Chapter Eight
September 01, 1979
Today, five muggles were found slaughtered to the death on the streets with the death eaters' symbol tattooed on their chest. Children included. And according to my cousin Narcissa, she thinks Alecto Carrow was responsible for the spectacle. I don't know Alecto Carrow very well, but from the little I have seen of her, she seems a very likely candidate to have done it. But then again, I would think the same thing of everyone that had sunken low enough to involve themselves with him.
Anyway.
It had been three months since my older brother had taken off and left home for the good. Since then, he had written me fifteen letters in the total. I haven't read a single one. Though, I have the strangest feeling I would know exactly what they would say without even having to open one.
And regardless of what my cousin Andromeda may write to defend my older brother's rash and thoughtless actions to me (she would always defend his actions to me), I am not going to simply forget he had left me behind in that dark, cold house all by myself with them; those monsters I call my parents who had only cared for me when they find some new way to use me in their never-ending political games.
No matter how much I wish things went back to the way they used to be before I had played Sirius into joining the Gryffindor house when I was a boy, I cannot just bring myself to forgive him just yet. Because as much as I can understand his reasons for leaving me behind, the fact remains that he had taken off in the middle of a night one summer day without uttering a single world to him, to any of them. And for that, I would forever remain bitter.
Anyway, back to the present. Xander's father, Newt Scamander had bought him a new suitcase this summer. Far bigger than the last one he had, meaning he could store more magical beasts in there than before. Frankly, I really don't think Newt should have done that. We already had enough trouble keeping the fantastic beats in the previous suitcase. Now, we really have to be watching the bloody thing more carefully just in the case a niffler or some other fantastic beast tried to escape for a holiday.
And apparently, Xander thinks I don't open up enough to the people. I have already told him how many times I have wished to throw my housemates down the astronomy tower. What else does he want? For me to admit I have nightmares now every night? Ever since that night he had visited our home that one time this summer, my mother more than happy enough to invite him inside our home as if this creature wasn't the same monster that continued to wave a fear in the hearts of the others like some type of a bogeyman, as if he hadn't carelessly murdered innocents just because. To admit this creature had stared at me one second longer than I felt comfortable with, as if he found something in me that earned his interest? What do I do with that? I interested him.
Am I going to find myself dead on those streets some fine day very soon?
Anyway, I have to go. The train just had arrived in Hongsmeade
September 25, 1996
Hongsmeade, Scotland
"Are you going back to New York now?" Hope wished he would stay. Hope wished he would stay with her forever until she would tire of his existence and was this how Fred and George felt every time they saw each other? Like the missing pieces of their soul were finally filled because their twin was here? She hadn't known him for very long, but already she couldn't imagine a day without her twin brother.
She had never a thought to the link shared between the twins before. Never found the need. But ever since she had met him, it was all she could ever think about.
"I knew I have forgotten to tell you something very important!" Gabriel chortled himself under his breath and gazed up to her with the sweetest little smile she had seen on his pretty face. "I am going to stay here for a while. Get to know you a bit, you know? Which is why I have asked Headmaster Blackwood for a permission to stay here for a month."
When he saw her face and -- why was she crying? This was a good thing! She really shouldn't be crying! "Should I not have? I can always withdraw my request, you know? There's absolutely no need to cry, Hope -- "
But she was throwing her arms around his broad shoulders, inhaling the rose-like smell of his expensive cologne. "I'm so happy. So stupidly very happy." She gazed up his face again, softly touching the edges of his pretty face. "I cannot believe you are actually here. I mean, I wasn't really certain this wasn't a dream until now -- but you really are here, aren't you?"
Gabriel leaned closed, and kissed her on the head, his lips very soft against her snow-white skin. "I have missed you, sweet sister." He smiled. "And that's the weird thing, ain't it? We don't even remember what it was like to be together before. But I've missed you, Hope. More than you can ever imagine."
And for the first time in what felt like a very long time, Hope was finally, genuinely happy.
A sudden thought struck Hope, which caused her to start abruptly in his arms, pulling away from his embrace somewhat forcibly. "Gabriel, do you want to meet Harry? What am I even saying? Of course you want to meet Harry. He is our brother, after all."
But Gabriel didn't seem to agree. He was gazing down at her coldly, as if he couldn't believe a word she was saying.
"Half-brother." He corrected, no longer smiling. "And no, as a matter of fact, I do not wish to meet him. Don't take it personally, Hope, but I am in no hurry to meet someone whose life had cost me my only mother."
Hope frowned, no longer in the mood to joke around. "That's not his fault, Gabriel. You know that. It wasn't his fault a psychopathic old man tried to murder him, Gabriel."
She didn't understand why in the world Gabriel would think otherwise. How could it be Harry's fault he had murdered their mother? And she should really have given a more thought to their mother before. She had been too focused on her father that she had forgotten to think about her mother too, the one woman her father must have loved dearly.
"Of course not." He chuckled dryly, but it sounded more sarcastic than anything else. "Nothing is his fault."
"Gabriel --,"
"How about we save this for another day, Hope? Because honestly speaking, I am really tired and in no mood to argue with you about something we both know we would never agree on," But Hope wanted to talk about it right now, right now when they still had the time to understand why the other felt in such a completely different way. She wished to know why exactly Gabriel felt this way.
But Gabriel was already talking off to Hongsmeade without even glancing back at her once, the silhouette of the father she wished she had known. Hope glared at his back in the pure disbelief, feeling quite like she was about to burst down here, and cry like she had never done before. Quietly, Hope turned on her heel with one last glance at her red-haired twin and walked away, her heart feeling against her chest.
