Unplottable

10 - Varlerta

Imagine you're an upstart.

Imagine you come from the junkyard of life, where you learn that your life is an accident nobody values, where childhood is not an asset, but a defect. Imagine you are then suddenly and unexpectedly lifted into a kind of elitist society which accepts you as one of their own - almost as one of their own. Imagine you find yourself with powers which you've never dreamt of - no, let me correct myself, maybe they were rather the powers you always dreamt of, the powers most powerless dream of: to achieve the admirable, to gain respect, to manipulate people, to rule them. Imagine you gradually realise you are more powerful than almost everyone you know; you find yourself equipped to rule both cultures that formed you. Probably, you despise both worlds for being so hard on you when you were weak, and for welcoming you with open arms now that you prove to be strong. Just between the two of us: In that kind of a situation, wouldn't you consider world domination as an option?

Now imagine that once you prove yourself capable, the elitist society offers you a cosy job and respect. I did a bit of research, and it seems after Riddle left Hogwarts with outstanding NEWTs, they offered him a nice little post at the Ministry. He declined. He had better things to do. He was an upstart, after all.

An upstart means, no family background, no family money. You may get rich, successful, even powerful, but you'll always be an upstart. Of course, you find you come from an immensely powerful line of wizards, an ancient name even if it's cursed, but unfortunately that's on your mother's side, the side that doesn't count. Of course, if you dominate the world, your lineage or lack thereof won't matter anymore, but it's a long, stony way to world domination, even for one so powerful as you. Maybe you're undecided, maybe you want to taste the comfortable life right now, not after years of strife. Maybe you decide if you can't show off any great lineage, you will be your own great lineage, the root of the family just as well as its fruit. So you marry money. You marry lineage. You marry a pretty and admired girl half your age, a girl that isn't supposed to marry, not you, not anyone. You marry Rose Rosier.

The Rosier family isn't just one of the eldest and richest and most powerful in the country. They are legendary, they are old stock, maybe only because they are the last family which has retained an ancient tradition much older than the magical society we know: they are matrilineal, that is, the head of their family is female.

In ancient times, witches didn't marry in the sense we know, and neither did Muggle women, I suppose. They took mates, men who might or might not take up permanent residence with them. The women kept the family together, had their children, and if the fathers of the children had anything to contribute besides their, eh, genes, so much the better. The oldest woman of the clan ruled, because she was considered the wisest. Her daughter, or younger sister, or whoever, took her place and her name when she died - a family name like the name Rosier, which is supposed to be very, very old.

Then the Celts came along, and the Romans afterwards, and bang, Britain was patrilineal. Women now left their families to move in with their husbands' families; they took their husbands' names and accepted their rules. The head of the family was male; women weren't supposed to bear children unless they were their husbands'. Things changed; some say for the better, some say for the worse. Wizards and witches changed along with the Muggles. It seems the magical population of Britain wasn't overly fond of the Romans, but not powerful enough to blast them away, so instead of wearing themselves out in a big struggle, they adapted. Of course, I am grossly simplifying matters here, but then again, all history is editing facts.

The Rosier family couldn't very well ignore all the changes, but obviously they did not want to embrace the new order, either. They opted for a compromise: The eldest son of each generation married; formally, his children were the heirs of the Rosier wealth and power. Younger sisters were married off and took on the names of their husbands; younger brothers usually stayed with the family, if they couldn't marry an heiress somewhere else. The whole family stayed together in the Rosier mansion, lived off the family fortune and strove to increase it. So far, they functioned as any other family in Britain which had any wealth to share. However, the head of the Rosiers was still a woman, whose task was to rule the family to the benefit of everyone. This place was traditionally reserved for the eldest daughter of a generation, who remained unmarried and thus retained the name Rosier just as a certain impartiality due to the fact that she had no children of her own - in short, her task was that of the family matriarch. This system sounds a bit complicated, but it seems that it worked to everybody's satisfaction. Unlike in other feudalistic and usually magic families in the medieval times, there seems to be no such thing as Rosiers killing their relatives over matters of inheritance. All in all, they seemed to have lived comparatively peaceful. - Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they were angels. They were feudal lords and ladies. They exploited their Muggles. They continually strove to increase their wealth at the expense of others. But for all it is worth, they got along with each other for countless centuries. Until he came along, that is.

