Disavowals

Chapter Fifteen - Fugue

Anne was of two minds on the journey home from Hogwarts for Christmas. On the one hand, she wanted to see her family, and she missed home, and it was...Christmas. She had to go home for Christmas. Not to mention the promised escape from the constant worry and circling doubts that made up such a large part of her life at present.

On the other hand, Hogwarts might not be entirely safe, but it was safer than home. And Theo looked so depressed as everyone around them made plans to go; his sardonic shrug at Ernie Macmillan's hearty wish for a good holiday at the last DA meeting had been louder than words. He was trapped by himself at Hogwarts for the first time in his life. She knew that he hadn't been allowed to take up an invitation from the O'Neills to stay with them. But she couldn't stay, not now.

Coming home seemed like a much better idea when she was ensconced on the couch with a cup of cocoa, watching Nicola watching the presents under the tree. Her father's sister and her family were arriving from France tomorrow morning, so Christmas Eve and Day would be taken up with extended family, but for now it was just Anne, her parents, and her siblings in a place where almost all her worries couldn't last. Knowing danger was out there was one thing, but the thoughts were quickly banished when she was helping put up all the decorations she'd known since forever, or being taught by Eddie how to make mince pies (when had he stopped to learn that?) or letting Nic show her the carols she could play on the piano.

"Listenlistenlisten," Nic said in one breath, "I can play Deck the Halls too!"

"Not another bloody carol," Eddie said, obviously less entranced by the warmth and light of home "You've played us most of the book!"

"Just this one," Nic said, beginning to pout.

"Be quiet, Eddie. We're listening," Anne told him. "Go on, Nic."

Nicola rolled back her sleeves and frowned at the keys through her new glasses. She was most unhappy about the necessity of wearing them, but had little choice. Anne could have kicked herself for not noticing over the summer that Nicola's inability to tell the time was due to bad eyesight, not bad clock-reading skills.

Anne sang along to the carol, played without a single wrong note (if not in quite the right time) and threw a cushion at Eddie when he began to sing the alternative words about burning down the school. Nic, of course, giggled and joined in with his version.

"...aren't you glad you played with matches," Terry could be heard as the front door opened and closed, "Falalalala, la la la la!"

Nic beamed at the piano. "See, I told you I can play it!"

"Very good." Anne leaned over the side of the couch to give her sister a half-hug. "You've been practising a lot."

"It's been awful. Every day," Eddie agreed.

"Well it's probably better than you were on the violin," Terry said, tossing hat and gloves at him as she came into the living room. "It's freezing out there. I wish we could do warming charms. You're so lucky, Anne, you'll be able to do magic at home this summer."

"I won't need warming charms in the summer," Anne reminded her with a smile. "But I am quite looking forward to that, yes."

Eddie rolled his eyes. "That's the last thing we need around here, you throwing spells everywhere."

"You're just scared." Terry flopped onto the couch next to Anne, pulling out her wand and pointing it at Eddie. "Boom! Hah! You're dead."

"Terry, don't do that!" Anne reacted instinctively, snatching the wand away.

Terry whipped around. "Hey! You can't do that!"

It was a huge breach of wizarding protocol, Anne knew, but -

"Give it back!" Terry lunged at her.

"Anne, what's all this about?" Their mother stood in the doorway, apparently drawn by the noise. "Give whatever it is back to Terry."

Anne hesitated, then gave the wand back. "She was pointing it at Eddie, Mum. It's...not good."

Mary Fairleigh shrugged. "You're not allowed to use magic at home. It can't hurt."

Anne felt her shoulders stiffen. "No! It matters. It matters so much, I -" She folded her arms, frowning. "Say....say Terry was good at shooting. And she had a loaded gun. And she pointed it at Eddie, but the safety catch was on. Would that be okay?"

"No," her mother said cautiously, "but this is just your magic, Anne, it isn't a gun." Terry smirked.

Anne sprang up off the couch. "There is no such thing as just magic! Do you know why Terry had her wand with her at all? Because she went outside, and outside is dangerous, now, and that...that stick of wood, to you, is a weapon for us. You can't see it, but it is."

Eddie, of all people, spoke up. "Mum...Anne's right. In summer, when that Death Eater or whatever tried to find us - I saw her point a wand at him and speak one word, and he was knocked out cold. I don't like people pointing weapons at me. Even my little sister. Especially my little sister."

Their mother frowned. "Well, then...don't do it again, Terry. Did you have a nice time at your friend's house?"

"Yes, Mum," Terry said meekly, glancing at Anne. She knew she'd crossed the line. "It was fun. Can I have some hot chocolate too?"

