And Now We Wait.
Hope walks into the Hog's Head Sunday morning to find Aberforth ranting into his fireplace. She doesn't catch much except a few choice expletives before he takes his head from the fireplace and puts it out with a wave of his hand. She's leaning against the bar with her arms crossed watching the old man risk a heart attack as he continues raging silently.
"You all good Abe?"
"Bloody Ministry are putting a sundown curfew in place and enforcing it with Dementors. Nevermind that I run a bar. All this over the useless rat of a Deatheater. There's no evidence he's even in the country they're grasping at straws and enforcing pointless rules so they don't look so hopeless." He rants while taking the coffee Hope offered before looking at her. "What about you?"
"What about me?"
"You've always got some plan going, and know more than you ought to. Helping that kid and looking after the Potter boy, can't you find Pettigrew."
"Unfortunately not. I know where he's going to be this time next year but he wasn't meant to escape till June." She says as she starts checking the kegs and cleaning the taps.
"If he's early what's to stop his plan happening sooner too?" Aberforth counters.
"It's a convoluted plan that requires The Triwizard Tournament and another Escaped death eater. Besides he still needs to find Moldiewarts who is a disembodied spirit currently. I've got nothing. Side not I'm taking Harry home for Winter break. I've got a convoluted plan of my own to deal with."
"How many scheme's do you have running?"
"Currently about three but it varies." The day passes slowly. When Blaize Draco and the twins come in, the place is packed but Abe waves her off the second her shift ends.
When she gets into the back room everything was set up while Fred and George are giving out sheet music for the covers they have planned. Big yellow taxi, Hallelujah, I want to break free, Come as you are and Hope's personal favourite of the setlist Magic Dance from the Labyrinth.
George starts the drums and Hope can't help but get excited as she turns dramatically to Fred. Standing by an enchanted amplifier she's seventy percent sure his father would legally have to confiscate. She sits on it dramatically and taps the other side with equal energy
"You remind me of the babe," She sings almost conversationally drawing on her days In drama class. Fred grins and takes the seat quickly.
"What babe?" Fred sings back to her in his best Goblin voice matching energy and she grins back at him.
"The babe with the power," she waves her arm enthusiastically mimicking a a wand movement.
"What power?" He almost breaks, but maintains the nasally but still in tune voice he's putting on.
"The power of voodoo," she wiggles her fingers creepily at him. She snorts silently at the movie Draco impression, the blonde in question remains oblivious to the dig.
Fred seems to notice her getting distracted and flicks her forehead to punctuate his next line. "Who do?"
"You do!" She flicks him right back.
"Do what?" He jumps up and bows, gesturing his arms centrestage for her solo.
"Remind me of the babe," she finishes casually and stands up walking past him with a swagger to make the Goblin king proud. Blaize and Draco are looking at them like they're insane. "I saw my baby, crying hard as Babe could cry. What could I do? My baby's love had gone, and left my baby blue. Nobody knew, What kind of magic spell to use."
There's no guitar for Fred to play in this song, only drums and a muggle keyboard. Draco seems equally fascinated and disturbed by the synth setting and it's beautiful. Reading over Draco's shoulder and takes out his wand to summon a violin and bow.
Fred is unable to stand still even a minute as at Hope's side offering a small bow and a hand in request for a dance. "Slime and snails," before she can accept or reject him he switches side in a smooth spin and does the same on her right as he sings his next line. "Or puppy dogs' tails. Thunder or lightning?"
"Then baby said," rolling her eyes Hope takes the offered hand and they dance like Lydia Bennet in pride and prejudice.
"Dance magic, dance.
Dance magic dance
Put that baby spell on me," Hope points to Draco who's actually grinning almost laughing but he has to sing. He has the voice of an Angel. The fact that no one knew this is a crime.
"Jump magic, jump
Jump magic, jump
Put that magic jump on me" the song continues much the same with Hope and Fred playing along with the lyrics while the others laugh at their theatrics. By the end all five of them are laughing through the lyrics, Hope doesn't think she's ever seen Draco laugh so freely.
"So you all know each other?" She asks innocently as they break down their equipment
"Oh yeah, The Malfoy and Weasley Families are sworn enemies." George informs Hope who does her best to look surprised.
"Not to mention Malfoy, Blaize and I were petrified as enemies of the Heir last year." Fred adds casually.
"Family feuds? How very Romeo and Juliet. Imagine if he ends up marrying your sister," she laughs at the face Malfoy and Blaize make.
"I wouldn't touch the Weaslette if she paid me and Salazar knows they can't afford to." Draco snipes and Blaize slaps him across the head for the insult.
"So you're an asshole trust fund baby, makes sense, remind me to get a song called Just Like You out of my journal for you to sing." Hope responds to the insult before the twins get a chance to. Infighting is the opposite of what she needs right now.
"Evans said you wrote songs, any we can see?" George asks genuinely curious and going with her segue at the same time. That's the beauty of George, he can always be relied on to follow Nia's train of thought. At least when he doesn't hate her.
"After winter break, I need to go through them and pick out what's kid friendly, plus I haven't gone home for Christmas since I was seventeen and my brother might go to jail for murder if I leave him alone with just our mother another year." Hope explains only half lying. Yes she hasn't been home in years, yes her brother might be on the verge of murdering their mother without her there to make peace but she has no plans to go back any time soon. If ever.
"You have a brother?"
"And a sister, now you have to get going. Dementors are patrolling the streets from sundown and I don't feel like getting my soul sucked because I had to stay back cleaning up after you dorks."
Each boy heads off towards the castle and Hope makes her way to Aberforth's office to say goodnight, he's fallen asleep at his desk again and she sigh half carrying the old man up to his apartment on top of the bar.
