Magical We

“Order, order!”

It was Bartemius Crouch, senior, Supreme Magistrate and honorable judge presiding. Seated at his bench, he hovered some twenty feet in the air above the spectacle, dressed in his formidable judicial robes and smart wizard’s cap. The ends of his lampshade mustache were pulled down in a deep, disapproving frown.

He peered severely over the tops of his reading glasses at nearly three hundred thousand pureblooded witches and wizards amassed below. Their anxious prattle was deafening; the circular room they were poured into at the start made a sleek obsidian-and tile floored- drum which amplified the cacophony rather than absorbed it.

“Order!” Crouch clapped his gavel thrice then pointed his wand at this throat to enhance his nasally growl, “I will have order in my courtroom!”

The throng continued to clamor unencumbered in their seats within the concentric rows of the room leading up its walls. Wizarding families both great and disgraced cawing out against their fates.

The proceedings had gone on for twelve hours and families were restless, eager to leave. Many conferred among themselves and with their neighbors, utterly bewildered by the turn of events. Others were shocked into silence, a fairer few railed openly and bitterly at their lots.

But there was one wizard whose emotions were not quite so discernable. He sat mostly alone inside the high box normally reserved for the court bailiff and his Dementors; gathered together in the seats immediately surrounding him were the Darkest families of the wizarding world. Like a black mass drawing them in with its malevolent gravity, he watched the proceedings from their center, dressed as he did for all social occasions, in a set of crisp but somber dress robes and long cape.

What made him so conspicuous, so unmistakable, in such a drowning room, was his death-white skin and burning hair slicked religiously to his skull juxtaposed to the sea of surrounding black.

His blue eyes traveled coolly over the courtroom as beside him, his blonde companion wrung the silver head of his cane.

“This is outrageous,” Lucius Malfoy seethed below his breath.

Ever the coward, the General thought.

“As if binding us to half-breeds and mudbloods wasn’t degradation enough, must we also play witnesses to this charade? The annihilation of the pureblooded race with a single generation,” his eyes roved in lamentation around the room, “How the Dark One must be spinning in his grave.”

“I don’t know why he should be, his failure is the reason we are here now,” the General replied calmly without glancing. Rather, he could sense Lucius draw away from his sentiments. However true they were.

For it had been Riddle’s ineptitude that allowed the forces of chaos and corruption to triumph. Dumbledore and his recusant Order.

The king dissident himself was there, conducting the dissolution the entire magical world from the central floor. Making a mockery of them all in his gaudy purple and silver robes. Beside him, on a tall glass pedestal, sat his instrument of destruction. That most ridiculous, ramshackle artifact-

The Sorting Hat.

It was almost too humiliating for the General to bear.

“If you please, if you please,” the old fool raised his hands and made a motion, settle down. The torch lights hovering around the coliseum reflected in his many jeweled rings as well as the face of the polished black stone.

Crouch at his bench above them ceased to shout as the prattle wound down.

Dumbledore turned slowly to address them, looking up and down the rows with his wand against his throat. “I know that it has been a long, evocative ceremony for us all. Today we have paired over nine hundred souls together. Nine hundred seedlings which will grow to bear that which so many of us in these darkest years have lost. Joy. Hope. A future-”

The General’s nostrils flared around his long-suffering sigh.

“I understand you are all very anxious to resume your activities and to celebrate amongst yourselves these most magnificent gifts which so many of you have received today-”

Behind the General, Marcus Goyle snorted. Others in his immediate surroundings exchanged soft scoffs and sneers.

“- I trust that the rest of you will, in the most congratulatory spirit, wish them well,” Dumbledore was now facing the sliver of the room that belonged to the Dark wizards.

Thus far, not a single one of their family names had been drawn.

He seemed to be speaking directly up at the General as he continued, “Therefore, it is my privilege and pleasure to announce the final three couples to be wed-”

“Finally,” Lucius was back to murmuring at the General’s shoulder as Dumbledore turned to consort with the Sorting Hat. “It does appear as if our side shall emerge from this debauchery unscathed, thank the gods. Although. One does regret missing the opportunity for a sanctioned little mudblood slave. Can you imagine the delights?”

