A/N: Just want to say thanks to all who've reviewed the story up to now, and especially the
last chapter. Here's the latest one. Profuse thanks to Liss for the beta. I appreciate it so
much!
Chapter Eight - Like A Sore And Then Run
"Ah, yes, excellent Quidditch conditions!" Marc Weasley exclaimed from beside Emerson, gazing up at the ceiling of the Great Hall. Today was Quidditch tryouts at last, and they were having breakfast. The sky outside was being advertised as a clear, exhilarating blue, yet not too windy or cold. Just right. "'Ow ya feeling, Emerson?" the Gryffindor Beater managed with his mouth full.
"Marc, you nauseating prat!" his twin sister snapped across from him, her face screwed up in disgust.
Marc swallowed and grinned, his brown eyes twinkling. "Mind your own business. Was I talking to you?" He turned to Em again and nudged her so hard she was knocked sideways into Lyna, who yelped and dropped her fork. "Well?"
"I was doing great up until you started battering me, thanks," Em replied, rubbing her arm and trying to look annoyed.
"Keep up the good work," Marissa said sarcastically to her brother. "The kid is going to try out for our team, which needs some decent players, but never mind that. Let's put her out of commission before she can even finish breakfast, shall we?"
In response, Marc gargled his mouthful of pumpkin juice and his sister kicked him under the table. And they were off and running. Welcome to the Marc and Marissa Show.
Em looked over at Lyna and the two girls grinned. Because frankly, it was impossible to be in a bad mood when you were around the Weasley twins when they were in good moods. And nothing got them in better moods than Quidditch or the prospect of it.
Their good moods usually manifested itself in the form of merciless bickering, but nobody had any doubts about how much Marc and Marissa cared about each other. They were twins after all, and for all their sniping were usually to be found in each other's company, even though each had their own friends. They had similar facial features: the same nose, brown eyes and curly hair, but Marc was taller and his hair was jet-black, whereas Marissa's had a slight coppery tinge to it. Em loved Marissa's hair. It was so wiry and springy, the type of hair that gave you the urge to pull a lock just to see if it would go "BOING!" as it sprang back into place.
Everybody at Hogwarts, regardless of house or year, knew of the Weasley twins. Marc and Marissa were only two of a half dozen Weasleys at Hogwarts but mention their first names and everybody knew which Weasleys you were talking about. They were both incredibly popular and funny, with larger-than-life personalities and athletic to boot.
Em had known them all her life and their personalities weren't at all surprising, considering that Uncle Fred and Aunt Angelina were their parents. For that same reason, neither were their Quidditch abilities - Marc was a fantastic Beater, and although Marissa wasn't one to be sneezed at either, she'd opted to be a Chaser instead. Of course it went without saying that she was indispensable to the team.
If all went well, Em hoped to have joined her as another Chaser by day's end. She'd been awaiting this day since she was six years old and right now she was more excited than nervous. There were two Chaser spots available and not to be arrogant or anything, but she felt confident that she could snag one.
"I wonder how many idiots will try to send you mail today?" Marc asked his sister suddenly with a scowl.
Marissa's head whipped around to glare at him. "What're you trying to say? That a bloke is an idiot for liking me, for wanting to be nice to me?"
"You know that's not what I meant," her brother snapped. "They are idiots for thinking they can get with my sister, as if by sending her flowers and Honeydukes chocolates they can-"
"Oh shut up! As if they need your permission to like me!"
"You're damn right, they do! These blokes, they're only after one thing, Mari!"
Marissa scowled. "And of course you would know, being the Casanova that you are."
Marc mouthed wordlessly but Em had to admit that his sister had him there. Marc was very popular with the ladies (and she knew for a fact that a few boys wanted him too). Marissa was, in addition to being funny and vivacious, very pretty so it wasn't at all surprising that the opposite gender had noticed and tried to make their admiration known. Only they hadn't counted on her twin brother hunting them down and either threatening, hexing or playing humiliating pranks on them.
Em's attention had wandered from the romantic entanglements of the Weasley twins, however. With Marc's comment about mail, she'd been reminded of the only foreseeable downside for today. It was a "Bashing Day", as she'd come to refer to the days when a letter arrived from Smiley.
One thing she had to hand to whomever was sending the letters: they were consistent; not only in the contents of the letters and articles but in their frequency as well. Em could probably set her calendar based on the fact that every third day, a letter would arrive.
And, unfortunately, today was one of them.
