Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Pieces-
You're so tired trying to rewind the mess you've made of your own mind
(Woah) But the pieces won't pick up themselves, you know
You can fight just like you've been taught
It won't undo the life you've got
(Woah) 'Cause the pieces won't pick up themselves, you know
- Icon for Hire
Hadrea was blindfolded, attempting to reassemble the gun before her by feel and memory as her Aunt watched over her impassively. She fumbled, for what must have been the 5th time in as many minutes, causing her Aunt to heave a sigh in irritation.
“Get it together girl! God, sometimes you’re worse than Lily was I swear!” she sniped.
Hadrea ignored the tone, focusing in on the first mention she’d heard of her mother since Aunt Petunia had grudgingly told her the name and fate of her parents when she was 3 and old enough to ask. That was two years ago now.
“Aunt—”
“Quiet girl, until you manage to assemble that gun!”
She closed her mouth with a snap, and redoubled her focus on the task in front of her.
When finally she succeeded 20 minutes later, her Aunt gave her a rare smile before telling her to get cleaned up and going to make dinner.
As they ate, she worked up the courage to ask her taciturn Aunt the question that had been on her mind.
“Aunt Petunia, what was she like?”
“Who?”
“My mother.”
Hadrea eagerly awaited the answer, wanting to add real details to the image of her mother she had created in her head.
She was tall, smart, beautiful, and kind. She was the greatest hunter to walk the land. She was the best, the greatest at everything. She was perfect, and—
“She was a stubborn fool.”
Hadrea was taken aback, and must have looked it, because her Aunt snorted.
“I suppose it’s about time you learned the rest of your history, what I know of it anyhow. Your mother grew up like you. A true Evans and all that that entails, but I suppose you could say we babied her and it did her no favors. She was sheltered from the true horrors of our world for a long time, and in our efforts to shield her from the bad we inadvertently shielded her from the true knowledge of the good we were doing, of how our life was not without thanks, and how without us many people would be much worse off; and also allowed her to construct an image of hunting in her mind that was completely inaccurate—she thought of it as glorious, romantic, the prince slaying the dragon and rescuing the princess with no-one worse off for the encounter and able to return home in time for dinner.
But she was the baby, and so while she was raised on the theoretical, and taught all the essentials, she was never allowed any real experience.
And stubborn fool she was, she chafed at being limited to research and occasional intelligence gathering on our weekend and holiday trips. She was 10 years old and determined to prove herself, and so she snuck along once.
It was one of the worse hunts we undertook; a Will-O-the-Wisp had been luring unwary wanderers to their deaths in a local marsh at night. What we had been unaware of was the fact that the spirit was leading travelers to the site of his death—the lair of a Kelpie he had stumbled upon when lost. Lily, ended up being the first to find the Wisp, and took it upon herself to follow it.
Your grand-parents and I had taken another route and were headed directly towards the lair which we had been able to finally pin down. We got there just barely in time. Lily had nearly drowned, and several of her ribs had cracked under the strain.
Having been sheltered for so long and to come face to face with the real danger associated with hunting like that, and at such a young age… she was never the same.
She began refusing involvement with hunting in any way, spending all of her time with that terrible boy down in Spinner’s End. He told her what she was, why strange things sometimes happened around her—which in hindsight I’ve come to believe our father already knew. That that was his reason for sheltering her the way he did. Because Lily was a natural-born witch, and the supernatural are drawn to those with magic in a way they aren’t to those without. Father had many theories on why that was, passed down from his father and his father before him, but with his journal lost I don’t know them.
When the letter came on her eleventh birthday, mother and father sent her off to that school with that boy to be trained, as they should’ve, because untrained magic can become very dangerous as one ages. But Lily saw it as an escape. She entered that new world and left everything else behind her. She didn’t come home for holidays and insisted on spending most of her summers with various friends. She rejected the hunter’s life, and turned her back on the family. When she came of age, she cut off contact completely, save a single letter proclaiming her marriage to James Potter and that she was very happy with her life and demanding we never attempt to contact her again. She didn’t so much as acknowledge our parents deaths. I was unaware she even had a daughter until you were left on my doorstep with nothing more than a letter explaining your parents’ murder and that I was your only remaining family, and furthermore, you’re best possible protection from the followers of your parents’ murderer through virtue of our shared blood. A protection which would extend to the household in which we resided for as long as you could call that place home and were under age in the magical world.
Of your father I only know his name and that he apparently was killed protecting your mother and you.
I took you in, for I could do nothing less, and decided to raise you in a manner befitting one of Evans blood, and not to repeat the mistakes we made with Lily. If for no other reason than the letter seemed vague on whether or not your parents’ murderer was actually dead, and his followers definitely aren’t, meaning at some point you will likely need to know how to defend yourself, and I could never have lived with myself if I did not warn you of what could be lurking in the dark. I will do my best to teach you as much as I can, before you have to leave to go to that school and be trained in magic—for there is little I can do for you on that front.”
She got up to go search for something, leaving Hadrea in a state of shock. What she had been told was so different from the image of her mother she had built up in her mind that she couldn’t reconcile it. She had done everything she could to live up to that image she had created of her mother, and now that she knew the truth she could feel the foundations of her world crumbling around her. She sat staring blankly ahead until her Aunt came back.
“Here,” she said, more gently than Hadrea had ever heard her before.
“This is a picture of your mother and that boy she used to hang around. You can keep it if you wish.”
Hadrea slowly took the picture. Her mother seemed to be maybe 13 in the picture, and was laughing at the camera, her arm wrapped around the boy beside her.
One part of her mental image had been correct at least. Her mother was beautiful. She had long, fiery red hair cascading in loose waves down her back. She was tall, slender, and fair. But it was her eyes which were her most striking feature: they were bright emerald green… and the same as Hadrea’s. The more she looked the more similarities she was able to pick out. Her hair was a brighter shade of Hadrea’s, and she had the same mouth and nose. But there were differences too, which she supposed was probably where she took after her father instead. Having looked her fill at her mother, she turned her attention to the boy next to her. He was the same height as her mother and just as slender, but that was where the similarities ended. His coloring was pale, bordering on sallow, and his long dark hair hung lank around his face. His nose was large and slightly beaky, and his eyes were dark enough to appear black. He seemed uncomfortable next to the laughing Lily, his smile slightly fixed, but he also seemed drawn to her. He leaned in close, his arm going around her waist as if to draw her closer, his head was also tilted slightly towards her, as if he was fighting the urge to look at her rather than the camera. They were both dressed in what seemed to be a school uniform—she supposed the one for the magic school her Aunt had mentioned.
She flipped the picture over to see scrawled: Me and Sev, headed to Kings Cross, Third Year.
Strangely, the picture of her mother and the mysterious Sev allowed her to begin picking up the pieces and rebuilding her shattered foundation, with truths this time—she would never again allow herself to base her world image on imaginings and daydreams.
Her mother was Lily Potter nee Evans.
Her mother was beautiful.
Her mother was not perfect.
Her mother was a natural-born witch.
Her mother was trained as an Evans hunter.
Her mother was scared.
Her mother was not a hunter.
Her mother was dead.
Her father was James Potter.
Her father was dead.
Aunt Petunia was a hunter.
Aunt Petunia was not a natural-born witch.
Aunt Petunia was family.
Aunt Petunia was teaching her to be a hunter.
She was Hadrea Grace Potter.
She was five years old.
She was a natural-born witch.
Her parents had been murdered.
She was going to learn magic.
She was going to be a hunter.