"You know where the kettle is," their mother told Terry as she left. "We'll be having dinner in about an hour."

As soon as she'd gone, Terry transferred her ire to Eddie. "What do you know about magic? It's none of your business."

Eddie gave her a cold look. "Because I'm a Muggle?"

"Anne," came Nicola's plaintive voice, "do you think I'll go to Hogwarts? I still haven't done any magic."

Anne folded back onto the couch. Nicola looked so small...but she wasn't anymore. Almost nine, sitting there on the stool peering out through her new glasses. They made her look older and younger at the same time.

"Probably not," Anne said finally. "You...no. No, Nic, you won't."

It had been Theo who'd advised her to say that, back in August, but Theo wasn't the one who had to watch her little sister's face crumple.

"I didn't think so," Nic half-whispered.

"What's the matter, Nic?" Terry dropped her cheerful snapping match with Eddie in favour of her little sister.

Nic sniffled. "Nothing."

"Come here," Terry insisted, patting the couch between her and Anne. Nic complied, huddling up into a small heap.

"Eddie, I'm not going to be a witch," she said in that same brave tone bordering on tears. Anne put an arm around her, heart twisting with guilt.

I shouldn't have said that.

I should have said it earlier.

I should -

I don't know.

Eddie shifted in the armchair, shrugging. "I...I guessed, Nic. Don't you want to stay with me?"

"Yes, but I wanted to be magic too!" Nic wailed, and Anne could hear in her voice the echoes of her brother, a complaint voiced once and never again.

So, I'm not going to your school, huh? I would've got a letter by now.

I suppose not. Eddie. I wish you could've. I don't want to go off alone again.

I wanted to. But you'll be fine. You're braver than me.

It was the first and last time he'd referred to that wish. Now he smiled sadly.

"Nic...so did I. Sometimes life just sucks."

"We still love you, Nic," said Terry. "Magic's not important. It's...It's Christmas. Stuff like that's important."

"Eddie, come over here too," Nic ordered. He obeyed. The couch wasn't really made for four people, and he had to squeeze in between her and Terry, who leaned across him to hug Nicola as well.

"Nicola," Anne murmured in her ear, "Terry's right, okay?"

Nic nodded slowly. "You and Terry aren't mad?"

"Nah," Eddie said, "They're just jealous I get you all to myself. You don't want to go to Hogwarts, anyway. Anne's boyfriend goes there."

"Was that your friend Theo, Anne? I liked him." Nic wiped her sleeve across her face.

Anne grinned at Eddie. "See, Nic has good taste."

"And you don't," he retorted.

"Are you okay now, Nic?" asked Terry.

"Yes." Nic frowned across the room at the clock, then tried to jump off the couch through Eddie, Anne, and Terry's assorted arms. She didn't get very far. "Let go, I have to turn the TV on, I want to watch the movie tonight!"

"Mum didn't say -" Eddie began.

"She did, I heard her." Terry bounced up. "I miss TV at Hogwarts. See, Nic, it'd be awful with no TV."

"What is it?" inquired Eddie, leaning back on the couch and releasing Nic, who was quite content to remain seated now the television was being turned on.

"Some Christmas movie." Anne got up. "I'm going to go finish my Christmas cards."

Terry was stretched out on the floor. "Don't forget dinner."

"I won't." Anne paused in the doorway. Nicola was snuggling up to Eddie on the couch, who seemed to have overcome his antipathy to emotional displays enough to let her.

I always knew she wasn't one of us...

No! No, I'm not thinking that, it doesn't work like that!

Doesn't it?

But the lights were shining on the Christmas tree, and it was the season of goodwill and peace, not deep philosophical thoughts. So Anne went on upstairs to write her Christmas cards, and her worries were lost in the sound of her mother singing Joy to the World as she cooked.

*

Theo had never stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas before. Nor was he particularly enthusiastic about this, his first Christmas there. He hadn't really expected to spend it anywhere else, but still...
His hopes had risen and just as quickly fallen with a thunk when he'd got a letter from Callum just before the holidays.

Monique is up to her ears in legal papers, he'd written, but she wanted me to tell you that we tried to get permission for you to come to our house for the Christmas holidays. Professor Dumbledore decided that it would be safer for you to stay at Hogwarts, given the situation, and we had to agree. But we thought you'd like to know that you would have been very welcome. As it is we've managed to get all our children over for at least part of Christmas day, an unheard-of feat, especially with Liam drawing double duty with this war on.