As the eldest daughter of Evanus and Theresa Rosier, Rose was not supposed to marry; she was supposed to take the place of the matriarch, to be the successor of Evanus' eldest sister, Anat Rosier. Even proposing for Rose was an audacity, but that does not seem to have intimidated Riddle. Maybe he didn't want to wait for her younger sister, Dolores, who was fourteen at the time Riddle married Rose. More likely still, Riddle wanted Rose precisely because he wasn't supposed to have her: She was supposed to rule the family; rather than having to obey an older sister-in-law, he probably hoped to rule in her stead once Anat had passed away. Maybe he wanted to prove to all of magical Britain that he could marry whoever he chose to marry, and to hell with millennium-old traditions. I am unwilling to consider the option that he was in love with her - to consider the option that he loved anyone at all, however briefly; but maybe Riddle wanted Rose just because she probably was the most beautiful being the Rosier family has ever brought forward. Be that as it may, he wanted her, and he got her. How he persuaded old Anat to permit it is beyond my comprehension. My parents were married on February seventh, Nineteen-sixty, in the ceremony hall near Bryn Celli Ddu on Anglesey, which is about two miles away from the Rosier mansion and borders on Rosier land. That's probably why he was allowed to marry her there, because as far as I heard, the ceremony masters are insufferably picky about who gets married in that place.

I would have liked to know what my mother was like, what she was really like, before Riddle controlled her, that is. It seems to me she can't have been devoted to him the way her younger siblings were from the start - Evan and Dolores. If she had adored him, why keep her under an Imperious curse for more than sixteen years? I'd like to think that she fought him, that she saw through his schemes soon after their wedding, but I suppose I'll never know. All the people who could tell me are either dead, or they are not exactly trustworthy.

As it was, my mother wasn't much of a presence in my life. Of course, she was always there physically; she wasn't mad, either, because she seemed to function. Only her character always seemed to be slightly - transparent, as if it was only a ghost of a character, as if she wasn't really there. Riddle wasn't around either; as I heard later, not long after I was born, scarcely ten months after their wedding night, he made himself scarce. He spent the next ten years becoming seriously evil, gathering followers and becoming immortal in some unknown but doubtlessly immoral way. I, of course, didn't know much about it, because I was too busy - first with crapping my pants, I suppose, later with learning to play the lute. Great-aunt Anat taught me, just as she taught me almost everything I knew until the day I started at Hogwarts.

I had a bit of a freak childhood, I suppose. My mother wasn't really available to me, for which I punished her, unjustly, by not loving her. Anat was a wonderful parent, wise, understanding, but strict at need; however, she was an insufferable snob. I never went to any kind of elementary school or played with the children from the nearby villages, because she considered that beneath me. On the other hand, she found it completely fitting to teach me some defence magic - well, more than defence - which may not have been quite adequate in the hands of a child my age, I admit in retrospective. Thus equipped, I roamed rather freely on beautiful Anglesey, permitted to go where I pleased on the condition that I did not leave the island and that I made sure I remained unnoticed by Muggles. I was alone, pampered, occasionally taken to meet a few centaurs - the Rosiers always had a bond with the centaurs - much more rarely taken to meet a few adult witches and wizards, hardly ever introduced to other children. No wonder I was completely shell-shocked when I came to Hogwarts at last, not to mention a brat, but that is another story.

