((HPHM Character Blog for @imagitory)) Credit to the amazingly talented @immagrosscandy for drawing Carewyn's adorable avatar! đ Carewyn Cromwell is the younger sibling of Jacob Cromwell, an eccentric ex-Ravenclaw who vanished mysteriously while searching for Hogwarts's elusive Cursed Vaults. Although Carewyn only ever wished to be a great witch and do all of the normal things Hogwarts students do, she knew in her heart that her dreams would be incomplete without her brother, and so set off on a quest to solve the mystery of the Cursed Vaults with an assortment of new friends. Unfortunately that quest got her ensnared in a world of conspiracy and mortal peril, and now the sixth-year Slytherin has to find a way to protect herself, her brother, and her friends from the mysterious magical cabal R and the treacherous Patricia Rakepick. [Full Profile // Carewyn's Tag on My OOC Blog] ~*~ Ask box is always open! ~*~ + Slytherin + INFJ + Asexual / Panromantic + Half-Blood + Prefect + Good Feels Good ~ Being Good Sucks ~ Team Mom ~ Samaritan Syndrome ~ Broken Ace ~ The Paragon
Bonjour, mes amis! Iâm Tory @imagitory, and welcome to my blog for my characters for the games Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, Magic Awakened, and Hogwarts Legacy! Here may you find a helpful directory, which you can use to navigate my chaotic little blog and get to know each of my âchildren.â Consider this constantly under-construction as I add more links to each section!Â
-- General Tags --
My Art // My Writing // Ask Me // Opinion // Art Requests // Fanfic Writer Friday
--My Characters --
HPHM
Carewyn Cromwell ~ fancast: Sophie Turner ~Â A Slytherin paragon hero and âMama Bearâ type who fights to save her brother from Hogwartsâs mysterious Cursed Vaults and her entire family and friend circle from the criminal organization R.
Jacob Cromwell ~ fancast: Timothee Chalamet ~Â Â Carewynâs book-smart, people-dumb spaceman older brother, who got ensnared in Râs web and eventually locked in a portrait for seven years after he and his friends tried to solve the mystery of Hogwartsâs Cursed Vaults.
Lane Cromwell ~ fancast: Claire Danes ~ Carewyn and Jacobâs soft-spoken, but intellectual mother, who is the third child of four and youngest daughter of Charles Cromwell, leader of both the mafia-like Cromwell Clan and the criminal organization R.
HPMA
Erik Apollo ~ fancast: Lucas Lynggaard Tonneson ~Â A proud, snarky Muggle-born Slytherin alumnus who becomes an Auror and (temporarily) DADA Teacherâs Assistant after having been terrorized by the Muggle-born Registration Commission during the Second Wizarding War and becoming the legal ward of magical lawyer Carewyn Cromwell.
Anastasia âAnaâ Read ~ fancast: Georgie Henley ~Â A âstrong and silent,â but incredibly intelligent and creative Gryffindor with a love of writing and stories, whose Muggle mother married a wizard with two grown sons.
Farid Sikander ~ fancast: Dev Patel ~ A gentle, pacifistic Muggle with a remarkable flair for magical creatures who gets swept up in the Wizarding World after being selected by Fawkes the Phoenix as his new owner.Â
HPHL
Jackson Knightly ~ fancast: James McAvoy ~Â A charismatic, capricious Slytherin who, after having been kidnapped by his Muggle father, taken to New York, and used as a pawn in spiritualist scams, has vowed to take the world by storm upon graduating from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Bartholomew âBatâ Varney / Robert Harker ~ fancasts: Lee Pace, Josh Groban ~ An eccentric, but laidback and good-humored vampire scholar with a mysterious backstory as a Muggle-born war veteran in the American War for Independence who plays as an unofficial âprofessorâ for the students of Hogwarts at his home in Hogsmeade village.Â
Rudolph âRuâ Ollivander ~ fancast: Harry Styles ~ A blunt, devil-may-care kelpie who steals the identity of the young Ravenclaw boy who tried to catch them and ends up having a short, but fulfilling life as a pioneer in the field of magical photography.
HPHM
Carewyn Cromwell Masterlist
The Carewyn/Orion Masterpost
Carewynâs Profile
The âGameplayâ Tag
The âFriendship Drabblesâ Tag
Inspiration Behind Carewyn
10 Facts
10 More Facts
Jacob and âPippaâ
The Bach Familyâs Final Christmas
Carewynâs Lonely Childhood
Little Carewyn Goes Trick-Or-Treating For the First Time
Carewynâs Beginnings (Year 1 and 2)
Christmas at the Burrow
Carewyn, Bill, and Emily Tyler
Carewyn Cromwell and Tulip Karasu, Unlikely Friends
Carewyn Sees How Wrong She Was About Barnaby
Felix Mentors Carewyn, Carewyn Comforts Felix
Carewyn Meets Patricia Rakepick
Auditioning for the Frog Choir
Lone Wolves (featuring Talbott and Chiara)
Mirror of Erised (featuring Talbott, Tulip, and Barnaby)
Somebody to hold on to, it's all we really need...
Nothing else to it.â
~âPure Imagination,â from Wonka (2023)
x~x~x~x
Very early one chilly February morning in 2011, a single wizard left the wizarding village of Hogsmeade on foot. He actually had been in Copenhagen most of that week, helping the Danish Merqueen hopefully brew an antidote for a recent strain of Dragon Pox her tribe had been afflicted with. But even throughout that ongoing work, he still always returned to Hogsmeade every night. And this particular morning he knew he had to be at home.
Today was the manâs birthday...so he had to shoot up some sparks.Â
This particular day marked the 20th year that heâd followed this tradition. It was also the tenth year straight heâd done it outside Hogsmeade: after almost getting caught after doing it too close to some Muggle camping grounds, he reasoned it really was safer to do his ritual somewhere that wouldnât alarm anybody, if they saw the sparks. And well, especially after marrying his wife in the summer of 2002, it had been rather comforting to know that after heâd completed his business, there would be someone waiting for him at the base of the mountain...
For this moment, however, the man was alone with his thoughts and his memories. He didnât cry, but his hollowed-out blue eyes were tired and his steps were slow.Â
At least heâd kept his beard trimmed and his long curly hair combed neatly. Ashe would appreciate that -- heâd always been very put-together, when they were young.Â
The man once called Jacob Cromwell didnât say a word as he shot off his gold sparks. Instead he watched the foggy early morning sky, taking steady breaths as the clouds were prickled with the first light of dawn.
Flo and Dan will be nine in two weeks, he thought.
Up went a spark.
Pip is fine. Still getting pressured to run for office after Kingsley retires...and to have âsome kids of her ownâ by Molly Weasley. Stupid...
Another spark.Â
Livâs up for a promotion! Reckon sheâll be the new Head of the WWN by next year, especially with her work on Callieâs new radio show...
Another.Â
Mum got a Bagnold Award for her essay about Tom Riddle! Geezus, Ashe, we all knew he was a prat, but I wish you couldâve read it. That no-good git got Hagrid expelled from Hogwarts...and he wasnât only a Prefect, but bloody Head Boy! To think old Slughorn and the other teachers didnât see through that creep sooner...
The man paused. He watched the most recent of gold sparks fade away completely into the foggy air: then he took a deep breath and sent up five more.
I miss you. I wish you were here. I wish you and Fortescue, and Lugh and Moody, and Lupin, Tonks, and Black...all of you...I wish you were here.Â
I...hope youâre proud of me, Ashe. I hope youâre watching...I hope you can see me.Â
...I love you. So much...
Jacob slowly lowered his wand arm, watching the new sparks fade. He then closed his eyes, took another very deep breath, and started on back down the mountain.
~*~
It took Jacob another half-hour to return to the village. When he arrived at the gate, though, his heart gave a little leap when he heard a very familiar voice.
âDad!â
Running toward him were two dark-haired, blue-eyed children -- one boy and one girl -- their short dark blue cloaks flapping behind them.Â
The boy reached his father first. Jacob bent down in preparation for the boyâs running hug and caught him in both of his strong arms.Â
âHey, Dan,â Jacob breathed. âHey, little dude...â
While he spoke, his hand pressed light sign language letters into his sonâs back, translating what heâd said. It made the boy squeeze Jacob all the more, just to feel the vibrations of his fatherâs voice through his chest a little better.Â
Mere seconds later, the girl -- the one whoâd called out earlier -- caught up to her brother and threw her arms around her father too.
âDad!â
âCome here, little bud -- rrrrrrah!âÂ
Jacob gave the twins a tighter squeeze than ever. After a moment he pulled away to look at both of them; when he did so, he pointedly turned his face more toward his son and slowed down his speech to make it easier for the boy to read his lips.
 âWhat are you two both doing up and dressed so early? Did Mum plan something special for your Mum-Kid Day?â
âYeah, I did.â
Jacob looked up at his wife as she approached. Despite being seven years older than him thanks to his stint in the Portrait Vault all those years ago, Mia looked just as sassy and bright-eyed as the first time they went out dancing together, even in full business-like dress robes.Â
âI asked Ashdan and Flora before you got home last night what they wanted to make to celebrate your 40th birthday today,â she explained. Like Jacob, she threw in some signs here and there and spoke more slowly and clearly so as to make sure Dan fully understood what was being said.Â
âAnd I said a chocolate cake!â Flora said brightly. âWith chocolate-covered strawberries! Since chocolateâs your favorite.â She signed out âchocolate cakeâ as an addition to Dan, which made him grin broadly and nod up at Jacob.
âI -- â he said a bit hesitantly as he made sure his enunciation sounded okay in his own ears. âI told Mum we wanted to do it.â He then added exclusively in sign language, âItâs not as good as Mumâs stuff, but we tried really hard. Floraâs icing flowers look pretty good.â
âWe mixed it and baked it and decorated it all by ourselves!â Flora said proudly. âJust me and Ashdan!â
Jacobâs face burst out into such a proud grin, it looked ready to pop off his face.Â
âFor real?! All by yourselves? Bloody Hell, you two...and for your dorky old dad! Howâd I ever manage to have such brilliant kids? Câmere!â
He threw his arms around his twin children again and gave them another huge hug, kissing both of their foreheads and cheeks. He beamed up at Mia, who looked upon the three of them with immense fondness.
âCome on...I skipped the usual breakfast spread, but I still set the table with warm milk and bangers, so we can put our focus squarely on Flora and Ashdanâs cake. We have a full day ahead of us, so weâd best hop to it.âÂ
Just like before, she signed sporadically while speaking, including phrases like âcome on,â âbusy day,â and âletâs go.â
Jacob beamed as he straightened up and came up to walk alongside his wife as she led them all home. âFull day, huh? Even while youâre letting Mary and your mum run the shop for the day?â
âOf course -- your children are bound to run me ragged,â Mia said with a cool smile, and Jacob laughed. âFlora said she wanted to go see the Peter Pan statue at Kensington Gardens and take some pictures of Hyde Park. When she brought up London, Ashdan said he wanted to visit the Tower of London.â
Jacobâs whole face lit up as he both talked to Mia and signed toward Ashdan. âThe Tower of London, huh? Reckon thereâll be tons of groovy ghost stories to learn about there!â
Ashdan nodded eagerly. Perhaps because of all the stories Jacob had told him about his namesake having once been a ghost, Ashdan had always found ghosts incredibly interesting.Â
âReckon youâll find quite a few pretty things to take pictures of in those gardens too, Flo,â Jacob shifted his focus to his daughter. âI hear the Muggle Queen got cherry blossoms from Japan put in there at some point, so those should be in bloom around this time of year...â
Flora's face lit up. âCherry blossoms? Ooh, I wonder if I can snatch a branch of them and send them to Uncle Silas...just a little one!â
âYou donât need to steal from other peopleâs gardens,â Mia said tartly. âIâm quite sure your Uncle Silas would send you an entire tree of your own to plant at some point, if you merely asked him. And I might even let you have it too, so long as you behave yourself and stop skipping your chores to practice flying on your Uncle Orionâs old Cleansweep.â
Flora looked a little put-out, but her smile soon returned when Jacob brought a hand down to muss up her hair.
âNo problem-o, Flo. Youâll have plenty of time to practice chucking balls around on your broom when your cousin Olin comes 'round for your birthday. Until then, help your mother out.â
âYes, Dad,â sighed Flora.Â
She shot a quick look out the side of her eye at Ashdan, who grinned mischievously as he signed something to her that looked suspiciously like, âBetter luck next time.â
As the family of four approached the door of Honeydukes Sweetshop, they were greeted by the first of their neighbors to wake up in the morning -- Bilton Bilmes, the now elderly owner of Zonkoâs Joke Shop -- as well as the Post Officeâs employees on their way into work.
âMorning, Flumes!â
âGood morning, Ms. Flume! Good morning, Mr. Flume!â
âHowâs work going, Mr. Flume?â
âItâs groovy, thanks, Delilah,â Jacob answered with a grin.Â
When heâd first taken Miaâs surname, it had been a bit of a hassle changing his professional name everywhere, but otherwise, he quite enjoyed the shift. After all, heâd been âJacob Bachâ for all of his childhood before having it changed to Cromwell after his father left, so what was the harm in changing it again? And sure enough, it had really pissed off Blaise Cromwell. Learning his nephew had not only chosen to marry a âlowly shopkeeper,â but had also spurned the Clanâs surname in favor of taking hers, when it was the husbandâs name that should always take precedence...Jacob was half-convinced Blaise was going to spontaneously combust when he found out. Jacob had merely shot back that if Blaise was so hung up on the Cromwell surname, he should just be glad that Carewyn didnât follow his antiquated notions about romantic relationships: otherwise she would be Carewyn Amari at that moment.Â
Ashdan gave a light tug to his fatherâs sleeve. When Jacob looked at him, he started signing quickly.
âDad...will you be home late again tonight?â
Jacob tilted his head, confused. â...I suppose so...â He offered a smile. âBut donât worry -- Iâll be home in time for dinner, just like always.â
Ashdan looked away. Jacob tapped his arm to get his attention and then signed at him, âYou okay?â Ashdan bit his lip before responding.
â...I...wanted to talk to you about our Dad-Kid day. Even if itâs not until the 28th. I wanted to make plans.â
Jacobâs eyes lit up in understanding. âAhhh, okay.â He considered this, before is face broke out into a grin and he whispered back slowly enough that Ashdan could lip-read, âTell you what -- at 5:00 PM your time, right before dinner, come through the Vanishing Cabinet and meet me in my room-in-a-suitcase. Bring Flo too, if you want. Weâll talk then.â
Ashdan beamed and nodded. Giving his son a light pat to the head, Jacob then brought an arm around both him and Flora and steered them into the open door of Honeydukes after their mother. Ambrosius the dog bustled around both children once they entered, circling and sniffing them with his tail wagging excitedly: both children laughed as they cuddled the old greyhound.Â
âItâs okay, Ambrosius!â Flora said brightly. âItâs okay! Weâre back! Good boy!â
Once everyone else were all inside, Jacob took one last look over his shoulder at the sky, now fully alight with golden dawn, and he smiled.
There was a lot more to do...a lot more adventures to experience. And fortunately, at the end of all of it...there would always be the people Jacob loved most, waiting for him. That was what made all of his wanderings and lessons -- all of his missteps and triumphs -- his entire life on this Earth -- truly worthwhile.Â
"It's slander with the words you use...
You're a parasite in black and white:
Do anything for news!
And you don't go and buy it,
And they won't glorify it...
To read it sanctifies it!
Then why do we keep foolin' ourselves?"
~"Tabloid Junkie," by Michael Jackson
x~x~x~x~x
Rita Skeeter only ever wrote one story about Carewyn "Cursebreaker" Cromwell in her entire career. It was a noticeable sidestepping: Skeeter usually was very keen to chase after popular and/or famous figures in the Wizarding World and find a way to tear down their throne. Even in that one story about Carewyn, Rita used the Cursebreaker in a backhanded way to smack down the heir to the Parkin Quidditch legacy, Skye Parkin, since Carewyn had taken her spot on the Slytherin Qudditch team at the last minute. Why, therefore, didn't Rita spy on Carewyn and Jacob after they successfully defeated R later that year? Why didn't she publish any dirt about Jacob having been coaxed to join R while he was a student and that ultimately being the reason why Albus Dumbledore had so unfairly expelled him? Why didn't she spy on Carewyn after she joined up with the Ministry of Magic...especially after she became a lawyer well-regarded enough that even Cornelius Fudge himself elicited advice from her?
Maybe it's the same reason Rita Skeeter never wrote that one article she'd considered writing about Ludo Bagman.
x~x~x~x~x
Rita Skeeter had come to Hogwarts not long after the whole fiasco with R went down in the summer of 1990. She was determined to learn as much as she could about both Jacob and Carewyn Cromwell -- perhaps the newly reappeared Olivia Green too -- and maybe even drag Dumbledore a bit in the process.
Rita decided to take the sneaky approach first and flew over to Hogsmeade as a beetle to scope things out. Most unfortunately, when she found Jacob in the Three Broomsticks, he sensed her approach so easily that before she could even land on him, he'd smacked her so hard off of him that she was slammed back-first into the closest wall.
When Jacob turned around and saw not a person but a bug nearly flattened against the wall, he blinked twice. Then his blue eyes narrowed.
"Hey, Cromwell!" one of the servers called from the far end. "Can you bus this table real quick for me?"
"Be right there!"
Flapping the dish rag he'd been holding up onto his shoulder, he strode past the wall, his sunken-in eyes glaring daggers into the little green beetle as she feebly flapped her wings to keep herself airborne.
"Can't perfectly read your mind while you're a bug," Jacob muttered under his breath, "but trust me, I'll do it much better if I collide with you when you're human. And I reckon I'll know within seconds it's you."
A dangerous flash ran through his eyes.
"Any of that scare you? Then buzz off and never come back."
Rita didn't think twice: she immediately hightailed it out of there, zooming in precarious little waves straight out of Hogsmeade village.
The reporter had to take two weeks off to tend to her broken arms, sprained shoulder, and dislocated back in St. Mungo's. Even after her recovery, though, no matter how much she longed to get back at Jacob Cromwell, she stayed far, far away from him.
x~x~x~x~x
Now one would think that after Jacob left London, Rita might pounce on the opportunity to get her story by going through Carewyn. And yes, in fact, she did.
When Rita learned Carewyn had been assigned to be the prosecutor in the case against Dolores Umbridge's new measure restricting werewolf employment, the reporter thought she smelled blood in the water. After all, Carewyn had become known as a "Hero of Hogwarts"...now she was defending dangerous Dark creatures at the expense of the public's safety? Was this emblematic of a fall from grace, signaled by her surrendering herself to the machinations of a Ministry who needed a willing pawn to play devil's advocate? Or worse, was there some more sinister reason Carewyn Cromwell was siding with the likes of Fenrir Greyback and his ilk?
Learning her mistake from her encounter with Jacob, Rita tried to meet Carewyn in person first. After all, she'd met Carewyn once before, while she was a student -- she could always play to that. Even if Carewyn had seemed leery of her back then too, she had stayed cordial, and she did ultimately tell Rita a little of what she wanted to know, at least.
Most unfortunately for Rita, this encounter with Carewyn did not go any better than hers with Jacob four years ago. As soon as Rita approached her, attempting amiability, Carewyn held up a hand and stopped the reporter mid-word.
"No comment."
She turned and walked away. Rita of course wasn't going to give up that easily, and she immediately bustled after her.
"Oh, come on, Carewyn...all I even said was 'hello!' I haven't even asked any questions yet -- "
"You don't need to. I know full well you intend to ask me about the next case I'll be presenting before the Wizengamot, preferably to try to sniff out whether I'm some corrupted soul, same as my grandfather, or whether I've become a mindless cog in some corrupt Ministry conspiracy."
Rita was so taken aback by the accuracy of the guess that she for a moment lost her composure. Then she forced on a sugary-sweet smile.
"...Well! Carewyn! Sounds like you're even more determined to stir up drama than I am...is this an admission on your part, or -- ?"
"Bear in mind, Ms. Skeeter," Carewyn said very coldly without turning around, "that a talent for Legilimency is hereditary in my family."
Rita's smile slid right off her face as she blanched.
Wait -- did that mean that she -- like Jacob Cromwell -- ?!
"Oh, so you've already encountered that talent. Through my brother." Carewyn's blue eye had migrated over her shoulder after she'd spoken last, and it glinted icily even as she smiled. "Good. Then I can keep this short and sweet: stay away from my family."
With this, Carewyn walked off again. This time Rita did not pursue -- in fact she very quickly turned around and left the Ministry all together, fixing her overly stylized blond curls over and over as she tried in vain not to scream in both anxiety and aggravation.
x~x~x~x~x
Her encounters with Jacob and Carewyn Cromwell spooked Rita to the point that she decided she wouldn't seek them out. It frustrated Rita immensely, because she frankly hated that both of them had so successfully gotten under her skin and she couldn't pay them back for it -- not even by going after their mother, however tempting the thought was...who knew what sort of juicy stuff she could dig up on the black-sheep third daughter of Dark wizard Charles Cromwell? After all, it was said Lane ran away from home to marry a Muggle, but where was that Muggle now? Why wasn't he in Carewyn and Jacob's lives? Had Charles Cromwell done away with him, out of disgust...or had Lane or her children done it, so no one would ask questions...?
