Flowers Facing the Sun
It’s Tuesday, 8:47pm, Rosemary has just fallen asleep upstairs, Ethan is making himself dinner. Pizza actually, sauce and dough from scratch. He’d been practicing his cooking and baking, though he found baking to be far more his domain the more he practiced.
It’s Tuesday night, the lights have been flickering all day the shadows drawing unnaturally long and dark, even in the midday sun. Behind him there is slick rustling, like wet clothes over concrete, the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Ethan hums absently, stirring the bubbling red sauce.
Any moment now.
In one swift motion Ethan hurls the pot of boiling sauce at the writhing mass of black tentacles behind him, shotgun in hand he lets loose a spray of buckshot. The cursed thing shrieks before bursting completely as he fires again. Writhing masses of black ooze, groan and creep. Ethan leaps over a rising monster refusing to stumble as the lights suddenly go out.
Undaunted Ethan fires twice at the figure attempting to loom over his daughters crib. The creature (woman?) staggers and whirls to face him. “Hey ugly.” This night promises to be long and dark, but Ethan’s not going down without a fight.
_______
Costache Heisenberg, eleven years old, daughter to the most awesome father, and Hufflepuffs resident-and only- hell raiser. It’s the first weekend for the Hogwarts firsties, and Costache has suddenly found herself beset upon by the oddest of circumstances.
Bullies.
Though, perhaps would-be-bullies is a more apt description. Their attempts are pathetic at best, and cringe inducing at worst. Weasel, finally tired of slinging pointless taunts, lunges forward to grab hold of the hem of her skirt. She supposes he’s trying to belittle her for her supposed “weakness”. This weakness apparently lying in the matte black, steel legs her father created just for her, and because her father is awesome they just so happen to come with a few…enhancements.
So Costache, being both a Heisenberg and a hell raiser, does the only thing appropriate. She kicks Draco Malfoy so hard he flies clear down the hallway and straight through the-sadly first floor- window. Evil intentions glittering in sea foam orbs Costache turns to the two lumbering fools acting as compatriots.
Malfoy earns five broken ribs, and fractures his collar bone. His trolls escape with deep bruises, and a shattered femur each.
…
Heisenberg lounges back on the sofa, conjured in the old headmasters office just for this purpose he’s sure, daughter tucked into his side. Pompous prick senior rants and raves, incensed about his sons broken face.
He’s never been prouder of his Costache. Though bonafide witch ranks pretty far up there too.
Sprout, Costache’s head of house, wrings her hands in the background face pinched. The headmaster is indecipherable, though the twinkling eyes kind of makes the inventor want to get stabby with them just on principal. Heisenberg waits for the Princess to wear himself out, angry speech finally tapering off. Sensing his turn to speak Heisenberg smiles, all teeth, and takes a sadistic sort of glee in the Princess’ sudden paling at the sight of his dog teeth. Titanium modification, painful but very fun to flash.
“Domniţă, What happened today?” His little girl smiles, beatific. “Draco tried to look up my skirt, I showed him why that was such a bad idea.” He set a hand on her head, “Good girl.”
_______
It had been a long fucking few days. Hell, since the divorce it had been like one long hellish day stretched out over the span of two months. But this? This took the fucking cake.
Ethan thrust his shoulder forward, throwing every last bit of his weight behind it and straight into the diaphragm of the freakishly tall Horse Lord. The man(?) grunted, breath rushing out of his lungs. Steel like limbs as big as fucking tree trunks snapped shut around him, throwing him bodily away and into a rickety metal chair stunning him.
“I said. Sit. Down!”
Ethan wheezes, cold sweat clinging to his brow.
“Damn it Ethan Winters, you are quickly turning into a thorn in my side.”
“Kiss my ass.” Ethan never knew how much fury one could direct through glare alone until he tried it for himself. The man(?) snapped around, hammer brandished, some unknown energy pulsing through it. “Listen you little shit, don’t you see? This is for your own good—“ The metal door behind Heisenberg suddenly creaks ope, breaking bloodthirsty tension and effectively halting the beginning of the psycho’s next tirade.