Anat made sure that the two Riddle supporters in the family, Dolores and Evan, stayed away from me. She also made him stay away, even though this sounds highly improbable. What's the point in being the meanest, the most evil wizard in the world if you're afraid of your in-laws? Of course, imagining her as a kind old woman would not do her any justice; she was not only quite powerful, but also very skilled in magic that can only be called Dark Arts, some of which she taught me, I admit - arts even Riddle may have feared back then. Be that as it may, he never came back to the Rosier mansion as far as I know, and great-aunt Anat made sure he wasn't mentioned over supper. I suppose I knew I had to have some kind of biological father, but at first it wasn't an issue. When I was eight or nine, Dolores told me about him; she said it was my fault that he went away because I wasn't a boy. By that time she was already married to the husband of Riddle's choice, nasty uncle Charles, and probably depressed because she wasn't married to Riddle himself. I suppose she only wanted to take it out on me by telling me some kind of bullshit. Be that as it may, back then I decided that I didn't like my unknown father. I never changed my mind afterwards.

When I was eleven, great-aunt Anat gave me one of the greatest heirlooms of the family: The Rosier lute, crafted by centaurs, embellished with the family symbol, and utterly magical. I felt honoured beyond words and promised myself and Anat that I would be a musician worthy of such a treasure. When summer came, I was sent to Hogwarts. At first it was hell, but it got better after a while. I had two great teachers, neither of whom were on the Hogwarts payroll: Lady Lido, my centaur lute teacher, and Verus, master of discipline and an organised mind. I dodged and hid in the forest. I played my lute. I returned to the Rosier mansion during the summer and Christmas holidays twice. I fell in love with Verus. I finally started to learn a few things. I started to feel almost comfortable. Then, in the autumn of Nineteen-seventy-five, I got a letter from uncle Evan saying that great-aunt Anat had died, and that I was to be transferred to another school. I wanted to run away, but I was too bewildered and too grief-stricken to trust anyone with a call for help. When Evan came for me, I fought. He broke my lute. I was held at Rosier mansion for a while, this time a prisoner rather than a pampered daughter. Evan and Dolores tried a bit of preaching, hoping to turn me into a supporter of Voldemort, as he was called now. I didn't want to be his follower. If my father was so great, why did he pull me out of the school my great-aunt had sent me to, I inquired. Why didn't he take care of my mother, who by that time was obviously sick? They didn't spend much energy on convincing me, perhaps expecting me to change my mind in due time. To help matters a bit, they sent me to Durmstrang come January.

I only have one word for that school, but I won't utter it because it would not be suitable for the young. Morgana's rear end, I had thought Hogwarts was bad! I tried to run away; I tried to write to Verus, even to my family, but I was not permitted any contact with the world outside. I was not even sent home during the holidays. When after nineteen months, I got a family-crested owl telling me to come to the deathbed of my mother back at the Rosier mansion, I went there, rather because it was for once a chance to get away than because I really cared about my mother.

I remember arriving at the mansion that night, a stormy summer evening adorned with ink-black clouds. The grounds with their formal gardens, the great house itself felt alien; it was darkish, almost empty and deadly quiet. The house-elves spoke in whispers to me and ushered me to the bed where my mother, pale and weak, was propped up on many pillows. I sat beside her, feeling nothing at first, wondering if I could get a decent supper for once, if I remember correctly. When she finally opened her eyes, I saw that she had trouble focusing them; nevertheless, she seemed more present, more alert than I had ever seen her. She spoke breathlessly with a broken voice; every once in a while it seemed she would drift off again, but she was able to tell me what she had on her mind before she died.

My mother told me that my father had put her under an Imperius curse - one of the kind that controls not every movement you make, but rather replaces your willpower with something else. She said she had not been herself since I was born, that she hadn't been able to be a proper mother to me, but implored me to listen to her now, to believe her. All the while I had the impression that talking to me caused her great pain, that she was fighting the curse even then, and that it was killing her. I urged her to be quiet, but she would not hear of it, saying she might never manage to speak to me again if she did not speak now. She warned me of my father, told me that he was a liar and a murderer, who had made her poison her own aunt, Anat, almost two years ago, and who had my aunt and uncle at his beck and call. She asked me to run away, to save myself from him, and to refuse to be his follower. I promised her I would; holding her hands, I swore that I would take revenge and do what I could to bring down Lord Voldemort. She whispered that my ancestors would have been proud of me; then she went into a sort of spasm and died a few minutes afterwards.