Theo had written back politely (...Thank you for the invitation, even if I can't take it up; I would have loved to come) but it was just another thing that wasn't fair. He'd seen Anne and Terry piling into the carriages with trunks, breathless in the snowy cold, and felt the force of habit and hope pulling him out the door back towards home. Logic told him that home wasn't there anymore (or that it wasn't his home) but logic wasn't working. He wanted to be able to walk up the driveway and see his house ablaze with light; to walk in, and find his father sitting in front of the fire. He wanted to go back and look at all the things he'd half-forgotten and fix them in his memory. Was it the table to the right or left in the attic that had the names carved into its legs? Was the old panelled oak door, the last original one left, in the entrance to the kitchen or the scullery exit? Did his mother's photograph hang above the piano, or had it been on the opposite wall? Little things, tiny things. He had lived in that house for fifteen years. He should know them. He couldn't remember, and it terrified him, that loss of what should have been more deeply engraved in his mind than music, the memory of his home. Even Monique and Callum's house, as warm and welcoming as it was, would have been a pale imitation of home. That led to another resolution, one of so many he seemed to be making at the moment. One day, he would see it again. No matter war and guilt and memories of betrayal; one day, he would walk through the front door into his house again.

One day, he'd show Anne around it. One day.

Promises to yourself were easy. It was the doing that was hard.

He flitted around Hogwarts like a ghost, enjoying the freedom. Every other Slytherin in his year had gone home for the holidays, to do what, he didn't like to speculate; but they were gone all the same, and the dormitory, for two blessed weeks, was his. Revenge on them, as much as he'd wanted it, had proven impossible through sheer weight of numbers (watching Blaise struggling in Ancient Runes without Theo's shoulder to look over didn't count. As amusing as it was.) The atmosphere in his dorm had been even more chill than usual, with the knowledge of the attempt and failure present and unspoken. Overhearing furious speculation as to the manner of his escape was also quite amusing. But now...he could go to sleep at night without testing his wards - clumsy, but enough against other seventh-years. He could walk into the common room and not have to plan his route based on where everybody else was. He was safe, for a time, and it seemed impossible that six months ago this safety had been something he took for granted. Simply impossible.

After one or two days, however, the freedom began to pale against the echoing corridors. Less than twenty students remained at Hogwarts (everybody wanted their families around them, now) and none of the ones who had stayed were people Theo particularly liked. They were all younger, or Muggle-born, or Gryffindors. Membership in the DA did not make Theo anything more than a passing acquaintance of Potter and his friends. Theo had never been a great proponent of the general cheer and good-will that was supposed to accompany Christmas, at least, not openly, but this year it was like clutching smoke. The singing suits of armour and Christmas decorations became vaguely irritating rather than atmospheric, a thin cover over the ugly realities of the war. Theo put off wrapping and sending presents until two days before Christmas, simply to avoid having to think about where he wasn't. Even his eight-year-old cousin Lucas would have been welcome, and that really told him it wasn't a good year. Perhaps it was just part of growing up, and the magic of Christmas died with your childhood, but Theo preferred to believe that somewhere out there (away from safety, away from loneliness) Anne's family and the O'Neills' and maybe even the Amberleys were wrapped up in the warmth and light of family.

Or not the Amberleys, with Paul in Azkaban. Another family torn by this war, and whose fault was that but his?

Theo woke up on Christmas morning to the still-strange silence, cards and presents at the foot of his bed - stranger, in a way - and, strangest of all, some nebulous but definite feelings of goodwill and peace. He lay there in bed for a moment, trying to analyse them, and then decided to put it down to the fact that it was Christmas. Even in the wrong place and with the wrong people.

"Merry Christmas," he said to the empty dormitory, climbing out of bed. "And let's hope it's a happy new year."

There were only five other Slytherin students still present - Estella Haywood, who was disturbing at the best of times, third year twins, recognisable only because of that, a first year, the worried-looking plump boy, and a second year , all near-total strangers. Theo chose to open his presents in his dormitory, sitting cross-legged on his bed and setting the cards out neatly on his bedside table. He'd have to put them all away at the end of the holidays, but for now they made a nicely festive display ranged over his Charms textbook, the alarm clock, and a stray comb.

