater. Good try. Look up emulsifiers if you're interested; same concept.
Cal interrupted her writing. “If you don’t want any of this stuff, it’s fine,” he mumbled. “Only took them on Mum's orders.”
She barely looked up. “I got distracted by the snake.”
"Her name's Ruby," he replied. "She belongs to my aunt, but likes to get in places where she's not wanted." Then, with a wry tilt of his head, he added, "Sort of like my aunt herself."
“Maybe you should let her crawl around,” Cleo suggested. “I feel antsy with her being in the backpack.”
"If I let her out entirely, we'll never see her again," Cal pointed out, fretting. "And my aunt always keeps her in a bag when they travel-- But, fine. If you insist, I'll hold her."
He pulled the little corn snake up by its middle, allowing her body to bunch up in both his outspread hands. The ginger hue of her scales shone softly in the light. "Better?"
“Yes, thank you.”
Cal suddenly laughed. "Merlin, do you remember that time Noah let that joke snake loose at the Gryffindor table? And Ben nearly shat himself, he was so scared?"
“Yep,” Cleo muttered, poking the tip of her quill against the pad of her thumb. “Still dated him for three more months after that, regardless.”
"I ought to have pegged the lout for a coward right then," he lamented. "But, ah well… You and I both were too mesmerized by his poetry to notice."
“You were mesmerized by his poetry,” she corrected, purposefully ignoring the disdainful sniff that came from the professor next to her, who clearly didn't think much of their choice of topic. “Because you don’t have taste.”
"Ha! I'll have you know my tastes are simply too elevated for a mere mortal like you to understand," he quipped, smiling. "And perhaps you aren't as cut out for romancing artists as you'd like."
Her stare was more serious than she preferred. “Apparently not.”
Caleb gave her a considering glance, shifting the undulating snake in his hands. "Sorry, I'm ah-- being a bit obnoxious, aren't I?"
“It’s not the first time I’ve poked fun at the most idiotic thing I’ve ever done,” she excused, returning her attention to the quiz in front of her.
"I'm not just talking about that, you know."
She looked up again before diverting her gaze to the hodge-podge of baby items still littered haphazard on the table. “What’d you want to give to Gabriel? All of this?”
Cal nodded, responsive to the redirect. "Whatever catches your fancy. Everything else will probably be vanished, since Mum's determined to be rid of them."
“Don’t Wizards have charity shops?” she asked. “Seems like a waste to vanish it all.”
Cal shrugged, but it was Snape who answered succinctly, "Vanished items are not destroyed, but may be conjured again in whole or part."
"I don't know about charity shops, but I did learn as much in Transfiguration," her friend corroborated.
“Still seems just as inconvenient,” Cleo remarked.
However, the blare of the phone ringing once more caused Cleo to jolt out of her seat before the other two could utter another word, the movement automatic. It took her all of a second to answer.
“Hello?”
“Oh, hi,” a soft spoken, unassuming voice greeted on the other end of the line. “Sorry, is this Cleo? Cleo Croft?”
“Yes -- is this Penny Arkwright?”
“Yes. I, uhm. I’m very sorry to get to you so late. I had to take time after my errands to come to Concordia so I could call you.”
Cleo frowned into the mouthpiece. “You don’t have a phone?”
“Not at my flat, no.”
“It’s just, uhm -- my father remembered my mother calling you, and--”
“Oh, she did,” Penny assured her. “I work part-time during the week here at Headquarters. She caught me on my shift.”
“You work there?”
“Yes. Ah,” Cleo could hear a soft sigh waft into her ear, muffled and distorted by the phone’s echo. “I apologize. I didn’t realize I was getting mixed up in a personal family matter. It’s just, when your mum called, she was quite distressed and--”
“It’s fine,” Cleo excused. “I understand. I’m grateful she’s with a friend.”
“Right. Thank you. I imagine you’re worried about your child--”
“Is he okay?”
“Oh, absolutely; Gabriel has been an angel.”
“I just-- I’d very much like to see him and--”
“No, of course you would. I, ah-- I would be happy to provide you with the address? Though, uhm, I understand you live with your parents, yes? In Brighton? Though Holly mentioned your term at Hogwarts--”
“Yeah, I’m in Brighton right now.”
“Right, well, I live in London. Have you been?”
“I’m not sure I understand why that matters?”
“So you have a familiar place to Apparate to?”
“Oh, uhm. I don’t know how to Apparate--”
“Well, I could come pick you up, or--”
“No, I have uhm, I have a means to get there. Just leave me with the address and I’ll be there as soon as possible.”
“Of course--”
“Uhm, hold on, let me grab something to write with--” Hoisting the phone against her shoulder, Cleo shifted toward one of the drawers and pulled a writing pad and pen from within. “Alright, whenever you’re ready--”
Penny repeated the address twice as Cleo copied it down on the pad. She could hear the nervous smile in the woman’s voice as she asked, “Need it again?”
“No, I got it,” Cleo answered, turning toward the counter again. “Thank you.”
“So I should expect you soon?”
“Yeah,” Cleo breathed. “My mother -- does she know I’m coming?”
“Yes,” Penny said. “I talked to her when Concordia first contacted me. She was a bit worried about the whole thing but I was able to convince her that it was a good idea to talk to you.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s nothing,” the woman dismissed. “I’ll see you soon. Travel safely.”
“Right. Thank you again. Bye.”
The receiver had scarcely hit the cradle before she prompted, “Professor?”
She found two expectant gazes focused her way. The table was clear.
Snape raised an eyebrow. “Shall we?”
Then, there was the matter of her mother.
The skittish waif edged on the sidelines, back against the wallpaper like she could melt into it. It hardly mattered whether she managed it or not; Cleo had other, more important claims to her attention.
Like the way her arms were correctly burdened; every inch of muscle contracted into herself and around him.
Like the two year old hyperventilating in her ear.
She knew around then that the difficulty wouldn’t be in convincing her to leave, but rather to abandon this position.
Gabriel was going to force her, though. Toddlers couldn’t stay in one place for long. She made a valiant effort against his squirms, though.
“Mama. ”
“Two seconds,” she promised.
Which was a mistake; he knew how to count.
“One, two!”
She corrected herself as she pressed a kiss against his temple. “A billion seconds.”
“That forever! ”
Was that such a bad thing?
“Be nice to Mama,” she groused. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Miss you too,” the toddler confessed, his limbs going limp against her form.
Her lips went on another tirade of kisses; she tasted her tears in them. She felt as a clumsy, small hand brushed across the spots she’d marked and wiped them of all residue. His observation was a tender, bewildered, “Cry?”
Her head tilted back as she sniffed before she pressed her forehead against his. “Yeah, Bedbug.”
“Sad?”
Her head shook. “No. Happy.”
“Cry for sad, though,” he complained.
Her smile was nothing more than a twitch. “Maybe Mama’s a little sad.”
His head wobbled back as he took in a deep, syrupy breath. It cracked and bubbled in the back of his throat before his voice came up like a cough. “Why?”
Her body felt heavy all of a sudden. She didn’t know how she stayed sitting upward. “Because I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“For being gone. That must have hurt.”
“Mmmm,” the boy hummed, preoccupied with his own hands. “Fell down,” he explained. “At the… park. But it okay; Gammie kiss it.”
“Yeah?”
His breath was harsh and he smiled through it. “Yeah!” he squeaked. His brow suddenly drew up as he looked at her, as if something was dawning on him for the first time. “Oh. Mama fall?”
She brushed his fringe from his forehead. “No, Mama didn’t fall.”
“Oh.”
“Mama just…” She sighed. “Mama doesn’t like being away from you.”
The boy swallowed. “But,” this word tumbled out heavy, his head sinking down with it. “Mama do good, so it okay.”
“Mama do good?” she asked.
“Uh huh,” the toddler confirmed as his hands picked at each other again. “Mama save babies.”
Cleo blinked. “Who told you that?”
“Gammie,” he told her, grinning. “Mama doctor. Mama do good, like, like--” His thoughts meandered off for a moment before his head jolted up, wide eyed and awestruck. “Like fire guys!”
She exhaled, half amused, half puzzled. “Fire guys?”
“Like my truck.” He glanced over his shoulder as if he’d find it there and only looked back there when he fully realized it wasn’t. “Red. Wee woo, wee woo!” His hands hoisted above his head as his mouth blared the alarm.
Cleo grasped his hands and pulled them in front of her. “Gammie didn’t get it completely right. Mama isn’t a doctor yet. But she’s trying.”
“Yeah, Gammie say,” he concurred. “Work really hard. Mama work really hard.”
Her eyes darted to the woman on the other side of the room; Holly’s gaze dropped to her feet.
“But it’s hard on you,” Cleo continued as she looked at Gabriel again. “And that’s why Mama’s sorry.”
“Yeah, but,” his breath came out like a laugh as he wriggled back and forth on her lap, amused. “I have fun with-- mmm, with Gammie ‘nd Papa.”
“Yeah?”
His nod was clumsy. “Yeah.” He sucked in a wet breath again. “Miss Penny's nice. ”
“She’s very nice.”
“She gave me ahhh,” his head bobbed back, eyes cast to the ceiling. “Ahhh, a new truck.”
“Did she?”
“Uh huh.”
“Did you say thank you?”
He suddenly draped himself over Cleo’s shoulder, attention directed behind her. “Thank you!”
Penny Arkwright was propped up in one corner of the room, watching the proceedings with quiet interest. Gentle curls framed her face, and her eyes were wide and doelike, both colored a light auburn. Strikingly beautiful and meek, Cleo’s first impression of her was that she was quite small in both temperament and physical size; she hardly seemed to take up space, content to allow their family the room to reunite in peace.
Cleo watched as the woman’s expression melted into a smile. “You’re welcome, Gabriel.”
His head swiveled to the other part of the living room, body jolting as he noticed the two men for the first time. His eyes widened before he looked at Cleo. “Who that?”
Cleo shifted sideways, adjusting Gabriel on her lap as she faced them. She pointed at the younger of the two. “That’s Uncle Cal.”
Her friend's smile was immediate and dazzling, though perhaps a bit wobbly with emotion. "Hey Gabe! Lovely to finally meet you!"
Gabriel opened and closed his mouth, though no direct answer was forthcoming. Cleo was quick to gesture to the professor. “And that’s Mr. Snape.”
The man inclined his head. "’Snape’ alone is acceptable," was his quiet correction. It was the gentlest timbre she'd ever heard him use.
The boy watched him with interest. “What’s ‘ceptable?”
The professor's gaze flicked to her as if he expected her to say something. Judging by the silence that met her son's question, he was perhaps unsure how to answer.
She was quick to field it. “Means good, Bedbug.”
“Oh.” His eyes never left Snape’s face. “Snape ‘ceptable?”
