Good Butterbeers Just Don't Go Bad

Good Butterbeers Just Don´t Go Bad

By: Booksprite

~

It was a hellish day in June - and that was the understatement of the millennia. Possibly the biggest understatement since when I heard my cousin Lucius telling his girlfriend Charna that "hell no, he hadn´t been snogging with Narcissia behind her back... oh, okay, okay, so he´d kissed her just once..." Basically, it was like being in an inferno that just seemed to be getting hotter and hotter. The Three Broomsticks was stuffy with humidity, and I don´t know how many air-cooling charms Tildy performed on the room; it could have been a perfect replica of Hell in all it´s vile and scorching glory.

     To make matters that much worse, the idiotic IWC was having a meeting today, and hearing them rant and rave like psychos about how their relationships were so poor, was making me think over Sirius and my relationship, not something I particularly liked to do. Especially since just yesterday Tildy had unearthed a long forgotten (and for a damn good reason) photo album that had been left to me from Lily.

     Lily: the popular, the photographer, the soon-to-be Potter. Everything about Lily seemed to start with a P, especially Lily: the perfect. I could still remember the first day I´d met Lily, and to be honest, I had absolutely hated her from that moment on. She had the same straight, shiny auburn hair as me, same pale complexion, same aggravating tallness, and the same sprinkle of freckles across her petite nose. Needless to say, it was a bit unnerving. She´d been polite and all, but there was something about her that just seemed to radiate... pity. Those big, emerald depths seemed to look out at me as Rosmerta: helpless, defenseless, innocent, frail, powerless squib. There were a lot of things that made people wonder if I was truly a blood-relative of the Malfoys, one the things that didn´t was my ego. Because, suffice to say, it was large. I´d never forgiven Lily for that pitying look, not ever. I was full of egoistic tendencies, something that had annoyed Sirius to no end, and despising Lily was just one of them. Of course, I´d hated myself when I found out she was dead. Hated myself to no end for disliking such a genuinely nice person. Hated myself for never even giving her a chance. When the album had been sent to me, I had wondered if this was Lily´s way of getting me back for all my glares and sharp comments. I had wondered if perhaps she was up in heaven, laughing her head off, as she saw the look of anger at myself, pity for her, anger at the Dark Lord. And annoyance at Lily´s sister Petunia who had mailed it to me.

     My reminiscences of Lily and my hatred of her were disrupted by Tabitha Hawkins. "... Rosmerta, don´t you agree?" I had a good guess of what Tabitha was ranting about : men. Tabitha Hawkins raved about men more than some people breathed. She ranted about how her husband was having an affair with some idiot named Mindy, about how she´d discovered her husband´s secret stash of PlayWizard, of how she´d found some of Mindy´s clothes in the bedroom, and about how her husband was such an idiotic slob.  It was obvious that the only idea Tabitha had of men was her husband. Who wasn´t exactly the greatest bloke in the world - and that was putting it in a polite way. Tabitha had, in fact, gotten her friends together and made the IWC - Independent Witches´ Club (or the Idiot Witches´ Club, as I preferred to call them). The IWC was really just an excuse for all these married women to rant and rave about how miserable their lives were, with their miserable, idiotic, good-for-nothing husbands. Once a month, I had to serve them butterbeers, tequilas, mulled meads, and scotch while they griped about how ignorant and idiotic their husbands were. Simply, those days were Hell. And when it was already blazing outside, with the Three Broomsticks stuffy with humidity, I wasn´t in a great mood. An absolute replica of hell. All Tabitha needed was a little red pitchfork she could wield and a tail, with little horns behind her ears.

     There was a tone of anger in Tabitha Hawkins´s voice as she snapped, "Rosmerta! Don´t you agree men are utter wastes of life? That the world would be much better without them?" Tabitha narrowed her eyes at me, as if by not answering her, I´d disobeyed whatever male-hating deity she prayed to. Her chubby arms were crossed over her large chest, her round face contorted into a scowl. Her plump lips were pursed out into an almost comical try at a frown. Her nails were painted neon pink, I noticed, and her robes were pink with orange stars on them. Not the most fashion-wise fifty-year-old I´ve ever met, I reflected.

