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Lizasaurus 11-13-2013 08:33 PM

The Man Who Lived - Sa16+
 
Hello! And welcome to my 2013 Nanowrimo novel! My story is about Gidyun Yenorin, the man who was born in 1979 and had a hard life up until an accident that brought him to the year 2063. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The universe in which I am writing my story, and all cannon characters are strictly the creation of J.K. Rowling.

My life may have started out the typical way of a young wizard but I guarantee it never was to be an easy one. I had loving parents, two siblings, one older and one younger. We appeared to most people to be a lovely family of five with not a single problem. Lord Voldemort was dead, and my family went on as if it had never happened in the first place. I was born on February 17, 1979, and we lived in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Most wizarding families didn’t have a religion, but ours was a Jewish family. We followed all the Jewish customs and holidays, and I even spoke a bit of Hebrew. I never did have my Bar Mitzvah, which is very unusual for a Jewish family’s children not to go through. Neither my brother Corin nor my sister Ava have their Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah.

As a typical young wizard, I showed my magic quite young. My mother always insisted on my having my hair parted to the side, and it made me feel as if I was a two year old child, I’d get yelled at often by both my mum and dad or tattled on my Corin, that I had refixed my hair, but I never did. It just automatically within minutes became all spiky without me doing a single thing about it. To this day it’s very rare that you’ll ever find my hair anything but in a spiky fashion. Even at times, if I part it a certain way, it will just move back on its own.

They say that there wasn’t a witch or wizard that was a dark wizard that hadn’t come from Slytherin, but I don’t believe that one bit. I know many witches and wizards that came from the Slytherin house that weren’t dark or evil. The Slytherin house might have had a bad history of producing the darkest wizards, but it doesn’t mean that all Slytherin’s are evil. My father and mother were both from Slytherin as were my sister, brother and I. Out of the five of us, only my brother was the one to turn to the dark side and follow Lord Voldemort.

This is the story of my life. How I overcame the evils of Lord Voldemort’s era, the Great Battle, and even an accident that changed my life forever. My life started out like hell, but as my wife tells me, it’s what shaped me and what brought me and made me into who I am now. I used my past, horrific as it was, to bring protection to the family I have now, to teach my kids the wrong from the right. To show them that no matter what kind of hell you have been through, you can always come ahead and change your life into what it should be. My life now may not always be the best, and I still have problems that happen, but it’s how I deal with those problems that has changed. I don’t take life for granted; I take it by its horns and make it bend to my will. I don’t let the bad stuff take over my life, I let it shape my life. I have four beautiful children, which I wouldn’t trade for the world. And a wife that I love more than life itself. Those are the things I cherish now. Not the mark I received when I wasn’t even 16 years old, not the scars from my past. I miss my family that I never got to say good bye to those many years ago, and probably always will miss them. But I don’t dwell on that, maybe one day we will meet again. I don’t know. I don’t believe in afterlife, but somehow some day in the back of my mind I hope that I will be able to see them, and tell them that I got passed the bad times and the sorrow. That my family is the most important to me even now. I like to think they are looking down at us with smiles on their faces watching us as we live our lives to the fullest. You never know what tomorrow might bring. You never know what 15 minutes might bring. Those 15 minutes that took me ahead 65 years were probably the best 15 minutes a guy could ever ask for. I wouldn’t change that accident. Was Maree and I destined to be together, if I hadn’t had the accident? I can’t answer that. If the accident had never happened, Becca would still be miserable, Torie without a father, and no Emma. That accident was a blessing in disguise, for years I had wanted to reverse it, to try and go back to my own time. The danger of doing that was even scarier than the actual accident, but now? I would never want to go back in time, I’m happy with my life, and wouldn’t ask for anything else. One day I could lose everything I hold dear, something could happen to Becca or myself. But what matters most is the way I see things now and how I live. Will I let that fear of losing everything take over my life? Or will I live life to its fullest, loving my wife and my family. Spending each day with them as if it might be my last.

Lizasaurus 12-07-2013 10:16 PM

I watched as my brother got on the Hogwarts Express the year before I was attend. He was so sure that he’d be in Slytherin, he was already bragging about picking out the best bed in his dormitory and how he’d join the Slytherin Quidditch team. I don’t know who was happier that he was gone, me or Corin. It was a relief not to have to have my older brother there that year. For him to be always acting so smart as if he knew everything. Tattling if I did something that he didn’t agree with, or just insisting on showing me the ‘proper’ way of how to do things.

My parents were proud of him, they acted as if he was the brightest wizard ever to come to the wizarding world, and had high hopes for him. As if he might one day become Minister of Magic. I can tell you right now, that wasn’t ever going to happen, but I’ll tell you more about that later.

Just the summer before we moved from the Netherlands to England, my parents hadn’t wanted to stay there in Amsterdam and were very insistent that we attend Hogwarts. We could have attended Durmstrang, which is what Corin would have preferred but they had both attended Hogwarts and wanted all three of us to as well.

That year I learned more than I had in the last 5 years that my parents had taught me about our world. Maybe it was because I wanted to learn now, that Corin wasn’t there trying to show me up every chance he had. Either way I learned a lot that year, I wasn’t jealous my brother was at Hogwarts already, it was kind of a nice change to just have it be my sister and I at home now. My magical abilities were growing almost daily, and it was becoming hard to contain them. I tended to burn off some of the energy by taking my broomstick and flying out in the fields beyond our property. It wasn’t much, and I always had to be really careful not to be seen by Muggles, but it was enough to give me the break I needed away from my studies and the irritations of my mum and dad constantly boasting about what Corin was learning and doing at Hogwarts.

It was next to no time that I myself was picking up my items in Diagon Alley. My parents, who were busy with their jobs at the ministry, left me VERY unhappily with Corin to acquire what I needed. Needless to say that didn’t please me one bit. It was bad enough I had to listen to everything he had to tell me about Hogwarts at home, now was going to decide for me what it was I needed. The only items he had no choice but to help me purchase, were the books and robes on the list. The remainder, including the pet I chose, were all decided by him. I had no say in any of it. And when I tried talking to mum about it? She said, ‘Well Corin knows what is currently in at Hogwarts better than anyone else. It wasn’t right nor fair. Me? I got a toad to take to Hogwarts, A TOAD! Who in their right mind brought a toad to Hogwarts? I was going to be the laughing stock of whatever house I ended up in. The only thing I was most certain of, was I did not want to be in the same house as Corin, which meant I could not be in the Slytherin house. I was very proud of the wand I got, for one I knew that Corin would NEVER have any say in the wand I got, it was 12 inches and unyielding, made of Hawthorn wood and had the core of a Dragon Heartstring.

I took the boats with the big oaf Hagrid, and then got in line with the other first year students to be sorted into the different houses. I was to the back of the line, knowing that with my last name starting with Y, I was likely the last student to be called forward. I was right, though there was a Yaxley in front of me, I was still the last one to be sorted. I was a hat stall. I sat there for 7 full minutes arguing with the sorting hat that I didn’t want to be in the Slytherin house, that I’d rather be in any house, EVEN Hufflepuff, just not Slytherin. I didn’t get my wish. THAT’s another thing, so many people say that Slytherin’s would happily take that house without question and insist on the house if the hat wanted to sort them into another. That is not always true, just as it is in this case. I was a hat stall and ended up in the Slytherin house, even after begging to not be placed there. It said I would do great things, and prove that not all Slytherin’s were dark wizards. I would prove to many people that Slytherin’s could be heroes and people to look up to. PFFT yeah right. I was now in the one house I detested because of my brother Corin, and didn’t want to be a part of anything he was involved in.

Everyone was on about how Corin was the best student in the school, how he was the smartest Slytherin that had been sorted into the house in a number of years. That was pathetic in my opinion, he was a second year, what could he possibly know that 7th years didn’t yet? Pfft, just a lie. I knew it. He didn’t know all that much, he was just one of the most popular. Well it turned out he was the most popular in Slytherin because he’d learn the normal spells, hexes, potions and stuff, but he’d also use that to learn dark spells and curses. He used his common knowledge to not only learn the Dark Arts but to even enhance the dark arts and create even darker spells and curses. He’d use it against students that got in his way, or irritated him. Professors would ignore it because they couldn’t see how a second year could be the cause of something so sinister and so wrong. They’d turn a blind eye, because Corin was the perfect student, who got along with everyone and did what he was told without question. The perfect student, Professor’s pet, so to speak.

The one thing that I managed to do that Corin never succeeded in doing was managing to get on to the quidditch team. I tried out for the team in my first year but didn’t get to play until later that year. One of the beater’s got severely injured needing a replacement, and when the quidditch captain saw how well I’d played during flying lessons, he decided to give me a chance. It was thrilling to be up in the air with that Bat. I didn’t always picture the bludgers as Corin’s head but I won’t deny that I did on occasion. Corin decided that Quidditch was for losers and not worth his time, though I know he had sent many letters bashing the quidditch captain saying he didn’t know the first thing about how to play quidditch, and couldn’t see a good player when one flew in front of him. To me it amused me, and I honestly wondered if Corin could even fly and hold a quaffle at the same time. But I was happy there was finally something that I was good at that Corin wasn’t.

I learned a great place at Hogwarts that I could escape from was the paddock near the Dark Forest. It might have been an unusual place to escape but I really enjoyed it. I didn’t much care for the animals but I did find that it was a quiet place that most students avoided. It wasn’t until my third year that I really started spending a lot of time there.

In my second year, the famous Harry Potter arrived at Hogwarts with me, and to be honest I wasn’t too bothered by it. I was like an outcast in the Slytherins, all of them bashing him and trying to do everything they could to make his life as miserable as possible, and there I was ignoring the trio so to speak. I could have cared less about who they were, let alone that there was a Muggleborn in their group as well. The night the troll came into the Hogwarts, I had been sitting near the end of the row at our table and rather than run for the dungeons as did everyone else in the hall, I stayed back hiding behind one of the suits of armour. I watched as the troll went into the bathroom and then Harry and Ron followed shortly after. What fools! Why in Merlin’s name would anyone ever go into the bathroom after a troll. I didn’t stay long to see what happened, I wasn’t stupid and didn’t want to take the fall if someone got killed! I might have been smarter than most Slytherins (including my own brother) but I certainly knew better than to hang around. I also knew it’d be swarming with professors and school staff not long after as well, once they discovered where the troll was. And since we were supposed to be in the common rooms? I didn’t hang around to find out.

My father worked in the Accidents & Catastrophes office, and as an Obliviator. Voldemort’s death eater’s started recruiting members once again soon after my second year and he took our family into hiding, and when Corin and I weren’t in school we were in the Ural Mountains. I finally arrived at Hogwarts almost a month after my third term, not having been able to arrive on time, due to them getting too close for comfort. My father appeared to be a prize they were determined to either win over to Voldemort’s follower’s side or to kill him and his family.

I arrived at Hogwarts on a Thursday late September 1992, it was just the beginning of the year from hell. And it wasn’t just because of the Chamber of Secrets being opened again. Not even a week after returning to Hogwarts, my father was found dead in the kitchen of our safe house by mother. We didn’t verify it until much later that it was death eaters who claimed to have killed him on Voldemort’s orders. He’d refused to join them, and they’d finally caught up with him. My mother and sister were able to just get away and find another safe place to go to hide. None of us were safe no matter where it was. Strange things were happening at Hogwarts, though the Slytherin’s seemed to be plenty safe from whatever it was that was haunting the castle and turning people petrified. Rumours were flying and none of them were good. Did I feel secure in knowing that? No, not really. It also bothered me that such a thing could be happening at Hogwarts. It was bad enough that the rumour was that Voldemort had returned the year before, but to think he had some sort of monster inside the school as well that could only be controlled by one of those in my house?

I started really spending a lot of time at the paddock near the woods that term. Away from the school; and away from other students as much as possible. Corin started asking me where I disappeared to when there wasn’t a class, and during free time, but I always tried to be as vague as I could. I didn’t want him especially showing up and taking that place away from me, somehow. I needed that place, it was quiet, I could get my homework done without interruption, as well as think.

That summer was the hardest yet, my father being gone had turned Corin angry. He didn’t believe that the death eaters were a part of the killing, and flat out refused to acknowledge it. Deep inside me I knew that something was happening inside him. He’d changed a lot that past year, with the Chamber of Secrets having been opened. He did a lot of studying of the dark arts and asking questions most 3rd year students wouldn’t ever ask. But again the teacher’s just found him to be curious, rather than being concerned about the types of questions that he was asking. They more than willingly answered those questions and directed him towards books that might satisfy him and show him answers. That summer though is when things seemed to completely change for him. He refused to go to the new safe house, which was the Alps on the Austria border. When my mother tried to force him, he finally snapped and left never to return to our family’s home again. He did go to Hogwarts another year but from there we had no idea where he was or what had happened to him until I was 17 years old.

In my fourth year, the only thing that bothered me was that the big oaf Hagrid was around even more so that he was the Care of Magical Creatures professor. I didn’t much like that, nor having him as a professor. I was probably the least happy person in Hogwarts, and with having Hagrid as a professor, I didn’t much enjoy the class at first. I discovered he was a lot like me about halfway through the year. All the Slytherins seemed to have a vendetta against him but me? I started to like having his company when I was out near the paddock. At first I tried avoiding him and hiding but one day I discovered he knew I was there because he called out to me, saying ‘I don’t know why yer hiding, but I certainly won’t make ye do anything but hide.’ It made me burst out laughing and quickly cover my face trying to stifle the sound. The next time I was there I didn’t make the effort to hide, figuring if he knew I was there it was pretty pointless. I wasn’t much for talking though and he wasn’t one to pry and find out what I was there for. I got the feeling he’d known I’d been there for quite some time, since my first year in fact.

Lupin, was an interesting professor. I was kind of relieved to finally have a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor that finally seemed to know what he was doing. My first years teacher seemed to be a dolt who had absolutely no clue about what he was teaching in the classroom. Dunderson was called Dunderhead behind his back. It might have been rude, but the fact that he was teaching an important class in Hogwarts, and unable to even tell you how to do a simple shield charm was absolutely pathetic. Even I knew the incantation for the shield charm and I was a FIRST YEAR! Quirrell was a decent professor, til he came to his head at the end of my second year. I don’t know what happened to him, all I know is the rumours that he had Voldemort eat the back of his head and then exploded into fine yellow powder. Somehow I didn’t think that was at all exactly true, but I didn’t question it, because I didn’t have an argument to contradict any of the rumours that were flying. Lockhart was a true piece of work though. We had thought that Dunderhead was bad. This guy seemed to have no end to ‘stories’ that he could tell that was about him succeeding in saving one town or another. The stories that seemed to have taller tales than his own head of hair. I don’t know how many people wanted to shave his head more than myself. He caught me once out by the paddock asking why I was there and if I would fetch a critter from the forest with him. Seriously I was a 3rd year! He wanted ME to fetch a creature, and from the sounds of it, it wasn’t an easy creature to catch. When I refused he threatened me with detention for a month and to go to my head of house. Now I wasn’t afraid of my head of house, Snape was a decent fellow and I didn’t mind talking with him, and knew I’d probably come out on top on that one, but the idea of detention for something that I didn’t do did not appeal to me at all. So…the night before Halloween I went into the forest with Professor Lockhart.

It was freezing cold! It smelled of snow, which was really unusual for that time of year. I had on only a light jacket and my wand on me. In the dark of the forest, Lockhart nudged me ahead of him, claiming he had my back and would protect me in every way that he could. Yeah right, like I believed that. I had a feeling he had no idea how to disarm a student let alone take down a creature that was bigger than him. We could see the Hinkypunk off in the distance with its lantern in its hand. I didn’t want to get anywhere close to it, but Lockhart kept going off on how I’d get extra credit points and not have to take the next quiz. The next quiz didn’t bother me, I’d fail it regardless, as I had nearly every one he’d had so far. They were all pointless, all about how he’d saved this town or that cat from the werewolf or a monster rat. Disgusting! This next quiz was about how he used murtlap essence as a conditioner for his hair and how it helped in saving the town from the werewolf that had taken over frightening the local villagers. The only good thing to come out of having Lockhart; was knowing, that he’d be gone somehow at the end of the year! No DADA professor ever stayed more than one year in a row. Finally approaching the hinkypunk, I found myself alone in the forest with the sight of Lockhart’s wand bouncing fast along the ground off in the distance as he ran for the protection of the Hogwarts’ grounds. Slimy git had run as soon as they’d gotten too close to the creature. Unbelievable! Me left alone in the middle of the forest, with nothing but a wand and a hinkypunk. It took everything I had not to let me follow it into the bog and let it catch hold of me. I went running as fast as I could in the same direction that Lockhart had gone in. I wasn’t capturing it alone! Let alone, how the hell did you catch one anyway?

Arriving back at the castle I headed immediately to my dormitory wanting to forget all that had happened that night. What happened the next morning? Oh, the blasted git, sent me a note about the first night’s detention and the succeeding ones after that. Yes, because I hadn’t managed to catch hold of the hinkypunk before leaving the forest and bringing it to his classroom he decided I still got to do detention with him. God I hated that man. I already had to see him 2 days a week in class, I now also had to go to his office and be his personal assistant for a month! In that month, I only got relief one time, and that was when Harry Potter got detention with him and got to fill out the envelope’s addresses for him. God the guy was a prat, and thought nothing but about himself. I wasn’t going to be some prat myself, going to the headmaster or even my head of house to complain about it, I was just going to take it and do the detentions though they were pointless and unfair. Personal assistant? Pfft that meant basically helping order his hair products, address envelopes, stick pictures in them. It never included fun things like destroying the pictures because I developed them wrong, or cursing the pictures on his walls instead of dusting them. But believe me as I did the ‘detentions’ I had plenty of thoughts of what I ‘could’ do.

Back to my fourth year, Lupin knew so much more than the previous 3 professors, though Quirrell was pretty close on that point. Lupin’s first creature he showed our class was a hinkypunk. I never had the guts to ask him how he captured the blasted creature, but still to this day wouldn’t mind knowing how that was even possible. I expect some sort of stunning spell or something similar would do the trick. But back as a third year, I had no idea, and wasn’t about to find out at that time of night! We lost Lupin at the end of my third year. I would have liked having him as a professor longer than we had, but sad to say with the so called curse people said the DADA professor had, that wasn’t ever to be. Our head of house at the end of the year one morning at breakfast announced to the entire school that Lupin was a werewolf. I didn’t know what the huge problem was with that, considering he appeared to have a good handle on it. But many students, mainly the Slytherin house, took that and flew with it. Owl’s went out almost immediately to warn their parents, demanding they do something about it. Many Slytherin’s claiming that they’d seen him transform, and that he was a huge danger to every student in the school. It was all a ruse, I knew it and they knew it. And it was disgusting. I didn’t approve of it, but what could I do? Corin didn’t bother sending letters to our mother, knowing she’d likely be the same as I was. Not believing a single word of any of the rumours that were flying around. It was sort of depressing though, having lost a good professor once again.

Hagrid and I became sort of friends towards the end of the term. He told me how he missed Buckbeak, I heard the Hippogriff got away but never really heard the story behind it. Hagrid was sitting by the paddock one afternoon just before term ended staring at the Hippogriffs that stood there munching on dead ferrets. He had a faraway look in his eyes and when I approached he said just a few words and nothing more ‘Never take fer granted, what yer have, Gidyun. And never forget what yer lost.’ Those words stuck through me even now I remember them. Especially with what happened later on in my life, the one thing that changed it forever. I have never forgotten those words. Even now, I look back and think on that day at the paddock. It was as if Hagrid had lost a dear friend, though it was only a hippogriff. Only a hippogriff to him was like losing a brother.

One night right before the end of term, that exact thing happened to me. Corin disappeared, from the school. Everything including his trunk was gone. He had left, and until that day I thought he was just being childish, saying he wasn’t coming to the Alps. I tried to talk to him, to get him to see that he would be safe there. I would take him there, if he’d come. But the night before the train was to depart from Hogsmeade, he disappeared and I didn’t see him again til I was 17. That night would be almost the end of me, I lost my brother completely at that last meeting. And he was dead to me inside after that. But losing him at the age of 15 in my fourth year was hard. We’d never seen eye to eye, and seemed to butt heads more than any one that I’d ever not got along with. Yes we were Slytherins and I still am, but we were family. Family should stick by each other, especially in times like back then. Families shouldn’t be split apart, they should stick together and protect one another. Not fight on opposite sides of the war that was beginning. I felt then more than I ever had, that I was never meant to be a Slytherin, that I didn’t feel a part of that house. All of them were against what I believed in and I felt like I was on my own. It wasn’t until I was much older that I found Slytherins who had the same values as I myself did. And to a fifteen year old boy who was trying to find a place in the world of magic and Muggles, it was very hard for me to be able to just move on as if nothing had changed. I had no brother, my father was killed, and now I was alone in taking care of my family. My mother and sister depended on me to protect them. I felt so alone.

Letters from home had only got more and more disturbing. I agreed though that there was no way that mum should send Ava to Hogwarts, not in the current state of the country. Because of where they were located and that I was the secret keeper of our home, we felt it was safer for me to send my owl to her with packages of books for Ava to learn at home. I was going to spend the entire summer holidays in the Alps with them. A portkey was arranged for me to go there precisely one day after arriving in London at King’s Cross station. I was to pick up all supplies for next term’s classes and then take the portkey to the Alps. We didn’t know if I’d be returning to Hogwarts that fall term or not. I wanted to go the next term but wasn’t going to risk the security of my family to go. That would be my fifth year, my OWL’s year and if I wanted to be anything when I graduated I knew I needed to take my OWLs. Finally the end of my fourth term arrived and I took the train back to London. Wasting no time in getting my books and supplies for my fifth year as well as any supplies that Ava might need as well as household items, that we might need at least for the next few months. My mother arrived in a portkey so she could send the items to our home. We couldn’t risk my using magic and breaking wizarding law. So she banished everything to our home and the two of us used the portkey back to the Alps. It was so incredibly away from civilization. Not even in the Ural Mountains was it that far. Maybe that had been our mistake, we’d been too close. Now we were at least 50 miles in any direction, it was in the coldest part of the mountains and not even a single soul lived in close proximity to us. We grew closer together as a family, the three of us, and I wouldn’t change the fact of where we had gone, nor that we were far away from others. The only thing I would change was the constant fear.

Lizasaurus 12-08-2013 04:16 AM

Our tent was situated in a large open field that wasn’t too far from a lake. It was high enough in the mountains that the higher elevations just beyond us were filled with snow year round. I took my sister around the mountain tops often just climbing and out in the still air. We didn’t use magic outside of the boundaries of our Fidelius charm. But we carried our wands in the chance we might need them for protection. We didn’t risk the chance of being found out, so mostly we only went out at night. During the days we spent on our classes and learning magic, potions, herbology and nearly every class that Hogwarts provided for students. Plus a lot more, I learned more there I’m sure than I would have in the classrooms in the halls of Hogwarts. I was determined even though I hadn’t been able to attend Hogwarts from beyond partway through my fifth year til I graduated that I would still be able to one day take my OWLs and NEWTs. That summer I explored the mountainside, learning about all the creatures of those mountains and about every herb and every flower and plant that grew there. What ones were dangerous and poisonous as well as those that were gentle and good for eating. The one place that my mother feared I would break my neck was a high section of rock. I started scaling that wall within a few days of having arrived there, no ropes nothing for protection except for my wand. I learned every foothold and handhold that lay on the rock surface and when I finally managed to get to the top of it, I discovered a place that was quiet, way above everything around me. I used that place quite often to think of my life, my past and my future. How much things had changed since I was a boy. And way too much time to think about my brother, and where he might be right then. I had no idea where it was that he had disappeared to, I could only hope that he was still alive and safe, far away from any death eaters or anyone that might want to kill him or worse, recruit him.

The place was my place of serenity, I spent many hours there, both day and night. My mother refused to go up there and my sister was not allowed to. But me? She wasn’t able to keep me down from there. She’d punish me, and as soon as I was free from the punishment, back I was on top of that high rock. I needed that place. She finally realized that and allowed me, deciding that I was smart enough not to do something stupid and would stay as safe as I could in that one spot.

We swam in the lake, which was barely over freezing, but it was a relief to be able to just go somewhere and enjoy ourselves rather than worry about if we would survive tomorrow or not. The lake became a place of relaxation for not just myself and Ava but even my mother, she found that she could use some magic and even warm the water a bit, so that her sore joints could relax in it. It would have been a lovely place if it hadn’t become our prison for over 4 years. We strung up tents between the trees and slept high off the ground, I personally found myself feeling safer up there than I ever did in the tent. I might have been the secret keeper for the fidelius charm, but I still feared our safety. My mother and my sister depended on me and I was the only one who could give them that protection. It was a lot to put on a fifteen year old boy, but I had grown up quickly after my father was killed. Corin had turned in on himself after he had died and seemed to have pulled away from everyone and everything that mattered to him in the past. His will to grow up and be brave and learn what he could to survive in the world had disappeared from what we had seen. He didn’t trust the fidelius charm would ever protect us from being found, and we all assumed he had gone into hiding. He was only a year older than I, but sometimes it just felt like he was the same age as me if not younger. I never looked up to him, only saw him as someone who was always trying to outdo me in everything he did, and rub it in my face when he succeeded.

My fifth year was coming up fast, and though I understood mum’s reasons for not sending Ava, again I felt all alone and completely useless. Unable to be there to protect my family again, was very difficult. It was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do up until that point and I worried that I might never see my mum and sister alive ever again. My mother was determined I would at least finish out my OWL year at Hogwarts, and because I knew it meant a lot to her that I did, I left for Hogwarts. The quidditch World Cup was happening that summer towards the end of the holidays, but that was out of the question, as if security wasn’t already tight, it was even more so with the World Cup, and yet look at what happened. Death Eaters appearing that night, attacking muggles, destroying the camps, sending fear throughout our people all over again. The sign in the sky saying that Voldemort had returned, shot fear through my mother, sister and I like none other. I begged my mother to let me stay but she didn’t listen to my words, she insisted that she and Ava were protected and I was sent on to Hogwarts to begin my fifth term.

I arrived at Hogwarts by the typical route of a Hogwarts student. My mother portkey’d with me to King’s Cross 9 ¾ platform and waited until I had gotten on the Hogwarts express before portkeying back to the Alps. I felt like I was leaving the only ones I still cared about behind to fend for themselves and go off and have fun and play with my little friends, under the safety of the school’s protection and Albus Dumbledore. I was disgusted with myself even though I hadn’t any choice in the matter. I would have loved to have stayed with them and know that if something happened to them I would be there as well, and wouldn’t lose the only ones I cared about in the world, because if they were found, we all were found.

At the feast we were all told what the exciting plan for Hogwarts was the Tri-wizard cup was going to be happening at Hogwarts. Fantastic, why not. So we got to have feasts and balls and I just got to sit back and enjoy it all and worry about how my family were both doing. It was really hard to concentrate. Not to mention our DADA professor was some nutcase that practiced curses on students. GOD I hated that man, he enjoyed torturing those of us who refused to allow the imperius curse on them. Which was myself and most of the Slytherins. For once I finally agreed with my housemates on this one. Who knew what kind of curse he might use if we’d agreed! He’d said it was imperius curse, but for all we know he’d AK us and we’d all be dead, and there’d be no more Slytherin students left! No, we weren’t stupid, the other houses who thought he was awesome and a fantastic professor were the idiots. I could see through him, he was out to get us students and live through us. He was no better than Dunderhead and Lockhart.