For her own self-preservation, though, Rita knew she had no choice but to back off. Jacob Cromwell would likely immediately recognize her as the beetle in Hogsmeade if she ever met him in person, and Carewyn...if that little girl was so good at Legilimency that merely looking in Rita's eyes told her both the subjects she was considering for her article and that she'd already seen Jacob's Legilimency in action, she could very quickly discover Rita was an illegal Animagus, if she looked in her eyes again. And because Carewyn was a lawyer...
Rita had thrown several bottles of ink at the wall, just contemplating how much of a disaster Carewyn Cromwell finding out the truth could be for her.
She had to distract herself. Sure, she couldn't go after Carewyn or Jacob, but there were other fish in the sea. There were plenty of other people's lives Rita could ruin. And for a while, she did -- she referred to Albus Dumbledore as an obsolete dingbat in her article about the International Confederation of Wizard's Conference; she wrote a scathing piece about Cornelius Fudge and the Quidditch World Cup; and then, best of all, she set her sights on the Boy Who Lived Himself, who proved to be a perfect fountain of drama that she could cultivate. The headlines Potter gave Rita put her in such a good mood that she was more flippant in going after other people associated with the Triwizard Tournament: Rubeus Hagrid, Viktor Krum, and Harry Potter's "girlfriend" Hermione Granger.
But then Rita actually tried to go after Ludo Bagman by showing up to his workplace as a beetle. And the moment that Rita flew into Bagman's office and landed on his desk, ready to do some snooping, she was frightened by the sound of the door slamming shut behind her.
The beetle quickly flew under a magazine on the desk to hide before she could be spotted.
"Muffliato," said a familiar voice.
It was Carewyn Cromwell.
Her heart pounding with absolute terror, the little beetle peeked out from her hiding place.
Although the red-haired lawyer's blue eyes weren't focused directly on Rita, her wand was raised and her posture was guarded. She was quiet for a very long moment, her eyes drifting around and over the desk; then she spoke to the fat air.
"No one will hear us now," she said stridently. "The Charm I cast over the room deadens all sound to prevent eavesdropping, and even if Mr. Bagman does come back, I have the clearance to be here. Something I know full well you don't have, Rita Skeeter."
Rita felt like her heart had leapt up into her throat. The flash of fear clearly caught Carewyn's attention, as her cold eyes shot straight to the desk.
"I may not know exactly how you're hiding so well," she murmured. "Whether you've shrunken yourself down, pilfered a particularly good Invisibility Cloak, or you're an illegal Animagus. The last one would definitely explain why your emotions are a bit harder to read...unless you're actually trying to use some basic Occlumency."
Rita was frozen stock-still with terror as Carewyn leaned her hand on the desk, her voice growing much quieter and more dangerous.
"Either way, though...trespassing in a high-ranked Ministry employee's office is a serious offense. I daresay the Daily Prophet would be much more reluctant to publish your articles if they knew you were using such illicit means to get information. No matter how juicy your stories are, you are not above the law, Skeeter."
Carewyn's blue eyes flashed almost as dangerously as her brother's.
"So let me make myself clear. You will not attempt to sneak into the Ministry again. Come as yourself again if you want...but know that if I find out you're here, I will check in on you. And if you use this sneaky little method of getting around to write a single article about any of my coworkers the way you wrote about Hagrid...rest assured, I will administer swift, efficient justice to you."
There was a silence. Rita felt close to fainting as Carewyn put a sealed envelope on Bagman's desk and then turned on her heel to head for the door.
"Don't stay long after I open this door," she said coolly. "I won't chase you down...but I'll only be on this floor for a few more minutes, and I expect to sense the exact moment you choose to leave."
She left the door open as she went. Because Carewyn didn't have super-sonic hearing, she never heard just how loudly, angrily, and anxiously Rita the beetle screamed as she flew out of the office and out of the Ministry altogether.
Carewyn Cromwell chose to become a lawyer at the Ministry of Magic upon her graduation with the hope of helping people. She had little interest in earning any fame or monetary reward for her work: so long as she herself felt she was doing some good in her own way, Carewyn felt the hard work she'd put in would be worth it.
It took a while before Carewyn felt like she did any real good, though. 1994 in particular was a really rough year for Carewyn, when she faced two very significant legal failures back-to-back.
The first failure was when Carewyn lost a case she'd helped file against a new law drafted by Dolores Umbridge to drastically restrict employment options for werewolves, to the point that they wouldn't be allowed to work in any position involving other people or even animals while being open with their condition. And sure enough, her good friend Chiara just barely avoided losing her job at St. Mungo's Hospital for Maladies and Injuries altogether by electing to work from home for less salary. (Supposedly the pay deduction was due to Chiara no longer being able to "fulfill all responsibilities of her previous position," rather than just being because she was a werewolf, but Carewyn still thought bitterly that the Hospital staff was taking full advantage of the fact that Chiara would've had no choice but to accept such blatant mistreatment, since finding any better offer under the current restrictions would be close to impossible.) Worse, Chiara's old friend Remus Lupin had been effectively cut out of any position as a private tutor by the measure.
As if all that wasn't bad enough, though, around the same time Lucius Malfoy had gotten Carewyn's friend Rubeus Hagrid into a lot of trouble. When Hagrid first wrote to Carewyn pleading for her help in defending his hippogriff Buckbeak in court the way she'd been ready to for Hagrid just a year ago, Carewyn reminded him that she was a lawyer for cases involving people, and that Buckbeak's case wouldn't go before the Wizengamot, but Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. Carewyn still did everything she possibly could to help -- she spent close to two weeks researching old cases and sending Hagrid helpful advice prior to Buckbeak's hearing, as well as before the appeal. Sadly all of this work was for naught. Hagrid was not a strong enough public speaker to present a proper legal defense, and Lucius Malfoy bullied the Committee into doing what he wanted, so in the end, Buckbeak lost his case and his execution date was set. It was a blow that hit Carewyn even harder than it should've: not just knowing that Lucius Malfoy got his spiteful way or that an innocent creature was going to be killed, but that she'd failed Hagrid. Failing the first member of Hogwarts's staff to ever speak warmly and affectionately of her brother Jacob while everyone else only spoke of him sadly or distrustfully flooded Carewyn's old frame with shame.
Just about all of Carewyn's letters written in early 1994 were very sparse. Her brother Jacob, as well as her mother Lane and her closest friends, all pinpointed this to be symptomatic of depression, and Jacob mentioned this to Hagrid himself in his own letters to the gamekeeper. Although at the time, Hagrid was in such a bad emotional state himself that he could do little else but simply write shaky, tear-stained letters reassuring Carewyn that Buckbeak's fate wasn't her fault and that he appreciated her help, he felt bad that he couldn't do more. And so after term was over and Buckbeak had miraculously escaped, Hagrid actually asked Carewyn to meet him at the Three Broomsticks for some butterbeer and a talk.
Carewyn was in work-worthy dress robes, though considerably darker than usual. She'd been subconsciously gravitating toward blacks and grays a lot the last three months, and even her usual dark makeup was sparser.
Although Carewyn greeted Hagrid cordially when she entered the pub, the gamekeeper showed no restraint. Instead with a single massive step, he'd crossed the room and opened his arms to pull her into a big bear hug.
"Jacob's tol' meh yeh've been gloomy lately," he said.
Carewyn shook her head, her eyes averted. "Gloomy? Of course not. I've just...been busy is all."
"Don' give meh that rubbish," Hagrid scolded her lightly. He pulled back just enough to look at her better, and his expression saddened. "...I remember how yeh looked afta Rowan died, Carewyn...an' I can see that same look in yer eyes now. The guilt's written all ova yer face."
Carewyn didn't look up. Hagrid's eyes softened as he offered her a small smile.
"I said befo', Carewyn, wha' happened was not yer fault. An' don' worry...Beaky's good! He flew to freedom! No one can 'urt 'im now!"
Amazingly, though, this didn't seem to comfort Carewyn that much.
"No one can hurt him as long as the Ministry doesn't catch him," she murmured. "A scenario we wouldn't have to consider at all if I'd actually managed to do what I was supposed to do in the first place..."
Just like Lupin and Chiara wouldn't be struggling to make ends meet, if I'd helped them the way I should've.
"Wha' yeh were supposed t' do was yer job," Hagrid told her firmly. "Which is bein' as good ova lawyer as yeh can be. That's wha' yeh always do. Even fer cases tha' weren' yers t' take on..."
"But I didn't! I should've been better, Hagrid -- I should've been able to help you and Buckbeak, I should've known Lucius Malfoy was going to do something shady: I could've done something, anything, to counteract him, if I'd just been -- "
Hagrid brought his large hand down to pat the top of Carewyn's head. Carewyn kind of flinched in response to the gesture, not sure quite how to respond to it: even if it was clearly trying to be reassuring and not condescending, being patted like a dog still wasn't something a lady-like person like her found particularly comfortable.
"Now yeh listen t' meh, Carewyn Cromwell," said Hagrid. "I may not be th' smartest bloke 'round, an' I may not know much o' nuthin' 'bout Wizarding Law..." he smiled. "Bu' I do know you. An' one thing I've never doubted 'bout yeh, fro' the moment I gotchu an' Rowan outta that Devil's Snare, is tha' yeh're a fighter. Not a fighter like yer brother, always gettin' into trouble an' losin' 'is temper when his friends got 'urt, bu' a fighter fo' others. Remember, yeh lit yer wand as bright as yeh could, not just t' save yehself, bu' t' help Rowan, since she hadn't gotten Lumos down yet. An' yeh proved me right ova an' ova again, breakin' curses an' fightin' Dark wizards, all t' save Jacob an' protect yer friends."
Hagrid's smile broadened to the point that his dimpled cheeks were more visible through his thick black beard.
"Me droppin' me notes an' stumblin' on me words weren't yer fault, Carewyn. Nor was Lucius Malfoy being a dodgy berk. 'Onestly...I'm jus' grateful knowin' tha' when I was in trouble, I knew I coul' write t' yeh, an' even now tha' yeh're all grown-up an' living yer own life an' living yer own dream, just like Jacob is his..." His black eyes actually betrayed some tears. "...well...tha' yeh'd still wanna help."
Carewyn's blue eyes grew a little smaller and sadder hearing this. Biting her lip, she immediately opened her own arms and tried to give Hagrid a hug in return.
"Of course I wanted to help you, Hagrid," she whispered. "...I wanted to help you much more than I did..."
Hagrid gave Carewyn another big squeeze.
"I know. Bu' even I can't carry th' world on me shoulders, an' I'mma lot bigger and stronger than yeh."
Carewyn choked back a laugh as she covertly wiped her eye on her sleeve. Hagrid smiled.
"It turned out all righ' in th' end. It always does. So keep doin' what yeh've been doin', an' don' let th' world get yeh down."
Carewyn's eyes never rose to look Hagrid directly in the eye, but her mouth slowly spread into a smile all the same.
@carewyncromwell Thanks for having Carey Bear help Chiara. I think Finn would be most appreciative of that. He doesn't have the patience for the judicial system.
Honestly?? I don't blame Finn -- the legal system in both the Wizarding World and the real world can be so ridiculously frustrating!! đ€ Carey-Bear would be glad to know that Finn can likewise support Chiara where she can't.
Carewyn Cromwell chose to become a lawyer at the Ministry of Magic upon her graduation with the hope of helping people. She had little interest in earning any fame or monetary reward for her work: so long as she herself felt she was doing some good in her own way, Carewyn felt the hard work she'd put in would be worth it.
It took a while before Carewyn felt like she did any real good, though. 1994 in particular was a really rough year for Carewyn, when she faced two very significant legal failures back-to-back.
The first failure was when Carewyn lost a case she'd helped file against a new law drafted by Dolores Umbridge to drastically restrict employment options for werewolves, to the point that they wouldn't be allowed to work in any position involving other people or even animals while being open with their condition. And sure enough, her good friend Chiara just barely avoided losing her job at St. Mungo's Hospital for Maladies and Injuries altogether by electing to work from home for less salary. (Supposedly the pay deduction was due to Chiara no longer being able to "fulfill all responsibilities of her previous position," rather than just being because she was a werewolf, but Carewyn still thought bitterly that the Hospital staff was taking full advantage of the fact that Chiara would've had no choice but to accept such blatant mistreatment, since finding any better offer under the current restrictions would be close to impossible.) Worse, Chiara's old friend Remus Lupin had been effectively cut out of any position as a private tutor by the measure.
As if all that wasn't bad enough, though, around the same time Lucius Malfoy had gotten Carewyn's friend Rubeus Hagrid into a lot of trouble. When Hagrid first wrote to Carewyn pleading for her help in defending his hippogriff Buckbeak in court the way she'd been ready to for Hagrid just a year ago, Carewyn reminded him that she was a lawyer for cases involving people, and that Buckbeak's case wouldn't go before the Wizengamot, but Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. Carewyn still did everything she possibly could to help -- she spent close to two weeks researching old cases and sending Hagrid helpful advice prior to Buckbeak's hearing, as well as before the appeal. Sadly all of this work was for naught. Hagrid was not a strong enough public speaker to present a proper legal defense, and Lucius Malfoy bullied the Committee into doing what he wanted, so in the end, Buckbeak lost his case and his execution date was set. It was a blow that hit Carewyn even harder than it should've: not just knowing that Lucius Malfoy got his spiteful way or that an innocent creature was going to be killed, but that she'd failed Hagrid. Failing the first member of Hogwarts's staff to ever speak warmly and affectionately of her brother Jacob while everyone else only spoke of him sadly or distrustfully flooded Carewyn's whole frame with shame.
Just about all of Carewyn's letters written in early 1994 were very sparse. Her brother Jacob, as well as her mother Lane and her closest friends, all pinpointed this to be symptomatic of depression, and Jacob mentioned this to Hagrid himself in his own letters to the gamekeeper. Although at the time, Hagrid was in such a bad emotional state himself that he could do little else but simply write shaky, tear-stained letters reassuring Carewyn that Buckbeak's fate wasn't her fault and that he appreciated her help, he felt bad that he couldn't do more. And so after term was over and Buckbeak had miraculously escaped, Hagrid actually asked Carewyn to meet him at the Three Broomsticks for some butterbeer and a talk.
Carewyn was in work-worthy dress robes, though considerably darker than usual. She'd been subconsciously gravitating toward blacks and grays a lot the last three months, and even her usual dark makeup was sparser.
Although Carewyn greeted Hagrid cordially when she entered the pub, the gamekeeper showed no restraint. Instead with a single massive step, he'd crossed the room and opened his arms to pull her into a big bear hug.
"Jacob's tol' meh yeh've been gloomy lately," he said.
Carewyn shook her head, her eyes averted. "Gloomy? Of course not. I've just...been busy is all."
"Don' give meh that rubbish," Hagrid scolded her lightly. He pulled back just enough to look at her better, and his expression saddened. "...I remember how yeh looked afta Rowan died, Carewyn...an' I can see that same look in yer eyes now. The guilt's written all ova yer face."
Carewyn didn't look up. Hagrid's eyes softened as he offered her a small smile.
"I said befo', Carewyn, wha' happened was not yer fault. An' don' worry...Beaky's good! He flew to freedom! No one can 'urt 'im now!"
Amazingly, though, this didn't seem to comfort Carewyn that much.
"No one can hurt him as long as the Ministry doesn't catch him," she murmured. "A scenario we wouldn't have to consider at all if I'd actually managed to do what I was supposed to..."
Just like Lupin and Chiara wouldn't be struggling to make ends meet, if I'd helped them the way I should've.
"Wha' yeh were supposed t' do was yer job," Hagrid told her firmly. "Which is bein' as good ova lawyer as yeh can be. That's wha' yeh always do. Even fer cases tha' weren' yers t' take on..."
"But I didn't! I should've been better, Hagrid -- I should've been able to help you and Buckbeak, I should've known Lucius Malfoy was going to do something shady: I could've done something, anything, to counteract him, if I'd just been -- "
Hagrid brought his large hand down to pat the top of Carewyn's head. Carewyn kind of flinched in response to the gesture, not sure quite how to respond to it: even if it was clearly trying to be reassuring and not condescending, being patted like a dog still wasn't something a lady-like person like her found particularly comfortable.
"Now yeh listen t' meh, Carewyn Cromwell," said Hagrid. "I may not be th' smartest bloke 'round, an' I may not know much o' nuthin' 'bout Wizarding Law..." he smiled. "Bu' I do know you. An' one thing I've never doubted 'bout yeh, fro' the moment I gotchu an' Rowan outta that Devil's Snare, is tha' yeh're a fighter. Not a fighter like yer brother, always gettin' into trouble an' losin' 'is temper when his friends got 'urt, bu' a fighter fo' others. Remember, yeh lit yer wand as bright as yeh could, not just t' save yehself, bu' t' help Rowan, since she hadn't gotten Lumos down yet. An' yeh proved me right ova an' ova again, breakin' curses an' fightin' Dark wizards, all t' save Jacob an' protect yer friends."
Hagrid's smile broadened to the point that his dimpled cheeks were more visible through his thick black beard.
"Me droppin' me notes an' stumblin' on me words weren't yer fault, Carewyn. Nor was Lucius Malfoy being a dodgy berk. 'Onestly...I'm jus' grateful knowin' tha' when I was in trouble, I knew I coul' write t' yeh, an' even now tha' yeh're all grown-up an' living yer own life an' living yer own dream, just like Jacob is his..." His black eyes actually betrayed some tears. "...well...tha' yeh'd still wanna help."
Carewyn's blue eyes grew a little smaller and sadder hearing this. Biting her lip, she immediately opened her own arms and tried to give Hagrid a hug in return.
"Of course I wanted to help you, Hagrid," she whispered. "...I wanted to help you much more than I did..."
Hagrid gave Carewyn another big squeeze.
"I know. Bu' even I can't carry th' world on me shoulders, an' I'mma lot bigger and stronger than yeh."
Carewyn choked back a laugh as she covertly wiped her eye on her sleeve. Hagrid smiled.
"It turned out all righ' in th' end. It always does. So keep doin' what yeh've been doin', an' don' let th' world get yeh down."
Carewyn's eyes never rose to look Hagrid directly in the eye, but her mouth slowly spread into a smile all the same.
letter template // background source 1 and 2 // edited with help from Lunapic // musical accompaniment while working on this
x~x~x~x~x
There was no question among the Hogwarts staff who Albus Dumbledore was going to pick as Head Girl for the upcoming fall of 1990. After protecting Hogwarts from the Cursed Vaults for multiple years and even more recently protecting the school itself from the criminal organization R with help from her brother and friends, Carewyn Cromwell was the only possible choice. That didn't mean Carewyn still wasn't bowled over by the decision.
At first when she read the letter and saw the enclosed Slytherin-green Head Girl badge, Carewyn felt nothing but guilt. The dream of being Head Girl had been Rowan's for so long that achieving it herself now felt like a betrayal. Carewyn didn't want it. Making Head Girl was supposed to be Rowan's achievement. Rowan would've achieved it, if she hadn't...
Carewyn glanced at the old photograph on her bedside table: the oldest one she had from her school days, from all the way back in her second year. In the picture were the first friends Carewyn had ever had in her life: Bill Weasley, Penny Haywood, Ben Copper...and there, right at Carewyn's side with her forehead lightly pressed beside Carewyn's hair, was Rowan. The first person Carewyn had ever called her friend...the first person who had ever called Carewyn her friend.
They all looked so young, in that picture. So young and innocent...optimistic and full of hope...
Yet as she put down the letter and stared at the much younger Rowan, Carewyn felt herself smiling a bit through her tears.
Rowan had been one of the very first people Carewyn had told when she'd landed the role of Prefect. She'd actually been a little nervous for her best friend's reaction when she first sent the letter, since Rowan had mentioned once that a lot of Prefects were later chosen as Head Boy or Girl, and being Head Girl was Rowan's biggest dream alongside becoming the youngest professor in Hogwarts history. And yet Rowan had been so excited about Carewyn's success that she sent a three-page letter back, rambling on about all the great Prefects she'd read about in the past like Ferdinand Pratt and Tom Riddle and even Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore themselves, and gleefully cheering about how great of a Prefect Carewyn would be.
Really, though, Carewyn, I can't think of anyone who could be a better Prefect than you. You've always been good at looking after other people, way more than any of us other Slytherin girls. (I mean, really, could you imagine Liz or Ismelda as Prefect? Or Merula? Yikes!!) Not to mention you always look after the little guy -- not just Ben, but younger students too. Like Bill does! And well, clearly even Professor SNAPE sees it, from the looks of it!