     But increasingly, I became aware not of her manner of dress, but of her big, brown eyes which were currently making contact with my own blue ones. Her hairy eyebrows, narrowed, she repeated her question, "Don´t you agree?" her tone was clipped, brief, and I instantly knew I was trying her patience, not a wise thing to do, with a woman as powerful as Tabitha Hawkins. I´d heard she´d been Head Girl in her year - that was long before I´d come to work at the pub - and had been one of the most powerful witches at the entire school at the time. There were even rumors that she was a leader in the Order of Merlin; a team of wizards and witches compromised of the best, and most powerful wizards in the entire world. I only knew that Dumbledore was a leader in it, for sure, but I didn´t know any other members; let alone leaders. There had been gossip that Lily, Sirius, and James had been considered for the group, but the Order had decided against it, saying that it would put James and Lily in too much spotlight, and Sirius... well, they decided against Sirius because they took one look at his school records. He held - and still did, to the best of my knowledge - the record for detentions a student´s entire term at Hogwarts.

     Meeting the glaring woman´s gaze, I nodded slightly, just a quick bob of the head, a curt `yes, I agree, now leave me alone before I scream´ nod. She looked me up and down, as if searching for some quirk that wasn´t quite right, some oddity that she could pick at, like a taunting school child. Apparently she found it, as she turned briskly away from me and began to mutter to the bleached-blonde head next to her.

     Her whispers were deliberately loud; she wanted me to hear that was evident enough. "Do you notice," she said, head bowed, but voice plenty loud, "that she doesn´t have a wand in her pocket? Don´t you find that the least bit odd?" The woman she was speaking to nodded looking me up and down with an analyzing look on her face. Her look then became disgusted, as she searched the pockets of my robes where a wand might´ve been.... Could´ve been, should have been.

     Before I could even register what the hell was going on, some twenty woman were glaring at me like a landowner would glare at a roach. They had the same disgusted, get-it-out-of-my-sight-right-this-instant look on their faces. It was obvious that they´d figured out I was a squib. And therefore, I was a rat and they were the petite rat-hating women who jumped up on the table screaming like a bunch of idiots. Only, unlike the petite rat-hating women, the IWC wasn´t afraid. They just wanted me out of their sight and into whatever hole I´d crawled out of. Of course, there was also the problem that very few of these women were petite; most of them had to weigh at least two hundred and fifty pounds.

     They exchanged haughty glances at each other, glancing back at me every few moments. Trying my best to ignore them, I turned back to the table I was trying to clean. Or was supposed to be trying to clean. It´s hard to clean when you keep hearing mutterings about yourself behind your back and you were having to gather every bit of your self-esteem and control not to slap each of those woman in the jaw and force them out of the restaurant while yelling `don´t come back you hags!´ But of course I didn´t. It´s bad for business to run your customers out while you´re having an adrenaline rush.

     "A squib!" hissed one of them, her voice was hushed, "poor, poor dear..." she whispered. That only escalated my anger. I could take the mockery, the teasing, the gossip, but the pity, the pity was what I couldn´t stand. What I wouldn´t stand. My hands tightened around the rag I was wiping the table off of, as I heard about ten more variations versions of the `poor, poor dear´. I wanted to run. Scream. Flail my arms wildly, and chase the IWC out of the bar forever. But most of all, I wanted to be a little eight-year-old again, who could begin crying and get picked up by Uncle Tommy-boy, as he took me into his brawny arms and told me everything would be okay. That the people who pitied me would never come back

     But I wasn´t eight. And Uncle Tommy-boy couldn´t come and save me anymore. And the IWC would be back; they came every month. And everything wouldn´t be okay. 

     I could remember a time when I still believed that someone would come and rescue me every time I fell. I could remember when Sirius had sworn that he´d always protect me. But now no one was here to soften my fall, or suddenly rescue me from a dragon. I was the unconventional damsel in distress with about three dragons up her ass, and no white knight in sight.

    Now, there was no one to turn to, not with the IWC chattering about me right behind me, not with their eyes boring into the back of my head, not with me just sitting there, taking every hit as it came. The table might have well been brand new, now, it´s oak shined with no crumb in sight.

     I looked at my hands. The texture of the rag was imprinted on them. But I knew in a few moments, my hands would become like they always were, without the rough texture of the rag on them. It occurred to me that I was a rag. I was textured, and used for manual labor, and simple, unlike the human hand. I made imprints on people´s lives but eventually I faded, and sat, waiting for the next person to use me.

     And a memory came rushing forth, one that I didn´t think I´d ever forget.