I sat beside her bed until the weeping of the house-elves told me I had little time to lose. After rummaging through Evan's desk and taking a sack full of Galleons, I took off on a broomstick - not my favourite means of transport, but somehow I made it to London in one piece. I rented a little room in a Muggle area, trying to be inconspicuous. I tried to forge myself a few documents, but was fortunately smart enough to realise I needed the help of one of professional forgers of Knockturn Alley. I took on the name Ellis Cawldon, made myself a few years older, and wrote myself a fake Hogwarts document attributing to me ridiculously outstanding NEWTs marks. I enrolled in Auror's college, deciding that it would be the best way to start fighting Voldemort - the only way that I could spontaneously think of, that is. For once in my life, I wanted to succeed at a school, so I made sure I toed the line. Even though I found it hard at times, I did my best to obey my teachers and superiors. I studied at night and managed to get tolerable marks. Rather frequently I thought of Verus, who, among other things, had taught me to think and study systematically a few years ago. I wondered whether I should try to get in touch, knowing he must have left Hogwarts by that time, but was not sure whether my many secrets would be safe with the self-righteous prick he could be at times, so I never did. When I ran into him during one of my first proper raids as an Auror trainee, there wasn't really any decision to make. I let him go, and when my former colleagues questioned me, I did not betray him, hoping he would exonerate me in turn. He never came; things got a bit nasty, so I decided to get out while I could. Fortunately, or maybe on the whole not so fortunately, the security system of the Aurors is inferior even to that of Durmstrang; I was able to trick it and took off. Expecting persecution from my relatives rather than my fellow Aurors, I had a document for yet another fake identity, a Muggle passport, along with some Muggle money, hidden for emergencies in a bewitched locker at the train station. After I had managed to retrieve these things, I took the train to the airport and went out on the first flight overseas. It went to New York, which suited me fine. I felt betrayed by my family, by the people with whom I was supposed to fight Lord Voldemort, by the only person I still considered my friend. Even on the plane, I banned all thoughts of Britain from my mind, deciding I had left it behind for good. I would look after myself from now on, or so I thought.

I decided I would leave magic behind for good and once more dedicate my life to music. I got a job as a barmaid in a rock club, shared a room in a less than comfortable apartment, bought an electric guitar and started practicing again. Why an electric guitar? I am not sure. I wanted to become someone as remote from the awkward witch girl I had once been as I possibly could, someone stylish and cool; a lute seemed so horribly old-fashioned.

I played in a couple of bands, at first pretty horrible ones, then found better ones as my playing improved. I made a few extra bucks with a bit of guitar teaching, with accompanying a truly obnoxious comedian, and then, oh, the sweetness, the glory of it, with gigs. Finally I had a band that looked like it could make it. We wanted to be famous, so we worked hard, and the singer knew someone who knew someone - and one day we had a small sub label of a major label interested in signing us. I thought good fortune had finally come my way, yes, so I thought.

This was Nineteen-eighty-one, coincidentally a few months before the first fall of Voldemort, but I could not know that. What I knew was that they were still searching for me in Great Britain. What I knew was that the new fad, music video, would broadcast my face there once I became famous. I could have gotten plastic surgery, or pretended to be a female version of King Diamond, a woman hiding her face between tons of white and red make-up. Instead, I opted for panic. I told my bewildered band I had changed my mind about becoming famous and fled, vacating the place of the guitar player for an averagely talented dough-faced male. The band? No, I'd rather not relate their name to you, although you have probably heard of them.

I fell into a bit of a psycho pit after that. Maybe I had unconsciously decided if I could be neither a witch nor a rock star, I would be nothing at all. Maybe I can blame it on a succession of guys who were all bad news. Maybe the rediscovery of my magic, of the fact that I could manipulate people and at times even help myself to certain possessions of theirs, did not do me overly good. On the pretext of enjoying myself, I fell into a trap called substance abuse. Well, I'd rather not go into this chapter of my life too deeply, except for saying that I learned that certain things are just not good for you.

