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femgenficathonTitle: I Bequeath To You
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mindabbles
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Characters: Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, Isla Black, Walburga Black, Minerva McGonagall, Madam Rosmerta, Nymphadora Tonks, Lily Potter (jr), Rose Weasley.
Prompt: Prompt #85: What matters it if they do forget the singer, so they don't forget the song. -- Frances Watkins Harper
Summary: When you come to join me, leave it behind. It belongs here and to our daughters yet to come who will be in need of it as you are now.
The characters are JKR's. Thank you so much toelizassecret for the beta and answering my many questions. Thank you as well to gryffindor_j for suggesting what the object should be. Smooches to you both. Thank you to gehayi for running this lovely fest and for being so kind when I told her that I am an idiot who doesn't know what day it is.
Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff
The afternoon sun cast long shadows that stretched across the hospital wing. The soft, pale light made the hospital wing seem serene and muted the contrasts between light and dark. Rowena sat by her dear friend's bedside, feeling the hush and calm, a quiet reverence in her heart as she prepared for the lines between what was spirit and what was corporeal to soften as well.
Healer Sirona bustled about, occasionally sending glances that made it clear to Rowena that, were she anyone else, she would have been told to leave the patient in peace.
But Helga wasn't a patient. Not in the true sense of the word. There was nothing to be done apart from waiting, and even if there were, there was nothing Helga would permit.
"I do not wish you to go," Rowena said so quietly that she was certain no one heard. Her hope in that moment was that Helga was asleep and had not heard evidence of her selfish weakness.
Helga's thin, lined mouth curved into the barest hint of a smile. "We all leave this earth in time, dear friend."
Rowena felt tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. A century of life together within this castle and nothing, nothing could possibly prepare her to be left here without the sister of her heart. Through times when brutality outside their walls had threatened them, when discord inside had nearly meant an end to this daring journey, and all during the rebuilding and thriving times to follow, Helga had been to her as the bedrock beneath the castle.
"Forgive me, I—" Rowena began. She stopped and swallowed against the constricting of her throat. "I ought to be giving comfort and I am lost in memories and emotions that I fear will tire you when all I wish is to ease your passage."
Helga's eyes drifted closed and she huffed a small laugh. "I have walked this earth far to long to be concerned over being tired. And, dearest, if I were last of our number left, I have no doubt that I would feel the same as you do now."
Helga reached and grasped Rowena's hand where it lay on the crisp linen bedclothes. Their eyes met and Rowena breathed in the sterile air of the hospital wing and let her friend's goodness and strength flow into her.
Helga released her hand and encircled Rowena's wrist with her fingers. Helga's mouth never moved, but Rowena could hear her voice, clear and true as when they were young and full of vitality, "I bequeath to you the peace of the rolling hills, the clarity of the spring breeze, the strength of the rolling waves, the renewal of the blazing fires, and my wish that you never doubt that our time apart will be but a blink of an eye."
Helga loosened her grip on Rowena's, but the circle of warmth remained. There, glowing as if from within was a slender band of silver. But it was not the silver wrought by creatures of this earth. It was the silver of the moon, the silver of a drop of dew in the early morning light, the silver of the clouds at dawn.
Rowena opened her mouth to speak, but Helga shook her head. Rowena knew that the next words would be her friend's last.
"When you come to join me, leave it behind. It belongs here, with our daughters yet to come, who will be in need of it as you are now."
The two women looked at each other in silent communion until both let their eyes fall shut.
When Rowena opened her eyes, a stillness enveloped the hospital wing. Softly, she said, "Rest now, you pure and generous soul."
She would call over Healer Sirona in good time.
Isla Black
Isla's heart beat in her throat, threatening to cut off her air supply. She raised a trembling hand and knocked on the office door. Bad enough she had the shame of writing home to tell her parents she had been sorted into Hufflepuff, now she was being asked to her Head of House's office and she had no idea what she'd done.
Professor Cairdeil called out, "Come in," from the other side of the door. Isla slowly pushed it open and was greeted with a kind smile.
"Have a seat," the professor said. "Would you like some tea?"
Isla shook her head. She was not used to such niceties while awaiting punishment, and it made her nervous.
"Please, Professor," she asked quietly. "What have I done?" She nearly swallowed her own tongue when she realized that, in her nervousness, she had been impertinent enough to ask a question of a professor.
The Professor's eyes twinkled and she let out a light, melodious laugh that seemed to brighten the room.
"Well, nothing that I'm aware of, dear girl." She paused and considered Isla over her tea cup. "I imagine you are wondering why I asked you here."
Isla nodded, more confused than ever.
"I wanted a wee chat. It has not escaped my attention, nor that of some of your other teachers, that you seem terribly unhappy here at Hogwarts. Are you very homesick?" Professor Cairdeil asked, her tone gentle and concerned.
Isla blinked. Homesick? She hadn't given that concept much thought. Sick, she was, but sick over disappointing her parents so, sick over the letter that had reminded her that neither her brothers nor her sister had shamed the family in this way. She could never live up to them, but she had only hoped to do well enough not to cause any more disturbance than she had by the mere accident of her birth.
Phineas Nigellus, the heir and pride and joy, was serious and successful and well on his way to being Head Boy. Elladora was talented and polite and never laughed too loud or said the wrong thing. She would probably be suitably betrothed before she was sixteen. And then there was Sirius, the one she could least hope to catch, the one who had left this world just before she had entered it. Sirius: perfect in death.
"No, Professor," she stammered. "It is nothing like that. Only, I, well, I'm the first in my family not to be sorted into Slytherin, well, ever as far as I know, and I, well my family is very displeased with me, because if not Slytherin, well, of all Houses to be sorted to...I mean Ravenclaw perhaps, but Hufflepuff and I know I am not talented like Phineas, but I never thought of myself as weak." Isla slapped a hand over her mouth. She had never spoken so freely to an adult and could not imagine what had come over her. She lowered her head, waiting to hear what her punishment might be now that she had insulted her Head of House.
"Weak?" Professor Cairdeil 's surprised voice rang through the office and then came a sound that Isla could not believe. The woman was laughing. "Weak? Look at me Miss Black. Why, whatever gave you that notion?"
Isla looked up and Professor Cairdeil smiled again and waved one hand in the air as if she were trying to catch a beam of light. Without a wand, without an incantation, a dozen sliver-gray doves burst from her hand and flew elegantly through the open window above.
"And that depends upon what you call strength, does it not?" She looked thoughtfully at Isla, whose mouth was hanging open in surprise. "Miss Black, you may have a harder row to hoe in coming from where you do."
Isla frowned. No one had ever suggested to her that her background was anything but a privilege.
"All of the houses have their weakness and their strengths. Perhaps here you shall have the chance to make a way for yourself that is true to your heart and not just your blood. Perhaps you shall even lead the way for others to come. Nothing weak about that."
When Isla returned to her dormitory, the bedclothes and hangings no longer seemed at odds with her self. Instead of insipid, the yellow seemed bright and powerful as the sun.
*
"Tea's in an hour, Miss. Will you take it in here?"
"Yes, if you would be so kind," Isla replied to the young witch who had helped her to her room.
She let the door click shut with a sigh of relief. The Leaky Cauldron was probably a stupid place to run to, but her imagination had failed her in her panic to get out of her family's home.
Running off in the night was not what she had wanted. There had been no other choice. Refusing to marry Gamiel Goyle had been bad enough, but when Phineas had made his pronouncement, she knew she had to go. The blowhard knew. She could still hear his words echoing in her head, She's running away with a Muggle.
The silence that had fallen over the house had been as ominous as a shroud.
There had been no time for thought. She would never have given his name, even under Cruciatus, but she was happy enough to avoid the torture if she could. So she had decided to flee, the sounds of her mother's shouting and her father’s and brother's footsteps crashing behind her as she dashed into the night and Disapparated the moment she was outside the house.
They would discover her trunk, packed and ready, when they went to her room. Knowing her mother, the trunk would be burned or hidden away, just as had been done with all of Sirius' things when he died. Out of sight, out of mind. For her mother that is, not for her father. Sirius had never been out of his mind any time he laid eyes on her. She laughed bitterly, remembering the last thing her father had said to her before his shouting had become incoherent with rage. It should have been you, not my son, who died."