When the Durmstrang and Beauxbaton’s students arrived on October 30, I was thrilled enough to see that Durmstrang sat at our table. For once things were looking up, I’d been watching and following Krum for the last few years and watching him grow into this world famous seeker, and I was close enough to almost touch him if I leaned slightly! For once I was happy even if it were just short lived.

The very next day I wandered down once again to the paddock, and sat talking with Hagrid until he had to disappear to follow the huge headmistress of Beauxbatons once again. We never have a proper conversation that year, he was always tagging after the woman, as if she was something special. I was leaning against the fence when I heard a squeal of fright and nearly fell over I spun around so fast. There was a girl about my own age that was on the other side of the paddock, and she had gotten caught up on a branch and there was something by her feet trying to climb up her robes. Moving quickly over to her I practically ran and sent a spell at the creature making its way up her leg, and tossed it into the woods behind her without even touching it. I never did find out what it was but I did ‘save’ her life as Maree always claimed. I helped her get free of the branch and was about to leave when she stopped me, and gave me a small kiss on the cheek, before running off. I didn’t follow her but knew she had went straight for the Beauxbaton’s carriage. Rolling my eyes I figured she was just as much as a prissy girl as the one blonde haired girl, that was always near to her headmistress.

That night the names for the tri-wizard champions were chosen. It wasn’t a surprise for Krum, nor really was it a huge surprise when the blonde girl was chosen, Fleur Delacour, Cedric I never really knew so it didn’t bother me one way or the other. He was two years older than I was and the Hufflepuff Seeker, was all I really knew about him. But Harry Potter…now that wasn’t a huge surprise to me either. I didn’t believe that anyone was out to kill him, not really but he had been said to have been being sought out by Voldemort, and that alone told me someone might have put his name in. I didn’t care though, he had the ability to take part now, and many others would have loved that chance. Fellow Slytherins though? Believed he’d cheated and got himself in there on his own. Paid off a student maybe, to me though I seriously did not care!

I was on my way down to the dungeons that night after the names were drawn and was caught by my arm by a gentle hand and nearly flew through the ceiling above me. No one, does that to me. They all know that, I’ll send a curse or hex at them faster than they can say knut, and won’t hesitate to use it before I find out why they stopped me in the first place. Something stopped me that night though, and I turned around and found myself face to face with Maree. The young girl I’d rescued by the paddock earlier in the day. She asked if I wanted to meet for breakfast in the morning. I remember flushing really pink and stuttering some sort of answer. I didn’t have time for girls or even these little dates that happened around Hogwarts. I felt stupid for even agreeing to it, but I couldn’t very well, not show up, after saying I’d be there! So the next morning I appeared in the Great Hall, to a bunch of wolf whistles, and threatened to hex a bunch of my fellow mates before they finally shut their blasted mouths.

We sat together at one end of the Slytherin table, though she kept looking over towards the Ravenclaw one and seemed very ill at ease. Well she had been the one who had wanted to meet for breakfast not me! I had no interest in gaining a girlfriend or becoming any more than friends, so why was it she wanted to meet for breakfast? She kept shooting me small little smiles as she sat there eating her porridge and all I could do was give her an awkward smile back. I found out she was about 2 months younger than I was, and she was there more as Madame Maxime’s personal assistant. She detested the job, having to run all over Hogwarts to do her errands (not limited to delivering personal messages to Hagrid as well), and sending out Owls whenever she needed a letter sent out. She said she’d rather be back at Beauxbatons than here at Hogwarts as an assistant. It was her OWLs year but at Beauxbatons, they wait until the end of their sixth year, so she didn’t have the huge amount of studying as I did. Over the next month or so, the two of us got to know each other fairly well. I was still very much keeping my distance. I didn’t want to hurt her and I certainly didn’t want to lead her on. I had enough to do with trying to keep my family protected, I didn’t need another person to need to protect. Classes just got more difficult for me, because in spite of being there, I wasn’t there in mind, not really. My mind was with my family, the classes would move on and I’d still be stuck on what they’d all learned and not be able to keep up. It was getting to the point of ridiculous. I was to take my OWLs and couldn’t even keep my mind on track of what they were trying to teach me? How in merlin’s name was I going to be able to take those OWLs?

The day of the first task Maree and I walked down to the arena together, and in spite of my reservations, somehow she’d managed to get hold of my hand as we walked and wouldn’t let go til much later. She seemed to know though I was very hesitant to even get involved with her, and even so, with her soft, sweet self, she started prying away those reservations bit by bit getting me to open up. She never forced me to say anything, just sat there with her soft eyes as if studying me and trying to figure me out. We sat there in the stands watching as each of the champions fought their dragons and got hold of the eggs. Merlin! I had wanted to be a champion? HAH, I was so relieved as I watched them run around trying to get hold of their eggs. Getting burned, nearly stamped on, sliced open…no way, I’d never give anything to take one of their places. It was crazy, these champions were nuts to even have entered their names! It made me smile though as Maree sat there with me and anytime something became really intense or nerve-wracking, she’d grip my hand til it was over. It appeared her favourite was Harry Potter though, which amused me even more greatly. The kid summoned his firebolt, which was probably the smartest thing any of the champions had done. I would have thought Krum would have used flying to get his egg, but no, only Harry did. He was brilliant! I never thought I’d say that about the kid, but he really was. He was even more so than Krum to me from that point on.

That night, Maree and I went for a late night walk in the moonlight. I told her about the last few years and how it had been since my father died. I figured if anyone would understand she would. Unfortunately? She just took it as a sad story but not really taking it as anything other than that. I don’t know what I’d expected but certainly more than a ‘aww that’s sad’ type of response. I didn’t get angry or upset with her, I just dropped the subject, figuring maybe it was just me. I was too close to the situation to really be able to be upset that someone else didn’t take it the same way. Or maybe she just didn’t believe that Voldemort possibly returning to power was a huge deal. After all she wasn’t in England, she was from France. She didn’t seem bothered when I dropped the subject either, just acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had been said. More like a ‘aww that’s too bad, let’s get some gelato’ reaction. I don’t know what I expected, but it kind of cut the night short, and I begged off being tired, and saw her to the door of the carriage before heading to my dormitory.

I lay there that night for many hours. Wondering if maybe I was taking things just way too painfully. What if Corin was right, it wasn’t the death eaters, just someone that had a grudge against my father. Maybe he had just fallen dead and the healers were wrong. Maybe I needed a new way of looking at things. Yes Voldemort appeared to be coming back into power but maybe it wasn’t as bad as everyone was saying it would be. My mother and sister were hidden away in the mountains but we’d never seen any sign of anyone wanting to harm them. Maybe we were blowing it all out of proportion. Afraid that something would happen, when nothing was going to happen! Was I stupid or was I naïve to think that we were safe and with Voldemort coming again that we would be safe? My mind was turning over and over that night even when I finally fell asleep just as the sun was coming up, I still couldn’t rest. My mind was stuck on how Maree had reacted to what I had said. I started coming to the conclusion that I was just overreacting.

That night we got word about the Christmas ball on Christmas Eve. I had my father’s robes, which to me, I was really not wanting to wear. They were his and he was gone. My mother figured I didn’t need new ones, and that they were perfectly adequate for the ball, a nice green colour. I invited Maree to go with me, who more than happily accepted the invitation. That was when I got my first kiss from her. It wasn’t really a ‘real’ kiss, just a peck on the cheek before she giggled softly and ran off to the carriage. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for her, I would never attend that ball. I would be back in the mountains of Austria with my family. Unable to send word that I had to leave and unable to contact her again for over 2 years.

I was laying in my bed, trying to sleep for the third night in a row, the thoughts on what Maree had said was still playing over and over in my head and I couldn’t get them to leave and just forget about it. The worry about my family and wondering if it was just all a big joke, and seriously nothing to worry about or not. I got a bad feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right, and it pulled at me and made me get out of my bed. I needed to talk to someone, and my first thought was Hagrid, up until that point, he was the only one that I trusted there on the grounds and could confide in. I could have gone to Albus Dumbledore or even Snape but I just didn’t feel right. Slipping from the common room I headed towards the nearest exit of the school and out onto the grounds. I knew that if I could confide in someone, and not be brushed off or criticized and teased about it, it would be Hagrid. I should have known better than to think Dumbledore would do any of those things but I didn’t really have much contact with him, so my first thought of course was Hagrid. Exiting the school, I headed across the grounds to his hut.

I never arrived at his hut. I came across Mad-eye Moody. Knowing full well that he was not the person I would want to come across I hid from view but he had seen me. He’d been out to do anything he could to get to us Slytherin students who wouldn’t let him play with them, and get them to let him curse them. He had a vendetta against every one of us and he saw his opportunity and grabbed hold of it. I was standing there hoping I was fully hidden, not daring to breathe when I heard screaming and found myself lying on the ground. I hadn’t a chance to even run, for he had found me and immediately used one of the unforgivable curses on me, and the next thing I knew I was curled up on the ground gazing up at the broken face and electric blue eye staring down at me. Beside me was his staff and his foot was pressed down on my wand arm. Crying out again I stared up into his face, full of fear and wondering what he’d do to me. I heard the words ‘I’d take care of you right now, Yenorin, but you’ve already been called for’ in a deep growl of a voice. I’d already been called for? By whom and why? What had I done? My father was the one who’d refused to join the Death Eaters, not me. I was too young, to be of a concern to them wasn’t I? I hadn’t even reached my 16th birthday! He used the cruciatus curse on me again before picking me up and throwing me against the wall of the castle and holding me up off the ground. It didn’t matter to me what the man did to me, I figured I was dead. Death would be so much less painful than what I was feeling right at that very moment, but I didn’t get that wish. He didn’t kill me, he said one thing and only one thing ‘Go, hide, get away from here. If you don’t? Everything you love and wish to protect will be gone and dead, and all you will be able to do is stand back and watch’. Throwing me away from him, he stalked off to the castle as I hit the ground with a sickening crunch. Staring after the man, I wondered why it was that he’d let me go. Giving me that single warning to go to my family and protect them. It was a trap. I knew damn well I couldn’t go back there, I couldn’t go there and risk the chance that I’d lead Death Eater’s or worse Voldemort himself to my loved ones. I had to leave, get out of the castle and off the grounds. I couldn’t return to them, and I didn’t risk the chance of sending word I wasn’t coming.

I was on my own, stranded with no money, and no chance of survival on my own. I needed to get things in order and collect my things and be gone. Swallowing the fear of dread that was inside me, I hurried back into the castle and to my dormitory. Packing everything up swiftly and silently I thought desperately for every place I’d ever gone as a child, every hiding place my family had been in, since the fear began of getting caught, and remembered a cabin deep in the forest along the northeast coast of England. I banished everything I owned to that cabin from where I stood in the dormitory, gazed around me at my sleeping bunk mates and pulled my jacket on heading out of the castle on foot with my broomstick in hand. It was going to be a really trip but he had other places to stop first. He wasn’t stupid enough to head for the Alps into Austria but he had to get supplies for himself in Diagon Alley and Muggle London first. The only really bad thing? Was as of that moment he couldn’t use magic. If he used magic, the ministry would know with the trace that is put on every person under the age of 17. Arriving in Diagon Alley in the really early morning hours, he felt cold to the bone as he touched down. He wouldn’t be able to go on to the cabin until tonight so for now he’d have to figure out how he was going to get his packages and things to the cabin. Heading directly for the Leaky Cauldron, he ordered a butterbeer and some food to warm himself up. He got funny looks from Tom but no questions which he was very thankful for. He knew he should have been at school but that wasn’t happening, he was on the run now. On his own and nobody could help him without risking them getting caught and tortured for any information he was sure for his own whereabouts.

I managed to get it arranged that the owls from the shops could send the packages to the side of the stream about 5 miles northwest of where the cabin was, and they would just deposit them there whether I met them or not. Paying for each package and all the supplies I could possibly need for at least the next few months, I waited til night fall before heading to my new home. I had everything I could need that would be delivered for me, from potion ingredients for me to keep up with my studies to food supplies as well as towels and blankets and anything else I might need. I didn’t want to have to take this trip again for some time, and knew that I could send an owl out for more items if I had to but I’d rather have the less amount of packages being delivered in that area the better. The more I had coming in and out the more likely I’d be found and either be dead or having to move once again.

Arriving back at the cabin two nights later, completely frozen to my broomstick and starving because I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before my flight in Diagon Alley, I touched down just inside the perimeter of the fidelius charm of the cabin. My father was the secret keeper here, but now that he was gone my family and I were all the secret keepers. I was too cold and tired to consider flying to the drop location for my packages, so hungry and cold I crashed on the sofa pulling my jacket around me for warmth. I was too tired to cry, think or even worry about being caught. I hadn’t put up the additional charms around it, but at the moment I didn’t much care. Falling asleep almost immediately I didn’t wake til almost 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I got out of bed and started out to collect my packages. It took three trips on the broomstick, flying low to the ground as I could almost 6 miles each way avoiding obstacles there and back. I didn’t want to risk some Muggle spotting me flying on a broomstick and having to explain that one. I couldn’t use magic, so all I had was the ability to either walk 12 miles 3 times or to just fly and carry as much as I could each time. It was long going and took almost til nightfall again before I had everything in the cabin. Tired already, I forced myself to stay awake and secure the charms on the place and make sure I had everything put away in its place. Finally after dropping onto the couch for the second night, just pulled my jacket around me and fell asleep.

Lizasaurus 12-08-2013 04:02 PM

I had never felt so lonely in my life. If I wasn’t at home with my family I was at school with friends and in the least house mates. Out in the middle of nowhere, with no one to talk to but the creatures in the forest around me. I didn’t mind it too much at first, it wasn’t so bad. Nice and quiet and had plenty to keep me busy. I started catching up on the classes that I had fallen so far behind in. I used sticks that I found to practice wand movements, and said the incantations over and over again. I didn’t use my wand, not even when I sliced my hand pretty bad outside when I was doing some hiking along the cliffs along the ocean. I got it fixed up though I probably should have gone in to St. Mungo’s and saw a healer. You’d never know about the injury if you looked at my hand now, but I know where it was and can still see the faint scar that lay across the palm.

Late January, I found that I had to go into Appleby, which was the nearest wizarding village to where I was at in the North Somercotes. I didn’t want to fly all the way to London, especially not in those temperatures, but I had to get a few supplies I had missed, and couldn’t put it off any longer. Getting there wasn’t the problem, it was what I encountered when I got there. Things were getting bad as people’s fears became more real. But it wasn’t just that, smaller wizarding villages were being taken over by Death Eaters already. Arriving in Appleby I was approached by 3 men in cloaks and immediately got on the defensive. I was fully aware that I had no way of escaping and would need to find a way to outsmart them. Quickly I found that I was beyond my own ability, though I had my wand on me when I arrived just for protection if I needed it, I quickly found myself wandless and locked in a room with my broomstick snapped in half on the floor beside me. I paced the room trying to find a way out, and was unable to get free. A large man entered the room and I stood against the wall, watching him as he sat down at the table and stared at me. He told me he knew who I was and that he also knew who my brother was as well as my father. That didn’t scare me, my father was dead and my brother for all I knew was dead as well. I never found out his name and I didn’t learn who these people were til much later. Leaning against the wall I kept my mouth shut not saying a single word to him, not acknowledging him nor asking why I was there. Finally he got up and left when I wouldn’t speak.

I was left there about two hours, but couldn’t tell you for sure, being there was no sense of time in the windowless room. I spent the entire time pacing, trying to think of a way I could get out of the mess I was in. Maybe I should have chosen to go to London, I knew then though that I was no longer safe in the cabin I was staying in. With people like this so close, I didn’t feel it was safe enough to remain there and decided if I ever got out of there alive I would quickly move from my location and relocate somewhere else. Another man appeared in the room, and told me the situation in Appleby. The local residents had taken into hiding or moved away, and that they had taken over the town. I wanted to laugh in his face, it was like one of those Muggle mafia movies! I was just waiting for the damsel in distress to come out wearing scimpy clothes and hanging on one of their arms, as his girlfriend. It was ridiculous! The smirk was wiped off my face in no time flat though, when I discovered the man was dead serious. He explained that I was found without the mark, and I stared at the man as if he’d lost his head! ‘What mark?’ I asked were the first and last words out of my mouth. What the hell was everyone now getting the ‘dark mark’ now imprinted on their arms? Bah, they could kill me, because there was no way I’d ever be stupid enough to join them and take that mark. He explained if I wanted to be able to purchase anything at any store, to even enter this town for that matter I needed the mark. I had one choice, to get that mark. If I didn’t they’d release me right then and I’d never get that chance ever again to take it. If anyone was to find me without it, they could kill me on spot. And that included from the time I left that building and headed back to my cabin. My cabin was miles from there and I didn’t even know how I’d get there without my broomstick, let alone how I’d survive the cold winter air, trekking through the woods. Now adding the fact that I could be killed the moment I stepped outside the building for not taking this mark? I hated myself, I didn’t want to die but I didn’t want the mark either. I had no choice. I was basically writing my own death warrant if I didn’t take it. They gave me an hour in the room alone after telling me this, giving me time to decide.

My mother would understand, knowing that I was doing it so I could survive. But me? I hated myself, it was against everything I believed in and everything I swore I would never do. It was like saying I give myself to Voldemort and I’m now following him. See I have his mark, so that I can survive. I wasn’t brave like my father, I was stooping low enough to just take a mark so that I could survive another day. I had failed myself. When the man returned I stared at him and gave him a brief nod and dropped my eyes to the floor. I wouldn’t ever forgive myself for that. I couldn’t. It was like failing my mother and my sister. I knew I could get whatever we needed and they would never need that mark, but that mark I hated, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror the same anymore. It burned as it was applied to my left shoulder, as if they were branding me with an iron, but I didn’t flinch away from it and I walked out of that house a free man. I had made the right choice, as when I walked out the door people stood around waiting for me to leave. They turned away the moment I stepped out which told me they knew I had the mark and they didn’t need to stick around. They’d been waiting for me to appear, to kill me if need be. I would never have survived that moment, I know that now. But it doesn’t do anything for the fact that I had failed myself, my father, my mother and my sister. I made my purchases for the things I needed, purchased a new broomstick, and flew back to my cabin. It was pointless for me to leave, and there I stayed for the next 2 years. I was safe there, I didn’t feel it, because I was a castaway, tossed aside like a barrel full of flobberworms. I knew that any moment one of the Death Eaters could appear and kill me as if I didn’t make a single difference in the world. But I had a place to live, it was a distance from any town, and under protective charms. I had the mark, the one that would protect me against certain death if I was found by them, but I was also alone, more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.

I didn’t sit and mope around for the next two years if that’s what you’re thinking. And I also didn’t become some nerd that did nothing but study his books and brew potions, grow gardens, preparing my way for taking my OWLs and NEWTs one day soon. I did have an amazing surprise that happened at the end of my fifth year though. I was cutting some wood for the stove when an owl carrying a large package appeared out of nowhere and dropped it on the ground near my feet before flying off into the trees. Who had figured out where I was? Had my sister and mum risked sending a package to me in order to find where I was? I had no idea what it meant. Taking the package inside, I opened it and found a stack of papers that was about the size of my book of spells year 5! On the top lay a letter:

Gidyun Josef Yenorin
Do not tell me where you are, I understand that you have gone into hiding and hope all is well with you. The owl has specific instructions, to find you, drop this package and fly off without warning. Though you are in hiding, you are still required to take your OWLs, and hope that you have been studying. I ask you not to cheat as you complete the written examinations, I have included all OWL exams whether you took the class or not, feel free to complete the ones you have taken, or all if you wish.

When you have completed them, set them on a rock within your boundary, sign the paper included at the back of the exams, and an owl will find them. You will have to do your practical exams when you feel it safe to return to the wizarding world, but for now complete the written half of the OWL examinations.

Sincerely
Albus Dumbledore


I stared at the papers in my hands, and for the first time in months felt like I wanted to cry. He’d understood, and knew I hadn’t left on my own free will. But because I needed to, and for my safety as well as my families. He wasn’t going to allow me to fail just because I had thought of my family first, and was ensuring that I would be able to take my examinations.

I hadn’t left the safety of my fidelius charm to approach the town again, I was making do with what I had and not risking the chance of them finding me. Sitting down I worked on those exams and did everything I could to accomplish every class I’d been working on. Finally fishing the exams and completing all 9 of my classes, I packaged them up and placed them on the rock. Three days later when I came out of the cabin I found the package gone, now that my exams were done, I went back in the cabin and started my training. Term was over for me, I didn’t need to worry about exams or any classes til September, and wanted to be ready when I turned 17. I’d be of age in less than a year and needed to be ready for it. I wasn’t going to be caught unable to defend myself. I had picked up two different types of Muggle defensive classes. One was ju-jitsu and the other was sword fighting. I started in on the ju-jitsu immediately. It was tedious for the most part the first few belts, but once I got the hang of it, I really started flying with it, within the first 2 months I had made it through 5 belts and was working on my sixth. It was hard going because I didn’t have anyone there to train with but it wasn’t too bad. The sword fighting is where I found it more difficult to train without any help or partner to work with. I worked day and night only to stop to eat and rest when I couldn’t stay up any longer. I started gaining a lot of upper body strength and muscles that I hadn’t had before. I was almost 6 feet tall, and looked a few years older than I actually was.

When I wasn’t training was the worst. I sat wondering about my family and what was happening in the wizarding world. How had the Tri-wizard tournament turned out? Who won? I hoped it was Harry Potter, to be honest. I would have loved to see a younger student actually come out on top for once, and prove them wrong that younger students didn’t have the knowledge and training of the older students. Cedric was too much of a pretty boy to me, and I was all for a Hogwarts win, over Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. I wondered whatever happened to Maree. Was she able to finally stand up to her headmistress and stop letting her walk all over her? Or had she just continued to do whatever the woman wished? The only thing I regretted was the fact I’d not said good-bye. I’d vanished without a word to her, but it was for the best in my opinion. No one would be able to find out through her where I was and no one could harm her because she was just a friend and not like my family. They wouldn’t torture her because I wasn’t doing what the Death Eaters wanted. I knew I was lying to myself when I said she was just a friend. She wasn’t, not really. I thought about her every day, wondered where she was and how she was doing. Had she found someone? Had she fallen in love? The thoughts sickened me when I thought about her kissing someone else’s cheek, and that bothered me, because we’d never come to that point, never talked about the future. Hell, we’d never even gone on a date! But yet my thoughts continued, wondering how she was, and if she had fallen for anyone else.

I needed to get a decent sword, to be honest. I was just using a knife and I nearly sliced off my leg one day, I needed something that was long enough to use as a sword and not feel stupid while using a stick I found in the woods. I needed something that really made me feel like I was practicing and not swinging a stick around and pretending to hack people to death with a stick. But there was no fixing that, I was determined not to leave the shelter of my home until I could use magic. That included not getting my sixth year books and supplies, putting off my education for at least 6 months, which would be a huge set back. Even if I could use magic, I wouldn’t be able to apparate, which again was another setback. I needed to get myself to Diagon Alley once I was 17, somehow without the use of magic. I could try breaking into a wizarding family’s home but didn’t feel comfortable doing that. Especially when I didn’t know who was on Voldemort’s side and who was on my side.

My mother it turned out, had been searching for me since the moment she’d heard that I was no longer at Hogwarts, and didn’t appear during the summer holidays. She knew something had happened to send me on the run but knew also I didn’t want to be found. As a mother that had to have been hard, having lost both of her sons and her husband to the dangers that were steadily getting worse. One day I was heading back to the cabin from the lake when something seemed different and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Fear gripped me and I drew my wand, knowing I could use it if I feared for my life. Someone had broken through my charms, including the fidelius charm. But who? I stayed out of sight, watching and waiting. Lights came on inside the house when it grew dark and I still sat outside by the tree out of sight of the house. Someone was there and I had no idea who, was it a friend or foe? I didn’t know whether to leave immediately or wait to see who it was that sat inside there waiting for me. Sneaking closer to the house, as quietly as I could, I peered into one of the windows, looking around and not seeing anyone. I felt like a peeping Tom in my own house, but I had to know who it was that had broken through the barriers! Were they alone? Could I take them on? Would I be able to come out on top if I did? My broomstick was just inside the door, but even then it was risky to get just that. I didn’t have anything there that I couldn’t just leave there. I had my wand and that was all I needed. Everything else could be replaced.

Seeing movement in the hallway, through the glass I was peering through, I held my breath as she looked towards the clock before going back into the kitchen. Tears formed in my eyes and I stood there watching as she disappeared. I should have known she would find me. Did she know I was there or was she just guessing? I shook my head, knowing better than to even think that question. She knew, I’d been living there since last December and it was obvious someone was there and had been there for months. Letting out a shuddering breath I moved around the cabin to the door. I wasn’t going to make her worry and wait longer, I had missed her and Ava more than anything else in my life. I was trying to keep my emotions in check and just walk in like I hadn’t known she was there. I even went as far as flipping the lights off and keeping my wand out as I entered the cabin. It might have looked stupid to someone just watching us, but I knew better than to enter the cabin without protection. She would have bawled me out for just assuming even if I had checked the window. We had made a point of making sure that we could ask each other a question that only the other person knew and no one else. I didn’t think that it was an impersonator, because that meant if this person was, that my mother was likely dead, and they’d gotten this location out of her somehow. Taking a deep breath, I walked further into the cabin and saw her flip the light on and put her hands up, hearing her say ‘Gid. It’s me’ was the sweetest words I’d heard in the last 10 months. I hadn’t heard anyone speak at all since January, except my own voice, but I still had to ask. ‘What was the one place you never wanted me to go last summer and I broke that rule no less than 5 times a day?’ Seeing the tears in her eyes she smiled softly and whispered ‘the top of the rock a half mile from our camp’. I may have been 16 years old but I just wanted to be in my mum’s arms and feel her strong arms around me. It took maybe 3 steps from each of us til we were hugging but it felt like miles. We both stepped forward together and tears were on both of our cheeks as we stood there holding each other.

She’d been searching for months, going to every place she could think of as to where I might have gone, and even then hadn’t given up. She’d asked around to see if I’d been in Diagon Alley, sent messages to Dumbledore, and only got notice that I’d taken my written examinations. They had no knowledge as to where I was, and wouldn’t give that information out even if they had known, not wanting to risk the owl being intercepted. She told me of my sister Ava, whom Dumbledore had managed to talk my mum into allowing her to attend Hogwarts. She told me of what was happening in the wizarding world, and how Umbridge was taking over Hogwarts even after having been there only a little over a month. The tri-wizard was a huge surprise to me, hearing that Cedric had died and that Harry won, having succeeded in finishing the third task. Hearing Voldemort was said to have returned, wasn’t a surprise to me. Not after all I had been through that last January. The signs everyone had been hinting at was becoming real more and more with each day that passed. Did it scare me? Hell yeah it scared me! Was I going to back down and hide? Hell no, I wasn’t going to sit back in comfort and allow life to go on and me ignore everything that was happening! I was going to stand and fight as soon as I was able. I was still Hogwarts age, but after all was over, would there be a Hogwarts left? I was going to stand by what my father believed in and what I believed in and die trying if it came down to it. But I wasn’t going to die giving up, I would fight for what I believed in, and fight against Lord Voldemort if that was the last thing I did.