The man's head bobbed into one of those curt nods he favored.
Gabriel’s face swiveled to Cleo’s, millimeters from hers. “Snape ‘ceptable.”
She nodded as well, though the action was much more dramatic. “Snape ‘ceptable,” she repeated, much softer, before leaning in to give him a hard kiss on the cheek. The toddler squealed loud enough to make the professor grimace.
It wasn’t long before Gabriel was squirming in her lap again and, although Cleo was disinclined toward doing so, she allowed the boy to stand on his own two feet. Giggles interspersed with his loud breathing, he glanced between his mother and the adults in the room, before asking, “Ah, mm, Gammie?”
An involuntary shiver rippled across her shoulders when she heard her mother’s voice for the first time. “Yes, sweetpea?”
“Can…” He took in a sharp breath, a little unstable on his legs as he wobbled, Cleo’s hand on his back to keep him upright. “Ahhh, Gammie show Mama?”
“Hm?”
“Show Mama, ahhh--” The boy couldn’t seem to find the words.
“Were you and Gammie doing something?” Cleo attempted.
“Oh,” her mother breathed. “When he heard you were coming, he wanted to make something nice for you.”
“Did you?” Cleo asked, her attention on Gabriel again.
“Yeah!” the boy exclaimed. “Make somefin’ nice! For Mama!”
“Something nice for Mama!” she echoed, her voice resonating at a higher pitch as she pressed a kiss against his cheek, making the boy screech happily.
His hand at her wrist was insistent as he tugged. “I wanna show!”
And as much as she desired to allow him to lead the way, her eyes meandered toward the woman at the other end of the room and she paused. “Hey, Bedbug. I want to. But Mama has to talk to Gammie real quick first, is that okay?”
The boy blinked up at her, bewildered. “Talk?”
“Yeah,” she breathed, quiet. “But after Gammie and Mama are done talking, you can show me what you made and then -- you, Gammie, Uncle Caleb and me, we can go back home to see Papa, and then we can go somewhere nice, yeah?”
The boy’s eyes brightened. “Really?”
“Of course,” she cooed. “You miss Papa, don’t you? He’s missed you a lot.”
“Yeah,” the boy squeaked. “Can… Can Mama-- ahh, can we go park? ‘Nd… get lady--” he breathed in deeply, “get ladybirds?”
She brushed her fingers across his brow. “Of course.”
Her son's smile brightened the room by what felt like thousands of watts. "Yay!"
"And guess what, Bedbug?"
Gabriel's round eyes caught hers with wonder. "What?"
"You get to keep me for the rest of the week."
A sharp gasp pulled from the child's lungs. "Really?"
"Really."
"Gammie!" the boy exclaimed, turning toward the woman. "I get Mama!"
For her part, her mother attempted to look enthused, despite the dread etched into her features. "You get Mama!"
"So Gammie talk to Mama," the boy concluded, wobbling in excited circles around the room. "So I get Mama! Okay?"
Cleo rose to stand. "Okay." The other woman muttered something affirming, but it sounded meek in comparison.
The boy looked between his mother and grandmother before they settled on Snape. Uncertain but gregarious, the boy waddled on two clumsy feet toward the man, one hand outstretched. “Show Snape?”
A line formed between the man’s eyebrows, his expression otherwise frozen, completely unreadable. His thoughts could, perhaps, be surmised by his complete lack of reaction to a toddler crashing into his legs, grabbing fistfuls of his trousers.
The boy stood there for longer than was comfortable before Cal scooped him up in his arms, sweeping him toward the pile of toys nearby. "Oooh, what's that?!" he enthused, pointing to the miniature fire truck with such earnest fervor that she felt certain he actually didn't know the answer.
When Cleo turned, she sought Penny, who hadn’t moved an inch from where she’d been originally. “Is there a place we could…?”
“My bedroom,” the woman fielded, her voice almost melodic. “Down the hall, to the left.”
“Thank you.”
And although Holly appeared no more enthused to be corralled into such a position, she nonetheless dutifully followed behind when Cleo took the lead.
Penny’s room was much like the rest of her flat: clean, minimal, and lightly mismatched. The birchwood furniture was contrasted by a pastel blue rug, the warm beige stripes on her pillows complemented cool grey sheets, a green reading lamp sat beside little charcoal-colored statuettes of unicorns and salamanders. The bed was pristinely made, the houseplant beside the window completely healthy, and the rug perfectly fluffed and spotless; the room hardly seemed lived in at all. Yet, on the end table, softly illuminated by a window perpendicular the bed, were a few moving photos of Penny and an older man whose features greatly resembled hers, both dressed immaculately and waving out of the frame.
The warmth of her surroundings chilled the second her mother closed the door behind her.
“Just get it over with,” Holly accused immediately; she didn’t have enough respect to look Cleo in the eye.
“Get what over with?”
“Telling me how much you hate me?” the woman continued, bewildered, as if Cleo had missed the obvious.
Cleo’s lip jerked sideways as the recrimination flew past, caught her cheek like a slap. Her chief response was an incredulous snort until she watched her mother take a seat on the bed, uncomfortable, turning her head away. Her next was much more disbelieving, “Seriously?”
The woman had the gall to look exhausted. “Don’t start, Clytemnestra.”
“Don’t--?” she balked, her breath kicking violently out of her. “You come out of the gate with some bullshit like that, and you tell me not to start?”
“It’s not bullshit,” Holly mumbled, petulant.
“It is.”
“It’s not,” she snapped. “You do. You hate me.”
“Yeah, you got me, Holly,” Cleo seethed, arms crossed. “I hate you so much that I went through the effort of going about this in every means possible as to not make things worse for you. I hate you so much that I begged Dad not to call the police. I took time off school to find you myself, recruiting total and complete fucking strangers that have better things to do than bother themselves with my problems. I kept thinking about how much I didn’t want to exacerbate whatever the fuck you’re going through, because I hate you so bloody much.”
Her eyes darted, briefly, to Cleo’s face before pinning themselves to the ceiling. “You called me Holly.”
Her frustration was a force that drew her sideways, crossing to the other side of the room as her response collided with the hands that suddenly covered her face, “Jesus Christ.”
Her mother’s laugh was embittered with an undeserved portion of irritation. “Yes, it must be so hard-- ”
“It is, Holly! It fucking is! And you know what? I didn’t even want to get angry at you. I really did just want to talk to you!”
“Then talk.”
Cleo’s hands dropped to her sides with a loud smack. “How can I when the first thing you do is assume the worst of me? Position me like I’m the bad guy?”
Holly’s lips twisted, indignant. “Because I’m meant to be the bad guy, right?”
“Holy fucking shit.”
“Thought so.”
Cleo rapidly approached the bed; her mother’s body pulled back and away on instinct. Cleo didn’t know how to deal with the nausea that rose up noticing that. “Does this make you feel vindicated? Provoking me? Why do you want me to hate you?”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Then what the fuck is this?”
The woman scowled as she looked away, shoulders lifting in a shrug.
Cleo grit her teeth. “You’re not the victim.”
Her eyes stayed staunchly diverted away. “Never am.”
“Stop it.”
Her mother’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I want you to take responsibility for what you did.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
Cleo’s eyes narrowed. “You kidnapped my kid.”
Holly’s face snapped to her. “I removed my grandson from a hostile environment.”
Cleo drew up, an exasperated breath bursting from her slanted mouth. “And who made that environment hostile?”
The woman looked away again. “You know exactly-- ”
“Don’t say Dad.”
“Clytemnestra--”
“Don’t.”
The woman’s smile was caustic, spelling her vexation across her features. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Oh come on-- ”
“You two always did get on--”
“Holly-- ”
“-- nevermind how that made me feel --”
“Holly.”
“-- because who gives a flying --”
“Mom! ”
Holly’s startled expression confronted her. The unexpected title had properly shut her up, but the silence did little to soothe Cleo’s frayed nerves.
She ended up plopping next to where her mother was sitting on the bed, an exhale forced from her at the point of contact. She felt her mother’s shoulders shift away from her before settling back again.
“What are we doing?” Said to the floor. To the hands in her lap. To the sigh that came as an answer to her question. When Cleo dared to look at her mother’s profile, it wore a frown so heavy it threatened to weigh her down against the mattress.
“What are we doing?” she asked again.
And her mother sighed again.
“Do you want us to be finished?”
Finally, a word. “No.”
“Then how do we fix this?”
“What’s there to fix?” the woman put in, unhelpful. “I can’t make you like me, Clytemnestra.”
Cleo’s expression drew up in disgust. “How can you say that?”
“It’s the truth.”
“That doesn’t even remotely resemble the truth!”
Predictably, she sounded put upon. “Okay, Clytemenstra.”
“I love you.”
Her mother’s lips pressed together, wobbly, before she grit out a soft, “I love you too.”
“No, like--” Cleo folded over, the butt of her palms digging into her eyes. “How do you not… Hear it? How does it not sink in for you?”
“Clytemnestra--”
“It’s so real to me. How do you not see that? It kills me that you don’t see it.”
She felt her mother turn toward her. “What do you want me to say?”
Cleo sat up suddenly. “I don’t know?” Her mother’s face was a mix of distorted colors, obscured by dark fractals and artefacts glimmering across her vision. It barely cleared as she blinked. “I can’t be upfront with you because you’ll spiral. I can’t be upset with you without you twisting it.”
Her mother’s lips curled, displeased, but Cleo cut her off with a sharp, “No. Listen to me--”
“I am --”
“You can fuck up and I’ll still love you. You get that, right? Please tell me you get that.”
She scoffed. “Fuck up --”
“Yes, mom. Fuck up. You fuck up. You’ve fucked up a lot. The drugs, the arguments, the--”
Her mother’s muscles tensed; she was ready to flee again, Cleo knew it. “Right-- ”
“Just listen! ” Cleo shouted, loud enough for her to hear her voice shake the walls. “Because if you walk out that door right now, then it is done. And I don’t want that, Mom. I don’t. But I will do it. I will make sure you never see me and you never see Gabriel again. I fucking love you and I want to be here for you but I’m not going to risk my kid for that. I don’t want to choose. Don’t make me choose.”
The threat landed well enough; Holly relaxed while still having the appearance of being tightly wound nonetheless.
The next movement was all impulse. Her legs pulled up on the bed as she turned to face her mother fully, hands gripping the sides of the woman’s face as she pressed her forehead against hers. It wasn’t until she felt her mother’s breath waft against her face that she’d realized the tears were there, chilling against her cheeks, the sting in her eyes arriving on delay.
“My mother knows I deserve an apology.”
“Does she.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yeah. She does.”
Her mother’s mouth pressed into a tight line.
"She knows I deserve to be treated better."
"Uh huh."
"She knows she's better than this."