And well, even when Rowan felt some resentment about how popular Carewyn had become over the years, she'd never wanted Carewyn to make herself smaller for the sake of her feelings. When Carewyn had finally told Rowan how much she'd wished she could be like Rowan and just focus on clubs and classes instead of running around playing hero, Rowan had responded with compassion.
ââŠIâm sorry, Carewyn. Iâm sorry you havenât been able to do those things.â
Now it was Carewyn who was sorry. She was sorry Rowan wasn't able to do all the things she wanted.
âBut you know...just now â you talking about putting all of your dreams aside, so that you could make sure your brotherâs in them? âŠI reckon it made me admire you even more than I ever haveâŠever since the day we met.â
Jacob was safe now. Carewyn herself was safe now. With R gone, her wicked grandfather in Azkaban, and the Cursed Vaults dealt with, Carewyn's future was now wide open to do as she pleased. Just like how she'd always wanted. She could finally live the life of a normal student...
A student like Rowan...
And so Carewyn forced back her tears, turning to the door of her room even as the owl finally finished cleaning its feathers in the window and took off again.
She would live her last year at Hogwarts the way Rowan would've. The way she should've. And then she would chase her dream of being the best lawyer she possibly could be, with just as much single-minded determination as Rowan had always chased hers to teach.
That would be Carewyn's final gift to her best friend -- the thing she could do to make Rowan truly proud of her.
x~x~x~x~x
Once Carewyn had composed herself, she told her mother Lane the news. Lane was so proud that once she stopped hugging her daughter, she immediately set about making some chocolate chip pikelets to celebrate. Carewyn then sent a letter each to Jacob and Bill. Jacob proceeded to brag about it to absolutely everyone he collided with at the Three Broomsticks, customer or otherwise -- Bill wasn't too far behind him, though he restrained himself to just sending excited letters to both Charlie and his parents. Before long, all of Carewyn's friends were sending her letters, cards, and gifts of congratulations. The most fun gift was Jacob coming home with a whole barrel of salted-caramel-spiced Butterbeer he and Rosmerta had mixed up specially for Carewyn...but the most meaningful one ironically enough came from Carewyn's dormmate Ismelda Murk.
Hey, Cromwell,
Merula told me you scored Head Girl. Can't say I'm surprised.
I planned to give this to you at school, but I reckon this really is the proper time, given how much Rowan wanted to be Head Girl. She lent this to me only a few days before she died after she learned I lost my Slytherin one. I kind of stuffed it into the bottom of my trunk so I couldn't look at it and only just found it again after unpacking for summer break. It's colorful and dorky, but hey...so was she.
Make Rowan proud, Cromwell. You know the entire Circle of Khanna will hold you accountable if you don't!
Ismelda
P.S. Congrats too, I guess.
Enclosed was a very familiar colorfully striped scarf: the exact same scarf Carewyn had seen Rowan wear whenever it was cold, since their very first year.
âIâve got to go meet up with my parents at Twilfit and Tattings â Mum said I could buy something special, to wear to school. I was thinking Iâd get something scholarly â something that says Iâm a serious student, that I intend to work really hard and learn a lot! Like a cool hat! Or maybe a sweater, a really serious kindâŠâ
ââŠHow about a scarf? Itâd be practical, since it could keep you warmâŠbut if itâs colorful, it can help you stand out and make a good first impression.â
âThatâs a great idea!â
Carewyn wore Rowan's old scarf the day she returned to Hogwarts that year as Head Girl...and indeed, Dumbledore did compliment the striking fashion choice.
The Order of the Phoenix had known about the group called "Dumbledore's Army" since it was first formed in October 1995. One of their own members, Mundungus Fletcher, had followed Harry and the other students into the Hog's Head that day in disguise as an old woman and ended up hearing the whole thing. Unfortunately Fletcher hadn't been the only person snooping: petty criminal Willy Widdershins had also been in the dirty old pub, and he immediately went scampering off to Umbridge to let her know what he'd heard. And so from that meeting on, the group went underground.
Now for most of the Order of the Phoenix, the knowledge of a secret student organization forming with Harry in charge was anxiety-inducing. All of them knew how much Fudge was looking for an excuse to expel Harry from school, and without his wand and without Dumbledore's protection, Harry would be even more vulnerable when Voldemort came after him. There were a few Order members that were proud of what Harry was doing, though. Of course Harry's godfather Sirius Black was his biggest fan, but Jacob Cromwell and Nymphadora Tonks also passionately supported Harry's decision.
"Hey, that old fink Umbridge wasn't doing her job to teach her classes, someone had to step up and make sure those students learned something," Jacob said coolly.
Tonks nodded. "Look, I'm not trying to have a go at the staff...but since the adults in their lives weren't giving them what they needed, we can't really be surprised that Harry and the others decided to go get it themselves."
Even the more level-headed Remus Lupin had to agree with this.
"They're right, Molly," he said softly. "As risky as Harry's and his friends' activity is, this is their answer to our fight. Same as Jacob and his friends dealt with Hogwarts's Cursed Vaults during the First War," he nodded to Jacob, "or his sister Carewyn and her friends took over breaking their curses, in his stead," he glanced at Tonks. "Harry and the others are too young to fight in the War itself, but their education is another battlefield this War is being fought on...so they've elected to fight back."
When Dumbledore's Army was discovered by Umbridge in April 1996, however, the fallout was worse than anyone could've predicted. Harry avoided getting expelled, thank goodness, but Dumbledore had been forced to take all the blame and then flee the school, admittedly after giving Fudge and his support staff a good trouncing. This, however, put Umbridge in charge as Hogwarts's new Headmistress and the school itself without Dumbledore's protection. To make things harder for Arthur and Molly Weasley in particular, their twin sons Fred and George physically withdrew themselves from school in order to evade unjust punishment from Umbridge. It was the day after the Weasley twins left Hogwarts that the Order of the Phoenix â sans Dumbledore â met at 12 Grimmauld Place for a meeting. The hope was to reassert the group's shared purpose and come together to take the next steps in protecting Harry from Voldemort.
What it did, instead, though, was put to light just how many cracks were in the group's ranks.
Jacob arrived slightly late to the meeting. When he strolled in, he already found Sirius, Lupin, and Tonks sitting at the far left end, with Arthur, Severus Snape, and Mad-Eye Moody sitting on the right. Molly was currently standing since she was clearing some dishes: at the sight of Jacob, she tried to greet him warmly.
"Oh, Jacob, dear...glad you made it. Here â I set aside a plate for you...be sure to eat it before it gets cold â "
"Thanks," Jacob said a bit uncomfortably, "but Pip already stuffed me full of waffles before I left the Ministry." Sensing Molly was going to argue, he cut her off by saying, "I'll eat it for supper later. Thank you."
To make his point, he even conjured up some tinfoil and magically wrapped it around the plate.
Molly reluctantly accepted this and went back to clearing the rest of the table. Jacob sidled into the seat on the other side of Sirius: the older man gave him a small smirk.
"So? Anything exciting happen at the Ministry today?"
"Besides bumping into old Lucius Malfoy downstairs again?" said Jacob. "Sadly no. Couldn't even get away with threatening his Death Eater arse too badly, let alone give him the curse to the face he deserved."
Sirius snorted. "At least you were able to do more than clean up hippogriff spit-up today. Though I did leave the bit on my dear old mum's frame: I reckoned it adds character."
"Matches her charming personality," Jacob said sarcastically as he and Sirius exchanged rather wicked smirks.
"You said you saw Lucius Malfoy, Jacob?" Arthur took interest at once.
Jacob turned to the Weasley patriarch with a more serious expression. "...Yeah. He claimed he was there to meet with Fudge after the Wizengamot had finished meeting, but I knew that was bullâŠPip told me Fudge has had to skip out on his usual Wizengamot duties thanks to how much old Umbitch has been monopolizing his time.â
Lupinâs eyebrows rose with interest. âReally?â
He glanced at Snape, who had likewise cocked his brows, but far more cynically.
âOur new Headmistress,â the word left the Potionsmasterâs lips with notable disdain, âhas sought out some assistance in punishing student misbehaviors. I gather from Minerva that the only reason your sons didnât get expelled and then subsequently arrested on trumped-up charges of unlawful magic earlier today,â his black eyes flitted over to Arthur and Molly, who both shot up straight-backed, âis that Cromwellâs sister shot down the feasibility of Umbridgeâs entire legal argument.â
The Weasleys both gave a shared exhale of relief, Arthur giving Mollyâs hand on his shoulder a tight squeeze. Jacob leaned back in his chair with his arms resting behind his curly head, looking incredibly proud.
âThatâs our Carey!â said Tonks with a huge grin at both Jacob and Moody. The grizzled ex-Auror nodded.
âYour boys were lucky, Arthur,â he said gruffly. âHopefully theyâll use their new-found independence to help the cause in more ways than just shooting off magic sparklers.â
He then turned to the others assembled.
âThis actually leads into the subject of our meeting nicely. With Professor Dumbledore now having to stay under the radar for a while, we will need to ensure the safety of both Potter and the Hall of Prophecies more than ever.â
Siriusâs gray eyes immediately flashed at Snape.
âRight. Which reminds me, Snape â care to explain to everybody why you put an end to Harryâs lessons?â
The rest of the table gave a start. Lupin shot Sirius an extremely aggravated look: clearly he had not wanted Sirius to come at the issue this aggressively. Snape himself only gave the slightest flicker of a reaction: a chilling of his usual stoic expression.
âPotter has learned more than enough in his lessons with me,â he said very icily. âI see no need to put further effort into a boy too lazy to practice.â
âSeverus,â said Molly, her brow creasing with immense disapproval, âProfessor Dumbledore said it was essential that Harry learn Occlumency! Harry is a good studentâŠIâm sure if heâs having trouble with the material, there must be another approach â â
âOcclumency is not a complex concept,â Snape said dully. âBoth Cromwells studied Occlumency with me, and they both got farther in one week than Potter has gotten in monthsâŠand this is even while both of them were obnoxiously over-emotional children.â His eyes flitted briefly toward Jacob, who only shrugged amusedly. âThe younger Cromwell was even the same age exactly as Potter is now, come to think of it.â
âYeahâŠbut even Carey told me once sheâs better at Legilimency than Occlumency,â Tonks interjected. âShe said that Occlumency involves a lot of compartmentalizing and depersonalization â forcing yourself not to feel, even when you feel really deeply. I could see Harry having trouble with thatâŠI probably would too!â
âOf course Pip finds Legilimency easier â sheâs been doing it subconsciously since she was a baby,â said Jacob. âBoth of us were born with that potential. But Snape does have a point: Occlumency requires regular practice to master. Itâs like learning how to sing. If Potter isnât practicing the techniques on his own or warming up beforehand, then he wonât amount to much.â
âBut Harry was also not born with the natural talent for mind-related magic that you and Carewyn were,â Lupin reproached Jacob gently. âNo student can successfully practice something they havenât mastered under a teacherâs tutelage firstâŠâ He glanced at Snape with a much harder expression. âAnd regardless of what you feel about Harry on a personal level, Severus, Professor Dumbledore impressed upon all of us the importance of him learning OcclumencyâŠyou more than anyone.â
âThe way I carry out my orders is for me alone to determine, Lupin,â Snape shot back. âI will not teach a student too lazy and arrogant to put in the work needed to succeed. Perhaps if Potter comes back to me ready to actually follow instructions, then a compromise can be reached. If Potter is unwilling to register the seriousness of the matter and put in the work needed to keep the Dark Lord from his mind, then on his head be it.â
âThe problem with that is that it would not be just on Potterâs head, but on all of ours, Snape,â Moody growled. âLest we forget that Potter has heard plenty of things that Voldemort would find very, very usefulâŠabout all of us.â
The table went silent. Moodyâs magical blue eye swiveled over all of them before landing on Snape again.
âYou will follow Dumbledoreâs orders, Snape â as all of us will. And anyone with a tie to Potter,â he shot a beady eye at both Sirius and Lupin in particular, âmust be ready to convince him to do the same. Dumbledore wants Potter to learn Occlumency. That sadly requires both a willing teacher and student.â
âRemus and I have already told Harry he needs to learn Occlumency, Mad-Eye,â said Sirius. His fists were balled up on the table in frustration. âWeâve told him thereâs nothing more important. Harryâs a smart kid â he knows itâs not good that Voldemort can see his thoughts. But he canât be expected to learn a damn thing from an insecure prat who's determined to treat him like rubbish â â
âSirius â â Lupin tried to urge caution, but Snape interrupted.
âWhat I'm doing is refusing to coddle him the way you and Lupin always have, Black. Potter has been shown more than enough favoritism, same as his father, and rest assured, the Dark Lord will show him none of it.â
âFavoritism?â Tonks repeated with an incredulous smile. âLike what, getting thrown off your Quidditch team for no reason, being banned from Hogsmeade, and having your hand cut open on the daily just because some sadistic old cat-lady hates you? Come off it, Snape!â
âJust because You-Know-Who will treat Harry badly doesnât mean we should,â said Arthur. Although Lupin failed to completely bite back a smile at Tonks's words, Arthur remained completely serious. âMolly was right before, Severus: there has to be a better approach. Maybe you and Jacob could teach Harry together? You seem to know a lot about the subject, Jacob â â
Jacob burst out laughing. âWhat, you think Snape here would allow me in his classroom any more than I already have been? Sorry, Arthur â not happening.â
âEven if I hated myself enough to elicit support in my lessons from the likes of Jacob Cromwell,â Snape said through a cold leer, âDolores Umbridge detests Carewyn, only slightly less than the other way around. She would sooner hire a werewolf to teach classes before taking on her brother.â
Snape sneered at Lupin. Although Lupin didnât rise to the bait, Sirius did.
"Don't take pot shots at professors who earned more esteem and respect from their students and coworkers in a single year than you got in fifteen, Snivallus -- "
"We are getting off-topic," Moody shut this down tersely.
"Yes," said Molly, her eyes flitting reproachfully between both Sirius and Snape. "I believe we've had quite enough squabbling. We're here to do what Professor Dumbledore has told us to do...to determine how best to protect Harry from You-Know-Who."
"Seems to me that might be part of the problem."
Everyone looked at Jacob in surprise and confusion. Jacob leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.
"What?" said Molly, startled.
"Doing what Dumbledore told us to do," Jacob said in a very matter-of-fact sort of voice. "We're assuming that that's synonymous with keeping Potter and everyone else safe, when it's not."
Everyone at the table looked unsettled by this.
"Jacob..." started Lupin, but Jacob cut him off.
"Dumbledore's wanted to keep this whole prophecy thing secret from Potter from the beginning. But old Dumble's not at Hogwarts now -- he can't take care of the school or any of its students, let alone Potter. And if Potter hasn't been practicing Occlumency regularly, that puts him at more risk than ever. We can't keep this from him anymore: he needs to know the extent of the danger he's in â "
"No!" Molly interjected, her voice betraying a higher pitch of both righteous anger and anxiety.
"Dumbledore explicitly ordered that Harry would not be told, Jacob," said Arthur in a sterner-sounding voice. "It's too dangerous."
"More dangerous than the kid walking around blindly?" Jacob argued. "Be serious. The only support from the Order that Potter's got left at school are Snape, McGonagall, and Hagrid...and forgive me if I don't expect Hagrid will be spared from Umbridge's reign of terror much longer. Therefore you," he glanced at Snape, "and McGonagall are the only ones left who can tell Potter the truth he needs to protect himself."
"What Potter needs to protect himself is to do what Dumbledore instructed him to do and properly learn Occlumency," Moody said sharply. "Only then can we ensure Voldemort has no eye into our affairs. Anything any of us might tell Potter could be easily intercepted by Voldemort, if he doesn't learn to shut him out."
"Aren't you usually the one crowing about 'constant vigilance?'" Jacob challenged him without backing down in the slightest. "How the hell can Potter be vigilant in protecting himself if he doesn't know what Lord Moldy Shorts is up to?"
"Jacob has a point, Mad-Eye," Tonks said in a bracing sort of voice. "I'm no expert in Divination or anything...but well, if the prophecy we've been guarding is about Harry and You-Know-Who, maybe there is some value to Harry learning what's in it. Then maybe Harry would know enough to counteract it, or..."
"Bear in mind that in arguing for Potter to be told of the prophecy, you are deigning to insinuate that you're a wiser person and mage than Albus Dumbledore," Snape murmured coldly.
Tonks faltered. Jacob, however, did not.
"In this situation? Yeah, I reckon so."
Arthur's brows came together reproachfully. "Jacob..."
"Maybe you all have forgotten this," Jacob spoke much more coldly than before, "but when I was at school, I got roped into marching to my psychotic grandfather's drum against my will, and that resulted in the oh-so-wise Albus Dumbledore expelling me, rather than doing anything useful to help my friends, my family, or me."
His skull-like blue eyes flashed with contempt upon Snape.
"I know full well what it's like being a little teenage puppet yanked around on strings by some evil old geezer with no idea why or any real control over my life. And you damn well know my sister knows that feeling too, Snape, given you were her Head of House -- thanks in no small part to Dumbledore deciding not to tell her anything about what happened to Olivia, Ashe, or me."
"Don't blame Dumbledore alone for that, Cromwell," said Snape, "you kept more from your sister and mother than he ever did."
Jacob bared his teeth a bit. "Maybe...but I actually figured out how wrong I was to keep secrets from the people I care about and am trying to do better. Something old Dumb-Dumb hasn't bothered to do."
The ex-Ravenclaw looked from Sirius and Lupin to Tonks, seeking support.
"I know everyone at this table wants to protect Potter...but knowledge is power. Knowledge is protection. So what if Voldemort finds out Potter and we know what he's up to? What harm could that really cause? But what if the opposite happens? What if, while Potter is not using Occlumency successfully, Voldemort gets into his head the way we fear and uses what he finds against Potter? Uses it to get him alone, outside of school, and there's no way we can get there in time to help him? No one can fight off an advance properly without knowing who their enemy is. So it was when Carewyn, the Circle of Khanna, and I fought R, so it is now that we're fighting Voldemort."
Tonks opened her mouth to say something, but Lupin spoke first.
"Jacob, I understand Harry's situation has a lot of parallels to yours and Carewyn's. But we don't know the contents of the prophecy â Dumbledore does. And as much as you might not trust Dumbledore, we all do. If he doesn't believe Harry is ready to know its contents, we must respect that."
"No, we don't â " Jacob argued, but Moody had heard enough.
"Jacob, you chose to join the Order of the Phoenix after correctly assessing that it was better to fight Voldemort's rise together than hold onto old grudges. Your sister has been balancing much more precariously on the edge by refusing to properly join and fight the way she should, but at least she's not suggesting contradicting her direct superior's orders. Albus Dumbledore may not be able to be physically here at this moment, but he is still the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, and it behooves us to stay in ranks until he returns to Hogwarts. And judging by the fact that no Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher has lasted for more than a year in ages..." Moody smirked, "...my Death Eater replacement included...I have more than enough faith Umbridge will be on her way out quite soon."
Jacob looked disgusted. "So you'll just cross your fingers and pray Voldemort ignores how easy it is to get into Potter's head? Even if Hogwarts does retain all of his protective charms after his departure...you really think Voldemort won't take advantage of the fact that Dumbledore's not there to try anything?!"
"No, we will do what we can to restart the lessons Dumbledore ordered Potter should take," Moody said harshly. âAnd we will keep a closer eye on both Potter and the Hall of Prophecies, to ensure the first doesnât seek out the second.â
He shot a look at Sirius. "Considering Potter seems to have some secretive way of getting in touch with you enough to still tell you things, Sirius, I'll leave it to you to convince him...in whatever way Dumbledore would most approve of," he added pointedly. "After all, you do always seem to be itching to do something useful for the Order. This is your chance."
Sirius frowned deeply as Moody turned to Snape.
"And as soon as Potter comes back to you, Snape, I expect you to stop using your lessons as an excuse to mistreat him. Just because Carewyn Cromwell was stoic enough to tolerate your teaching style without complaint doesn't mean everyone else is going to be. Adapt your teaching style to the student you've got. That's even something a mentor in the Auror Department learns how to do, I'm sure a long-tenured professor like you can figure it out."
Snape regarded Moody with visible contempt, but didn't argue the point. Jacob had slouched back in his chair, his hand resting over his mouth as he stared in aggravation up at Moody. The ex-Auror met his gaze head-on without blinking.
"This meeting is adjourned," he said. "We'll be in touch."
One by one the table's occupants left. Jacob didn't get up until after Snape, Arthur, Molly, Lupin, and Tonks had already left; when he did, both of Moody's eyes, crazy blue and normal brown, went to him like a shot.
"Jacob," he said, "I know you and your sister have a lot of resentment still for Albus Dumbledore. But I also know that you both know how much bigger this is than that. We must be vigilant: we can't afford to have dissolution in our ranks. The Death Eaters are not going to break ranks...they'll follow Voldemort until either he wins or he falls, without question. If we don't do the same, they'll pick us apart until there's no one left."