My mum had brought the books I needed for my sixth year as well as potions ingredients and anything else that I might need. She wasn’t going to just sit back either she took to teaching me everything I needed to know. We went to Diagon Alley and I brought my wand to Ollivander’s. He helped me get it into what I truly wanted, a sword. He changed my wand from just a wand to a wand that when you flipped it in your hand it turned into a sword. I no longer needed the stick I’d been using, nor did I need to pick up a sword, I had one with the flip of my wand. The best part about it? It didn’t require magic to change it to a wand, it changed to one without magic, so it wouldn’t affect the trace. My mother managed to acquire a sword, and her and I trained. She wasn’t much of a swordsman, but she was enough that I could practice and have an opponent. I longed to be out there, I wanted to join the Order of the Phoenix, but I was too young. I didn’t have anything special to bring to them either, I was technically a student, underage, that could do ju-jitsu and sword fight. Not a great challenger, not an auror, just a kid. I was also incredibly hesitant. What if they discovered the mark on my shoulder? They could turn on me as well. I didn’t want to risk setting them against me and trying to explain that I’d done it only to save my life. It sounded so selfish! People were dying every day, including Muggles! And I was worried about survival for myself. I talked to my mum, admitted how much I hated that mark and how I hated myself for taking the mark in the first place. She understood my fears, and tried to change my way of thinking for having taken the mark. It didn’t change the way I felt about myself, it didn’t change the way my whole life was looking like a lie to me now. I felt like I’d taken it to make myself feel better about my choices. How could I have changed the choices I’d made? How could I have used this to my advantage even? I couldn’t! It was the mark of a traitor to me. I had gone against my own father to save my own skin. How was that not wrong?

I’d been in hiding for a year when I met Corin in Diagon Alley. We were walking down the street towards each other when we realized who the other one was. We both stopped and stared at one another, him with narrowed eyes and me just looking at him. I asked how he was and he just stood there staring at me. A snarl on his face glaring. He asked me how it was that I was still alive. I shouldn’t have been, he said that he wouldn’t ever consider me his brother until I switched sides. To stop being a coward and help fight and get Voldemort to power. Was he serious? He definitely appeared to be! I yelled at him, asking how could he turn against his own family. How could he stomp on his own father’s grave and disrespect his memory? The guy didn’t even have the guts to look regretful! He just stared at me and said the next time that we met, he was either going to kill me or I was going to kill him. The fight would be to the death. And the only way to get out of it, would be to take that mark on my shoulder and stand behind it. I was the coward, the one who’d taken the mark so that I could survive. I was a traitor to the Death Eaters. The mark meant that I supported them and they could count on me to help them if they were in need. I was disgusted and glared at him, ‘you are a traitor to your own family. Don’t talk to me about being a traitor’ I spat at him. He had turned sides, the brilliant mind he had growing up had turned into this evil older brother who had gone with the side that could benefit him the most, rather than with the side where people fought for what they believed in. People said Wormtail was the traitor and did things only if he could get something out of it. That was my brother. Corin did what he could to get ahead and would only agree to help or support someone if he was getting the better end of the deal. He was a true Slytherin, one that the students could look up to. I was the one who had never fit in with the house I was sorted into, the one that everyone despised because I wasn’t cunning, and doing what I could to sabotage everyone else. I did what I did to get by and did my work to get ahead and get through my classes. Corin, had turned on us, and I had no brother any longer. He told me if I saw him again one of were going to die. What could I say? I wasn’t looking forward to that meeting. Could I kill my own brother? Just to save my own life? I didn’t know, and didn’t really care to find out. But I couldn’t hide any longer. In another 2 months I would be of age, and was going to fight and protect the innocent people, the Death Eaters were terrorizing.

I turned 17 on February 17, 1996. That’s normally the best day of a teenage wizard’s life. It had one meaning for me, it meant that I was old enough to use magic, and old enough to fight without having to listen to some adult telling me the right and wrong way of doing things. I kept with my studies, and my mother started teaching me apparition. GOD I hated those classes! It took ages for me to actually accomplish apparition. I stood spinning on the spot for hours and not a single movement from me from one side of the room to the other. It was a joke and I couldn’t even manage to successfully splinch myself even to show I was at least trying! My mother told me I would not be going to Diagon Alley or anywhere else until I was able to successfully apparate there myself. Yes, that meant apparating without a license but she was determined that I learn. It took until nearly the end of my sixth year before I was finally able to apparate at will to anywhere I wished. When I finally was able to, I apparated to the ministry of magic to take two sets of tests. One my OWLs and two my apparition test.

I arrived there on May 3, 1996 and took my OWL practical exams, one after the next until all 9 of them were completed. They told me I’d find out in two weeks how I had scored, and I went down to the apparition testing room and took my written exam and then took my practical exam. Walking out of the ministry with my apparition license in hand felt fantastic. I’d passed on my first try and the months of frustration were finally over. I had one place I wanted to go, and it was going to take some doing first, but I wanted to go back there. First though, I was going to help my mother get everything moved from the cabin to where we lived in London until just before everything started. I got my results for my OWLs and got 8 OWLs. I failed Astronomy, getting a D, but that wasn’t at all surprising, I never had cared to learn the placement of the planets and stars. But I got an O in Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic, Muggle Studies, Potions and Transfiguration. And I got an E in Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures.

It didn’t take much to get everything all boxed up and banished to our home in London. There wasn’t going to be anymore hiding. I put the fidelius charm on our home, leaving me as Secret Keeper, and made sure it had all the charms on it that both my mother and I could come up with. We weren’t going to hide out any longer. We were going to make a stand and do what we could to help the cause. I told my mother one night though that I was going to be gone in the morning and wouldn’t return for a week. She asked where I was going and I didn’t have the heart to tell her. I asked her to trust me and she nodded not speaking. I think she knew where I was going, but wasn’t going to ask, and was allowing me that little bit of information to keep to myself. When I was ready I’d tell her where I had gone, but for right then, I wanted no one to know, so that I could go and be there alone. The next morning before the sun came up I started my trek across Europe, apparating as far as I dared until I reached my destination.

Lizasaurus 12-12-2013 12:12 AM

I had to go back to where my father was killed. I had to go there and actually admit to what I had done, it was tearing me up inside, I felt like I had disrespected his memory and all that he believed in. I had gone and taken a mark that I detested and wanted to remove from my shoulder and couldn’t. Believe me I had tried, and my mother had as well. It was not removable, there forever. Entering the home I had known from when I was 12 to 13 years old I walked in almost afraid to greet the ghosts of my past. I hadn’t been in this house very long, but it had memories of things I wanted to forget, but I couldn’t. I had to confront the ghost of my father. To explain not only to him but also to myself how I could be desperate enough to go and take on the mark that was on my shoulder. We never remained in any house very long whether it be in London, the cabin, Ural Mountains or even the Alps. No more than a year or two at most since we left the Netherlands.

Closing my eyes as I stood just inside the door I took a deep breath and tried to steady my beating heart. I wasn’t the same boy I was 5 years ago when I first moved in, and never would want to be that little boy again. The only thing I’d change now would be having my father and my brother here as well. But that wasn’t ever going to happen again. Pushing away from the door, I walked through the house, there was a few inches of dust over everything, with no one having lived there in 4 years, but the signs that we’d been there were still evident. A doll of my sister’s lay on the floor as if dropped from a box and forgotten, a piece of a letter torn in half on the worktop in the kitchen and the other half on the floor. We’d had to leave quickly, and hadn’t time to cry over things we’d forgotten, though I am sure my mother and my sister did often. I hadn’t. I was too numb.

It felt as if they were there. I looked into the living room and could see my mother in the rocking chair, and my sister playing with her dolls on the floor. Corin at the desk writing to one of his friends off in England and my father brewing a potion in the cauldron in the dining room. The ghosts of my past haunting my thoughts and even my vision as I sat down in the chair I normally had sat in. I asked myself, why was I here. What was it I hoped to accomplish? He wasn’t a ghost, he hadn’t stayed or he would have found my mum, Ava and I, he’d gone on. He wasn’t about to talk to me, let alone tell me that he hated the fact of what I had chosen to do. I could have joined him and been killed. But I hadn’t because I wanted to be able to be there with my family and protect them if I could. I stared at the place my brother sat in my mind asking him in my mind why had he done what he had. Finally I just yelled at his ghost that sat there, stupid as it was I didn’t give a damn. ‘Why the hell did you switch sides? What the hell was wrong with you? Do you have any idea, how badly you hurt mum?’ I had tears in my eyes but I didn’t give a damn. He’d hurt mum, dad, Ava and I. And now he had pinned me with the news the next time we met he was going to kill me. It hurt to know that he didn’t give a damn about any of us, and that he’d chosen to follow Voldemort. Was he in Voldemort’s inner circle or was he just a follower that was fighting for the good of what Voldemort’s aims were? It didn’t matter. He didn’t believe in what we were fighting for and believed that Voldemort was in the right. I was angry, not sad that he’d turned sides, but angry. How could he do that to his family? How could he be as selfish as that? How could he think that Voldemort’s nonsense killing was perfectly normal? Did he truly believe that purebloods were the only ones who should be witches and wizards. No Muggle borns? What would we be without muggleborns? We wouldn’t even exist! We would have died out long ago. Only mating and breeding with our own kind? It was like we were animals, don’t breed with those that aren’t purebloods. It was disgusting and that’s exactly what it appeared my brother believed. I didn’t leave that room for a long time that night and I still couldn’t bring myself to go to the kitchen. Late that night, or maybe really early the next morning I finally climbed into my old bed and fell asleep. It was a restless night sleep and I didn’t sleep well at all. I kept waking up and firstly wondering if I would be found by one of Voldemort’s followers and be killed. Or maybe Corin would find me and we’d fight finally. That was going to happen, when I had no idea, where no idea, but it would happen and I knew that day was coming sooner than I would care to admit. I also couldn’t sleep because the ghosts of my past kept haunting me more and more. I knew I had to confront those ghosts and I couldn’t leave until I had. The next morning came and I stared at the ceiling, I was determined not to even leave the house until I had done what I had come to do.

So what did I do? I started cleaning the house from top to bottom. I wasn’t ready to confront my father. And the house was a complete mess, covered in dust, doxies in the curtains, garbage everywhere and it just needed to be well cleaned. Moving through the house I found odds and ends that had been left there, including a picture of the five of us sitting on the steps of the house. Finding a box I started putting anything that I found that we might like to keep, into that box so I could bring it home for mum and Ava.

I avoided the kitchen as much as I possibly could, wasn’t too easy, considering I did need to eat, but I’d grab what I needed and leave the room as quickly as I could. I hadn’t figured out how I was going to be able to even tell my father what I had done. Though he already knew and it was for myself to tell him more than anything, I still couldn’t do it quite yet. I got the house pretty well emptied and cleaned up, leaving no trace from my family’s existence there. Finally towards the end of that week I got to the point I could no longer avoid. I stood in the doorway to the kitchen staring at the spot my mother said she had found my father dead.

‘I never wanted to take it’ I said allowed, my voice catching in my throat. I swallowed unable to continue. Closing my eyes I took a few breaths trying to steady my breathing but the longer I stood there the more I found myself gasping for breath and had to leave the house. Outside I leaned against a tree, tears falling down my cheeks, trying to get a grip on life again. I had to do this, for my own sake if not for my father’s memory. I looked up in time to see an owl fly over the tops of the trees. Owls were who we were, a part of our lives as wizards. Many Muggles say they’re death omens, but not us. My father always told me he’d become an owl in afterlife, and it always made me laugh, because that was the only time he ever mentioned afterlife. We didn’t ever believe in that, but seeing that owl flying over brought a small smile to my lips. I hadn’t expected one to just appear the moment I opened my eyes, especially after what I’d just the house because of. It took me nearly 2 hours before I was able to go back inside the house, finally going back in the house I went to the kitchen again and leant against the frame again looking at the spot. I realized at the point, it wasn’t so much that I wanted his forgiveness, but really what was wrong right then, was that I was angry with him. It hadn’t been his fault that he had died, he hadn’t told them to kill him, they had found him and killed him at least leaving his family and us to get on without him. Which was more than they did for many other people and their families. But I was angry, he had left us alone and we were on the run ever since. With me having to take care of the family, and alone doing so.

When I realized it I shouted, I sank to my knees and just screamed at him, tears running down my face as I let out my anger, fear, rejection, the pain and how much I’d been through the last 3 years. I told him everything, including the mark I had taken. I blamed him for it all. I knew it was unfair but I did and when I was done I just sat there on my knees with my face buried in my hands. I don’t know how long I sat like that but eventually I laid down on the floor on my side, and not long after that fell asleep until the really early the next morning. When I woke I just lay there gazing into the darkness not really seeing and not really fully awake.

I don’t believe in ghosts, never have. I mean there are the spirits and ghosts at Hogwarts yes, but I mean ghost apparitions that just appear and walk around trying to scare people. I believe the ones here are there for a reason. They don’t just appear and disappear at will. But that morning in the darkness I could see the outline of my father sitting there on the chair at the table watching me. He never spoke, was just there as if to be a comfort to me. I lay there just staring at him, not speaking, really not comprehending what it was I was actually seeing. I won’t ever admit that to anyone, that I saw my father there that night, because even I for one are not sure if I did or not. But I like to think that for the first time since his death he understood and wanted me to know it was okay, and that everything was going to turn out alright.

I went back to London that night, making my way back across Europe, via apparition and had banished the box of items to our home, so I wouldn’t have anything to carry with me. My thoughts were still on that early morning encounter, but that basically told me either I believed in ghosts or I didn’t. Dad didn’t remain here, so did I believe that he could come back from the dead? I didn’t, but yet that question remained. What was it I had seen, or better yet…who was it? Arriving back in London, I was there just in time for Ava to be picked up from King’s Cross after her 4th year. That was the second reunion that I had been waiting for that I had looked forward to for months. I hadn’t seen Ava since back in Austria and had really missed her a lot. I stood on the platform 9 ¾ that day, and my mum didn’t even know that I was going to be there, I had told her I would try to meet her train but didn’t know if I’d be back in time. The train pulled to a stop and students flooded the platform, with their luggage running to meet their families. My mum appeared at my shoulder, and squeezed it as we waited for Ava to depart the train. Seeing her stepping off the train brought a smile to my face and when she saw me she ran into my arms and I held her close, letting her cry. My mum hadn’t told her she had found me is what I had found out later.

The three of us were completely together again, and with the rumours of what was happening it was even more reason for me to train. I got into ju-jitsu full time with training, and met with my sensei I had for the next 2 years. We didn’t venture out much, but each time was worse than the last. I feared to send Ava to Hogwarts the following year, it would be my last year at Hogwarts, but I wasn’t going to go, it was too dangerous for me, and not worth my time, when there were worse things out there, and I was determined to fight against it. Shops were closing left and right in Diagon Alley and even Ollivanders closed down when Ollivander disappeared. I hadn’t as yet seen Corin but I knew it was going to happen, I watched my back every day, wondering if that one might be my last. My mother and I both knew that I might go out one day and not return, it was something we both lived with.

The day finally arrived in late October 1996, I was near our home when Corin appeared, in a flash I had my wand out and he stared me down. He spoke these words ‘I give you one last chance’ and when I said no, the duel began. Right in the heart of London, hexes and curses flew back and forth between us, barely missing the Avada Kedavra curse many times, I gave up with the spells and flipped my wand into a sword, which took him by surprise. Deflecting much of the curses and hexes that he sent my way, I was impressed to the extent that this creation that Ollivanders had made me could do. I hadn’t expected deflection but it definitely worked to my advantage. The one thing that I really hate fighting people with are whips. Corin’s weapon of choice was a whip, he used his wand up until the point I took out my sword, it just got worse. Never would I ever use a whip on anyone. It’s painful beyond any pain anyone should ever have put on them. I didn’t deflect all the lashes, and have some pretty nasty scars to prove it, but when I had him pinned to the ground he waited for me to kill him, and when I hesitated he threw me off and apparated. I didn’t expect that to be the way things ended, I had expected him to kill me with his bare hands, after I had snapped his wand in two. But he disappeared once again. I never saw him again alive. I made it back to my home where mum stood at the door watching for me. I was covered in blood, both my own as well as Corins, and she knew what had happened, tears streaked her face as I came closer my sword at my side, not even having put it away. A brief shake of my head told her that Corin had survived and disappeared. She brought me in the house and fixed me up best she could, the worst scar I have from that duel is covered by a dragon tattoo I got just before the accident years later, that wraps around my side. I never speak of that tattoo nor what it represents. Corin’s patronus was a dragon, and though I hated my brother and still did until only recently, that dragon symbolizes Corin and the duel between us. It’s the only thing I have to remember him by now, there is no grave, no body that we got back when he died. He was gone, killed by the hands of Goyle.

Two months after the duel, we got word from the ministry of magic that a body had been found, and it was the body of Corin. We didn’t know who it was who killed him until much later. My mother and I both went to the ministry to claim the body, but when we arrived, the body was not able to be found, it had vanished. No one could explain the disappearance of Corin’s body and it wasn’t exactly the at the top of the list to be found either. He was a traitor in the ministry’s eyes, and had deserved to die. There was no closure for my mother, nor for me, though the closure had happened 2 months before when I realized that Corin truly was gone. He’d died years back, when he’d switched sides after our father was killed.

My studies didn’t end just because I didn’t attend Hogwarts. I suppose I could have returned to the school, but it wasn’t to me the in my best interest, I’d been out of the school for a year and a half, and was still technically in hiding. I could have contacted Maree I suppose but I didn’t. I figured she would have long moved on by now, and that thought still tore at my heart but all I did was push it away. What was the point on dwelling on something that would never be? She’d be finishing at Beauxbatons as well this year, it being her last. My birthday came and went as if it were just another day. My mother and I had made the home in London back to the way it had been years ago when I was 11 years old, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to live upstairs. There were too many memories up there, and we moved all of our belongings to the downstairs, each of us taking a bedroom and sealing off the upstairs. We basically started a new life there the best we could. It wasn’t easy, with so many memories coming flooding back, just from looking out the window at the garden in the back or seeing a candlestick when we were digging through boxes in the storage. Memories we really wanted to forget, push aside and never remember again. How could the fates have put us in this mess? It didn’t seem fair that so many things could happen to one family. So many deaths, both Muggle and wizard, the Bones…Mckinnons, cruciatus curses, so many pointless deaths, and it was only growing worse. A breakout of Azkaban had happened the year before with 10 death eaters had broken out, that had been about the time when the mark came into play in Appleby, and it appeared more more had also appeared that were supposedly in the cells of Azkaban. Scrimgeour attempted to try and help the frightened wizarding world but no one seemed confident that he was even capable of such a thing. I know I didn’t think he was.

I decided maybe a job in the ministry was of my best interest, but what a laugh that was, a boy who should still be at Hogwarts trying to apply for a job? I hadn’t even taken my NEWTs! So after getting laughed out of the office and told to go back to school I stormed from there after giving him a piece of my mind, I went straight to the books, and started studying everything I could to learn more about the Law Enforcement squad, and doing what I could to ensure that one day I would fight side-by-side with them against Voldemort. I wasn’t going to let some stupid Ministry tell me I couldn’t fight because I should be in Hogwarts. The world was crashing down on every one of us and they were worried about how my test scores would be for my NEWTs. I didn’t give a damn what the scores were going to be, I worried about what kind of world we were going to live in when Voldemort took over.

As with everyone around me, Dumbledore’s death hit me hard. It was a devastating blow for all of us. He was the strong one, the one everyone looked up to, whether they were a citizen, a student, or just someone who knew the name. He was well respected, and to get the blow of him being killed by none other than Severus Snape, hit me even harder. Snape had been my head of house, and I had respected him! I had trusted him and gone to him when I feared for my life, when I worried that my family might be found, and he helped me to get through that fear! He hadn’t looked at me like some stupid Slytherin who had been placed in the wrong house, he said we each had a place in Hogwarts, and if the Sorting Hat decided I was a Slytherin, then I was in the right house. Many people scoff at that and probably don’t believe a word of that but it’s true. I respected that man and my heart literally broke when I heard that he was the one who had killed Albus Dumbledore. I went to the funeral despite my mother’s begging me not to go. She feared that Death Eaters might appear at the funeral and everyone’s lives would be in danger. I had to go. I wanted to pay respects to that great man.

I spoke with Hagrid for the first time in a year and a half, huge tears rolled down that big oaf’s face. I still call him a big oaf, but I say it out of endearment now, rather than as a disgraceful comment about him. I can’t be sure that he was crying because he was happy to see me or if it were because of who’s funeral it was. But it was great to see him again, I’d missed our talks and he was relieved to see that I hadn’t been killed over the years. That funeral was the hardest I’d been to, and that included my own father’s. Though my fathers had only been a small ceremony on the mountainside. We had vanished the body after he’d been killed and hadn’t brought it with us. But Dumbledore’s hit me hard and I sat there once again numb, knowing a great man had been killed. Numb with not knowing what was going to come of the world that we had once lived in feeling so safe and secure. Voldemort had returned, his followers had joined him and a war was coming, faster than any of us knew to be true. Who would survive it? No one knew for sure, but the one thing we knew is it was coming sooner than any of us wanted.

I took my NEWTs at the ministry that year, not long after Dumbledore’s funeral. At least I managed that before things really went bad. I went from the exams to set up another interview with the head of Law Enforcement. The man still scoffed but said I had guts to continue coming back. He said to wait on the scores and then we’d see if I could join the YATI program to become an auror. Two weeks later I received my NEWT scores. I had done somewhat better than I had for my OWLs: I got an O in Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic, Potions, Transfiguration and Muggle Studies. And an E in Herbology= O. The scores had me able to join level 2 very easily and they found that I was a fantastic asset with the training I had in both the ju-jitsu as well as the sword fighting. It was sad to see that it was so short lived though.

Scrimgeour was killed in August of 1997, and that’s when all hell broke loose in the ministry. Death Eaters took over and Voldemort was basically Minister of Magic, though it was ‘Pius Thicknesse’ that was ruling and making decisions on behalf of Voldemort. Not a single employee at the ministry felt safe. Each one of us knew that any moment we could be killed or our family killed without a moment’s hesitation, and they’d just write it off as disloyalty to the current minister. I was tossed out of level 2 almost immediately, after they discovered who it was I was, and they sent me down to Accidents & Catastrophes to a lowly desk job. Figuring I was safer there and wouldn’t be risked placing me against the Death Eaters. I didn’t know who it was safer for! Me or the Death Eaters. Were they trying to protect me? Or did they fear that I’d knock off the Death Eaters one by one? I had no idea, I found it funny on both counts! That they were afraid of an 18 year old boy just out of Hogwarts? Or the fact that they felt I needed protecting from the Death Eaters or Voldemort himself. Did they think one day I’d be an asset to the ministry? Obviously not since they’d stuck me behind a desk. I was just biding my time though, I knew that there was a plot to reoverthrow the ministry, I had no idea when or who all was involved, being as I was ‘just’ a student out of Hogwarts. But I knew there was a plot to overthrow Voldemort’s new government, and I was going to be ready when that happened. Harry Potter seemed to have disappeared with his friend Hermione Granger, but students were back at Hogwarts, and Severus Snape was the new headmaster. God they were pathetic weren’t they? The man who turned out to be a traitor to Albus Dumbledore who killed him in the end? He was now appointed the headmaster of Hogwarts? Were they that desperate?

I ignored people for the most part, and just bided my time. Trained continuously for the battle that was coming. I was going to be ready, and I’d be damned if those ministry people and Death Eaters would continue to think of me as some kid just out of Hogwarts. I was going to prove myself and if I died trying, so be it. I was going to make my father proud of me, he wasn’t going to have died in vain, nor were those Muggles or those witches and wizards who’d been killed since Voldemort’s return. Even if Harry Potter had given up, I certainly as hell hadn’t!

I still hadn’t contacted Maree, and each time I thought about it, my heart tightened a little more and a little more til it hurt. I didn’t want to waste the paper, was my excuse every time I thought about writing her. One day mid December 1997, I was walking all bundled up into the Leaky Cauldron and passed through to the courtyard. I was just entering it when I nearly ran into someone who was leaving it going back into the Leaky Cauldron. I heard her say pardon me, and moved to step aside when I stopped and turned towards her when I recognized the voice. It couldn’t be, she hadn’t…she’d been in France! Was I really that stupid, to think that all these years she’d stayed put in France and hadn’t moved away? Was I really that naïve?

Lizasaurus 12-30-2013 08:17 PM

I just stared at her not even realizing I was doing that, and when she turned to look at me, I gazed into her beautiful pale green eyes I whispered her name ‘Maree’ she studied me for a moment and took a step back just gazing at me. As if studying me, then she slapped me and walked into the Leaky Cauldron. I just stood there stunned, unsure whether or not to follow her. I didn’t know if she thought I was some sort of stalker and she wanted me to leave her alone or if she did remember who I was and recognize me, and because of how I’d just left back in my fifth year, she’d slapped me and expected me to follow her. Swallowing my pride I followed her into the Leaky Cauldron but kept my distance. If she didn’t recognize me I wasn’t about to try and explain who I was, and I certainly wasn’t going to act like a stalker. It took only a moment for me to find her when I went inside, and she sat there watching me, following my every move with those piercing eyes she had. I moved closer but took a seat at the bar around the corner from her and sat in front of Tom who stood there looking between the two of us. I passed him a few sickles and asked told him I was buying her a drink. I could see her eyes narrow out of the corner of my eye, and murmured gillwater with a slice of passion fruit. I looked her way fully finally for the first time since sitting down at the bar and saw softness appear in her eyes and even maybe a hint of a tear in them. I had remembered, it had been 3 years but I remembered her favourite drink. She never drank anything strong, and that her favourite fruit was a passion fruit. Seeing her purse her lips, made me smile just a little and look down when she shook her head. Getting to my feet I moved a few seats closer, acting like a child I truly still was I nearly laughed aloud when she got up and moved further away.

She wasn’t wanting to be close to him, which he could totally understand. He’d been stupid to not contact her at all in the last few years, and had found her unexpectedly. What had he expected? For her to come running into his arms? The drink was placed in front of her and she just stared at it not bothering to touch it or pick it up to take a drink. Taking the drink that was brought him he took a drink of it and sat a bit forward on his stool, not looking at her, he’d messed up and even if she was free, he wasn’t. He wasn’t free to do as he wished. Not if he was going to go and fight in this battle and possibly be killed doing so. He didn’t want to be tied down with the ability for someone to use her against him and torture her because of what he was fighting for. Swallowing he drained his glass, and stood up heading for the exit. He wasn’t going to chase after her, he didn’t have that right. He was the one who had left, without any note or letter explaining himself all this time. Walking out of the Leaky Cauldron he headed to what he was planning to do before discovering her in the courtyard. He missed the look on her face as well as the pain and tears that followed, unknowingly hurting her again.