"I hope they leave it," she said aloud to the empty room. The thought of them riffling through her things, laughing that she had packed the doll she'd played with as a girl, but most of all finding the bracelet, made her feel as ill.
She took an even, steadying breath when a wave of nerves flowed through her. The bracelet had been her touchstone since that magical day during her first year at Hogwarts when she had found it down behind the headboard, lying there as if it had been knocked over when a House Elf had dusted. It had been covered with dust, but that was not enough to conceal its gleam of silver. She knew it was absurd to think of it as more than a cherished trinket, something she would always associate with her beloved Professor Cairdeil. Isla had come to think of it as more that a piece of jewellery. It had become a talisman, as if her courage and fortitude came from the luminous strand of metal itself.
There was no doubt it was special, and she would miss it, but she knew she didn't need it anymore.
She would go on with her life. She would live as she chose and hopefully be an inspiration for those to come, as Professor Cairdeil had said. Whether her mentor had meant Hufflepuffs or Blacks, she was no longer certain. Anyway, she would marry and work as she chose and her children would have names of the earth, like she did.
Walburga Black
"Ready or not here I come!" Alphard called out.
From her hiding place behind a dusty trunk in the far corner of the attic, Walburga was torn between telling him to shut up lest their game be discovered and keeping quiet so as not to give away her hiding place. She didn't want to be punished on her last day at home, but it was a very, very good spot.
Stifled giggles issued forth from a Grandfather clock, the works of which had long since been removed. Cygnus was such an idiot. He always hid there.
Alphard tip-toed across the attic toward the clock with exaggerated, prancing steps that were far noisier than his usual walk.
She shook her head. Like so much she had felt this summer, she was torn between missing her little brothers and being pleased to be shed of them, between terror at leaving everything she knew and excitement that she might find a place and friends of her own.
Her father would be much happier if she had been born second. It was a deep regret of his that the first of his children to join Slytherin would be a girl. Alphard should have been the oldest. The heir should go first, and so he told her regularly, as if she had had something to do with it.
"Found you!" Alphard shrieked with joy. Cygnus tumbled from inside the clock, laughing with the jittery thrill of being stalked and caught.
She slouched down deeper behind the ancient trunk and ran a hand along the worn leather edges. It was old and sturdy, but she could see that it had been handsome once upon a time. The lock was ornately fashioned from brass. It was dulled with time but still quite beautiful.
Walburga cocked her head to listen to her little brothers scampering about the attic. They had run all the way across to the other side, looking for her in all the obvious places. They never could find her and often she just gave up and coughed when she grew tired of hiding.
She traced her fingers over the lock. Serpents curled around the edges, framing the place where a key had once fit. It felt warmer than the air and warmer still as she moved her fingers over it. She flicked experimentally at the lock and gasped when it slowly swung open.
The lid creaked and she held her breath, but the sound wasn't loud enough to bring her brothers running, especially in competition with their ever-more enthusiastic searching.
It was filled with clothes: old fashioned, but not so different from her own. A few books were layered among the clothes. There were also boots with buttons along the sides, a doll with a delicate porcelain head, and a fine bone comb and brush. It looked as if a girl had packed her trunk for holiday and just left it behind. A mirror that matched the hair brush had the initials I.C.B. engraved on the back. A chill ran through Walburga. This was obviously her relative, but she couldn't immediately place who the girl might be.
"Walburga, come out come out where ever you are!" bellowed Alphard, his little voice huffing with frustration.
She jerked her hand back, feeling suddenly protective of the trunk. Just as she began to lower the lid, a glint of gold caught her eye and she reached in again. Her fingers clasped around a slender cuff bracelet, a band of silver and gold that warmed to her touch immediately. Two delicate strands, one of silver and one of gold, entwined together so that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
She didn't remember her hand moving, but she found the bracelet was on her wrist. It looked beautiful there, more beautiful than it had in the trunk, as if it had just been waiting for skin, for a wrist, to complete it.
"Come out come out," Alphard shouted again.
She could hear Cygnus stamping his little boots and whinging. Walburga laughed, feeling a rush of affection toward the little miscreants.
Quietly shutting the trunk, she sprung from her hiding place and called out, "Boo!" The boys squealed with petrified delight and she chased them across the attic.
Her heart was light and tomorrow no longer seemed quite as frightening as she dragged Alphard and Cyngus, still breathless and giggly from the fright she'd given them, down the stairs and to lunch.
Minerva McGonagall
"Swish up and right, point down and say Evanesco, remembering to concentrate on each element of the object, particularly if it is sentient," Minerva muttered, trying to picture each section in turn from her copy of Intermediate Transfiguration.
A crowd had gathered just outside the Great Hall. Every fifth year student stood, in varying states of panic, waiting to be let in to sit the Transfiguration O.W.L.
The group of girls directly in front of the door were talking loudly about plans for the summer holidays. Minerva heard mentions of plans ranging from visits abroad to trips to country homes as she frantically tried to absorb the last few morsels of information she could pull from her book before the examination.
She gave a huff of frustration, unable to concentrate with the chatter, and looked up to see that the girls were all in Slytherin, Walburga Black at the centre. A slight girl with brown hair was hovering at the outskirts of the circle. Anastasia was a Gryffindor, but Minerva barely knew her. She easily faded into the background, yet strangely enough, she and Walburga had been inseparable until earlier this year.
"What are you doing this summer holiday?" Anastasia asked.
Minerva saw a hesitation in Walburga. A look of something like confusion crossed her face. She glanced over her shoulder quickly, catching the eye of one of the girls behind her. The softness that the confusion had leant her face was replaced with a hard mask.
Walburga squared her shoulders and cackled, spitting out, "Nothing you could appreciate or afford."
Anastasia deflated like a forgotten balloon.
Minerva thought that either Walburga or one of the others had muttered "Mudblood." She would never be certain though as, just then, the doors to the Great Hall were flung open and the students ushered inside.
Once at her seat, Minerva closed her eyes for a moment and took several deep, steadying breaths, trying to rid herself of the unpleasant scene she had just witnessed. She made a resolution to put it out of her mind until the exam was finished and to make more of an effort to get to know Anastasia after.
The first question was on wand technique for Switching Spells. She knew that. The second asked for a list of the principal exceptions in Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. She knew that as well. Minerva was half way through the exam paper before she knew it.
Describe the differences in theory when using a Vanishing Spell for a multi-celled animal as compared with an inanimate object.
Minerva felt as if she'd been Obliviated. She had known the answer when she walked in. She could remember looking at that page in her book just a little while ago. Everything she had ever known about Transfiguration left her head. Her mouth felt dry and her blood began to pound in her ears. The bright, sunny ceiling seemed to swoop down, closing in on her.
Without thinking, she leapt from her seat and was vaguely aware of a loud clatter as her ink bottle was upset in her haste and fell to the floor. She fled from the Great Hall and ran until she nearly collided with the statue of Winifred the Wilful. Minerva stopped and leant against the wall, forehead pressed to the cool stone.
Competing emotions of embarrassment and anger welled up inside her. She'd thought she had conquered these fits of hysteria, as her mother had called them. She had worked so hard, and every year that she was at Hogwarts they came less often and were easier to deal with—as long as she could breathe.
She couldn't walk back in there. She ticked off in her mind all the avenues that were closed to her if she didn't manage an O.W.L. in Transfiguration. She began composing the letter to her father in her mind, telling him what had happened, why she had failed, and humiliation rose in her throat like bile.
A sudden spike of anger raged through her and she balled her fist and punched Winifred the Wilful and glared at her as if she expected the cold stone to thump her back. She had just drawn her bleeding knuckles to her mouth when a sharp sound, like the ringing of a bell, and the flash of something bright startled her.
Lying on the other side of the corridor, as if Winifred had thrown it, was a shining band of metal. The cuff of beautiful silver and gold seemed simple enough until she picked it up and saw the intricate twist of four or five strands, each of a different shade of metal, twined together.