"Okay."
This was going nowhere fast.
Another angle, then. “I wish you knew you didn’t have to do this alone.”
Her mother’s throat tightened when she swallowed, but she didn’t move.
“Why did you start again?”
The woman’s mouth was slack. “Start what--”
“You know what.”
Her mother’s upper lip twitched.
“Did it come back?” Cleo pressed.
Holly’s eyes closed.
“Did it?”
“It doesn’t work like that, Clytemnestra,” the woman finally said, her head drooping, applying more pressure against Cleo’s forehead. “It never left in the first place.”
Cleo didn’t mean for the wobble in her voice, but it was there. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell Dad?”
“What were you going to do about it?” The woman’s eyes flickered up to hers. “Even if I told you, what would you do?”
The question stopped her dead. It was bothersome, how unrelentingly reasonable she could sound at a moment’s provocation. It was a good question. What could she have done?
“Been there for you,” was her paltry answer, floating between them, curtailed by a grimace.
Her mother’s response was a soft hum.
“We could’ve talked about it, at least. Maybe Dad could have known you were at risk. Hide the pills--”
“And we would’ve fought,” her mother countered. “Because I don’t want you to hide the pills.”
That felt like a punch in the gut. So much so that her next reply came out winded. “Why? ”
“Cleo--”
“Why? Can’t you answer that? Why do you want to keep doing this?”
Her mother’s head slipped away, drooping to be cradled by her hands. Cleo’s gripped her upper arms. “Mom?”
A response poured into her cupped hands, collected and hidden against her palms. Cleo leaned forward, cajoled her with another tender, “Mom?”
When the woman’s face lifted again, she saw the words collected there with the tears. Her fingers curled inwards. “You have no idea how much it hurts.”
Cleo’s thumbs swiped against the rough, speckled skin of her mother’s shoulders. Impotent. Not even remotely as comforting as she wished. “Mom…”
“You have no --”
But she didn’t finish. Her face buried itself in her hands again, this time with a shake. Her hands held her sobs.
It felt like the halfway between a second and eternity when the weeping finally ebbed and the woman dropped her arms into her lap; her sobs broke through the levy and suffused into the air of the room, chilling it further, pulling Cleo down under its weight.
“What…” Cleo swallowed. “I just, I don’t understand--”
“You wouldn’t.”
Cleo ignored that. “It’s just--” she glanced away. “If it never goes-- I mean. You were doing so well before and I don’t understand what…”
There was a pause as her hands dropped to grasp her mother’s damp, tear stricken ones. She squeezed; they laid dead against hers. “... changed.”
Her mother blinked, ushering a couple of tears to their death plummet against her jaw. “Does it matter?”
Cleo’s head tilted as she tried to catch her mother’s stare. “If it’s causing you to relapse then, yeah, I think it does.”
The woman refused to look back, however. Her mouth slanted as she appeared to be considering something, her next answer a vague and cryptic, “I just know something.”
“You know something,” Cleo repeated.
“I know something.”
“What do you know?”
Her lips rolled back against her teeth as she grit them; gating something painful, if her expression was anything to go by. Her silence continued as she found every place in the room to occupy her attention that wasn’t Cleo’s expectant, unrelenting gaze. A few times, her mouth opened before closing a moment later, the hesitation drawing her back into the quiet.
But, eventually, her answer came, harsh enough to sound brute-forced. “He’s dead.”
“I--” Cleo’s eyes trained on her in a squint. “He?”
“He,” her mother emphasized, giving her a short, albeit meaningful, look, “is dead.”
He--
“Oh, God.” Cleo’s brow furrowed. “Him? ”
Her mother’s disheveled hair bounced as she nodded.
“But--” she sputtered. “How do you… How did you even find out? How did you even-- Why did you even--”
“Does it matter?” her mother questioned again, though the words were heavier this time. A warning. “I just.. know. ”
She didn’t know how to respond. The news settled odd in her ears, awkward and unfamiliar. News that should have sounded weighty and grave appeared no more than casual and nonchalant. This was… it should have meant something. And did.
Just in an unexpected way.
“Good,” she concluded. “Good. Fuck him. I hope he’s--” Her words were stopped short as she bit into them, expression contorting in fury.
Her mother’s countenance nowhere near matched her fervor. She stared back, deadpan. Drained.
“Shouldn’t…” Cleo faltered. “This is good, right? He’s gone. He can’t… y’know--”
Holly gazed at her silently. Cleo felt herself deflating.
“It’s good, right?” she tried again.
“I don’t know,” was her mother’s answer. “I thought-- I… well, I don’t know what I-- thought… I guess, and--”
Something twisted painfully in the pit of her stomach. “You don’t… miss him, right?”
“No! ” Her mother jerked toward her in a manner that was disjointed and ungainly, the whole of her so repulsed by the notion that her body contorted in an effort to purge the very idea from herself. “God. No! Never. Jesus Christ-- ”
“Sorry!” Cleo bleated, her body jolting in tandem, though in a compulsion to grapple the woman, to hold her. Holly flinched from the touch. “I’m so sorry. Mom-- God. I’m so sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry--”
“I don’t-- ” her mother stumbled, breathless, riding on a wave of panic. “I don’t. I don’t. He was my dad, and--”
She stilled, so sudden and completely that a tension sung across Cleo’s muscles.
“He was my dad. ” Said again. Different. Deeper.
“He was… my dad.”
Softer. Broken. The words falling in shards from her wounded mouth.
Her mother shattered.
And Cleo collected the pieces in her arms.
Then, the sob-drenched guilt started flowing in earnest. A deluge from mouth to chest, senseless and panicked. “I’m so sorry--”
“Mom…”
“-- about Gabe. Ah--About everything --”
“Mom--”
“-- Everything. I-- I don’t mean to be… to be this --”
“I know. It’s okay--”
“-- I don’t mean it! You have to believe me --”
“I do, listen--”
“-- I love you so much! You have no idea --”
She squeezed her mother closer to her. “Breathe. Please.”
“You’ll never forgive me-- and I don’t even blame you--”
“You’re ridiculous,” Cleo murmured, pressing a kiss against her mother’s crown. “Of course I forgive you.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have-- I don’t know what’s wrong with me--”
“You do,” Cleo reminded her gently. “You do know. And it’s not your fault.”
Her cries, carried on hot, damp breath, weaved themselves into the fabric of Cleo’s clothes. Her pleas became more and more frantic. “I don’t know why I-- I don’t know-- I don’t know what to do-- ”
“Listen-- ”
“How could you ever-- how could he ever--”
“Calm down, please-- ”
“I’m so sick-- and nothing -- will ever-- nothing-- ”
Cleo ducked her head down as she lifted her mother’s shoulders, allowing their foreheads to press together once more. She held her mother’s eyes. “Nothing is too late. Calm down. Listen to me. The important part is that you’re lucid. You’re lucid, Mom. And that means you can get help. Right?”
Her breath came in hiccups as she stammered a short, breathy, “Y-Yeah.”
“And you don’t have to do it alone. We can help you, together. All of us. As a family. Okay?”
Holly's breathing was stuttered. “Ye--yeah.”
“I’m not ashamed of you. You got hurt and you still need to heal. There’s no shame in that. And I can be proud of you, Mom, really -- I can be proud that you’re trying to heal.”
Her voice sounded small when her reddened, puffy eyes regarded her with some small amount of dread. “You can…?”
Cleo cradled her mother’s cheeks in her hands. “Of course I can. You got this far, didn’t you? All by yourself. And then you got clean for four whole years. Of course I can be proud of that.”
A sound, halfway in between a laugh and a strangled sob, burst out of her mother’s throat, brushing against her cheek like a caress.
“Mom-- you,” Cleo’s expression tightened, suddenly overcome. “You’re the strongest woman I know.”
Holly’s hands came up in turn to cradle Cleo’s cheeks, reciprocal. Her thumbs gently pushed the hair away from her brow. “I don’t deserve you.”
The phrase didn’t hold the sting of self deprecation or victimization; they lived in the warmth of awe and love that radiated behind her eyes, smoothing over Cleo’s face like a balm. The woman leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her cheek. “I’m sorry, honey. About Gabriel. That must have hurt you something horrible. I’m so sorry.”
Cleo’s voice, suffused with emotion, threatening to break, pled, “Please don’t ever do it again. Please.”
A frantic energy overtook her mother as she suddenly began to fret, pulling Cleo closer to her, pressing more kisses against her brow. “Never. God. I’m so sorry--”
Cleo leaned in, draping her legs across her mother’s lap, comforted by the proximity. Her demands continued with an uncertain, dreary wobble. “An-And I know how much you love group but-- please. You have to start seeing the doctor again. Concordia isn’t therapy.”
“Of course,” her mother promised, the words braiding themselves into her hair.
“Y-You have to be honest with… With Dad. And me. About the drugs. B-Because I don’t want it to be like last time--”
“I promise-- ”
“I want… a whole fucking life with you, get that? I want you to live long into old fucking age, b-because I deserve that. You deserve that--”
“Absolutely--”
“And-- and I want you there when I graduate from Aberdeen. I want you there wh-when I… when I finish my apprenticeship at St. Mungo’s. I-- I want to be able to come home and tell you about my day. And I want us to laugh about the stupid stuff I get up to. The people I date. Th-The things that Gabriel is doing. Wh-When he graduates from… from secondary school or-- or from Hogwarts-- I… I want you there and I want you healthy and h-happy and--”
The sentiment spilled out of her, so unexpectedly earnest that the tears stains on her mother’s face felt deep, eroding painfully across her skin, and-- and… Maybe it was stupid. But in that moment, the misery of it all felt so--
“Caleb found your bong.”
It took a moment for the comment to register, jilted and inappropriate as it was following on the coattails of her diatribe. Her mother’s eyes squinting in confusion before a surprised, breathy laugh escaped her.
“Did he?”
A tear caressed Cleo’s face. “Yeah.”
Her mother regarded her a moment longer before her lips settled into a smirk. “He left some for me, right?”
Their faces broke simultaneously into uncertain, meek smiles. Her mother’s eyes glittered with laughter unexpressed and Cleo felt the relief take hold in a form unexpected; deconstructing a few week’s worth of stress, the floodgates bursting open as she was wracked with sobs too difficult and momentous to hold back anymore.
And, for once, her mother was strong enough to hold her.
Of course, there was the matter of Violet.
Little bird, perched on the edge of her elbow, all clumsy on downy limbs. It was the first day she wanted to walk. Cleo wasn’t going to deny her; neither would Pye, when faced with the girl’s request. It had to be Cleo.
No particular reason.
And Pye wasn’t going to push.
