Remorse

Chapter Nine: First Signs of Magic

So this must be Celia’s brother, about whom Linus had heard a great deal. He would not have guessed at the relationship from appearances alone; William was much taller than his sister, and seemed to be about three decades older. Linus was a half-blood himself, and he knew, of course, that Muggles aged faster than wizards, but the contrast had never before stared him in the face so aggressively. Celia was over seventy, but she was fit and healthy, and could have passed for a Muggle woman of fifty. William was leaning heavily on his walking stick.

“This is my son, Jeremiah,” William was saying, “... my daughter-in-law, Ruth ... and my grandchildren, Matthew and Bonnie.”

Something softened in his voice and expression as he motioned for the little girl to step forward, and Linus guessed what had made him relent in his attitude about magic far enough to seek out his sister the witch for protection. There must have been some threat to the child’s safety.

“This is Linus. My, er, husband,” said Celia.

Linus was startled to discover that they were married, but then he remembered that William’s religious beliefs were, to say the least, stringent, and that this was probably the simplest way for Celia to explain the presence of a man in pajamas and dressing gown in her house.

“Hello,” said Ruth. Her voice was wary, but she seemed to be made of less steely stuff than the men.

“Do come in and have some tea,” said Celia. This was her usual method of dealing with crises, and it seemed to mollify Ruth, at least. Linus noticed that she made it the Muggle way, by lighting the stove with a match and waiting several minutes for the kettle to heat up, but the children were staring and whispering all the same. Celia offered them each a Ginger Newt. They thanked her politely but made no move to eat the biscuits.

Celia poured tea for everyone, although Linus – who felt weak, chilled, and very thirsty from the loss of blood – was the only one who felt like drinking it. Celia and Ruth took a sip or two, and the other men left theirs untouched.

“I do not approve of witchcraft,” said William after a moment.

“I know,” said Celia. “I haven’t asked for your approval. But if you or the children are in any danger, you are welcome here whether you approve or not.”

Once again, William paused for a long time before he spoke. “Thank you,” he said with some effort.

“Er – it is the children, isn’t it?” Celia asked.

“Yes,” said Jeremiah. “A man came to see us the day before yesterday. He was a sort of – a professor, he called himself. At a school of witchcraft and wizardry. I told him we believed it to be the devil’s work, but he insisted on coming in.”

“He was nice,” Bonnie piped up. “He gave me a sherbet lemon, but Daddy wouldn’t let me eat it.”

Matthew elbowed her. “You’re too young to understand,” he said solemnly, “but it was an evil sherbet lemon. It was bewitched.”

Bonnie stuck her tongue out at him. “I am NOT too young!”

“Yes, well,” said Ruth quickly, “he seemed to think the children were in danger. From werewolves.” She sounded remarkably matter-of-fact about it, for a Muggle – but then, Linus realized, the whole family seemed to take it for granted that witchcraft was real and the devil immanent, so believing in werewolves might not have seemed like much of a stretch. He decided to keep this observation to himself, and poured himself another cup of tea as a reward.

“He tried to give us something called a Portkey,” said Jeremiah, “but my father already had one.”

“I know,” said Celia. “I gave it to him.”

“I prayed over it,” said William, a little defensively. “I regarded it as a temptation.”

“So did we all,” said Ruth gently. “But the Lord said to me, go and take it in your hand.”

“It was brilliant,” Matthew blurted out. “It was, like, FWOOOMP! And we were in London, just like that.”

His father gave him a quelling look. “We’re not doing it again.”

“Were they good to you at the Ministry?” Celia asked.

“They were – I think they were very busy,” said Ruth diplomatically. “There were an awful lot of people in the shelter – people like us, who don’t practice witchcraft – and just one woman from the Ministry in charge, and she didn’t seem to have much time left over for anybody. And then in the morning, she said our children weren’t in any immediate danger now that the full moon was past, and if we had any witches or wizards in the family we should go to them. So William looked up your address, and we took the train back to Manchester, and here we are.”

Celia nodded. “You did the right thing,” she said.

“The woman at the Ministry also said that we should stay with you until they had time to put some protection spells on our house,” said Ruth, “but I don’t know if that would be right. I’ve been praying for an answer.”

Linus couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Here’s your answer. Let them do it. You’re rank fools otherwise. Besides, you’re protected by magic here, so what’s the difference?”

Jeremiah and William exchanged a look that boded nothing good, and Bonnie took advantage of her father’s distraction to begin nibbling at the Ginger Newt.

Celia stood up and reached instinctively for her wand, then drew her hand back and started to clear up the tea things by hand. “Well. I’ll just put some clean sheets on the beds and then show you where the guest rooms are, shall I?”