One day, I was roaming Manhattan by myself, once again broke, out of a band, a guy and a job, half-heartedly looking for a place to stay as my landlady had given me one week's notice due to my failure to pay the rent. I suppose I was slightly intoxicated and therefore deluding myself to the extent that all these misfortunes meant nothing to me, that after all I was young and invincible. I am sure that underneath the pretence, I was deeply unhappy but too preoccupied to notice. Be that as it may, in the street I saw a man with the look of a South American campesino, selling beady costume jewellery, alpaca wool sweaters and little clay pendants which turned out to be ocarinas once I took a closer look. I counted my last couple of dollars, which amounted to a little less than the price indicated on a cardboard sign. Determined that nevertheless I would buy myself such an ocarina, a pear-shaped clay flute, just for fun, I tried to bargain down the price. The campesino, oldish and even more scruffy than I probably was myself, was uncooperative at first. After I had tried to persuade him for a minute or so, he suddenly grabbed my hand and scrutinized my face in a way I found rather displeasing. I wanted to tell him off for imposing on me, but for some reason I never did.

"You have lost your way, little girl," he said in a heavily accented voice. Of course, I wanted to reply with a certain force that I had neither lost my way, nor was I a little girl, but again, I remained silent.

"Don't be afraid - you will find your way again," the campesino said kindly and pulled out an ocarina on a leather cord from underneath his own shirt. This little instrument was irregularly shaped, chipped and grubby, its cord worn; I would not have picked it up from the gutter had I found it there. He took it off his neck and pressed it in my hand. "You will find your way, and you will find yourself again," he repeated, then turned to another customer to serve her. I stood there, a bit confused and probably too far out of it to even thank him. I just walked off, putting the leather cord around my own neck. My rather aimless walk soon led me to a music store where I found a note taped to the wall, saying a rock band was looking for a guitar player. I took the note with me to a near phone box and called the number it gave with one of my last coins, still in my possession because the campesino had not even asked for my money. A guy answered the phone, as it turned out the singer of the band. That's how I met Roary.

I came into their practice room the next day; we jammed for many hours, accumulating the material for what would later be almost three complete songs, and, what's more, songs I like even today. We completely lost track of time, causing the drummer to miss a date with a woman he really fancied. It was the kind of magic rehearsal from which you go home in an elated state, while for once all the happiness-inducing substances are supplied by your own body. I knew I wanted to play with them, and I was pretty sure I hadn't made a bad impression either.

After the second rehearsal, another remarkable evening, Roary took me aside. My heart pounded. I could hardly have missed that he was the best-looking man in the world even then; I admit I had already developed a crush on him, which probably happens to most people who first meet him. When he said he wanted a private word, I suppose I was hoping he'd make a pass at me.

"I want you to play guitar with us, but I don't want a junkie in my band," he said rather blandly.

Of course I denied being a junkie quite hotly, but that did not deceive him in any way. "Either you come clean, and I mean now, or you can't come back," he said very seriously. It dawned on me that he meant it, and that he had no interest in me as a woman. I promised him I would indeed come clean, though I am not sure I meant it.

I went home to my soon-to-be-vacated den, my guitar bag slung over one shoulder, my mood as low as it had been high after the rehearsal before. In my room I packed my few possession - some unwashed clothes, a few dog-eared books, a little money I had made by amusing the tourists with some vaguely magical tricks. I sat in front of a cracked Muggle mirror that would not even talk to me, but I could tell myself that my life was crap, and that I did not know what to do with it or where to go. The only thing I was sure of was that I really wanted to play in that band, and that the only way to achieve this end was to leave my way of life behind. I gathered up my bag and my guitar; in the door I turned around to leave most of my money behind on the table, a feeble attempt to mollify my aggrieved landlady. Then I left.