"Not exactly inspiring me to want to not break ranks, Mad-Eye, if it means I'll be acting just like old Voldie's gang of yes-men," Jacob muttered coldly.
He got up from his chair. When he made as if to go, though, Moody actually tried to grab his shoulder â Jacob, however, sensed the move before Moody made it with his Legilimency, and he dodged him with a glare. Amazingly this seemed to make the slightest wry smile flicker over the ex-Auror's face before he then became more serious again.
"Don't do anything reckless, Jacob," Moody whispered. "This whole situation is not something that could be explained succinctly...especially when we don't know the vast majority of what the situation is, to begin with."
His brown eye actually narrowed a bit more solemnly.
"Remember yourself, at that age. If all someone told you was that there was a prophecy with your name on it at the Department of Mysteries, are you sure you wouldn't immediately barrel into danger to try to figure out what it said?"
Jacob stared Moody down out the side of his eye for a long moment. Then, adjusting the collar of his tan robes, he glanced at Sirius one last time and headed out without another word.
Even with how quickly he strode out of the room and then Grimmauld Place itself, Jacob's mind was whirling faster still.
"Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light --
You'll come back when it's over:
No need to say goodbye..."
~"The Call" by Regina Spektor
x~x~x~x~x
quick reference to Lugh Hopper @thatravenpuffwitch
x~x~x~x~x
Jacob received many packages from Mia during both the Second Wizarding War and its aftermath. While he was traveling the world, he received those packages in the enchanted inbox in his portable room-in-a-briefcase: Miaâs coded letters and fresh pastries always brought some sunshine to the less exciting and glamorous parts of Jacobâs travels.
Indisputably the best gift Mia ever sent to Jacobâs inbox, however, arrived late on the night of 15 December 2000. It was a small box with a letter written in tiny writing on the stamp. Only when Jacob used Engorgio on the entire box was the writing readable â
Jacob,
Your Christmas gift is inside this cabinet. If you get stuck, Apparate back to wherever you are right now, outside your portable room-in-a-suitcase. Then write back to me immediately.
Hope to see you soon.
Mia
When Jacob unwrapped the larger package, he found a Vanishing Cabinet. Frowning in confusion, he tucked both of his wands in his pockets, stepped inside, and closed the door. Almost as soon as the door snapped shut, the Carpenters Christmas record heâd been playing in his room-in-a-suitcase went silent. Instead there was another odd sound: something like the distant chattering and murmuring of dozens of people.
Jacob slowly inched the door back open with a creak. To his surprise, he found himself not in his room, but instead inside what looked like a neatly-kept guestroom bathed in the sunlight streaming in through the window.
And as he inched his way out, looking around, he heard the sound of what sounded like rapid footsteps racing up some stairs. A moment later, Mia Flume had appeared in the door frame of the guest room, her face very white: at the sight of him, Mia beamed from ear to ear. Jacob meanwhile was left gawking at her, his face over-bright with emotion and awe.
âMiâŠyouâŠhow did youâŠ?â
âDraco Malfoy used a matched pair of Vanishing Cabinets to get into Hogwarts,â Mia explained. âI thought maybe if that connection could overrule Dumbledoreâs magic, maybe it could overrule physical distance as well. I had to contact Professor Slughorn for a good contact with experience in selling and maintaining magical home decor, and he and I had to strengthen the connection with extra spellwork for the last three months, butâŠâ
Mia felt her cheeks flush.
ââŠThis wayâŠyou and your sister can have something youâve wanted for years. A wardrobe that can take you home, when your adventures are through.â
Jacob couldnât stop staring. All he could was wordlessly stare at his own hand on the door, then at the cabinetâs interior, then at the guest room ceiling. His silence made Miaâs confidence falter slightly.
âYou donât have to keep it here. Both of the cabinets are yours. I just know youâve said your mother and sister have very small homes, so they might not have space for you to crash on short noticeâŠand well, Mum specifically keeps this room made up for guests, so itâd be no trouble if you want to use it.â
Jacob still didnât speak. His hand on the door was shaking.
âJacobâŠ?â
As soon as Mia approached, Jacob whirled on her, his pale face overcome with tears as he stared at her.
âMiâŠâ his face was spread with a strained smile. ââŠI really am a complete idiot, arenât I?â
Once heâd gotten a good enough look at her to know she wouldnât pull away, he threw an arm around her and pulled her into the biggest hug. Soon he was laughing, and Mia laughed too as she hugged him back.
âYou scared me for a minute!â she scolded him good-naturedly. âI thought you didnât like it!â
Jacob choked through his laughter. âLike it!? Like it!? MiâŠof course I like it! I loveâŠâ
He faltered, squeezing her a bit tighter. Then, after heâd collected himself enough to push back his tears, he spoke a bit more softly.
âMi?â
âYeah?â
âYouâŠknow how I feel about youâŠright?â
Mia looked at him. Jacob was so uncomfortable and guilty he could barely look her in the face.
âReckon Iâm probably the last to figure out Iâve even got feelings, as to be expected,â he muttered. âIt was the same way with AsheâŠâ
The thought of Ashe brought a spark of awareness back to his eyes; he quickly looked at Mia with a much more anxious look in his eye.
âIf the way I feelâŠif anything Iâve done or anything I might do or say upsets you, just tell me and I promise, Iâll shut up and never say a word of it again.â His face was strained with a very weak smile. âYouâre my friend, and if thatâs all you want, thatâs fine. Itâs more than fine. I get it, Fortescue was your one and only, and I could never replace him â IâŠâ
Jacob sensed Mia was going to interrupt him, so he stopped talking before sheâd even opened her mouth. Smiling wryly, Mia brought up a hand and rested it on his shoulder near his neck.
âFirst of all, stop beating yourself up. Youâre not that late in figuring it out.â
Mia felt her cheeks burning again, and it made her avert her gaze. Her green eyes ran over Jacobâs lips absently as her thumb brushed over his collarbone.
âSecondâŠâ she murmured. âI do know. How weâŠboth feel.â
Jacobâs lips parted with a slight intake of breath.
âOr at least, I hoped we didâŠuntil right now.â Miaâs heart was pounding hard in her ears as she tried to keep her composure. âI know you want to travel. I know youâre happy traveling, just as much as Iâm happy being here, running the shop. âŠBut IâŠI love it when youâre here too. I love when you bring things back from your travels and tell me about all the amazing stuff you've seen. I love when we get to do things togetherâŠthings I only just recently realized are things I probably wouldâve done with Florean if he were here. Things you mightâve done with Duncan -- things that we wouldâve done with them, had the world been a more just place. And yet, youâve been here for those things, for me, and thatâŠit means the world to me. YouâŠmean a lot to me.â
There was a pause. Then Mia's head abruptly snapped up and she held up a strict, reproachful finger as she stared Jacob down fiercely.
âIf weâre going to do anything about how we feel, though, you need to understand I want something serious, not a casual fling.â
Jacob looked taken aback. âWell, yeah! Obviously.â
âI expect marriage at some point. Maybe next year, if all goes well.â
âThat'd be cool.â
âI also want kids. And an active partner in raising them, not some absent, fly-by-night leech who canât even change a diaper â â
âI changed Pipâs diapers more than our old man ever did, so no worries there,â Jacob shot back rather coolly.
His expression then betrayed something more vulnerable.
ââŠI admit, I havenât dwelled much on kidsâŠonly with Ashe, and just the once.â He frowned deeply as he glanced up at the ceiling thoughtfully. âI dunno how Iâd really beâŠhopefully more like Lugh or your dad, rather than my old man.â He fought back a grimace as he faced Mia more seriously. âBut...if we ever did have kids together...I can promise you this: I will do whatever I have to do, so they can live free and happy. Even if I have to travel a lot, and even if I can get stuck in my head and be stupid about what people wantâŠeven if I have to stand up to the Cromwell Clan all over again, or if I have to fight another whole Wizarding WarâŠâ
His skull-like blue eyes blazed like a pair of steadfast, passionate stars.
ââŠIâd move Heaven and Earth for them. Because all I've ever wanted is to make my family proud, and ensure their happiness. If you want to be part of my familyâŠthen that goes for you too. All of you. Your sisters, your mum, Olin and Skylar, Ambrosius...even Fortescue's grandpa! Any kids too, if we have âem. Hell, even Fortescue! Just because he's no longer here doesn't mean I can't work to make him proud, like I do with Ashe and Lugh. Because...well, you're my family. And like Mum told Pip and me when we were kids, family's built on love, not blood.â He smiled. â...Even if things don't go the way they should...as long as that's true, I reckon we'll be fine.â
Mia felt herself choking up a bit despite herself. She squeezed his shoulder that bit more tightly, her head bowing; sensing the move, Jacob shifted around to âcatchâ her head in the crook of his neck, holding the back of her head in his hand.
âI do expect to keep my surname if we marry, as well,â Mia sniffed.
âGood!â Jacob laughed. âIâve already said that the only good Cromwells are my mum and Pip.â Something mischievous migrated over his face as he cradled Miaâs head beside his. âMaybe Iâll even take your surname! Thatâd be a fun way to piss off old uncle Blaise.â
Mia laughed. âAw, but if you do that, I won't be able to call you 'Cromwell' anymore when I'm cross with you!â
Jacob's grin broadened as he propped his forehead beside hers. âYou still can, if you want. That surname is worthy of being cross with.â
Mia's eyes glittered like peridot gems as she brought a hand up along Jacob's bearded cheek. She knew he could sense her move to kiss him long before she made it, and sure enough, it resulted in their lips meeting in the exact middle.
"She took my arm -- I don't know how it happened --
We took the floor and she said,
'Oh, don't you dare look back:
Just keep your eyes on me.'
I said, 'You're holding back.'
She said, 'Shut up and dance with me!'"
~"Shut Up and Dance With Me" by Walk the Moon
x~x~x~x
Over the course of 1999 and 2000, Jacob Cromwell came back to London several times. Whenever he returned to the United Kingdom, he met up with his old war associate, Mia Flume, and the two would go on little "adventures" around Mia's long, diligent hours running Honeydukes Sweetshop. Here is a list of just some of the "firsts" Mia and Jacob Cromwell shared together in that time --
Mia attended her first Muggle theatrical production with Jacob -- a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream put on by a youth theater outside Westminster -- just before the end of summer. This night was also the first time the two ever cooked together (a rather tasty Lancanshire Hotpot), as well as Mia's first time trying gelato. She cried most of the time she ate it remembering Florean, so Jacob brought an supportive arm around her and squeezed her up against his side to show her support.
Not long after, Mia attended a court hearing for the first time with Jacob. This particular first time was for the trial of Amycus Carrow, where Mia and Jacob were both called up as witnesses. This was also the first time Mia met Jacob's little sister Carewyn Cromwell, who was the Ministry of Magic's Chief Prosecutor. The young witch came across as remarkably intimidating on the stand despite her small frame and ladylike demeanor. Even off the stand, Mia felt like Carewyn was examining her critically as Jacob introduced them. She wondered if Carewyn's Legilimency made her prone to scrutinizing everyone upon first meeting, or whether it was just because she was a lawyer. Carewyn must have sensed this particular thought off of Mia, but it didn't seem to displease her: instead it made her smile. She also made it a point to thank Mia for the birthday cake she'd made one year for her.
Jacob went on his first dog walk with Mia and Ambrosius in October. Jacob had never owned a dog at any point in his life: cats he was a bit more used to since his mother Lane and sister Carewyn had both owned cats (even Carewyn's new ward Erik had a cat familiar), and he'd also owned owls, but dogs were an animal he had little instincts for. Fortunately even if Ambrosius didn't remember Jacob from his human life, the greyhound took to him quite well, especially once Jacob figured out he liked to run. Before long, Jacob and Ambrosius were running in full circles around the block so they could catch up with Mia walking at a leisurely pace beside them. Jacob also then went shopping in Diagon Alley on his own for the first time since the War to buy a Christmas gift for Ambrosius: a collar magically bonded to a bracelet Mia could wear and would let out warning pings if Ambrosius got too far away from her.
Later that month, Mia threatened someone bodily harm for the first time. The "someone" in question was Alecto Carrow, right after her trial: while being led away by some Aurors, the Death Eater had caught sight of the Flumes with Jacob and foolishly decided to taunt Mia, asking if she could "play with her wittle puppy" some more. In a flare of overprotectiveness, Mia got right up in Alectoâs face â wand raised and burning with red cinders â and hissed at the Death Eater if she ever came near Miaâs family again, she would pray for the safety of Azkaban prison. Jacob then for the first time in his life had to play peacekeeper by holding Mia back as Alecto was dragged away by the Aurors, even though he too glared menacingly at Alecto's retreating back.
Mia went shopping at a Muggle shopping district for the first time with Jacob at the tail end of December 1999. Jacob was determined to show Mia the Covent Garden Christmas Market decorations before they got torn down, since she'd never seen them. She was so inspired by the beauty of the twinkling lights and giant bells that she made a series of red and green jelly candies shaped like bells, dusted with sugar and gold glitter, and charmed to jingle when jostled around. These "Jelly Bells" would soon be mass-produced and sold at Honeydukes Sweetshop every holiday season.
Jacob attended his first New Year's Eve party with Mia at Tia's new house in Yorkshire. Ironically the house wasn't too far away from the Cromwell Clan's old estate, which Jacob found really funny. He even got Mia's nephews Olin and Skylar Cresswell to help him throw up a couple extra Fillibuster Fireworks into the sky, in the hopes that the Weasleys' rockets popping and crackling over the old Manor house might disrupt Blaise Cromwell's evening. Jenie, Tia, and Mia all scolded the three for the impulse, but Mia bit back a slightly wry smile despite herself. If nothing else, the fireworks Jacob and her nephews set off did create a rather pretty display...and the thought of not just a new year, but a new millennium, felt like something worth celebrating fully and loudly.
Mia and Jacob both visited their first karaoke bar for Mia's birthday that January. Mia went first with a jazzy rendition of Stevie Wonder's Superstition. Jacob shot back with Whitney Houston's And I Will Always Love You. They then alternated over the course of the next two hours with more of their respective favorites: Heard It Through the Grapevine by Marvin Gaye, S.O.S. by ABBA, 1999 by the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham!, and so on. Both Jacob and Mia got hit on by various people at the bar between songs until one particularly drunk bloke got so handsy with Mia that it nearly sparked a fight and Mia forcibly yanked Jacob out of the bar after her. The still slightly tipsy duo then sang the old Hogwarts school song together as they walked off into the night, back toward the street so they could hail the Knight Bus.
Jacob went to his first Quidditch match with Mia that summer. He had been complaining to Mia about Carewyn dating this "dumb jock" off-and-on for the last few months in his letters, until Mia finally put him in his place by challenging him to actually watch a Quidditch match and see how "dumb" Quidditch players really are. As luck (or perhaps fate) would have it, they ended up at a match between the Montrose Magpies and their old rival, the Kenmare Kestrals. And from where they sat in the stands, the two had a really good view of the Kestrals' goal, where their Keeper was sideswiped a total of 100 times from the Magpies' Captain, who turned out to be none other than Carewyn Cromwell's "dumb jock" boyfriend, Orion Amari. He surfed on the back of his broom nearly the entire time, and he blindsided the Keeper with weird techniques like obscuring which player held the Quaffle and bouncing the ball off the neighboring hoops to score. Jacob still stubbornly refused to praise Orion by the end of the match, but Mia was able to get him to concede that there was some strategy involved in the game, more than just chucking balls around and knocking people off their brooms. Jacob even contemplated out loud if there might be any good Quidditch strategy books he could get for Olin as a Christmas gift.
Mia visited Hogwarts's Forbidden Forest for the first time with Jacob in late July 2000. She had elected to take Muggle Studies over Care of Magical Creatures at school, and she would've never chosen to go into the Forest against school rules, so she'd never had much reason to go before. But when Hagrid asked Jacob to help him make something for the Hogwarts centaur herd as a gift, Jacob recruited Mia to help, and the three came together to make several loafs of fresh apple bread (one of which Hagrid took home, but the rest went to the herd). While in the Forest, Mia was fortunate enough to not only formally meet Jacob's old friend Torvus and Hogwarts's secondary Divination professor Firenze, but she also got to see Florean's personal favorite creature: a unicorn. When she got back to the shop, she was so inspired that she stayed up all night making a whole batch of cinnamon-sugar unicorn horns to put in the window.
Jacob went out dancing at a nightclub for the first time with Mia. Callie had invited her older sister to the magical Thestral Club back in April 2000, and after a lot of coaxing, Mia finally convinced Jacob to go with her in late August. Jacob was dressed painfully casually and definitely was out of his element, but after Mia playfully teased him about being scared, Jacob followed her onto the floor. Even if he danced like an absolute dork at first to mask his insecurity, Mia's encouragement and mischievous smiles soon got him to loosen up enough that he did try a bit more sincerely. By the end of the night, Jacob had to admit -- he'd had fun!
It was on that night at the Thestral Club -- dancing with Jacob on the dance floor to Whitney Houston and George Michael...seeing him smile so handsomely and bravely despite the awkwardness of his steps...watching him slowly break down the defenses around himself that Mia had hardly known he'd been keeping up -- that Mia thought something for the first time in four years. That maybe...just maybe...she was dancing with someone who loved her.
And the reason she thought this, she now realized with a spasm of both joy and terror...was because that person was someone she'd grown to love a lot herself.
"When you walk away, you don't hear me say,
'Please...oh baby, don't go!'
Simple and clean
Is the way that you're making me feel tonight...
It's hard to let it go..."
~"Simple and Clean" by Hikaru Utada
x~x~x~x~x
Jacob's T-shirt graphic // original background source // edited with help from Lunapic
x~x~x~x~x
The Second Wizarding War was a very traumatic time. By the end of it, Mia Flume had lost her brother-in-law Dirk Cresswell and the love of her life Florian Fortescue, seen her father Ambrosius fully surrender to his Blood Malediction and permanently transform into a greyhound, and watched her shop and childhood home burn to the ground. But even with all of the pain she and her family went through, Mia had also grown a lot as a person. She felt stronger and wiser than when the War had started: less blindly trusting in authority and less rigid in following "the rules" without retrospection. Her relationship with her sister Callie was a lot closer; both the Hogwarts staff and Hogsmeade village celebrated her efforts to send full holiday feasts to the school even while under Death Eater rule; she'd even mended fences with Florean's grandfather Silas Fortescue -- who had always distrusted her -- and now considered him a member of her family.
Hands down, the biggest change in Mia's life, however, was Jacob Cromwell. The man who had once been her school enemy had truly changed Mia more than anyone else ever had in the mere two years they spent working together during the War. He'd gone from someone she distrusted and resented to someone she trusted without question: a comrade who not only understood the depth of her grief losing the man she loved, but who had gone out of his way to protect and help her multiple times at great risk to himself. The two of them had sent so many coded letters and secret messages inside baked goods over those two years that Mia had long since lost count. That reliable stream of messages, as well as the Barbra Streisand and Prince records Jacob had sent Mia one year, had brought comfort to the most sleepless nights during the worst time of Mia's life.
And so when the War ended and Jacob sold his flat, preparing to return to his old life as a traveling vagabond wizard...Mia felt a strange kind of bereavement. It felt like she was standing on some sandy beach, watching a boat sail away into the distance, never to return.
Mia waffled on whether or not to say goodbye to Jacob in person. She had already sent a proper letter, but she wasn't sure if she'd be able to keep it together if she actually had to look him in the eye and say goodbye. And well, Honeydukes had only just fully reopened the same day Jacob was set to depart -- to leave her mother to mind the shop when it was that busy felt wrong. Just like it had felt wrong to leave her parents and the shop when Ambrosius's condition first started worsening, when Mia was in sixth year...just like it had always felt wrong to leave, when she was the only Flume who could stock and run the store in her father's stead...
But as Mia sat behind the desk ringing up orders, her eyes kept drifting to the clock and she kept taking note of how much longer Jacob would be in London. His train was leaving in four hours. Three. Ninety minutes...now an hour. And she kept hesitating.
Mia only snapped out of this trance of inaction by a certain customer coming in. This customer was a short, timid-looking witch with a black bun by the name of Mary Cattermole.
When the little witch came up to the counter with her shopping, she just about burst into tears when she realized who the woman at the register was.
"You're Hermia -- you're Hermia Flume?" she choked, her face stretched into the biggest, most emotional smile. "Miss Flume...my family and I...we owe you so much! All your baked goods...I can't even tell you how much sun they brought us, while we were with Jacob..."
"Jacob?" Mia gave a start. Then her eyes widened. "...You were one of Jacob's families. The ones he hid in his flat."