It was almost 2 months before he saw Maree again, I was sitting in the corner of the Leaky Cauldron, with Daryn, the two of us working over the information we’d been given for an assignment as our cover. The paperwork sat in front of us, but in low tones we sat talking about the current situation as we knew it. All rumours that we’d heard, all facts we knew and what we knew to be happening. The ministry was shot to hell, and we knew that in spite of it all, there was a group of us who were working hard to take it down. It was only a matter of time before it came crashing down, and we hoped in that time we’d have it taken over and the battle would be won. I looked up in time to see a woman walk past and noticed her jacket immediately, knowing full well it was Maree again. I didn’t speak to her but just got up to get another drink for myself and ordered her one as well knowing Tom would tell her who it was who’d bought it for her. I sat back down and spoke quietly again to Daryn with our heads bowed close to one another. I looked up startled as a glass was smacked down on the table in front of me and looked up into her eyes that were shooting daggers. She spat at me the words ‘I have no interest in a man who disappears without a word. You can keep your drink.’ And watched as she left the Leaky, without another word to me nor anyone else. It hurt but it wasn’t exactly undeserved. I could buy her a drink but I couldn’t speak to her? What the hell was I thinking? If I couldn’t even turn around and talk to her and see how she was how could I expect her to take that drink I offered her?

It was late April of 1998 before I saw her a third time, and again I didn’t say a word to her just ordered her a drink. I was a fool, I knew that. But I did it anyway. I sat down in the back corner, where I could be alone but could see her from where I was sitting. Watching as she picked up the drink she moved towards me her eyes flashing, looking as if she might throw it at me, I shook my head ‘Throw it at me if you wish. Do whatever it is you feel you have to do to feel better. Whatever it is, I deserve every single thing you do. I left. I didn’t tell you why. I didn’t give you an explanation I just left.’ Watching as she stared at me, her eyes still flashed but now I saw tears in that anger as well. I spoke again ‘I don’t blame you for being angry and hurt. I never meant to hurt you, I did what I had because I didn’t want to put you or my family in danger. I did what I had to protect you.’ Seeing her snort and shake her head she walked away and threw the glass onto the counter sliding it over towards Tom and going out the door. She wasn’t gone long, and I hadn’t moved from my spot, just sitting in the darkness of the corner. She sat down across from me and asked ‘what do you want from me?’ I told her nothing, I said I didn’t blame her for moving on. I wasn’t going to lead her on, because I had no future, nothing to give her. And I damn well wasn’t going to let the other side have something to use against me and someone for them to torture. Swallowing I shook my head when she said she hadn’t moved on. She told me that she had waited and I looked into her eyes ‘I never asked you to wait. I still can’t ask you to wait, you need to move on. I have nothing to offer you, I don’t plan on surviving this fight. And I can’t allow you to be sucked in and taken as someone for them to torture just to get to me.’ Pain showed in her eyes again and she shook her head saying it wasn’t going to be that way. Getting to my feet my eyes showed my pain and shook my head again ‘I can’t do that to you. I…I love you too much.’ I whispered, and got up and left. That was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done. I’d never told her I loved her and saying those words aloud made me wish I hadn’t because telling her that was only going to make it more difficult for her as well as for me. I did love her, and I was walking away from it.

It was barely a week later, that everything went down. May 2, 1998 to be exact. The evening started off like any other, the higher ups shoving work in our faces and everyone grumbling like every other day, nothing unusual. When suddenly everything gets put in motion. News comes in from Hogsmeade that someone has broken curfew that night, and I was sitting at the desk in Accidents & Catastrophes listening as someone came running through the cubicles looking for my department head. I inched closer waiting to hear any information when I heard the words ‘it’s time’ I knew what those words meant, and it meant that it was time for the ministry to be retaken. I pulled my wand out as did everyone that was there that night around me, and we shot spells at those around level 3 that were working for Thicknesse. Within minutes our level was completely secure and we had them all bound up on the floor, with someone to watch over them as we went to the lifts and stairwells going up and down them, meeting others on the way, securing each level one by one. Getting to the atrium, I started sealing off the lifts and left only one open, as people started securing all the floo networks. No one was going in or out of that place without our knowledge. Every person that was still in the ministry that wasn’t on our side or in level 1 was secured and we had every one of them bound and deposited into a cell on level 2 with top aurors guarding them. Half our team, including myself made our way up to level 1, where we found that Thicknesse had already left, as had all the senior staff. We found later they had all gone to Hogwarts, via the floo network from the minister’s office. I was the last one to remain in level 1, every other person who had entered that office with me had floo’d to Hogwarts as well to help fight.

Making my way back down to the atrium, we waited, desperate to know what was happening at Hogwarts and unable to do anything. The ministry was secured, and we were trapped like ants, waiting to hear if all our work had been for naught or if Voldemort’s reign of terror was about to end. No one left that night. We all sat there waiting, listening, checking and combing through the ministry to ensure none was missed. No one slept that night, as I’m sure no one slept in all of Britain either.

Dawn rose early the next morning, and we all waited with still hearts to hear if the war was over. What had happened? Finally people started appearing, clapping each other on the back as they entered the ministry through the one fireplace that had remained open in the atrium. Kingsley was one of the first out of it, and by the looks on their faces, it was obvious the war was over. Nobody cried that morning out of sadness or even thankfulness it was over. We all were ecstatic, happy, relieved. It was over, and Voldemort was dead. We could go on living without fear that one day us, or our families would all be killed. There was no more killing, no more of that mark to be able to survive. My family could return to the life we had before it had all began 7 years ago. It was hard to believe it was all over, it seemed so surreal. Could we actually have a life that we all had dreamed of? Could I actually consider a life with Maree? Would I be able to walk out that door and not fear for my life?

Over the next few months they needed my help, and I continued training as a YATI, but my heart wasn’t in it. I helped capture many of Voldemort’s followers and send them to Azkaban. It was revenge for me, to be able to capture those captors up in Appleby. The ones that had threatened me, my family and my life. I found out about Mad-eye Moody and how he had been actually Barty Crouch JR, that night that he had used the cruciatus curse on me those many years ago. And that the actual Mad-eye Moody was killed only a year before when attempting to bring Harry Potter to safety. So much had changed, the entire country felt the difference from the life we had had to the life we had now. No longer under the threat of needing to hide and protect our families, many felt safe enough to come out of hiding. The rest of us still held back being overly relieved, and weren’t stupid enough to continue with our safety charms we had in place, like Fidelius charms. We’d been through way too much to just toss that all aside. I know I hadn’t forgotten, and probably never would forget the fear and the safety I needed to keep for my family and making sure that they were all safe and protected. I had a chance to continue with the YATI program or even join Accidents & Catastrophes. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t what I wanted anymore. I would still be an asset if they ever needed me, but I didn’t want to have that danger in my life. I knew Auror’s lives could be living hell, and that the safety they managed to give to others, didn’t necessarily fall to themselves as well. The reason I had wanted to become one was so I’d have the training I needed to protect my family. Now I didn’t feel that was as important as it once was.

I was walking down the street of London towards the Leaky Cauldron to enter Diagon Alley when I saw down the block just past it, Maree standing there. She was at the bus stop and had a large bag on the ground beside her. I know she saw me and looked down immediately before taking a seat on the bench and folding her hands in her lap. I watched her a moment before heading her way, passing the Leaky Cauldron and asking if I could sit beside her. Seeing the shrug in her shoulders, I took a seat and looked down at my hands. ‘Are you leaving?’ I asked her and when I saw the slight nod of her head I sighed and swallowed before looking down the street the way I had come. ‘I never meant to hurt you’ I said quietly. ‘I never wanted to leave that night, but if I didn’t I knew that my family were as good as dead, as would be anyone else I cared about. I couldn’t write you, or it would tip off whoever was looking for me, as to my whereabouts. I was already in danger, and wasn’t strong enough or able to protect myself if I wanted to. I wanted to be ready for them, but not be stupid to tip off where I was.’ God I would have changed so much if I could have turned back the clock, I would have sent word to her that I was leaving! She’d still have been angry with me I was sure but not as much so if she knew why and that I had told her I was leaving. It was hard sitting there trying to get her to understand I would never do anything to hurt her! ‘Maree, I love you.’ I whispered, ‘I know you don’t believe me, I know that you have no reason to believe me, if I had stayed, you could have been tortured or even killed right along with me. I couldn’t let that happen.’ Seeing her lift her head and look at me, her eyes were bright as if in tears without letting them fall. She whispered four words I would never forget from that point on ‘I love you too.’ The wall that was between us and that had been there since the first time I’d seen her last December had finally broken. She threw her arms around me and I turned towards her holding her close. Tears were on both of our cheeks, though I still don’t understand why I was crying. Maybe out of relief that she didn’t hate me? I didn’t know, all I knew was that she loved me back and that for once in the last 4 ½ years she didn’t hate me, and was relieved that I loved her. It was quite some time before the two of us got to our feet and finally headed towards the Leaky Cauldron, quite a few buses had passed but not a single one did she get on. I picked up her bag and we made our way to the Leaky and we got her situated in her room once again. It was only temporary but for now she was going to stay there. She and I started talking and getting to know each other all over again. It was sweet and definitely a calm washed over me as life started fitting together again.

I started working down in level 9 in the ministry, in the Time Room about a week after the Great Battle. I told my department head I just couldn’t work in either levels 2 or 3, I wanted somewhere that was quiet, not as busy and dangerous as an auror’s life would be. He hated seeing me go, but understood. I had been through a hell of a lot in my short 18 years of life, and just wanted to settle down and actually have a life that I didn’t have to look over my shoulder constantly. Maybe one day I would long for the adventure that that life could bring me. But right then, I wanted to get to know Maree, talk of the future, which we were already doing and had been together only a few days! I wanted to enjoy the fact that I wasn’t fearing for my life every minute of the day. I didn’t have to work out or practice ju-jitsu because I needed it to be able to protect myself against someone or something. I wanted to be able to sword fight, for the pure pleasure of just using my sword!

Maree and I started talking about marriage, God I didn’t think even a month before that I’d ever talk to someone about that subject. I didn’t think I’d have survived this far, and now she was asking if I’d ever considered getting married one day. I didn’t want to get married until I had a decent job, one that I was doing well at and knew I could support a family. Ava was out for the summer holidays, and I was bringing in the money from the ministry to pay bills. The house was paid off so it was just utilities and main items that we needed like food. But to actually support a family? Maree and I wouldn’t be living at the house with my mum and sister, we’d want our own place, meaning I needed to have a job full-time and know that I could support the two of us, and we wouldn’t be starving because we didn’t have enough money to buy food! But we talked of marriage, and what the future might bring for us. I started looking forward to planning the future! There were a few nights that we got really close, we’d kiss for a long time, she’d start running her hand under my shirt and it’d give me goose bumps, but then tell me it was time for me to go home. God I hated those nights! I couldn’t understand how she’d play around and when she decided that she didn’t want to go any further she’d just stop what we were doing and tell me to go home. It hurt, I never questioned it but it hurt to have her tell me to leave. I despised her at times for it! I knew I shouldn’t, and that I should respect it, but even when I tried to push her hands away and try not to get worked up she managed to get through to me, and it was as if it were a game to her.

I enjoyed working in the time room in the ministry, it was a change from all the training that I had in both levels two and three. Every once in awhile I’d get a request to help out on a job but most of my time was spent in the time room. In that month following the battle, I learned quickly how things worked in there, loved the job and got to know my fellow unspeakable. It was evident that I was going to move quickly through the ranks and that the department head, was looking at training me in as his replacement. The night before the accident I blew off Maree, told her I had to work late and would see her the next morning. I was sitting in the living room with my mum and sister watching a movie when Maree appeared at the door. Mum didn’t know that I had told her I was working late, and called out for her to come in before I even had a chance to react. Guiltily I looked up as Maree entered the room with flashing eyes. She had known I was there, somehow already and had come to confront me. I followed her out into the warm night and considered just apologizing, but I shook myself mentally realizing I had no reason to apologize except for the fact I had lied to her. I knew what the real reason I hadn’t wanted to get with her that night, and it was the reason I always regretted going to her house nearly every night. I stared at her when she started yelling at me, and bit back any retort I could come up with waiting until she wore down with the yelling and finally spoke in a deadly calm voice. ‘I come to your house every night. Each time leaving practically in pain because you always manage to get under my skin. You mess around, and tease me until it hurts and then you tell me to go home. I wanted just one night when I didn’t have to sit and worry about what you might do next, one night without waiting to go home and take a cold shower because again you tortured me to the point of pain.’ She stared at me with wide eyes and an open mouth and shook her head. Excuse after excuse poured from her mouth and anger took over again as she spoke. Saying she wanted to save herself for marriage. Shaking my head I clenched my jaw together. It wasn’t saving herself for me, or our marriage, it was saving herself for ‘marriage’. I had no problem with her wanting to wait. What I had a problem with was her teasing and making sure I wanted it, and that I didn’t want to wait any longer, and then telling me to leave when I couldn’t hold back. THAT was the problem I had! I told her that, all of that and more and she glared at me, asking who did I think she was waiting for. I said I didn’t know, because if she loved me she wouldn’t make me feel so worthless and hurt me as she did every single night this happened. I said that if she wanted to wait, that was perfectly fine with me, but she needed to stop playing with my feelings and trying to wind me up. She turned and walked towards the hill to go back up to her car. I stood there at the bottom of the hill looking up at her, when she turned to look back down at me. Finally speaking I could hear the quiver in her voice as she spoke ‘Maybe we aren’t meant to be together, perhaps that’s what you wanted all along.’ With that she turned around and left. How the hell could she turn that completely around on me? As if I had no feelings at all, that I didn’t give a damn how she felt! I had spent my life wanting to keep her safe and protected. To make sure that no one would harm her just like she was my family and I had protected them. She made this all out to be my own fault. My fault that I had allowed her to get as far as she had every night this happened and I was the one to blame for her stopping things before they went any further. GOD that hurt! And now because I’d finally spoken up she was saying that it was over. I didn’t go after her, because it hurt more than I’d ever care to admit it. I look back now and realize how selfish she was, she was getting off each time I was sure, enjoying how it felt to kiss me, and have me touch her but in all honesty, she was doing it all for her and not me. She enjoyed seeing me squirm and then probably laughed as I left the house, went to bed for the night and planned the next encounter we had. I thought it was sickening and it hurt back then. Now I look back and realize how much she played me. Unfortunately for me that was the last time I ever saw her.

Lizasaurus 12-30-2013 08:19 PM

The next morning I went in to work like I normally would have, and headed down to level 9. Working with the time turners, was just like any other day and I knew I had a large batch of time turners I needed to test out, that we had made the day before. I’d gotten there pretty early in the morning and set about lining them up on the worktop in the testing room. When you test time turners, you usually only turn it a quarter of a turn and then sit with your own self in the room for 15 minutes, before the person vanishes with their own time turner. I had gotten through about 5 of them and noticed people starting to come in to work as I picked up the sixth one. Turning it a quarter of a turn I watched as time started passing around me, and after a bit realized something was off, it hadn’t stopped passing and things were starting to change, it grew faster and faster until I ended up blacking out. The sounds and noise kept running through my head as I lay there on the ground. I was unconscious but yet conscious of my surroundings. I could hear voices and screaming even at times, but completely unable to bring myself back to consciousness. I had no idea what was going on! I could hear laughter and tears, banging and complete silence. Something was happening in the waking world but yet I still lay there in silence unable to open my eyes. I had no idea how much time had passed before I felt the solid ground underneath me and voices again talking and asking what had happened. Where was I, and what had happened? I still lay there halfway between consciousness and unconsciousness, able to hear them speaking but unable to speak or make any sign that I was aware of what was happening. I heard someone yell for MLE to come down and that there was an intruder in the department. I had no idea who was speaking or who they were even talking about. Who was the intruder? Where was he? The last thing he remembered was turning the time turner a quarter of a turn and the time starting to fly past him. Why couldn’t he open his eyes or speak? He lay there still in between consciousness and unconsciousness unable to reach anyone around him. Or even blink an eyelash or move his hand, to let them know he was awake and able to understand them. Hearing another few people enter the room, he heard more people talking frantically about how this person was found laying on the floor in the Time Room. Was that person me? Was I the person everyone was calling the intruder? I wasn’t an intruder! I was the division head for the Time Room! I still lay there unable to communicate with anyone. I could hear them asking if the person had any id on them, OF COURSE I DID! I had my badge on my chest didn’t I? The person nearest me said I had a badge from the Ministry of Magic but no one had any idea who Gidyun Yenorin was. That was me, so the person that they thought was the intruder was me! I had to wake up, I had to let them know I wasn’t an intruder. Where was I? How far back in the past had I gone? Merlin, was I seriously here now before I was born? God I hoped not! I didn’t want to be able to see my family grow and my father die all over again, see Corin and I fight, Voldemort come back to power. God I was getting a headache and I didn’t even know what the hell was going on! Finally someone tapped my head with his wand, and my eyes opened staring into the eyes of the person who was leaning over me. A young woman, with her eyes flashing as she stared at me. ‘Who are you, and how did you get into my department?’ she demanded, asking me the one question I couldn’t answer without them staring at me like I was crazy. I explained who I was and heard tons of scoffing and snorting from those around me. The guy from MLE shook his head ‘you’re going to have to try harder than that to get out of a breaking and entering son.’ I stared at him and shook my head and tried to sit up when he put his hand on my chest holding me down. Unpinning my badge I held to him, ‘If nothing else will make you believe me, that will prove it. Go check your records I was the Division head in the Time room.’ Damn….erm…. If it was in the future the records wouldn’t show that I was the Time Room division head ‘Err, okay well it says on my badge that I was the Time Room division head, look at it! I’m not lying to you, I was testing time turners when something happened!’

I was ignored and the badge removed from my hand, not given a choice I was soon cuffed and escorted from the department and led to level 2 and thrown into a cell. Sitting down on the bench that was to by my bed, I set my head in my hands and just sat there. I had no idea what year I was in, or how far back I had travelled in time. It was obvious the items around the room outside the cell were newer, so it wasn’t too far back in time. I don’t know how long I lay there on the bench waiting for someone to tell me what was going on. I just wanted to know what year I was in, and if I could return to my own time. I wanted to put things back to normal and not ever touch a time turner ever again. Getting to my feet when someone approached, a man stood in front of the cell and spoke ‘Gidyun Josef Yenorin, son of Abigail Será Buskirk and Josef Theodore Yenorin on February 17, 1979. Correct?’ My eyes stared into the man’s eyes in confusion and I nodded slightly. ‘Yes’ so obviously it was after he was born. One thing that worked in his favour. Could he at least hope that the time wasn’t that much different from his own time line then? ‘Get Fudge or….Scrimgeour or whoever is Minister currently, I know both of them.’ Hmm, Cornelius he’d met back at the Tri-wizard but if that hadn’t happened yet, then he wouldn’t know him. Damn… The man was staring at him like he was missing an eye or something. ‘Son, it’s 2063, Scrimgeour is dead and well….Fudge….he wouldn’t remember you if you wanted him to, his minds a bit addled now at his age and all.’ Unlocking the cell door, he held it open for me to exit it. I stood there still inside the cell, trying to comprehend what the man was saying. The year was 2063? How could that even be? ‘You’ve got to be wrong.’ I murmured shaking my head. Something was very wrong here, it couldn’t be that far in the future. I’d never even used a time turner to go into the future, only into the past. Into the future was dangerous! To lose an entire part of your life, no matter how small it was, could have dire consequences! The man looked sympathetically at me and said he was sorry, but recommended that I go home, get some rest, and perhaps return to talk to the department head of Mysteries perhaps tomorrow. Tomorrow. What was I supposed to do for tonight? I had no money, no place to go, all I had on me was my wand and the clothes I was wearing. I supposed I could go to Gringotts…if that bank even existed still and take some money out. I saw sympathy in the man’s face but I didn’t want sympathy I wanted answers. Was I going to be able to return to my own time again? Could I survive another time turner use, would I be able to return? Did I want to? OF COURSE I WANTED TO! Just last night I had talked to Maree, so hatefully, and watched as she walked away from me. And now I sat 65 years later unable to even talk to her and apologize! My family, what had happened to my mum or Ava? I was going to go straight to my home and see if anyone was there. I didn’t give a damn about if I had money, or anything else, I wouldn’t rest til I had seen my family at least.

I was numb, I had gone from confused, to completely stunned to find myself in the cell, to dumbfounded when he had told me it was the year 2063, to now numb with the thought that I might be completely alone now. Anything could have happened in the last 65 years, they could all be dead, moved on, in other countries. Who knew what could have happened in that time! Apparating right to my home in London once I reached the atrium I was able to get right inside the Fidelius charm and not worry about apparating into Muggle London. God I didn’t even know about the statutes any longer! For all I knew all Muggles were now witches and wizards as well! I turned around to face my family’s home and my heart dropped out from under me and I sat down right where I was on the ground as I looked at the run down house that looked like it hadn’t had anyone there in many years. Swallowing back my tears I stared at the large hole in the roof and the garage that I was surprised hadn’t collapsed as of yet. This didn’t mean anything, I knew that much. It meant that whomever had lived there last had left it to decay. But it told me that my mother was most likely no longer alive. She would never have let the house get to be like this. It may have had bad memories, and hard ones to even remember, but it had been our home for a number of years, and it had good memories as well. Pain coursed through me, knowing that she had died not knowing what had happened to me. After my father left, she had Corin, Ava and I to help her get through it. Then Corin had disappeared but she had Ava and I to help her. We had no idea at all what had happened to him, and then when we finally found out, we wished we hadn’t. Corin was no longer a part of us, and had made his path. Me? I had been worse than dead, I was gone, completely missing. They might have had records of the accident, but there was no way of knowing if I had survived the accident, or if I’d been killed in the process. She had died not knowing how I had arrived so far in the future, I had just vanished, no saying good bye, no last words to her or Ava. Her and Ava had been on their own. I wanted to find out what had happened, and find my sister. I didn’t have time to do that, not til after I spoke with Mysteries department head to see if I could return to 1998 first. I wanted to return!

It took me a good three or four hours to fix the hole in the roof and make the house able to be lived in before I could even consider sleeping there. It was pointless to find another place for the night, being as I had a place right there. Getting the roof fixed was the least of the problems, it was getting the inside of the house so it was not about to collapse in on itself! The bedroom next to the garage entrance was the best and safest, though I refused to sleep in that room. It had been my mum and dad’s room, and I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in that room. Finally getting the upstairs living room clean to the point I could just drop on the sofa, I didn’t really care about eating or anything else. Grabbing a blanket I dropped onto it and just slept til early the next morning. He hadn’t gotten any food the night before so when he woke he was pretty much starving and didn’t have anything he could even do about it. He didn’t have any money on him and hadn’t found even a knut in the house including when he tried summoning some. Heading for the door he decided to apparate to Diagon Alley, and go sit in the Leaky Cauldron, if that was even still a business there. Even without money he could at least sit there til Gringotts opened again, and get some food once the bank opened. Arriving at the Leaky, he had half expected to see Tom standing at the bar, but someone completely new and unfamiliar stood there and looked at him curiously. He was sure he looked rumpled as if he’d just come off the street, he hadn’t changed clothes and really needed a shower but didn’t care, he was a bit hungry and still had to wait a bit before he could even think on doing anything else. The scary thing was, he didn’t even know if there’d be an account at Gringott’s even if he went over there. Or if there would be anything in his vault! The man at the counter looked at him curiously making his way over to where he was sitting and asked if he wanted anything. I felt bad but shook my head, ‘Just waiting for Gringotts to open’ I explained simply. I wanted to lay my head down and just sleep again but my stomach wouldn’t let me. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast that morning before, and that felt like a long time ago. If anyone asked? I could easily say I hadn’t eaten since June 1998. I set my head in my hands, fighting back a yawn, and looked up as the man returned with a cup of coffee and put it in front of him. Murmuring my thanks I shook my head at the question he asked in regards to me not having a place to sleep. I didn’t need questions or people nosing around trying to figure out where I’d come from. Even I didn’t know! Taking a sip of coffee I shook my head again ‘Hopefully this mess will be all sorted by noon today.’ I said simply, hoping that would satisfy his curiosity. If it wasn’t sorted by then, I would be in one hell of a predicament and just want to go home. And not to the place I just left but back to Maree, mum and Ava. Back to everything I knew, and everything that used to be. I had a sinking feeling even then, that that was not coming to happen, and that I was stuck in 2063 and needed to adjust and find where I belonged. I hoped that was just a feeling and not seeing what was to come. I wanted life to return to normal and this was not normal. I wanted my family back and to see them, to beg Maree for forgiveness and to take me back. To apologize for hurting her with what I said that night. I was regretting those being the last words I’d ever said to her. I’d already hurt her once, and it looked like I’d just hurt her again.

Making my way over to Gringott’s when it opened at 8:00 precisely, I went to the front counter and asked for Vault 457, when he asked for my wand I handed it over and waited until the goblin returned and sent me with another goblin to my vault. So far so good, now to see what kind of items I would find in there. Was it empty or was it stocked with what I’d left? Making their way into the depths, they approached his vault and he got out following the goblin and watching as he opened it. Stepping into the vault I looked around and found way more coins than I’d ever expected. More than I had had in there before the accident that was for sure. It was as if they’d combined all the family vaults and put it all in this one. Looking towards the goblin I asked when the last time anyone had taken anything from it. My heart sank as he said since before he had started at Gringotts. That wasn’t a good sign at all. If this was now our family’s vault, and no one had been there for a long time, it wasn’t a good sign that he had any family left now. Taking and looking around the vault I saw some items in there that I had had in my cubicle back at the ministry, papers from the house from back when I was in Hogwarts. Old school books and supplies. My old cauldron and scales. I ran my hand over the items lovingly, staring at the things from the past. I never thought I’d ever see these things and look back at old memories like this. There was the sticks that my mum and I had practice sword fighting back when we were at the cabin. We’d sharpened them so they were almost like weapons even, and she’d saved them and stored them here. I poked around the vault til the goblin started tapping his foot and asked if I could get another key to my vault, seeing him lift his eyebrows at me as if what had I done with the last one, I shrugged and gave him a half smile. Hearing the goblin mutter humans, I took that as a good sign. I figured I’d get a key and just in case take some money with me, so that I had that. Picking up a key on the way out of Gringott’s I went back to the Leaky and got myself some breakfast before heading to the ministry. It was already starting to become a long day and I feared what I might hear when I got down to level 9.