Ruth moved to help Celia with the teacups, and Linus decided it would be a good time for him to go back to bed.

 

                                                            *          *          *

“Er,” said Linus the following morning. “Do you want to get married, and all that? I suppose I should have asked you sooner, but, well...” He had an uneasy feeling that as a proposal, this left something to be desired, but he’d never been much good at that sort of thing. The truth was that they had been getting along fine without the formalities, until he’d decided to be an idiot and experiment with Wolfsbane; he and his cat visited Celia all the time, and she visited them. But he didn’t particularly want to move to Manchester, and he wasn’t sure Celia would care for the loneliness of Raven’s Glen. She liked bookshops and neighbors and city streets.

“I’ve been married,” said Celia slowly. “And it was lovely. But I don’t want to do it again.”

“But, er, well, you are all right with it if I stick around for a while? I mean, it would seem odd if I were introduced as your husband and then buggered off never to be seen again.”

Celia rubbed her temples. “I’m not angry with you any more. Even if I wanted to be, I haven’t got the time just now.”

Linus moved to massage her shoulders, and she did not resist. “How is your brother settling in?” he asked.

Celia sighed. “Well, he doesn’t want his grandchildren exposed to magic or ‘magical ideas,’ whatever that means, so I’m trying to Muggle-proof the place. It’s fortunate that I do have gas and electricity here, but I don’t know how I’m to manage another meal without any magic at all. We had Chinese takeaway last night, but I can’t afford to do that all the time. By the way, I don’t suppose there’s any way to stop that cat of yours from turning himself invisible?”

“Not a chance. Chess does just what he wants to do.”

“Oh dear. The children seem fond of him, but I don’t know what William will say when he notices. I’d better find something else to amuse them ... Remus’ old toys are up in the attic, but they’re nearly all magical. I think there are some stuffed animals that would do for Bonnie, but Matthew’s too old to be interested.”

“Books?” There was certainly no shortage of them in the house, and many of them were by Muggle authors.

“The trouble is that I’m not sure what counts as ‘magical ideas.’ What was Remus reading when he was that age?” Celia peered at the bookshelves. “The Hobbit – no, that certainly wouldn’t do ... I don’t think Legends of King Arthur would, either... Quite honestly, I’m not sure what he does consider suitable reading material, apart from the Bible. And I can’t very well hide all the other books in the house.”

Linus pointed out that Celia didn’t have to go along with everything her brother requested. It was, after all, her house.

“We’ve been estranged for fifty years. I am not about to let it happen again. And that reminds me, do try to be – well – diplomatic around them, will you? I know everything they say about witchcraft comes off as offensive to us, but it’s hard to change what you’ve believed for a lifetime, and Ruth seems quite nice, really.”

“Would it help if I explained that being a witch or a wizard isn’t something you choose to do, you just are?”

“I’ve tried that with William already. He seems to think I should snap my wand and renounce magic. Which, of course, I could do, but I’m not about to. So I suppose it is a choice, after all.”

“Seems to me that you’ve gone a long way toward renouncing magic already.”

“I’m trying to compromise,” said Celia crossly, “which is not the same as giving in.”

 

                                                            *          *          *

The trouble with compromise, Celia thought resentfully, was that it didn’t do you any good if you were the only one willing to engage in it. William accepted her hospitality, but made it clear at every turn that he disapproved of who and what she was. Linus, for his part, regarded her brother’s beliefs as rank superstition, although he at least had enough regard for Celia’s wishes not to say so to William’s face.

“I know exactly how you feel,” she murmured to Chess, who was stalking through the house with every hair standing on end. (Bonnie had been petting him the wrong way again.) “Only you can turn yourself invisible, and I can’t.”

It was at this unpropitious moment that Celia’s old friend Carlotta Pinkstone turned up on the doorstep.

“Give me a cup of tea, Celia dear, there’s a warrant out for my arrest. Or a glass of wine, if you’ve got any.”

There was usually a warrant out for Carlotta’s arrest. She was a notorious loose cannon, a Muggle rights activist who had called for the total abolition of the Statute of Secrecy and the merging of the two worlds. Celia sympathized with her friend’s politics – in fact, she had raised many of the same points in her books and lectures about magical ethics – but the trouble with Carlotta was that she had never been content with writing and speaking. She believed in civil disobedience, and she liked to put her beliefs into practice by using magic in front of large crowds of Muggles.

Celia took a bottle of wine and two glasses out of the cupboard. Mindful that Bonnie was playing underfoot, she tried using the corkscrew but realized after a moment that she didn’t know what she was doing. Guiltily, she reached for her wand and concentrated on the word Disobturamentum, and the cork flew out of the bottle.

“What have you done this time?” Celia asked as she handed Carlotta one of the glasses. She filled her own rather generously, thinking that she was likely to need it.