…
Costache yelped as she came tumbling out of the parlor fireplace, green fire licking at her heels. Dragging herself upright the little girl shakes soot from her hair, and wipes hands over her face. The redhead pauses a moment, the sudden lack of excited exclamations and hugs a stark difference from the last two times she’d come home over Christmas and Easter. One would think the end of her very first year of magic school would beget a warmer welcome?
Feeling a bit miffed she set out to find her errant Tata, and if the man thought for one second that that giant joke of a front door would stop her then obviously he never thought to consider the ventilation shafts.
….
“Listen you little shit, don’t you see? This is for your own good—“ deciding she’d heard quite enough of her Tata sticking his foot in his mouth Costache pushed her way into the room. She thinks she should feel amused at the spluttering that her sudden arrival invokes. “Why do you have a child here you freak?!” World’s #2 father honestly, and only because her Tata took first place.
The man who must be Ethan lunges up despite the deep bruises and blood coating him liberally. Tata turns on him, murder in his eyes. “Don’t you go any fucking closer to her you asswipe!”
“STOP!” Defiant, she glares up at her argumentative, adoring Tata, eyes hard and steadfast. She can almost see the exact moment he gives into her, throwing gloved hands into the air. “Fine-fine! Domniţă has spoken!”
Satisfied Costache turns sea foam eyes to Tata’s guest. She takes in the man, shorter and paler then her Tata, sandy hair cut short and eyes a deep forest green. He’s haggard, face drawn and clothing torn. Lacerations wind across his hands and lower legs, black smudges under his eyes almost matching the darkness of his numerous bruises. He’s missing two fingers and about a third of the same hand. Gruesome.
Taking a breath Costache steadies herself. “Please Mr. Winters, we are not enemies here. We all want Miranda gone and Rosemary’s freedom goes hand in hand with that. Please, just listen to what Tata has to say.”
Ethan’s face twists conflicted, justified rage, helplessness and grief warring.
“F-fine. I’ll listen.”
Costache smiles up at him, leaning into the warmth of her Tata as he lifts her up into his arms.
_______
Costache kicks steel legs idly beneath the Hufflepuff table, observing the garishly decorated Great Hall. Garish but charming all the same. Cackling Jack-O-Lanterns and squeaking bats dance around the room, the usual floating candles are seated in small skulls twirling high above the students. Every table is draped in black velvet, and an oddly chaotic veil of grief lies over the room.
Chaotic in the way that some students seem very determined to shatter the odd grief of the Hall through boisterous demonstrations of joy. Grief in the way a child feels sad for a distant relative recently passed, they didn’t know the person but they still feel sad because everyone else is sad.
Costache leans over to whisper to Anais L. Moore-she insists on introducing herself in full at every given moment- one of her only close friends so far. “Why is everyone acting so…weird?”
The tiny blonde spares her a glance from over her third piece of chocolate trifle before wiping her mouth clean with a neglected napkin.
“Apparently it’s supposed to be a day of mourning.”
“Mourning?”
“I heard from Luca. Supposedly the newborn vanquisher of You-Know-Who passed away today. They say that, in doing whatever feat of grand magic a five month old can do to vanquish a Dark Lord, poor Harriet Potter died in the backlash. So now, every Halloween everyone mourns her death and celebrates her sacrifice.”
Costache raises an unimpressed brow at the tale, judging from the mirrored brow of her friend Anais was equally as unimpressed. “How do we celebrate her?”
Anais smiled a viscous chocolate smeared smile, “Eating as much candy and sweets we can get our hands on of course!” The smaller girl promptly shoveled another fork full of chocolate trifle into her mouth.
Costache laughed happily serving herself another slice of Treacle tart, Wizarding holidays were weird but at least they had good food!
_______
Heisenberg eases Costache’s door shut quietly, after many kisses goodnight and promises to not run off to war with Mother Miranda without saying goodbye first, and sighs. By the time everything had been explained it was late, then his and Winters’ plan had to be hashed and rehashed, and after that it was long after his daughters bedtime. She’d fallen asleep in his arms on the way up the mountain. She’d just gotten home from her first year at school, right on time to land in this clusterfuck. Totally not how he wanted to celebrate her first summer vacation.
Turning the inventor pauses at the sight of Winters standing behind him, an inscrutable look on his face, arms crossed.