Minerva traced her finger along the brightest filament of silver, trying to parse out where it began. The icy remains of panic eased as the metal warmed to her touch. She began to envision writing an altogether different letter to her father as she made her way back to the Great Hall.
Rosmerta
Rosmerta gripped the tumbler so tightly that a hairline crack formed where her thumb pressed against the rim. She daren't go for her wand. Her right hand twitched restlessly against her robes.
"What I love about you, pretty little thing, is that we're always welcome," Crabbe slurred and reached across the bar to draw a rough, clammy hand across her face. "I heard tales of how welcome you can make a bloke feel when we were in school."
She felt her body tense with revulsion and fear.
"All we want to know, Rosmerta," said Nott, not quite as drunk nor as lecherous as his companion, "is who else is always welcome." He paused and looked around the pub as if he expected Dumbledore to spring from under one of the tables. "And when."
She had known it was only a matter of time before You-Know-Who's gang sussed out that the Order was using the back room of the Three Broomsticks as a meeting place and that Rosmerta was passing along information.
Her mother, a Hufflepuff through and through, had taught her that comfort, company, and refreshment must always be given to any who called at the Three Broomsticks. Her mother, rest her soul, had not lived to see the likes of these ruffians and that openness was a little more difficult for the Slytherin Rosmerta to stomach. She knew she couldn't ban anyone she suspected to be a Death Eater from the pub. It seemed no one had that kind of sway anymore. So she told herself she was keeping her doors open in honour of her mother's memory. But closing time had been an hour ago and the three no-good thugs had made everyone else feel unwelcome enough that by midnight, they were the only customers left.
"Leave her," Malfoy's cold voice drawled from the table where he had remained seated all the time that his cronies had been harassing her. "If she hasn't said anything yet, she's not going to without more persuasive arguments than I am prepared to make this evening. Another time."
Nott and Crabbe looked at him with irritation, but they rose from the bar and followed him to the door.
Rosmerta gripped her wand in case they changed their minds and she did not let herself exhale until the door banged shut.
She gasped as a shadow streaked low across the pub. A cat must have come in out of the chill when the bastards had opened the door.
"Hello, puss." Rosmerta knelt and rubbed her fingers together, clucking softly with her tongue. The cat came to her and rubbed against her leg. The contrast between the dead, cold fear of a moment ago and the warm, living creature was dizzying.
The cat circled her once more, purposely rubbing along her leg and nudging her hand. It tilted its head and opened its mouth in a most familiar way and then stepped back.
Just as Rosmerta realised that this was no stray, the cat shimmered and stretched and rushed into human form, leaving Minerva McGonagall standing before her.
"Are you all right?" Minerva's terse voice cut across the room.
"Yes, just shaken," she said. "How did you...what on earth are you doing here at this hour?"
"I was doing a bit of a check of the village. We'd heard some rumblings. I had, ehm, stopped by the Hog's Head," Minerva said, coughing. "Aberforth suggested I pay you a visit."
The last vestiges of adrenalin flowed from her body with a long exhale that left Rosmerta shaking. Minerva's face was kind and concerned and her hand fluttered awkwardly in the air for a moment before landing on Rosmerta's shoulder and giving her a perfunctory pat.
Rosmerta took a step back and banged two tumblers on the bar, filling them generously with Firewhisky.
"I am so glad that you're here," she said, controlling the shaking in her voice as well as she could. She lifted a glass and handed the other to Minerva. "To your health."
"To all of ours," Minerva added grimly. She swallowed down most of the whisky and then continued, her voice somewhat rougher. "Regarding my being here, I have become increasingly concerned about the risk to you here in the village on your own." Rosmerta opened her mouth to object, but Minerva raised her hand and went on firmly. "First, the Order will no longer be meeting here. This location has clearly been compromised. Second, you need some way to summon help, other than hoping Aberforth will notice who's wandering the streets."
"I am perfectly capable—"
"I realise that you are," Minerva stated. "I am not suggesting that you leave or that you shut the pub. I am merely suggesting that you have a way to ask for help should you need it."
Minerva reached into the sleeve of her robe and removed a thick and stunning bracelet that Rosmerta had noticed her wearing on more than one occasion. She held it in one hand and circled her wand over it with the other, murmuring an incantation. Minvera grasped the bracelet and pulled at the end, pinching with her thumb and forefinger. She meticulously extracted a silver strand that was not any sort of silver Rosmerta had ever seen before. It looked as if it were alive, almost like threads of memories on their way to a Pensieve.
Minerva grasped Rosmerta's wrist and encircled it with her thumb and forefinger and Rosmerta felt tingling warmth. When Minerva removed her hand, the silver had once again become solid and was wrapped around Rosmerta's wrist.
Minerva tapped the other, larger section in her hand. "They are connected. They always will be, but I've added a charm so that yours will signal mine when you are feeling afraid or threatened. So, next time I can make an appearance a bit earlier."
"Not to worry, next time they come in, I am going to send them straight to hell."
"Rosmerta, part of me would like nothing more, but I am afraid they would take you with them and that would be a terrible shame. Now, try and get some rest, dear one."
Rosmerta stood stock still in the middle of her mother's pub and watched the tabby cat slink elegantly into the street. The last words Minerva had spoken settled on her like a warm blanket. No one had called her such a thing since her mother's death.
Nymphadora Tonks
"Bastard," Tonks muttered under her breath, her boots making a satisfying thud as she stomped along the corridor and away from the dungeons. "Bloody insufferable, egomaniacal, buggering wanker."
"Contradiction in terms, ducky," cackled a portrait of a woman dressed in a scarlet dress. She was leaning against the bar in what might have been a brothel. Her neighbour, a portrait of a genteel woman in a gown at a picnic let out a scandalized gasp at Tonks' stream of profanities.
Tonks stopped in her tracks and laughed in spite of herself, realizing how ridiculous she must have looked.
"That's the spirit," the woman in scarlet said bracingly. "Don't let the bastards get you down, hen."
Tonks eyed her and said, "Thanks."
The other woman had abandoned her picnic blanket. Perhaps present company had spoilt her appetite.
Snape's words echoed in her head. She'd lost track of all the disparaging references to her intelligence and unflattering comparisons he'd made this lesson. Normally, she couldn't give a fig what he said. She knew that, while she could pull what was needed together in a pinch, Potions was not her best subject. The A she'd pulled on her O.W.L. was a decent enough showing for her a year ago.
But this year was different. Snape had made it clear that no shoddy work nor insubordination would stand, and in her very first lesson of the year he had threatened to chuck her out of his N.E.W.T course.
As much as she hated to admit it, she needed the git. She was going to be an Auror and she couldn't be one without his course.
She couldn't face going back to the dormitory. Two of her dorm mates had witnessed her making rather a spectacle of herself during the first lesson and would no doubt be displeased with her loss of points. She was displeased with having been given detention on Hogsmeade weekend.
She considered going to talk with Professor Sprout, but somehow couldn't face the kind encouragement and pep talk she was sure to receive there. Snape didn't require kindness. Snape required ferocity.
Tonks was not some dim-witted fool that he could push about. Her mother had taught her about potions before she had even set foot in his classroom. And he was wrong about the Memory Potion. It was one she had helped to brew at home since she was eight, given that her Mum routinely slipped it into Grandfather Tonks’ tea when no one was looking. It was her anonymous gift to her mother-in-law, she always said, adding that she expected Tonks to do the same for her, kindly and without making a fuss, if she or Ted ever needed it.
The feathers of a Jabbernoll were one way to make it, but Mum had always taught her when an ingredient could be substituted, like margarine for butter, when one was in short supply. As it turned out, the feathers of an ordinary owl when treated with hawthorn would serve just as well.
She knew better than to contradict Snape in his class. She also knew that her mother's approach to potions-making was not a common one and would help her in life, but not when she sat exams.
The idea struck her like a thump on the back of the head.
She ran to the library as quickly as she could and skidded to a halt in front of Madam Pince's desk. She didn't quite stop in time and knocked over a pile of books waiting to be shelved.
"Miss Tonks," Madam Pince said curtly. "This is a library."
