Flip the Switch || Self, ft. Violet
It was a Sunday, and following her father’s tradition, she made sure never to work on Sundays. It felt strange not to be spending the day getting ready to return to Hogwarts, especially as she thought of her friends that were doing exactly that. Bobby, Jack-Jack and Thad all had their 7th years to finish. Mulan and PJ were going back as TA’s. Of course, some of her friends were like her and starting lives that had nothing at all to do with Hogwarts. But knowing that she had officially outgrown the place still left a strange restlessness she wasn’t quite sure what to do with.
Figuring that she could compound her feeling of discomfort (because why do anything else – it wasn’t like there was a lot she could do to make herself feel better) she walked down the hall to the library. To her father.
He spent most of his days here at this point. She wasn’t sure what he was looking for in the quiet words, but it wasn’t hard to see that he wasn’t finding it. In the months since his return to England, he hadn’t grown any less jumpy or wary. His wand was never far from his side. But it was as if all of his instructions stopped at ‘be ready to fight at all times’, so there wasn’t really a person left in there with him. He hadn’t said a word since that day in court. He barely looked at anyone. He just sat and read. And waited.
According to the servants, the one other thing he might be doing periodically is practicing. They couldn’t say for sure as the library was well insulated from the rest of the house. But sometimes they would walk in, and everything would look a little off, as if the furniture had been disturbed and repaired in a hurry. Jessica reported finding a fine layer of ash in there on more than one occasion. But no one ever saw or heard anything in particular, so they couldn’t say exactly what was going on.
Arriving at the door, May knocked loudly. “Good morning Father.” She waited an extra moment before opening the door and stepping inside.
To no surprise, he sat in a chair with a book open on his lap. It was hard to tell if he was actually reading anything, but the book on his lap did change periodically. So maybe he did. After that last attempt with the photo albums, May rarely tried any new ‘tricks’ for breaking his curse. Instead, she simply spoke to him about his day and sat with him. Maybe what he needed most at the moment was time. Time to realize he wasn’t at war anymore, that he was home where he belonged. Maybe when he could start to believe that, his mind would be able to relax enough to grow strong and fight the curse on its own. So she tried to make herself believe that it was enough just to be there with him.
May walked over to the bookshelf, trailing her fingers along the spines of the books as she tried to decide what she was in the mood for. Eventually she settled on The Other Boleyn Girl and curled up in her usual chair. It felt like the kind of day to lose herself in someone else’s tragic romance.
As she read, she completely lost track of time. Somewhere along the way, the silence became a little less oppressive, and a little more companionable, and she found herself relaxing, truly, for the first time in years. This was her home with no one to challenge that, her people were safe, her father was here, and it was her day off. She let the tension fade and smiled to herself slightly. So this was what peace felt like.
May felt like she was moving in slow motion as she looked up towards the shattered window to see her uncle standing there. He looked terrible. His normally pristine clothes looked disheveled, wrinkled, and a little dirty. As if he’d been sleeping outside recently and hadn’t had a chance to clean himself up. His hair was long and tangled, he had a smear of dirt on one cheek, and his eyes. They reminded her of a cornered animal – desperate, and dangerous.
It only took half a second for May to register the wand he was pointing straight at her. And only a half second more to realize that she had accidentally left her wand on the bookshelf, and there was no way for her to get to it in time.
But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.
Reacting instinctively, she threw the book in his direction as she dove out of the chair, rolling and trying to get behind one of the other chairs in the room to provide some cover until she could make it to her wand. Behind her she heard a yelp, followed by “YOU BITCH!” Apparently she’d hit her target.
It was unlikely any of the servants would be coming to help. Unless they heard the crash of the window, the room was too sound proofed and the house was too big to hope that someone was just walking by. She didn’t even bother to glance at her father. If her uncle was still keyed into the spell on her father, it would only be a moment before she was trying to dodge two sets of spells. One of which was used to deadly combat. She just needed to buy time.
“Come on out you little brat. You think a chair is going to stand in my way? You’re going to die. And then I’ll finally have what’s mine. At last! It’ll all be mine! MINE I SAY!”