Of course she wished it wasn't so, but she really could see no reason for Smiley to waver from the routine. It would be far too convenient if today Smiley would suddenly come down with a lethal strain of the Wizard Flu or be hit by a stray Avada Kedavra, rendering he or she incapable of sending along the toxic epistle. Sadly, fate didn't work that way.
Lyna seemed to be thinking along those lines. "I wish today wasn't a letter day," she whispered, casting Em a worried glance.
"Me too. But Smiley wouldn't feel right about laying off the psychological abuse just because today is a big day for me, innit?" Em whispered back with more glibness than she felt.
Not that Smiley knows today is important. Right?
Emerson frowned at the thought but was distracted from further analysis by the disgruntled huff that her friend emitted.
"There's no law that says you can't chuck that piece of trash into the fire unopened. Why do you have to be so stubborn?"
"What if there's a clue to this person's identity but I miss it because I throw away the letter without opening it?" Em hissed. "Do you want whomever it is to get away with this?"
"Of course not!" Carolyna snapped. "But let's take it to a teacher. Or tell your Mum and Dad! They'll-"
"What're you two whispering about?" Marc interrupted, his ears still red from his fight with his sister. Apparently, being labeled a "Casanova" wasn't that much of a compliment.
Em grabbed the opportunity to change the subject. "Nothing important. Just school stuff."
Her friend said nothing and only glared at her but Emerson tried to ignore it. 'Lyna doesn't understand, anyway,' she thought irritably, buttering her crumpet with more vigor than was necessary so it did what all good crumpets should do and, well, crumpled. 'That's her solution for everything: Go to an adult. The lass needs to learn to handle things herself sometimes, for Circé's sake.'
The frostiness lingered between the two girls for the next ten minutes as they waited for the mail to arrive. But as soon as the barn owl landed in front of Emerson, Lyna leaned over and laid her hand on the letter the bird dropped. "Can't you at least leave it till later, Em? Till after your tryouts?"
'Should I?' Em thought, staring absentmindedly at the bunch of gold and scarlet tulips that an owl had delivered to a blushing Marissa, and to Marc's obvious consternation. She dragged her eyes back to the innocuous-appearing white envelope that she held. Anybody looking at it couldn't possibly dream of what hurtful libel it contained. Did she want to leave this 'till later? Wouldn't it be better to get it out of the way? If she made the team, she didn't want to have something like this waiting in the wings to rain on her parade.
"Better to have the nastiness now so later can be all sunshine and roses," she said to Carolyna as they entered Gryffindor Tower. The tryouts weren't for another two hours, so they had some time to burn.
Lyna sighed. "If you say so. But I still think you should tell an adult."
"I hear you."
"Do you?" said Lyna sharply. "This could be bad, Emerson."
"Don't you think I know that, Lyna? Just let me try to deal with this myself first. Can you at least give me that?" They had paused in the middle of the stairs to the girls' dorms, causing people behind them to have to push past to get upstairs.
Carolyna rolled her eyes and stomped away and after a few seconds of irritation, Emerson followed her. They climbed onto Lyna's four-poster and yanked the hangings closed.
"You gonna open it now, then?" Lyna asked stiffly, eying the envelope as if expecting it to bare poisonous fangs any second.
"No reason to wait," Em replied, trying to sound nonchalant.
But her hands shook as she began to tear the seal. No matter how much she told herself that it was nothing, that she didn't care what Smiley said, it still hurt to read those letters. She'd told herself and Carolyna that it was because she wanted to know who was writing to her. That was the reason she kept chancing the hurt by opening the notes. But she knew Carolyna didn't believe her and, frankly, Emerson didn't believe herself either.
In fact, she had no idea why she kept doing this.
She pulled out the inevitable clipping and reached inside for the letter. After a few seconds of groping and shaking the envelope upside-down, however, she realized that she hadn't been mistaken. There was no letter.
"Hmm, Smiley. Getting tired of writing, are you? Getting lazy on me now?" she muttered, throwing the envelope aside.
"There's no letter?"
"Nope. Just a clipping today. You reckon the fuckwit is getting bored?" Em mused, then laughed at the look her friend shot her. "Come on, is there a better word to describe this person? Wait, don't answer that. I can think of a few. There's assha-"
"Emerson!" Lyna exclaimed, looking chagrined, but there was a twinkle in her eyes. She sighed. "Well, that's good then. And the clipping is probably nothing we haven't seen before."
"Yeah," Em agreed, unfolding the paper. It opened out to be a full page neatly cut out of some semi-glossy magazine called The Diricawl Wailer. The article had a date from twelve years ago, October. At first glance, the title made no sense: "When Promise Goes Unfulfilled".