Tonks shook her head, nonplussed. "Right. Yes, and I need a book. Do you have a section on household spells and potions and such?"
The librarian looked as if the question were a personal insult.
"Of course. Over there," she said, gesturing to the east wing of the library. "Back corner, next to the Care of Magical Creatures section. You do know where that is?"
Tonks walked carefully to the back of the library, lest she raise Madam Pince's ire further. She found the volume she sought almost immediately. It was so familiar that she could almost hear her mother's voice as she pulled The Home Potions Maker: Yes, You Have It In The Cupboard off the shelf, disturbing a great cloud of dust as she did so. Tonks sneezed loudly once and caught the second behind the sleeve of her robe as Madam Pince's "shhh!" volleyed around the library.
She dropped to the floor, folding her legs underneath her as she scanned the table of contents. Appendix A was a chart that listed properties of common ingredients in potions and suggestions for combining everyday household ingredients for those who had neither the money nor time to access the likes of Professor Snape's stores.
She flipped through the book, and another and another, the combined wisdom of witches over centuries filling her and reminding her that there had been healers and sorcerers and potions makers long before there had been Professor Snape.
The softening light of twilight told her that she had been here much longer than she'd realised. She grabbed The Home Potions Maker and stood to replace it on the shelf.
A glint of light seemed to come from the back of the shelf, where the book had been. She reached in and her breath caught at what she pulled out. Normally, she would have turned something like this in, certain that a student here was missing a family heirloom. However, as she touched the beautiful bracelet, felt the dozens of coils of silver and gold under her fingers, she felt dead certain that she had been meant to find it.
*
The corridor down into the dungeons had never looked so long.
She had not been able to find the precise formula her mother had used in the library. She should have known that if it was in the library, Professor Snape would not have reacted with such venom.
An owl to her mother yielded what she needed, and if she couldn't show it to him in writing, he'd get a practical demonstration.
Professor Snape's door was open and he was bent over a piece of parchment, an intense look of concentration on his face. Sitting there alone, focused on his work, she could see how young he was. He didn't look threatening or intimidating at all. He just looked young and intense and in need of a barber.
Then he looked up.
His dark eyes narrowed and a look of sheer boredom settled on his features. "I do not believe it is time for your detention, Miss Tonks, and that means you are here to interrupt me." He paused and raised his eyebrows at her and she forgot what she had come to say. "So, interrupt me and get on with it."
"Sir, I—" she stammered and he was as quick with his sharp tongue as she had heard he was with his wand.
"You have a cauldron in your arms, Miss Tonks," he drawled. "Perhaps that has something to do with your presence in my doorway."
She shifted and the bracelet clanged against the side of the cauldron, making a clear, ringing sound that jolted her back to her self.
"I have a memory potion in this cauldron. The key ingredient is owl feathers treated with hawthorn. Test it and if I am wrong, I'll do extra potions homework for the rest of the term."
"Believe me, Miss Tonks, the last thing in the world I want is to have to read any more of your pitiful essays than I already must. I'll test it because I find your assertions amusing and when I am finished, you will have another detention for impertinence and one for wasting my time."
"If I'm right, Sir?" she asked, her heart pounding.
"If you are right, you may just, by some miracle, pass your N.E.W.T. Now go."
Lily Potter and Rose Weasley
"Hey, don't look so glum," Lily said. "It's not forever."
She sat on the bed next to Rose. Her normally cheerful and mischievous cousin had been nurturing a sulk all evening and as she watched Lily pack, she looked more and more as if she were about to burst into tears.
"Feels like it," Rose muttered. "And anyway, I'll only see you at holidays now."
It wasn't always easy for Rose at Hogwarts. The playful girl who Lily loved was often a little awkward when she was on her own, and Lily had had to stop more than one bully from taking the mickey or pushing Rose about.
"Yeah," Lily said, placing her hand over Rose's where it lay on Rose's knee. "I'll miss you, too. I'll miss sitting up too late in the common room. I'll miss pulling pranks on Hugo and Al."
"You'll miss staring at Alice Longbottom," Rose said quietly.
"Shut up, you," Lily said, relieved to see a tiny smile tugging at Rose's lips for the first time all evening. "And I'll miss watching you stare at Scorpius."
Lily was painfully aware of how uneven the feelings were here. She would miss Rose. She was more than a cousin to her. She was her friend, her little sister, the person who made her feel most competent and needed. She would miss her terribly, and she would miss school, but she was going off to study. Her Uncle Charlie and an exciting apprenticeship awaited her.
Rose was simply being left behind.
"Will you write?" Rose asked in a small voice that sounded much younger than her sixteen years.
"Of course, idiot," Lily said. "I'll write all the time and you'd better write back. Hang on—"
Lily stood and walked to her trunk. "I have something for you."
Rose's eyes lit up and she said, "Oh, good. I've something for you as well."
Lily pulled the delicate bracelet out of her trunk. She had never before considered parting with it. It had been her most treasured possession since early last year. Her mother had given to her when she had been floundering, lost about seemingly everything in her life.
Mum had said she'd found it when she was in her sixth year and it always made her feel as if someone who loved her was right at her shoulder. Lily had taken it, gratefully, for it was a beautiful and precious gift. But she had been sceptical because she was never sure what was accurate and what was tall tales when her parents talked about those days.
Her back to Rose, she touched each strand of silver and gold. They seemed to glow from within as they warmed to her touch. Dozens of slender bands wrapped around each other so that it was impossible to tell when one ended and another began. Giving this up would put them on an even plane and Rose needed it more than she did now.
"Rose," Lily said, feeling suddenly solemn. "This is something my mum gave me. When you wear it—" Lily stopped at the incredulous look on Rose's face.
Rose's hand was suspended in mid-air where it had just emerged from her bag, holding in her fingers the twin of Lily's bracelet.
"My mum gave this to me last year," Rose said slowly, as if she were speaking a language she wasn't sure Lily understood. "She said she'd had it since her third year."
Lily looked into Rose's eyes and moved her hand to wrap around Rose's wrist, placing the bracelet that was now warmed to her body temperature on her friend's arm. Rose reached out to place the twin—that wasn't quite a twin, it had significantly fewer strands—on Lily's arm.
"No, wait," Lily said.
She took the bracelet from Rose and put it on Rose's wrist, next to her one. She was certain that she heard, or felt, a sigh. Both girls watched in awe as the multiple strands on each flowed toward each other and it was impossible to tell that they had ever been apart.
"What made you do that?" Rose stammered, holding her wrist away from her body, eyes wide.
"Dunno," Lily whispered. "It seemed like the thing to do."
Lily ran her fingers along the warm metal. It looked large on Rose's slim wrist, extending several inches along her arm. She spoke and was not sure where the words had come from.
"When you leave Hogwarts, you must leave it there, for those to come, when they need it."
Rose nodded and Lily had the impression that she had had the exact same thought.
Author:
mindabblesFandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Characters: Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, Isla Black, Walburga Black, Minerva McGonagall, Madam Rosmerta, Nymphadora Tonks, Lily Potter (jr), Rose Weasley.
Prompt: Prompt #85: What matters it if they do forget the singer, so they don't forget the song. -- Frances Watkins Harper
Summary: When you come to join me, leave it behind. It belongs here and to our daughters yet to come who will be in need of it as you are now.
The characters are JKR's. Thank you so much to
elizassecret for the beta and answering my many questions. Thank you as well to gryffindor_j for suggesting what the object should be. Smooches to you both. Thank you to gehayi for running this lovely fest and for being so kind when I told her that I am an idiot who doesn't know what day it is.Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff
The afternoon sun cast long shadows that stretched across the hospital wing. The soft, pale light made the hospital wing seem serene and muted the contrasts between light and dark. Rowena sat by her dear friend's bedside, feeling the hush and calm, a quiet reverence in her heart as she prepared for the lines between what was spirit and what was corporeal to soften as well.
Healer Sirona bustled about, occasionally sending glances that made it clear to Rowena that, were she anyone else, she would have been told to leave the patient in peace.