Taking a deep breath, May pulled a small stone from her pocket before holding it against her lips. “Fallen Angel.” The words were barely more than a whisper, but it was enough to have the stone start to glow purple. She stood up from behind the safety of the chair and threw the stone as hard as she could in the direction of the screaming. Her uncle stared at her for a moment before ducking out of the way of the stone. May didn’t wait to see it smash into the wall as she dove again, hoping, praying she could be fast enough.
“HA! Look at you, you’re like a fucking rabbit. Running from me. Me! And now you’re gonna die like the coward you are. Avada Kedav-“
Before he could finish the spell, May heard a small explosion. She took advantage of whatever happened to scramble to her feet, racing over to the bookshelf, grabbing her wand and turning around. But what she saw when she did nearly had her dropping her wand again in surprise.
Her uncle was crumpled on the ground, scrambling to reach the wand that had flown out of his hand. Her father was standing over him, pointing his wand downwards. And he looked alive.
Just as Uncle John made it to his wand, another explosive spell rocketed out of her father’s wand and blasted the ground where her uncle’s hand was, only missing it as her uncle pulled his hand back to safety. He looked up at his brother in fear and disgust.
“What are you doing? Stop this right now! Attack her!”
“No.” Once again, her father’s voice sounded gravely with the disuse. But it was the first word he had spoken since the trial.
“What do you mean no? I order you to attack her!”
“I won’t be following your orders anymore. Little Brother.”
That was when her uncle finally looked at her father. Really looked. And what he saw there left him with white-faced panic.
“You broke the curse. You shouldn’t have been able to break the curse. How did you break the curse.” His voice began shaking harder and harder with each question, and his body followed not long after.
“You threatened my Angel. I couldn’t find the strength to break the curse before then. But for her, I found it. And I’ll never go back to that place again.” Her father’s voice was harsh and final, and May watched as her uncle flinched away from it. Neither of them had ever heard a voice like that come from him ever before, and May found herself hoping that she never had cause to hear it again.
But just then, he looked over at her and stared directly into her eyes. What she saw there had her heart stuttering in her chest as she fought back tears. It was love. A fierce, proud, wonderful love. Love of the kind that felt like something physical, wrapping around her, and making her feel alive and wanted in a way she had started to think she would never feel again. This was the feeling she’d been waiting for. This was what she’d wanted. Exactly this. “I’ll never leave you again.”
May opened her mouth to respond, but the rush of joy soon turned to horror as she saw her uncle lunge for his wand to attack his brother from behind. “LOOK OUT!”
She snapped her wand back up and shifted to try and defend him, but years at war had made him faster. In a blink he had turned, kicking his foot out in the same motion so it slammed into John’s wand wrist and the wand went flying back towards the wall. A flick of his wrist and the wand flew directly into her father’s hand. Both John and May started as her father snapped the wand in two with a large crack.
A pained squeak left her uncle at the sight of his wand breaking. Her father gave him only a dismissive glance before tossing both pieces into the fire. “You should be ashamed of yourself.” This time, he made sure to bind her uncle in ropes and tie him firmly to one of the chairs before lowering his wand.
“We should call the aurors to take care of…this.” Her father said.
“They’re on their way already.”
Both men stared at May in surprise. “They are? How?”
May gestured to the purple stone, glowing softly from where it had stuck to the wall after she’d thrown it. “It was a safety precaution that was set up. Just in case. By activating the stone, the auror on the other end knew that I was in life threatening danger, and would know to come. All I had to do was hold the danger off long enough for her to arrive.”
She could see the pride in her father’s eyes as she explained although it was tinged with sadness. But she couldn’t think about that now. Later, she could curl up with her father, talk over everything, and they could find their way back to whatever the future would hold. But first, she needed to know.
“Why Uncle John? Why did you try to kill me?”
He spat on the floor. “I should have killed you ages ago. With you gone, I would have inherited everything. I could have had everything that was mine and you couldn’t have interfered.”
“But killing me would have gotten you nothing.”
He stared at her for a moment, clearly baffled. “But who else could it have gone to? We’re the only Marians left.”
“I wrote my will as soon as I could prove I was of age. The Marian Estate would go to the Parrs in its entirety, excepting the amount that continues to fund the Foundation. My shares of the company were to be split equally between the three Parrs and Thad McAllister. And Thad’s sister Thia would receive an allowance for every year of her life that only she could access. You would have inherited nothing.”