But then her eyes caught the byline and slowly comprehension dawned on her. The small hairs on the back of her neck prickled eerily as a wave of unease swept over Emerson.
This was another variation from the routine. First there was no letter. And now this. Up to now, Smiley had only ever sent clippings about Emerson or her dad. And most of those she'd already seen in one form or the other, which drastically diluted their effect on her.
But today Smiley had gone a different route: the clipping was about Julia Thomas, her birth mother.
She hadn't thought about it before but the fact that Smiley stuck to the same routine, the same points in the letters had become oddly comforting in the midst of the stinging barbs. She'd come to expect certain things from the author, just as she'd come to expect that the clippings would be about herself or her father.
She'd never dreamed that a wrench could be thrown in the sick familiarity.
And with that, with the small source of refuge that she had discovered now nastily trampled, Emerson experienced a new emotion: fear. The rules had been changed on her and the only thing worse than being dead was being powerless. Which was what this made her because by this twist, she had been left utterly defenseless - she would never know what to expect from now on, which defeated any kind of preemptive measure.
And the thought was terrifying.
"Em?"
She jerked and looked up. She'd forgotten that she wasn't alone and hastily tried to rearrange her face from the expression of terror she was sure it was frozen in. "What?"
Lyna looked worried as she brushed her brown hair from her eyes. "It's just another clipping, right? Just one of those-"
"Actually, it's not," Em interrupted, looking down at the glossy sheet in her hands. "I mean, it's a clipping but it's not about me or Dad. It's about Julia."
"Julia? Why- what does it say?"
But Emerson was already reading and her stomach began rolling as if she had ingested something foul or was witnessing some kind of gruesome, nauseating spectacle. The article started off innocently enough. It was an obituary of some kind, more like an eulogy, actually.
WHEN PROMISE GOES UNFULFILLED
The Tragic and Premature Demise of a Rising Star
...This life has closed at the moment when it seemed to have reached its
springtime... [She] expected to die: [she] was willing to die... and [she] advanced towards the brink in perfect
serenity, with absolute conviction of the rightness of [her]... cause and a heart devoid of hate.
Joyous, fearless, versatile, deeply instructed, with classic symmetry of mind and body, ruled by high undoubting purpose... [in these] the days when no sacrifice but the most precious is acceptable, and the most precious is that which is most freely proffered.
The above words were quilled by the esteemed Muggle leader and politician, Sir Winston Churchill, to eulogize a
young soldier killed on the beaches of Gallipolli.
And while perhaps, at first glance, it might seem rather presumptuous to apply such a profound excerpt to a 21st century young woman, I believe that clarification will come if you keep reading. Because while she wasn't killed by anything so dramatic as curses, bullets or swords, Julia Thomas did also make a decision out of a depth of love very like a profound love of country. She did personally wage a battle which she, unfortunately, lost.
Just like that young soldier.
There, Emerson paused and took a deep breath, trying desperately not to acknowledge the three words that were striving to break through her barriers: Because of me. It wasn't. She was being irrational. Wasn't she?
Her hands were trembling so much that she had to lay the paper on Lyna's bed and lean over it. She dragged her eyes back to where she had left off:
I knew Julia for less than five years but it was enough time for me to realize, with conviction, that she was an exceptional person. I was her coach and her boss and I like to think that I was her friend. Her external loveliness was what hit you first but it didn't take long to discover that the loveliness actually came from within. She was full of life and vibrancy, the kind of person that you somehow, illogically, expect to live forever.
I was aware that she was involved in numerous outside activities but when she was with us, it seemed that nothing
else mattered or existed. She was absolutely dedicated and loyal to our team. Julia was unafraid of hard work, laboring
almost obsessively to improve her talents for our team, the Dallas Diricawls. As a Chaser on our squad-
As a Chaser...
"Oh my God," Emerson whispered, her hand flying to her mouth in horror. Julia had been a Chaser. She had known that, of course.
But she'd forgotten.
How could she have forgotten something like that? Especially with the way that very position had been occupying her
thoughts?
The shock of the recollection rapidly faded to be replaced by numerous unsavory emotions. Tears prickled at her eyelids
as the unfamiliar thoughts and feelings converged on her from seemingly all directions at once. She tried to keep them
out but they got in, anyway. Horror. Shame. Guilt. This was not some trivial thing - it was a matter of life and death,
and she was directly involved. Was she really so self-absorbed? How could she not have- Oh God, had Smiley been right
about her all along?
"What is it, Em?" Lyna asked anxiously, leaning forward to read the clipping too. Obviously she hadn't figured out what was troubling Emerson, who didn't want that to change in a hurry if she could help it.