There were cards from quite a few people, ranging from Catriona O'Neill (Wish you could have been here, there aren't enough Slytherins in our family) through Terry (Have a good Christmas, Nic says hi too) to Ernie Macmillan, (strongly reminiscent of the official cards all Ministry workers received from the Minister. Probably sincerely meant, even so.) The best one was naturally from Anne (I'll wish you a truly merry Christmas and a new year, a happy one of course, but mostly new. I'm looking forward to sharing it with you. With all my love, Anne.) It accompanied - he laughed when he saw it - the collected works of William Shakespeare, with a collection of bookmarks (so you can mark all the plays you like , a note said) and an inscription on the frontispiece told him it was from Anne and Terry, "since you like quoting at us so much." Monique and Callum sent a collection of photographs "that we thought you'd like copies of", mostly his mother, but a couple of himself as a baby with his cousins, and a pen-knife "since I remember breaking my nibs every three minutes during exams," Callum wrote. "Alternatively, you can stab Death Eaters or peel potatoes with it." Theo practised flicking it open and shut, thinking wryly about ropes and a certain night in the Forbidden Forest. The scars on his wrist had faded to barely visible pink lines, but he was not eager for a repeat of the experience. He might have learned from it, but he had a feeling Malfoy would have as well. Catriona had sent a Holyhead Harpies T-shirt (might as well pass the freebies on, right?) He seriously considered wearing it down to the Christmas dinner, but decided against it on the instinctive grounds of camouflage.

The new-born happiness was fragile, but fortunately Christmas dinner - at one table in the middle of the hall, since there were less than forty attendees even counting teachers - did nothing to harm it. It was mildly odd sitting next to Ron Weasley, of all people, but they managed a reasonable exchange about Quidditch. It turned out that Weasley, for unknown and probably ridiculous reasons, was a rabid Cannons fan. Typical. Theo suspected the Gryffindor boy still felt some gratitude for the...incident about Hermione Granger's parents last year. It was something he would prefer to forget, but if it smoothed the situation, it was good for something.

"Having a good Christmas, Nott?" Estella Haywood asked that evening in the common room. Theo was curled up in one of the armchairs, ostensibly reading, but really staring at the fire in a peaceful doze that would have been impossible during the term.

"Not so bad," he told the sixth-year. "Not so bad, really."

*

He spent the first morning of the new year curled up in his dormitory reading and paying attention to his nice new copy of Shakespeare, enjoying the luxury of a room all to himself. As much as he wished Anne had stayed for the Christmas period, or that he was at home with his father (foolish, lost dream) it was pleasant to be able to sleep without watchfulness, to be wholly himself in a place where that had not been possible for years. Breakfast in the Great Hall had shown that the blinding snow and wind of the past few days had not let up, which made lying on his bed reading in a warm dormitory even better. Around lunchtime, he decided to amble back to the common room and on to lunch, with perhaps a view to playing some piano in the afternoon.

All that considered, he was in a pretty good mood when he got to the common room. Spotting a copy of the Daily Prophet lying on one of the tables, he decided to delay lunch and leaf through it. The news was never pleasant reading these days - not with Anne outside Hogwarts' safe walls - but Theo could check the Quidditch rankings and see if the Cannons-Harpies game had finished yet. At this rate they were going to set a League record for length. The Cannons were being thrashed, naturally, but the Snitch remained elusive.

He settled back into one of the armchairs. The common room was pretty much deserted, between holiday absences and the hour of day. As he lifted the paper an image flashed into his mind of his father sitting in the living room at home, reading the paper. Theo wondered if he- no, no wondering. No brooding. There was no point.

The headline was enough to twist his stomach, a near-repeat of last New Year's (and the accompanying memories of his father were also not to be thought of.) He was about to turn the page - more dead, more broken, the war went on, he was safe, and it was Wales, not Essex - when a name caught his eye. ... Gabrielle and Clara, students at Hogwarts... Wasn't Anne's friend called Gabby? A sixth year, and a Welsh accent, if he recalled correctly, wrapped around the most inane babble...further investigation added the entire family. Present at the house that evening for a New Year's gathering were Winifred and Madoc Hayle, their daughters Gabrielle and Clara, Mr. Hayle's son by a previous marriage, Richard, Richard Hayle's wife Janet, and their children Evan and Leonora. Janet Hayle had taken her son Evan home before the attack as he had a cold. The pair were fortunate to escape. Aurors say...

Theo's hands clenched so hard the paper tore. Janet Hayle. His cousin Janet Hayle, and her children, bright Leonora and jumpy Evan.

It couldn't possibly be true. There was no way that flippant Lee, cheerful Lee, scarcely three years old (hadn't Monique written about her birthday?) could have fallen victim to a Death Eater attack. Nor was it possible that wry Jan could be mourning this snowy morning the deaths of her husband and daughter, parents-in-law and nieces. Barely more comprehensible that she could be alive because of a cruel trick of fate, that on that night of all nights her son had been ill and she had taken him home early...

"Why are you mauling my paper, Nott?" Estella Haywood's voice was an unwelcome intrusion. Theo lowered it to meet her flat grey stare. So much like Malfoy's, and Draco would rather kill himself than admit their relationship, because half-blood cousins were too much to contemplate.