Admittedly, Roary was less than pleased when he found me on his doorstep. He told me rather unkindly that he did not want junkies in his apartment either, that he did not care where or even whether I came clean because obviously I was crazy on top of everything else to ring his doorbell in the middle of the night. After assuring me that he was gay and that he had no interest whatsoever in me as a woman, he told me I had blown all my chances of playing in a band with him by disturbing him in this fashion.

I snapped my fingers to my forehead and whispered as softly as I could, "apathó", an old charm against tears which great-aunt Anat had once taught me so I would make it through school. Usually, not even witches or wizards notice this charm, but Roary knew straight away. His face fell; "you are a witch," he stated rather than asked.

I turned on my heels and tried to flee, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me inside his apartment. Over three pots of tea, he extracted from me the story of my life, who I was and where I came from. I don't know why I told him all this, as I hadn't told anyone anything at all in years; maybe he was more persuasive than other people, or maybe I was just tired of running away from myself. It was, of course, entirely unwise to trust him, as I hardly knew him, but I was lucky: He never betrayed my trust, but helped me in many ways. After hearing my story, he decided I would move in with him after all; he was kind, even though distant, in the weeks that followed, weeks that weren't pleasant at all.

I am not sure how I made it through that time, except that I had a friend, and a charm I believe to be lucky. This may be superstition, of course - I have never found any evidence that the campesino's gift has any magical power whatsoever. Yet the day I got it, my life changed for the better, and since that day, I have never fallen into any kind of mental abyss or lost myself again. Rather than on substances that come in ugly little packages, I learned to rely on myself again; I played in Roary's band, I found a new job and a new apartment. I even got over the disappointment of finding that Roary had spoken the truth when he said he liked men. Having him as a friend was a much larger treasure than having most men as lovers, I decided, so I radically raised my standards regarding guys. I also mingled with witches and wizards again, as Roary would take me to some secret meeting places; I started to practice magic again and stopped seeing it as a way to cheat myself through life. All this helped. But in retrospective, I believe that the immense pleasure of truly playing music again, of playing in a great band, was maybe the strongest force that kept me out of trouble. If it wasn't such a despicably tacky expression, I would claim that rock n'roll saved my soul.

Roary could not ease my fears of being discovered, taken and maybe forced to serve Lord Voldemort, no matter where I hid in the world; rather, he confirmed them. He advised me to practice defence magic, got me in touch with a few people who could teach me things, and when I told him I would try to use music for purposes like Strengthening and Shielding, he did not laugh at me. As my research did not get me very far, I decided to travel, hoping to benefit from certain shamanic powers which were hinted at in a few ethnographic books. I was abroad for many months a few times, always sure that when I came back, Roary would have a place in some band ready for me. For a few years, our band mates, all of them Muggles, were replaced now and then, but when I came home from studying music magic in Mongolia, I found Pat, the bass player, in Roary's apartment. When I got to know Roary's Muggle lover better, I was truly pleased to see he had taken up permanent residency both in Roary's life and in our band.

Years passed. I wrote songs and played gigs; I travelled in and out of the United States, yet never to Britain; I taught a few beginners' classes on defence magic at Northern Magic University; I bought and bewitched a motorcycle; I welcomed Aisha into our band, glad to have found a drummer I really wanted to stay. In the early summer of Nineteen-ninety-five, Roary told me that Voldemort had risen again - trust Roary to be the first in the country to know such a thing. We talked all night. Roary urged me to write Dumbledore and offer him my assistance. I was reluctant, expecting his distrust and fearing Aurors and Azkaban, but, once more, let Roary persuade me. The return letter I got was kind, full of trust, and concluded with the offer of a post at Hogwarts. Unwilling to take back my offer of going overseas, and remembering the oath once sworn to my mother, I accepted; I played a farewell concert with my band, packed my things and mounted my Flying Harley. You can imagine my surprise when I found the one friend of my childhood among the teachers of Hogwarts.

The rest is history.