The floor was more crowded than usual, all sorts of people rushing in and out of Transfigurative Care in a blur of lime-colored robes. This state of affairs was perhaps a touch inconvenient, but also unsurprising: That morning, a young boy had partially transfigured himself into an imaginary creature he'd read about in a book, and was suffering for it. Cleo had been delivering and reporting on experimental pain elixirs for most of her shift.
In the interest of avoiding the manic energy of the Minders who were caring for the boy, she and Violet veered away from the department Floo and toward the quieter section of the floor, which housed some staff rooms, offices, and Memory Services wards.
Violet was lamenting about the stairs again.
“I can do it.”
“I’m not worried about the ‘down’ part,” Cleo reminded her. “I just know you’re going to exhaust yourself on the climb back up.”
“I think it’s worth a shot.”
Cleo snorted. “Of course you would, considering you’re not the one who’ll get sacked if anything happens to you.”
Violet wobbled a bit on the next few steps. “Well, isn’t challenging my muscles good for me, or something? Like physical therapy?”
Cleo was careful to stand firm as Violet righted her legs on her own. “I’m not a trained physical therapist, and this is your first time walking. I don’t want you to overdo it.”
Violet’s expression contorted, unnervingly petulant. Like a child. “But-- ”
Cleo forced a lighthearted chuckle in some vain attempt to diffuse her sudden upset. “Listen, when you can walk for two straight minutes, unassisted, I think you’ll be ready for the stairs--”
Which was the wrong thing to say.
Violet took it as a challenge, untangling herself from Cleo’s arm to take a few, unsteady steps forward. On the third or forth, she jolted to grip the wall as her knees buckled under her. Cleo took her by the torso to steady her.
“I didn’t mean now, ” she admonished, quiet.
Violet’s lips twisted as she breathed heavily through her nose, her response a deliberate and frustrated, “I just want to be better.”
Cleo squashed the impulse to smooth the girl’s hair from her face. “I know.”
Her brows knitted together in frustration as she moved away from the wall, taking hold of Cleo’s arm once more. “What good is magic if it still takes this long to recover?”
“No good at all,” Cleo carefully commiserated. She gently nudged her elbow into the girl’s side, playful. “Useless, the lot of it.”
Her efforts yielded a quiet laugh and slight smile. Cleo counted that as victory enough.
Their laps included a back and forth stride up the hall, around the corner, down another hall and back. It appeared to tire the girl some, but Violet staunchly denied any attempt to force her to rest.
“I’m not the one who needs it anyway,” she panted, before her eyes raked over Cleo’s face. “Have you been sick?”
Cleo blinked. “What?”
“You look puffy.”
“Do I?”
“Didn’t you notice?”
Cleo’s brow furrowed. “No one but you has noticed.”
“There’s no way anyone missed that--”
It was odd how Violet’s abrasive, straight-forwardness suited her. It made the insults more charming than anything else. “Maybe people have been nice enough not to point it out?”
“Nice enough?” the girl questioned. “It’s not nice if you might be getting sick-- ”
“I’m not sick.”
“Are you sure?”
Cleo had an inkling what the girl might have spotted. Maybe. “I’m still healing. The inflammation hasn’t gone completely down, I think.”
“Inflammation?”
“My jaw broke.”
Violet halted suddenly. “What? How?”
Cleo watched her, a scoffing laugh issuing from the back of her throat. “It’s stupid. I got into a fight with someone.”
“You? In a fight?”
Cleo raised an eyebrow. “What? Do I not look it?”
“Uhm, no,” Violet replied, matter-of-fact. “Not at all.”
“Well, I did. Not that long ago. Bruising’s gone, but I suppose I’m still a little puffy.”
“Oh.” Violet stared at her cheek for a while longer, before a sense of guilt overtook her expression. Her face muscles ticked into a grimace, constructed one piece at a time. “Oh… Was that rude of me?”
“Abrupt,” Cleo corrected. “But well intentioned. It doesn’t bother me.”
Violet didn’t appear to believe her at all. “Now you’re just being nice.”
"Nice?! Never! " a jovial voice blared from behind, startling them both. "Why, Cleo's as mean as they come!"
The briefest of glances instantly revealed the voice’s owner: Ren Normandy stood at the center of the hall, arms akimbo and grin wide. Their oversized purple jumper was rolled to their elbows, revealing zebra-striped skin beneath, and they looked to be entirely hairless except for a bushy, black beard. Despite the strangeness of the crisscrossed stripes on their bald head, they looked remarkably human-like otherwise. A rarity for someone like Ren.
Though, despite the preponderance of evidence otherwise, she didn’t want to assume. Cleo addressed them with a tentative, “Ren?”
"The very same." He mimed tipping a cap at her.
Violet was staring at her oddly. “Is this a friend of yours…?”
“Ren’s my Defense professor’s… partner,” she answered before her eyes returned to the beard standing before her. “Why are you here? Is Professor Tenenbaum okay?”
“Right as rain!” he announced, chipper. “Even had a spot of color about her when we popped down to the Hog’s Head for a pint the other day.”
Cleo squinted, suspicious. “Then… what has you at the hospital today?”
“Oh, I come ‘round a lot, actually. My good friend Genteel Neal thinks my presence is…Well. Lively. Ha!”
Violet didn’t seem any more at ease with their rapport. Her eyes darted between Ren’s beard and his bright, vivacious eyes and Cleo could feel the tension in her frame as she leaned away from him.
For her part, however, Cleo smiled as she gave a reassuring squeeze to Violet’s upper arm. “Genteel Neal?”
"A nickname from when we were in school together," Ren explained, scratching his smooth head. "He's a Minder over in Memory Services."
“That’s nice,” Violet put in awkwardly.
"Isn't it just?" He smiled, sly. "He loathes the name, but of course, it wouldn't be nearly so fun if he didn't."
“Right,” Cleo murmured with a nervous chuckle. “Well, don’t let us keep you from him. It was sweet of you to say hi.”
For a brief moment, a veil of confusion fell across Ren's face -- the first of its kind, since Cleo hardly ever saw him perplexed about anything -- but then he suddenly laughed, full-bodied and mirthful. Violet’s body jerked against her, visibly startled. "Oh--! No, I don't come to visit him! Poor wretch keeps away as much as he can when I'm about, but-- the others let me in to see patients due to his grudging support."
Cleo’s brow furrowed. “The patients? You visit them?”
"Few times a week, yeah."
Cleo raised her head slightly to peek into the nearby door. “I mean, do you know any of them?”
He seemed to contemplate this a moment. "I'd say I know all of them, if they've been around for a while."
“That’s nice of you,” Violet said again, just as stilted as before. “Like a volunteer who visits the elderly.”
"Nothing so formal and stodgy as all that," Ren laughed. "I just pop in once in a while, that's all. And Neal puts up with me since his long-term patients like to see me. I'm a bit of a chameleon, personally, so they get a lot of 'new' visitors."
Violet’s face scrunched up, visibly nonplussed. Cleo explained, “He’s, uhm. A metamorphmagus, of sorts.”
“Oh,” Violet blurted. “So you trick them.”
He beamed. "Precisely!"
Cleo frowned. “Well that just makes it sound mean-- ”
"Everyone loves a good trick every once in a while!" Ren said, grinning. "No harm in a little subterfuge among friends, I always say!"
“I mean there is if they’re vulnerable,” Cleo pointed out, suddenly heated. “You shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t be taking advantage of them.”
His smile drooped, a divot forming between his eyebrows as they scrunched together. "That's, ehm, not… what I meant--"
“What did you mean, then?”
"I just… visit?" he remarked slowly, looking for the first time as if he were considering his words before saying them. "It's just that most everyone in long-term don't remember me day to day, and I have to go along with it so they aren't upset…"
From off to her right, she heard the clattering sounds of footsteps approaching and deftly ushered herself and Violet closer to the wall as they passed. “Well that’s not really tricking, then--”
"I didn't want to quibble about it," he fretted, though even that expression was quite mild. "I've learned that sometimes it's best to simply agree with patients and move on, you know?"
“I suppose you’re right.”
"Not to worry-- the worst I do to these people is annoy them,” Ren commented, a little smile curling his lips once more. “After all, I used to be a frequent resident here too.”
“Oh, really?” Cleo’s head tilted. “For yourself, or…?”
“All the above! My condition doesn’t strictly contribute to my health, you understand.” He glanced at the passing group of people. “But Bridge and I actually first met in St. Mungo’s. Caused a lot of trouble in these halls, the two of us.”
“I thought you met in school?”
“We were in the same year, but that doesn’t always mean you properly… meet, you know? Especially since she was one of those infamous Slytherins and I, only a lauded Gryffindor.” He drew himself up with exaggerated pomp before dropping the act with an eye roll. “None of that tripe out in the real world, though. Nobody cares what House you were; it’s just a fun fact to reminisce about.”
Cleo pursed her lips. “Well, I suppose that’s the nice thing about-- what? ”
She noticed Ren wasn’t looking at her anymore. Brow wrinkled with concern, his address was directed beside her, “Hey, you okay…?”
Cleo felt a sharp pain in the crook of her elbow. Trying to shake her arm away from the discomfort and failing, she twisted toward Violet. “What are you--?”
Violet was staring down the hall, eyes widened and frame wound with tension. Her breathing had caught, fingers carving large divots into Cleo’s arm.
“Hey?” Cleo cajoled. “What’s wrong?”
The girl didn’t even acknowledge her, much less respond.
“Vio--?”
The girl’s hand struck toward her lips, fingernails digging in with painful precision to pin her mouth shut. Her entire expression had tightened into a strained grimace. Desperate. Terrified. Cleo grappled the girl’s wrist and wrenched it away.
“Don’t! ” Cleo found herself snapping in a harsh, bleated whisper. “What is wrong with you--”
The girl’s principal response was a breath she choked on; her teeth wrapped around and bit it back, the whole of her face contorting to suppress the noise. The second was the way her eyes darted to the nearest door, the way her muscles contracted and resisted against Cleo’s grip in very clear attempt to disentangle herself from her.
When Cleo looked down the hall, all she could see was a group of four: Head Healer Poke surrounded by staff she didn’t recognize, and a solitary woman standing amongst them. Pretty, prim, and blonde.
Violet was sinking against the wall, trying to pull out of Cleo’s grip in earnest.
Cleo didn’t let her go. “What are you doing --”
Violet’s head shook as she continued to pull, sinking further down.
“Are you getting tired?” Ren questioned, though his chipper tone sounded like an affectation. His demeanor, however, was calm and, disconcertingly enough, practiced. “Here, let me help you get back, hm?”
However, upon Ren’s approach, the girl reared so hard back against the wall that an ungodly thump careened down the hallway. None of the group at the other end seemed to take notice, though. Not long enough to stop talking.
Except.