"Your paper? Fair game left lying around here," he countered, avoiding the issue entirely.

She wasn't to be dissuaded. "Oh, of course. But what's got you tearing holes in it?"

Theo carefully unclenched his hands and folded the paper into his lap, smoothing out the tears. His appetite for the sports news had fled with his appetite for food.

"The front page. So hard to guess?"

The sixth-year shrugged. "Nothing out of the ordinary, for these days. You don't care about the front pages, usually."

Fellow member of the DA she might be, but the old game of truth and deception was ingrained in Slytherin House...but Theo no longer cared. Later he would, but not at this moment, when a child with fewer years than feet in height lay cold and still, a child who'd insisted on throwing herself at him for a hug the last time he'd seen her.

"Relatives. You know how it goes."

"Relatives?" Haywood narrowed her eyes. "Relatives who aren't out there hooded and masked?"

"How do you think I survived the summer, Haywood?" he threw out obliquely. Maybe the habits were too ingrained. He felt suddenly tired. "Leonora Hayle, if you must know. She was three. Merlin, how do they justify it?"

Haywood shrugged again, apparently satisfied with the information. "You know better than I do. Bastards. They'll pay."

Theo tossed the paper aside and stood. He didn't want to stay any longer in the common room with this unnerving girl who had transferred all her fervent allegiance to being accepted by Malfoy into bringing him down, and anyone associated with him. Theo wasn't sure if it was ambition, determination, or hate, (and he didn't really care) but it unsettled him. Caring that much about what people thought of you was a trap he was afraid of walking into. Nor could he accept the inborn dislike Haywood directed him for being pureblood - when she had wanted acceptance, that was - and for being a Death Eater's son now she had rejected it. He headed blindly out of the common room, intending to go to the Great Hall. He was walking into the practice room before he noticed where he was going. He reached the piano stool just before his knees gave out and he half-collapsed onto it, staring very hard at the wall and trying not to tremble.

Lee. Oh, God, Lee, they can't, it's not fair, she was three and she was sweet and talkative and I can remember her and Evan jumping off the couch at me, and Jan telling them not to, she can't be dead, she can't be, it's not fair I lost them all my family and I got some back and they can't take her away they can't touch them can't can't can't

Theo sprang up from the stool to pace, because moving was better than sitting and letting the thoughts go round and round and round -

- and Jan, I liked her, she's so much like Callum, quiet and funny and now she's going to have that funny blank look Dad had after Mum died, and Callum and Monique, and Catriona, and Liam who I haven't met, all of them, it's not fair it's not supposed to happen to my family that was supposed to be my consolation, I lost my family but they were safe all of them safe it's not FAIR!

That jolted him back into reality. Madam Pomfrey was not going to be impressed if he turned up with a broken hand, not after his wrists, and slamming his fist into a stone wall wasn't a good way to avoid that scenario.

He leant back against the wall, cradling the hand against him and trying to get a grip on his racing thoughts. The room helped. The battered furniture and piano were old friends. Discarded minims lay scattered in the corners, along with the smell of dust and laughter. For six years it had been a refuge. It was a refuge now from the jagged edges of thoughts that threatened to scar the calm forever.

So. Jan's husband is dead, and Lee is dead. And Anne's friend Gabby, if there isn't another Gabrielle in sixth year. I can't find Anne to talk to her because she isn't here. I have to deal with it myself, until she gets back and - just until. Less than a week. Four days. So what do I do?

What have I always done?

With no music and a throbbing hand, it wasn't precisely easy, but he pulled tunes out of memory and coaxed them out of the piano, stretching his hand slowly. He started with the simplest of all, and moved through tunes he knew better than himself. It was a long time before he could pull himself slowly back out of the music, and wipe his face with his sleeve, and contemplate, staring at the battered wood of the piano, what he was playing for: not just a child he'd met twice, and the grief of family he was still learning to know, but for the family he'd put behind him, and the war that was tearing them all apart, and even, when you got to the bottom of it all, for the simple wish that he could go home and it would be all better again.

All of that, down at the core: but still, and just as truly, for Leonora Hayle, age three, who he would have liked to know, and for the Jan and Evan he never would now that their daughter and sister, their husband and father, were dead.

And another voice, barely a whisper:

This is what you left and why...was it me, or was it chance?

There were lines you couldn't cross, and if he knew that Lee had died - had been killed by -

There are plenty of other Death Eaters, you don't know, you can't know, he wouldn't do that! Not Lee, not his great-niece, even by marriage, not a three-year-old -

A colder voice.

This is why I had to leave.

I wish I'd known you, Lee.