Mary nodded through her tears. "We spent a week in that room, until we got a way out of the country. All the while, my poor Alfred would get panic attacks, being in such a tight space. Jacob used to take him out into the living room and gave him some of your sweets, whenever he was going through an episode. Used to have him focus just on holding one -- taking note of how it looked, how it smelled, how it felt -- while regulating his breathing...then on how good the spells you put in felt, when he finally ate it. And by the end, he'd always be smiling..."
Mia found herself smiling too. "...Well, I'm glad I could help. And that you and your family are well."
Mary wiped her eyes. "We're glad you are too! I remember hearing about what happened to your store, on Potterwatch..." she glanced up at the new and improved shop with a smile. "You really have done so much for so many people, Miss Flume."
"Thank you," said Mia. As soon as she said it, though, a dark cloud seemed to follow behind, casting a shadow over her gratitude. "...I...couldn't have done any of it without Cromwell's help. I don't even know if I would've done any of it at all, if it hadn't been for him..."
And now he's leaving. Leaving on brand new adventures far away from here, for who knows how long...
Mia's limbs suddenly felt like those of a wind-up toy. She wanted to bolt -- she even shifted around to look out the door, though the view of the bustling Hogsmeade crowds coming into the shop stopped her in her tracks.
She wanted to go. Even if she had sent him a letter already, she wanted to go and tell him again how grateful she was for his help, his support...his friendship throughout the War. She wanted to tell him to come back soon -- that her family would miss him, that she would miss him. But...
"Miss Flume?"
Mia tried to put on her best customer service face for Mary Cattermole. "I'm sorry...just got a bit distracted. Here -- let me ring up your things..."
Mary watched Mia ring up everything with a rather tentative expression. Then, after a moment, she said,
"...You know...my father was a greengrocer." When Mia looked up in surprise, she pushed on a bit more quickly, "He sold produce. I used to work in his shop, over the summer...I know how to use a cash register and how to stock shelves..."
She offered a very weak, but earnest smile.
"If you...have your hands full, taking care of all these customers...I'd be happy to help! For pay, of course. I could even help now, if you'd like...I have nowhere to be today, aside from home for dinner..."
Mia opened her mouth to politely dissuade her. But before she could, something made her pause. A little boy had barreled straight across the shop, straight for the No-Melt ice cream cartons in the display case -- a boy with curly blond hair a lot like Florean's...
"âŠFlorean wouldâve liked this. HeâŠalways said he wished we could take enough time off to visit Italy togetherâŠtry some authentic gelato."
Fresh, aching longing rushed over Mia at the memory of her lost love. She'd wanted to do so much with him...get married, have a family...there'd even been less feasible things like taking a vacation to different countries. Even now, when the War was over, Mia found herself dreaming of even more ridiculous things she would've loved to do with Florean, if he were still there. Go out dancing at a night club...take a boat ride down the River Thames...go to a concert! Make flower crowns in a meadow somewhere...take a Muggle cooking class together...maybe even attend a masquerade, like that one Jacob went to in Italy...
"I wish you couldâve too."
Jacob's words in that moment had held so much more empathy than Mia would've ever imagined he could be capable of, when they were growing up. He was sad that Mia hadn't had the chance to travel with Florean, maybe not as much as she did, but still, he resented it. Probably just as much as he resented not saving Honeydukes, the night of the Death Eaters' attack. He regretted that Mia and Florean hadn't had their happy ending. Mia herself regretted it...regretted it more than anything...
How much more would she come to regret, thanks to her inaction? If she stayed still at Honeydukes that day and decided not to see Jacob off...would she likewise regret that forever?
"âŠMaybe after the War, I could bring you some gelato? You know, when I next come back to London."
And so Mia did something incredibly rash and out-of-character -- she took Mary Cattermole up on her offer to help her mother run the shop in her stead. She (and Jenie, once she figured out what was going on) taught Mary everything she needed to know as fast as possible, and soon Mary was pecking away at the line with amazing precision. Then Mia ran upstairs to change into something more Muggle-worthy. Ambrosius was right at Mia's heels the whole time, his tail wagging. When she reached the base of the staircase again, Mia gave the greyhound a big hug and some ear scratches, instructing him to "sit" and "stay." Then she left the shop, Disapparating to London with a loud CRACK.
~*~
Mia hadn't been to Kings Cross Station since her seventh year of Hogwarts. The train station had understandably changed quite a bit in those last seventeen years, and trying to blend in with crowds of distracted, traveling Muggles was a bit difficult, even while dressed a bit more like them.
It was frankly a miracle that Mia found Jacob's station in enough time. Fortunately when she reached the station, Jacob stuck out like a sore thumb.
"CROMWELL!"
When Jacob looked up and turned around, his skull-like blue eyes lit up at the sight of Mia.
"Mi!"
He met her half-way. It was a bit of a relief for Mia, since she was left panting after only having run half the distance. As soon as she came to a stop, just as she was about to catch her breath, she was startled by Jacob quickly putting down his suitcase so he could take both of her hands and bring them up between them.
"Purse your lips," he said. "If you inhale through your nose, exhale slowly through pursed lips, and push up against me like I'm a wall, that'll help you breathe easier."
Flustered, Mia tried to do what he told her. Placing her palms right against Jacob's, she leaned forward, breathing in through her nose and out through her puckered lips. Sure enough, before long, it did seem to help.
"Better?" asked Jacob.
"Yeah." Mia exhaled a bit more fully. "...Thanks."
She looked up at him. His blue eyes were sparkling with interest.
"You have your hair down."
Mia tucked her blond hair behind her ear self-consciously. "...Well, I'm not working. I'll put it back up, when I'm in the kitchen."
"Reckon you'd have to, yeah," Jacob granted.
There was a pause. It was incredibly uncomfortable for Mia as she tried to collect herself.
"...I...I figured I should...rather, I wanted to...to see you off. Even if I already wrote you a letter, there was...a lot I didn't say. Or accent the importance of. That is...that I'm grateful to you...for everything you've done and...everything you've been. You've been a good man and a good friend to my family and me and...well, it'll be...not the same, when you're gone. And if you...when you...ever come back to London...just know our home will always be open, if you...need a place to crash."
Mia sounded stupid in her own ears. But Jacob clearly wasn't bothered by her lack of eloquence: his face had broken out into a full, handsome grin long before Mia had finished. To Mia's surprise, his eyes were even swimming with traces of tears.
"...That...means a lot, Mi. Thanks."
He picked up his suitcase, smoothing his dark bangs out of his eyes as he collected himself, and held out a hand to her. After the briefest hesitation, Mia put her hand out and Jacob took it, clasping it between them in a rather masculine handshake.
"I liked your letter," he said. "But...I like this better. Seeing the person one more time before I go...that always makes saying goodbye easier."
"Do you know when you'll come back?" Mia asked before she could stop herself.
Jacob shook his head. "I was asked to come and help at a cursebreaking site in Iceland first. After that I promised to check back up on Olympe in France, make sure she's settling in. Pip's said that I also might need to come back to London at some point to give testimony for some trials she's got coming up next year...Corban Yaxley's, for instance," a smirk passed briefly over his expression. "...If all else, though, I'm always home for Christmas. I promised Mum that years ago."
Mia looked down. "...I see."
Her disappointment was so audible that even Jacob didn't miss it. He tried and failed to smile reassuringly -- instead his eyes just drifted down to their hands as they slowly broke apart and then away, back toward the trains.
"Must be exciting." Jacob looked at Mia, and she clarified, "To go back to traveling. I know you missed it, during the War."
Jacob looked away again, back toward the trains.
"...I did, yeah. And it is exciting. It's just this part...always reminds me of Hogwarts."
"Because it's at King's Cross?" Mia guessed.
"That. And..." Jacob paused. He spoke again after a very big swallow. "...And the...leaving. Leaving people behind..."
Mia faltered. Something melancholy passed over Jacob's features.
"I loved Hogwarts," he admitted lowly. "I still do. I love it probably more than any other place I've been to. But even with how much I loved it..." Remorse and pain consumed his face, "...I had to leave Mum and Pip behind. Every single year, I had to go off to this beautiful, wonderful place, where I could be myself for the first time in my life, free and happy with the world and future wide open to me, and yet..."
He swallowed.
"...only I got to go to that place. Only I got to see it. And all while Mum worked two jobs just to support us, and Pip had to deal with stupid plonkers at her school bullying her, all on her own."
His eyes had filled with tears again, but he forced them back.
"All I could do was write letters back to them, to tell them about things -- not everything, of course, but the good stuff. The stuff I wanted so much to share with them, maybe over dinner, the way I used to share my boring Muggle school days before Hogwarts. So many nights in first year I dreamed of using the Floo Network or Apparating home at night, just in time to help Pip and Mum get dinner on the table...at least until I found out the Floo Network doesn't work between countries and that you can't Apparate on Hogwarts grounds. Pip even told me once, when she was little, that she wished she was like the Pevensies -- you know, the kids from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? -- and that she could have a magic wardrobe that she could walk through straight to Hogwarts, where I was. Then she could see all the amazing, magical things I saw too..."
He smiled bitterly.
"...I think back on that a lot, when I'm traveling...wishing I had some Narnian wardrobe in my room-in-a-suitcase that could take me back to London, after my adventuring is through. Then maybe while I'm traveling, I wouldn't feel so..."
"Isolated," finished Mia.
Jacob nodded. Mia looked down at the hand of hers that had previously been holding Jacob's for a moment; then she took a deep breath.
"You have an enchanted mailbox at the Owl Office, right? One that forwards your mail to you while you're traveling?"
"Yeah -- it goes to an inbox in my room-in-a-suitcase. Olympe was the one who finally gave me the kick up the arse to do it."
Mia crossed her arms with a smile. "Well, then, at the very least, I can still keep sending coded care packages. Just for fun, this time. And um..." she hesitated, "...don't forget, you...did promise me some gelato. I won't enjoy it properly once the weather gets colder, so you'd best bring it back before the end of summer. You promise?"
Jacob's face brightened as he beamed.
"...I promise."
"Last Boarding Call, northbound train to Edinburgh -- "
"That's me," said Jacob. "I'd better go..."
Even while saying this, he hesitated after taking a step and looked back.
"Mi?"
"Yeah?"
"When I get back...how about I cook us something? You know, to go with the gelato."
Mia blinked in surprise. Then she smiled.
"We can cook something," she corrected. "Together."
With a grin, Jacob strode up to the train and handed his ticket to the conductor.
"Jacob?"
Jacob was so startled by her use of his first name that he turned back around again.
"When you get back," said Mia, "I want to see A Midsummer Night's Dream with you."
Jacob blinked in surprise. Mia felt her cheeks flushing.
"I've read it before, but never seen it. I'll find a production somewhere and pay for the tickets, but...will you go with me?"
Jacob's eyes once again lit up, bright enough to rival stars, as he grinned.
"I wouldn't miss it!"
Jacob finished boarding the train, his suitcase in hand. As the train door closed, Mia could see Jacob dashing toward the closest window, and he waved broadly at her. She felt her smile hurting with how much it spread across her face as she waved back, on and on until the train was out of sight. Then, lowering her hand, she exhaled heavily through her nose.
Goodbye, Jacob.
As she headed out of King's Cross, Mia passed the Hatchards bookshop. In an attempt to shake the gloom off her shoulders, she actually sidled inside and decided to look around, taking in the dozens of foreign Muggle books for sale. One in particular caught her eye -- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- and after muddling through paying for the book with only her basic education on Muggle currency, Mia left the shop and headed back to the street so she could call the Knight Bus to take her home. She read the book for the rest of her ride home and then later after the shop had closed for the night. When she was finished, Mia left her bookmark on the very last page, for it was this page in particular that she'd read the most in succession.
So these Kings and Queens entered the thicket, and before they had gone a score of paces they all remembered that the thing they had seen was called a lamppost, and before they had gone twenty more they noticed that they were. making their way not through branches but through coats. And next moment they all came tumbling out of a wardrobe door into the empty room, and They were no longer Kings and Queens in their hunting array but just Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy in their old clothes. It was the same day and the same hour of the day on which they had all gone into the wardrobe to hide. Mrs Macready and the visitors were still talking in the passage; but luckily they never came into the empty room and so the children weren't caught.
And that would have been the very end of the story if it hadn't been that they felt they really must explain to the Professor why four of the coats out of his wardrobe were missing. And the Professor, who was a very remarkable man, didn't tell them not to be silly or not to tell lies, but believed the whole story.
"No," he said, "I don't think it will be any good trying to go back through the wardrobe door to get the coats. You won't get into Narnia again by that route. Nor would the coats be much use by now if you did! Eh? What's that? Yes, of course you'll get back to Narnia again some day. Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don't go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don't try to get there at all. It'll happen when you're not looking for it. And don't talk too much about it even among yourselves. And don't mention it to anyone else unless you find that they've had adventures of the same sort themselves. What's that? How will you know? Oh, you'll know all right. Odd things they say - even their looks - will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open. Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?"
And that is the very end of the adventure of the wardrobe.
But if the Professor was right it was only the beginning of the adventures in Narnia.
~"Wild Uncharted Waters (cover)" by Sam Tsui and Casey Breves
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So I've been going through a bit of a rough patch IRL this holiday season, and...yeah! I found myself drawing Jacob Cromwell and Duncan Ashe again, specifically their forms in my POTC AU. In the story, Jacob "Black Jack" Cromwell Roberts is a man who -- after escaping his toxic pirate family with his little sister Carewyn and starting a new life -- was pressed into service on board another pirate ship, only to become an infamous, dangerous Pirate Lord himself with a whole fleet under his command. Meanwhile Duncan (most often called by his made-up surname "Ashe") is a merman who fell in love with Jack from afar, saved him from drowning, and ultimately took human form and became his dedicated First Mate and lover. While writing the AU during the pandemic, I took a time out to discuss their backstory, enclosing a little doodle of my images of them with it --
-- and yeah, this was the image I decided I wanted to recreate!! (Wow, five years of drawing practice can really make a difference, can't it?)
To quote that backstory, though:
While trapped on board on the Rover for the next two years, Jacob would (like in the old days trapped on the Revenge with his sister Carewyn) sing to pass the time. Most of the pirates didnât mind too much as Jacob, like Carewyn, has a great singing voice, and honestly, there isnât much to do to entertain oneself on a pirate ship.
As luck would have it, one day, Jacobâs singing caught the attention of a merman swimming by the Rover, who was startled by the sound of the voice and stopped momentarily to suss out whether it was another merman or not. He pretty quickly deduced that no, it was just a human male with an unusually attractive singing voice. Duncan probably wouldâve tried to take this opportunity to lure the human male into the water and eat him, but considering he was alone and the ship was stuffed to the brim with nasty-looking pirates, Duncan decided it probably wouldnât be prudent to do so. So instead he shadowed the ship for a while, thinking to follow it back into waters where more merfolk swam and, once there, attack the ship properly with reinforcements.
While following the ship, however, it seemed like every time Duncan came up to the surface, that one human male was always singing, and it was always in such a pained, aching sort of voice. This didnât trouble Duncan exactly â it was good to know that this human wanted something so much and that Duncan would therefore be able to figure out what he wanted and use it to lure him into his waiting jaws easily â but as he followed the ship and listened to this young manâs voice in comparison to the othersâ on board, he suddenly got the weird feeling that this human wasâŠdifferent, somehow. And so he situated himself on the shipâs anchor and listened a bit more carefully.
Merfolk have a pretty good ability to read the hearts and attitudes of humans just by being close to them, and although Duncan couldnât get close enough to completely suss out what this human wanted, he got the feeling that his emotions were strong â not just the sorrow and pain, but the resilience and determination, as well. The human was also very amusing, frequently running intellectual circles around the other men on the pirate ship and making Duncan bite back laughter. At one point Duncan even overheard an argument between the human and the pirates on-board where he demanded to be set free and mentioned his sister, insisting that she needed him and saying he would do anything if theyâd just let him return to her. Considering that merfolk in general are not family-oriented (with a few lone exceptions), the level of passion in which this human spoke of his sister startled Duncan. He was more than used to people lusting after gold or flesh, but heâd never heard anyone speak so selflessly before â being willing to lay down his own life not for himself, but for someone else. It was a stupid thing to say, Duncan thought, considering these pirates clearly had no reason to listen to him and him emotionally lashing out wouldnât likely help anythingâŠand yet, all the same, Duncan found himself drawn all the more. And so when the ship entered merfolk-inhabited watersâŠDuncan did not strike. Instead he left and found a meal elsewhere, but never forgot the ship called the Rover and the young man with the wonderful voice.
Over the next year, Duncan kept his eye open for the Rover. It zipped back and forth across the sea often enough, so it didnât take long for him to figure out their route. There were several points he considered speaking to the human, or maybe even singing himself so he could hear him, but he always reminded himself that he didnât know what good it would do. Sailors still by and large fear and distrust merfolk (though they often presume theyâre all mermaids, not men), and Duncan had no way to help this human escape his circumstances whether he wanted to or not. He no longer wanted to lure him off the pirate ship with promises that werenât true.
Listening to Sam Tsui and his husband Casey Breves sing this duet cover immediately made me think of Ashe and Jacob in this AU (even if I personally imagine Ashe as a Bass), and it was absolutely the best accompaniment while drawing/editing this. (Imagining Duncan singing "Ohhh...over you...I cannot get over you...!" and the dramatic ending combined with the memory of how their story ends in particular got me pretty feelsy. đ„č)
âBlack Jack!â said Barnaby in relief.
The rest of the Phoenix chattered happily at the sight of the Tower Ravenâs captain. Charlie was relieved too, seeing that Carewynâs brother was all right after all. Unlike the rest of the captains present, Jacob only had Ashe accompanying him instead of a full crew, and both men were also missing their hats and dressed in sopping wet clothes.
âApologies for my tardiness,â muttered Jacob as he sidled into the seat next to Merulaâs. âAshe and I had to swim most of the way here, as that twat Rakepick decided to blow up my ship â â
âSwim?â repeated Merula, sounding both perfectly scandalized and disbelieving. âHow could you have swam all the way here fromâŠwherever the Hell you were?â
âVery strong lungs and muscles,â Ashe said in such a cool voice that it put an end to the train of conversation. He stood over Jacob much the way Aishwarya stood over Arjun, draping his arms over the back of the chair so as to hug Jacob from behind, and shot beady looks at the remaining Pirate Lords. âSeems theyâre all in attendance, Jack.â
âAye,â said Jacob. âShall we begin, then?â
~POTC AU, Act II, Part 6: The Brethren Court
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original background source // edited with help from Lunapic
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...LOL, okay, I admit it, writing all the stuff I've been doing lately with Jacob and Mia Flume during the Second Wizarding War made my Duncan Ashe muse a little restless. So I decided to draw this scene from my old POTC AU! Because what can I say, even if I do want Jacob to move on and have a happy life in his canon even after losing his OTL, I am a Jacashe shipper to the end and I love that I've been able to write some AU's where they got the happy ending they deserved together. Honestly, though, any partner who Jacob would end up with post-Ashe would have to be okay with the fact that Jacob will always love Ashe, that's just the way it is. Plus I'll be honest, I really have grown very fond of long-haired!bearded!Jacob. X3
A few details on Captain Jacob "Black Jack" Cromwell Roberts and First Mate Duncan Ashe's looks here, for those of you unfamiliar with this AU...Jack has a bandage on the hand he's resting his chin on to hide the "black spot" given to him by Davy Jones. He also has a black gunpowder burn on the right side of his face, which lends to his nickname of "Black Jack," alongside his dark wardrobe; his high-risk, tricky plundering style; and the phrase already being associated with the pirate flag. From a meta point of view, there were also several historical pirates with "Black" in their name, including John "Black Jack" Anderson and (more relevantly) Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts. Speaking of wardrobe, Ashe's outfit is both the fancier and more colorful of the two, because he's always the more stylish one out of him and Jacob, in their canon or otherwise. The doubloon earrings Jack and Ashe are wearing are a set that Jack purposefully split and gave to Ashe so they could each wear one, both to pay for their burials if they died (a standard pirate reason to wear a gold earring) and to signify their partnership the way a wedding ring normally would. Ashe's possessive body language is more understandable when you learn that he is a merman who took human form to be Jack's First Mate and lover and so is generally still very distrustful of humans. (To be fair, though, Ashe is kind of a jealous and protective sort in all universes, when it comes to Jacob. Jacob returns it just as much in kind, though.)
Happy holidays! Yo ho ho and much to love to you all! đŽââ ïž
quick reference to the Phoenix Resistance @phoenixresistance //edited with help from Lunapic
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The Battle of Hogwarts was long and turbulent. The earth around the school shook for hours, terrifying the residents of Hogsmeade village. Many opened their homes, sent owls to the Phoenix Resistance, or even ran up to the school themselves to offer aid to the students and teachers. One person who actually did all three was Hermia Flume.