She did look. The regal, angular lines of her face shifted only slightly in time with the dart of her eyes as she noticed them for the first time. For a moment, Cleo couldn’t shake a feeling of recognition when regarding the woman fully.
However, the woman’s attention was fleeting, the look nothing more than cursory. A quick glance prompted by a sudden noise close by.
But Violet’s reaction was violent.
With a strength wholly alien to her current state, Violent twisted away with a panicked grunt, stumbling on unsteady legs toward the doorway as she shoved Ren aside. In a few seconds, the girl disappeared into the next room, the commotion enough to draw a few unwanted stares from the group that time.
Her boss included.
Cleo’s smile was nervous and wavering. She found herself pathetically mouthing the word “patient” to excuse herself, quickly bowing her head and ducking into the next room under the weight of Poke’s stare.
Violet was halfway across the room, shoving past another Minder and a couple of residents passing in front of her. It was unsettling to watch: The ungainly, stilted lean of her gait, the utter desperation that propelled her forward, as if she were being chased.
She reached the other end of the ward, hurling herself against a doorway that was clearly locked, if Violet’s assault on the handle was anything to go by.
The Minder nearby corrected himself before shooting an accusatory glower in Cleo’s direction. “Is this one yours?”
“Sorry, uhm--” Cleo floundered. “I think she’s--”
“Do you need help getting her back to her ward?”
“No,” Cleo answered at once as she passed him. “Give me a second.”
“If you could hurry, I’d appreciate it,” the Minder told her. “These sort get a little jumpy under disturbances like this.”
“I understand, sorry, I’ll just--”
Her sentence died as she finally reached Violet, who was still desperately trying to get the door open. Her frantic panting intermingled with the tinny sound of the handle refusing to budge.
“Violet,” Cleo broached, carefully positioning herself next to the girl. “What’s wrong?”
The girl slammed her side into the door, the noise loud and awful enough to cause a few of the ward residents to glance their way.
“Violet--”
The girl pulled hard. “Open!” she yelped. “Why won’t-- open! Please! Open! ” Her hand slammed into the door panel, the thump sounding so brittle it sent a chill down Cleo’s spine.
“Violet, please--”
The girl slammed her foot into the door jam. “Open the door!”
“Violet!”
“I have to get out! Open the door! ”
“Violet, you’re going to hurt yourself!”
The girl suddenly flew backwards, both hands digging into the side of her neck as a gut-wrenching, piercing scream tore through her lungs: “OPEN THE DOOR! ”
Every pair of eyes hoisted themselves in their direction. Violet continued screaming the same phrase over and over, until the last word drew out into a long, horrible howl that threatened to rip her throat apart.
The other members of the ward began to dither, distressed. A few of the women, including one with limp, white hair, began to wail at the same pitch. Ren was next to the woman’s bedside in an instant, his voice taking on a soothing timbre as he tried to redirect her attention to a basket of sweets by her elbow. By then, the Minder had joined them, wand drawn.
Alarmed, Cleo put herself between them. “Wait!”
“She needs to be restrained.”
He sidestepped, but she moved to meet him. “She’s a spell damage patient!”
With a worried frown, he persisted, “Even so-- ”
“Any magic used on her has to be used with extreme caution as to not exacerbate her condition!”
“She’s exacerbating her condition right now. As well as jeopardizing the safety of the other patients--”
Violet’s screaming had devolved into a series of pained, desperate shrieks, loud and dismaying; a tantrum that felt unsettling in a girl her age.
Among the incoherent sobbing, a new phrase was starting to form. She couldn’t quite understand it, but it was becoming insistent nonetheless.
Cleo raised both her hands. “Let me do it. I’ve worked with her a lot--”
His nod was curt. “Fine-- but be quick about it. I’ll fetch a Calming from the storeroom--”
Cleo took a step back. “Could you get Junior Healer Pye? He’s her Potions primary.”
The Minder’s acknowledgement was nothing more than a short grunt on his way out, sending reassuring words to some of the patients before he disappeared from the ward. Ren had moved to the other end of the room, trying to convince a patient who was holding their ears to stay in bed.
It was when Cleo turned to face the girl once again that she caught the new thing she’d begun to screech. He’s going to kill me.
She had no choice but to tackle this from a different angle. Stepping up in front of Violet, Cleo offered her a conciliatory, “Let’s get this door open, yeah?”
The proposal did very little to calm her. “Gonna-- kill me--! ”
“It’ll be safe in there, alright? Just give me a second.”
The door unlocked with a simple Alohamora. In the next moment, it was wide open, revealing an empty back office. And although Violet’s weeping did not lessen, she was quick to barrel inside. Cleo stepped in after her, casting a brief glance toward Ren before closing the door behind her with a loud slam.
The room was quiet and dim, sparsely decorated except for some handmade warning posters (Absolutely no plants are allowed in the ward under any circumstances! ) and a single painting depicting a panther lounging in a rainforest. There were two desks on either side of the doorway stacked with dirty potion vials, medical books and journals, and a spool of yarn beside someone’s knitting. In the back of the office was a wide rug paired with a worn armchair, a little reading nook which was free of clutter.
It was there that Violet had begun pacing, unsteady enough to make Cleo feel uneasy, her weeping intermixed with loud, gasping breaths.
“I need you to talk to me, Violet,” Cleo broached, careful in her approach toward the girl. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
“He’s going to kill me! ”
“I know, sweetheart, you told me,” Cleo assured her. “But who? Who’s going to kill you?”
“He is!” she shrieked, anger overflowing into a full body throb as the girl practically lurched toward her.
Cleo recognized that brand of frustration; she was already supposed to understand, implicitly, by Violet’s estimation. She didn’t want to have to explain. Okay. Cleo could navigate that.
“How do you know?”
She’d tried not to make the challenge sound harsh, though by the dismayed, bleak way Violet looked at her, Cleo realized she’d missed the mark. “You don’t-- I knew you--” she sucked in a harsh breath. “Believe me--”
“No, no, no, no,” Cleo rushed up toward her. “Violet, no. I do believe you. But listen -- I don’t know what you saw. I don’t understand. And I need you to help me understand so I can help you.”
Violet didn’t appear any more comforted. Her breathing was in a mangled, tangled mess with her distressed moaning. “You-- can’t.”
Cleo watched as all her anger deconstructed, bit by bit, into abject hopelessness. Terror, even. Her sobs continued in earnest.
Cleo would have held her if she knew it wouldn’t have sent her spiraling into panic again. “I can.”
“No,” she whined, taking a step back against the wall. Her breath came out wet and honey thick. “G-Gonna-- he’s gonna-- and I’m-- dead --”
“Violet--”
“D-Don’t wanna-- don’t wanna-- ”
Cleo stepped up closer, countenance stern. “Violet-- no, ” her head canted as Violet drew her head away, catching her attention again. “Listen to me-- Listen. He could step through that door right now and he wouldn’t kill you. You know why?”
Violet’s jaw trembled as she stared at Cleo’s shoulder, unable to make eye contact.
“Because I’d fucking kill him. You understand?”
Violet’s throat tightened as she swallowed.
“He’d have to get through me first to even get near you. I mean that. And before then I’d tear him limb from limb. I’d destroy him completely. I wouldn’t let anyone like that near you. Okay?”
A few more tears caught onto Violet’s eyelashes as she blinked.
“Do you believe me?”
The girl sniffed.
“I would do it, Violet. I’d kill him. Okay?”
She was surprised at her own conviction, could almost believe in what she was saying herself.
Violet’s nod was nothing more than a slight twitch of her head.
Cleo allowed herself to take a step closer to the girl, her voice taking on a soothing lilt. “But he’s not going to come through that door right now. I need you to believe that.” She looked the girl over. “I know you saw something. I want to protect you, but you have to tell me what’s going on.”
Violet hadn’t stopped crying, but her tears were more subdued. Something about her energy had deadened to some degree, as if some part of her had shut down. Her eyes remained anchored to Cleo’s shoulder, absent, and it took a while before she could speak. Even then, the words came out half baked and incoherent. More noise than speech.
Cleo ventured to grasp her by the upper arms, albeit gently. Thankfully, the girl didn’t push her away. “What was that?”
“Can’t--” Violet muttered, grimacing. “Uhm-- hard. Like, process. Can’t, uhm--”
“It’s been a lot,” Cleo tried. “Overwhelming, yeah?”
“A lot,” the girl repeated slowly.
“If you need a second to think, we can just stay here and be quiet for a second. Will that help?”
“I-- think,” Violet struggled. “Dad, uhm. I--” Her tears were swollen in her eyes.
“I know,” Cleo sympathized, somehow understanding. “I wish I could get him for you.”
“I want--” the girl’s voice cracked. “Dad-- I want --”
“When it gets like this--” She hesitated. “Because this has happened before, right? And he used to help make it easy?”
Violet’s head dipped.
“Do you know how to explain how he helped? Or how I can help you?”
Violet’s expression grew strained as an uneasy groan unburdened itself from her throat, as if the very notion was an impossible hurdle to surmount. Cleo regretted the question immediately.
“No -- right. I’m sorry, Violet.”
The girl locked her jaw.
“Let’s be quiet for a bit, then. Breathe with me. Do you know how to do a proper breath?”
Violet’s gaze darted sporadically from her shoulder, to her chin, to her forehead, before plummeting to the floor. She offered another twitchy nod.
“Show me?”
Violet’s first attempt was shaky, though she was able to steady herself when Cleo demonstrated on the second breath. For a few protracted moments, they repeated the process over and over until nothing but the sound of their breaths filtered into the emptiness around them.
On one of Violet’s stronger exhales, Cleo asked, “Feel a little less fuzzy now?”
“No.”
Cleo’s smile was feeble. “Do you think you can talk, though?”
“I think.”
“Okay,” Cleo sighed. “I’m going to ask this again, but I want you to understand that I’m not accusing you. I just want to know how you know that… he’s coming after you?”
Violet’s eyes appeared as if they were made of glass. “Because he sent her… but, it’s not her… but that’s how I know he’s going to do it. Because it’s not her.”
The statement seemed to confuse matters more than clarify them. But it was something. She could pick it apart.
“Okay -- let’s start… Who do you mean by her? ”
“It looked like Narcissa,” Violet answered, deadpan. “But it’s not her.”
“Narcissa?” Cleo questioned, bewildered. “What, like Narcissa Malfoy?”
Violet’s bones creaked on their hinges as she nodded.
The realization struck her hard. “Wait, that was-- in the hallway--? ”
“It’s not her, though,” Violet lamented. “It looks like her but it’s not her.”
“Like, Polyjuice?” Cleo attempted to reason. “Someone disguised as her in Polyjuice?”
Violet appeared very distressed again at the notion of being misunderstood. “No -- not Polyjuice! It’s-- it’s her but it’s not her.”