Hogwarts, Scotland
There were a lot of things happening around his life lately. Well, more than the usual, anyway. Everyone knew his life wasn't without a soap-like drama and even sometimes, murder of someone quite innocent and equally brave.
And Harry understood he shouldn't complain when Hermione--Hope was having the worst of the damage, but he did wish to complain to someone. He didn't know about everyone else, but it wasn't easy to discover you shared a mother with your best friend of almost six years, and that your mother may or may not have loved your father. After all, it didn't make any sense at all. If his mother had loved Hermione' father as much as people say she did, why would she marry his father so soon? Unless, of course, she was using him as a replacement for the husband she had lost to the war.
"Are you feeling alright, Harry?" Daphne Greengrass asked him and all of suddenly, he felt like the fourteen-year-old Harry with the most embarrassingly huge crush on the one witch who would never look at him twice.
After all, Cho Chang had Cedric Diggory.
Cedric Diggory who was more handsome than any boy he had ever met in his short teenage life, who was both so unfairly kind-hearted and sweet it made him wish he could hate him all the more. The boy everyone adored without even having need to have dead parents, and a life filled with unnecessary drama.
Therefore, there was no reason whatsoever Cho Chang would even consider him over him, right? Except she had. But only because she had no other choice. Only because Harry had taken an advantage over her grief over a boy whom she had loved with all of her sweet-heart. The same way his father may have taken an advantage over his mother's grief after Hermione's father had gone and disappeared forever to be missed.
"I'm fine. There's just a lot going on around my head."
Daphne smiled at him sympathetically, grasping his hand in her own. "I know just the thing that may distract you." She pulled him closer, and then she was dragging him down out of the castle walls and toward -- honestly, he didn't even know. But before he could even open his mouth to ask, a familiar looking dark-haired witch was pushing past them in the hurry, brown eyes glued to the floor.
"Her -- Hope?"
But she wasn't hearing him, pushing past the others with tipsy feet and toward what he assumed was the girls' dormitories. Harry stopped mid-walk to follow after her but Daphne grabbed him by the arm disapprovingly, a small frown evident on her face.
"Come on, Potter. Black is a big girl. She can take care of herself."
She always could. Ever since they were children, she had always never his help. So, what would make this time any different?
Silently, Harry pulled the blonde witch closer to himself and stalked off, feeling heavy all the same. But even for a moment, with Daphne looking at him like he wasn't someone quite special, Harry felt finally at the peace.
Hongsmeade, Scotland
There was a loud knock on the door.
Gabriel sighed deeply under his breath, cursing loudly as he stalked toward the door, vowing to murder whoever it was that was intruding on him so late at the night.
It was Oliver Wood.
The same man he had adored and loved like he had done nobody else since he was a sixteen-year-old orphaned boy with a godfather who would take off suddenly in the middle of the year to see some odd magical beast that had suddenly appeared somewhere around the world. That year, they have traveled all the way to Germany in the search for quite a rare species of a dragon. And rather tired of chasing around the country in the search of something that may not even be here, Gabriel had taken a break one fine day, deciding to waste his time playing Quidditch with the few German players he has met earlier during his stay in Scotland.
It was then he had met with Oliver Wood; a slightly tall, lean-looking brown-haired Scottish man with a heavy British accent. And since then, it had been a rollercoaster of emotions. And Gabriel didn't mean it an entirely positive way.
He chuckled dryly under his breath, "Oliver, what an unpleasant surprise." He put on a pleasant-looking smile on his face that said otherwise.
Gabriel really wasn't in the mood to put with Oliver of all the people right now. He had just done arguing with his sweet little sister; he didn't quite have the strength to fight with anyone else he held dear to his heart for today.
"A little bird told me you were in the town."
"My godfather should mind his own fucking business and stop interfering in my love life." He slammed the door behind him as he allowed his ex-boyfriend inside and watched as Oliver fell on the bed like he owned the fucking place--and did he mention he wasn't in the mood for Oliver today?
"Look, I know we may have had a slight disagreement the last time we talked -- ," Oliver sat upright to stare at him, those brown eyes he used to stare at endlessly every time they would wake up together in the bed during the summer just because.
"Define slight disagreement."
Because the way he remembered it, they had gone through a full-blown vocal match.
"--but that doesn't mean we have to come to an end. What we have is --,"
"Completely doomed." He interrupted, really not in the mood to go through this same disagreement again. He stalked over to the table, pouring himself a glass of a red wine. "We have no future to look forward for, Oliver."
"We could try --, "
Gabriel slammed his left hand against the table, "But we have tried, remember? We have tried it this summer. And look at how that turned out? Maybe it's the time for us to admit to ourselves that thing between us, isn't just going to work regardless of how hard we may try. One way or another, we would keep choosing everything else over each other. You keep choosing Quidditch over me. I keep choosing my education and the political war games over you. And I think we both deserve way better than that," He then pleaded, feeling more tired than ever. "So, please. Just let us go."
Oliver clenched his jaw tight, and nodded his head not because he agreed, but because he was just as tired as himself. He didn't open his mouth to tell him the one thing they both wished to hear, even if it was solely to convince one another they still had the chance to make things work between them.
When Gabriel lifted his head to look, Oliver was already gone. He sighed under his breath once again, and picked up his phone, dialing the number. "Cho? I know we haven't talked for a very long time, but I could honestly use a friend. You think you could make it to Hongsmeade before the month is over?"
Cho Chang was a small, dark-haired Chinese-British witch he had been friends with back in the day when he used to live in England with his godfather.
They haven't talked for five years.
"Give me a day." Cho Chang told him curtly over the other end of the phone, "And promise me you would let me buy you a drink. We have to have that talk, Gabriel."
"Promise."