Tildy looked at me, and chuckled, tut-tutting me as I poured butterbeer into a tankard, but I was clumsy, and it spilled, the contents gushing onto the counter. She was holding a rag. The same rag that she always had, tucked into her pocket, safe and neat and perfect. It was navy blue, and cool to the touch and never left any mess unattended. She bent forward, her curly hair hiding her face as she did so. Tildy was telling me that I should be more careful, but she didn´t seem to care, gently cleaning the mess up. I was six, and had only been living with Tildy and Uncle Tommy-boy for a year, but I already loved my new place in life. The place where I wasn´t snapped at for doing something wrong, where I wasn´t glared at when I wasn´t up to par with my family´s expectations.

     "Rosmerta, dear, hand Tildy that jug of butterbeer," she said, looking up from the mess for a moment, and motioning at the jug. I picked it up and tottered on my small feet, the jug was heavy. She smiled crookedly at me, taking it and thanking me.

     I looked at the jug, on the side was printed a date: 23 2 1904. "Tildy, what´s that date mean?" I asked, pointing at the bold black letters.

     She paid me no more than a sideways glance, before answering, "It means that that jug of butterbeer was made on the twenty-third of the second month in nineteen oh-four."  Tildy tucked the rag away, in her robe pocket and picked me up, sitting me on her knee. She smiled at me, "Any more questions for Tildy to answer?" she questioned, moving some stray strands of red hair out of my face.

     "Yeah, if the butterbeer was made... thirty... forty..." I furrowed my brow, trying to calculate how long ago 1904 had been. "Long time ago," I finally said, "Then why is it we still give it to the butterbeer-drinkers? Won´t it go bad?"

     "Because good butterbeers don´t go bad."

     "They don´t?" I asked, looking sideways at her, as if her face might give away the answer to if she was telling the truth or not. She smiled bemusedly, nodding "They don´t."

     I laughed, "What about me? Do I go bad?"

     "Yes, you go bad, all humans go bad and... go to a nicer place," she said soothingly, trying not to get me scared of what would happen after life. Death. At five I probably didn´t have any concept of the heartache and pain that could come from death.

     "Well, I wanna be butterbeer then. Then I won´t go bad," I said brightly, hopping off her lap, thinking that that would end all my problems. If I was a butterbeer I wouldn´t go bad: Immortality in the most ridiculous sense, "What else doesn´t go bad?" I wondered, setting out to get the broom and do my daily chore of sweeping the bar.

     "Not a lot of things," she said softly, "some types of love. If it´s real. If the two are ready to die for each other."

     "Like the beautiful Princess and charming Prince," I said simply, thinking that it was as easy as that. That I was the Princess and some day a Prince Charming would come and save me.

     "No," I heard her mutter, "not like the beautiful Princess and charming Prince," and I didn´t say anything to that, though I don´t know why. I´d always been inquisitive but the voice Tildy had said it in, the soft loneliness made em want to hug her. As if now I knew some tragedy that had happened in her life, as if now I knew the secret to Tildy Baker, the only person who´d ever been a sort of mother figure to me.    

I stared off out the window near the table I was cleaning, the IWC had filed out an hour ago, casting glances at my that seemed to be labeled PITY in big, huge letters. I never had learned the secret of Tildy´s. The long lost love or whatnot that I was so positive she´d had. It was hard to imagine Tildy with anyone, like some lovesick teenager, that just didn´t fit in with the picture of Tildy. She wasn´t beautiful or glamorous or even pretty, she was a person with pride, a person who you just knew had held her own in the world for years and was still striving to make something of her life, and forget the past.

     And in a way, now that gave she and I something in common, a point that we both knew and hated of our lives.  She had her lost love and I had Sirius Black who had done worse than abandon me, but had abandoned his life as a whole and turned it over to the Dark Lord.

    I looked around; the pub was empty of everyone but myself. All the regulars had presumably left for the summer, off to visit small nephews and nieces and daughters and sons and other relatives, tell them what a grand place Hogsmeade was, a Drunk´s Paradise. `And, oh, I just heard from Tim who heard from Dorothy who heard from Leonard that the bartender there is a squib! Now lets all celebrate our wizardry and pray we never have a wretched squib in the family!´

     "Rosmerta, dear? Close up, will you? We need to talk," I nodded curtly, guessing that the `talk´ would be the usual. How we were losing customers or gaining them and how we could use such-and-such to our advantage for a savings´ account when Tildy dies and I´m left alone in the world, without even the bar, because it´s "dangerous" for a squib to own something in the wizarding world.