But Helga wasn't a patient. Not in the true sense of the word. There was nothing to be done apart from waiting, and even if there were, there was nothing Helga would permit.
"I do not wish you to go," Rowena said so quietly that she was certain no one heard. Her hope in that moment was that Helga was asleep and had not heard evidence of her selfish weakness.
Helga's thin, lined mouth curved into the barest hint of a smile. "We all leave this earth in time, dear friend."
Rowena felt tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. A century of life together within this castle and nothing, nothing could possibly prepare her to be left here without the sister of her heart. Through times when brutality outside their walls had threatened them, when discord inside had nearly meant an end to this daring journey, and all during the rebuilding and thriving times to follow, Helga had been to her as the bedrock beneath the castle.
"Forgive me, I—" Rowena began. She stopped and swallowed against the constricting of her throat. "I ought to be giving comfort and I am lost in memories and emotions that I fear will tire you when all I wish is to ease your passage."
Helga's eyes drifted closed and she huffed a small laugh. "I have walked this earth far to long to be concerned over being tired. And, dearest, if I were last of our number left, I have no doubt that I would feel the same as you do now."
Helga reached and grasped Rowena's hand where it lay on the crisp linen bedclothes. Their eyes met and Rowena breathed in the sterile air of the hospital wing and let her friend's goodness and strength flow into her.
Helga released her hand and encircled Rowena's wrist with her fingers. Helga's mouth never moved, but Rowena could hear her voice, clear and true as when they were young and full of vitality, "I bequeath to you the peace of the rolling hills, the clarity of the spring breeze, the strength of the rolling waves, the renewal of the blazing fires, and my wish that you never doubt that our time apart will be but a blink of an eye."
Helga loosened her grip on Rowena's, but the circle of warmth remained. There, glowing as if from within was a slender band of silver. But it was not the silver wrought by creatures of this earth. It was the silver of the moon, the silver of a drop of dew in the early morning light, the silver of the clouds at dawn.
Rowena opened her mouth to speak, but Helga shook her head. Rowena knew that the next words would be her friend's last.
"When you come to join me, leave it behind. It belongs here, with our daughters yet to come, who will be in need of it as you are now."
The two women looked at each other in silent communion until both let their eyes fall shut.
When Rowena opened her eyes, a stillness enveloped the hospital wing. Softly, she said, "Rest now, you pure and generous soul."
She would call over Healer Sirona in good time.
Isla Black
Isla's heart beat in her throat, threatening to cut off her air supply. She raised a trembling hand and knocked on the office door. Bad enough she had the shame of writing home to tell her parents she had been sorted into Hufflepuff, now she was being asked to her Head of House's office and she had no idea what she'd done.
Professor Cairdeil called out, "Come in," from the other side of the door. Isla slowly pushed it open and was greeted with a kind smile.
"Have a seat," the professor said. "Would you like some tea?"
Isla shook her head. She was not used to such niceties while awaiting punishment, and it made her nervous.
"Please, Professor," she asked quietly. "What have I done?" She nearly swallowed her own tongue when she realized that, in her nervousness, she had been impertinent enough to ask a question of a professor.
The Professor's eyes twinkled and she let out a light, melodious laugh that seemed to brighten the room.
"Well, nothing that I'm aware of, dear girl." She paused and considered Isla over her tea cup. "I imagine you are wondering why I asked you here."
Isla nodded, more confused than ever.
"I wanted a wee chat. It has not escaped my attention, nor that of some of your other teachers, that you seem terribly unhappy here at Hogwarts. Are you very homesick?" Professor Cairdeil asked, her tone gentle and concerned.
Isla blinked. Homesick? She hadn't given that concept much thought. Sick, she was, but sick over disappointing her parents so, sick over the letter that had reminded her that neither her brothers nor her sister had shamed the family in this way. She could never live up to them, but she had only hoped to do well enough not to cause any more disturbance than she had by the mere accident of her birth.
Phineas Nigellus, the heir and pride and joy, was serious and successful and well on his way to being Head Boy. Elladora was talented and polite and never laughed too loud or said the wrong thing. She would probably be suitably betrothed before she was sixteen. And then there was Sirius, the one she could least hope to catch, the one who had left this world just before she had entered it. Sirius: perfect in death.
"No, Professor," she stammered. "It is nothing like that. Only, I, well, I'm the first in my family not to be sorted into Slytherin, well, ever as far as I know, and I, well my family is very displeased with me, because if not Slytherin, well, of all Houses to be sorted to...I mean Ravenclaw perhaps, but Hufflepuff and I know I am not talented like Phineas, but I never thought of myself as weak." Isla slapped a hand over her mouth. She had never spoken so freely to an adult and could not imagine what had come over her. She lowered her head, waiting to hear what her punishment might be now that she had insulted her Head of House.
"Weak?" Professor Cairdeil 's surprised voice rang through the office and then came a sound that Isla could not believe. The woman was laughing. "Weak? Look at me Miss Black. Why, whatever gave you that notion?"
Isla looked up and Professor Cairdeil smiled again and waved one hand in the air as if she were trying to catch a beam of light. Without a wand, without an incantation, a dozen sliver-gray doves burst from her hand and flew elegantly through the open window above.
"And that depends upon what you call strength, does it not?" She looked thoughtfully at Isla, whose mouth was hanging open in surprise. "Miss Black, you may have a harder row to hoe in coming from where you do."
Isla frowned. No one had ever suggested to her that her background was anything but a privilege.
"All of the houses have their weakness and their strengths. Perhaps here you shall have the chance to make a way for yourself that is true to your heart and not just your blood. Perhaps you shall even lead the way for others to come. Nothing weak about that."
When Isla returned to her dormitory, the bedclothes and hangings no longer seemed at odds with her self. Instead of insipid, the yellow seemed bright and powerful as the sun.
*
"Tea's in an hour, Miss. Will you take it in here?"
"Yes, if you would be so kind," Isla replied to the young witch who had helped her to her room.
She let the door click shut with a sigh of relief. The Leaky Cauldron was probably a stupid place to run to, but her imagination had failed her in her panic to get out of her family's home.
Running off in the night was not what she had wanted. There had been no other choice. Refusing to marry Gamiel Goyle had been bad enough, but when Phineas had made his pronouncement, she knew she had to go. The blowhard knew. She could still hear his words echoing in her head, She's running away with a Muggle.
The silence that had fallen over the house had been as ominous as a shroud.
There had been no time for thought. She would never have given his name, even under Cruciatus, but she was happy enough to avoid the torture if she could. So she had decided to flee, the sounds of her mother's shouting and her father’s and brother's footsteps crashing behind her as she dashed into the night and Disapparated the moment she was outside the house.
They would discover her trunk, packed and ready, when they went to her room. Knowing her mother, the trunk would be burned or hidden away, just as had been done with all of Sirius' things when he died. Out of sight, out of mind. For her mother that is, not for her father. Sirius had never been out of his mind any time he laid eyes on her. She laughed bitterly, remembering the last thing her father had said to her before his shouting had become incoherent with rage. It should have been you, not my son, who died."
"I hope they leave it," she said aloud to the empty room. The thought of them riffling through her things, laughing that she had packed the doll she'd played with as a girl, but most of all finding the bracelet, made her feel as ill.
She took an even, steadying breath when a wave of nerves flowed through her. The bracelet had been her touchstone since that magical day during her first year at Hogwarts when she had found it down behind the headboard, lying there as if it had been knocked over when a House Elf had dusted. It had been covered with dust, but that was not enough to conceal its gleam of silver. She knew it was absurd to think of it as more than a cherished trinket, something she would always associate with her beloved Professor Cairdeil. Isla had come to think of it as more that a piece of jewellery. It had become a talisman, as if her courage and fortitude came from the luminous strand of metal itself.
There was no doubt it was special, and she would miss it, but she knew she didn't need it anymore.
She would go on with her life. She would live as she chose and hopefully be an inspiration for those to come, as Professor Cairdeil had said. Whether her mentor had meant Hufflepuffs or Blacks, she was no longer certain. Anyway, she would marry and work as she chose and her children would have names of the earth, like she did.
Walburga Black
"Ready or not here I come!" Alphard called out.