As soon as Aberforth Dumbledoreâs busboy rushed over to Honeydukesâs half-completed new store front, Mia came downstairs to meet him. Sheâd already been awake: Silas Fortescue had sent her a letter earlier that evening with news heâd heard through his Ministry friends about a Gringotts break-in Thicknesse and the others were now desperately trying to hush up, and Mia wanted to follow up with Jacob about it right away. Right after sheâd sent out the owl carrying her coded message, however, she saw the wizard from the Hog's Head arrive and learned the news â
Harry Potter had returned to Hogwarts. Not only that, but the Carrows and Snape had fled, presumably to join the Death Eater army now on its way.
Miaâs blood was pounding in her ears like drums, but she immediately faced the petrified young man with a very hard, urgent expression.
âYou said Potter got into school through the Hogâs Head? Thereâs a unblocked passage inside the Hogâs Head?â When the man shakily nodded, Mia pushed on. âFine. Tell Aberforth to ask the Hogwarts house elves to Apparate straight to the Hog's Head. Weâre getting every last student home. Now.â
~*~
Getting Hogwarts's younger students to safety proved a more difficult effort than Mia had envisioned. A good chunk of the children who'd been evacuated had parents who were forced to mark lock-step with the Death Eaters because of their jobs or (worse) were sympathetic to the Death Eaters' cause themselves. There was no way in Hell Mia was going to send those kids back home in those conditions...so before long, Mia and Madam Rosmerta had taken on the task of settling those kids into rooms at the Three Broomsticks, while Jenie set about making up some proper meals for them. Within the hour, Silas Fortescue arrived as well, and he, Rosmerta, and Mia put up several very strong protective wards around both the inn and the rest of the shops and houses on the block, just in case the Death Eaters spilled into the neighboring village again.
It was only when Mia was putting up the last ward around Hogsmeade's gate just after midnight that she caught sight of the owl she'd sent earlier returning. Stopping at once, she rushed forward, holding her hand out for the owl to roost on, and immediately tore open the letter. For once, Jacob's letter wasn't written in code or invisible ink: it was sparsely written and vague.
Mi,
I've been ordered back to school. Please contact our friends â the event starts at midnight, and we might need some extra help from the PR department.
Hope to see you soon.
JC
Mia's heart clenched. Jacob was at Hogwarts. He was going to fight the Death Eaters with the rest of the Order of the Phoenix.
Her first instinct was to head straight there, but the rest of Jacob's letter made her hold back.
"PR department" â he means the Phoenix Resistance! They need reinforcements...anyone who might be able to help the Order protect the school...
With Voldemort now the owner of the Elder Wand and his army reinforced by not only giants, but werewolves, Mia knew that the battle was going to be lopsided against them from the start. The only way to prevent complete destruction would be to rally as much help as they could...and right now, the people who had the most motive to fight would be those in hiding. Those countless people who the Death Eaters had forced underground and who knew first-hand how much there was to lose.
And so Mia went straight home. She wrote countless letters â letters to as many people as she knew of who owned safehouses or who were in contact with Potterwatch or the Phoenix Resistance â and sent them off both with owls and with house elves Apparating to their destination. She sent a letter to Callie's flat via the Floo Network. She sent a letter to Fleur Weasley at Shell Cottage. She sent a letter to the safehouse where Tia was staying with Olin and Skylar. She sent more still to Augusta Longbottom, Carewyn Cromwell, and the hostesses from Madam Puddifoot's who had sent in their paychecks to help rebuild Honeydukes, and many others. The whole effort took hours â it was close to 4 AM, when the worst of the explosions had paused, that Mia was finished.
When she came outside to look at the pitch black horizon for some indication of the battle's outcome, Mia found herself colliding head-on with Horace Slughorn. Her old Potions professor was very pale and shaking, but his eyes brightened up immediately at the sight of her.
"The Dark Lord has given us an hour, to supposedly 'bury our dead with dignity,'" he said, and his usually amiable voice betrayed quiet contempt. "But what he really wants is for Harry to surrender to him, with the threat of killing everyone else at the school if he doesn't."
Mia's eyes narrowed to slits.
"That coward," she whispered. Florean was fresh in her mind, almost standing beside her in spirit as she spoke. "That absolute coward â so afraid of a wizard who's only just come of age that he feels the need to blackmail him into surrendering, rather than face him in battle..."
It's not like You-Know-Who would keep his word even if Potter gave in. He'll destroy anyone and anything that gets in his way...anyone he thinks might threaten him...
Memories of Honeydukes burning down â of Alecto hurtling Fiendfyre at Ambrosisus â of Dumbledore's tomb â of the students currently hiding at the Three Broomsticks â of the trashed block in Little Hangleton where Ella Arley had once lived â of Tia's tear-stained letter after the loss of Dirk â of Ollivander's emaciated frame in bed â of Florean's handsome smile â made Mia's blood pulse. She whipped her wand out of her pocket and it actually let out some sparks.
"If VOLDEMORT â " she roared the name as fiercely as she could, " â wants to kill us so badly...then let him try! We're not afraid to die like he is."
Slughorn would say later to Mia's mother Jenie that he'd never seen a witch outside the Auror Department look quite so fearless, in all his life. Even Minerva McGonagall would've been impressed.
And so Mia, Madam Rosmerta, and about a dozen other citizens of Hogsmeade accompanied Slughorn back to Hogwarts, alongside the parents of those children Mia and Jenie had managed to send home safely. From the gate on, that small army was soon infused with even more reinforcements from the Phoenix Resistance. Even both of Mia's sisters showed up ready to help.
"I may be no warrior, but every battlefield needs a nurse," Tia explained as she held Mia back at arm's length.
"And a reporter!" said Callie, beaming with sunny determination. "So that the whole world knows what happened!"
Mia had never been so proud to walk side by side with her sisters as when they left Hogsmeade village together, following Slughorn the others straight to Hogwarts.
Hope was only renewed in full when the little army reached the Hogwarts grounds, where they were met and reinforced further by both a giant named Grawp and the entire Hogwarts centaur herd. The overwhelming aid rushing in all at once, combined with the spell of sacrificial love that no one knew had already been cast by Harry Potter just a short while earlier, meant that the second wave of the battle was far easier than the first. Mia herself took down three whole giants with her spellwork, as well as dueled both Louis Selwyn and Lestat Travers single-handed in the exterior courtyard. The duel only ended when the two Death Eaters were distracted by their Dark Marks â stopping mid-fight, Selwyn pulled back the sleeve of his robes, his face going white, as the pitch black Dark Mark on his forearm faded to a dull gray.
"...He's...he's gone," he whispered shakily. "He's â "
Mia took Selwyn's distraction as an excuse to Stun him. A more cowardly Travers attempted to flee, but she yanked him back with a silent Carpe Retractum, which she then used to slam him into the wall before Stunning him too. Breathing heavily, Mia then looked up at the school, out the broken windows of which she could just barely hear a rumble of people's voices. It took a moment for the sound to swell up, until she could finally make out what the noise really was.
Cheers. Cheers of joy, of relief...of victory.
Mia's heart nearly leapt out of her chest. Could it be...could it really be â ?!
She ran inside, faster than she'd ever run in her life. She ran through the halls, past families reuniting and friends embracing and couples kissing. So many scenes of exhilaration. And as she ran, she heard her confirmation multiple times over, cried over to her.
"Mia! Mia, he's dead!"
"You-Know-Who! He's dead!"
"Potter did it, Mia! He's dead!"
"Potter beat You-Know-Who!"
Mia reunited with a happily sobbing Rosmerta, as well as Slughorn, Madam Puddifoot, Pitts the house elf, and her old Head of House, Pomona Sprout. She saw Callie taking notes and chattering happily with Lee Jordan and a smiling Tia helping Madam Pomfrey clean her patients' wounds.
Then she reached the Great Hall â and amidst all the debris, right at the center of a large crowd of people all reuniting and celebrating, she caught sight of a familiar mane of very long dark brown curls tied back in a ponytail.
"CROMWELL!"
Jacob turned around, his pale, gaunt, almost skeletal face as bright as some white candle with relief. Mia could see his lips mouth "Mi...": then he barreled forward through the crowd. Mia ran forward too, climbing over and dodging several large piles of broken stone.
"Cromwell, we did it! We did it! It's over! It's finally â finally â !"
Jacob threw out his arms wide in anticipation of Mia's embrace. The hug was warmer and tighter than either of them had known in a long time â Mia could feel a tear escape her eye, but she didn't care. All she could do was grin from ear to ear and hug Jacob tighter.
"Mi," Jacob's smile was audible within the whisper in Mia's ear. "I'm glad you're okay..."
Mia gave him a squeeze. "Me too. As weird as it still is for me to admit it," she added with a laugh. She then closed her eyes and rested her chin on his shoulder. "...I'm so happy you're safe. That we're safe, that Hogwarts is safe, that â "
"That the world's safe."
"Yes!" Mia breathed through her smile. "And this time...this time he really is gone, isn't he?"
"Yeah," Jacob said weakly. "Yeah, that cowardly old geezer is gone. Taken out by his own Killing Curse...without a single Horcrux that could bring him back..."
Jacob's hands on Mia's back were shaking. Mia's brows furrowed in concern.
"Are you â ?"
She made as if to pull back to look at him, but Jacob stopped her.
"I'm okay. ...I'm okay..."
His muscled arms crisscrossed over her back as he hugged her back. It was like being hugged by a particularly cuddly bear: a strong hold, but also gentle and almost cuddling.
"Just...keep smiling," he murmured. The warmth of his smile was audible. "It makes you look like sunshine."
Mia's eyes became a little smaller. Then, very slowly, she secured her arms around him, her fingers digging into the back of his robes as she gently held him.
"Of course I do," she said softly. "The storm is over."
Mia Flume would have likely never joined the resistance against Voldemort had it not been for her first love, Florean Fortescue. In 1996, not long after the Wizarding World at large learned of Voldemort's return, Florean Fortescue had been kidnapped by the Death Eaters, along with his neighbor and fellow Diagon Alley shopkeeper, Garrick Ollivander. For the next year, Mia and her once-school enemy Jacob Cromwell investigated the two men's disappearance â sadly although they were able to confirm Fortescue's torture and murder at Voldemort's hands, any leads regarding Ollivander's fate proved hard to come by. Jacob suspected that this was because Ollivander had been moved from the Riddle House in Little Hangleton to a more "secure" location, such as the house of a Death Eater under the Fidelius Charm, which they wouldn't be able to get in to investigate.
As it turned out, Jacob had been spot-on...and on the morning of 1st April, Mia finally received the news from Jacob she'd been waiting on for two years, written in Muggle invisible ink and hidden via a Switching Spell inside of a Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes fake wand. For once, it was happier news than she'd expected.
Hermia,
OLLIVANDER IS ALIVE!! REALLY ALIVE!! He and Luna Lovegood were trapped at Malfoy Manor when they were broken out by Potter, his friends Weasley and Granger, Dean Thomas, and Griphook! All are now at a safehouse just outside the Muggle town of Tinworth. I'll try to visit him there tomorrow, now that my injuries are mostly healed. (Thanks again for the murtlap-chocolate eclairs!)
JC
A mere hour later, Jacob received a response at home: a slender note transfigured into a large red ribbon and tied in a bow around the owl's neck.
Take me with you.
Hermia F
~*~
The next morning Mia packed up her batch of freshly baked chocolate Chelsea buns, said goodbye to Jenie, Silas, and Ambrosius, and Apparated to the little alley just outside Jacob's complex. Once she'd arrived much less conspicuously than last time, she jogged upstairs to his flat and knocked in the usual rhythm on the door, only answering when she heard Jacob's foot stomping on the ground in the correct rhythm back and his voice calling, "It's open!"
When she opened the door, she found Jacob darting from the hall bathroom back over to his bedroom, pulling his hair back into a ponytail with a lime green scrunchie while also silently levitating his razor back to its proper place in the bathroom with the aspen wand in his mouth.
"Hah â there...just about ready!" said Jacob, once he'd evidently gotten his wand out of his mouth. "Had to make sure the Portkey was set to go..."
Mia's brows raised high as she closed the door behind her. "Portkey? You're not seriously suggesting we use an illegal Portkey when the Ministry of Magic is being run by Death Eaters, are you?"
"Nope! I'm suggesting we use a completely legal Portkey that Pip applied for herself with the Department of Magical Transportation," Jacob said with a mischievous grin. "The Ministry just thinks Pip's using it to visit a sick friend living in Tinworth. Too bad she's just too bogged down with work from Yaxley and Umbridge â otherwise she'd be going, rather than sending me instead. And well, there's nothing saying a Portkey's dependent can't bring along a guest, so long as neither person is on the Department of Magical Transportation's Restricted Travel list. And yeah, good for us, we're not!"
Jacob came out of his room at last, pulling an obnoxiously colored puffy jacket on over his red Star Trek sweater with a wince.
"Here." Tucking the box of Chelsea buns under her arm, Mia came over and helped Jacob slide the left sleeve of his jacket on.
"Thanks," said Jacob.
"How's the burn on your shoulder?"
"Better. Still hurts a bit when anything presses against it and my upper arm's still pretty numb, but hey, at least I can actually wear sleeves now. And Pip's friend Chiara sent along a proper Blood-Replenishing Potion with the usual Burn Paste to help with the loss of circulation, so hopefully that'll help."
He held up his free hand, in which was a small wind-up alarm clock â the display shifted from 9:58 to 9:59 before Mia's eyes.
"We'll be ready to go at 10," Jacob said brightly. "So you're right on time."
Mia snorted. "Well, I kind of had to be, if I didn't want to be left behind. I don't know where we're going, after all â it'd probably take forever to get there by the Knight Bus, and I highly doubt any safehouse would be using the Floo Network right now."
Adjusting the box under her arm so her grip was more secure, she placed her gloved hand on the clock, just over Jacob's.
"What's the 'M' on your gloves stand for?" Jacob asked.
"'Mia.' Mum bought a pair for all of us for Christmas one year."
Jacob's eyes drifted up to the ceiling thoughtfully. "Hm, yeah...I keep forgetting that most people call you that...â
Mia considered him for a moment. Then, almost sheepishly, she mumbled, "...You can call me Mia too, if you want. I reckon we have to be at the nickname stage by now...after everything that's happened."
Jacob looked at her thoughtfully. "Suppose so..."
His mouth then spread into a mischievous smile.
"All right -- 'Mi' it is."
Mia blinked. "'Mi?'"
"Yeah -- 'Mi.' I like nicknames that are just one syllable: keeps things simple. Plus it's cute!" Jacob looked down at the now shaking alarm clock in their hands with a full grin. "Hold on, Mi!"
And in a flash of nauseating colors and a rash of sickening spirals, the two were off.
~*~
The Portkey dropped them off discreetly just outside the Muggle town of Tinworth. Once settled, Jacob immediately oriented himself using the sun's position in the sky and started heading south. Within a half-hour, they'd reached the coast and -- by extension -- the Secret-guarded house they were visiting.
"Welcome to Shell Cottage," Jacob told Mia, his voice and face oddly moody.
Mia honestly didn't see why Jacob looked so irritable: the house was certainly modest, but it was also quite charming. The house had a roof decorated with seashells and a small, largely frosted-over garden that still boasted a respectable batch of witch hazel, rosemary, and parsnips. As they approached the gate, it even opened for them without hesitation, making a set of pretty shell wind chimes ring by the front door.
Just as Jacob was about to knock on the door, it opened, revealing a stunningly beautiful, willowy woman with a sheet of ethereal blond hair. Her eyes flitted over Jacob and Mia both critically as she pointed her wand at them.
"Declare yourzelves," she said in a voice dusted with a French accent.
"Mais oui â pardon-moi," Jacob replied in a rather business-like tone. "Vous etes Madame Fleur Weasley, je supposent?Je m'appelle Jacob Cromwell â je suis une amie de Madame Maxime."
Fleur blinked at Jacob in surprise.
"Jacob Cromwell?" she repeated. "Le frĂšre de Carewyn?"
"Oui."
Before Fleur could say anything else, a very tall red-haired man had run up behind her to greet their guests, his badly scarred, freckled face all smiles.
"Jacob!"
Before the man could make any move toward Jacob, though, the shorter man had immediately raised both of his wands and pointed them warningly at him.
"Hey! No touchy, Weasley," he growled, "you may be Pip's friend, but you're not mine."
The red-haired man, to his credit, quickly resisted the urge to hug Jacob, even if he clearly had wanted to. And surprisingly, Jacob's bared teeth actually seemed to make his smile that bit softer.
"Hm...well, now at least I know you're really Jacob," he said amusedly.
His brown eyes flitted over to Mia.
"Hello," he greeted her. "I don't think we've met. Bill Weasley â this is my wife, Fleur."
This must be one of Arthur Weasley's sons, Mia thought to herself. Probably Ginny's oldest brother, judging by his age...
"Mia Flume."
The name made Bill's face light up like a sunbeam as he welcomed them both inside. "Honeydukes's famous chocolatier! We've heard so much about you from Potterwatch," he indicated himself and Fleur. "It's so good to finally meet you."
"We were zad to hear of ze loss of your shop," Fleur said solemnly. "It waz a truly 'orrid zhing, what zhose evil people did. Zo barbaric!"
"Thank you," said Mia.
Bill closed the door behind Mia before turning back to Jacob.
"How's Carey? I've wanted to send her messages, but...well, with her under Yaxley's direct supervision, the last thing I'd want to do is threaten her safety by â "
"She's fine," Jacob responded tersely as he removed his jacket and folded it over his arm. "Now if you'll excuse us, Weasley, we're here to see Ollivander. Do you mind directing us?"
Bill sighed, but gave a slightly resigned smile and nodded. "He's upstairs...second room on the right."
"Thanks."
Without another word, Jacob strode up the stairs, right for the room in question. Fleur's hands went to her hips as she stared, aghast, at Jacob's retreating back.
"Zo rude!" she said under her breath. "Zis is 'ow he treats 'is zister's best friend? And when you were nuzzing but polite to 'im, too!"
"It's okay," Bill soothed her. "Jacob's always been a little...guarded around me, I don't think it's anything personal."
Fleur wasn't moved. "Hmph! He waz openly disrespectful to you and you alone, Bill. Zat zeems rather personal to me."
Bill shook his head. "Carey and I became best friends while Jacob was stuck in that portrait. I treated her a lot like my own sister in that time...I still do. I don't blame Jacob for being uncomfortable about that."
"Sounds to me like he's zimply taking his insecurities out on you," Fleur huffed, as she draped her arms around her husband and gave him a hug. "Just because he didn't get to see Carewyn grow up iz no reason to be angry zat you did."
A memory of Callie came back to Mia like a pang of shame.
"Just because he didnât wimp out like you did and decide to never chase any dreams in the outside world doesnât mean he doesnât care!"
"Maybe," Bill said sadly. "But...well, I hate that he missed out on that stuff too."
He gave Fleur a hug in return, then turned to Mia with a more polite smile.
"Sorry â I've been a bad host. Here...I'll show you to Ollivander's room."
He led Mia up the stairs. As they went, Mia glanced over her shoulder at Fleur heading off toward the kitchen before returning her focus to the landing.
"So how do you and Jacob know each other, Mia?" Bill asked.
Mia faltered. "Well â we â "
The memory of her sobbing on Tia's bed in frustration at Jacob overshadowing her during their OWL rippled over her mind. It was quickly replaced by her argument with Callie at the Three Broomsticks.
"Sounds to me like he's zimply taking his insecurities out on you..."
"Youâre â youâre so judgmental, you know that? Honestly, itâs no wonder everyone at school liked Jacob more than you!"
"...We were in the same year at school," Mia said at last rather quietly.
Bill looked back at her, immediately interested. "Really? Were you friends with him, Duncan, and Olivia, then?"
"Oh, no, we..." Mia swallowed back the lump in her throat. "...I...didn't get on with Cromwell, back then." Her eyes darkened as she looked away. "...Reckon I...treated him a lot like how he treats you, really."
Bill paused on the landing, looking back at Mia in surprise. Then his scarred, freckled face softened, his eyes sparkling slightly.
"...Really. Hm...then maybe there's still hope for us being friends too, one day."
Mia was startled by the muted optimism in the eldest Weasley's smile as he moved to the slightly open door to Ollivander's room and gave a light knock to the door frame.
"Pardon the interruption," he said kindly. "Just wanted to walk Mia the rest of the way up."
He held the door open so Mia could enter as well. Jacob had already moved a chair over so he could lean his arms on the back of it while talking to Ollivander, who was sitting up in bed. Mia wouldn't have known it was Ollivander, however, without the context of where she was and why she was here: the shriveled, emaciated man in bed hardly resembled the wandmaker she remembered. Despite his exhaustion, however, Ollivander looked over Mia with a critical eye that then slowly brightened into recognition.
"Hermia Flume," he said, his frail voice nonetheless grounded and aware. "It has been a while. Cherry and Dragon Heartstring, 12 1/2 inches, rigid, was it not?"
Mia couldn't keep a very slight proud smile from creeping up her face. "...Yes. You told my father that a wand like mine would only have chosen a witch with both a strong mind and immense self-control."