     Turning the sign over to the `closed´ side, I locked the door, and turned around, surprised at seeing Tildy already sitting in a booth. Apparition. Yet another thing I couldn´t do because I was `born wrong´ as many people said.

     She smiled at me, sadly, motioning to the seat, as if she could read my mind and now regretted how she´d reminded me of my fate. "Rosmerta," she said, slowly, as if she were choking on the words, "there was a..." she trailed off, eyes gaining a clouded look as she looked at me, "letter... for you." Tildy got up, ending abruptly, "Yes, yes, a ... a letter," her eyes were shining and read, as if she had been crying. "From... Sirius." She nodded, decisively, her voice sounding as if she wasn´t breathing, "yes, from Sirius."

     That was when it hit me. Her words had been going in one-ear-and-out-the-other. They´d had no meaning, I hadn´t been listening, just heard the calming, normal sound of her voice, and all of a sudden, I wanted to scream. I wanted to dance. "Yes, yes, a ... a letter, from ... Sirius." It reminded me of when I was nineteen, and sat by the window every day, waiting for his owl, Evangelos, to come flying through the window, carrying a letter than ensure me Sirius hadn´t died. It was the same feeling, fluffy and light and glad and everything it should be when you´ve gotten a letter from the guy you´ve been waiting on for thirteen years. But the familiar and oh-so-welcome feeling crashed, as I remembered exactly why I hadn´t seen him for the last thirteen years.

It was cold for October, chilly and showing that soon, with November, snow would fall and all of Hogsmeade would be caked in white snow. I was sitting at a table, The Snitch, a wizarding magazine dedicated to sports, politics, and news, lain in front of me. The headlines on the cover didn´t involve Quidditch or politics, like it usually did. There were huge letters, above a picture of Sirius (the same charming one of him I had in my room, on the vanity at the time). The letters read: Sirius Black: On the Run. This copy of The Snitch had been brought to Uncle Tommy-boy the day before. Only today had he had the heart to hand it to me, muttering something about "that bastard boy".

     I was a lot of things. Scared because Sirius had been the one normal thing in my life. That had always been what I´d strived for when I was younger: the normality that so many people hated. I just wanted to be average, not a squib, not someone exiled from their fucking evil family because they were "born wrong". Normal people were in romantic relationships. Normal people had children and had a spouse they loved. And the only thing that I had ever asked of God was to be normal! But did he even give me that? Did he even just let be a common witch who went to Hogwarts and had a boyfriend. Dammit: no! I had to be a squib. I had to be vanquished from my own family because of it. It´s ironic, it is. For my first four years of life, I had everything I wanted, I had toys and money and houselves tripping over themselves to do my bidding. But when I was five, my parents - Madelyn and Charles Malfoy - noticed I couldn´t do any magic. And as soon as it was proven beyond doubt (which was quite hard with my family, which seemed blissfully ignorant of the very idea a Malfoy could be a squib) I was shipped off and forgotten. Just like that. `Oh, you´re a squib. Filthy, vile thing you are. Bye, I´ll never see you again because you aren´t normal. You´re a freak´ was about the most a family member had ever said to me after my squib-hood had been revealed. After all that, I just wanted something average. Something stable. So, maybe Sirius was a party animal, he never forgot who his girlfriend was. Sirius would never have cheated on me. And that´s why he was stable, he was stable because he loved me and that love was something nice and normal rather than the hectic, oddball days I normally experienced. And a life without Sirius was a life without the one normal thing I so deserved. It wasn´t fair, I was scared and angry: How was I going to live through adulthood without Sirius? How could he leave me alone?

     I wanted to kill him. Wring his filthy neck, feel his life pass through my hands, while he screamed for mercy and I would just laugh. But I also wanted him to be there, and wrap his arms around me, and tell me everything was okay. Which, of course, it wasn´t, not that I would have cared. When Sirius said it was okay, it was like God himself decreed it so, in my mind.

     When I´d read the article it had all been a shock. It had been so idiotic... so ludicrous... so stupid. Like an idiot plot-twist the author puts in just to jostle you and remind you that the world isn´t the way you think it is. I couldn´t cry. I just felt numb. And angry and sad. Numb. Completely numb, just unfeeling, with vague thoughts and emotions drifting in and out my brain. Anger. I was angry, but it was a numb sort of anger, the sort where you couldn´t believe the cause and therefore couldn´t be affected. Numbness filled my mind, along with words of denial. It couldn´t be true. Sirius wouldn´t do such a thing. And my ears were ringing and everything was so damn wrong, and I was running.