From her hiding place behind a dusty trunk in the far corner of the attic, Walburga was torn between telling him to shut up lest their game be discovered and keeping quiet so as not to give away her hiding place. She didn't want to be punished on her last day at home, but it was a very, very good spot.
Stifled giggles issued forth from a Grandfather clock, the works of which had long since been removed. Cygnus was such an idiot. He always hid there.
Alphard tip-toed across the attic toward the clock with exaggerated, prancing steps that were far noisier than his usual walk.
She shook her head. Like so much she had felt this summer, she was torn between missing her little brothers and being pleased to be shed of them, between terror at leaving everything she knew and excitement that she might find a place and friends of her own.
Her father would be much happier if she had been born second. It was a deep regret of his that the first of his children to join Slytherin would be a girl. Alphard should have been the oldest. The heir should go first, and so he told her regularly, as if she had had something to do with it.
"Found you!" Alphard shrieked with joy. Cygnus tumbled from inside the clock, laughing with the jittery thrill of being stalked and caught.
She slouched down deeper behind the ancient trunk and ran a hand along the worn leather edges. It was old and sturdy, but she could see that it had been handsome once upon a time. The lock was ornately fashioned from brass. It was dulled with time but still quite beautiful.
Walburga cocked her head to listen to her little brothers scampering about the attic. They had run all the way across to the other side, looking for her in all the obvious places. They never could find her and often she just gave up and coughed when she grew tired of hiding.
She traced her fingers over the lock. Serpents curled around the edges, framing the place where a key had once fit. It felt warmer than the air and warmer still as she moved her fingers over it. She flicked experimentally at the lock and gasped when it slowly swung open.
The lid creaked and she held her breath, but the sound wasn't loud enough to bring her brothers running, especially in competition with their ever-more enthusiastic searching.
It was filled with clothes: old fashioned, but not so different from her own. A few books were layered among the clothes. There were also boots with buttons along the sides, a doll with a delicate porcelain head, and a fine bone comb and brush. It looked as if a girl had packed her trunk for holiday and just left it behind. A mirror that matched the hair brush had the initials I.C.B. engraved on the back. A chill ran through Walburga. This was obviously her relative, but she couldn't immediately place who the girl might be.
"Walburga, come out come out where ever you are!" bellowed Alphard, his little voice huffing with frustration.
She jerked her hand back, feeling suddenly protective of the trunk. Just as she began to lower the lid, a glint of gold caught her eye and she reached in again. Her fingers clasped around a slender cuff bracelet, a band of silver and gold that warmed to her touch immediately. Two delicate strands, one of silver and one of gold, entwined together so that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
She didn't remember her hand moving, but she found the bracelet was on her wrist. It looked beautiful there, more beautiful than it had in the trunk, as if it had just been waiting for skin, for a wrist, to complete it.
"Come out come out," Alphard shouted again.
She could hear Cygnus stamping his little boots and whinging. Walburga laughed, feeling a rush of affection toward the little miscreants.
Quietly shutting the trunk, she sprung from her hiding place and called out, "Boo!" The boys squealed with petrified delight and she chased them across the attic.
Her heart was light and tomorrow no longer seemed quite as frightening as she dragged Alphard and Cyngus, still breathless and giggly from the fright she'd given them, down the stairs and to lunch.
Minerva McGonagall
"Swish up and right, point down and say Evanesco, remembering to concentrate on each element of the object, particularly if it is sentient," Minerva muttered, trying to picture each section in turn from her copy of Intermediate Transfiguration.
A crowd had gathered just outside the Great Hall. Every fifth year student stood, in varying states of panic, waiting to be let in to sit the Transfiguration O.W.L.
The group of girls directly in front of the door were talking loudly about plans for the summer holidays. Minerva heard mentions of plans ranging from visits abroad to trips to country homes as she frantically tried to absorb the last few morsels of information she could pull from her book before the examination.
She gave a huff of frustration, unable to concentrate with the chatter, and looked up to see that the girls were all in Slytherin, Walburga Black at the centre. A slight girl with brown hair was hovering at the outskirts of the circle. Anastasia was a Gryffindor, but Minerva barely knew her. She easily faded into the background, yet strangely enough, she and Walburga had been inseparable until earlier this year.
"What are you doing this summer holiday?" Anastasia asked.
Minerva saw a hesitation in Walburga. A look of something like confusion crossed her face. She glanced over her shoulder quickly, catching the eye of one of the girls behind her. The softness that the confusion had leant her face was replaced with a hard mask.
Walburga squared her shoulders and cackled, spitting out, "Nothing you could appreciate or afford."
Anastasia deflated like a forgotten balloon.
Minerva thought that either Walburga or one of the others had muttered "Mudblood." She would never be certain though as, just then, the doors to the Great Hall were flung open and the students ushered inside.
Once at her seat, Minerva closed her eyes for a moment and took several deep, steadying breaths, trying to rid herself of the unpleasant scene she had just witnessed. She made a resolution to put it out of her mind until the exam was finished and to make more of an effort to get to know Anastasia after.
The first question was on wand technique for Switching Spells. She knew that. The second asked for a list of the principal exceptions in Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. She knew that as well. Minerva was half way through the exam paper before she knew it.
Describe the differences in theory when using a Vanishing Spell for a multi-celled animal as compared with an inanimate object.
Minerva felt as if she'd been Obliviated. She had known the answer when she walked in. She could remember looking at that page in her book just a little while ago. Everything she had ever known about Transfiguration left her head. Her mouth felt dry and her blood began to pound in her ears. The bright, sunny ceiling seemed to swoop down, closing in on her.
Without thinking, she leapt from her seat and was vaguely aware of a loud clatter as her ink bottle was upset in her haste and fell to the floor. She fled from the Great Hall and ran until she nearly collided with the statue of Winifred the Wilful. Minerva stopped and leant against the wall, forehead pressed to the cool stone.
Competing emotions of embarrassment and anger welled up inside her. She'd thought she had conquered these fits of hysteria, as her mother had called them. She had worked so hard, and every year that she was at Hogwarts they came less often and were easier to deal with—as long as she could breathe.
She couldn't walk back in there. She ticked off in her mind all the avenues that were closed to her if she didn't manage an O.W.L. in Transfiguration. She began composing the letter to her father in her mind, telling him what had happened, why she had failed, and humiliation rose in her throat like bile.
A sudden spike of anger raged through her and she balled her fist and punched Winifred the Wilful and glared at her as if she expected the cold stone to thump her back. She had just drawn her bleeding knuckles to her mouth when a sharp sound, like the ringing of a bell, and the flash of something bright startled her.
Lying on the other side of the corridor, as if Winifred had thrown it, was a shining band of metal. The cuff of beautiful silver and gold seemed simple enough until she picked it up and saw the intricate twist of four or five strands, each of a different shade of metal, twined together.
Minerva traced her finger along the brightest filament of silver, trying to parse out where it began. The icy remains of panic eased as the metal warmed to her touch. She began to envision writing an altogether different letter to her father as she made her way back to the Great Hall.
Rosmerta
Rosmerta gripped the tumbler so tightly that a hairline crack formed where her thumb pressed against the rim. She daren't go for her wand. Her right hand twitched restlessly against her robes.
"What I love about you, pretty little thing, is that we're always welcome," Crabbe slurred and reached across the bar to draw a rough, clammy hand across her face. "I heard tales of how welcome you can make a bloke feel when we were in school."
She felt her body tense with revulsion and fear.
"All we want to know, Rosmerta," said Nott, not quite as drunk nor as lecherous as his companion, "is who else is always welcome." He paused and looked around the pub as if he expected Dumbledore to spring from under one of the tables. "And when."
She had known it was only a matter of time before You-Know-Who's gang sussed out that the Order was using the back room of the Three Broomsticks as a meeting place and that Rosmerta was passing along information.