Ollivander smiled wryly. "Indeed I did. A cherry wand, when paired with a dragon heartstring core, can only be wielded successfully by someone who has both."
With a nod, Mia settled herself down in the chair Jacob had been leaning on. Once she was seated, she took the box out from under her arm.
"Here," she said, opening the box and laying it down on the bed so Ollivander could reach its contents. "I mixed Wiggenweld Potion into the chocolate and then infused the batter with a Cheering Charm, to raise your spirits."
"You are very kind," said Ollivander. He picked up one of the buns and took a bite. Although his frail face remained pale and sickly, his eyes actually seemed to sparkle. "And indeed, it seems, I was correct in my initial assessment! You truly have achieved remarkable magic with the wand that chose you, Miss Flume."
Mia was surprised by Jacob putting a hand on her shoulder and giving it a squeeze. When she looked up at him, he was grinning too. Mia actually felt a touched flush rising in her cheeks: she quickly tried to obscure it, even as she smiled.
"Thank you."
Taking off her coat at last, she folded it up neatly on her lap before returning her focus to Ollivander.
"...How are you feeling?" she asked gently.
Ollivander took a deep, slightly shaky breath.
"...Better," he said at last. "I admit, I...still don't sleep very long or well. But the bed is comfortable and the young Weasleys are kind hosts."
Mia nodded understandingly. There was a pregnant pause before Ollivander spoke again.
"...Mr. Cromwell...tells me that you and he had been looking for me."
"Yes," said Mia at once. "We started searching as soon as you and Florean were taken."
Ollivander sighed. It was a very soft, sad sound.
"Yes..." he murmured. "...Florean Fortescue...I lament that it was only I that you both have now found."
Guilt clawed at Miaâs heart. "Don't say that."
"We wanted to find you," Jacob said, his voice slightly strained. "We'd wanted to find you, Ollivander, we just..."
His blue eyes were rippling with pain -- he closed them, bowing his head. Ollivander, however, looked upon both of them with a sad smile.
"Mr. Cromwell, there is no need for you to be sorry. Malfoy Manor has been de facto headquarters for the Dark Lord and his followers since the War began. My liberation from it was a true miracle, one that only could've been achieved by multiple strokes of luck." A sad glint appeared in his eyes. "...I had...more than lost hope that I would ever see the outside of that prison again. However brilliant and talented of magicians you and Miss Flume are, Mr. Cromwell...there would've been no way you could've broken me out from the outside, even if you had known where I was."
Jacob and Mia both exchanged a look as Ollivander finished the Chelsea bun in his hand.
"...Did you see Florean?" Mia asked tentatively. "When he was taken."
Ollivander sighed again.
"Yes. Messrs. Yaxley and Gibbon had quite a time restraining him, even while he didn't have a wand. Not that I'm surprised...even when I first met Mr. Fortescue as a boy, he was able to summon his wand right to him, even without an incantation."
This startled both Mia and Jacob.
"Really?" they said in unison, though Jacob's was much more akin to a kid eagerly awaiting a bedtime story than Mia's was.
Ollivander beamed. "Florean Fortescue had a wand made of vine and phoenix feather, you see. Vine is a very sensitive wood: it has a gift for sensing hidden potential. A wand made of vine wood has even been known to â occasionally â release magical effects when a prospective owner comes in close proximity to it." His misty eyes sparkled. "That happened the very day Florean Fortescue came into my shop. The moment he stepped inside, the box on the far end of the second-top-most shelf started to glow and vibrate. I had been in the storeroom at the time, but when I came in to investigate, I found the box levitating right toward young Mr. Fortescue, who'd had his hand reaching out to it. He then guided the box with his open hand into the other so he could open it, and as soon as he picked up the wand..."
Ollivander opened his hand wide in a "lighting-up" kind of gesture.
"An instant match."
The image of a young Florean being embraced immediately by his wand in Ollivander's shop flooded Mia's heart with warmth and pride.
"That's incredible," Jacob breathed through a huge grin.
"It was, indeed, most remarkable." Ollivander's expression turned sadder. "...Yet even with the magical talent Mr. Fortescue boasted...he was no duelist...least of all one who could match the Dark Lord's followers. Let alone the man himself."
Mia's brows came together as she stared at him. "...Then...You-Know-Who was the one who killed Florean?"
Ollivander inclined his head sadly. "Yes."
"Why?"
Ollivander shifted in bed. His expression appeared apprehensive.
"...He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," he said quietly, "had many questions he wished to be answered. Questions he thought someone with knowledge of magical history, like Mr. Fortescue, might be able to answer..."
Jacob and Mia exchanged another look. Then it was as they thought.
"What questions did he ask Fortescue?" Jacob asked.
Ollivander took a shaky breath.
"...He wished to know...about various Dark wizards. Emeric the Evil. Godelot. Most notably, Gellert Grindelwald. He wished to know about their wands, primarily â about how they acquired them, how they...used them to their fullest potential." He took another deep breath. "...But...Mr. Fortescue refused to speak to him. Refused to tell him a single thing he wanted to know. Even after so many curses...hours upon hours, in that decrepit old house..."
Mia could hear Gibbon's wand's recollection of Florean's pained screams ringing in her ears again. It made her flinch.
"He was truly a strong soul, to have withstood such pain," Ollivander said very softly. "Far stronger than IâŠ"
âDid you tell him?â Jacob said grimly. His eyes had narrowed noticeably. âNot Fortescue, I mean that Grindelwald wannabe. Did you tell him what he wanted to know?â
Ollivander fell silent as he looked down at his sheets.
Jacob looked absolutely disgusted. His eyes were flaring like fiery blue coals in their skull-like sockets upon Ollivander.
ââFar strongerâ is right,â he spat. âChoosing your own life over the lives of all those he could kill with the information he might've gotten from youâŠâ
He straightened up and strode away over to the window, his teeth gnashing. Mia, however, noticed Ollivander close his eyes, his shoulders shaking as he bowed his head.
âYou're right,â he whispered. âI was weak. I was foolish. I deluded myself into thinking that whatever information I gave would ultimately be pointless. That even if the Dark Lord did attack Potter with a different wand, heâd just realize that another personâs wand never works as well as one that has chosen you â thatâŠno matter how bloody of a path it's burned throughout history...there was no indication about where such a wand would be now, if it still existed. Just because other wandmakers boasted the ability to recreate the wand of children's stories â â
Something familiar scratched at the back of her brain â a wand powerful enough to rule them all, created by Death himselfâŠ
âThe Tale of the Three Brothers,â she whispered.
Jacob looked at Mia with a frown. âHuh?â
Mia looked from Jacob to Ollivander, and then back, her eyes very wide.
"You-Know-Who wanted to know about the wands that other powerful Dark wizards used to own," she said. "He wants the wand that Death gave the First Brother -- 'the wand that wins all duels for its owner.'"
Jacob looked bewildered. "...What, you mean from that one story from The Tales of Beedle the Bard? Why would he care about that? He's one of the most powerful wizards in the world...arguably the most powerful at present, now that Dumbledore's dead! Is he really that paranoid about Potter and that stupid prophecy?"
"He has reason."
The two looked at Ollivander. The wandmaker's focus was on his hands rather than them, but his misty voice was oddly hard.
"However powerful the Dark Lord might be...and yes, certainly, he is indeed most powerful," the wandmaker said softly, "he has yet to land a Killing Curse, nor any other deadly curse, on Harry Potter. Both I and the Dark Lord believed initially that it was because of their wands' shared cores..."
Mia recalled the Quibbler article. "That's right -- Priori Incantantem happens when a wand tries to fight its brother."
Jacob crossed his muscled arms, his eyes narrowed upon Ollivander. "Right. Yet you said something about old Moldy Shorts attacking Potter with a different wand. And since Potter is still alive, I'd hazard a guess it still didn't work."
Ollivander nodded. "Yes...for what reason, I cannot say. But since that night, the Dark Lord asked me several more times about the Elder Wand. I knew very little...I studied wandlore, not folklore," his voice rang a bit more condescendingly. "And since Mr. Fortescue chose not to cooperate and all other credible magical historians were either deceased or in hiding..."
Ollivander nodded significantly to Jacob â the flash of righteous anger in Jacob's eyes made it clear he knew Ollivander was referring to his mother, Lane Cromwell.
"...The Dark Lord had few people to question, if he hoped to patch together who may or may not have owned the wand."
"But...but the Elder Wand is just a story," Mia said accusingly. "You said so yourself -- you called it folklore..."
The furtive look in Ollivander's eyes made her voice trail off. Her eyes widened.
"...It's real." Her voice came out very shakily. "It's real...and you helped him figure out where it was, didn't you? Didn't you?!"
Ollivander closed his eyes, unable to look at her. Mia's face blanched. She looked from Ollivander to Jacob â his brows were furrowed over his eyes as he slowly strode over to Ollivander, his skull-like blue eyes blazing.
"Does he have it now?" he whispered dangerously.
Ollivander brought his covers up over him in a vain attempt to obscure the trembling that ran over his frail shoulders.
"...The Tale of the Three Brothers is a story," he said at last. "...But...as I know Mr. Fortescue would agree...just about all stories have a kernel of truth. There's more than enough evidence that a powerful wand of Elder did once exist and was the source of much destruction in the distant past. Its origin is admittedly more myth than fact, and its supernatural power outside of a wizard's innate magical talent is hard to gauge without proper examination...but even so. The consensus among just about all wandmakers is that a wand made of Elder wood would be most formidable...and any wandmaker that could claim to own or produce a wand on pier with the Wand of Destiny would justifiably be heralded across the world."
Something darker passed over his features.
"...I had heard a rumor of one wandmaker who claimed to have once owned it. An unlikely claim -- a trivial thing I thought would hurt no one, if I told him...something that could make the pain stop, however briefly. Little did I know...that there had once been such a wand of Elder in that shop...legendary 'Deathstick' or not. And, I now fear, that very same wand...once owned by Albus Dumbledore...has now been taken, by the Dark Lord."
Mia felt like the breath had stilled on her lips. You-Know-Who stole Dumbledore's wand? Dumbledore's wand -- the wand of the most powerful wizard in the world -- was made of Elder? It could even potentially be the Elder Wand -- the wand that could never lose a duel?
"Then he's still not the wand's Master," Jacob said sharply. When Mia looked at him in surprise, he shot her a faintly comforting look before looking more coldly again at Ollivander. "You said that another person's wand will never work for you as well as one that chooses you does. And I damn well know Dumbledore's wand would never choose old Morty. He'll just run right into the same problem he had before."
Ollivander tried to lower himself down onto his pillows, only to collapse into bed with a painful exhale of breath. Mia quickly moved the box of treats to his side table and even adjusted the older man's pillows, making Ollivander's expression sadden.
"...Thank you, Miss Flume," he said at last very quietly. He then glanced out the side of his eye at Jacob. "Do not underestimate the Dark Lord, Mr. Cromwell. Even with a wand that did not choose him...he is still very powerful."
His eyes then drifted up absently toward the ceiling.
"Even at a fraction of his power," he whispered, "the Dark Lord, combined with the Deathstick of old...I do not doubt he will do great and terrible things."
Jacob glared at the wandmaker. Before he could respond, though, Mia spoke first.
"Thank you, Mr. Ollivander," she said solemnly. "We'll leave now, to let you rest."
She got to her feet. Ollivander watched her, his melancholy eyes running over the box of her treats on the side table before returning to her.
"Miss Flume." Mia turned when he addressed her. "...I am sorry. I know you and Mr. Fortescue were very close."
Mia nodded grimly. "We were. ...We...were going to marry. After the War."
This made Ollivander's expression crack that little bit more, exposing genuine shame.
"...I am so sorry, Miss Flume," he murmured. His eyes drifted again up toward the ceiling. "I meant what I said...about how strong your intended was."
Something almost like a bittersweet, admiring smile trailed over his features.
"Before the...final Killing Curse was cast...he tore into the Dark Lord," he confessed, his quiet voice shaking with emotion. "Called him a coward, right to his face."
"I know," said Mia. "We heard him when we forced Gibbon's wand to reveal its former spells."
Ollivander cringed. "You heard him reacting to Gibbonâs Cruciatus Curses, then..." Mia nodded. "What you didn't see was the fury the Dark Lord felt, hearing Mr. Fortescue say such things. He took over torturing Fortescue himself, for those last few minutes -- ten times the amount of pain as before...enough to drive a man insane..." The old man shuddered. "But even then, Mr. Fortescue kept repeating what he'd said. 'Coward. Coward. You're afraid of death and you're going to die...' Until the Dark Lord went into such a shaking, violent rage that he killed him." The old man closed his eyes. "It was...terrifying."
"It was brilliant," Jacob said as a fierce whisper. "He was brilliant."
Mia found her own mouth spreading into a soft smile. You-Know-Who wasnât just furious, he was afraid. Florean made You-Know-Who himself afraid. Even though he was just a shopkeeper, and he didnât even have a wand...he made You-Know-Who scared.
Ollivander exhaled shakily with closed eyes and that same bittersweet smile, reclining back onto his pillows.
"...Yes. It didn't lengthen his life or lessen his pain, but still...an impressive displayâŠ"
Mia brought her hands down to take hold of Ollivander's covers and tuck him in. Once Ollivander had relaxed and Mia was sure he was drifting off to sleep, she and Jacob left the room.
They descended the stairs in silence and only gave the most abbreviated of goodbyes to Bill and Fleur before heading out. They didn't speak again until they'd left the house and started back up the sand toward town.
"Mi?" said Jacob. "You okay?"
"Yeah..."
Mia paused. Then, with a difficult swallow, she looked at Jacob with a more openly concerned look.
"Cromwell, do you -- ?"
She faltered. She really should be using his first name too, now he was using a nickname for her...
Before she could gather herself enough to restart and then finish her question, though, Jacob interrupted.
"I don't care if old Voldie has the Elder Wand. He's just what he's always been: a magically powerful creep who's scared shit-less that someone might get the better of him. Just like Mum's old man, Charles Cromwell."
His expression was shockingly fearless as he smiled at Mia.
"Itâs just like Fortescue said. No matter how powerful he gets...he'll just be a pathetic, scared old man who'll die and rot alone, when his turn finally comes around. And it will, sooner or later.â
Mia was surprised by just how comforting Jacob's words were, right there. For a moment, she could almost see Florean's handsome face again: feel his arms around her, and hear his voice.
âIt'll be okay. It w-will, Mia. I promise. He fell once before â he will fall again. I p-promise you. âŠI promiseâŠâ
"...Hm."
She found herself smiling too as she held out her arm for Jacob to take.
"...Come on...I'll take you home."
Jacob took her arm with a grin. "Only if you come inside for a spot of tea before you go."
"No tea, but I'll take hot water with lemon, if you don't mind."
"Why would I? It's so bloody refreshing to find one other person in the British Isles who's not a tea drinker..."
"Well, it's better to have loved and lost
Than to never have loved at all...
(Never have loved, never have loved at all...)
Well, it'll break your heart...tear it apart...!
But no one understands (no one understands)
The affairs of the heart..."
~"Affairs of the Heart" by Fleetwood Mac
x~x~x~x~x
tw: minor character death, grief // brief reference to Kaari Arcano and the Phoenix Resistance @kathrynalicemc @phoenixresistance
x~x~x~x~x
Within just two days, over 7000 Galleons were raised to help Honeydukes Sweetshop rebuild after being burned to the ground by the Death Eaters. Within a week, Silas Fortescue had hired a magical construction crew and they had gotten to work building, with the goal of having the new and improved Honeydukes and home upstairs open for business just in time for Halloween. Within two weeks, Madam Rosmerta had succeeded in her goal of raising 10,000 more Galleons to help with paying for repairs, thanks in part to some incredibly generous donations from Horace Slughorn and some of his old Slug Club contacts.
A month after the terrible destruction of Honeydukes, however, Mia received the best, most relieving news of all. Her father, Ambrosius Flume -- who had been trapped in the form of a greyhound thanks to a severe blood malediction -- had been found alive and well.
The person who returned Ambrosius to his family was a tired-looking man only a little older than Mia with prematurely graying light brown hair. He arrived on Silas Fortescue's doorstep at the end of March around mid-evening, dressed in ratty, second-hand robes, with Ambrosius on a leash at his side.
The sight of Ambrosius made both Jenie and Mia cry out in utter relief. Jenie almost immediately got down and flung her arms around the dog, her eyes overflowing with tears.
"Ambrosius! Oh, Ambrosius, thank Merlin -- thank all the stars in the sky you're -- !"
She burst full-on into sobs. Mia, however, could only watch the dog's face. Ambrosius's eyes were very black, blinking up at Jenie and the stranger and then Mia herself in turn. He looked confused by Jenie's emotion, but seemed to still sense these tears were happy -- his tail was wagging slowly at his side.
Mia felt her throat clench up.
It was just as she had feared. Ambrosius wasn't his full self, standing in front of them. He was a dog in both body and mind now...and even being with his family again would be unlikely to change that.
Even so...as Ambrosius's black eyes moved from Jenie to up at Mia, his tail wagged that little bit more. Almost hopeful.
Mia brought both of her hands up to her eyes, wiping the tears from them, as she got down on her knees to greet the greyhound.
"...Hello...Ambrosius." Her voice came out as a quiet croak.
She held out her hand to him. Ambrosius sniffed at her fingers curiously, before he tentatively stepped a little closer to sniff at her face. His nose poked Mia's cheek, making her laugh despite herself.
"Hi," she said again.
Ambrosius looked up at her blankly. Then, without any prompting, he licked Mia's cheek, right where his nose had poked.
In retrospect, Mia would've had difficulty explaining why...but that gesture was all it took. In an instant, she'd thrown her arms around Ambrosius too, embracing the dog fully and cuddling him close to her chest.
This dog was not her dad anymore. He could never be her dad: would never be him again. Ambrosius Flume had been her mentor, her role model: the man who taught her everything she knew about cooking and baking and inspired her to follow in his footsteps. The man who always gave the best advice and always knew just what to say to make Mia feel better.
This dog wasn't Ambrosius Flume: how could he be? But he was her dog. He was Ambrosius. And, Mia promised herself...she would protect him with her life: same as she would for any member of her family.
"The Flumes and I owe you a debt," Silas Fortescue addressed the stranger, holding out a hand to the younger man so he could shake it. "Thank you, Mr...?"
"Lupin," the man spoke in a very understated, familiar voice. "But please, don't call it a debt: I'm happy that I could help in this..."
Mia looked up at the man, her green eyes a bit wider in recognition.
"Remus Lupin?" said Jenie.
"That is I."
Lupin looked a bit hesitant: likely concerned by what exactly Jenie knew about him. Fortunately the Flumes gave him no reason to worry.
"Oh, Mr. Lupin, my grandson Olin only ever had nice things to say about you and your classes!" said Jenie. "He was so very disappointed when you left school...it's a dreadful thing, that your condition was exposed like that..."
Mia's lips twisted into a deep frown and her eyes narrowed even as she gave Ambrosius some ear scratches. "Hn, yeah...come to think of it, that was Snape's doing as well, wasn't it? A shame we didn't see that as an omen of how despicable of a man he turned out to be."
Lupin's eyes darkened at the mention of his old "associate" from the Order of the Phoenix, but he kept his composure and nodded respectfully. "You are very kind. And so is Olin: he was a pleasure to teach..."
He furtively glanced back over his shoulder. Something grimmer passed over his face before he spoke again.
"...I hate to ask this...but I'm afraid I have news of a more delicate sort as well. Could I burden you for a more private setting? Just briefly."
"It would be no burden at all, Mr. Lupin," said Silas. "I was just about to invite you in for a spot of supper."
"That is very kind of you...but I couldn't impose -- "
"I insist," Silas cut him off rather coolly.
"We insist!" Jenie said much more huffily. "Don't we, Mia, sweetheart?"
Mia got up from her place beside Ambrosius at last. "Of course. Any friend of my sister's is welcome at our table."
Both Jenie and Lupin looked at Mia in surprise as she smiled wryly.
"We have roast chicken and mash on the table and No-Melt Ice Cream in the wings," she said, her expression pointed as she crossed her arms. "Vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch...I think we might even have Raspberry Ripple if you like it, Romulus -- I mean, Remus."
Jenie gave a little start of delight at the mention of the host of Potterwatch's Pals of Potter segment. Lupin's eyes twinkled as he smiled, a touch of mischief dancing over his features.
"...Thank you...but chocolate sounds lovely. From what I've heard, you are a master when it comes to chocolate, Miss Flume."
~*~
Lupin, Jenie, Callie, and Silas talked over dinner about many things -- about Callie and Potterwatch, about Jacob and the fall-out of the Hogsmeade attack, about the lack of news about Harry Potter and where he might be now. All the while, Ambrosius the dog sat at Mia's feet, sniffing the food from below the table and eagerly awaiting any possible crumbs or scraps. (Jenie finally broke down and gave the greyhound some leftover chicken from her plate, to keep him from guilt-tripping her with puppy-dog eyes anymore.)