“Imperius--?”
“No! ” Violet suddenly yelped, rearing backward against the wall in another surge of panic.
“Hey! Hey!” Cleo cajoled, grasping the girl gently by the shoulders. “I’m sorry-- hey, listen. It’s okay. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to understand--”
“You can’t,” Violet complained. “It’s all wrong. I don’t know how-- ”
“Okay-- that’s okay, Violet. You don’t have to. I believe you. It’s Narcissa but also not. I get it. And you think he sent her here to… Find you?”
Violet’s expression began to crumble piece by piece as she nodded. She noticed the girl’s fingers scratching at the image of the raven on her left wrist, slow and methodical.
And Cleo suddenly understood who he was.
Her captor. Her abuser. Her--
“Hey… Hey-- shh,” Cleo cooed, shifting so that she could wrap her arm about the girl’s back. All at once, Violet turned inward, burying her head into the crook of Cleo’s neck. “It’s okay--”
It wasn’t, though. It really wasn’t. None of it was. Cleo could feel her own tears searing against her eyelids. Violet’s pain radiated like heat in her side.
“Was Narcissa Malfoy-- did… okay,” Cleo attempted, willing her voice not to quake. “Did she… Was she involved at all with--”
“No,” the girl wept, her words hot, damp breath against her robes.
“But she was there.”
Cleo’s robes shifted against her shoulder as the girl nodded.
“And she--”
“Helped me,” the girl whimpered. “G-- got me-- out… ”
What…?
“She helped you escape?”
“Got… g-got me a wand a-and…” Her body suddenly convulsed as she held back a sob. “H-Helped me o-out of… th-the pl-place and--and…”
The idea of Narcissa Malfoy helping anyone, much less the very type of person who her husband had gone to prison for terrorizing, was near impossible to fathom. But it did lead the way to an optimistic thought.
“Then maybe she’s here to discuss the case,” Cleo worked out. “I didn’t recognize the other people with my boss, perhaps they were Aurors, yeah? And she’s here to give a witness interview and--”
Violet’s hand tightened its grip on her side, wrinkling her robes. “It’s not her.”
“But it could be,” Cleo countered.
“It can’t be and she couldn’t be giving information to the police.”
“Of course she could. They would contact her after you told them she was involved--”
“I didn’t.”
That stopped Cleo dead. She looked at the back of Violet’s head, supplanted firmly against her shoulder.
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
“But--” Cleo floundered. “Why-- ”
Violet’s head lifted to face her, eyes glimmering with conviction. “I promised. ”
“Who did you promise?”
The girl’s eyelids lowered, laconic. “Narcissa.”
“Narcissa made you promise not to tell the police she was involved.”
The girl’s expression darkened. “Don’t.”
Cleo frowned. “What--?”
“I know that--... voice. You-- you don’t understand. You have no idea. She was--”
“No, no, no--” Cleo interjected as she sensed the rising tension in Violet’s tone. “I’m not judging. I’m trying to understand. She helped you. I know that means a lot.”
Violet relaxed visibly against her shoulder.
“But if she was with you--” Cleo faltered. “We could help her. If we told--”
“They’ve got her son,” Violet interrupted.
That didn’t make sense. Malfoy was…
“Who has her son?”
“The… man with the brown hair and the lady,” Violet recounted, fearful. “The… the man with the brown hair, he was the one who… who got me out of my house. And-- and this other man… I only ever saw him a couple times. B-Because the man with… with the brown hair, I hid from him in the woods near my house, a-and then the other man chased me down--”
The girl’s voice quaked into silence as the pain lodged itself in her throat. Cleo pulled her closer.
“B-But the man… the man with the brown hair, he… he and the lady… they--” A soft whimper fell out of her mouth.
“I understand,” Cleo murmured, holding the girl tightly.
“B-But they did the same to Narcissa too,” she cried. “Th-They hurt her like that. I-- I saw-- and… they-- they kept us away from the others --”
“The others?” Cleo inquired, a thrum of panic surging through her. “There were more of you?”
“I--... I don’t know… I g-guess there had to be. N-Narcissa said so. And they-- th-they hurt them, too. And… And they’re going to do the same to… to her son. And--”
“Her son is at Hogwarts,” Cleo said at once, frowning. “No one has him.”
“Th-that doesn’t matter,” was Violet’s quivering reply.
“Why?”
“It just d-doesn’t.”
And that was all Violet wanted to say on the matter, if her obstinate expression was anything to go by. Cleo sighed softly. “Okay.”
“A-And now that thing saw me. An-And it’s going to tell him. And he’s going to come find me a-again!”
“Violet--”
“I can’t d-do that again! I’d r-rather die! Cl-Cleo I can’t! I can’t go back to him! ”
Cleo pulled her into a full embrace that time, tight against her chest, hand pressed against the back of her head. “You’re not,” she said firmly. “You’re not going to. You’re never going to go through that again.”
“He’s coming! ” she wailed. “I wasn’t supposed to get away!”
“I know. And we’re going to talk to the Aurors--”
Violet tried pulling away; Cleo refused to let go. “No! ”
“-- yes, we are, Violet. You don’t have to tell them what you don’t want to about Narcissa. But we have to tell them that you feel like your life is in danger. They’re supposed to protect you, yeah? And they can’t do that unless they know what’s going on. So if you feel like he’s coming to get you and he knows where you are, we have to tell them so that they can make sure he can’t.”
The girl contended with this difficult thought, scrubbing her forehead back and forth across her shoulder, before she went limp in Cleo’s arms.
As good a capitulation as any.
Unfortunately, the Auror who arrived to help wasn’t familiar. Dawlish, he introduced himself, was a squat, middle aged man with beady, tired eyes; a far cry from the vivacious, neon-haired Auror who had conducted the initial investigation.
Dawlish was a man of objections, it seemed. His initial one was the manner of his being called out: Pye had to endure a rather stern talking-to for not following proper procedure; then, the setting: he insisted that Violet return to her room to be questioned, a request that was carried out with a great deal of anxiety; then, finally, to Cleo’s presence during the meeting-- but Violet staunchly refused to let go of her, demanding that she be allowed to stay. On this point, the man grudgingly conceded.
Pye was stationed just beside the door, monitoring the proceedings with calculated interest, while Poke stood at the foot of the bed with a scowl of concentration, his arms loosely crossed in front of him. With hands plunged deep in the pockets of his trench coat, Dawlish listened to Violet’s slow, halting account, face unmoving, not even sparing her a conciliatory look.
“Your initial statement did not make mention of Narcissa Malfoy, Miss Ayers,” he drawled, sounding a few hours deep in his fifth late night of the week. “Are you implicating her in your abduction?”
“No,” Violet muttered, unnaturally subdued. The Calming Draught was doing its work, however unnecessary; the girl had been utterly exhausted from her outburst. Still, Pye had insisted on it.
“Then I’m not understanding what you’re attempting to say.”
Violet offered only a languid blink. The bleary, drunken way she glanced from bed sheets to Auror and back spoke volumes of her inability to properly respond. Protective, Cleo felt it necessary to step in.
“She’s saying she feels like her life is in immediate danger.”
His gaze ticked her way, clearly irritated. “Obviously. What I’m not seeing is sufficient reason for this ‘feeling’.”
Cleo scowled. “She told you.”
Healer Poke shot her a look.
Dawlish, on the other hand, fielded the objection with an exhausted, “Yes. She stated that Mrs. Malfoy is not, in fact, Mrs. Malfoy. I don’t understand what this means.”
As much as she wanted to, it was impossible to blame him for that; she didn’t quite understand, either. But… “It means that the Narcissa Malfoy in the hospital today wasn’t Narcissa Malfoy.”
Healer Poke turned to face Violet, addressing her concerns forthright. “I want to assure you, Miss Ayers, that she is, in fact, Narcissa Malfoy. We have many means at our disposal to properly and accurately verify the identity of those who enter the hospital. There is no imposter. You’re very safe.”
Violet was nowhere closer to mollified by this assurance. “You don’t understand-- ”
“Then help us, perhaps?” Dawlish cut in smoothly. “Because as it stands, Miss Ayers, this new information is no more illuminating than your original account. I cannot assist you if you cannot give me the information I need to assist you.”
What the hell did that mean? No more illuminating than her original account?
Dispirited, Violet sunk back against her pillow, muttering a meek, “I’m not lying…”
“No on is accusing you of lying, Miss Ayers,” Poke smoothed over, hands clasped behind his back.
“I’m merely suggesting that you may be a bit confused,” Dawlish clarified.
Some paltry bit of life flared into Violet’s body at that. “I’m not-- ”
“The point is that Mrs. Malfoy’s presence makes Violet fear that she’s in danger,” Cleo cut in. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to bar her from entering the hospital? Why was she here, anyway? Her husband --”
“-- is not her,” Poke finished. “She is, in fact, making a generous contribution to the hospital.”
Cleo couldn’t hide her disgust. “Are you seriously considering taking money from a family of known Death--”
“I was not aware you had been appointed to the Board of Directors, Miss Croft,” Poke warned, gazing at her over his large spectacles.
Cleo’s gaze dropped to the floor as she hid her scowl.
“Point being,” Dawlish drawled, silky smooth. “I cannot ban a person from accessing public property without just cause, reputation notwithstanding.”
“And as it stands,” Poke added, raising his chin slightly. “Mrs. Malfoy has no intention to frequent the hospital regularly. She will be taken on a small tour of a couple of the wards next Saturday, contingent upon her donation. There truly is no cause for alarm, Miss Ayers.”
Violet grit her teeth, body gone all wobbly, unable to properly process both her sedation and the sudden panic she must have been feeling. “You-- you’re going to let it back? ”
Before the two could properly reprimand her, Cleo stepped back into the fray. “Isn’t there something you can do? To make her feel at ease?”
“I have no information-- ”
“She’s dealing with trauma,” Cleo passionately averred. “And she’s gone through something horrible. Is it not the least you could do to make her feel more secure? She sincerely believes that her abductor is coming to take her back.”
Poke watched her as if he didn’t approve of her grandstanding, though he must not have objected fully to her request, since he made no move to end the matter. Auror Dawlish simply observed her, waspish.
Then, his eyes drifted to the girl in the bed.
“I can post a subordinate at her door to watch her while Mrs. Malfoy is visiting,” he offered.
Clearly, that wasn’t enough for Violet, who lurched forward on the bed, sporting her wrists on display. The deadened, hollow timbre of her tone unnervingly didn't match the passion she was exhibiting in her words. “The-- the real Narcissa has these,” she disclosed. “Ch-- Check her. If she doesn’t have these, then she’s not-- ”
“Miss Ayers,” Poke cut in calmly, “she is the real Narcissa Malfoy. I would vouch my life on it. Please, calm yourself--”
“It’s not! ” she shouted, hoarse. “She-- she has the tattoos. You have to believe me. He put them on her. He did-- ”
“Even if I were willing to check the veracity of your claims,” Dawlish interrupted. “With what can I vouch the evidence of it? Your word?”