The General’s eye ticked; he had little regard for the sullied brethren who indulged themselves in their muggle, mixed-blood and muggleborn victims. Rape was not among his appetites, and he would sooner lie with a swine.

He did not acknowledge Lucius as Dumbledore read the first of the last three names aloud.

“Seamus. Finnigan.”

He fed the slip of parchment on which the name was written into the torn seam-mouth of the Sorting Hat.

On its glass perch, the hat mulled it, murmuring to itself at a distance too great for the General to hear as it thought.

At last, it piped out in its reedy rasp, “Luna Lovegood!”

“Congratulations to you both, Luna and Xenophilius Lovegood,” as if he knew just where to find them, Dumbledore made a graceful turn and bowed deeply, with a roll of his glimmering arm trailing fabric, to a tall blonde wizard seated near the midsection. There were a great many jeers and murmurs and just a smattering of applause.

The blonde wizard Xenophilius held a swaddled baby in his arms. He looked positively serene about his future mottled grandchildren.

The General’s lip curled with disgust.

“Second to last we have-” Dumbledore coaxed yet another slip of parchment from his sleeve, “yes. Rose. Tico.”

He fed her name into the hat.

It considered not three seconds before it shrilled, “George Weasley-”

“Ah, congratulations to you, Mister-”

“- and Frederick Weasley!”

It was the General’s turn to snort, “absolute circus” as the murmurs crescendoed to outcry.

In their section much further up from Xenophilius and his wee babe, the Weasley’s were huddled as a clan, recognizable instantly by their shabby dress and obnoxious hair. The broodmare, Molly Weasley, was sputtering indignation as her husband, Arthur, wrung his muggle’s cap in his ruddy hands and looked all around. The boys in question – Fredrick and George – wore identical tranquil smirks.

“A plural marriage? Good gods,” Lucius was scandalized.

“It appears the Weasley boys have been paired with muggleborns and half-breeds, every one of them,” the General observed coldly.

“Old Arthur must be happy as a pig in muck. Filthy muggle-lover.” Lucius wrung his cane.

“Mm yes, and just think- if the sons prove anywhere near as prolific, in twenty years their tainted litters will overrun us all.”

“Perish the thought.”

“Congratulations, congratulations,” Dumbledore was pacifying the masses with his soft voice and even-keel, “Congratulations to you both. As we in our hearts well know, love is never divisive. Rather, it conveys the power to multiply-”

The General muttered, “Yes, I believe the Weasleys are already well aware-”

Lucius sniggered meanly into his glove.

“The last name I have here is-” Dumbledore did not have to tease this slip of parchment from his sleeve, as he did the others. This one slid into his pursed fingertips as if by-

Magic.

The General felt… compelled to watch as Dumbledore spoke it without having to read.

“Rey,” the name unfurled from his lips like a flower. He added cheerily, “No surname.”

Lucius said something cruel-toned that the General did not register as the name – her name – Rey – was slipped into the hat.

As if he were underwater, everything blurred and dulled and wound down to nothing.

Everything except the dulcet, suede beat of his heart.

Which wizard’s name the Sorting Hat shrilled he did not hear. He was up, up on his feet at the row’s short black wall before he remembered he knew how to stand.

For the first time since they gathered, the coliseum full of three hundred thousand witches and wizards fell silent. Its sliver of Dark-hearted families most of all.

The General did not notice; he was looking down into the face of that conniving old rebel.

Dumbledore’s warmer, brighter eyes twinkled back.

“Congratulations, General Hux,” he said.

The walk through brick and across the crowded platform was a grey-toned, watercolor nightmare. All the sights and sounds she should have savored – white steam roiling through the pristine wheels of the train cars, beautiful owls of every color and kind gathered together in arched dome cages, mummies and daddies hugging their baby witches and wizards goodbye – all of it was too soft-focus to witness. The scenes slipped like silver threads through her shivering fingers.

Half of which he still held in his hand.

He’s not right he’s wrong this is wrong-

By the time he escorted her to one of the petite cabin towards the middle of the train, crowded in behind her to let others pass by from the opposite direction, his long hard arm wrapped loosely about her middle, still – still – holding onto her hand, she was inna full blown panic. His mouth near her ear murmuring instructions made her heart shrill and her belly clinch below its button. She couldn’t even struggle as he all but picked her up and set her in her seat like he was nestling a kitten into a scarf-lined drawer. She was frozen solid, too scared to breathe.