It was only once the group had finished eating their supper and ice cream that Lupin finally broke the other news he needed to tell the Flumes. News that, sadly, was much less happy than the return of Ambrosius.
"We'll be making the announcement on Potterwatch tomorrow evening...however, in the light of me already coming here to see you, I think it might be best to inform you prior." Lupin took a deep breath. "...Yesterday River received word from one of his contacts at the local mortuary that several bodies were positively identified as individuals who had previously gone into hiding from the Snatchers. One of those such bodies...was that of Dirk Cresswell."
There was a horrified intake of breath from around the table. Jenie's hands flew to her mouth; Silas closed his eyes and bowed his head.
"From the sound of things, his body arrived at the same time as a goblin named Gornuk and another wizard named Ted Tonks." A melancholy glint ran through Lupin's eyes before he closed them. "From what we've been able to determine, they were in hiding with two other fugitives -- a seventeen-year-old named Dean Thomas and another goblin named Griphook -- both of whom are now missing, but we hope somehow managed to escape. We aren't positive...but based on what we know about Dirk's character, and on just how many defensive wounds were on his body...it's likely that Dirk died protecting the others from the Snatchers' ambush."
Lupin opened his eyes, his face full of remorse and his voice very soft as he looked upon the Flumes.
"I'm truly sorry."
Mia reached out to take hold of her mother's shoulder and squeeze it without even looking at her. Her eyes were locked on her empty plate as she tried to comprehend this.
Dirk, dead...that brave, upright wizard: the man who'd fought off an Auror with his bare hands in lieu of a wand and escaped Azkaban with a stolen broom...the father of her nephews...gone...?
"...Tia," Mia said. Her head shot up and she stared at Lupin. "Have you told Tia?"
"Not yet," said Lupin. "But Ripple sent an urgent coded message to her safehouse as soon as she heard. She should receive it by tonight."
"Oh, my Tia..." Jenie cried quietly, her hands still covering her mouth as her head rocked back and forth miserably. "Oh, my poor baby and her boys -- dealing with this all on their own..."
Mia got up from her chair.
"I need to make a care package," she said rather tersely. "Mum, I'm sorry, but can you clean up the dishes? I have to get this to Cromwell quick if he's to get this to Tia before nightfall."
"Yes," Jenie said wetly. "Yes, of course..."
Ambrosius immediately followed Mia out of the room and toward the kitchen. As she left, she caught her mother apologizing to Lupin on her behalf.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Lupin -- Mia is grateful, we both are; it's just -- "
"No need to explain. I'm glad your daughter has Jacob Cromwell in her corner. She could hardly find a fiercer friend."
~*~
Mia sent along a very long letter to Tia, written in Disappearing Ink and hidden under the label of a box holding a white chocolate mocha cake. She then made sure to drop it off at Jacob's house directly so he could then follow up via owl with Kaari Arcano (Mia helped Jacob with securing the transfigured ribbon note of explanation around the owl's neck, since he was still injured) and have him pick it up and deliver it to Ireland as soon as possible.
A few days later, Mia received a letter back from Tia, hidden in Vanishing Ink on a piece of paper folded up in the shape of a flower.
My dear Mia,
My heart is broken in ways I can hardly explain. To know Dad is safe and home with you and Mum again is a blessing I can hardly put into words, and I should be so happy and relieved, and yet...
Oh, Mia. Mia, I want to be strong. I need to be strong for the boys. Olin hasn't come out of his room since he heard the news, and Skylar...he threw all of his books across the room and smashed a glass, screaming about how he wants to hunt down every Snatcher alive, for what they did to his father. I don't know how to counsel them, I don't know how to support them, except to just show a brave face. But I can't. I feel like I'm dying inside -- I want to scream and cry and curse the entire world, and yet I can't. I can't because I don't know how. I don't know how to be that way...not when I know it would only hurt my boys more...
Mia, I wish you were here with me. I wish so much that you were here: that Mum, Dad and Callie were here: that we were all together again at home, just like before. But I wish for you most of all. Because I want to believe so much that you might understand how I feel right now...and that you might know just what I need to hear. How do you stay strong for others even when your heart is broken? How do you keep fighting even when the person who made you feel like the woman you were meant to be is gone?
Mia, my sister and dearest friend...please, help me be brave. Help me be strong.
I love you so much. The boys and I love you all, and we miss you terribly.
Your loving sister,
Tia
Mia's heart felt like lead as she read her sister's words. She read it several times over in her room by herself, rubbing her eyes multiple times and taking very deep breaths. She even had to move from her desk and sit in bed with Ambrosius at her feet for a while before she even felt capable of responding.
When she finally did decide to write back, she rested Tia's letter next to her and reread her sister's words while writing a response on top of an old book Silas had lent her. Mia's letter was quite long, full of comfort and reassurance and empathy -- but the most important words arguably was a paragraph Tia ultimately read a hundred times over, when she received the letter the next day inside a box of freshly baked chai pear scones.
This last year I tried to just bury myself in my work for the shop and for the resistance and power through: keep fighting Florean's fight and let everyone else think I was fine, so that maybe I could believe it too sometimes. The other day, though, I visited Cromwell at his flat, and we actually talked about Florean, as well as about his first love, Duncan Ashe. And even though Duncan Ashe died almost fifteen years ago now, Cromwell cried, talking about him. He cried while smiling, but even so, I could see Duncan's death was still painful. The loss still hurts him, no matter how much time has passed. And it made me think...I don't think the pain will ever truly go away. Because there'll always be regrets, what-if's, and paths not taken that make you remember just how much you wish they were still here. But maybe -- just maybe -- knowing that other people understand your pain and that they won't feel sad listening to you might make it a bit easier.
Please, Tia, don't ever hesitate to write to me, or to talk to me. I will always read what you write, and I will always listen.
Simple and plain and not much to ask from somebody...
You matter to me --
I promise you do...you -- you matter too...
I promise you do...you'll see..."
~"You Matter to Me (cover)" by Natalie Weiss and Brad Greer
x~x~x~x~x
the previous part to Mia's story // why Jacob is so badly hurt
x~x~x~x~x
Just before noon on the 16th of February, Mia Flume Apparated to London, right outside a Muggle complex. She immediately felt guilty doing it, as the CRACK alarmed a poor little old Muggle lady walking her dog. Fortunately the woman had chalked Miaâs abrupt appearance up to her bad eyesight and quickly led her Pekingese off along after her up the street, even as the little dog barked loudly back at Mia.
You idiot! Mia berated herself. Next time, figure out a safe place to Apparate into this neighborhood where you wonât scare the Muggles half to deathâŠ
Adjusting the tin of cupcakes under her arm, she took a deep breath and strode right up to the complex and up the stairs to Jacobâs flat. When she reached the landing, she paused with her knuckles on the door. Then, hardly knowing why she did it, she knocked a familiar rhythm.
Ma-ma Mi-a. Here I go a-gain.
There was a shuffle. Then, a moment later, there was a familiar thumping in return.
My my. How can I re-sist you?
Click. The door was magically unlocked from the inside, letting it fall open ever-so-slightly. Mia pushed open the door the rest of the way and came inside.
She found Jacob lying down on the couch in the living room, covered with a blanket. At the sight of Mia, he bolted straight up.
âHermia!â
His face was pale with both anxiety and relief at the sight of her, but it quickly crumpled up into a wince in response to his abrupt movement. The blanket heâd had over him slipped, exposing the multiple bandages on his shoulders and arms.
Her brows knitting together over her green eyes, Mia very quickly shut the door and strode over.
âSo you were hurt.â
âThis? AckâŠdonât worry! It looks worse than it is!â
Jacob threw the blanket off of him up onto the back of the couch, his mouth forced up in a painful smile and his eyes drifting aimlessly rather than staying on her.
âSorry about the mess â â he bit back a hiss of pain, â â kind of been a bit distracted lately, forgot to clean â Pipâs always getting on me about thatâŠâ
He was thoroughly prepared to get to his feet, but before he could, Mia had put down her cupcake tin on the side table and seized his ankle to keep it from leaving the couch.
âDonât get up,â she told him quietly.
The words should have been stern, but they came out oddly soft. Jacob was so stunned that he froze, letting Mia sit down on the couch beside him, her hand still holding his ankle as she looked him over. Peeking out from under the bandages was both dark, half-dried blood and bright orange burn paste. Jacobâs messy curls also looked significantly shorter than sheâd seen them last, only just passing his collarbone â had some of it gotten burned off, so he'd had to cut his hair?
If this was how bad he looked a day and a half after everything happened â even after he mustâve used healing potions and spellsâŠ
âYou went into the Fiendfyre, didnât you?â Mia asked very quietly. âYou stopped it from spreading â from torching everything else.â
Jacob didnât respond well to this question. He looked so uncomfortable and guilty that he hung his head.
âI couldnât do anything else,â he mumbled. âI was the only one who knew the proper countercurse: if I didnât do it, no one else couldâve.â He looked down at his own injuries ruefully. ââŠProbably wouldnât have been so hard for me to do, if Iâd just gotten there sooner...â
âYou still saved the town,â said Mia reproachfully.
âBut not your shop!â said Jacob, his voice strangely harsh with frustration. âI couldnât save any of it. Even though I shouldâve, even though I know I couldâve, if Iâd just â â
âCromwell, donât you dare try to minimize what I just said,â Mia shut him down very sharply. âYou saved the entire bloody town of Hogsmeade. Myself and my mother included! That lead Death Eater you were protecting us from? That was Snape â the very man who killed Albus Dumbledore â and the Fiendfyre was so out-of-control that no one in Hogsmeade wouldâve been able to contain it! We all couldâve died if you hadnât shown up!â
Jacob looked a bit staggered. âBut I â â
âBut nothing,â Mia cut him off. âI'm not going to sit here and listen to you making excuses for why youâre a terrible person when Iâve already come to grips with the fact that youâre not.â
âWhat? I wasnât doing that! I justâŠâ
Jacob stumbled over his words, not sure how to articulate what he wanted to say. His eyes flitted down to Miaâs hand on his ankle and stayed there.
ââŠI just...wanted to help," he mumbled. "I wanted to help you -- help your parents. And I really wanted to save Honeydukes. I know how much it means to you. And you've lost so much already...â His blue eyes grew a bit darker. ââŠI wanted to help you, more than anyone. Because...well, you're my friend. You've helped me feed all my tenants out of your own pocket. And I didn't want you to lose your shop or your parents too, after losing Fortescue.â
Miaâs scorn actually cracked a bit here, her green eyes betraying some genuine compassion.
â...You did everything you could," she said quietly. "And just like with Florean...just like with Tia, Olin, and SkylarâŠyou did more for us than anyone else did. And we're grateful for it.â
Jacob didnât answer: his skull-like eyes stayed on her hand holding his ankle. Taking stock of Jacobâs focus at last, Mia quickly let go with a sharp clearing of her throat. Before she could reach for the blanket on top of the couch, though, Jacob put up a hand to stop her.
âItâs okay â â He winced immediately after making such a quick movement. ââŠI...honestly was just keeping the blanket on to cover the bandages. You know, in case the landlord came by.â He gave an over-the-top goofy grin. âDidnât want him asking me why I was dipping myself in âpumpkin mashâ instead of going to a doctor.â
âSoaking in murtlap essence would soothe the pain, you know,â said Mia.
âHeh, yeah â Pipâs friend Chiara suggested that too, once my wounds close up. Sheâs a great Healer â she worked at St. Mungoâs, before the WarâŠâ
Mia took out her wand and silently summoned one of the Wiggenweld chocolate cupcakes out of the tin sheâd brought. âWell, for now, thisâll be a start.â
Jacob accepted it gratefully. He took a big bite, relishing in the taste and exhaling as the potion set in. Mia could see the wound twinkling with green sparkles; even if it didnât seal up anything, it was clearly still healing.
âThanks, Hermia,â Jacob said after a moment. âFor this.â
âI think I have a lot more to thank you for,â said Mia. She smiled slightly as Jacob took another bite. âBut youâre welcome.â
Even once he'd finished the cupcake, Jacobâs face remained quite serious.
â...Have you found your father?â
âNo, but Callie and Potterwatch are looking for him and Iâm sure theyâll find him.â Mia cocked her eyebrows coolly. âMeaning you can stay here and focus on recovering.â
Jacob gave a wince that fortunately was more out of amusement than pain. âYou sound like my Pip. She explicitly told me she'll be checking on me at irregular intervals via our Two-Way Mirrors to make sure I'm not on my feet.â
He gave a heavy sigh.
âButâŠsad to say, youâre both right. With Yaxley breathing down my neck and trying to prove I was in Hogsmeade that night, I canât afford to let anyone see me like this. So until Iâm healed, Iâll have to keep my head down.â
He smiled at Mia. âFortunately I have a few tricks, to keep me off my feet!â
He slid both his blackthorn and aspen wands out of the pockets of his sweatpants and pointed them idly toward the kitchen. From a distance, he levitated a pot out of the cupboard, filled it with water, and then set it on the stove to boil.
âGot any lunch plans?â he asked brightly. âI can make a pretty good Parmesan Garlic Orzo.â
Mia blinked. âOrzo?â
âItâs a type of pasta from Italy shaped like rice,â Jacob explained eagerly. âI got the recipe from this dame I met in Venice, after I attended one of her cooking classes. Sheâs actually the person who bought me that!â He indicated the Venetian mask on his wall. âI wore it when she took me to a Carnival masquerade â bloody groovy time, even if she did mostly go out with me to get back at her ex...â
Mia cocked her eyebrows condescendingly.
âI canât decide whatâs classier," she said sarcastically, "that woman doing that, or you actually going along with it.â
Jacob laughed. âHey, at least she was honest from the start! I always appreciate it when people tell things to me straight â even though I'm the furthest thing from 'straight' myself.â
His smile spread into a fuller, more playful grin.
âSo? Taking me up on that orzo? Considering all the tasty things you've sent me before, I'd love to return the favor.â
Mia considered Jacob for a minute. Then after a minute, she gave him a wry smile in return.
ââŠWell, I suppose if this is something you can cook well, it gives me good motive to make my own judgment on it. All right â Iâll stay for lunch. But only if you put me to work helping and you stay on the couch the entire time.â
~*~
Jacob had Mia be his hands in the kitchen, when he needed a more careful touch than his wands could provide. She was helpful in making sure all the ingredients were properly portioned out and everything was seasoned right. Within a half-hour, the meal was ready, and the two ate it together on the couch rather than at the table so Jacob didn't have to get up.
"I have to admit, Cromwell," Mia said, indicating her plate with her fork once she'd taken her first bite, "this...is really good."
Jacob beamed so brightly he resembled a sunbeam. "Glad you approve!"
They ate in silence for a minute or two before Jacob spoke again, his hand covering his mouth still half-full of food.
"Did you two ever cook together?" Seeing Mia's confused expression, he swallowed the rest of what he was eating and then clarified, "You and Fortescue."
Mia was startled by the question. "Oh! Well..."
The interest in Jacob's face confused Mia. It made her feel oddly self-conscious alongside the usual dull ache that accompanied missing Florean.
"...Yes," she said at last very quietly. "Yes, we did." She looked down at her dish full of food. "...Why do you ask?"
"I was curious," said Jacob. "I mean...given that everything I ever tasted from either of you was delicious, I figure anything the two of you worked on together was probably amazing."
Mia looked up out the top of her eye uncomfortably. Jacob's gaze had drifted away from her, up toward the ceiling, and become oddly pensive.
"I never got to cook anything with Ashe," he admitted. "The closest we ever got was brewing potions side by side...or that one time when Ashe sneaked Liv and me into his dormroom and we mixed drinks all night while everyone else was at that Slug Club party."
A sad smile ran over Jacob's face as he recalled this. His smile then turned a bit more cynical as he looked back at Mia.
"...Sorry. I'm probably being tactless. My mind just kind of returns to Ashe, more often than not...especially when I'm talking to anyone about relationships or traveling or school or whatever. But I reckon you probably don't want to hear any of that...and well, I really didn't know Fortescue all that well! I'd love to hear you talk about him, if that's okay."
Mia stared at Jacob for a moment, unsure of how to answer. Then, averting her eyes again, she frowned.
"...I don't know," she said at last. "Talking about Florean with others..." She took a deep breath. "...It's not always easy for me. Even at the funeral -- when I was talking to Florean's grandfather..." She swallowed. "...even then, it was hard. Even when I know it was hard for him too." She paused. "...Sometimes...it's just easier for me to remember Florean silently, rather than reminisce about him with anyone else. That way...no one can remind me of the truth. Use past tense, when talking about him. ...Then I can pretend he's still here. Supporting me. Watching out for me."
This admission was one Mia felt rather embarrassed about. She'd fully averted her eyes at this point, forcing back her emotions as best she could and trying to put on a brave face.
"Even if he's not, and I know he's not, and I know it's stupid of me to do it. It's just...easier to mourn him alone. It's better than making people walk on eggshells about it with me...afraid they'll make me cry."
Despite how embarrassing Mia found her sentiment, however, Jacob didn't look the least bit judgmental. He even nodded sympathetically.
"I get wanting to be alone with your feelings. With the memory of him -- just for a little while."
His skull-like blue eyes drifted away toward the ceiling again...almost as if imagining someone was floating up there. It made Mia speak without fully thinking.
"Do you do the same thing? With Duncan."
Jacob looked at her, surprised. Mia tried to backpedal.
"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, I only -- "
"It's not that I don't want to," said Jacob bracingly. "I just...know I tend to ramble, when it comes to Ashe. I've had people tell me it makes them uncomfortable..."
"Well, I'm not," Mia said at once.
Jacob's expression seemed to soften. "...Hm...well...tell me if that changes. I'm not that good when it comes to this kind of thing..."
Mia adjusted herself on the couch, resting her plate in her lap. Jacob's face became sadder again, but also somehow still alight with a smile, as his eyes returned to the ceiling.
"Every day on my birthday...no matter where I am, even if I'm in transit...I find the tallest, most remote place I can find...and I shoot up sparks."
Mia tilted her head, her eyes slightly confused.
"Sometimes for just a few minutes -- other times, when I'm really down, for a half-hour or more," said Jacob, his smile rather full despite the sadness in his eyes. "But when Ashe passed on...seeing how upset I was...he told me that I'd better not be right behind him. He said he only wanted to see my stupid mug again after I'd turned old and gray...lived a long life worth telling him about."
His blue eyes actually filled up with tears at the memory.
"...So every year..." his voice actually choked, "...I throw up those sparks to prove to Ashe -- I did it. I made it another year. And even if I know it's stupid...I hope somehow, some way...he sees them."
Despite herself, Mia felt her eyes flooding with tears too.
"...You really loved him."
Jacob looked at her, smiling through his own tears, and nodded.
"Still do. I reckon I always will." His grin spread. "Just like I reckon you'll always love Fortescue, right?"
Mia tried and failed to swallow back the lump in her throat. She looked down at the meal in front of her -- then, after a pause, she nodded.
She ate the next few bites of her meal in silence. Then, after taking a very difficult breath, she spoke again.
"...Florean was the one who taught me how to make ice cream."
Jacob's head raised in interest. "Yeah?"
Mia nodded. "I'd reached out to him through post when I first wanted to make my No-Melt ice cream. He sent me back a lot of letters, trying to answer all my questions, but eventually it got to the point where showing was better than telling. So Florean invited me over to his shop in Diagon Alley. It was the first time I'd been anywhere outside Hogsmeade, since graduating. He apologized in advance if he disappointed me upon meeting," the memory made her choke back fresh tears. "...He was self-conscious about his stammer and thought he'd be terrible at teaching me anything in person."
A broken smile ran over her face and she shook her head, even as her tears streamed down her face.
"...But...he was wonderful. As good as any professor at Hogwarts. Smart and encouraging...but also so in love with his shop and his work. ...I'd never met anyone so passionate about his craft, in all my life..."
Jacob ate and listened patiently as Mia cried. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and took another shaky breath.
"...Florean would've liked this," she indicated the food in front of her. "He...always said he wished we could take enough time off to visit Italy together...try some authentic gelato."
But I was always just so worried about Dad and Mum and the shop -- leaving them for even a day, it...scared me. Because what if it had been Dad's last day as himself, and I wasn't there? What if Dad got loose as a dog and anyone in town found out the truth about his condition? What if I'd left Mum all alone, to pick up the pieces...?
A pang of longing rippled through her.
No matter how nice it sounded...no matter how much I wanted to go...
Jacob's face was oddly empathetic as he reached out a hand to take hold of Mia's shoulder.
"I wish you could've too," he murmured. He offered her a smile. "...Maybe after the War, I could bring you some gelato? You know, when I next come back to London."
Mia felt her own face break out into a small smile too as she wiped her eyes with both hands.