Chapter Two
Isobel McGonagall was running behind this morning.
She had promised Minerva that they would leave enough time to spare in order to find a good seat in a carriage, however she had fallen asleep at the kitchen table writing a paper on the long-term effects of Dreamless Sleep potion and had only awoken when Malcolm had come through the kitchen grumbling about feeding the chickens.
Isobel shot up, hair awry, faintly smelling of old parchment and turned to see Minerva glaring at her, already dressed for the day.
“You promised, we would get there early.”
Minerva grabbed the wooden stool and placed it before her mother, handing her the hairbrush from her hand.
“We will Minnie, I promise, I only need a few minutes to get ready and your father has promised to deal with the boys this morning so we will still be out of here in time.”
Isobel replied, plaiting her daughter's hair as quickly as her hands allowed, cursing internally at how unorganised she had been.
She had known that her research was due at the beginning of September yet the days had just gotten away from her. While many of her colleagues believed she must work on a very regimented schedule at home in order to publish as much as she does, the opposite was in fact true, Isobel worked best under pressure and when chaos reigned free around her.
It was why she was so surprised when Minerva had turned six and the only thing she had asked for was a clock in her own bedroom so that “we won’t be late for father’s sermons anymore”, since that day Minerva has been decidedly an organised child. Her brothers feared the day she was allowed to use magic at home as they could only imagine it would make her schedules worse.
While Isobel and Robert were quite relaxed in terms of at-home learning outside of spelling and maths, Minerva at the keen age of nine had decided she needed her brothers to know more things and began forcing them to attend “school” everyday. This school was held in Minerva’s bedroom where she taught a seven year old Malcolm and six year old Robbie all about the history of centaurs, or whatever was inside the book her mother had brought her home the day before.
As Isobel tied off Minerva’s hair with two red ribbons, she gave a pitied thought to the poor girls who ended up rooming with Minerva, she could only hope they saw her skills as a blessing and not a curse.
“Mum, Mum are you still asleep? Come on, I don’t want my first introduction to people to be me running after the train trying to get a seat last-minute.”
Isobel quickly shuck herself from her thoughts and began brushing out her own hair on the way to her bedroom.
/////
“Ma, have you seen my good cardigan?”
Pomona shouted from her bedroom where she sat on the floor attempting to make everything fit inside her decidedly too small trunk, even with the extension charm her dad had cast on it.
“Have you checked your trunk love you might have already packed it…” Footsteps outside Pomona’s door caused her to start stuffing things inside even quicker.
“No it’s grand Mam, you can owl it to me when you…”
“Sweet suffering… Jesus Christ Pomona, I thought you’d packed?” Mary Sprout now stood in her daughter’s doorway looking somewhere between the urge to cry and the urge to kick her daughter into the next millennium.
“I had Mam and then I remembered that my green shoes don’t fit anymore and they were at the bottom of the trunk so I emptied it out and then I was repacked but realised I had forgotten to include my winter cloak and so I had to start again and then it was 4am and I just wanted to go to sleep.”
“You.. I mean…this is…”
Yeah, Mary felt a lot closer to crying at this exact moment. Sending her only child off to boarding school was hard enough if you thought said child was going to thrive there but when you are standing in your daughters bedroom with all of her earthly possessions on the floor around her with exactly nine minutes until you have to leave, the confidence you had in your daughter to take care of herself seems slightly misplaced.
“Pomona, get out.”
“What, Mam I know it’s messy but I swear I can get it done,” Pomona had not moved from her spot in the middle, still spouting excuses at her mother in hopes of winning her around but Mary was no longer listening, her wand was out of her front pocket already pointing at the piles of clothes scattered across the room directing them towards the trunk.
“Hey, I had an organisational system on the go there,” Pomona cried yet one withering look from her mother who was currently armed and pissed off, had her holding her hands up as a sign of peace before her sentence was even finished. Within minutes the trunk was filled and on its way towards the front door of the Sprout’s flat.