This is wrongallwrongthisiswrong-

He shut the cabin door, sealing them off.

“There we are,” he took off his caplet, a heavy black satin that revealed a two-tone damask pattern when it shifted under the light, and glided it around her shoulders. It was her right size by the time he was finished fashioning the silver clasp.

Warm and scented lightly with his cologne, he tucked it in about her lap. “Nicely settled. Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?”

“Where’s Rosie?” she blurted, mouth shaking. This man was taller than a mountain with him standing over her and her sitting down. “I want to see Madam Beaux. This is- this a bad mistake-”

She felt faint as he knelt down.

“Not quite what you were expecting,” he smiled sympathetically, just a quarter-smile. It might have been a bit self-deprecating, except that he laid his big hand on her knee over her dress skirt and that made her jolt.

“Don’t!”

“It’s alright,” his face in shadow was even more angular, but his blue eyes were every bit as bright in low light as he told her softly, “I won’t harm you. I only want to talk-”

Again, he tried coaxing her hand from her lap.

“Stop it!” she squirmed desperately. She noticed that the little gusset of her tights was… somehow slippery.

Hot.

She didn’t know why, just that it made her shameful. She blushed, shrinking away from him against the backboard with her hands curled together against her tube sock breasts.

“I mean it,” she bared her teeth, “quit taking my hand!”

“Fair enough.” He gave her a close-lipped smile and draped his forearm over his thigh parallel to the rug. The other held loosely onto his hip, holding back his rich, dark robes to the show the strong, sleek shape of him. Below the soft glow of the cabin light, his hair was the color of setting sunlight striking white snow.

Why- why couldn’t she breathe when she looked at him?

He tipped his chin and asked curiously, “You really don’t remember me, do you?”

Her long, loose curls scattered over her shoulder as she shook her head. “Nm-no…”

“Pity,” his gaze roamed her, lingering on her bright eyes and small fingers with sparkling silver nails. He seemed to be counting the freckles between the glitter flecks on her cheeks as he mused kindly, “Though perhaps I should have known. For such a little girl, five years is a very long time…”

His words made her ache the way she did when the other girls at Madam Beaux’s hugged their families in foyer while she watched alone from the top of the stairs.

Stupid, nobody wants you-

“You know-”

Like he was letting her in on a big secret, he leaned closer over his thigh, “The last time I saw you, you were clinging onto my robes and begging me not to go.”

“I never,” she spat, aiming for outraged and landing up somewhere near breathless. She was so, so slippery between her thighs. Burning up. Her body buzzed like it was wrapped in smooth static. Like she was swimming in warm-crackling, electric blue light.

But why?

“Oh yes. You were so sweet, so insistent. I very nearly changed my mind,” his words ghosted over her face, warm and smelling like peppermint. He sighed, “Alas. But we’re here now. And look at you-”

She tried not to blush, not to squirm, not to breathe as his gaze drifted over her again.

“Pretty as a picture. Dressed up like a little confection. I’ve never seen anything so tempting,” his voice felt nearer, like it was rumbling from inside her.

She couldn’t help focusing on his lips as he murmured, “I could eat you up.”

Oh, her belly swooped wildly. She hid her fists beneath her chin, pressing her little sock-breasts together over her mad skipping heart as the hot, tender slit between her legs gulped.

“But that would hurt,” she mewed.

He laughed, the soft velvet rumble of rocks tumbling down a dark mountain in the far-off.

“Oh my sweeting,” instantly the love-name called her back to vague, underwater memories of candlelit feedings and tinkling bathwater and firm lips pressing chaste kisses along her cheeks and into her hair. “How I have missed you…”

His eyes traced her face as his hands fisted against his thighs. “You cannot know how many times I-”

“Beggin’ your pardon, gov’ner!”

A kind-looking crone hunched over her sweets cart in the corridor held their cabin door open with one gnarled hand. Her small eyes were very careful to avoid the wizard’s face as she crowed gaily, “Train’s about to depart!”

As if to corroborate, the whistle wailed suddenly, three short, shrill pipes.