Her mother, a Hufflepuff through and through, had taught her that comfort, company, and refreshment must always be given to any who called at the Three Broomsticks. Her mother, rest her soul, had not lived to see the likes of these ruffians and that openness was a little more difficult for the Slytherin Rosmerta to stomach. She knew she couldn't ban anyone she suspected to be a Death Eater from the pub. It seemed no one had that kind of sway anymore. So she told herself she was keeping her doors open in honour of her mother's memory. But closing time had been an hour ago and the three no-good thugs had made everyone else feel unwelcome enough that by midnight, they were the only customers left.
"Leave her," Malfoy's cold voice drawled from the table where he had remained seated all the time that his cronies had been harassing her. "If she hasn't said anything yet, she's not going to without more persuasive arguments than I am prepared to make this evening. Another time."
Nott and Crabbe looked at him with irritation, but they rose from the bar and followed him to the door.
Rosmerta gripped her wand in case they changed their minds and she did not let herself exhale until the door banged shut.
She gasped as a shadow streaked low across the pub. A cat must have come in out of the chill when the bastards had opened the door.
"Hello, puss." Rosmerta knelt and rubbed her fingers together, clucking softly with her tongue. The cat came to her and rubbed against her leg. The contrast between the dead, cold fear of a moment ago and the warm, living creature was dizzying.
The cat circled her once more, purposely rubbing along her leg and nudging her hand. It tilted its head and opened its mouth in a most familiar way and then stepped back.
Just as Rosmerta realised that this was no stray, the cat shimmered and stretched and rushed into human form, leaving Minerva McGonagall standing before her.
"Are you all right?" Minerva's terse voice cut across the room.
"Yes, just shaken," she said. "How did you...what on earth are you doing here at this hour?"
"I was doing a bit of a check of the village. We'd heard some rumblings. I had, ehm, stopped by the Hog's Head," Minerva said, coughing. "Aberforth suggested I pay you a visit."
The last vestiges of adrenalin flowed from her body with a long exhale that left Rosmerta shaking. Minerva's face was kind and concerned and her hand fluttered awkwardly in the air for a moment before landing on Rosmerta's shoulder and giving her a perfunctory pat.
Rosmerta took a step back and banged two tumblers on the bar, filling them generously with Firewhisky.
"I am so glad that you're here," she said, controlling the shaking in her voice as well as she could. She lifted a glass and handed the other to Minerva. "To your health."
"To all of ours," Minerva added grimly. She swallowed down most of the whisky and then continued, her voice somewhat rougher. "Regarding my being here, I have become increasingly concerned about the risk to you here in the village on your own." Rosmerta opened her mouth to object, but Minerva raised her hand and went on firmly. "First, the Order will no longer be meeting here. This location has clearly been compromised. Second, you need some way to summon help, other than hoping Aberforth will notice who's wandering the streets."
"I am perfectly capable—"
"I realise that you are," Minerva stated. "I am not suggesting that you leave or that you shut the pub. I am merely suggesting that you have a way to ask for help should you need it."
Minerva reached into the sleeve of her robe and removed a thick and stunning bracelet that Rosmerta had noticed her wearing on more than one occasion. She held it in one hand and circled her wand over it with the other, murmuring an incantation. Minvera grasped the bracelet and pulled at the end, pinching with her thumb and forefinger. She meticulously extracted a silver strand that was not any sort of silver Rosmerta had ever seen before. It looked as if it were alive, almost like threads of memories on their way to a Pensieve.
Minerva grasped Rosmerta's wrist and encircled it with her thumb and forefinger and Rosmerta felt tingling warmth. When Minerva removed her hand, the silver had once again become solid and was wrapped around Rosmerta's wrist.
Minerva tapped the other, larger section in her hand. "They are connected. They always will be, but I've added a charm so that yours will signal mine when you are feeling afraid or threatened. So, next time I can make an appearance a bit earlier."
"Not to worry, next time they come in, I am going to send them straight to hell."
"Rosmerta, part of me would like nothing more, but I am afraid they would take you with them and that would be a terrible shame. Now, try and get some rest, dear one."
Rosmerta stood stock still in the middle of her mother's pub and watched the tabby cat slink elegantly into the street. The last words Minerva had spoken settled on her like a warm blanket. No one had called her such a thing since her mother's death.
Nymphadora Tonks
"Bastard," Tonks muttered under her breath, her boots making a satisfying thud as she stomped along the corridor and away from the dungeons. "Bloody insufferable, egomaniacal, buggering wanker."
"Contradiction in terms, ducky," cackled a portrait of a woman dressed in a scarlet dress. She was leaning against the bar in what might have been a brothel. Her neighbour, a portrait of a genteel woman in a gown at a picnic let out a scandalized gasp at Tonks' stream of profanities.
Tonks stopped in her tracks and laughed in spite of herself, realizing how ridiculous she must have looked.
"That's the spirit," the woman in scarlet said bracingly. "Don't let the bastards get you down, hen."
Tonks eyed her and said, "Thanks."
The other woman had abandoned her picnic blanket. Perhaps present company had spoilt her appetite.
Snape's words echoed in her head. She'd lost track of all the disparaging references to her intelligence and unflattering comparisons he'd made this lesson. Normally, she couldn't give a fig what he said. She knew that, while she could pull what was needed together in a pinch, Potions was not her best subject. The A she'd pulled on her O.W.L. was a decent enough showing for her a year ago.
But this year was different. Snape had made it clear that no shoddy work nor insubordination would stand, and in her very first lesson of the year he had threatened to chuck her out of his N.E.W.T course.
As much as she hated to admit it, she needed the git. She was going to be an Auror and she couldn't be one without his course.
She couldn't face going back to the dormitory. Two of her dorm mates had witnessed her making rather a spectacle of herself during the first lesson and would no doubt be displeased with her loss of points. She was displeased with having been given detention on Hogsmeade weekend.
She considered going to talk with Professor Sprout, but somehow couldn't face the kind encouragement and pep talk she was sure to receive there. Snape didn't require kindness. Snape required ferocity.
Tonks was not some dim-witted fool that he could push about. Her mother had taught her about potions before she had even set foot in his classroom. And he was wrong about the Memory Potion. It was one she had helped to brew at home since she was eight, given that her Mum routinely slipped it into Grandfather Tonks’ tea when no one was looking. It was her anonymous gift to her mother-in-law, she always said, adding that she expected Tonks to do the same for her, kindly and without making a fuss, if she or Ted ever needed it.
The feathers of a Jabbernoll were one way to make it, but Mum had always taught her when an ingredient could be substituted, like margarine for butter, when one was in short supply. As it turned out, the feathers of an ordinary owl when treated with hawthorn would serve just as well.
She knew better than to contradict Snape in his class. She also knew that her mother's approach to potions-making was not a common one and would help her in life, but not when she sat exams.
The idea struck her like a thump on the back of the head.
She ran to the library as quickly as she could and skidded to a halt in front of Madam Pince's desk. She didn't quite stop in time and knocked over a pile of books waiting to be shelved.
"Miss Tonks," Madam Pince said curtly. "This is a library."
Tonks shook her head, nonplussed. "Right. Yes, and I need a book. Do you have a section on household spells and potions and such?"
The librarian looked as if the question were a personal insult.
"Of course. Over there," she said, gesturing to the east wing of the library. "Back corner, next to the Care of Magical Creatures section. You do know where that is?"
Tonks walked carefully to the back of the library, lest she raise Madam Pince's ire further. She found the volume she sought almost immediately. It was so familiar that she could almost hear her mother's voice as she pulled The Home Potions Maker: Yes, You Have It In The Cupboard off the shelf, disturbing a great cloud of dust as she did so. Tonks sneezed loudly once and caught the second behind the sleeve of her robe as Madam Pince's "shhh!" volleyed around the library.
She dropped to the floor, folding her legs underneath her as she scanned the table of contents. Appendix A was a chart that listed properties of common ingredients in potions and suggestions for combining everyday household ingredients for those who had neither the money nor time to access the likes of Professor Snape's stores.
She flipped through the book, and another and another, the combined wisdom of witches over centuries filling her and reminding her that there had been healers and sorcerers and potions makers long before there had been Professor Snape.
The softening light of twilight told her that she had been here much longer than she'd realised. She grabbed The Home Potions Maker and stood to replace it on the shelf.