“Wow Mam that’s class why didn’t you just do that in the first place”
Mary groaned, “Because Pomona, you are meant to be able to pack your own trunk without magic and without me, because in nine months when you are returning home you will have to do it without me and every other task in between now and then, remember?”
Pomona blushed at this, her face going a deep red betraying her otherwise pasty looking skin.
“Sorry Mam.”
Mary grabbed the light blue cardigan her daughter had been looking for and handed it to her, “It’s fine lovie but let’s go before we are late.”
Together they moved out of the flat, stopping only to grab Pomona’s new wand from the kitchen counter.
/////
“And don’t forget that you are not to spend any time alone with the Rosier girl, on the chance that father secures you a more advantageous match before you are of age.”
Alphard rolled his eyes as his sister followed him down the stairs of their family home rattling off the list of reminders or should he say thinly veiled threats his mother and father had left for him in the form of his annoying younger sister.
“And don’t forget the list of families who most recently spoke against father in Wizengamot, Merlin forbid you become chummy with any of them. And…”
Alphard spun on his heel to face his sister,
“WALBURGA… sorry would you just please do me a favour and stop speaking. I promise if father asks I will assure him that you reminded me of everything but I do actually already know all of this and right now I would prefer to just say goodbye to you and Cygnus.”
He tried to win her over with a small smile, wishing he hadn’t shouted as he knew he would be receiving a letter from his father over it. Instead of being won over by his emotional departure, Walburga simply took a step forward and pushed past him only glancing back to leave him with one final message,
“You better not have any of those emotional moments at school Alphard, Merlin forbid someone think the rest of us are as sickly as you.”
And with that she flounced through the kitchen door, shouting for Tippy, their senior house elf to make her a cup of tea.
Alphard stood there stunned for a moment at what he supposed was his sister’s version of a goodbye, he pitied his cousin Orion who was arranged to marry her, he supposed she might thaw with age but somehow that didn’t seem to be on the cards for Walburga.
When he turned around, he saw Cygnus’ nurse standing by the staircase, an apprehensive expression across her face.
“I know you had wanted to say goodbye to your brother sir, but your grandmother sent for him early this morning. Something about it being time for him to prove his usefulness.”
“He’s two!” Alphard exclaimed.
“I am aware sir, however without either of your parents in residence, your grandmother can do what she wants… sir”
“Of course, Agatha, sorry I do not place the blame on you. It’s just the next I see of him, he probably won’t even remember me”
Although he was quite excited to be rid of Walburga for a few months, he would have preferred more time with Cygnus before the rest of the family sunk their teeth in.
“I will be sure to remind him of who is brother is Master Black.” Agatha replied.
Alphard gave her a small smile before he moved towards the doorway, he could only hope Agatha would last as Cygnus’ nurse, as she appeared to be the only person in the house who cared for him at the moment.
As he moved outside he took one last look at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, before he began to move towards the horse-drawn carriage awaiting him.
/////
“Father please, I do not need an escort onto the platform, you surely have more important things to be doing with your day” Mia remarked, in the hopes that her father would agree to go to work instead of coming to the train station with her.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Euphemia, I’m your father. It's important that I see you off, also that I meet some of the other father’s of the children in your year.”
“But Father, Pollux Black isn’t even seeing Alphard off. He is in Windsor looking at a new home.”
Basil, startled at that, just as Mia had known he would. Her father’s one weak spot in life was his need to stay in favour with Pollux Black. If it was any other person Mia had reported on, she would have been rewarded with a smack and a reminder that gossip was unbecoming, however Mia’s friendship with certain members of the extended members of the House of Black made her an excellent tool in her father’s belt.
“Who told you this?”
“I overheard Violetta Black telling a group of women the other day at Raina Rowle’s party.”