The change in his expression was subtle but deadly. His eyes narrowed, muscle ticking as behind his closed lips his jaw slid side-to-side.

Rey’s heart tripped for the crone as he enunciated coldly, “Just a moment, thank you.”

“But sir, the Express waits for no man-”

“One moment.” He raised his hand.

Slowly, without looking, he drew the door closed.

Wandless magic.

Even she knew that was very, very rare.

“I must apologize to you,” again he fisted his white hands against his dark thighs. Inside the closed cabin, he seemed more desperate than dangerous. “Nothing has gone as I intended. I fear I’ve-”

“No,” she found her voice finally. It was small, and scared. But firm. “Don’t say anthin’, just go. Go away and don’t come back.”

“Rey, my angel-”

She shook her head. “Don’t call me that. I’m not your angel, or your- sweeting.” Her chest burned. She wanted to sob. “And I’m not your fiancé, neither. So go.”

He didn’t say anything as he stood smoothly and opened the compartment door.

The crone was still there, looking even more nervous. She spared Rey a comforting smile before she gestured, “Anyfin from the trolley for your little one ‘fore we go?”

Wordlessly, her wizard reached his elegant fingers inside the breast of his robes then dropped a small purseful of coins on her cart.

He took one last look before moving silently down the corridor and out of sight.

Rey shifted in her seat to press her cheek to the glass and watch him until he disappeared into the next car.

“Ah, looks like he bought the lot with change to spare. Lucky girl.”

Her lip wobbled, she raked up her haul as gracefully as she could while straining over her shoulder the whole time to catch even a glimpse of him on the platform down below. Her heart was grieving. Maybe because she was mean to him. Maybe because he was a man and frightening and she didn’t want to marry him.

Maybe because it would kill her to go-

“Rey, there you are!” it was Rosie, worried but shining.

She threw herself into the seat across from her as the train lurched and garbled from its edge, “I thought that nasty git might have taken you- whoa. Cool! Did you buy all this? Madam Beaux’s gonna kill you when she finds out. Can I have the frogs?”

Rey burst into tears.

“It’s not so bad, is it?” at the banquet table beneath the long, billowing red-and-gold banners, Rosie was delicately spooning up her fourth helping of sugar-brandied plums.

Rey’s lip quivered. Her eyes were red and still wet; she had wept nearly the entire journey by train and halfway through the boat ride. It wasn’t until she was standing at the foot of the majestic marble staircase lit with a thousand floating candles fretting over the Sorting that she forgot to be distraught.

But then that stupid dreadful hat went and put her in Gryffindor when she was obv’usly a Slytherin, and now she really wanted to die.

“I hate this House,” she warbled brokenly, pushing her untouched slice of fruit tart about her dessert plate with her fork. The feast table was loaded with all sorts of desserts she’d never seen before, like something out of the glossy cooking pages of Witches Weekly, all glistening and beautiful and multi-tiered. “And I hate my husband! He’s rude and he’s ugly and he’s ancient-”

She stabbed ruthlessly at her tart.

“Fee’s noff fanfient,” Rosie said through a bite of glittering sauced plum. She swallowed. “But he is kinda old.”

“He’s decrepit,” Rey hoped she was using that word right. “And he’s mean and stupid and I’m not marrying him. I’m not!”

She slammed her fork.

A bit further along the great wooden table on the other side, a pair of gangly fifth year rooster-boys were staring at them. They had almost the same horrible hair color as Rey’s whatevah, only it was wild and a bit more obnoxiously orange. They were whispering to one another as they flicked balled-up nips of bread to hit Rosie gently on the nose.

Rosie huffed and slapped her spoon down and screeched, “Stop it!”

They grinned and cooed back in unison, “Wotcher.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I hate boys,” she said primly to Rey, “Lease you get someone maturely. I don’t even know who my husband is yet. But I bet he’s stupid, and ‘nnoying.” She sighed down at her plums, then perked back up. “But yours looked super rich-”

Rey puddled her cheek in her hand. Fresh, fat tears rolled down her cheeks and plinked to her plate as she whimpered, “I juss wanna go home…”

“I’m sorry, whom are you not marrying?” a dreamy voice whisper-sang from her left.

She glanced at the girl – a pale, ethereal blonde with soft doe-eyes and Saturn planet earrings. She sniffled. The girl was a little pretty, if totally strange.

