Trust

Ari yanked her long hair out of her face in frustration. The wind blew it right back in her face and she gave up. With a dramatic sigh she sat down in the sand, watching as the waves became choppier. A storm was brewing, and Ari had just had her first huge fight with her mother.

Of course, all teenage girls fight with their mother sometime, right? Ari was fourteen and had, as of yet, not had a major blow-up with Abby...until that morning, at least. Ari had been poking around the attic and stumbled across some old pictures; when she had asked her mother about them, Abby had grabbed them and uncharacteristically started yelling at her daughter. When Ari left and slammed the door, Abby fell into a chair at the kitchen table and broke into heartbroken sobs. The pictures were of Sirius--Ari's father--and his friends, namely Abby's twin brother and Ari's uncle, James.

Tears were streaming down Ari's face, and she hugged her legs to herself. Long ago, she had been told the stories, the tales of the darkness that had gripped Europe before she was born. Tales of Death Eaters, Lord Voldemort, Dark magic, and terrible fear had left Ari with jumbles of nightmares she was convinced were real. But every single time she tried to ask Abby, the images would slip away.

Rain began to fall, huge, cold raindrops that pounded at Ari. The wind changed directions, now lifting her hair off her face, but the teenager didn't move. She liked storms; the lightning and thunder had always intrigued her. Once, her mother had even made a comment about her father liking storms, too, but Abby had immediately closed up and would say no more.

Ari wanted to know. She wanted the stories, the pictures, the truth about her dad. Even Abby didn't know what had happened when they fled. Ari looked like her father, looked like her mother; in fact, anyone that had known the couple would not be able to deny their relationship.

Lightning cut across the sky as the rain fell even harder; Ari looked down at the wet, clumped sand and wriggled her bare feet in it a bit. Her wand was in the sand beside her, her bag behind her, and her flip-flops in her bag. Ari held out her left hand and looked at it, wondering just what had brought about the markings on her palm. There were no carvings in her wand to cause that, but she still picked up the twelve-inch piece of wood and looked at the handle with interest. As she did so, her mind wandered back to the pictures, and to the resemblance between herself and one of the people in the pictures with her mother.

Ari had long, thick, dark brown hair and freckles--like her mother. But beyond that, the similarities with Abby were few. Like Sirius, Ari had smoky grey-blue-green eyes, and was tall for her age. She never hit that awkward stage that most girls dealt with from about twelve until they were fifteen; Ari had always had a natural beauty in her tanned skin and sparkling eyes. Her temperament was also Sirius'; she loved to play pranks and make people laugh, knew how to worm her way out of trouble even though she had been through more than her share of detentions already, and defended her friends loyally, despite having a fiery temper not unlike that of a redhead.

She picked absently at a frayed spot in the lower leg of her worn-out jeans as thunder crashed; it had been getting louder and louder for quite some time. Ari was not worried; in fact, she knew the storm could do little to harm her. The tears were still flowing freely, and Ari wondered how on earth she would ever be able to face Abby again. Just as she thought that, she was joined by someone who sat beside her.

Ari managed to look up, and choked out a couple of sobs when she realized it was her mother. Abby pulled her daughter into a hug and held on tightly until the sobs quieted a bit, then tied the long hair back. Ari was the first to speak.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into the storm, not daring to look at her mother.

"No, Ari, I am. I should have told you more, I should have let you see the pictures. You're too much like him for me to expect you wouldn't go looking. I knew, from the day we came here, that you would eventually want to know more and go looking on your own." Abby's expression was soft, honest, and open, and finally Ari looked up at her.

"Tell me about him, please," she begged. She wanted to know so much more about her mysterious father, but she also loved listening to her mother talk. Abby still had a pretty heavy British accent, and Ari couldn't get enough of it.

"What do you want to know?" Abby asked quietly. The rain continued to pour down on them, but neither of the dark-haired girls paid it any mind.

"Anything. Everything."

Abby laughed softly. "All right... he was best friends with my brother before I really thought much about boys. I was about your age I guess when I first noticed him." Another soft laugh escaped Abby. "We had been watching each other a lot, and James had noticed... far from what I expected, he said he had honestly thought we'd get together before we did. It was in our fifth year, toward the end, when we got together. He gave you the expressions, the grace you carry yourself with, your laugh, the knack for trouble, and Ari, most of all, he gave you his heart, and his eyes. I can't look at you, listen to you, without being reminded of him. It's hard, not knowing what happened, but then I realize how lucky I am."

Ari smiled a bit as a bolt of lightning cracked upward from the ground out in the ocean. "My eyes are like his?"

"Absolutely. His were a lot greyer, you got a lot of blue-green from me, but the way they sparkle when you laugh, narrow when you're mad or frustrated--that's all from him." She absently looked down at her hands. "The rings... we charmed them to only come off if one of us got killed. So if they worked, he's alive, but Ari, I don't know for my life where he is." Tears sparkled in her eyes, and she looked away from her daughter.

Ari hugged her tightly. "We'll find him," she said confidently. "I know you, and I know me, and we don't give up."

Abby smiled a bit despite the tears that were mingling with the rain on her cheeks. "Let's go home. I have some more pictures you may want to see."

With that, Ari got up, slid her flip-flops on, pocketed her wand, and grabbed her bag. Her mother still trusted her, still believed in her, and to Ari, that was all that really mattered.