She managed a weak shrug. "Nothing really."
Em kept her head down so Lyna couldn't see how upset she was, blinking rapidly. She wanted to stop reading but wouldn't that give her away? And didn't she owe it to Julia to at least read the whole thing? How come she'd never seen this one before, anyway? Why had the adults kept it from her? Emerson found that somehow, she didn't want to know. She forced herself to read on.
As a Chaser on our squad, she was essential to our reaching the finals of the All-USA Quidditch Championships twice in a row. I'm sure you all remember what a profound and exhilarating experience that was, especially when we brought home the Cup on our second try! Everybody played a part and we couldn't have done it without everyone who was there, and that included Julia Thomas. She demonstrated, along with Mallory Winfield and Annie Blackbenton, why the Diricawls are ranked in the top five in the Contingent.
But it was in the area of strategizing that Julia's light really began to shine. Even as an excellent Chaser-
"She was good at Quidditch. But we already knew that, right?" Lyna said softly, distracting Emerson from her task.
"Yeah," Em managed. Except I forgot. I was too wrapped up in myself to even consider- Just keep reading!
The article continued on in that vein for a few more paragraphs, Julia's old boss praising her powers of planning and deduction. But then he started in on the shock of losing her, the sadness they were all experiencing. Especially since:
The truly sad thing about all this is that she didn't have to die. We live in a medically advanced age, and there is no shortage of excellent physicians or Healers. Julia was, in every other way, strong and hardy. She could have beaten her illness, I believe, were not for the other circumstance and her resulting choice.
The thought materialized before Emerson could stop it: The other circumstance. Me.
A gorge of bile surged in her stomach as guilt like she had never known swept over her being. All of a sudden, things that she'd read in Smiley's letters began popping up.
Your very existence cheated someone out of her life...
...I bet she fancied herself some kind of martyr; she was doing the noble thing, sacrificing herself for the poor, innocent babe. Except the babe wasn't so innocent, after all - being born with blood on her hands, what irony...
She tried to fight the feelings threatening to overwhelm her but they just kept bubbling up and to her dismay, Emerson burst into tears, startling her friend.
"Em, what's wrong?" Lyna exclaimed, looking more scared than worried, reaching out to grasp her hand.
Em shook her head. What was wrong? She rarely cried, which was unusual for a girl. It was more stubbornness than anything else that made her like that, simply because she knew the vast majority would expect tears. And why not prove them wrong? None of the other letters or clippings had made her cry, though a few had made her choke up.
But there was something about this one. Somehow, this clipping struck closer to home than any of the others ever had. It addressed something dear to her own heart, right down to the same position and brought to mind that someone else had loved this sport too. Someone else had loved the same position she had. But that person was gone, that person was dead. Because of her. And she hadn't even had the common decency to recognize that, to spare that a thought or a care. What kind of person did that make her?
Deep in the recesses of Emerson's young mind, the brutal words of the mysterious letter-writer finally whittled a big enough hole in the barriers to stick their grimy hooks through and pierce her like a syringe. They drained out the murky brown contents of themselves, which bubbled and swelled, into her and Emerson wept. She had never experienced such self-loathing before and it hurt. It really hurt. She covered her face with her hands, pressing her fingers against her eyes as if attempting to staunch the flow of tears. After a few minutes, during which Lyna kept rubbing her arms, Em took a deep shuddering breath and looked up.
She avoided her friend's eyes, not wanting to see the undoubtedly profound sympathy and confusion in them. Grabbing the piece of paper, she tried to resume reading but her eyes were still swimming so much that she missed the first sentence, which perhaps might have granted her a bit of comfort:
But Julia chose what felt right to her. It was her decision and although it cost her her life, she never wavered from it, not even in the very end. And in so doing, she lost the battle for her life but won the war for the legacy of the depth of her principles and beliefs. Or perhaps I could simply say, her stubbornness.
Sir Winston Churchill wrote for that young soldier of Gallipolli:
The voice has been swiftly stilled. Only the echoes and memory remain, but they will linger.
In the same way that Julia Thomas's memory will linger with us. Because while the promise of her full potential - and oh, how far she could have gone! - has been left unfulfilled, we will not forget what she did achieve or the sacrifice that she willingly made.
So rest in peace, Julia. We'll miss you.
And we won't forget.
Emerson sat back slowly, her head hanging down. Tears fell from her eyes with faint splats onto the paper and rolled across the glossy surface to be absorbed by Lyna's bed. She watched them disappear, wishing she could be absorbed by something too because she had never felt worse in all her life.