Cleo’s eyes widened, aghast. “This happened to her--”
“Of course it did,” the man agreed, scoffing. “That is not in question. What is in question, however, is the accuracy of the rest of it.”
“I’m not mixed up!” Violet objected. “Everything I saw was true! Everything! He’s not dead and they’re all with him! He was there and everything he did to me was--”
“If you wish to reprise the details of the case, I would rather we do so alone, Miss Ayers,” Dawlish intoned, passing a significant look to Cleo. “As it is still under investigation.”
“I trust her.”
“And as much as I am pleased for your new friendship, this is a matter of professional integrity. Not pettiness.”
“You saw everything I saw,” she accused. “You saw him, you saw the man in the woods, you saw her sister. You have my memories!”
Dawlish raised his head. “Memories can be, and have been, tampered with, Miss Ayers.”
“No one tampered with me! I’m-- not confused--”
She fell silent when Cleo placed a hand on her back, steadying her. Cleo addressed Dawlish once more, beseeching, “Isn’t there anything more-- ”
“Providing personal guard is already enough,” the man insisted. “It is impossible for me to put more manpower into this situation when I have no solid information to work with.”
Her gaze darted to Poke, who was already shaking his head. “I will not be denying Narcissa Malfoy entry. Not when there’s no real evidence against her.”
Cleo’s scowl deepened.
“You will be safe, Miss Ayers,” Poke insisted. “The Ministry will station a guard outside your door when she arrives. I can promise you that I will not guide her to your room, nor will I speak of you. She will not know where you’re located. She will not know of your condition, nor anything else about you, much less the fact you're even in residence.”
Violet’s body had already been overtaken with a defeated hunch. There was no more fight left. Even when prompted, she didn’t nod, nor did she address the men as they left the ward with more hollow promises. Pye, for his part, offered them both a regretful look as he passed through the threshold himself.
And watching her, Cleo felt her heart twist in her chest.
Next Saturday…
Cleo rubbed her hand in soothing circles against the girl’s back. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How?” Violet complained, voice heavy with sedation. “She’s coming. They don’t believe me. They’re not going to do anything-- ”
Cleo’s gaze was on the door. “They don’t have to.”
She felt a slight shift in Violet’s shoulders as the girl turned to look at her. “What? Why?”
Gathering strength, Cleo swallowed back her anxiety and looked down at the girl next to her. Seeing her there, terrified, abated her own fears. She knew this was right.
“Because you’re not going to be here when she comes.”
Then, the matter of Thea.
In the one place that no one would ever have found her, probably. No one but the person who had taught her this place existed. Or the other two who had demonstrated how to get here in the first place.
She should have been annoyed. Concerned. Any array of emotions that spanned from distressed to irked. Perhaps she should have begun with a reprimand, should have asked what Thea could possibly be thinking, doing something like this.
Instead, as Cleo stared into the night sky, her first question was a jaunty, “So, how many times did you have to cast Immobilus on the Willow the first time before it finally stuck?”
The starscape at the Shrieking Shack was vast. Encompassing. It stretched around them like a heavy blanket: thick, downy, bespeckled. In this spot, just as she’d found it the first time, the cosmos seemed so much larger and yet closer, an innumerable collection of lights that she could close her hands around, unobscured by cloud or building. Trees ringed the clearing like a line of spectators hushed in the waning twilight, similarly reaching up toward the sky, fascinated.
Thea seemed engrossed by it as well, even as she answered, “‘Bout a gazillion times.” Her head fell backwards, thick coils of hair hanging away from the girl’s face as she flashed Cleo a defiant, toothy grin. “But I did it.”
“You did,” Cleo conceded. Her eyebrow raised a moment later. “You know how dangerous that was? To do alone?”
“Are you going to be mad about it?”
“No.”
The girl lifted her head away. “Then, yeah. I know.”
Cleo surveyed their surroundings, frowning. “Not an ideal camping spot.”
She could imagine the way Thea was more than likely furrowing her brow at that very idea. “It’s as good as any.”
“You know these woods are part of the Forbidden Forest, right?”
Thea’s shoulders lifted, nonchalant. “And?”
Cleo forced a smirk. “Fearless, aren’t you?”
“I have magic,” the girl reminded her, curls sinking over her shoulder as she turned her head to look at Cleo once more. “What’s there to be scared of?”
Cleo couldn’t help but laugh at that.
“Really! ” Thea pressed, torso twisting in Cleo’s direction. “What could anyone do to me? I can make fire out of nothing. If some wolf or somethin’ comes out of nowhere, I’ll burn it to a crisp.”
“Yeah? You think you could?”
“Well, duh.” Thea frowned again. “And if it’s anything bigger than that, I could do loads of things to distract it or incapacitate it so I could get away. Easy.”
“And if it sneaks up on you?”
“Lift it up with a Wingardium Leviosa, then make some distance.”
It seemed rather pointless to inform her of the limitations of magic like that. “Well, I guess you have it all planned out, don’t you?”
“I’m not stupid.”
Cleo’s head shook. “I never said you were.”
Thea’s lips twisted. “How’d you find me, anyway?”
“A mixture of advanced tracking spells, itinerant warding, ocular enhancement potions, and extensive intel gathered from your classmates, all working in tandem to map out your every movement over the last several weeks,” Cleo answered, eyes glinting.
“Wait, seriously?”
Cleo waited a moment before she snorted. “No, silly. I waited outside your Defense class and I followed you.”
Thea’s expression deadpanned. “I didn’t even come here straight off.”
Cleo shrugged.
“You’re a bit of a creep, Croft,” Thea’s grimacing face informed her.
“Does that mean I can’t sit with you?”
Thea expelled a soft sigh before unnecessarily shifting away to make room beside her.
“So, are we still fighting?” Cleo asked once she’d occupied the spot.
“Guess not,” Thea replied. “If I haven’t told you to fuck off, then I think you’re safe.”
Cleo made a face. A word like that, coming out of a girl like her, sounded a million times harsher and unpleasant than it normally would have. “Thea--”
“I will tell you that if you go mum on me, though,” the girl warned her. “I’m not in the mood to be mum’d.”
With a soft sigh, Cleo’s shoulders drooped as she relented. “Then, as a friend-- ”
“I thought you weren’t going to get mad about it.”
“I’m not mad about anything, Thea,” Cleo objected. “I just wanted to ask what all this is about?”
“All this what? ”
“Well, we can start with why you’ve opted for camping these past two weeks instead of staying in your dorm.”
Thea’s nose scrunched up. “You’ve seen me here once. How do you know I haven’t been in my dorm this entire time?”
Cleo leveled her with an incredulous look.
“Fine,” Thea conceded with an eye roll befitting an eleven year old.
Though, after a significant pause, Cleo raised both her brows again before prompting the girl with a soft, “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Why have you been staying out here?”
“Maybe I just like it?”
“You just like it,” Cleo echoed, deadpan.
Thea made a grand, sweeping gesture toward the sky. “Can’t get this in a stuffy, underground dorm, can you?”
“Probably not,” Cleo conceded.
“There you go.”
“But you can get expelled.”
Thea’s lips pursed as she looked away.
Cleo’s head tilted as she continued with a soft, “Don’t know if you’d risk being expelled just for a prettier view, yeah?”
The girl said nothing.
“Would you?” Cleo pressed.
Thea’s brows drew together as she staunchly stared at the ground.
“Would you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
Thea sat up, squaring her shoulders. “You said you wouldn’t go mum on me.”
“I’m not asking you as a mum. I’m asking you as a concerned friend.”
“There’s nothing to be concerned about,” the first year argued.
“You’re sleeping out here, in the middle of a dangerous forest. By yourself.”
“So?”
Another track, then. “And you’re skipping classes.”
“I’m not skipping classes,” Thea huffed.
Cleo gave her a look.
The girl shifted uncomfortably in place before begrudgingly grumbling, “I’m skipping one class.”
“Thea--”
“I don’t even know what the big deal is,” she complained. “I go to all my others. I’m doing really well.”
Cleo appeared skeptical. “That’s all, is it?”
“Well, yeah?”
“You can’t just choose to not go to a class--”
“Why not?” Thea objected at once. “It’s my magic. My choice. If I don’t think learning something stuffy like Potions is bloody worth it, then who cares?”
Cleo’s expression softened. “It doesn’t work like that.”
Oppositely, Thea’s hardened. “It should.”
“Regardless,” Cleo smoothed over. “It’s not going to get you out of doing that class, Thea. All this is going to lead to is your failing grade and you being forced to take Remedial Potions.”
“Then I’ll skip that too,” was Thea’s defiant rejoinder.
Cleo rested her chin against her knees as she looked the younger girl over. “Is the class that difficult for you?”
Thea bristled. “No.”
“Is it the homework?”
“No.”
“Is it the tests?”
“Will you stop?”
Cleo frowned. “Is it Snape?”
“Now you’re just being stupid.”
“I don’t think I am,” Cleo replied. “It’d explain a great deal, actually.”
Thea's lips pressed into a thin line.
“Like why you think avoiding the common room is going to help--”
“I’m not avoiding it--”
“-- spending your time out here in the middle of a dangerous wood --”
“I told you why--”
“-- in the cold-- ”
“There’s such a thing as Warming Charms, idiot.”
Cleo’s frown was sincere. “You don’t have to be mean.”
For what it was worth, that appeared to sober the girl some. She looked away, uttering an abashed, “Sorry.”
Cleo sighed softly. “I won’t make you talk to me about what’s going on. But I want you to know I want to be here for you. That I’ll listen. That I’m not going to judge you.”
The girl’s eyes fell to her feet, her shoes digging into the dewy grass.
“He’s an unrepentant arsehole, you know,” she commiserated. “You’re not alone in thinking that.”
“It’s not--” she faltered.
And Cleo waited a moment, watched as the girl fiddled with a blade of grass, as she cast her eyes to the stars, drawing from their resplendence. She watched as Thea took in a large breath, as her legs drew up against her chest, as she rested her chin atop her knees.
“You remember that day when you were writing that letter to your friend, and I told you about what happened in class?”
Cleo’s head bobbed slightly. “Yeah?”
“And the idiot that made their potion go noxious?”
“Mhm.”
The first year grimaced. “I… was the idiot.”
A slight smile twitched onto Cleo’s face. “Were you?”
Thea looked away. “Yeah.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have realized,” she remarked. “You sure didn’t act like Snape had just lambasted you.”
“I’m not a baby,” she complained, put off.