“Went broomstick riding in Hyde Park. It was a lovely evening for it, and I refuse to see why we should have to stay indoors. Also, I had to do a Healing Charm on a girl who ran into me on some of those scroller-rates. So careless, the young people these days.”

“Indeed,” Celia murmured. “You’d think somebody would have taught them to keep an eye out for witches on broomsticks. What are the parents thinking?”

“Do stop being sarcastic when I’m trying to tell you something, Celia. It throws me off. Where was I? Oh yes, while I was doing the Healing Charm the other children summoned one of those please-men. He let me go because he said he didn’t see how I’d broken any laws except the ones of physics, but he wrote out a report to his superior, who most unfortunately turned out to be an undercover Auror. So of course there was a big kerfuffle, all of it extremely silly and unnecessary, and the Ministry sent a couple of Obliviators out to do Memory Charms, and apparently I’ve made it onto Scrimgeour’s enemies list – something about ‘disturbing the peace at a particularly sensitive time for the Ministry.’ Disturbing what peace, I’d like to know. The Muggles have a perfect right to know there isn’t any.”

“Oh dear,” said Celia. From all she’d heard, the new Minister’s enemies list was not a good place to be. “Do you really think what you’re doing accomplishes anything?”

“It will,” Carlotta insisted. “Sooner or later, they’ll have to face the fact that all this paranoia about secrecy wastes time and resources when the Ministry hasn’t got any to spare, and the Muggles aren’t the least bit interested in persecuting us for using magic. The please-man was really quite charming.” (Carlotta invariably found Muggles charming.) “Much nicer than our Magical Law Enforcement, I thought.”

“Policeman,” Celia corrected her automatically. Despite her fascination with all things Muggle, Carlotta was a pureblood with the usual share of misconceptions about the other Britain.

“Po-lease-man? Really? Well, thank you. Now, could you tell me what the ‘laws of physics’ are? Is that the same thing as ‘doctor’s orders’?”

Celia helped herself to some more wine. “Not exactly.”

Carlotta waved her hand. “Well, it’s not important, I suppose. The point is that I need to get away from London for a few weeks, so I was wondering if I might be able to stay for a while.”

Celia sighed. “It isn’t that I’m not delighted to see you, Carlotta, but the truth is, the timing’s rather awkward. Of course you’re welcome to stay, but I’d better warn you that it might be a bit crowded. I’ve already got houseguests, and they’re Muggles.”

“Muggles?” Carlotta’s eyes took on a dangerous glint.

“My brother and his family,” Celia explained hastily. “They already know about magic, but they’re a bit nervous around it – well, I don’t imagine you’d be interested in the whole family history, but they’re evangelical Christians, and they’re only starting to come round to the idea that not all witches and wizards are evil, and I think it’s better if we don’t do anything to upset them. More than being frightened out of their home by Fenrir Greyback has already upset them, I mean.”

“But, Celia, what an excellent opportunity! A chance to extend the olive branch of Muggle-wizard relations in your own home. I do envy you.”

Celia was sorely tempted to invite Carlotta to take over her hostessing duties and let her see what she could make of the excellent opportunity. Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of an explosion from the kitchen, followed by a shout of anger from Matthew and a wail from Bonnie.

Celia gritted her teeth. She was not a woman who lost her temper easily, but if Carlotta had left some magically booby-trapped object in the path of William’s family, there would be hell to pay.

The blue jar of Ginger Newts, which had been standing on the top shelf of the pantry, had burst. Shards of crockery and broken biscuits were everywhere.

“She wanted another biscuit and I told her she couldn’t have one, and she got angry and said I wasn’t the boss of her, and then ... then the jar just blew up.” Matthew glared at Celia, as though suspecting her of keeping biscuits in an exploding jar on purpose to entrap unwary children. Celia, however, knew that the jar was perfectly normal. She had bought it from a Muggle potter years ago.

“I didn’t do anything! I never touched it – he saw I didn’t touch it!” Bonnie burst into tears.

Celia picked up her great-niece and stroked her hair. “Bonnie, love, I know you didn’t mean to do it, and it isn’t anything to fuss about. Sometimes children your age break things without touching them. It happens all the time, and it’s easily mended.”

“It does?” said Matthew skeptically. “I never heard of that before.”

It did happen all the time. But only to magical children.

Of all of the utterly impossible times for Bonnie to show her first signs of magic!

There was, of course, a sensible explanation. Not only did Bonnie come from a family that had already produced one witch, over the last few days she had been around other people’s magic for the first time in her young life, and she’d been getting it in large doses. Magical scientists had never fully understood why some Muggle-born children developed magical powers, but they knew it had both a genetic and an environmental component. Even when the genetic potential was there, children’s powers usually developed only if they were exposed to magic early in life. Almost anything could trigger it if the child was at a sensitive age: spending an hour or two in the company of the wizard next door, playing with a Snitch that had flown away and landed in a Muggle’s garden, petting a stray Kneazle.