Rey decided she would talk to her.

“My husband, thass who,” she sank her cheek deeper into her palm as she told her grimly, “Mister Armitage Brendol Hux.”

Immediately, all the chatter around her died down.

“Who did she say?” someone whispered.

“Not him, surely-”

“But she’s muggleborn!”

“No it’s true, I saw them together. He was on the train…”

The whispers fanned their way down the table. Rosie’s pair of rooster-boys with orange combs both stopped smiling and watched Rey intensely. Like everyone else staring at her, they looked very serious, and even a little afraid.

Rey sat up and looked around. “What? Why’s everybody whisperin’? What?”

“Because, silly nargle,” the serene little witch to her left swept her hair back over her shoulder in somewhat slow-motion.

“He’s a Deatheater.”

The walk to Gryffindor Tower was even worse than the one to train.

The others all whispered and watched her from a careful distance inside the corridors and on the staircases, as if she might suddenly explode. Even the portraits hung leagues high up the walls to almost the ceiling avoided looking at her directly as she passed. Only Rosie and the looney girl – Luna – would walk with her.

She felt ugly and loneful. And angry.

This was all stupid Armitage’s fault.

The dormitory was old and hideous, perched atop a spiral flight of stairs and just wide enough to hold three four-poster beds. The curtains were gaudy red and gold tapestry, the bedspread a loveworn burgundy brocade. At first glance Rey felt yet another bout of mournful sobbing well up inside her chest.

All her beautiful dark dreams of glinting silver and emerald green had been completely dashed.

What would she do with all her Slytherin clothes and hair bows now?

“Look!” Rosie cried at the same time Rey saw what she was squealing at.

In the center of their little bedroom sat a rosewood pedestal with braided wood legs. Piled on it was a mound of roses so thick they eclipsed their vase. They were lush, sumptuous and fragrant. Velvet soft and deep blood red. Propped beneath them was a large satin box and a cream-colored envelope.

Her small fingers shook as they plucked up the note.

Rey, it said in graceful script on its face. When she turned it to catch the lamp light, the black wax seal on its back read ABH.

“It’s chocolates!” piped Rosie, having already torn into the box.

Luna hummed like a mermaid contemplating a seashell. “Oh Merkins, very expensive.”

Out-loud she pondered, “Are all Deatheaters so rich?”

“Wh-who gives a fig?” Rey tried to sound haughty and scornful. Inside, her heart knocked against her ribs.

While her two friends crinkled away the beautiful vellum wrappings around her bonbons, she dug her quivering fingertips beneath the letter’s wax seal.

No sooner had she broken it then the envelope swept up crisply from her grip into the air directly in front of her and cleared its throat. With its flap, it made a proper mouth.

“Good evening, my lady.”

Instantly, she recognized his voice.

Her cheeks flamed and her belly crackled warmly despite the way she hugged herself. On the other side of the rose heap, Rosie and Luna stopped stuffing themselves and watched the letter bow.

“First and foremost, allow me to apologize. Our meeting today on Platform nine-and-three-quarters went not at all as I intended. I fear I have offended you, and frightened you, and for that I am deeply sorry-”

“Why’s he talk like that?” asked Rosie with brown chocolate ringed around her mouth.

“Oh my gods,” Rey mewled miserably as she covered her head with her hands, “he’s a total weirdo-”

“He’s a nobleman,” Luna touched her breast and sighed.

“Please allow me the privilege of your company this Thursday in the observatory at noon. I will arrange for a chaperone with your Head of House, Severus Snape, so that you may feel more at ease-”

Rosie’s brow furrowed. “Severus Snape?”

“He thinks I got sorted into Slytherin,” Rey clapped her eyes and moaned. She felt sick – sick – like she’d disappointed him already.

But she hated him.

But she wanted him to be… proud.

She couldn’t look at all the hideous red and gold as she berated herself, stupid stupid ugly loser stupid-

“I do not expect you will reply. Please, accept these small tokens as gesture of my… Rey-”

Her heart skipped as he said her name.

“There is so much I want to tell you. To explain. Until Thursday. Your-  Forever yours, Armitage.”

The letter coiled elegantly with a gentle, soft-flickering flame. It left a warm, woodsy scent behind it, like cologne.