     All of a sudden, I was just up. I was running, forcing people out of the way. Couldn´t stay there. Cramped, needed air, couldn´t breathe, I was suffocating! I pushed the doors open, heard gasps as I ran out into the world outside. I wanted out. Just out. Anywhere, but the places that held so many memories. Everywhere I looked, I could place a date, a picture, a scene. Honeydukes: Sirius in his seventh year, buying me chocolates, with yellow roses. It had been Valentines Day. I´d been enraged because I thought Sirius had forgotten me. He hadn´t and had taken me out on the town. With Sirius, Hogsmeade was always different from the way in normally seemed. Magical, as if him being there gave it some hidden meaning, like every place had a touch of magic that even I could see and control. But now that Sirius was gone, I knew I´d never see that magic again.

     But none of that seemed to matter as I ran. All that mattered was that I had to breathe, had to breathe, God, I was suffocating, heaving in breaths, couldn´t stand it... had to get out... had to get out... had to breathe. I wanted to scream, I wanted to scream and yell and throw up and do so many things that my brain was swirling with emotions and images and thoughts, as I ran. And ran. And ran straight into a tree. I ran into it headfirst, my forehead taking the majority of the pain. It hurt. But it was like I was watching from a bubble, immune to the actions of this person, this Rosmerta-look-alike who had just ran into a tree. I knew it had to hurt. But I couldn´t actually feel the pain. Just the anger, and the numbness. The numbness was becoming more and more evident, it was like now the bubble was thickening, it´s walls huge and bulky and defensive and keeping me inside it, a prisoner of a bubble. And now this Rosmerta-imposter was crying her eyes out, weeping and choking and screaming, like no twenty-year-old who had any dignity whatsoever should do. She was throwing a temper-tantrum, pounding her fists on the ground, weeping. She was pitiful. And all I could think about was the fact that I wasn´t there; I was wrapped up in a safe bubble, away from all the evils of the world.

Tildy had placed a rough piece of parchment in my hand while I´d been reminiscing. It was tan and dirty, splotched with obvious wear and tear. I shook my head, "You must be mistaken." It can´t be from Sirius, I thought, He... I... why would he...? None of my thoughts formed complete ideas, let alone sentences. I was numb again, staring in on this person, staring from a bubble, just able to look, not able to help her or tell her anything. Just sit there looking as she stared in amazement, with me safe, tucked inside my bubble where I couldn´t be affected. "It can´t be from... Sirius..." she said, wistfully, "He´s... and why would he...?" the Rosmerta-imposter looked at Tildy, who had an odd look on her face. "Oh, no, you don´t think that I am a... a ..." And suddenly this person and I were one again, and the bubble was gone, nothing softened around the edges, just the hard truth of life. Tildy thought I was a Death Eater! She of all people should know that I wasn´t!

     But I didn´t get the chance to tell her that. Because right then there was a slam: a door opened. It was the door to the ladies´ restroom. And standing there was... God, no, don´t be this cruel. Standing there was Cleo Putnay. Sirius´s girlfriend before I had come along. I could still remember James joking about how Sirius always went for "the quirky ones". According to Sirius, the summer of his fifth year, Cleo - formerly just Patricia Faith Putnay - had gone off to Egypt. She´d been a round girl, not fat, but plump, with dimples and slanted eyes that were buried behind her fatty cheeks. She´d been your average Gryffindor, brave, but not brilliant, valiant but not cunning. Sixth year, she´d come back changed. She´d died her once-orangey-yellow hair black, become almost anorexic looking, and replaced her plump body with a stick figure that was so perfect most women would kill for it. She´d also kept insisting her name was Cleopatricia instead of just Patricia. Naturally, Sirius had been interested. And then I´d stolen this Queen´s boyfriend. To put it simply: we weren´t on good terms.

     Cleo hadn´t changed much. She still had the sharp curves and stick figure she´d been so known for during her Hogwarts years, only now Cleo´s hair wasn´t black, she´d died it a brownish-goldish mix that looked like bronze metal. Her blue eyes were still striking and scary. She had slanted eyes like a serpent, a pointy though small nose and a tan that must´ve taken weeks. Her cheekbones were even more prominent than they had been at school, giving her the look of a skull that had been painted tan and had on a wig.