I went through the process of having my wand checked over and signing in so that I could enter the ministry, got a little badge to wear and headed for level 9. I knocked on the door to the department head’s office and saw her wave to me to come in from her spot at her desk. Seeing the look on her face told me all I needed to know. I knew that there was nothing that she could do, without even asking or her speaking. She was sympathetic, but for the love of merlin, I didn’t want the sympathy! Was that what I would have to deal with for the rest of my life, sympathy of having lost EVERYTHING? I had some rundown piece of junk for a house, no family that I knew of anywhere, Maree was gone, and all I had was the clothes on my back and some artifacts from years ago that my mum had stored in my vault, or well someone had. Basically I had nothing and no one. The woman told me that there was the possibility of taking a time turner and making small jumps in time back but there was no guarantee that I’d be able to even survive going back. Who knew what kind of toll that had taken on my body. I had been knocked unconscious for an extended period of time and they were lucky that I’d even been able to be revived. I could have lived the rest of my life between consciousness and unconsciousness. The accident to me was permanent, going back in time again would be risky, and possibly able to be done at some point but I needed to try to move on. There was so much of me that wanted to take that chance and go back in time, saying screw it and just doing it. I wanted to take that time turner and just disappear again. If I died doing so, there would be no one to miss me, no one who wondered what happened to me, or sad that I was gone. They were already gone, I had no one from what I could see and for me to continue on my own? I was devastated, it was the one hope I had had, that I could just rewind the clock and undo it all. But could I honestly just take a suicidal chance that I could undo it and go back to 1998? In some ways this was worse than thinking I’d gone back in time! At least if I’d gone back, I’d know what was to come, that Voldemort was returning, and I could even warn people, that is if they would believe me and not think of me as some crazy lunatic. Now they’d just think of me as some crazy lunatic, that was from the past, trying to return to a normal life 65 years ahead of his own time in the future. I got up and shook my head but thanked her for at least looking into the possibility of returning. She requested that I go get checked out at St. Mungo’s and I said I’d consider it. I wanted to laugh and say yeah, they’d stick me in the locked ward and never let me out again. No one was ever going to believe me. I wanted to go curl up and fall asleep hoping that this was all just a nightmare and I’d wake up and find myself on the floor of the Time Room again but back in my own time, not 2063. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen and somehow I needed to get it through my head that I wasn’t going back, and needed to start thinking of the future. God didn’t that sound wrong, I was in the future, at this time of my life I thought I’d be playing with my grandkids, not sitting here starting my life!

I left the ministry and headed back to the Leaky Cauldron. Was I going to become a drunken man now that I had no idea where my life was going? I had no idea, I just needed a drink to try and clear my head. Something strong, that would just burn as it went down. I asked for the strongest pint of firewhiskey he had and went and sat down at the table. He came over and sat down across from me and asked what was going on. I finally spilled it all out and told him everything that had happened in the last 22 hours, he looked like he wanted to laugh and say ‘yeah right’ but he didn’t. He probably had heard enough tales that would curl my hair but he wasn’t laughing. Maybe he knew I wasn’t joking, or maybe he was just being kind and not wanting to make fun of me. Perhaps he thought my mind was addled and I should be in that locked ward in St. Mungo’s. Maybe I should have been. All I knew is I was one miserable guy who had no sign of what my future might be. He poured me another whiskey and I just sat there staring at my glass, trying to get a grip on things. I needed to go back to the house but first I needed to make some purchases. I needed food, clothing, and everything a house needed for someone to live in it. Like furniture that wasn’t falling apart or that had animal nests inside it, I needed to have blankets that weren’t filled with moth holes or smelled of grandma’s old attic. First thing was food and clothing. Then I’d see to what it was I needed to replace. I also needed a car I was sure too, needing to get around Muggle London and not worry about someone seeing me apparate, and I really didn’t want to use Muggle transportation. Much of that money that I had in the bank was already spent, the rest I’d have to figure out later. Heading to Madame Malkins, I made purchases for clothing, I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with going into Muggle London yet. I knew a lot had changed in the last 65 years and I wasn’t ready to go find out. I had apparated from my home and to my home so I hadn’t even been outside of the magical boundaries yet. Once I had made my purchases and sent them all to my home I went and did some grocery shopping and necessities for around the house. For that I did have to go into Muggle London, but just barely. I stared around me at my surroundings as if it were the first time I’d ever been in London, but didn’t waste time looking around and got my purchases made before heading back to the Leaky Cauldron. The second I entered the building I banished everything to my house. Irritating having to carry all my bags, but what else was I supposed to do until then? Stopping for a bite to eat again at the Leaky I thanked him and completely ignored the amused look he gave me, as if wondering when I’d finally come to my senses and just admit that I needed help mentally. I stared him down and apparated out of there and to my home. Staring up at the house that was to be mine now, I wondered what had happened to my family. Had they all moved away? Were they all dead? I didn’t like the idea that they might have all died. My sister was 2 years younger than I was, so wouldn’t she still be alive? She’d be only 82, my mum well over 100, didn’t witches and wizards still live quite a bit longer than Muggles did? As soon as I was settled I was going to have to look into it, and see whatever had become of my family. Even if they weren’t still alive, maybe Ava’s child or children were around, if she had any. Heading into the house I started working on vanishing things room by room, ridding it of the furniture that was destroyed from the weather coming through into the house from the hole in the roof, cleaning the floors starting with the living room and scrubbing walls. I really was having a hard time even being upstairs with the memories from before my father was killed, and kept pushing it aside. I didn’t like the idea of living upstairs, but I told myself, it was either get over it and move back into the main part of the house or sell the entire thing and start completely over. I wasn’t stupid, I had a perfectly good house once it was finished, I didn’t need to start over, I just needed to get passed having lost my father and enjoy the memories I still had from it. There was nothing wrong with the house, other than it needing to be fixed up again, and purchasing furniture and such. I didn’t need to even buy completely new furniture! I could buy a bed and just duplicate it, or transfigure it into a couch. Buy a night stand, duplicate it and transfigure it into a coffee table or side table for the living room. Same with chairs, and lots of other items. I was a fool for thinking all my money would be gone in no time. Again I was wanting to smack myself, I’m a wizard, not some Muggle who has pocket change. Finally getting the living room into livable condition, I headed for the kitchen and unpacked the groceries and started cleaning the cupboards and worktop so I could at least put the dry goods away. I needed to buy a refrigerator and stove, but I would take care of that tomorrow, for now I wanted to at least feel like the place was starting to become home to me again. I worked long into the night and by the time I went to bed, I had most of the upstairs completely done. The rooms were empty and echoed as I walked through them. I was going to buy a roll of carpet the next day and duplicate the pieces so I could do the floors. Buy some furniture and appliances, and I might actually feel more comfortable living in the place if it was more me, and not a stranger’s home. It felt so empty in there and it was hard looking around me, but it also felt like home to me. Reminding me of what this house used to be. It used to be filled with laughter, with my brother Corin and sister Ava and I running around, getting into mischief. I couldn’t see the place ever having laughter like that again, or filled with children, but I could see myself living here again. How would I get through the next few months, or even years? What would I find out when I started looking into my families past. Would I regret looking back? Would it hurt to see what happened to my mum and Ava? How about Maree? Did she ever move on and find someone? Did she fall in love and get married? Was she still alive? It would be a few weeks before I even got started in looking, but it wasn’t all that I wanted to see and here.

Lizasaurus 02-26-2014 11:51 PM

The next day after finally sleeping a normal amount and feeling a little better than I had the last few days. I headed out shortly after breakfast and started shopping for larger items like appliances and furniture. It was a tedious job but not as tedious as actually transfiguring everything and duplicating it. To be honest it looked pathetic when I got done. Everything was the same colour and the same design as the others. I didn’t take the time to really pay attention or worry about how things looked or the colours of them. I was a guy and now a bachelor as well. I didn’t care, it didn’t matter what they looked like or the colour, all that I needed was something that I could use and have in the house for my own use. I finally was able to get food for the fridge and cook and not just have sandwiches and chips and stuff. It was going to be a miserable next few years, especially the next few months in particular. It was really hard from going to having people in the house that I lived in before the accident to having absolutely nobody there with me. I kind of avoided the basement area in particular, since that’s where we had spent the majority of our lives at. We had avoided the upstairs since that’s where all our memories were at when we were happy as a family of 5. But now I either avoided both areas and slept in the garage, or I just got over it and moved back in upstairs. It helped that the majority of everything was completely new, and that I hadn’t kept a whole lot since much of it had been destroyed. Sitting back on the sofa I looked around me at the house when I was pretty much settled in and just stared. Even with all the changes it still felt like my mum and Ava should be there. It felt weird not being able to go downstairs and knock on one of their doors and just sit and chat with them. It was really hard in those first few days, I kept going to the basement looking for one of them without thinking, and I’d be halfway down the stairs before I’d turn back around with a sigh. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to go down it was because I had thought they were there once again and needed to ask a question or tell them something. The worst was when I called out telling them that I was heading out for a few hours and I got out to my car, buckled up, and it hit me. I think that was the first time it really hit me hard, I sat in the car staring up at the house with tears forming in my eyes. Resting my head against the steering wheel, trying not to cry. It hurt to think that I was all alone there, took forever for me to just get going again. I had to push myself to get up and just go do what I had planned on doing. It took me a long time to return that night as well. I needed to get away from things and just move on. But I couldn’t move on as long as I lived there in that house. I wasn’t ready to be there alone any longer.

After about 3 months I finally decided I just couldn’t do it any longer. I had to go, I finally decided that I was going to take a sabbatical and time off to get away and just do stuff for me. I might have been young but the hell I had gone through was enough to make me decide I just couldn’t jump back into things again. Did I want to go back to the ministry? I definitely knew there was no way in hell I wanted to go and be back in the Time Room. I wouldn’t ever go back to the ministry and go down to level 9 again. I just couldn’t, maybe someday someone would be able to figure out a way for me to go back, but that would be if I wanted to go back again. I couldn’t see myself ever not wanting to go back but then again I still wanted to know what happened to my family. Maybe this was the better idea out of the deal. Maybe it was better that I had the accident and couldn’t go back. But I wouldn’t know until I found out about my family and Maree first. The one thing I was determined to do before I went on the sabbatical was to find out first.

Heading for the ministry I went to find the man from level 2 that had helped me when I first had the accident. If no one else could help me it would be him. I got to level 2 and requested to see him and we sat down in his office and I explained what I wanted to know, and needed to be sent in the right direction as to where to start my search. I said I wanted to know about my mother and Ava as well as Maree. It took almost 2 years before I found out everything that had happened to the 3 of them, but he was able to help me at least get started and sent out some feelers as well, to find out more about where the three were. My mother I found out right away, and found that she had passed away in 2051, she had been sick for some time and had spent the last few years in St. Mungo’s. The healers had assumed it was a type of cancer, but weren’t able to fully pinpoint the problem, in the end all they could really do was keep her comfortable, but not much else. It was painful to think that my mum had suffered that much before she died, and the healer’s unable to do anything other than keep her comfortable. It made me feel even worse, knowing that she had died not knowing what had happened to me, and not being there when she could really have used someone there to comfort her, I had no idea if Ava had been there or not, nor if anyone had been there at all.

I think the one that hurt me the most with finding out what had happened to the three of them was hearing about Maree. Maree hadn’t ever found anyone after I had disappeared, the most that could come out of what happened to her, was the fact that she had died at age 40, from a type of cancer. She had likely died still hurt from what I had done. The last thing I had done and said before my accident was telling her that I was tired of being used basically and the next day vanished. She’d walked away hurt, and I hadn’t stopped from leaving. I still regretted it so much, it was the worst thing I could have done, left us with bad words between us and being regretful for not being able to walk away without hurt or anger. It would be the one thing I would likely regret the rest of my life. My wife tells me even now I was foolish to still think that I was the one at fault, I wasn’t the one to walk away, but still yet it bothers me that I never went after her. What might have happened if I’d gone after her? Would I have gone into work early the next morning because of not being able to sleep? Or would I have gone in at a normal time? Would the accident have ever happened? I’d like to think it never would have happened, but there’s no way of turning that clock back now. Maree had died, alone, no one there with her. Her parents had been killed young and she had no siblings, so she’d been completely alone. Maybe she had friends and perhaps even someone she might have cared for, but to me, in my eyes she had been alone. I think I believe that because of the fact that I don’t know much about the last bit of her life. There is only so much you can dig up and if there’s no criminal past, there’s really nothing you can find. Her life was over and there was no hope of apologizing or undoing anything, the past was in the past and all I could do was move forward. And keep from making similar regrets, it changed the way I looked at things, I no longer took life for granted. Both my mother and Maree had both died from a type of cancer and they had both died fairly young. I was beginning to dread what it was I might find out about Ava. Sometimes I think finding out this way was harder than the accident itself. It made me wish that I was there and the nightmares I had following the accident were sometimes worse than before the accident and during Voldemort’s time! I hated knowing how much sorrow and pain the ones I loved had to go through and completely alone, with me not even there. I looked back at their lives with my heart heavy knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, and no way of changing the outcomes.

The day I heard about Ava it was as if someone had taken my heart out and stomped on it and ground it into the floor. She had died only 2 years ago, meaning just two years and I would have been able to see her one last time. Many said she died from a broken heart, but there’s no way to tell. There was no sign she’d have been killed by Avada Kedavra, and she had been perfectly healthy before she was found dead one morning by her neighbor. She had gotten married to a David Shelton, and had one daughter, named Melanie. She had no family left, dad died when she was 11 years old, Corin died when she was 15, I disappeared at when she was 16, mum died when Ava was 69, her husband died a few years before she had, and she was completely alone. Melanie had disappeared when she was 32 years old and Ava was 58. No one ever knew what had happened to Melanie, one day she just vanished, leaving her best friend behind on a trip to America. She’d gone for work, and her friend had joined her, and one day they were supposed to meet for lunch and she never showed up. Within a few days it was obvious that she was missing and the police were notified as well as the American Ministry. No one had any hint of where she had gone and there was no sign of any sort of foul play. She’d just vanished. If she was still alive, no one knew, and I had no way of knowing myself. It’d be nice to know whatever had happened to my niece, to know a family member had just vanished was frightening, even this many years after her disappearance. If someone wanted to remain hidden, no one was going to find her, and for all I know she is here somewhere in the world, maybe even right there in London. Ava had died, not knowing anything about Melanie or myself, and had died of a broken heart. No one was left there with her, she lived out her life for the last 2 years alone after David died, before she passed away as well at the age of 80. That’s a young age for a witch or wizard, but I could see how she no longer had the will to live. Everyone that she had ever loved and known in her life was now gone. I wished that somehow fate had been nice to us and allowed me to see her one last time, but that was never to be, 2 years difference, 2 years that cost me the ability to see my family one last time, 2 years to give her hope that not everything in her life had left her alone and abandoned her. We’d been through so much together, lost our father and our brother in such a short time frame. I remember meeting her on that train when I was 17 in King’s Cross. Holding her for the first time in almost 2 years, my heart was breaking all over again that day when I found out I didn’t even get to see my sister, that I had missed it by 2 years. It hurt. It was as if I’d been thrown into being alone all over again. It had been 4 years since she had died, and 2 years since my accident with the Time turner. I was alone and abandoned again. Just like those many years before at the cabin, alone with no one to turn to. I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry myself to sleep like I had those many nights when I was 15. But I couldn’t, I had to move on, I had had hope up until I had heard about Ava, and now my last bit of hope that I might have family left somewhere had gotten tossed away with the wind and I sat staring at the picture of Ava that I had gotten with the letter explaining about what had been found out about my sister. Each bit of knowledge of my family and Maree, had taken its toll on me, and each one brought me into a deeper bit of pain. The worst to hit being Ava’s, one day I was determined to solve the case in regards to my niece. I didn’t know what the outcome of that might be, but if nothing else, I wanted to do that for my sister and her memory. I was doubtful it would be a good outcome, I dreaded the fact that the outcome might be anything but good. But with my luck, it was unfortunate that would likely be the case once again. I didn’t bother getting my hopes up for this one, in any case it got my hopes lowered even more, knowing that it likely wouldn’t end well.

I started travelling those 2 years, I didn’t want to stay around London, with all the bad memories that I had from there. I left my faith, and stopped celebrating all the Jewish holidays particularly Hanukkah. It wasn’t worth it to me any longer. I had no interest in a god that did something as horrible as rip my family away from me, and destroy my life so drastically, as taking and putting me in a world I didn’t even know. He’d left me alone, so why would I want to be a part of that? My first place I stopped was in Amsterdam. I wanted to go to where I was born and grew up, those were the years that I most enjoyed. No bad memories, that I really could remember. I’m sure there were bad memories at times there but it was mostly good ones, and I wanted to see my old house. Merlin that place was small! I barely had room to turn around in the room that used to be my bedroom growing up. AND I shared that with Corin! But then again I wasn’t a full sized man back then, I was only 10 when I left that place and Corin was 11. I remember playing out in the yard, practicing flying on the broomsticks over the grass and around the small house. I even remember sitting up on the roof of the house with Corin hiding from mum and eating the cherry cobbler she had made. We’d taken our broomsticks and flown up there after having snuck the cobbler. We got a beating that night! But it was totally worth it, the cobbler was so fantastic! Dad never did let us live that down. It was a bit mean we knew, since it was his birthday but we couldn’t help it! Mum always had make the best cobbler. I wonder if she has that recipe somewhere, I kind of doubt it, I’ve looked through most of the boxes that are in the attic that hadn’t been completely destroyed. I thanked the woman who now lived in that house, her parents had bought the place from my father years and years ago, and had passed it to her and she said she wouldn’t be able to live there much longer either but wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the place. She didn’t have any children and didn’t want to see it go to some stranger. I told her that I would stay in touch. I didn’t know what I’d do but I was in agreement, I didn’t want to see the place just given to someone or sold to a stranger either. It was hard enough knowing that my family didn’t live there any longer, but I didn’t see myself living back in the Netherlands either. But I gave her my contact information so she could keep in contact with me, and I hoped she would.

After Amsterdam I headed into the Ural mountains. I hadn’t planned on following the trail of our houses by going next to London, I’d spent enough time in that house alone and didn’t really care to do it again. I entered the house in the mountains and looked around me. The place hadn’t changed much, though it was a bit run down. Not as bad as the place in London though, I had to say that. I don’t know why but again I set about cleaning the place from top to bottom and fixing things up there. Just as I had done with the place in London. Maybe it was out of wanting things to be back to normal, or maybe it was a reason for me to stay longer. The furniture might have been very out of date, but it wasn’t destroyed by water and weather, or animals making nests inside of them. But after a nice cleaning the place was practically livable once again. I spent about a year there, wanting to just settle in for a bit and though I was still really down and not really adjusting very well yet, it was a bit of a relief to be able to just stay in one spot for awhile and not wonder where I might end up next. It was in the mountains there that I finally started to heal, maybe it was the presence of my dad there or maybe just the time alone and away from everything, but I finally started to see that I really did need to move on with my life. I wasn’t ready to end the sabbatical but I was ready to start to stop feeling sorry for myself. There wasn’t a damn thing that could be done to change my situation, did I truly want to go back to 1998? Was I ready to risk being killed in an attempt? If I was, I needed to return to London, right now and just do it. It was pointless to keep whining and complaining to myself over and over that I wanted to go back. What good was that doing to me besides making me more and more depressed? It wasn’t doing anything! This was the last place my father had been alive and somehow I felt like he was there with me. It was weird, because I didn’t see that shape at night but somehow I felt like he was close to me there. I sat out on the porch overlooking the mountains and talked to him. I told him about the accident and how alone I felt, how awful I felt about mum and Ava being alone when they died. It wasn’t my fault they had died, but I still wished there had been something I could have changed or done differently to keep the accident from happening. I tell myself over and over even now that there hadn’t been anything I could have done. That mum still would have died, as would most likely Ava, even if I had been around. If I had been around would I have bothered to check in on her and see how she was doing? Likely not. I’d have been busy with my own family, perhaps having died as well already. Anything is possible and I’d like to think that I’d have been there but it’s very unlikely I would have. I couldn’t keep beating myself up over it!

I didn’t feel my mum or Ava’s presence there very strongly as I did my father’s, and somehow I wanted to try and see if I could find their presence somewhere, and because of that I knew my sabbatical wasn’t over. I needed to find those places, and talk to them as I had my father. My next stop was Austria, in the Alps. There is where I found Ava, not in actuality but I felt her there. It’s a weird feeling really, to feel their presence when they aren’t no longer in this life. But she was definitely there. I could see her near the lake or feel her in the wind in the trees. I could hear her laughter as she gazed up at me from the ground below the rock. I didn’t stay in the tent that was still there. The charms my mother had put on the place kept it in perfect condition, the rock I used to climb was almost like I remembered it, I needed to find the foot and hand holds again, with the old ones having been weathered away. I could see Ava staring up at me and shaking her head with her eyes sparkling mischievously at me and then calling out to my mother saying I was on top of the rock again. That little snitch almost always got me in trouble, she knew I wasn’t supposed to be up there and she’d let mum know that that’s where I was hiding every time. I didn’t hate her for it, she was just an annoying little sister and I still look back fondly as I think back to that time. I think out of all those that I miss from my past, it’s my sister, we held each other together when our lives hit rock bottom. Those few years that we were apart, were really hard for the both of us. I hadn’t ever had a relationship with my older brother, not really. But my sister and I were really close. So many things I regret, but the main one being that I never told her how much she meant to me. Oh I know she knew, I have no doubt in my mind that she knew how much she meant to me, and I was sure she felt the same, but I still regret never telling her that. I miss those late night talks we had out here under the stars, away from mum and everything else. We’d sneak out late at night and just lie there by the lake and talk late into the night, sometimes not going to bed til almost 2 or 3 in the morning! It took quite some time before I willingly left that place, I knew I would return, one day, when I didn’t know but I knew that I would come back and if nothing else build a house there and maybe make it more permanent rather than a tent that had been there for many decades. It was the one place since Amsterdam that reminded me of a happy time. Merlin, it wasn’t really a happy place, considering what was happening in the world at the time, not to mention the reason for us being there in the first place, with my father having just been killed. But it was a happy time in spite of it all. Getting into mischief with my sister, rock climbing and finding a place just for me to go and not have all the worries that I had in the coming years. My mum and Ava and I going swimming in the icy cold waters of the lake that was a short distance from the tent. It might not have been a great time in our lives but it had happy memories in that place. And that I’d never forget. I told Ava that I was sorry she had died so close to when the accident brought me into the future, explained to her what had happened, to the best of how I could explain it. It was hard to tell her when I didn’t fully understand it myself. I told her how sorry I was that there would be no tomorrow’s with her any longer. But I promised her that I would find out what had happened to Melanie if it was the last thing I did. She deserved to have that much. To know that her daughter was safe or what had happened to her.

It finally came time to find the place where my mum was, I needed to find her and I had a good idea as to where I’d find her. Peering into the window of the cabin that sat in the woods by the stream that I had lived over 2 years at, I half expected to see her walking down the hallway back towards the kitchen just as I had the night that I had found someone had broken through the charms of the cabin. It was just the ghost of a memory, I knew that. I opened the door and nearly choked on the dust that had settled on the floor that was kicked up as I stepped into the room. No one had been there since we’d left there when I was 17 I was sure. And being that that was 67 years ago, the place was completely filled with dust and grime, animals had made nests everywhere and there were broken windows. The roof was in poor condition but it was still home and I could feel mum there. Immediately I set to cleaning the place up, just as I had with the place in London as well as the house in the Ural Mountains. Working to get it in reasonable condition and clean as well as weatherproofed. I fixed the roof and the windows before settling down in front of the fireplace with the nice fire lit inside it. It was cold out and winter was on its way once again, I stared into the flames as I sat there thinking about the memories of mum and I at the cabin. It wasn’t hard to picture, and it wasn’t a pleasant memory, but they were memories I had of her. Lots of training and preparation for the war that was to come. It was a blessing and a curse to have mum there. To have her there with me meant I was no longer alone, and had someone that cared about me that wouldn’t let anything happen to me just as I wouldn’t to her, with no expecting anything in return. She could use magic even though I couldn’t, and could make purchases in London if need be. I had told her she couldn’t go to Appleby nor any smaller villages. I didn’t want her to risk the need for that mark, it was bad enough I had to take it. But I damn well wasn’t going to allow my mother to have to get that same mark as well. First of all I knew she wouldn’t take the mark, and would be killed if she refused it. Second that mark was stating she also followed Voldemort or supported him, and I knew she didn’t and wouldn’t ever put her in a position that meant she had to make a stand. She never asked me why I didn’t want her going to those villages, and I never told her. She never knew about the mark I had had to take, and for that I was grateful. I knew she would never once shun me for taking it, and knew she rather would have been sympathetic. But even just as now where I don’t want the sympathy for the accident and having no where to go or turn, I didn’t want any sympathy back then either. It had been my choice, to either take the mark or to die, and I’d made my decision, and lived to regret the choice I’d made. I spent many days in that cabin just talking to her, and telling her how sorry I was that she had died not knowing what had happened to me. I told her about the accident, and where I was now. How alone I felt and how much I wished we had that time now to be able to talk or even train once again together. But those days were behind us, and there was no going back.

I thought at that point my sabbatical was over. I had gone to the locations of my family, and where they most were felt. But I was so very wrong. I had two more places I needed to find, and it was only the beginning of my healing.

Lizasaurus 02-26-2014 11:56 PM

I started making my way across Europe again but knew I couldn’t just return to London, and found myself in Italy of all places. I didn’t care to go back to any of the places I’d been again, just because of the fact that I wanted to start a life away from it all. I hadn’t finished what I’d set out to do but I wasn’t ready to find out where Corin was or Maree. Neither one of those two was going to be good, neither one would bring good memories, nor could I see myself healing from either of those. It was many years before I finally healed with Corin, and Maree ended up being sooner than I ever planned. In Italy I found myself really wanting to start a life of my own once again. I needed to move on and start thinking about the future. I hadn’t forgotten about my family but I needed to move on and get my life back together. I started searching again because even with the knowledge of having found out about my family and Maree, I still felt incomplete as if something was missing. I hadn’t been able to have closure yet though, and I knew something was holding me back. Something was eating at me wanting me to figure out where she or he was and telling me that I needed to find them or I would never be able to move on with my life. It was a scary thought to know that something was waiting for me out there. My first thought was Corin and I was all oh hell no about that. Because I didn’t want to have any part of that, I didn’t want to go find him and possibly find his ghost somewhere that I would have to confront. I could totally see Corin still being here on earth unable to go on, having stayed here. I didn’t ever want to confront him again, I’d done that once and nearly died doing that when I was 17!

I was drawn to a place in southern France, I had no idea where it was I was heading, but something was drawing me there. I had no idea what I might find, but I knew I had to go there. It was late 2068, and somehow I was being pulled in that direction. What was it I might find there? There wasn’t anyone that I knew that was from there. I found myself in a small village with quite a few rundown buildings, there wasn’t much life there, but for some reason that’s exactly where I had been drawn to. I peered into broken windows of the shops that lined the streets. It was as if the place had been abandoned years ago and I was disturbing the ghosts that wanted to lie in peace. I didn’t know why I was there but knew somehow it was important. I could see one house in particular off to one side that his eyes were drawn to, and he started making his way out of town to the trees off in the distance. Why was he being drawn in that direction? He had no idea, but something was pulling him there.