They wouldn't forget and they were just Julia's teammates. She was Julia's daughter, the one Julia had made the ultimate sacrifice for and she'd completely blotted it out. What an ungrateful- And she'd had the nerve to be trying out for Chaser today. She didn't have any right to want to play.
'You don't deserve to take up the position of the woman you killed,' a cold voice whispered from deep inside her skull.
And with that horrifying thought, the bile that had settled in her stomach suddenly mushroomed as a wave of nausea and goosepimples swept over her. Nearly blind with distress, Emerson clamped her hand over her mouth and scrambled off an alarmed Carolyna's bed. She reached the loo in time to retch into the toilet what felt like everything she had ever eaten, and fell to her knees. The sobs she'd managed to suppress broke free and she lowered the lid of the toilet, sat down on it and cried until her head ached.
She could hear Lyna repeatedly asking if she was okay but Emerson didn't answer. She didn't see how she could ever be okay again. Because not only had she discovered something horrible about herself, but the dream of more than half her life had been shattered.
Somehow, it never occurred to her to think that it didn't have to be that way. Just as it never did to think that it was anybody else's fault but her own.
Because the new cistern of guilt, self-blame and self-loathing that had been chiseled out in her mind was getting wider, deeper and greedier. And the best and most delicious of nourishment to it was more of itself.
******
Ironically, many, many miles away from Hogwarts, a woman was berating herself for a piece of mail she had sent that day.
Why had she sent that clipping? Dammit! It didn't fit in with her scheme. It was basically a praise piece to the dead witch that she'd cut out to parody and had never intended to send. Mailing such glowing crap rather defeated the purpose of her campaign, didn't it?
It was all her damn boss's fault, calling her away from her breakfast about some kind of important document that he couldn't find. She usually wrote her letters and selected the clippings the night before, double-checking them during breakfast the next day. So during breakfast, she'd had the papers all spread out on her table. This time, she'd decided to shake things up a bit and not include a letter and had simply picked out an article to send. But then the boss's message had come in. She hadn't wanted to miss a mailing day so she'd grabbed what she thought was the right clipping and sent it on its way. Then she'd abandoned her breakfast and hurried to the office, where the "important" document turned out to be some kind of collectible sports card that the boss wanted to show off to the old farts on the almighty Board but had misplaced.
Hell's bells, had she been seething! That useless rat bastard! Some wrinkled piece of junk was what she'd missed her breakfast for?! The fucker had leered and patted her ass when she'd handed him the old card that she'd discreetly Summoned with her wand when he wasn't looking.
"You are so very versatile, Crissie. Whatever would I do without you?"
Likely nothing, you piece of crud. And my name's not Crissie! It's-
Oh screw it. She really needed to do something about this man - something subtle... maybe it was time to use that book on him, her family's old tome of obscure Dark magic that had been passed down for generations. Maybe a nice poison...
Her fury only surged all the more when at lunch, she discovered that she'd sent along the wrong article. Every day of her campaign counted and today was a complete waste, as far as she was concerned. She didn't think it would do anything negative - the girl was probably just as conceited as Julia had been and would surely use it to pad her ego. That she'd come from the womb of such "greatness". Wow, in addition to being the seed of Harry friggin' Potter. Gag.
Oh, well. No use crying over spilled potion. In her next mailing, she would just have to make sure to send a particularly vicious note. Wait, did she say 'vicious'? Oops, she meant 'honest'. Honesty was, after all, very important, wasn't it? She was merely righting a wrong, by telling the real truth, the whole truth. It wasn't her fault if that came across as viciousness, if the truth sometimes hurt.
Though she wouldn't deny that every ounce of pain inflicted on her subject was definitely very gratifying and- She just needed to find a chink in the girl's armor so the work could truly take root. So the revenge could truly be sweet. So her victory could finally be complete..
Cristella didn't know it but perhaps she should have been thanking her boss, after all. Because his laziness had inadvertently provided her with the most unlikely - in her eyes - of armor-piercing arrows.
Perhaps she should've been thanking him because her prey, long sought and pursued, had finally been wounded.
****
End Notes:
1. The title of this chapter is from the poem "Harlem: A Dream Deferred" by the still awe-inspiring Langston Hughes. I wanted to title the chapter "A Dream Deferred" but thought it would give away the contents of this part. I figured that titling it with an incomplete line from the poem might be less conspicuous.
2. In case anyone wants to read more, the full eulogy written by Sir Winston Churchill can be found here: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/projects/jtap/tutorials/intro/brooke/obituary.html
3. Finally, please review! Thanks!