Actually, Alphard had told her when they had snuck away from Raina Rowle’s god-awful party, but since she wasn’t meant to speak to Alphard without a chaperone she figured it was safer to pass the information off as an overheard comment. Mia could tell her father was still on the edge of a decision and so she used the rest of Alphard’s words to her favour,
“Apparently, when Violetta asked her son why he wasn’t seeing Alphard off he told her that he had not spent eleven years raising a child just for him to need hand holding all the way to the train.”
Alphard had said that specific part of the story with a certain tone of glee, similar to the one Mia could feel bubbling up inside her as her father’s face changed to that of an assured frown.
“Well of course Pollux is right, I had said as much to your mother but she had insisted that someone should be with you, I will have to speak to her about this later.”
Mia winced, wishing her escape had not landed her mother in hot water but then her mother had not appeared to help her so maybe it was fair.
With that Basil dismissed Mia from his study, giving her a note for the carriage driver to take her to King’s Cross, alone!! Mia couldn’t remember the last time she was this happy. Maybe when her mother had allowed her to finally cut her hair above her waist, or when her father had agreed to her tutor including history in her lessons.
She almost skipped out the door before remembering where she was.
With one quick glance back around the foyer of her home, Mia moved out the door towards the carriage, unable to keep the smile from spreading across her face.
/////
“Mum'' Monty roared from his position at the kitchen table.
“No need to roar son, we are right behind you.” Monty turned quickly to see his parents standing in the kitchen door watching him with a shared look of amusement.
“Oh, sorry dad, I just wanted to know is this my cloak for school or is this the one mum wants to keep for here?”
“No, that is the one you are to leave, the other one is already packed, Monty.”
She took the cloak from him, moving towards the cloakroom to put it away.
“Have you finished your breakfast? I want to get a move on. Any decent fireplaces close to King’s Cross are bound to be busy today.” Henry said as he moved toward the kitchen fireplace, grabbing the blue urn from the mantelpiece filled with Floo Powder.
“Why can’t we just apparate, I hate the Floo. It always makes me sneeze.”
Henry just chuckled at his son, “Because son, London is too hectic for me to side-apparate us all without bumping into some muggles. Now let's go.”
Monty sighed, the day he got his apparition licence he would never touch Floo powder again.
Henry entered the fireplace first, shouting the Cabbage Darts Pub as the flames turned green and engulfed him.
“On you go pet, I promise the more you do it, the less you will sneeze afterwards,” Astor promised, lightly pushing her son into the fireplace.
Monty quickly threw the powder, shouting the pub name and closed his eyes counting the seconds until it was over.
“Out you get lad, or else you’ll get crushed.” A large man with what appeared to be a small hippogriff under his arm shouted from the table beside the fireplace.
“Thanks, I’m still getting used to… that.”
Monty began looking around for his father, who had only come through the fireplace mere seconds before him yet already had a firewhiskey in hand laughing away with some of his friends at the bar.
“Fleamont, there you are. And see no sneezing.”
His father dragged him over to his friends in order to introduce him but his mum came through with Monty’s trunk right at the moment.
“Finish your drink Henry, we are already running behind. We have at least a fifteen minute walk from here to the platform.”
“Ello, Astor.” Called the strange man by the fireplace, now feeding his hippogriff mouthfuls of what looked like mead.
“Hello, Abe, good to see you. Myself and Henry will be back just after we drop Monty here off at the train.”
Astor quickly dusted herself off before grabbing her husband’s shoulders, steering him towards the front door.
“Good luck lad,” called a few of Henry's friends before returning to their drinks.
As Monty and his parents walked towards the station, he soaked in the inch of sun that was in the sky, one of the final signs of summer that he would see. His mother had made him aware that morning that it had been raining in Hogsmeade all week, according to her friend who worked in the apothecary up there.
Monty instantly knew when they were closer to the station by the appearance of more and more oddly dressed people. While he had opted for a simple shirt and trousers (or his mum had as that’s what she had laid out on his bed this morning), half the crowd that was heading towards the station looked like they had just time travelled out of the 1700s. Between the confused fashion and the large amount of owls and cats being hauled inside was it any wonder the muggles that were about gave them all a wide berth.