It took him a bit of time to get there but he finally arrived. He wasn’t going to apparate because he had no idea if this was an old wizarding village or just an old village that had become run down and in shambles. Making his way up what he took to be the long drive, that was completely overgrown and full of tall grass and weeds, he picked his way through it carefully, in case there was anything he’d fall or trip over. He finally approached the house and peered inside the windows, the sense of being watched made a shivery feeling pass through him and he glanced over his shoulder but saw nothing. It was as if the place was haunted and whomever it was, was watching him. That couldn’t be though, he didn’t know anyone who had lived here previously. Not that he knew of anyway. Peering through the windows again he winced at the look of the place. He had thought his home in London was bad, that compared nothing to this. This was destroyed. As if there was a monster living in it, tearing everything to shreds. Moving around to the front porch I gingerly stepped on it, afraid it might give out under me just by standing on it. Making it to the door, I went to open it and it fell off the hinges nearly hitting me in the head. Pushing it to the side, I stepped inside the house, trying to figure out why the place was drawing me to it. There had to be a reason, I wouldn’t just randomly appear in the middle of nowhere and feel as if I was meant to be there. Again I had that shivery feeling go through me making me feel as if someone was there. But again I knew there was nobody there. I started walking around through the house searching for a sign of who used to live there. It was obvious no one lived there now, but someone must have at some point. There were children’s toys in a box as if someone had started packing them up but then thought better of it and just left them strewn around the floor inside and outside the box. I moved towards the rickety staircase going up to the second floor and stepped off into the first room at the top of the steps, and my eyes saddened realizing who’s house this must have been. It had been Maree’s when she was growing up. What the reason was for the entire house being trashed I had no idea. But her room, was almost pristine, not a speck of dust in it or even a sign that it had been over 50 years since she’d been there last. For all I knew someone had been living there honestly, but I got the impression it was magic that had kept the room so neat and tidy. I swallowed the pain that appeared on my face after the realization had hit me. I looked around the room and felt as if I was imposing on somewhere I didn’t belong, but the first thing my eyes fell on was the Christmas Ball invitation that lay on her desk, she had a picture of her and I sitting on top of it, as if she’d been looking at it the last time she’d been in that room sitting at that desk. It hurt to see that picture laying there and that card, because it was the last time that I truly felt happy, like life was just a fun bit that I lived through, like there wasn’t a care in the world. We sat under the tree near the lake, and someone had snapped a photo of us and she’d kept it all those years. I had no idea when the last time she’d been in this room was but that moment had obviously meant a lot to her just as it had to me. The last thing I ever said to her had been hurtful and likely had made her cry. It didn’t matter that she had been the one to leave, I could have stopped her and I didn’t. That was the point that hurt me most. I sank down onto her bed, looking around the room, and I asked aloud ‘is this what you wanted me to see? Where you grew up?’ Nothing responded, as I was alone in the house, but I got the impression that I wasn’t truly alone as I thought I was. There was a presence here and I hadn’t quite figured out what it was. I couldn’t stay there in the house and I damn well couldn’t stay in the town, so I needed to set up camp out in the yard. I had my tent in the bag I had brought, and it was easy enough to set up. It just gave me goose bumps knowing that something was there though I couldn’t see it, I could certainly feel it, and I didn’t know how much sleep I’d get until I found out what it was. Setting the tent up far from the house and any of the outbuildings. I went inside and tried to relax and ignore the feeling that kept running through me that I needed to find out who it was that had drawn me there. Something had brought me there and I needed to find out who and why. I had an idea that it was something to do with Maree, and maybe I might get some answers as to who she was, and how she’d lived prior to dying. Maybe I’d find out if she ever had found love, I just hoped that she hadn’t died alone because she was too hurt from what I had done to ever trust another man again.

That night being it was a full moon, he lay there staring out the tent window at it, it had lit up the entire area almost like it was daylight outside. It made him shiver, knowing that only certain creatures came out on nights like this, but he also knew he was far away from any human let alone a werewolf. Muggles always said that was just a myth, but he knew better. He didn’t believe in ghosts but he sure as hell believed in creatures of the night, and sometimes those were scarier than even dragons. He didn’t sleep much that night but that was mainly because he had the feeling yet again that someone was watching him. He got up really early the next morning and headed for the house with his wand in hand. Calling out he yelled ‘I don’t give a damn who you are, I want you to show yourself immediately’. Enough of this haunting and following him. He didn’t care if it was a human, creature, ghost, or even a poltergeist. He was so done with that chilling feeling of someone following him. He didn’t know what they were there for but whatever it was, it must have been important to be bringing him here to this place. What did it have to do with him? Seeing a dark shadow emerging from the upstairs window of the house he pulled out his wand and heard laughter, a man’s laugh sound from the form and come down to the ground stopping in front of him. ‘You won’t hurt me with that wand son’. The ghost was just changing from a ghostly werewolf into a ghostly human form before my eyes. Never had I ever encountered something that took my breath away and made me want to run before. I stared at the man ghost thingy that was standing there before me.

‘Who are you?’ I asked and regretted it almost immediately, when he said he was Maree’s father, I swallowed and wondered if I could just apparate away from there and be done with it. He told me that he hadn’t gone on, because he had unfinished business for one and two that he was afraid of what might happen or be beyond death. He led me into the house and offered me a seat on one of the sofa’s that was ripped to shreds. I considered saying thank you but refusing the seat but it was obvious that he was trying to be proper about the entire thing. So I took a seat, half expecting creepy crawlies to start climbing out of it and running up my pants legs and stuff. I followed him with my gaze.

‘Why have you been trying to get me here for the last few months?’ I asked curiosity tingeing my voice.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he asked turning his ghostly green eyes towards me. They were the same colour as Maree’s had been. ‘You hurt my daughter, and it nearly killed her when you disappeared almost immediately afterward.’

My eyes dropped and were filled with sadness once again after he had spoken ‘I hadn’t wanted to leave.’ I said quietly, ‘that wasn’t nothing to do with the fight we had. I didn’t want her to leave that night but I couldn’t bring myself to go after her. But I have regretted it every single day since the day of the accident.’ He’d paid the price many times over for having let her leave that night. So many what ifs had crossed his mind and made him wonder, why hadn’t he gone after her? Had he been looking for a way out of the relationship? No he had truly loved her and his heart ached knowing that there was no way of ever returning to the past and trying to undo what he had done.

‘It still nearly killed her’ he said with irritation hinting in his voice. ‘That was my daughter and that was the one thing she had was knowing that you were always going to be there for her. She loved you unconditionally. I wasn’t ever able to protect her in that way from boys, she wouldn’t let me. But you! You were supposed to protect her and be there for her. Not say such hurtful things to her and make her feel so worthless.’

It was obvious her father was angry with me and there was nothing I could do to change that. ‘I never had that opportunity to try and fix that night.’ I murmured softly. ‘I never got the chance to undo what I had said if she’d even accept any apology. Like I said I have regretted it every single day since. I can’t go back and undo it. There is no way of changing what I had said and there’s no way of changing what happened the next day.’ God he’d give anything to change what had happened the following day. He was still paying for that, 5 years later. Still searching for the escape that would let him move on and live a normal life.

Reg told me that Maree hadn’t ever been able to move on. She had always had that hope that if it was a time accident there was always the chance that I’d come looking for her. Even if I had gone back into the past, maybe one day I would find her and she didn’t want to give up hope that I would never reappear. She had regretted leaving as much as I had not going after her. She had cried all night because I hadn’t gone after her, she had expected that I wouldn’t let her leave so angry but I had been hurt so much myself that when she left I just let her go. We’d both been hurt and both been foolish for letting it happen in the first place. Reg said that I had really woke her up though, that she’d taken what I’d said to heart. Did that mean that Maree had finally understood where I was coming from and had regretted doing that so many times? I would like to think that was the case. He told me about her life after I had disappeared. It was heart wrenching to think all those years she had waited for me hoping that I was coming back and I didn’t. It hurt thinking about how much I had hurt her in that time being gone. I hadn’t had any way of undoing the accident or knowing how much pain she was in and the regret she had from leaving everything between us the way we had left it. But it still hurt knowing she’d died with the knowledge of it being her fault in her eyes. Reg told me that often she blamed herself, saying I had done it on purpose, just to get away from her. Or saying that I wasn’t really in a time accident but actually had just vanished so I would never have to confront her or get through that fight with her. I learned about how she had cancer at the age of 38 and within 2 years it metastasized and she had no chance. Just past her 40th birthday she passed away in her sleep, which was more than anyone could offer her. I bowed my head with tears in my eyes, telling him how much I would have given to have just one more moment with her, to apologize and tell her how much she meant to me. I finally broke down after so many years of hurting since we’d gone our separate ways that night, the tears finally came and I sat there on that shredded sofa with my shoulders shaking as I cried into my hands. It was the hardest thing I’d done up until that point in my life, finally given this pain away and let go of Maree. She’d been my world for that short month before the accident. We had so many plans for the future. I never had even proposed to her to show her how much I wanted to spend my life with her and it was all shattered in the small time span of 15 minutes. She was finally laid to rest in my heart now, it wasn’t so much a relief but more of a forgiveness to myself. I finally was able to forgive myself for letting her walk away and not going after her. When I finally raised my head and wiped my eyes I found myself alone in the house, with no chilling feeling of Reg still being there. He had finally gone. Had he gone on? I never found out, I just knew that the next few days I didn’t feel his presence again there. I didn’t fix the house up, I didn’t change anything in it, but I did take that photo of Maree and myself from when we were younger. It now sits in a trunk up in the attic and there it will probably always stay. It’s a part of my past, not my future, but it reminds me of who I once was and who I once loved.

From France I started my travels and doing a lot more, I had a number of places I really wanted to travel to, and wanted to spend time travelling. I didn’t know what my life would bring so I wanted to take the time now to do it. One day though I swore I never would I might want to raise a family. The world wasn’t a bad place like it once was, but I couldn’t see myself ever falling in love again like I had with Maree. I couldn’t see myself having a child and risking the fact that that child might turn into someone like Corin. What if I was killed? How could my wife move on without me, how could I leave my children without a father. Now that I was starting to want to plan my life again and actually live once again, I wanted to become something. I didn’t know if I wanted to become an auror or not, but I wanted to do something, and if that was included then so be it. I found myself in Atlantis a few years later, and really enjoyed it there. Yes underwater, a place most humans would never think they’d be able to ever survive. But I lived there for 3 ½ years, I worked in the ministry with International Cooperation. I was just a liaison between the world above and the ministry itself, not an ambassador or anything, but I truly enjoyed the work. Lots had changed in the world around me, and I wanted to learn the new laws, and find out more about the Muggles versus the wizarding world. To see if there was anything that I could do to build a bridge between the two worlds. We had good communication between the ‘beings’ such as the merpeople around Atlantis but the Muggles above the surface weren’t too helpful in working with us. They did everything they could to keep from seeing magic for what it truly was. As if there was a veil that separated the actual signs from what they were seeing. In some ways that was good, because of the statute of secrecy but it also kept their mundane minds from actually helping when it came to us needing their assistance. I enjoyed it though. It gave me something else to worry about and think on rather then, if I’d ever return to London or not. I knew I should but I wasn’t ready, it’d been almost 10 years but I still wasn’t ready to return to my old life. I wasn’t in any hurry though either. I was happy with the life I had, doing travelling whenever I wanted to, no questions ever asked, and no one was pressuring me to jump back in and forcing me to go back. No one knew my past except for me.

In 2074, I went to the Italian Ministry, and applied for a position there, I told them I didn’t care where I went as long as they didn’t stick me in the department of mysteries. Because of my experience in Accidents & Catastrophes as well as training in ju-jitsu and sword fighting they put me into level 3 but trained me with the new aurors as well. Figuring that I’d be a good candidate for working inter-departments when needed. I didn’t have any problem with that, I wanted to be out in the field working. I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing any longer, I wanted to be out there. Not even being in the department of mysteries had kept me from danger, I had had the one accident that everyone that worked in the time room ever dreaded, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone not even my worst enemy. Which was kind of odd considering my worst enemy was myself and the fear and anger I’d lived through my entire life, and the possibility of it taking over my life. Basically that meant I’d never wish that accident on myself, and it had happened.

Working in Accidents & Catastrophes felt like a normal part of my life again. I was able to jump right in and do precisely what I had done when I’d first graduated from Hogwarts. It was a peaceful work to me, and though the training was hard and strenuous it didn’t bother me one bit and the off break I got going back to level 3 was a bit of relief each day. Working between the two departments was fantastic and again I found myself working my way up, within 6 months I was the head of the Obliviator Squad and though I refused point blank to become a full fledged auror I still trained with them and even trained them a bit in what I knew, and gave them tips with dueling. I used my sword fighting skills to hone my wand skills, and though it was a bit odd and a weird combination, it worked quite well in more instances than none. They couldn’t understand what was stopping me from wanting to become a full fledged auror, but I had seen what people went through, I had seen the affects that aurors had and the possibility that they might not go home at night, or that their families would suffer. It was a bit odd, honestly. I had no family and it didn’t matter so why would it matter to me if I became an auror or not? I didn’t know, maybe it was because of the crap I went through growing up.

It took time but I worked my way up to Department head of Accidents & Catastrophes, I was one of the youngest department heads in the Italian ministry, or if I was honest, probably one of the oldest department heads in the Italian Ministry. But they never had questioned that I had a huge gap in my past, nor had they questioned that I hadn’t ever put a year of birth on my application either. I didn’t need the questions, and they probably figured I had amnesia or something. Whatever they figured hadn’t prevented me from moving up in the ministry nor had it roused suspicion. I enjoyed working for the ministry though, I never had to go to the department of mysteries, which was quite a relief. The only time I got the jitters was when I had to go to the courtrooms, but even then it wasn’t too bad. I was finally starting to feel as if I belonged again. I continued my training on becoming an auror, and was an auror in all essence of the word, except for my title. I hadn’t taken my tests so I didn’t have the title of ‘auror’. I had no problem with that, I was quite happy with the work I was doing, and enjoyed my job fully. I had to make a decision though, I didn’t like staying in one place for so long, I wanted to do travelling, to get out into the world more. I loved working in Accidents & Catastrophes, and got plenty of calls to go out on runs and stuff. But I wanted to travel more. I missed Atlantis if I was honest enough. I finally met with the minister and explained I wanted to do more, he apologized that IMC wasn’t open, but I didn’t care. I wanted the chance to work as an ambassador if that was an option. The demotion wasn’t a big deal to me. I lost some income but to me getting out there was more important than what I was doing now. I gave up my position in Accidents & Catastrophes and moved to International Cooperation and was the ambassador to magical countries. I didn’t only go to Atlantis, and it was quite a relief to be able to just go and travel for work. I loved it! I never got bored with the travelling I did, and fully enjoyed running back and forth for meetings and helping out with the Quidditch world cup that happened even. I felt I was getting more out of IMC than I had in any other department or position I had been in. I still got called to help out here and there, but I was still able to do the work I loved.

In 2077 I finally had to admit I needed to start heading back to London, I couldn’t run from my past any longer. If I kept running I wouldn’t ever get anywhere, and needed to find where I’d left off. Packing up my things I headed back to London and moved back into my old home that I’d left almost 10 years earlier. It was time to figure out my life and where I was going to go from there. So much had happened since the accident 14 years ago. I had found my mother and was able to put her to rest without dwelling on the fact that she had died alone and not knowing what had happened to me. I had found Ava and even with the pain of having lost her so close to my return to the world, I was able to lay her to rest as well. My father I finally forgave entirely for him leaving me in the hands of taking care of my family all alone and by myself. And finally Maree I was able to understand and know that she regretted her decision just as much as I had regretted the decision not to go after her that night. I got word that the woman who owned the home that I grew up in had died, and the house was up for sale. I couldn’t buy the house, even if I had wanted to, I didn’t have the kind of money it would require to purchase it. Not to mention I didn’t plan on moving back to Amsterdam. Regretfully I decided I had to just let it go. I didn’t want to, because that house meant a lot to me, but I had been able to go there and walk through it remembering memories I had there. Remembering things that had happened there and the first time I did magic. The memory of sitting on the roof eating the cobbler mum had made. I had had the opportunity to see the place one last time. I’d cherish that, but I had to let it go. Mum would have probably told me off if I had gone and bought the place just because it was where I had grown up. It was just a house just like the cabin, tent in the Alps and the house in the Ural mountains. I could go anywhere I wanted, but the place in Amsterdam was just a house in a Muggle neighborhood, last owned by a Muggle woman, no charms on it, no magic set on it, no Fidelius charm. Just a house that we had lived in. The memories were what was important, and that’s what I needed to remember. It hurt letting it go but I finally did.

Returning to London was hard, but the flood of memories wasn’t all bad any longer. I had good memories that returned to me, as I sat there in the living room. I started collecting videos and making the house more of a home for me, decorating it in my own style and not just because it was a place I was going to live but because I wanted to live there and wanted it to look the way I wanted it to. I started taking pride in the place and what I was doing to it. I fixed it up nicer and even added some things like a hot tub in the back garden. Downstairs I even added a work out area.

Lizasaurus 02-28-2014 01:49 PM

It felt weird being there alone sitting in the basement on one of the machines, but it finally no longer felt as if I was intruding in my own house. It took almost a year before I finally felt settled in, I still did some travelling and even fixed up the cabin so it was much homier again. I set it so that I could travel between the two places quite easily via the floo. Apparition was fine at times but it tended to give me a headache if I used it too much. I kept my feelers out to see if openings were arising in the British Ministry, and finally summer of 2078 I went in and just applied, Dan accepted my application and managed to somehow talk me into becoming the Department head for level 9. The one department I never wanted to ever go back into, especially after what had happened the last time I had been in the department. I refused to go into the Time room even just to check on things, which irritated a lot of people especially my employees but I had a deep sense of fear in that room. There wasn’t much that could scare me that bad, but the Time room did. I still studied everything I could about time turners and if there was a possibility of returning to my time but I was really hesitant about doing so now. I had learned so much about the past and didn’t know if I ever wanted to go back and live it, if I went back Maree would still die young, same with my mum, but at least in my mum and Ava’s case I could be there and they wouldn’t have been alone. It’s sad thinking that I’d found my mum and Ava having died young, because in Muggle eyes honestly, they’d lived a long life but in wizarding life you can live much longer than any Muggle.

The first thing that I’d been determined to do when I started in the ministry was get to know the different department heads as well as the minister of magic. Helena was a nice woman, she seemed quite abrupt but she appeared to be fair. I didn’t see much of her as she was often out and away from the ministry, I think that’s one of the reasons she didn’t stay on as minister for very long. I met the other heads, but the only one that really caught my eye was Becca Lee. It was stupid really considering the woman was married but somehow we connected well enough, and I knew I could count on her if I needed help especially in the department of Mysteries. She was once department head there herself, so it wasn’t anything new down there that she couldn’t help with if I was stuck on one problem or other. We became a bit more than acquaintances and more like friends over the next few months, but I never saw her more than that until over a year later. And I wasn’t exactly sure why things changed but it had.

I found the different laws in the Department of mysteries was quite odd and irritating at certain points. Like not being able to have coffee in level 9, not even in the break room or my own office. But it was things I had to live with if I was to be the department head on that level. One afternoon in the Time Room, I had managed to drag myself in there because we were in need of time turners and I was working on making them. I wouldn’t ever test them out myself, but I knew enough about them to create more. I was just pouring some of the sand into the glass I had formed, when the bucket I had put down on the shelf slipped and dumped all over the floor vanishing all of the sand from sight. It wasn’t the accident that freaked me out, it was the fact that moments before I had seen Isaac Muir, one of our aurors standing there just moments before and was now gone. Freaking out I ran from the room searching hoping to find him somewhere in the department and calling out his name. Finally giving up I ran up the 7 levels of flights of stairs til I reached level 2 and ran into Becca’s office, ghostly white, trying to talk but completely out of breath. She demanded to know why I had been so careless. I felt at the time so completely terrified I had put another person into the exact place I had been 15 years before! How could I explain that to the minister, let alone Isaac’s own family! I might have overreacted a bit that day with regards to Isaac’s disappearance, and flipped out a little too much. But hell after what I’d been through I blamed myself for his disappearance, and was terrified for the poor man, who ended up appearing out of nowhere. He had just left the room as soon as the bucket fell and left me alone, not realizing that I had thought he’d completely vanished. I had probably lost all Becca’s confidence in my abilities that day, and it took a long time before I gained those back again. I spent the next few months really working on toning by fears down in regards to the Time Room. It wasn’t easy and I still refused to test any time turners but I actually did work in there again. As department head I couldn’t just ignore one room because of a fear I had in that room. And for the time I was working alone so I needed to be able to go in there. I finally confided in Becca during one of our meetings, telling her about part of my past, telling her about the accident and what time era I was actually from. She didn’t give me a whole lot of the sympathetic look, which was a bit of a relief, I didn’t want that sympathetic look as anyone who actually believed me gave me. She asked questions though and I told her really anything that she wanted to know. She knew better than ask private and personal questions, but seemed interested in knowing what it was like back then. She didn’t treat me like some idiot who was looking for amusement in telling lies. So many had made those accusations of me. I don’t lie about anything unless I absolutely have to, like in regards to work. I won’t steal because I find that it is pointless, and all it causes is more trouble than it is worth. I’ve had many people scoff when I say I don’t lie, but I ignore it. It’s just something that I have chosen not to do. It’s probably one of my downfalls and likely turns people off but I’m brutally honest in so many ways. I don’t mean to hurt anyone but I don’t like the idea of stringing a person on.

I met a woman named Bay, and she worked at St. Mungo’s. She wanted to go out for dinner a few times and it was obvious that she was wanting to become more than friends, but I just couldn’t. I had no interest in a relationship and there wasn’t any way that I was going to keep going as if there might be something between us at some point. Maybe it was a bit early, or maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance. The one thing that I always feared was that one day the person that I managed to actually give my heart to, would turn on me the moment they saw the mark on my shoulder. I told Bay one night before dinner, that I just wasn’t able to be more than friends. She looked a bit hurt and I felt bad, but I explained I couldn’t lead her on and make her think that one day I might feel something more for her when I just didn’t. I said I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I didn’t sleep around, have one night stands or anything and I wasn’t going to lead the poor woman to think that maybe if she kept trying to charm me I might one day have feelings for her.

Within a few more months, of working in the ministry, level 3’s department head position opened up and I requested a transfer. I had worked in level 3 in the Italian Ministry and even in the British ministry years and years ago. So I loved the idea of going back to work in Accidents and Catastrophes. Being I was closer to Becca, she and I started working together as a team, and worked well. Since level 9 was without a department head, the two of us tag teamed working in level 9 together as well, making sure that nothing was missed. I went into the locked room one day and was working when Becca came in to see how I was doing, she looked really down and when I asked how she was she said she was surviving. I knew then that something had happened, and of course being me, I asked what it was. I was amazed that she confided in me and told me what was going on. God if I had half a mind I would have found out where Brian was hiding and gone after him that very night. Who the hell took young kids away from their own mother like that? He’d hurt Becca more than anyone ever could have, and she was one of the strongest women I knew! She tried to hide that she was hurt and I knew that. But even then I could see through it. I had lost everything over 15 years before, in an accident I couldn’t reverse, and I now saw Becca sitting there on that sofa having lost everything that she held dear in her life, to an jerk who didn’t know how to take care of her and show her unconditional love. How could someone be so cruel and hateful? I couldn’t comprehend it after all I had gone through and my heart hurt for her. For the first time in many years, I wanted to hold a woman, for so long I had pushed aside any thoughts of being close to them, even for just a hug. But that day I held her and let her cry. I saw the images of Norah and James in that room, and sat on the sofa with her holding her. So many painful memories flooded my own head that day, seeing the accident happen all over again, losing all the ones I loved a second time. But my mind and thoughts were on Becca. How, I wasn’t quite sure yet. It was about that time that I started noticing that Maree was fading from the room. She was still there but her image of her was fading out as if she were disappearing. I asked Becca about it, and she told me a new dominant love was taking her place. I didn’t want to believe that! I still loved Maree, and no one would be able to fill her place. I knew that we were never going to be, but I still didn’t quite grasp how someone could fill that place I had in my heart for Maree.

I wasn’t sure if maybe at that time something was starting to click for me that day with Becca or if it were just the fact she seemed like she really needed someone to show they cared and my instincts just took over. But I brushed some hair from her shoulder that day as if in a loving gesture, and I froze. I don’t know why I had done it, but I had and I had to step back a bit and really take myself in hand, but at that moment she asked if I was alright. She’d said I had kissed her head when I held her when she’d been crying and I stared at her, wondering if I’d lost my mind. I pushed women away, kept them at a distance and here I was doing things without even thinking about them, caring and loving gestures? I wasn’t looking for a relationship, and hell definitely not with a woman who had just lost her family because of an jerk of a husband! It was about a month later when something completely wonky happened in the locked room. Pink fluffy clouds appeared, and just sat in the room. They weren’t dense nor felt like normal clouds, and I asked Becca to come down because some weird things had started happening. Maree was nearly completely gone now and Becca’s form had appeared. I definitely knew something was wrong. People didn’t suddenly appear in the room, and Becca definitely had just appeared. I wanted to get to the bottom of the problem, where Becca’s form and the clouds that were there now. Even Becca appeared stunned when she saw herself in there! She told me to wait a few weeks and the clouds should fade, but then she told me something that made me think she was crazy! She said that the new person that had taken place in my heart was the one that had created the clouds and the person that was now also in that room with us. I stared at her thinking she’d lost her marbles. Seriously, that meant she was talking about her! She’d completely lost her marbles, I hadn’t fallen in love with her! I followed her out of the room and up the stairs to the atrium, and caught her turning Becca towards me and said she was wrong. I then remember telling her to hex me and be done with it. When she stared at me, unsure of what to say, I did what was probably the stupidest thing I could have ever done in my entire life.

I kissed her.

Why the hell had I kissed her? I had no idea. I had forgotten that I had a gentleness in me, and I kissed her with that gentleness. But after doing it I expected all hell to break loose. I was a fool, having kissed her to prove to myself that I didn’t love her and there was nothing there between us. But after I kissed her I felt something and felt even more stupid than I had before I had kissed her. What happened next, she broke my nose. That was a story we could tell our kids one day. ‘What happened when you kissed mummy the first time? Oh she broke my nose.’ It was at that moment I realized I’d hurt her as well. She thought I’d used her as an experiment, and I told her she wasn’t no experiment. My eyes showed pain as I backed away, I apologized and with a heart that felt like it was tearing in two again left the atrium. I couldn’t bare to look at her seeing that pain in her face, as if I had smacked her and threw our friendship out the window. Hell it was bad enough that I had fallen in love with her according to that blasted room, but now had kissed her as well? I was an idiot, complete idiot! I went to my office and fixed my nose without really caring about doing it carefully and tossed my wand on my desk. I stood by the window trying to get control of myself, angry that I’d been so damn stupid as to kiss her. I’d thrown away a friendship, one that meant a lot to me, and wanted to smack myself for throwing it away. It was the first damn time in years that I felt like someone actually accepted me for who I was. And that was gone I believed. I think the one thing that I will always remember about that day was she followed me. The one thing I’d never done with Maree, Becca followed me and didn’t let me get away that easily. She wanted to know what I meant by the kiss and why I had said she wasn’t an experiment. She wasn’t an experiment, and now I know that I had meant to show her even then at that time, that I cared for her a lot. I had meant the kiss, it wasn’t just a whim, it was something I wanted to do. I hurt her even more at that point, she was sat on the floor by my door and close to a break down saying she couldn’t, she wasn’t ready and I was the biggest jerk out there. What did I say? Again I told her to hex me, because I would be damned if I told her that I didn’t have feelings for her. I couldn’t lie to her, because if I did, it would only hurt her more and make me want to disappear completely and never return to London ever again. I put my arms around her that night, and told her I was sorry that I knew that I’d probably ruined the one friendship I never wanted to lose. And the one thing she said I still smile at the memory of, I think it was the first time she ever threatened to hex me. She said if I apologized again she really would hex me. She told me that she had gotten her divorce papers from Brian, and that she still loved him. She told me she wanted to stay friends, but I didn’t want to put her in a bad position or for her to say that and honestly want me to leave and not see her again. I didn’t want that but I didn’t want her seeing me and being hurt every time she did. I was willing to leave, maybe even attempt to go back in time. That was the first time I’d thought of that in a few years, but I’d be gone, and would respect her wishes. I sit here writing this with tears in my eyes, because three words still sit in my mind even now and those three words came from that beautiful woman’s mouth ‘Please Don’t Leave’.