     Overall, she didn´t look like one you´d want to mess with. And one of her scarlet fingernails was pointing at me, her perfect-plucked eyebrows narrowed at me. "You!" she said in a strangled voice, "I knew it!" her voice was high, and strangled and threatening, "You freaking bitch!" She was shaking, her voice going higher and higher, "You helped him escape! You - you´re a... Death Eater! You´re plotting to bring Voldemort back! I bet you´re one of those witches that practices magic without a wand!" her eyes flickered around the room, taking everything in. In those eyes I didn´t see fear, and I didn´t see a little scared girl who was shaking in her boots. I saw hatred and anger. She knew! God, she knew I wasn´t a Death Eater, but she was going to say I was anyway. I looked at Tildy, expecting her to be telling Cleo off, screaming at the top of her lungs that I´d done nothing wrong. But Tildy was just sitting there, her jaw hanging partially open, her eyes expressing shock, like she was too surprised to even move, to even grasp what this vengeful woman was thinking. Cleo still hated me because I had taken Sirius away from her! Only she probably didn´t recognize that, she´d probably convinced herself it was some twist in my personality, not the fact that I´d snatched her pre-Azkaban escapee boyfriend.

     "I´m going to the press!" Cleo´s eyes glittered with malice, "They´ll know just what to make of this! You´ve been helping Black all along, you Death Eater!" And then she was making her way for the door, forcing it open as she ran into the streets of Hogsmeade, screaming at the top of her lungs that I was a Death Eater. And all I could was stand there, staring, dumbstruck as to what had just happened.

     And Tildy looked at me. And it was obvious to me that she in no way intended to be like Cleo and believe I was a Death Eater. Just because that would put her in the same boat as the madwoman who´d just been in here. Classified as the same brand as the nutcase who was now screaming and thrashing around Hogsmeade. And that was enough proof for Tildy that I wasn´t a Death Eater. When I´d been small, I remembered Tildy telling me what she called the "Wisdoms of Life". One was that if you ever saw an idiot do something; you didn´t do it. You didn´t question something the idiot questioned, because it was probably right out there in front of them. Tildy was the observer; trying to go through life as best she could, not as a genius or anything, but as a normal, commonsensical human being. And Cleo was the idiot - showing Tidy what not to do.

     I shook my head, "What... by God..." I looked up at Tildy, wishing for some sort of wisdom to come from her mouth, some sort of misery she was stuck in as well as I. But all she did was laugh.

     Tildy smiled a half smile, looking at me sideways. "Cassarah." I looked at her oddly, that was my middle name. Rosmerta Cassarah Malfoy. " `What will be, will be´ - derived from the Latin `que sera, sera´." I looked at her blankly, what did that matter? What will be, will be.

     She got a faraway look in her eyes, still smiling slightly. "I remember the Dark Years well," Tildy said, nodding to me, "Better than even you do I´d bet. You remember the letters, the numbers in the paper, the bold, black letters, saying that fifty people had been killed the other night. But you never... you never saw the people. The people that were no longer people; just corpses, littering the ground, like some gruesome try at décor." She shook her head, looking down at her lap. "No, you never saw that. Or the people that were trying so hard to make all this right - but in relativeity to what You-Know-Who could do; they had no power. You were not one of those people. You did not feel helpless. You say you´re helpless. And you are, but in another way. In the way of absolution. Rosmerta, there is nothing worse than having wings but being unable to fly. There is nothing worse than having magic, yet in the face of a great wizard like You-Know-Who, being unable to so much as push him back a little." Tildy looked at me again, her eyes reflecting what she had seen all those years ago, when she´d been an auror. I just new of the days when she´d make me take over her shift as well; unable to tend to the bar because she was out trying to fend off my family´s master. "I worked with Hagrid, the gameskeeper, you know him, certainly. I remember once he said something to me. He said `what´s coming will come; and whatever that is, I´ll be there waiting for it´. He said that was what he lived by and what he believed. `What´s coming will come´: `what will be, will be´."

     Que sera, sera. No matter what happened, Tildy would be there, standing beside me, as I did whatever it took. " `Que sera, sera´." I said, and Tildy bobbed her head up and down. I couldn´t stop Cleo from doing whatever she did. I couldn´t have stopped Sirius from becoming a mass-murderer. Because que sera, sera. What´s coming will come. What will be, will be. And the best you can do is to stand there waiting for it.

The End