The sun is just going down when Hope makes it out the dementors cold begins setting in as she rushes to get to Honeydukes. So cold. She can feel them getting closer even if she can't see them and thinks back to the Defence lesson with the boggart. Remus said she'd used wandless magic which means she has access to magic of her own. Happy thoughts.
Nia focuses on her first day at Hogwarts, mornings at the Manor with Harry and Sirius. Come on, the cold is closer now. She's scared to turn around as she tries to pick the lock to Honeydukes but the cold is making her fingers too stiff. Instead she places her hand on the door and prays to whatever the Fae God is that this will work.
"Alohomora," she whispers and the rose gold Glitter of the talisman flares behind her eyes as the door swings open. She can see the dementor gaining on her as she slams the door shut and runs to the cellar. That worked, she realises once in the safety of the secret passage. She can do magic.
Several days of experimentation later Nia finds her magic has limitations. The first being proximity. She has to be touching someone or something for the magic to work. She'd attempted to use Sirius's wand to get a little more distance but it was useless. Spells are also hit and miss. It seems like using the words is about as useful as Abra Kadabra and bippity bobbity boo. The intention behind the words is the power.
She's been keeping herself busy with these experiments partially because she needs to learn what she's capable of if she wants to protect Harry, but also because she's ignoring Sev. Not that it works for long. A week after her tampering with his potion he corners her in the staff room.
"Are you stupid? If whatever stabiliser you put in hadn't worked we could have both died, or worse. Why didn't you wait for me?" He demands In a hushed tone since Trelawny is in the room screwing with her teacups.
"You said we needed the creature's consent, they only gave consent if I kept their identity a secret. I knew it would work." She responds with the flimsy lie that unfortunately was the best she could come up with at the time.
"That's not good enough Petunia. We're supposed to be in this together."
"We are. I made a judgment call and it paid off. I'm sorry for going over your head but it had to be done."
"Had to be? What makes any of this your choice? You're a muggle. You forced your way into this school and have done nothing but manipulate events to get your way. Who do you think you are?"
"I'm Harry's mother. He's the one who has to sardine his family, his childhood and eventually his life for the war your people started. If you all insist on putting your problems on my child's shoulders I will do everything I can by whatever means necessary to make his load lighter."
"You don't have to lie to me to do that. I can protect you," he grabs Petunia's hand and looks deeply into her eyes. In her head Petunia swoons but Nia panics. He's in love with her, fuck he can't be. That wasn't supposed to happen. Nia pulls her hand from his grasp. If there's one thing Severus can't handle it's rejection.
"I can protect myself. You're my best friend Sev but Harry has to come first. You knew from the start I couldn't tell you everything. This is something I can't tell you." Heartbreak, clear as day behind Severus's eyes. It doesn't last long as he closes his expression and walks away. Petunia's screaming at her to just tell him the truth but she can't not yet there's too much at stake.
She's distracted in the rest of her classes and let's the kids run the class discussions only stepping in when they go off topic. It isn't until her final class with fourth year Ravendoors does she realise there's on glaring flaw in her plan. A flaw in the form of a furios now fifteen year old arguing in defence of Lydia Bennet.
"She was fifteen and was told her entire adolescent she needs to get married as soon as possible she was a kid manipulated by an almost thirty year old man."
"Maybe you'd understand if you were a real witch but marrying young is common. My mother was seventeen when she married my father and had been betrothed since she was fourteen. She was a slur and idiot that got what was coming to her." A gryffindor boy says and Harper looks ready to throw a punch even without the real witch comment.
"No child should get what coming to them. Lydia wasn't as wise as her older sister but what youngest child isn't a little niave. That doesn't mean she deserved to be married off to a sociopath to save the family's reputation." Evans interrupts when the bell goes. "We'll pick this up in the next lesson, maybe focus on Elizabeth and Darcy though. Miss Snow a word?"
Harper sits down with a devious look on her face that reminds Nia of both Sirius and Draco. Like the oddest mix of them. "I wasn't going to Hex him." She says matter of factly and Nia smiles.
"I wasn't worried about that. I want to talk to you about the paternity test." Harper sat up straighter. "You are Regulus Black's daughter." She says simply and Harper looks resigned as she nods and goes to leave.
"Just a minute, I've got a favour to ask you." If ever there was a time to try and use her suggestion this is it. She needs to do this and Harper needs to agree. "I want you to say your father is Sirius,"
"Why?"
"I can save Regulus and bring him here as he was the day he died. But the reason is to help in the war to come and he can't be a double agent if the Deatheaters know he has a half blooded daughter he was willing to die for."
"Necromancy is illegal." She says with a surety that makes Nia wonder if she'd considered the option before.
"It's not necromancy. He was presumed dead, I'm the only one alive that knows what actually happened to him, except Kreacher. Anyway, I've found a way to go back and stop it without disturbing the timeline. He'll still go missing, but instead of being dead he'll be here and you can meet him if you want." Harper is silent for a moment.
"So he'll be a spy?"
"Double agent, that's the plan. Though that has to stay between us. The only other people who know about this plan are those who live in my house and Professor Snape."
"Okay," she says eventually and Nia looks into her eyes to see if there's anything hidden behind them. A hesitancy or doubt.
"Okay?"
"I want to know. And if he comes back as an eighteen year old Uncle. My parents won't feel as bad about my spending time with him. So yeah, do what you have to."
"Thank you. Sirius will be staying in Hogsmeade over Winter break if you and your parents want to speak to him some more." She dismisses the almost fifteen year old ravenclaw who's friend Faye was waiting outside. Now all that's left to do is wait out the two and a half weeks till winter break.