Her uncle sputtered with disbelief as he stared at her. “You would have given everything to the Parrs? They’re barely purebloods! They have no power, no respect, no-no-no right! Besides, the protective spells are keyed to Marian blood.”
“They have Marian blood. Distantly, but it’s enough that they would be able to activate and maintain the protective spells for the estate. More importantly, I know they would value it the way I do, and they would take care of this trust the way it deserves. They would do it for themselves, they would do it for the other people, and they would do it for me. Something you never would.”
“I didn’t trust you to take care of the estate and our people the way that it should be. I worked very hard not to start hating you. But I couldn’t trust you. I trust them. So they are the ones who would receive everything if I was gone. You never had a chance.”
Screaming incoherently, John tried to lunge out of the chair at her, only held back by the ropes. Richard took an instinctive step in front of her, raising his wand, but May didn’t bother to move. He couldn’t scare her. Not anymore.
Just then, the two aurors burst into the room. Violet Parr immediately found May’s eyes with her own, and there was something like wariness in them as she took in the scene. Andrew Gardner moved straight for the bound figure.
May took a deep breath. “You heard what happened?”
“Every word of it. Good job on getting the confession. That will make conviction much easier.” It only took Auror Gardner a moment to readjust the ropes so that he had hold of Uncle John and could force him to his feet. “John Marian, I am arresting you for the attempted murder of May Marian. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
Violet was still staring at May, and she spoke up without turning to look at her superior. “Gardner, I’ll join you in a moment. I have something to discuss with Ms. Marian.”
Her father looked at them for a moment before nodding slightly. “I’ll follow you out. He is my brother still. I’d like to see him off.”
Once the three men left the room, Violet and May were standing there alone. It didn’t take Vi long to get to the point. “Were you ever going to tell us?”
May hadn’t been sure where Vi was going to start, but it was just like the other girl to zero in on the most pertinent issue. No rehashing her reasons why, no expressions of disbelief, no wonder. Just why hadn’t she told any of them about this decision of hers. And was she going to. Her honesty meant that May couldn’t do anything but be honest in return. “Most likely not.”
“Why the hell not? It was just going to be ‘so sorry your friend has died, by the way, she’s left you with everything? Oh you didn’t know? Well have fun figuring it the fuck out?”
“Mostly because I hoped it wouldn’t ever be necessary. I didn’t want to place that on all of your shoulders, have an heir someday, and then take all that away again. But for my own piece of mind, I needed to choose heirs now. Just in case. I have a letter included in my will with a detailed explanation to all of you, and – “
“A letter. From after you’re dead. Yeah that’s not gonna fuck with my brothers at all.”
“And knowing about it now would be better? You know Dash would see it as a fun adventure until it became a huge burden. Jack-Jack would immediately start trying to assume responsibility for all the different aspects. Neither of them would be comfortable with it, and knowing about it ahead of time wouldn’t help them.”
May paused. Originally she hadn’t meant to tell Violet either, but circumstances had taken that out of her control. “You know how to carry weighty secrets. I didn’t want to add to it. But I trust that you can.”
Violet looked at her for a moment before swearing softly and turning away.
May paused for a moment before taking a deep breath. “I needed to know that my home, my company, and my servants would all be cared for after I was gone. But just as importantly, I needed to know that my closest friends would be cared for after I was gone. This felt a little like killing two birds with one stone.”
Vi didn’t bother to turn around, but May thought she caught a small softening in her stance. “All three of those boys would rather have you than your money.”
Almost in spite of herself, May found herself chuckling “I’d rather be here than have to give it to them. But live the way I do, you’ll understand the value of contingency plans. If nothing else, these last two years have taught me that anything can happen.”
Vi finally turned around, and there was an almost wry amusement in her eyes. “I guess I’ve learned the same.”
For a moment, the two women stood in companionable silence. Both 19, both pureblood, both carrying more responsibility than they had imagined themselves having right after school. They’d never been close friends, but years of connection to Thad and Dash had made them friendly. Now they were bound by circumstances and a secret. Maybe it would be enough to make them true friends, or maybe not. Anything could happen.
“I should go catch up to my superior. After how public all your shit has been, we’re going to want to get him locked down fast. And it seems like you have a lot to catch up on with your dad.”
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