Dream of me, girl, she heard his voice whisper. But that was impossible, because the letter was gone.

“Mm, you have a date,” purred Luna, looking wistful with her arm hugging one of the posters of her bed.

“Well I’m not going,” Rey snapped, trying to ignoring the sensual cocktail of incense and roses and chocolates and- and-

“Obv’usly, I hate him.” She climbed onto the bed opposite Luna and crossed her arms.

“Here, have one,” Rosie offered her the box of half-devoured bonbons. Her face was sympathetic, but resigned.

You know the Law, it said.

Rey’s lip trembled. She was so tired of crying, and it was only her first night away.

She bit into a sweet – white chocolate with a strawberry crème center – and hugged her knees and promised herself somehow she’d sort it all out…

Back inside his manor on his great estate in Derbyshire County, the General wasn’t fairing much better. He was seated before the hearth inside his private study, the very one he stepped through on the night he met his-

Well.

He raised his fine china cup of strong coffee from the black lacquered table alongside his armchair and considered the flames over its delicate rim. He detested alcohol and most of the wizards who consumed it habitually; he kept downstairs in the kitchens only those spirits his female company preferred.

Bella, in particular, was partial to dark cherry wine.

The fire lapped bright gold across the surface of his pale, cold eyes as he sipped at his coffee and considered what a damnable mess he’d made of his meeting with Rey.

Pretty, pretty Rey.

Dressed like a muggle film star from their old black-and-white pictures, with her long soft-curled hair he wanted to feel slip between his fingers and her charming sock-stuffed chest. Star-bright brown eyes and a small strawberry mouth, she’d smelled sweet and feminine inside their intimate cabin, like fresh florals and sparkling sugar. Tiny as a kitten and infinitely delicate, he glimpsed her little pink tongue rolling around her mouth whenever she spoke. Such a dazzling, strong-willed child.

How he ached to correct her tone.

Useless instinct, he reminded himself sharply. His mind and the mark he bore knew the truth of the matter; he would not sully himself by taking an impure one for a wife, never mind how lovely she was. The girl was his charge to keep until she came of age and could make her own way. He was merely her patron, and a staunch advocate and prudent counsel, should she require either.

Nothing more.

His owl crooing softly at the leaded-pane window roused him from wandering too far down that garden path. It carried a small standard letter with a green wax seal clinched in its claw.

He craned over the smartly upholstered back of the armchair and raised his hand not holding his cup. He flicked his fingers, and the latch undid itself so that the glimmering halves of the window swung out to greet the night.

“Come in, Cyrus,” he called quietly.

The pharaoh eagle-owl swooped in as silent as a shadow and landed on the back of the armchair above his shoulder. Its tawny feathers where spotted like a leopard’s; it shook itself and arranged its wings as the General took the burden from its claw.

With a few more complex movements of his fingers and a few barely-whispered words, the message rose from his palm and read itself aloud.

“Hux,” it addressed him curtly. He recognized the droll monotone at once as Severus Snape’s.

The greatest traitor of them all.

“I received your messages as well as the packages which you forwarded for your ward. However, I regret to inform you-” rather, Snape sounded delighted to be telling him, “that Miss Rey of the House of Hux was not sorted into Slytherin House, but rather-”

A devious pause.

“Gryffindor.”

The General slammed his china cup on the lacquer table so forcefully its handle snapped off.

“Impossible,” he snarled.

“-therefore I have sent along your suitor’s gifts to the office of Professor Minerva McGonagall, whom you will find is Head of Gryffindor House. If you have any further questions regarding the… nurturing of your child bride, Professor McGonagall may be reached by owl. Have an evening. Snape.”

“This is outrageous,” the General snatched the letter hovering smirking in his fist and hurled it into the fire.

It landed with a sizzling shower of cinder and seemed to snicker as it burned to ash.

Of all the trickery. Of all the insult-

Summoning wandlessly his letterhead and quill, he swept his robetails aside and sat down at the small walnut secretary in the corner of his study.

He would express his displeasure by hand.

To Professor McGonagall-

Fury raked cold sparks across his chest as he penned swiftly, I demand an audience with you and your Headmaster at once. It is a matter concerning my wife-