But nine was too old. The chances that Matthew would turn out to be a wizard, even if he had the right genetic heritage, were almost nil.

She remembered showing her first signs of magic – more than sixty-five years ago, it would have been – and how her older brother had been baffled and frightened and then angry. The wounds that had been opened that day were just now beginning to heal. She would have to tread carefully.

 

                                                            *          *          *

More and more often, Remus had the feeling that he was being watched when he went in and out of his cabin. One afternoon, as he was cutting firewood, the impression was confirmed. There was definitely a pair of eyes in the brush pile, and they were watching him.

He lunged forward abruptly. A human-sized figure stirred in the undergrowth, and several twigs snapped. Whoever it was let out a squeak of fright as he moved closer.

“It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.”

The figure crept out of the brush, and he saw that it was a child, a girl. Her tangled blonde hair fell nearly to her waist. There were a few twigs and leaves in it.

“I heard the men talkin’ about you,” she muttered. “I jus’ wanted to see what you was like.”

Remus could tell by the way she spoke that she was one of the children raised by Greyback in the Forest, the youngest he had seen yet. She looked no older than nine or ten, but he supposed that if she had been bitten before Greyback went to ground in 1982, she must be at least fourteen. If so, she was a very underfed and underdeveloped fourteen.

“What were they saying about me?” he asked.

“That you was different. They couldn’t make you out, nohow. So I come to see for myself.”

“What’s your name?”

“June.”

“That’s a pretty name. June what?”

“June Fourteenth.”

“Fourteenth?”

“After my birthday. The other kids what looked after me when I was little, they said I could give myself whatever name I liked, since I didn’t have none of my own.”

“If you don’t know your real name, how is it you know your birthday?”

“Ferdinand told me. I’m gonna be Ferdinand’s owngirl at my next birthday.”

Owngirl? Suddenly Remus began to suspect why he had seen so few young female werewolves since his initiation. “What’s an owngirl?” he asked, trying to hide his revulsion.

“A girl what belongs to one of the men. Not a reg’lar man like you, an officer in the Lyceum. You go and live with the man, and you hafta do whatever he says.”

“How do you feel about that?”

June took on a slightly guarded expression. “You get better food when you live with an officer. ‘Sides, all the other girls I grew up with are already owngirls to one of the men, and I’m lonely.”

Slowly, Remus extracted her story. She did not know who her parents were; she had lived in the forest and been a werewolf for as long as she could remember. (Remus guessed that the fourteenth of June must be the day she was bitten rather than her actual birthday.) She had been the smallest of Greyback’s children by several years, and Ripper and the others had made something of a pet of her and shared whatever food they managed to beg or snatch. Now that they were all grown up, or nearly so, she was left on her own most of the time. Ferdinand Calabria had always taken a particular interest in her.

“He wanted me to be his owngirl after his last one died, but Phil said I was too young, and then Ferdinand laughed and said he was jealous, and Phil choked him and nearly killed him, and after that Fenrir said Phil couldn’t be an officer any more. But he didn’t dare give me to Ferdinand, because the other men sided with Phil.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Long time ago. Years. Hey, why you askin’ so many questions?”

“Because I’m naturally inquisitive and I haven’t anything better to do. Would you like a biscuit?”

June didn’t answer, but she certainly looked hungry. Remus offered her the last of the biscuits that Molly had sent off with him after Christmas. While she was devouring them, he tried to think what he could do to help her. The girl’s future sounded grim indeed, but he thought he might be able to teach her how to defend herself.

“Do you know if you’re a witch or a Muggle?” Remus asked when June had finished eating.

“I’m a girl,” she said, in a voice that suggested she thought him very stupid.

“I mean, can you do magic?”

“Girls don’t learn magic,” said June. “They don’t need to, Fenrir says.”

“Try,” said Remus, and handed his own wand to her. The test would not be conclusive – some wizards were difficult to match, and could do magic only with exactly the right sort of wand – but most of them could manage with a less than optimal fit, most of the time.

June twirled the wand around and swished it three or four times. A single red spark leapt from the end of the wand; June dropped it, and drew back in fear.

Remus smiled. “It isn’t anything to be afraid of. It just means you’re a witch, and you could do magic if you were properly trained.”

“I’m not a witch,” said June. “I’m a werewolf.”

“Well, you could be a werewolf who does magic, if you prefer.”

June hesitated for a moment, picked up the wand, and swished it again. Her pale face glowed in the scattered fire of sparks.