I promised her that night I would never leave. I never have and never will. I know that that night she probably feared that I would break that promise, but I wouldn’t. It took sitting there on the floor, for me to realize, I did love her. There was no way in hell I’d admit that any time soon, but god I loved her deeply and to my core. I looked into her eyes and sat there amazed, as she leant over and kissed me ever so softly. I hadn’t expected it and the only thing that ran through my head was that I was a dead man if Brian ever found out. It was a stupid thing to think of and even say aloud but her response made me smile slightly and I knew that between us there was something and I would be damned if I let that ever get away. I was here to stay, right there in the right time, not back in 1998 but there with Becca. I knew I had been put into the future for a reason now, and I wouldn’t let that get away from me now. She asked me if I was sure about this, if I wanted to take that step. She said she didn’t want me to regret it, and that it would only happen if I wanted it to. I told her that I wouldn’t regret it. She didn’t want to be hurt again, she couldn’t handle that. I promised her that I wouldn’t let her be hurt again, and asked her to let me show her. I think besides feeling as if my heart was being pulled in so many directions at once, the wait for her to respond though it took only a moment before she nodded, my heart stopped beating until then. I felt so relieved and happy at that moment. The worry and fear dissipating and feeling as though something good might be coming out of all the horror I’d lived through over the years!

One night I looked to Becca and asked offhandedly if she’d like to go to dinner. I knew that her and Brian had split up a few months before and little by little had been trying to bring her out of the hole she was starting to dig for herself and hide inside. I didn’t push for more than friendship because honestly I wasn’t ready for that either. But somehow working together had brought us closer together, and it was nice to actually have someone who I worked well with. She was working with me helping me get trained once again with auror training, and I offered to take her out one night. It was our first date and though awkward a bit, I loved the end, where she allowed me to kiss her and I did it right that time. I asked her and with the gentleness I was starting to find inside me once again I did.

I hadn’t ever expected to find myself falling for someone again, and I certainly knew she hadn’t either. Just thinking about Becca made me smile and it felt fantastic to have someone in my life once again. We may not have began our relationship like most people, but we were both still really hesitant, afraid we’d be hurt again just like we both had been. I didn’t think I was even boyfriend material anymore, I’d gone through hell and back and had things in my past that I was afraid to even have found out, if she found out about them, would she leave like I was afraid anyone else would? I kept everything to myself, afraid she might find them out somehow regardless of how much I tried to hide them. The one in particular being the mark on my shoulder. One morning I went to her office to see if she was in yet and found her lying behind her desk, and before even thinking quickly went to her and found myself stupefied before she had awakened. I hadn’t realized she was now sleeping in the office and not even having a place to stay. I had this huge house with two floors, and even two apartments, and here she was sleeping in her office without anywhere to go. After sorting out why I was there, I insisted that she move into my downstairs apartment. I didn’t have much but I had a hell of a lot more room than I ever needed! She was very hesitant and insistent she was fine where she was. I didn’t want to push her to do it but I hated knowing she had nowhere to go! I finally talked her into it, and told her there was 5 entire rooms she could choose from. She could pick any one that she wanted, and I wouldn’t get in her space. It’d be all hers. I knew we each had boundaries neither was ready to cross and I didn’t want to scare her off with me being overly pushy! I honestly had thought she’d take the downstairs apartment so she’d have her own place, in a way. It made me thrilled though when she chose one of the rooms upstairs. I didn’t blame her though, it would have felt weird to me if it were me as well. To live downstairs rather than share the same place. It was a bit weird having someone living in the house with me but it wasn’t unwelcome. At first we were both kind of tiptoeing around but we soon fell into a sort of pattern, and Becca even started joining me downstairs and I showed her some moves. I think my favourite part about all of it was when we’d make it a goal to take each other down. It was fun because we were almost exactly at each other’s level when it came to skill. Though both of our skills were centered around different points, it was fantastic being able to have a person that actually gave him a good test of his skills. He didn’t have to really worry about hurting her! Though he had knocked her a few times and had to give her a potion to help clear her head, and she had hurt him a few times as well, but they were a great match!

I think the hardest thing that I’d seen though was Christmas Day, when she needed to see her kids and make sure that they were safe and happy. I went with her insisting that she couldn’t be alone, well she could but I didn’t want her to have to go through that on her own. Seeing her break down at Brian’s was really painful to see and again that same argument that we had over and over again happened. That she needed to fight this, that she couldn’t let Brian just win. It killed her not having Norah and James in her life! I wanted to go in there and fight for those two kids and I hadn’t even met them.

She was really self-conscious about the scars on her, and I had one scar that I was terrified that she might see, and somehow in that time she hadn’t seen it yet. But I was afraid something might lead her to look at the back of my shoulder. I don’t remember how exactly it came that she was really self-conscious of her stomach especially but I tried to ignore it and said she was beautiful regardless, but she still was hesitant. I asked if she had seen my shoulder, with a dreaded sink of my heart. She told me she hadn’t, and I told her about the mark, she moved around to my back to look at it. My heart fell in my chest, and I closed my eyes afraid of how she was going to respond. Fear gripped me. That was until I felt her lips on my shoulder. She was kissing the spot on my shoulder, and she asked how I could feel that that mark would ever make her stop caring about me, why would I think a mark that I had no control over would ever change anything. It was what had shaped my life and a part of me. I remember having tears in my eyes, and looking at her in an entirely new light. We’d been through so much together already and it was just the beginning of our relationship. I had no idea what was going to happen in just a few short days, but I remember that night very clearly. And not because we showed each other how much we loved each other, even though neither of us were ready to admit it yet, in an entirely new way. I loved her deep inside so much it hurt, and I knew that I would give my life for her, if ever that happened. I would do anything for her. It was then that I was finally starting to admit it to myself, I still didn’t say it but I definitely knew I did.

A few days later, my entire life crumbled before my eyes, and I felt like my heart had been ripped out. It was on New Year’s Eve, and we were supposed to meet just before midnight, when we were both working at the Ministry.

Lizasaurus 02-28-2014 02:05 PM

I went up to Becca’s office and expected to see her in there sitting at her desk, when I found the room completely dark. This was quite surprising, especially when I found the door locked. Unlocking the door I stepped in and called for her looking around the office before heading for the work areas when I looked down seeing her wand on the floor. Fear gripped me then at that moment. I knew something was wrong, she wouldn’t have left her wand! Whatever had happened couldn’t have been good. Swallowing hard, I shot off patronuses to all the department heads, our aurors and finally to Warren. I knew that if something had ever happened to Becca, I would need to send for the man. I didn’t even know who he was but my pug patronus soared away with the message that there was an immediate meeting in her office. I sat down in her chair trying to remain calm, maybe for some reason she had dropped it accidentally. No, I was positive something was wrong, because her office wasn’t able to be locked without a wand, I knew that much. So whomever had been there had locked it with their wand and not Becca’s. I searched the office as I waited for people to arrive. I feared she was kidnapped and what they might be doing to her. I needed to remain calm though, for if I didn’t, I’d be of no help to anyone. Ed and Isaac arrived almost immediately as did a few department heads, and was grateful for that. I was in the middle of specifics of what I knew when Warren appeared. The first thing he did was accuse me of kidnapping her myself and doing something to Becca. I stared at the man, unsure what to even think. Was he serious? I had kidnapped my own girlfriend, to accomplish what exactly? I immediately put him in his place, and told him that there was no way I had done that, considering I cared for her and would give my life for her. Okay well I didn’t exactly say it quite like that, but there was no way I was going to let this pompous man tell me I’d kidnapped and hid Becca away. Who the hell was he anyway?

I then did the one thing that probably took more guts than anything else, considering I could have hurt the man and not regretted it one bit. I found Brian. I went to his parent’s house and pounded on the door until he answered the door, and told him he needed to hide. That he needed to take the kids and go and get them to safety. I knew that if it were Becca, she’d have done the same thing, not giving a damn about Brian’s safety but wanting to make sure the kids were safe. God I wanted to tell that man off and give him a piece of my mind. But he just stared at me like I was losing my mind. So instead I told him that he knew Becca would want them safe, and if the Becca and I had found him, the cult would as well. I didn’t just leave at that, but turned to face him fully and told him that she needed the kids, and for him to imagine how hard it would be for her. To rip her heart to pieces, and for me to come and try to put those pieces back together. Without waiting for a reply I left. I headed immediately for Azkaban, where Ed was supposed to go to keep an eye on Orlando, who had been left by the cult for some reason or other.

It took doing but we found Becca and managed to save her, she was in bad condition. God it hurt seeing her in so much pain and hurt so bad. To see her in that condition broke my heart, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it! Isaac was down, Nell was down, Alex was brilliant, using her Veela power over the leader of the group. And I sat dueling Lucien. God that man irritated me, he got free and apparated away after nicking me with the tip of his sword. I still want to catch that man. I can’t fathom how I’d let him go, and it still gets to me some nights, when I’m trying to sleep. Trying not to picture the man, whom I had let get away. Sonya had turned sides and I asked one condition, and that was when Becca was back on her feet, that she would come. I don’t know why I did it, but I did, I willingly let her go free. Trusting that she would come when called. We got Becca and Isaac back to St. Mungo’s where the healer’s started fixing them up. Isaac was in bad condition. The information we’d found before Becca’s kidnapping was that the cult was after something we had locked in the department of mysteries, and when Isaac had fetched it and then was summoned to the castle where the fight broke out, he had it in his possession and the vial broke. I still have nightmares from that night, and see Isaac dead so many times since then in those dreams. I was the one who had sent him to fetch that necklace, and had nearly killed him in the end. It was really hard seeing her so tired to the point that she couldn’t sleep, not just because of how tired she was but also because she didn’t want to see the memories of what she had been through. God I couldn’t imagine! I didn’t blame her for being unable to sleep. I knew she wanted sleep though and she showed me what happened to her in the pensieve a few days after the kidnapping. Those memories broke my heart seeing her go through that. She’s the strongest person I know and I was surprised even then that they didn’t break her completely with what they did to her.

It was a few weeks later, when Becca and I were in Muggle London taking care of some magical rubbish bins that were going haywire, when out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. I went towards the movement wanting to ensure if it were a Muggle, they were alright and didn’t need obliviating after seeing the rubbish bins acting weird. I called out I was with the police when suddenly I felt myself flying backwards and hitting the ground, a burning sensation in my chest. It was hard to breathe and I looked up at Becca who had a frantic look on her face, but was trying to remain calm for me. I remember wincing at the pressure she was putting on my chest, or maybe that was the pain of the gunshot wound, but I fought to remain conscious as she kept pleading with me to stay with her. I remember telling her I loved her and her telling me over and over I was going to be fine. She apparated us to St. Mungo’s but that was the last thing I remember. Within moments I was out and there wasn’t anything I could say or do. I was in limbo, a few times I wonder what was going on, I’d start to wake and suddenly pain would take me away and I’d fade and bits of me would sense as if I was surrounded by my sister and mum. It was an odd feeling, standing there seeing them but something kept drawing me back. I’d see Becca standing there and somehow feel as if I was there but not there. I was lying on a table with someone working on me. Then everything would fade again and I would see my sister or even Maree. It scared me. I never told anyone this because I didn’t want Becca to realize how close I had truly come from dying and leaving her forever.

I finally told Becca that I loved her, and I had seen how she froze when I said it but I assured her I didn’t expect anything in return, I wanted her to know I loved her. I couldn’t lie to myself anymore let alone her. I wanted her to know that I loved her, that accident and New Years had been just too close to losing one another and I wanted her to know that I loved her. I didn’t want something to happen to one of us without her knowing how I felt about her! The day she told me that she loved me, was probably the best day of my life. I hadn’t cared if she ever said it but it pulled at my hear when she said she loved me, and meant so much to me that she did. I hadn’t heard those three little words in so many years that it made my heart ache hearing it, and touched me so incredibly much. Who knew that those words could mean the world to someone so much.

In February I had been doing quite a bit of work around the local establishments, trying to uncover a ring of people who were selling magical items to Muggles, when I came across a ring. I saw the ring and I knew that it was Becca’s, I didn’t want just a diamond, but the blue stone in it caught my eye, because it was the same colour as Becca’s eyes, I kept telling myself that I couldn’t. I’d mentioned marriage once and she’d become really quiet and then asked for time. I had said in a year I’d ask, I’d give her even more if she needed it but I wouldn’t mentioned marriage again until then. But it was the ring, I knew that with my heart. I finally went back and bought the ring and put it deep in the pocket of my robes before heading to her office. I hadn’t had time to run home and put it away and had just gone to her office, thinking it was safe there. Somehow I ended up dropping the box on the floor of her office without noticing and she saw it. I tried to act as if it were just something I’d forgotten was in my pocket, but I knew she knew what it was. I finally admitted that the answer to her question that it was a ring. But I told her I wasn’t asking, she had wanted to wait a year and I was more than willing to wait as long as she needed. Hell, I wasn’t completely sure that it was a bright idea to propose already! But I knew in my heart where I wanted things to go, but I was willing to wait forever for her. She’d been hurt so badly that I was afraid somehow I might hurt her as well. I didn’t blame her for wanting to wait, or being nervous that perhaps I might do the same thing to her. She told me to ask when I was ready but I might not get the answer I wanted. My heart did a jump at those words but I shook my head and told her as softly and gently as I could that I was waiting for her to be ready, I also said I was ready though those words scared the hell out of me, I knew that if someone asked me if I was ready to spend my life with her, my answer would be yes and I wouldn’t hesitate in saying so. She left the office briefly that day after I told her I would wait forever if needed. It didn’t bother me one bit that she wasn’t ready and I knew damn well nothing would change my mind. I wondered though if I should leave it for her to decide. I put the ring in her desk with a note saying, when she was ready to just bring me the box and I would know. She didn’t even need to give it to me. Just have it appear where I would see it. She returned to the office and I know she’d seen it inside the top of her desk, but she wasn’t saying a word.

The argument that we had quite often happened again that day, that I believed that she should see her children and not push them away. I told her about how I had gone on New Years to warn Brian, and left him with the words that he was killing her a little at a time, not letting her see her children. Brian had owled him saying to tell her that she could see her kids, and she’d know where they were. When she said that she should just tell Brian to tell the kids that she was dead, I finally lost it. How could she say such a thing, and let her kids believe it to be true? With tears in my eyes I told her I’d lost my mother when I was young, and it still hurt right then to not have her in my life, I couldn’t see how she could so easily just decide not to see her kids. It was killing her that she couldn’t see those kids and I knew it! I finally had to go or I’d lose it right there in her office, and break down. I left her office to get some air, and I was going to go back when I was more under control. I was fighting tears as I left the office with a soft apology. I had barely taken a few steps when I felt her hand on my arm and her saying it was now or never. Turning around I saw her with the box in her hands and I remember putting my arms around her holding her close. I hadn’t meant for her to think I was leaving! I remember saying it was always now. It would always be now, not never. I told her I wasn’t leaving, and I hadn’t meant for her to think I was. I will never forget the words she said to me that day ‘You swear to me, here and now, that you'll never leave, you'll always put me in my place when I need it and that we'll always be okay at the end of the day, and I'll be absolutely honest about how I feel so you know.’ Those words were the most memorable of the entire time of our relationship. I haven’t forgotten those words. Tears were in both of our eyes that night, and I held her in my arms gazing into her beautiful blue eyes that were brimming and overflowing with tears. A lump in my throat as I stood there I spoke finally and I’ll never forget what I said either ‘I swear with all my heart I will never leave you ever for any reason. I will put you in your place if you need it but I also hope you will do the same for me. And I swear that we will ALWAYS be fine at the end of every single day for the rest of our lives.’ It still brings a smile to my lips when I think of what she said next, about how I was still talking and not offering her that ring. I proposed that day and to this day I have never forgotten her face nor her words. Each thing that has happened between us, has become more and more memorable, but there are just certain things that I won’t forget. It might have happened sooner than we planned, it might not have been the way most proposal’s happen, but it was ours. And she meant the world to me.

It felt like my entire heart was light now, our lives were entwined forever, and the two of us both felt a change in them. We were both happy, and somehow the worries and fears of us being separated never came into our thoughts any longer. For the first time since I was a kid, I felt like I had a life again, and one that I was happy with and didn’t want to change.

In late February of 2080, Becca and I were called to a residence by a small child, he said his mummy was hurt and we needed to help. Becca and I both went, me taking care of getting the child ready and able to come with us. Jordan had gotten his mother to St. Mungo’s. Becca had gotten his father into custody and after grabbing some clothes and his Mr. Bear I got Torie back to Becca’s office with me. The poor kid was just over 4 years old and was already dealing with an abusive father. How anyone could be such an **** to his own family was beyond me. It happened way too often for my taste. You would think in a wizarding world we wouldn’t have to deal with stupid people like that. We kept Torie with us, for a few days and let him see his mum at the hospital twice a day until she was able to return home. The poor child kept asking about his father, and why he was mean to him and his mum. Hopefully with the time in jail and meeting with Becca and a few threats, he’d come around and be able to rehabilitate and deal with his anger issues.

Unfortunately in April we got another call, from a crying Torie, Becca and I both left immediately and called for another auror to come and Jordan as well to meet us there. We found Torie and I scooped him up into my arms I apparated back to the ministry with him, right to my office, and knew that Becca and Ed were getting the man in custody and Jordan was caring for the body. I sent word for Isaac to assign someone to go down and collect everything he could of Torie’s from his home so that Torie wouldn’t have to return to the house and I didn’t have to leave him with a stranger. It took months for the poor kid to finally start trusting me, Becca and I took him into our home, hoping to find relatives that would take him in, but there were none. We had a sad little boy who had lost both of his parents in the same day, and all we could do was try and stem his tears. Hold him and cuddle him, assuring him we weren’t going anywhere. I had lost my own family as had Becca, but not so young. It was hard to see him crying out for mummy and not being able to do anything but hug him and assure him he was safe. I’d never wish this on another child, but he eventually started seeing us as his own family. It took months before he called me daddy, but he had definitely taken to Becca which brought a smile to my face. She hadn’t expected it and nor had I. But I think it was out of need at first at least that he did. But you could see as his entire being changed as he found he did have a mummy and even later a daddy there, that he could trust and know we would never hurt him.

During that time I found what the biggest fear I had was finding Becca hurt or unconscious and not being able to do anything about it. I walked into level 2 and found her lying on the floor just inside the training room when Isaac sent for me and dropped by her side. Hearing the pain she was in tore at me and hurt deeply. We reached Jordan and got her to St. Mungo’s, Jordan said she had internal bleeding and there were only a few choices we had. We had talked about if we’d ever have a child or not together. I would have loved to have a child, but knew how Becca felt about it, not to mention she had 2 of her own and we had Torie as well. But hearing what Jordan said about either attempting to have a baby, and hope it heals the inside of her uterus, from the tears, and possibly lose the baby or removing the uterus to stop the bleeding completely, was the hardest decision the two of us had to make. I asked her what she wanted, and she didn’t want to make the decision for us. I knew what the easiest route was, but I knew it was making the both of us cry inside to feel that kind of pain of knowing it was make a decision to have a baby right now or never have that option. It was really hard to make that decision, I knew how Becca felt about it but I also knew she knew how I felt about it as well. We finally were all set to just let it all be done and over with. To decide not to have a child together, knowing it was the best option. But he couldn’t just let it be, I finally spoke and said I just, couldn’t and didn’t want it. We both decided to soon after to let it be, and not have the surgery but to let Jordan try and heal her and the tears inside. We made the right decision, Jordan told us that it wasn’t as bad as he had expected but she still needed to take it easy, god that was going to be hard for the both of us. But we were willing to give it a chance. I know Becca was climbing walls by the time she was finally free of the injuries and not having to worry about injuring herself more but she did it so one day we might choose to decide to have a baby.

Early that summer, we had an epidemic that coursed through Italy, hitting the school as well as Diagon Alley and even the ministry. It started as a cold/flulike symptoms that people started getting, and little by little got worse, until the person fell unconscious. I was hit with it and Torie got sick soon after. Dan had gotten it just before me, and I had gone to the Leaky Cauldron, hoping that Torie and Becca wouldn’t get it, but Becca found me unconscious in my room on the floor. That was a scary disease that I wouldn’t ever want to go through again. After I became conscious again I started having visions of being back in the time with Voldemort, and afraid everyone around me were death eaters. Even Becca, who somehow managed to get me to see that she wasn’t, and that I had to trust her. I remember waking up with Torie laying against me completely unaware of who anyone was, and was seeing visions of things that weren’t actually happening. I was doing magic uncontrollably and that was a really bad thing, and it took everything I had not to hurt someone. I had a small child with me and had to remember that he thought of me as his daddy, even if I didn’t remember it, I still had to remember that he was just a child. I finally fell into unconsciousness and unable to be woken, I was in a deep sleep that kept me from contacting anyone or even responding. When the illness was finally broken by the compilation of all the healers, I woke and found myself looking around wondering what in merlin’s name had happened. When I saw Becca again it was a relief to see her there safe and just fine standing there. I held Torie in my arms stroking his head, remembering every single thing that had happened to me in that nightmare of an illness. It’s not easy seeing your past becoming your present and it scared the hell out of me.

Within a few days it was obvious Becca wasn’t doing well, and sure enough she fell into her own illness that she ended up with. It was called Recrudescitis, it was when everything that was bad that ever happened to you physically or even emotionally returned, and reoccurred during a period of time, in the order they happened in. I stayed by her side from the time it began til ended for the most part. Willow and Dan took Torie so we wouldn’t have to worry about it. I saw her relive her injuries growing up, losing her parents and sister, her training in becoming an auror, and even having James and Norah. God it was weird seeing her in labour and even delivering a baby that wasn’t there. But seeing and hearing the breaking of bones over those 4 days was really painful! I was more than thankful though that I never went through that. It might not have been a whole lot of injuries but the pain I went through and the fighting my brother, and losing people not to mention the accident would have been really hard to go through a second time. A lot happened in those 4 days, things that I recalled like New Years and the injury to her abdomen. The worst I was sure was when she was fighting Orlando, but maybe that was because she thought I was him…or he was me? Something like that. But we made it through, just as we had everything else. It was a relief for the both of us to be done with that.

It wasn’t long after that that Becca really was hit hard with not having James and Norah there. Stef and Warren contacted her saying the baby was on the way and Becca left to head to St. Mungo’s, she got home late that night and seemed really down and upset about something. After a time I finally got her to talk and she told me what they had named their son. James Matthew, which I knew finally what had gotten to her. She was hurt and thinking on her little boy, and I finally said that was it, I was going to talk to Brian and we were going to get those two kids and they were going to be a part of our lives. We were to be married in a little over a month but we were going to have those two little ones in our home as well. No more pushing them away. She nodded in agreement that night and I just held her close and started planning what I was going to do come morning. That next morning I went into the office and started making calls and also got in touch with Dan. He and I started making plans with what would happen if Brian wasn’t willing to work with us. I met with Brian and had it settled that I would drive them to my house and park on the street, and bring them through the Fidelius Charm. From there Brian would apparate away once they were safely inside. Pulling up in front of the house I looked up towards the house and the driveway to see if I could see Becca but didn’t. I picked up Norah and Jay’s bags and took Jay’s hand as we headed across the street and up the drive. Entering the house, I put the bags down and called Becca’s name, it took some time but she finally appeared and I could feel Jay’s tension in his shoulders that my hand was on and knelt down beside him, watching as the two of them saw each other for the first time in over a year. Seeing the tears on both their faces was enough to make tears form in my eyes as I watched them. Seeing mother and son reunite was enough to put tears in anyone’s eyes. It was the most touching thing I’d seen in my life seeing how much Becca had needed this, and knowing how much it meant to her that Jay was there. Letting go of Jay as he ran towards her, I just sat back on my heels watching the two of them, hugging. A smile appeared on my face as she looked over at me, I knew that I had done the right thing. Just wished I had done it sooner. We went out to see Norah, who was clinging to Brian, looking at Becca and probably wondering who she was. God she looked so much like her mother. It took some time but soon Becca was holding her daughter close in her arms, stroking her hair with tears in her eyes. The three of them were reunited once again and there was no way in hell I was ever going to let it go back to how it had been. I knew that it was going to take a lot of doing and working things out but I knew everything would be okay. The hard part would be letting them go for a day or so on Monday so that they could collect the things they needed for a week. But soon we were all together again and Torie was there as well. Torie and Jay knew each other in school, and the three kids became close friends very quickly. Planning the wedding for the following month was now including Jay and Norah in the plans as well now, and as Torie said we now had two ‘ring bears’.

The day came, and I felt knots and butterflies in my stomach. I helped get Torie and Jay ready, both of them tugging at their collars and ties, and standing around awkwardly. Dan and I had planned that that night we would be a full family. Torie’s dad had given his parental rights up, and as of that night Becca and I would not only be husband and wife, but we also would be adopting Torie. I sent Torie and Jay to line up with the bridal party with Stef and Dan and I went to the front of the hall with the minister. I watched as Stef came up the aisle and then Torie and Jay, followed by Norah in her beautiful dress and little tiara on her head. Throwing her flower petals, along the way as she made her way towards the front. I stood there watching as Becca stood at the back with Warren with tears in my eyes, swallowing hard amazed that this was actually happening. All fears and worries gone, watching as my bride made her way towards me. I had eyes only for her, no one else in the room mattered. Watching as she came close, I took her hands in mine, giving her a smile that probably reached from ear to ear, the tears still glistening in my eyes. Watching as her own eyes sparkled I couldn’t take my eyes off hers, and even as I said my vows, and heard hers, that was the one day that has always sat in my mind. Nothing can take that from me. I love her with all I have and she will always be first and foremost in my mind.

Lizasaurus 11-24-2014 09:54 PM

Just seeing Becca so beautiful in her dress had warmed my heart, we went down the aisle as two people and came back down as a family of five. Torie was now our son, Norah and Jay were back in Becca’s life and a part of our family. We spent a wonderful few weeks on our honeymoon, just the two of us enjoying each other’s company and starting out fresh in our new lives together. I didn’t ever forget what my life had been like prior to this but now I saw it as a fresh start, one that could only get better. Sure Becca and I had our problems, we fought, but in the end, we always went to bed okay with one another. It was the one promise I had made to her, and would always make sure to follow through on.

Jay and Norah were back in our lives, and we were wanting to make life as natural as possible for them. Jay and Torie were best friends, having become friends at the academy, and shared a room. We set the bedroom beside ours for Norah, and let her decorate it how she saw fit but the boys wanted a room to themselves and not one that they had alone, so we added on to the house with a nice sized room for them to share. Jay was having a hard time with deciding what I was to him. He didn’t want to call me dad, in case that ended up offending Brian, his actual dad, but I let him decide what to call me. Norah warmed to me sooner but Jay didn’t take it all that well when Norah called me daddy for the first time. It took a lot of patience on Becca and my part. I felt for Jay, it wasn’t easy coming to see his mother for the first time in years and then suddenly finding that she had another family as well.