“Was that all, though?” Cleo asked. “One good telling off and you didn’t really want to be around the git again?”
There was a shift in the girl’s energy. Loose anxiety. A frenetic quiet. An edge that could cut you to the quick. She wasn’t answering.
“Thea?”
“It’s not--” the girl tried before she halted in place, frowning at the grass. “It’s just going to sound dumb.”
Cleo raised an eyebrow. “I doubt it.”
“How would you know?”
Cleo’s expression became neutral. “There’s very little you could tell me at this point that I’d think is dumb.”
Although Thea didn’t appear reassured by the thought, she heaved out a hefty sigh and mentioned, “He… reminded me of my dad.”
“Your dad?”
“Before my mum met Carol, she was with my dad.”
“Is… he not in the picture anymore?”
The girl’s flyaway curls shook as she nodded.
“That must be hard.”
Thea shrugged. “It’s probably for the best, I guess… He had problems and… I don’t know, he drank a lot, and it made things impossible.”
“I’m sorry.”
When the girl noticed the plummet in Cleo’s expression, a spike of panic seemed to surge through her. “He’s-- he’s not bad, y’know? It’s just--”
Cleo tilted her head. “You know, my mum’s an addict, too.”
Thea stilled.
“She lived in a really bad home environment and ran away when she was a teenager. Stayed homeless for a very long time, got addicted to heroin.” Cleo cast her face toward the sky, sighing. “When she came to England and met my father, she got sober. Until she had me. Got into opiates.”
Thea’s lips twisted. “Oh.”
“I still love her, though,” she emphasized knowingly, her head dropping to regard the girl next to her. “Even though it can be really hard.”
Thea’s posture relaxed, a natural dreariness taking over, drooping her toward the grass.
“It’s been hard, hasn’t it?”
Thea’s hair bobbed again. “Yeah.”
“Is that what you were going to tell me that day with Trelawney?” Cleo pried. “Because you noticed she was hungover?”
“... Yeah.”
Cleo’s expression crumpled briefly. “I’m so sorry I left you alone in there with her.”
“It’s okay,” the girl excused, even though it clearly wasn’t. “I just didn’t expect her to… I dunno--”
“It wasn’t okay,” Cleo underlined. “For me to act like that in front of you. For her to act like that in front of you.”
The girl shifted, uncomfortable. “It’d been a while since… I’d seen something like that, I guess. I didn’t really think I’d see it at school.”
Cleo’s next sentence came out in a quiet, heated breath. “I know.”
Thea’s eyes were planted on her shoes. “B-- But… I know they’re going through something, when they do stuff like that,” she reasoned, her voice deathly quiet. “My dad… when I was little, he got into a car accident with his brother. ‘Nd… my uncle didn’t make it. My dad, uhm…” Her nose scrunched up, seeming to fight something. “Something happened with his head, I guess, and then he was in pain all the time… So it just happened.”
Cleo offered her a careful, “Yeah.”
“He wasn’t mean to me,” the girl deemed necessary to clarify. “He just… got scary sometimes. Talk about how he’d ‘do it’ this time. And then he’d cry and scream and Mum would have to calm him down, talk him out of…” She paused. Her nose scrunched again.
“But--!” Thea’s legs suddenly went flat against the ground, the rest of her distinctly uncomfortable. “It wasn’t all horrible? He’d always try to make up for scaring me. Like, uhm-- he’d take me to the observatory, or, uhm-- we’d go stargazing, or ah-- sometimes he’d take me to Blockbuster and we’d rent all the Carl Sagan documentaries we could and watch them through the entire day--”
“That must have been nice for you,” Cleo reassured her quietly, watching as the girl’s limbs twitched back into a contracted, reserved position. “Is that why you got into astronomy? Because of your dad?”
“Yeah,” Thea weakly admitted. “It was the most fun I had with him. Especially the nights he’d take me camping into the mountains. He told me where to find all the constellations. It was… the happiest I ever saw him, I think.”
Cleo’s smile was a faltering one. “I bet. He got to spend it with you.”
Her optimism wasn’t catching, though. Thea’s nose scrunch had expanded to the rest of her face, contorting it hard against something she’d rather not show. “He said I could do it,” she told her. “Be an astronaut. He said I was smart enough for it. He believed that. He wasn’t bad.”
“I know.”
“He wasn’t,” she repeated, though apparently not for Cleo’s sake.
“Of course not.”
“He just hurt a lot,” Thea explained.
“Very much so.”
“He said I could be the next Vera Rubin,” she meandered back. “He really believed that.”
“Who’s that?”
“She’s the woman who discovered dark matter,” Thea explained. “She observed the rotation of spiral galaxies. Realized that despite angular momentum, the stars in the outer parts were moving just as fast as the stars at the center. They shouldn’t have been able to do that without completely separating from one another. There wasn’t enough matter to keep them in place, as they were. So there had to be something there, holding everything together. So that’s… what dark matter is, supposedly.”
Cleo stared at her for a protracted moment before a loud laugh loosened itself her throat.
Thea looked at her oddly. “What?”
“You’re way too smart for your own good. You know that, right?”
Thea wore the compliment awkwardly, her lips going lop-sided. “Maybe.”
“He was right, though,” Cleo remarked. “That’s really going to be you one day.”
“Maybe,” Thea murmured again.
“You must have been so important to him.”
Thea picked a few blades of grass beside her, tossing them aside. “He said that,” she replied. “And I was, I guess. When we were out there, or at the observatory, or watching Cosmos for the billionth time, I felt like I knew him best. That he was really happy with everything. With me. And I always just sorta wished…”
Her expression scrunched up again.
“What?” Cleo ventured.
“That, I don’t know--” Her lips twisted. “That it’d just be…”
Cleo’s voice reached across the way, “Enough?”
Thea looked toward it. “Yeah.”
Cleo’s eyes never left her hunched over body. “You were. But that’s not how it works.”
Thea’s mouth stretched across her face in a grimace. “Because he was in pain.”
“Because he was in pain,” Cleo confirmed.
There was another silence that reigned between them for a time. The stars took witness, watched as Thea’s expression contorted and struggled before becoming stony again.
Then, at some point, Thea divulged, “It got worse when mum cheated.”
Cleo’s voice dropped a few decibels. “Are you mad at her for that?”
The girl’s head shook. “No. She wanted out. But she was scared to, I think. Because she was worried dad would hurt himself.”
“I see.”
“Carol was the best thing to happen to my mum,” Thea told her, voice suffused with conviction. “She’s a good mum to me, too. She made everything happy. And brighter.”
“I’m glad you had her.”
“I just wish...” Thea stopped.
“That it could’ve been different?”
“Yeah.” Thea fidgeted. “I just… I don’t… want anyone, or him, or anything, to think he’s been replaced, or something, I don’t know. It’s dumb.”
“It’s not dumb.”
“They’re both important to me,” she confessed. “I wish that could just be true for everyone. That they’re both important to me. But my mum…” Thea hesitated.
“Your mum?”
“I get why she doesn’t trust him,” Thea said. “I get why she doesn’t forgive him. But how can he get help if I don’t help him?”
That was the rub, wasn’t it?
And Cleo couldn’t fight her on it; she’d felt that way about her own mother, many times over. It never mattered if someone told her that it wasn’t her job. As a loved one, it still felt like her job.
So, Cleo decided on another angle. “Why doesn’t she forgive him?”
“Because of what he did,” Thea admitted, voice going the smallest she’d ever heard it.
“Do you want to talk about what he did?”
Thea glanced to her and then to the ground, her shoulders lifting in a shrug. “He got drunk and said some things to me.... I know he didn't mean to, though. He loves me too much. But..." Her brow furrowed. “My mum got found out and she was going to leave. And she was going to take me with her. My dad had been drinking, y’know, and they were screaming at each other. I remember, like… he came into my room and then it got locked. ‘Nd… I remember… him really upset, and he was yelling at me. But not really at me. It was at my mum, but he kept looking at me. You stupid bitch, you stupid cunt, you’re gonna take her from me, I’m not gonna let you take her from me, you idiotic girl, I won't let you, you fucking worthless--”
The moonlight betrayed the glimmer of tears in the girl’s eyes.
“Mum was kicking the door down. He refused to open it, said he didn't want to leave me, kept holding me and telling me that I couldn't go, that I had to stay with him, that he'd die without me, that he'd hurt himself, that he wanted to hurt himself, that he needed me 'nd-- I don't know, I got scared, I think, and I started crying real hard. And I think seeing me cry like that… it kind of woke him up. He let my mum in. He let her take me.”
Thea was nervously scratching the back of her hand.
There was nothing to say. Cleo scooted closer, an invitation. One the girl declined. The comfort of company must have been enough.
Her eyes didn’t leave the ground. “I never saw him again.”
Cleo’s expression softened. “I’m so sorry.”
“But I know he writes me,” she murmured. “Mum throws the letters away. But I find them sometimes. He misses me. I miss you so much, Dora. I know he means it. I know he needs me. I know he needs help. And I’m the only one who can, right?” She was hyperventilating. “I have to do something, right? How else is he going to get better? It scares me when he's... like that, you know, but.. that shouldn't matter, right? He needs me. But I’m scared. That’s bad, right? That’s wrong of me? I don’t know if I could--”
“You don’t have to.”
Thea looked up at her. “But--”
“You don’t have to.”
"I just... love him," she confessed.
Cleo's expression softened. "I know."
"I just wish he hadn't..." The girl’s expression unraveled, the first of a few fresh tears bisecting the red tinge of her cheeks. “And when Snape-- he yelled and--”
“I know,” Cleo acknowledged. “We can take care of that.”
The girl’s jaw twitched and tightened, clearly attempting to stem the flow of tears that had already begun. “We can?”
Cleo nodded. “I’ll help you. We’ll figure it out.”
The girl swallowed hard. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
Another breath kicked itself out of the girl, living somewhere between relief and exhaustion. Her body relaxed; she sniffed hard.
“Thea?”
The girl quickly wiped her sleeve across her face. “Yeah?”
“I always heard interesting things about Carl Sagan,” she diverted. “I never got around to watching his stuff, though. Could you tell me about it?”
Thea’s expression grew perplexed as her eyes searched Cleo’s face.
Her smile was sad. “Could you?”
Cleo observed a shift in the girl’s gaze. “There’s a lot,” Thea warned. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Cleo glanced up toward the sky. “Anywhere.”
Thea joined her. “Okay.”
And she listened.
Canopied by the stars, she listened to the clumsy retelling of everything Thea had ever learned from Carl Sagan. Of entropy and the eventual heat death of the universe; of infinity and the continuing expansion of spacetime; of how the elements fundamental to their existence were the remnants of long-dead stars; and how the two of them, under that vastness, were part of how the universe attempted to understand itself.