A glint of light seemed to come from the back of the shelf, where the book had been. She reached in and her breath caught at what she pulled out. Normally, she would have turned something like this in, certain that a student here was missing a family heirloom. However, as she touched the beautiful bracelet, felt the dozens of coils of silver and gold under her fingers, she felt dead certain that she had been meant to find it.
*
The corridor down into the dungeons had never looked so long.
She had not been able to find the precise formula her mother had used in the library. She should have known that if it was in the library, Professor Snape would not have reacted with such venom.
An owl to her mother yielded what she needed, and if she couldn't show it to him in writing, he'd get a practical demonstration.
Professor Snape's door was open and he was bent over a piece of parchment, an intense look of concentration on his face. Sitting there alone, focused on his work, she could see how young he was. He didn't look threatening or intimidating at all. He just looked young and intense and in need of a barber.
Then he looked up.
His dark eyes narrowed and a look of sheer boredom settled on his features. "I do not believe it is time for your detention, Miss Tonks, and that means you are here to interrupt me." He paused and raised his eyebrows at her and she forgot what she had come to say. "So, interrupt me and get on with it."
"Sir, I—" she stammered and he was as quick with his sharp tongue as she had heard he was with his wand.
"You have a cauldron in your arms, Miss Tonks," he drawled. "Perhaps that has something to do with your presence in my doorway."
She shifted and the bracelet clanged against the side of the cauldron, making a clear, ringing sound that jolted her back to her self.
"I have a memory potion in this cauldron. The key ingredient is owl feathers treated with hawthorn. Test it and if I am wrong, I'll do extra potions homework for the rest of the term."
"Believe me, Miss Tonks, the last thing in the world I want is to have to read any more of your pitiful essays than I already must. I'll test it because I find your assertions amusing and when I am finished, you will have another detention for impertinence and one for wasting my time."
"If I'm right, Sir?" she asked, her heart pounding.
"If you are right, you may just, by some miracle, pass your N.E.W.T. Now go."
Lily Potter and Rose Weasley
"Hey, don't look so glum," Lily said. "It's not forever."
She sat on the bed next to Rose. Her normally cheerful and mischievous cousin had been nurturing a sulk all evening and as she watched Lily pack, she looked more and more as if she were about to burst into tears.
"Feels like it," Rose muttered. "And anyway, I'll only see you at holidays now."
It wasn't always easy for Rose at Hogwarts. The playful girl who Lily loved was often a little awkward when she was on her own, and Lily had had to stop more than one bully from taking the mickey or pushing Rose about.
"Yeah," Lily said, placing her hand over Rose's where it lay on Rose's knee. "I'll miss you, too. I'll miss sitting up too late in the common room. I'll miss pulling pranks on Hugo and Al."
"You'll miss staring at Alice Longbottom," Rose said quietly.
"Shut up, you," Lily said, relieved to see a tiny smile tugging at Rose's lips for the first time all evening. "And I'll miss watching you stare at Scorpius."
Lily was painfully aware of how uneven the feelings were here. She would miss Rose. She was more than a cousin to her. She was her friend, her little sister, the person who made her feel most competent and needed. She would miss her terribly, and she would miss school, but she was going off to study. Her Uncle Charlie and an exciting apprenticeship awaited her.
Rose was simply being left behind.
"Will you write?" Rose asked in a small voice that sounded much younger than her sixteen years.
"Of course, idiot," Lily said. "I'll write all the time and you'd better write back. Hang on—"
Lily stood and walked to her trunk. "I have something for you."
Rose's eyes lit up and she said, "Oh, good. I've something for you as well."
Lily pulled the delicate bracelet out of her trunk. She had never before considered parting with it. It had been her most treasured possession since early last year. Her mother had given to her when she had been floundering, lost about seemingly everything in her life.
Mum had said she'd found it when she was in her sixth year and it always made her feel as if someone who loved her was right at her shoulder. Lily had taken it, gratefully, for it was a beautiful and precious gift. But she had been sceptical because she was never sure what was accurate and what was tall tales when her parents talked about those days.
Her back to Rose, she touched each strand of silver and gold. They seemed to glow from within as they warmed to her touch. Dozens of slender bands wrapped around each other so that it was impossible to tell when one ended and another began. Giving this up would put them on an even plane and Rose needed it more than she did now.
"Rose," Lily said, feeling suddenly solemn. "This is something my mum gave me. When you wear it—" Lily stopped at the incredulous look on Rose's face.
Rose's hand was suspended in mid-air where it had just emerged from her bag, holding in her fingers the twin of Lily's bracelet.
"My mum gave this to me last year," Rose said slowly, as if she were speaking a language she wasn't sure Lily understood. "She said she'd had it since her third year."
Lily looked into Rose's eyes and moved her hand to wrap around Rose's wrist, placing the bracelet that was now warmed to her body temperature on her friend's arm. Rose reached out to place the twin—that wasn't quite a twin, it had significantly fewer strands—on Lily's arm.
"No, wait," Lily said.
She took the bracelet from Rose and put it on Rose's wrist, next to her one. She was certain that she heard, or felt, a sigh. Both girls watched in awe as the multiple strands on each flowed toward each other and it was impossible to tell that they had ever been apart.
"What made you do that?" Rose stammered, holding her wrist away from her body, eyes wide.
"Dunno," Lily whispered. "It seemed like the thing to do."
Lily ran her fingers along the warm metal. It looked large on Rose's slim wrist, extending several inches along her arm. She spoke and was not sure where the words had come from.
"When you leave Hogwarts, you must leave it there, for those to come, when they need it."
Rose nodded and Lily had the impression that she had had the exact same thought.
Tags:
- author: mindabbles,
- character: helga hufflepuff,
- character: isla black,
- character: lily potter (harry's daughter,
- character: madame rosmerta,
- character: minerva mcgonagall,
- character: rose weasley,
- character: rowena ravenclaw,
- character: tonks,
- character: walburga black,
- fandom: harry potter,
- femgen 2008,
- titles a-l
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Date: 2008-10-09 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-10-10 04:15 am (UTC)I Bequeath To You
Date: 2008-10-09 09:47 pm (UTC)Re: I Bequeath To You
Date: 2008-10-10 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-11-27 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-15 04:41 am (UTC)Her mother, rest her soul, had not lived to see the likes of these ruffians and that openness was a little more difficult for the Slytherin Rosmerta to stomach.
And I'm wholly struck by this because, if I understand this right, are your writing that Rosmerta is Slytherin? You and I are cosmically in synch if you are because in my writing - in which she's a central character - that's her house. I like your convictions, and feel less alone in my Potterverse after reading her story as you have it here.
Thanks for a great story. I'm going to rec this at my journal, if you don't mind.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-15 05:52 am (UTC)I was writing Rosmerta as a Slytherin. I would be interested to read some of your Rosmerta centric fics, if you would care to point to your favorites.
I am thrilled and tickled that you want to rec this at your journal.
Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 09:38 pm (UTC)Sorry this email has sat in my inbox for nearly a week, awaiting reply. Luckily I risk being snowed in tonight, forcing me to catch up on personal correspondence.
This is the small recletter including your marvelous story:
Happy Meme Recs (http://duck-or-rabbit.livejournal.com/33894.html#cutid1).
Thanks again for writing an introspective fic organized around these witches. You're right, this genre is tough to write but your effort shows in your result.
Well, I alternate writing drabbles and WIPs - never mastered the oneshot - and three of the favorite things I've written this year featuring Rosmerta, or will feature her are:
Before Our Time Is Gone (http://duck-or-rabbit.livejournal.com/33264.html#cutid1)
Stowed In Your Pocket (http://duck-or-rabbit.livejournal.com/26732.html#cutid1)
Of Family Resemblances and Like Kinds (http://duck-or-rabbit.livejournal.com/11458.html)
You flatter me for asking to read my work. ;) I appreciate it, as it gives me a boost to update some of these projects.
Nice weekend to you!
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Date: 2009-04-02 11:55 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-10-05 04:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-19 08:54 pm (UTC)Awesome!
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Date: 2009-10-20 11:47 pm (UTC)