“You have a daughter.” It’s a rhetorical question.
The Horse Lord barks a laugh, “What, jealous?” And ugh-why. Why?! His progeny never failed to tease him about his Costache proclaimed “Foot-in-Mouth Syndrome”, a product of using sarcasm as a coping mechanism he was sure. Now really wasn’t the time for sassy shenanigans though and fuck—Winters, for all that he was essentially human, still went off and killed three Lords all on his lonesome, and ransacked the Lycan infested village. Now he’d just thrown the guys daughters errant dismantling right in his face, with Heisenbergs own kid not twenty feet away from them—!
Winters heaves a tired laugh, personality peaking through haggard grief to smirk up at him “Nah. Just wondering who’d sleep with your ugly mug.” Then the shorter man was off, strutting towards the kitchen. Heisenberg feels an odd moment of relief and then—
“Hey!” Indignation. It’s always the short ones.
_______
Heisenberg makes a tactical retreat. Baby held in one arm, and the writhing mess of what’s left of Ethan Winters in the other.
Miranda is dead.
Miranda is dead and what’s left of her monstrous forces is being picked off by the commando squad. Though once they’re through with the nuisances Heisenberg has a feeling those beady eyes will turn onto himself and the last of the human(?) survivors of this damn village. So, Heisenberg makes a tactical retreat back into his mountain. Those militant looking fucks might track them back here, but he’s the only one who can open and shut his front door. Sure maybe they can blast apart the facade of the mountain face, but that’s just there for aesthetic purposes at this point. His home is essentially one massive fortress of reinforce steel. Let them try.
…
It takes a surprisingly long time for everything to settle. Four weeks until the distant thunder of bombs banging up against the sides of his fortress ceased, three months until Ethan Winters began to reform into something resembling a human, and one more month of caring for a baby not his own and yet isn’t that what Heisenberg was best at?
Costache had loved every second of big sisterhood, he could barely separate the two for more than an hour. At least he didn’t have to revisit the nightmare that was diaper changing.
Ethan Winters awoke one balmy night four months later, (and wasn’t that the most startling thing? Warmth in a place that had always been cold) staggering down the stairs and into the dining room. Dressed haphazardly in Heisenbergs spare clothes and wrapped in a quilt the man should appear sickly, but despite his apparent cold Winters stood straight, his shoulders squared and a light burning in his eyes where it had been sputtering before.
The Horse Lord obliges him, uncorking and sliding another bottle of whiskey across the table as the other man sits.
Winters swigs back the bottle draining near half of it in one go, much to Heisenberg’s amusement. “So, what’s in the cards for the Winters family?” He doesn’t bother offering anything else, no explanations, no date and time. The knowing gleam in Winters’ eye, far too lucid for someone just out of a four month coma. It speaks to a terrifying awareness even during his time of…healing.
So he doesn’t offer, and Winters doesn’t ask.
“I’m thinking somewhere warm. Far, far away and hotter then the fucking Sahara.”
He laughs, knocking back the rest of his own bottle, “I’ll drink to that!”
_______
Costache hadn’t really ever seen spring before, or summer, or fall for that matter. Her whole life Costache had lived in the bitter winds of an eternal winter, even Hogwarts took place in the cold months. Now though the sun shines brightly, lifting a gloom she’d never realized was so oppressive until now.
The redhead laughs, shoes and socks and coat long forgotten as she gallivants through the never before seen grass. Green grass. Birdsong. Blue skies. It was positively novel! The sun shines over head, previously fallow fields suddenly blooming with life, the rubble of the village suddenly thriving in greenery and flowers. She’d never seen something so beautiful in her whole life. She didn’t think something so beautiful even existed!
“Look Tata! Isn’t it just beautiful!”
Her Tata laughs, deep and care free, the ever present note of unease finally absent. His coat is gone, as is his hat and glasses, his shirt sleeves rolled up. the Horse Lord heaves a heavy oak chest, the last of their belongings, up and into the cart parked before the open doors of their mountain home. “Come along domniţă, it’s a long road into town.”
She runs to him, laughing and sun drunk as he lifts her into the cart pulled by a startlingly huge horse. The sun shines upon this small family, the warmth of its brilliance finally piercing through the gloom.
End…