Becca and I had talked many times on whether we wanted to have another child, especially after the accident in the training room. One night just after our wedding, she had a dream where she had found out she was pregnant, but when she awoke and told me she was pregnant before she had realized it was only a dream, I sat there in shock trying to comprehend what was happening. She wasn’t? Was she?!?! She finally realized that it had been just a dream but in those minutes we both realized that we would like a little baby, one that the two of us had created and loved as much as we loved the other three. We still decided to wait on it, but it was definitely something we both were wanting and one day hoped we’d be blessed with.

It wasn’t long after the wedding that Garrick, Willow’s father was having classes for people to try to find their animagus, and become an animagi. Becca and I were two of the four students in the class, one other actually pregnant but wanting to learn the basics and once her babies were born, would be able to attempt to become an animagi as well. We sat in the classroom, trying to figure out what on earth was the one part of us that we had that we weren’t sure about. And that would be indicative of what we might become. I sat there in the corner of the room staring at my list and finally it came to me. Passive Aggressive, it was definitely something he was but would never admit to anyone. The next class we were to attempt to become the one animal that would be our animagus. I felt like my head was going to explode as I sat there. I remember as I heard a low growl, I turned to watch as Becca became a lioness and stared at her. Merlin….a lioness? I had a wife who could turn into a lioness at will now! I laughed a little and she definitely hadn’t liked that much and nipped at my hand. It took me a good half an hour before I finally changed into a koala, trying to get into a form of such a small animal from my height was quite a surprise and took getting used to. It had been amusing watch Becca try to walk on all fours and here I was trying to now as well. I stared at my three fingered hands and moved to walk when suddenly I found Becca right there to help me stand, that took the fear I had in that little body and threw me for a twist and I went running, or at least tried to, on my hind legs and ended up tumbling head over ears into a ball rolling and finding myself flat on the ground and squealing before running to hide under the desk. Those teeth were huge! To my tiny eyes those teeth were scary and I was now cowering under the desk as this huge lioness sat howling as she watched me and Garrick was right there trying to help me become less fearful. It took me some time to finally get up and be able to move past Becca the lioness to the mirror to find out what I even was. I was grateful it was a koala though, and not something tiny like a rat or mouse. Though compared to Becca I definitely was still very small.

The kids were always crazy about animals so when we became animagi we went back home and the kids all had different reactions to them. The boys were being naughty and I changed into koala form and chased them, the both of them screaming and running down the hall, but they both thought it really cool. Norah whom I thought would love it, as she loves bears, thought I was really scary. But the one that made the three of them even more excited was mummy as a lioness. They loved hearing her roar, or at least Jay and Torie did. Norah found it a little too scary.

That new years we all went down to Italy with Willow and Dan and Willow’s father Garrick. Taking the kids there so they could enjoy the night and ring in the new year with all of us. Upon arriving we found out Willow and Dan were expecting a baby, which we were delighted for them. Becca seemed to be really quiet, but was happy for them as well. The kids were talking of their new cousin they’d be getting at the end of the summer. With neither Becca or I having siblings that were still alive, nor Dan and Willow having siblings, we thought it would be nice between our families that they could consider each other cousins, as they already called Dan and Willow uncle and auntie. That night we were taking the kids out to the water to swim out in the Mediterranean Sea, and Becca walked out after Dan had spoken to her, telling her to calm down. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on and why she had lost it. She’d not been doing well that day, and she wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. I followed her out the door and said her name gently when she turned on me and just burst out ‘I’m pregnant’. I stared at her, completely unsure what was going on, it hadn’t truly sunk in yet and I was sure I’d heard her wrong. She was in tears and all I could do was stare. I finally came to my senses and asked if she was sure. DUH! Yeah that didn’t help. I was so surprised it took me a moment still yet to get a grip on what was happening. We were expecting a baby! I was thrilled but also now really concerned, she did want the baby right? She seemed angry and hurt, but sad and happy too? I knew emotions went flying during pregnancy and realized I seriously better get a better grip on this or things would turn nasty. It worked out well though, obviously we had a little girl 9 months later, and somehow she didn’t end up killing me in that time.

I won’t forget the day I broke her wand. I hadn’t meant to at all. I knew we were having problems when Emma laid just right to cause problems at times and Jordan was keeping a close eye on her. I didn’t want her to lift more than she could handle, not with the accident back in the training room and Jordan had warned her about that. But one day she finally lost her temper though I’d never tell her that now, and said fine and to carry the box for her. I’d stepped on something but thought it was just a stick from the kids playing outside. When she asked for her wand later, I went back out and stared horrified at finding her wand broken on the ground. It had fallen off the box I had carried up. Now not only was she pregnant, but she was pregnant and had a wand I had just broken. She cried for hours, hurt that I would do such a thing. Willow came had her exact wand as well as a whole stack of others, to try out and would continue going through them and more if needed until they found the perfect wand for her. But I was miserable and felt horrible for breaking it. I’d never done something so cruel as I had the day I broke Becca’s wand. I’d be hurt if I had broken my own, I’ve had it since I was 11 and don’t know what I’d do if it ever broke.

Towards the third trimester of the pregnancy, Becca was getting really tired of carrying the baby and didn’t feel I was quite as sympathetic as I should be. At least that’s what I figured. I knew she was uncomfortable and it didn’t help that it was the middle of summer. But I still tried to help in every possible way I could. It was about then that she decided that she was going to make me carry Emma for a day and see what I thought. Her and Jordan had worked it out that the baby could be transferred from her to me and I was going to carry her for just one day. No warning, Becca dragged me to St. Mungo’s and into Jordan’s office and told Jordan to do it. All I could do was stand there and stare at her “Do what?” I asked, and stared when Becca said I was carrying Emma for a day. No freakin’ way, seriously? Was all I could think. I mean yes, it was the magical field and we should be able to do things like this very easily. But really? Was it even safe? She made me lie down on the bed and Jordan did just as Becca said, though to his credit he did look uncomfortable about the prospect of actually doing this. Becca seemed quite pleased and jumped up from the bed like she’d been given a new life and there I lay on the bed with Emma now inside me, and staring at the bulge of her there in my stomach. That was the weirdest feeling I’d ever had in my life! I couldn’t apparate, being how far along the pregnancy was, and I certainly wasn’t about to walk outside where people would see me! So we floo’d home and I nearly fell over with each step I took, trying to gain the balance I was now lacking. Becca on the other hand was quite chipper and pleased that she didn’t have the baby weight on her. Jordan had said he wanted at least 24 hours before we considered switching back. CONSIDERED? I didn’t think there was a choice there! There were so many things I couldn’t do…no lifting, apparating, bending down, coffee, and having to use my wand if I really needed to do something. It was so frustrating! The amusing part was Becca spent a lot of that time in her lioness form now that she could once again. The fun part of carrying Emma was feeling her kick every part of me, sometimes not so much for instance when it was my bladder, but other times when I rested my hand against her, and she would poke it or kick it. It was an amazing feeling to feel her kicking and moving around. It was one thing for her to do it when Becca carried her but a completely different feeling when I was carrying her. I was ever so grateful though when it was time for her to go back.

That summer we had to start finding ways that Becca could actually sleep. She wasn’t comfortable and it was too hot to sleep in bed. The kids had really enjoyed the swimming in Willow and Dan’s pool in Italy and we decided to create a pool there at the house. We created a slide of sorts that Becca found was comfortable as she was in the water and able to relax more in that position. She started sleeping in that position, with a charm to keep her from going underwater. For the first time during the entire pregnancy we found a position and comfort for her to sleep.

The night that Emma was born, Becca headed for the office and Jordan went to see her. He knew something was wrong when she refused to let him check her over. So he called me summoning me to come, and she had locked everyone from her office. I stood there at the door waiting for her to respond when she finally said she was in labor. What? How? I thought she wasn’t due for another week or two, but apparently Emma had other plans. But she was still determined to work in spite being in labor. I went to my office and basically sat around staring at the clock and filling out paperwork. I wasn’t going anywhere, not if she was about to have the baby! I finally headed back up to her office to check on her and she finally agreed it was time to go to St. Mungo’s and well…I discovered… If your wife is in labor don’t pick her up unexpectedly, especially if she’d just had a contraction! Yep, idiot me decided it might be a good idea and she had three contractions, one after the next. One on the way to my office, one before flooing after I picked her up and the third right the moment we floo’d to St. Mungos. I felt absolutely horrible, putting her through three consecutive contractions. In the meantime, we got her into bed and watched as labor progressed and it was time for Emma to be born. She got some pain potion after a while which helped her but she still was feeling a lot of the pain and contractions. I’d been told not to wear a tie, but well that hadn’t mattered, collars work just as well. And I learned don’t ever say the word ‘just’ when your wife is in labor as well. After a small problem during delivery we had Emma in Becca’s arms and she was absolutely beautiful. They both were. Becca had been amazing and our little girl was wailing her head off not in the least even a little happy. But she was beautiful all the same. Jordan and Becca decided that they’d do the minor surgery that they’d looked at doing when Becca had had the accident in the training room and I held Emma as Becca fell asleep with the potion she was given. I didn’t want to watch but wanted to be there and in no time the surgery was done and Becca was resting comfortably as Emma slept. The kids were going to be ecstatic when they saw their little sister and I was looking forward to them seeing her. But for right then, we all needed some sleep and tried to as much as we could with a new baby.

She had a lot of problem with self-consciousness and being unsure of herself. Brian had done quite a number on her and making her feel unsure of herself. She wasn’t even able to nurse Emma without feeling incapable of taking care of her own daughter. Jordan and I helped her because she wanted to and I wanted her to be able to do anything she wanted to do, I didn’t want her fear to take over. The biggest fear she had was that Brian would do something such as take her little girl from her. It was hard to get her to sleep a bit, let alone put her down for a few minutes. The kids took it really hard when I asked them to wait to see mummy and Emma when they arrived. I didn’t want to wake Becca now that she was asleep and they really wanted to see her and there were lots of tears but they finally understood that mummy needed a little more sleep and let Brian escort them to the family room until mummy woke up. When they returned I woke Bec, though she was really tired still, the potion having worked well for the pain she’d been having from the minor surgery. But the kids excitement to see mummy and Emma was just as great as I had thought it would be. Brian wanted to leave the kids to see their new sister but Jay didn’t want him to leave. Norah and Torie both moving to hold their little sister one after the other. They were little but even little Emma looked tiny in their arms. It was sweet watching each of them take in their little sister. Jay asked for Brian to hold her with him and I could see in Becca’s eyes that she was nervous about it. Her and Brian hadn’t ended well and I knew she feared what Brian was going to do. I didn’t know him well, but for Norah and Jay’s sake I wanted everything to be okay between us. It definitely wasn’t easy. Becca finally got up and left the room, I was concerned and confused both unsure what she was doing, but I wasn’t going to leave the kids and Emma with Brian. I was grateful when Brian offered to go look for her and tried to relax. While we waited for them to return, I took advantage of the opportunity to do a little surprise I’d hoped to do for Becca, and settled the three kids on the chair and lay Emma in each of their laps so each one was holding her in some way. As soon as Brian came back and insisted that it was time for them to go I understood. He briefly explained what was going on as the kids got ready to go and said their good byes to Emma but asked to say good bye to mummy. I told them mummy was a little busy but promised them I’d tell her goodbye for them. They seemed okay especially when they saw how upset Brian appeared to be. I didn’t know what had happened but I knew something had caused it. After they had left I asked Jordan to check in on and keep an eye on Emma. Finally I headed upstairs to where Brian had said she was and took the stairs three at a time. I could hear her crying and made my way to her, and held her as I sat beside her. Letting her cry it out. I had known something would happen between her and Brian eventually, and couldn’t imagine the pain she was feeling. I stroked her hair and just held her silently.

It seemed after that point that her and Brian were more civil to one another and could at least be in the same room together without barking at one another. Or at least Becca wasn’t so much. Brian had seemed to accept it sooner though he still had his moments.
One night not long after that, we had Brian over for dinner. Emma, looked at us and actually smiled for the first time which made my heart just squeeze tight, seeing that beautiful smile. It was when Becca went into the bedroom to get changed that we started having problems. I have NEVER gotten over the idea, that women have to look perfect. ESPECIALLY with her ex being there for the first time. I walked into the room to see how she was doing and immediately wanted to cower and run back out of the room and pretend I hadn’t been in there. She was having problems finding something that fit, and I thought she’d look beautiful in anything but apparently that was the wrong thing to say as well. I finally left the room, though I was likely very lucky she hadn’t thrown something at me as I left. Norah went in and I’m sure offered to give her a tiara or something to wear to make her more pretty, but whatever she did, brought Becca back out and she looked absolutely amazing! I still remember that outfit she wore, with the checkered colors and the black form fitting bottoms and heels. God just amazing and I loved seeing how beautiful she looked standing there. Brian certainly did as well! Jay still very much felt he had one dad and only one dad up until that point. Norah had decided she had two daddies just like Torie did, but just as Torie had, it was taken Jay awhile to be able to accept me in his life. I was the one who’d taken his mummy away in his eyes. Though I had nothing to do with it, but had just been the one to pick up the pieces. He still felt that I had taken her away from him. At dinner, Jay asked ‘Do you want the apple sauce daddy?’ as he looked towards me. You could have heard a pin drop at that moment at the table and Jay stared at all of us disbelievingly. Fear showing on his face before he ran off out of the room. I mouthed to Brian to give it a few minutes, and knew full well Jay wasn’t handing that well. I felt for him, I couldn’t see that that was going over well, and knew he’d be hurting now. When Jay came back in the room I had given him a smile as if nothing had happened, but it warmed my heart so much when he said that word again almost immediately. I knew what had happened had worked itself out, and to hear him say daddy and mean it, meant so much to me. It was just as when Torie had said it.

That December, we celebrated Hannukkah, teaching the kids what Hannakkah was and letting them celebrate it with us. Becca and I had decided that we would teach the children to respect all religions and one day they’d decide which one they preferred, if any, to teach their own children one day. We celebrated both Hannukkah and Christmas each year from that point on. I am sure the kids enjoyed Hannukah more than Christmas as they got one gift each night and a number of gifts the last night. But we felt it important that they make their own decision for themselves, not because we as their parents celebrated them but because they also wanted to.

We decided to go and visit Dan and Willow and little Aurora in mid-October, and were driving down to Wales to visit them, rather than floo with a new baby. Each of the kids were strapped into their seats and Becca and I sat in the front of the people carrier. Laughing and teasing the children as we drove, keeping them occupied while they were awake at least. I sat there about to pass an onramp when I looked over in time to see a car coming right at us and knew right then we were going to be hit. I shouted and in that moment, Becca threw a shield charm up over the kids behind us as I hit the steering wheel the moment we collided. Pain shot through me and I could hear the screams of the kids behind me and saw Becca there fear etched on my face. I could see her bleeding but her first thought as was my own was the kids. She moved to get them and pass them to me as I got each one to safety. She went directly to the other cars, as I sat with the kids holding Emma and Norah with the boys there beside me, not giving into the wave of pain but concentrating on them and worrying about Becca. I knew she was hurt and I wanted to know just how bad but she wouldn’t stay PUT long enough to find out! I rang Dan and then Jordan right as soon as I was able because I knew that the muggles would try to put us in ambulances and take us to A&E and I didn’t want to subject the kids to that with the needles and all. Becca looked worse for wear than I did, I’m sure exhausted from the large charm she’d done to protect the kids from any pain and injury. I ignored my own pain and the soreness that followed wanting to stay alert. The moment she hit the floor, well sat anyway my heart dropped in my chest. Someone came over to check on us and I sent them her way immediately, and of course she told them to leave her. I could see the van from St. Mungo’s weaving in and out of traffic before they pulled up and Jordan jumped out running our way. Becca called me an idiot for not accepting help but well…that wasn’t exactly new, and she was refusing help as well so I wasn’t too concerned. She sat beside me and laid back as her eyes closed and my worry still was on her, even as Jordan looked us over quickly and set off directing people to help and to get the kids all buckled into the people carrier. I watched as he loaded the kids in and stayed with Becca until they had her into the people carrier and got in as well. The kids were really worried and I didn’t blame them. It was going to take some time for all of us to get over being shaken. Hearing her wake asking where she was was the most blessed sound I’d heard. The kids were all asleep on the bed and Jordan had seen to my concussion but we were just waiting for her to wake. We rarely all rode in the same vehicle after that point, we didn’t want to risk another accident and the fear that we’d leave the kids and not be there for them. At least if one of us wasn’t there in the accident if it ever happened again, at least the other could be there to help.

That night after we were all back home again, I had the nightmare I’d feared would happen to us. The accident not helping in the slightest, only encouraging that fear and opening a whole near level of fear, that something might happen to Becca, myself or even the kids. I remember in the dream hitting the steering well and blacking out instantly. I kept being drawn into the darkness, the pain keeping me from fully waking. When I finally came to, the pain was excruciating but my first thoughts weren’t the kids who were crying and screaming but to Becca. I couldn’t hear her let alone see her and the pain of knowing something might seriously be wrong made me beg to see her. I begged the nurse to know how she was, ignoring the pain and wishing Jordan was there. I finally got her to call for Jordan by saying it was a condition Becca had. I saw Jordan appear in the A&E and wanted to cry because I knew by his face it was too late. He went right to Norah and fear shook me as I saw the worry in Jordan’s face. Jordan didn’t have worry, not unless….I held Norah in my arms, brushing her hair with my hand as I fought the tears “Stay with me baby” I whispered tears on my cheeks. Jay was crying out asking for Norah and then she was gone. A sob sounded from me and I shook, two of my girls gone. GONE! The fear was on my face as Jay climbed up with me and I held him tight. Torie had to be okay, he’d been the worst spot in the people carrier and was in the worst condition. I knew that, and I was desperate for him to be okay. I heard Torie’s words of his mummy’s both reaching for him and smiling. I sobbed again as Jay asked for Torie and held onto him tight. Begging for Emma to be okay, I sobbed again. This time being shook awake by Becca, hearing her voice as she called me trying to wake me. I remember sobbing again and wrapping my arms around her tight. She’d had a nightmare which had been so much of the same but having lost only one person, Emma. Our little girl, while she was still pregnant. She knew the pain that I was having, the fear that I had and listened to every word. I’ll never forget that dream, and having lost Norah and Torie both of them dying in my arms in that dream. Holding Jay tight as I cried. The pain so fresh even now. So desperate to hold onto a life that can be snatched from us in just moments.

Over the years I’d learned to appreciate more and more what I had and not dwell on the things I didn’t. We took the four kids to Russia to visit my family’s graves, we took them to Becca’s parent’s grave, and to where they had died in the car accident. We didn’t shield them from death but taught them to respect it. I took the four of them to the place in the Alps where I’d taken Becca and Torie. We all went there as a family and it meant a lot for each of them to learn to appreciate it there as well. I was so proud of the kids as they learned to rock climb as well. It was fun seeing them as they conquered their fears with the climbing. Even Emma seemed to enjoy it. I felt horrible that Becca hadn’t felt that I trusted her to climb the rock with Emma on her back. I felt I had done the right thing then but looking back now I knew I’d likely not do that again.

One day a few months after Emma turned one years old I had just gone to see Tar and I was suddenly stunned and apparated out. It was Becca’s birthday and we were to meet for a nice birthday dinner just the two of us. When I came to I found myself in this secluded room and was hanging from the ceiling by my wrists when I opened my eyes. I was hit repeatedly over and over, and tortured to the point of nearly crying out during that time. I tried to get my arms in a better position so I wouldn’t be putting all the pressure on them, but it was hopeless. I’d had torture training done none other than by Becca but even that hadn’t prepared me for what happened there in that room. They started using the kids screams against me and even Becca’s screams. It ripped at my heart the more I heard but I knew that I couldn’t give in or I’d never forgive myself. They wanted to know where Dan was and there was no way that I’d ever give that away. I would protect him with my life if need be, and the torture was bad but I still wasn’t giving in to it which angered them even more. I heard noises outside the room and knew that something was happening but even then I refused to give in. If Becca was out there she was in danger, if it were more people there to torture or hurt me, I wouldn’t let them get to me no matter what they did. I’d been trained to be an auror and I was very well going to do as I was trained to do. I heard gun shots which rang in my ears, terrifying me that Becca might be shot. She was an excellent marksman but I knew even with a wand some things happened you never wished upon anyone. My own getting shot was proof enough of that. I waited, fear gripping me until the moment Becca appeared in the room. I don’t know how she did it, I knew she was strong but she got me down from that rope and apparated me to St. Mungo’s where my wounds and injuries were cared for before going home. Those hours, YES hours, were the longest hours of my life. Fear and pain from what they’d done and what I’d heard. I’d give anything to protect any of my family, for they’re all I have left. And I can still even now, hear those screams of pain from the kids and Becca, even little Emma from those recordings, fake as they were.

Auror training as a young adult around the age of 18-19 probably wouldn’t be all that bad. But getting trained in as an auror at the age of 30 is something else. All these young kids becoming aurors and me having to train in with them was a bit embarrassing. I had a lot of experience under my belt in some aspects but in others, oh dear lord I’d prefer not to have to go through again. I’m thankful now as a full-fledged auror that I can sit back and watch the new trainees and even train some of them, but I doubt I’d ever be able to pass some of those tests again. I sometimes wonder how I actually passed them. I enjoyed the trainings, especially Becca and mine down in our basement. Though I’d prefer not to have so many injuries, nor watch Becca slice open her leg with the sword. I have to say she’s become an amazing swordsman though, she’s come a long way and I’m proud of what she has become!

The one fear that I’ve had in my life is heights, it’s always been my downfall and I don’t see that fear ever being conquered. It’s weird though because I can do rock climbing, fly in aeroplanes and so much more, but when it comes to heights by themselves I tense and clam up. Becca swore that she was going to take me skydiving and it was the one thing that I desperately prayed she’d never do. It seemed to amuse her about my fear, that I could do some things and not others. One day she pretty much escorted me right to the small airport and set me in front of the instructor who was showing us the equipment and explaining what we were going to do. All I could think of during that was that I wasn’t going to jump. There was no way in hell. We got the equipment on, me very VERY reluctantly but not being given a choice by Becca, it was do it or I was going out of the plane without it. I swallowed still staring at her but put the equipment on. Letting her lead me to the plane, still hoping she wasn’t going to force me to do this. Soon we were up in the air and were being given further instructions. The moment was there and my throat ached painfully that Becca was still so adamant on this, still forcing me to do something like this. I’d never made her do anything that terrified her. Maybe because she’d never had a fear, though flying wasn’t high on her list, I’d never forced her to get aboard a plane. She’d done that on her own. I stood there wanting to cry, my face white as a sheet I am sure. But still I let the instructor strap me to him my eyes on the floor unable to even look at her. I knew if I did I’d just cry and I wouldn’t do that. I finally looked at her and I know my eyes showed hurt when she looked apologetically at the instructor. I remember whispering ‘I love you’ to her, knowing I had to or I’d regret it if something happened to either of us.

The instructor and I jumped from the plane and I didn’t open my eyes even once. I could heard Becca in the distance shout happily and even hear her encouraging me to open my eyes but I just couldn’t. My heart was racing painfully in my chest and fear gripped me. I even shook my head at the instructor as he tried to get me to look at things as well. I hated that free falling. It wasn’t a good feeling and it scared the heck out of me. I did finally open my eyes when it was time to land because I wasn’t going to be the one to cause us to fall upon landing. As soon as the ropes were unhooked I looked up just in time for Becca to land and jump on me, kissing me hard and he kissed her back though my heart was really heavy and hurting a lot now. I wanted to cry and go curl up in the corner both at the same time. I knew she’d enjoyed herself and was thrilled but I just wasn’t able to even speak. Even with the encouragement of her saying how well I had done. It took a while before I even trusted my voice to speak. It hurt me immensely that she would force such a thing on me and I didn’t know if I could even forgive her right that moment. She knew something was wrong and it was hard to look at her without looking hurt. I needed time and I even wondered if I needed some space. But I wasn’t going to say that to her, none of the hurt I was feeling was I going to say. She’d meant well, forcing me to do something that could easily mean life or death to me as an auror. But it didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt like hell that she’d made me do it without letting me overcome it on my own and in my own time. She said that I had agreed to doing it, and I sure as hell didn’t agree. She hadn’t given me a choice whether I wanted to do it or not. She’d done everything but push me out of the plane, but again I didn’t argue with her just shut my mouth and nodded. She kept apologizing and I know she was waiting for me to say ‘it was okay’ but it wasn’t. At least right then it wasn’t. I couldn’t forgive her and that in itself hurt more than what she had forced me to do. I saw the tears in her eyes and wished I could say it was okay. But I couldn’t lie to her either. I couldn’t fully forgive her right then and I know it hurt her a lot. It was the first time she’d really ever hurt me like that, I know I’d done stupid things that had hurt her. But never had she hurt me so emotionally as she had that day.

I thought about it throughout the time that she was upset and finally decided I was going back up. I didn’t want to. No way did I ever want to go back up into the air let alone jump out the plane once again, but I would for her. And I’d damn well do it again and again til I could jump out of it myself. She had done it for me, making me conquer my fear and all I’d done? Was act like a stupid child and make her upset because I didn’t want to go in the air and jump from a plane. I was an auror! I should be able to jump from a plane or any other thing without question! I finally went to her and said I’ll be back in a few hours and that brought on a whole new level of her being upset. I would have thought she’d be relieved honestly, to know that I wanted to make it that I could do this. But no, it made her more upset and she begged for me not to go. I held her as she whispered that it was not okay, when I finally realized that it was. She didn’t feel it was, she had realized what she had done was wrong and though now I felt even more like crying I held her stroking her hair and wishing that it could be different. I loved her more than life itself and she had been there for me and I for her, through so much. And now I sat there holding her promising her that it was okay.

The time together was the best that I’d had in my life, and I’d been to hell and back it seemed since my dad died when I was young. But Becca and the kids had taught me something over the years, and in the years to come, which I hope are many more than I can count. I don’t want to look to a day that I won’t be with them any longer, whether it’s because I died, or Becca did or something happened to one of the kids. I watched as Emma took her first steps, and said her first words. Those things will never be able to happen a second time. Nor will I be able to see Jay and Torie off to Hogwarts for the first time more than once. Or even see Norah fly on a broomstick for the first time and go fast and thoroughly enjoy it. Each one of those things I have seen or will see in the next year or two and each one is a treasured moment. One I never want to forget. Just as with the first kiss with Becca. Yes I got punched in the face and told it was an experiment, but just the same I wouldn’t ever change a single thing about it. She’s my world and nothing can take that from me.

Over the years since the accident so much had happened both good and bad. But the best part was meeting Becca and our lives wrapping around one another’s. We brought together 3 separate families; mine, Becca’s, and Torie’s and combined them all into one family and adding Emma to it as well. I can’t say the life has been completely fantastic but I wouldn’t change any of it for the world. I wouldn’t give up a single one of them for they’re all a part of me and I would give my life for each one of them. I don’t know what the future will bring, but I know where I want to be.


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