Two Old Friends

Chapter 11

"Is... Is it true that you--"

"Framed my sister in order to get out of the Death Eater squad? Yes," she tells me. "But how else was I going to be able to get out? I was pregnant and I didn't want to get caught and sent to Azkaban and leave Rosa on her own."

"How did you play that, exactly?" I ask her, watching her expression.

"Very carefully. Luckily, I doubted the whole thing when I joined in the first place, otherwise I never would have been able to follow through with it. I gave the Dark Lord my sister's name. Lucius didn't know, nobody knew. Lucius assumed that I was in with the Dark Lord when he talked to me about his last mission, or whatever, and so he never really realized that the Dark Lord always referred to some girl called Lupe instead of me. He never had to work with me on an assignment.

"After Lucius abandoned me, I started doubting things. I didn't want Rosa to grow up in the sort of 'Muggles are trash and Mudbloods are dirt' sort of atmosphere I grew up in. I also did this to spite Lucius, in a way. So, I sent a letter to another Death Eater, in code, telling them that I resign and that he wouldn't be able to find me. The other guy gave it to the Dark Lord and after reading it, it ruffled his feathers, I left behind some clues for him to find Lupe at her house. He's never seen a clear visual of my face, so he figured that a girl with a Spanish accent that goes by Lupe was rather rare in Britain and killed her." She ended with a shrug and busied herself with her drink.

"How and when did you do all of this?" I ask her in bewilderment.

"I'm in Slytherin, Severus. I'm clever," she tells me shortly.

"Ah, yes, so silly of me. Have you ever told Rosalyn anything about this?" Adriana shifts uncomfortably in her seat and chews some more on her lip before answering.

"Well... No?"

"Ah. That's nice of you, keeping secrets concerning your past from her."

"Have you ever told her anything?"

"She's not my daughter." Adriana rolls her eyes. "But I do believe that I've told her a great deal more about you and I that you've ever told her. Did you know that she never knew about Joshua?"

"The subject never came up," she says snootily.

"Well, she was quite fascinated of the theory of Joshua ever existing. Asked for photos and everything."

"I hate you," she tells me. I smile victoriously.

"And I revel every moment of it."

~*~

"Put some clothes on and hurry up!" I call at her from the bottom of the stairs, checking my watch.

"I'm coming, I'm coming! I can't find anything that'll hide this goddamn lump!"

"You are hardly showing!"

"I don't care!" I sighed dramatically and sat down in the large squishy chair Adriana bought for herself after complaining my furniture was too stiff. I felt my backside disappearing as I sunk into it.

What seemed like an hour later, Adriana finally came out wearing a dark blue dress, black shawl and heals. I complimented her and she complained about her ankles being fat. I rolled my eyes again and ushered her to a Wizarding Cab parked outside the house.

We wound up at some little diner, nothing too fancy and nothing too shabby. Remember, I had a very small income. And, as Adriana would explain it, I'm somewhat stingy. But the choice of eatery can be blamed on the former.

The host sat us down and handed us menus and then wandered off.

"I'm fat," she said.

"I'm not," I replied, looking at my menu. Adriana grumbled and looked at her own menu.

"What is a good name?" she asked suddenly. I was steadily growing quite irritated.

"Can we go five minutes without talking about babies, obesity, or your pregnancy?" Adriana looked at me with raised eyebrows.

"Fine, what do you want to talk about?"

"I don't know."

"Hmph."

"How's school coming along?" I asked, suddenly inspired.

"Meh. It's school. I have to take extra classes because I want to get out early and have a job before the baby gets old and so on."

"Ah. Are you enjoying it?"

"It's fun. I get to argue with people and then our arguments are picked at until we see all our flaws and then we have to go and move them around and whatnot. And we have to study the Ministry Laws and everything and see how far we can bend them before completely breaking them and find loopholes."

"That sounds like something you'd enjoy."

"Yea, and I do. It's fun. Something satisfactory about ripping another person's high-and-mighty attitude out by simply stating a few facts." I chuckled at her and our waiter arrived, giving us glasses of water and took our orders and then wandered off again.

"But what about you? What are you doing?"

"Me? Same thing as before. Making potions by day and serving drinks by night." Then, a terrible pang came as I remembered the notice from the night before. The Purple Haze was closing. Adriana arched an eyebrow at me. She seemed to have noticed my worry, though I made no expression to alarm her with.

"And the Purple Haze is closing, so I've got to find another job if I want to keep my house," I said, concentrating hard on my fork.

"I'm sorry."

"It happens," I said shortly.

"Do you need any help?"

"With what?"

"Finance."

"No, I do not need anymore money from you. I am perfectly capable of handling this on my own," I snapped.

"Fine, fine. No need to get short with me, I was only trying to help."

"Well, I don't need it."

"I got that the first time," she answered coldly. We glared at each other and then our dinners arrived.

The Saturday after, I needed to go to Diagon Alley for something and Adriana wanted to get baby-shopping done. Needless to say, I was then forced to come along with her. For 'moral support' was her argument. That excuse made me worry about her Defenders' career, but that seemed to be the last of her worries at the time. And so off we went. I bought my trinket, and I was then dragged to a baby depot, of sorts.

"Look at this, this is dreadful," she said, showing me a maternity dress. I made an uncommitted sound and we moved on. She started looking at nursing bras. I arched an eyebrow as she removed the covering of one. She curled a lip and looked at others.

"Hey, what was wrong with that one?" I demanded.

"It's ugly."

"But it's easy access," I reminded her, taking off the coverings of another.

"As appreciative as I am for your concern," she said, looking over her shoulder at me (I was still fiddling with the bras), "I get the hunch that you're not just looking at this from my view."

"Are you accusing me of being selfish?" I inquired in false haughtiness.

"I know you're bored, but as soon as I find something decent to wear when I'm bursting out of my pants, you'll just have to bear with it."

"Adriana, this is incredibly tedious. You're not getting anything. You keep saying everything here is ugly and awful and if you can't be pleased, then you'll just have to modify your clothes."

"I don't want to do that."

"That's unfortunate, isn't it?" Adriana sneered at me and continued her voyage through the shop, occasionally tapping the small mound that was her stomach.

Eventually, she came out of the shop laden with a few bags, though she was still slightly irritated with the lack of decent clothes, she had many infant accessories and put in an order for a cot.

"What do you want to do now?" I asked.

"Do you want to go get some lunch? I have a hankering for some fish n' chips."

"All right, your treat."

"My treat."

We went to a small restaurant around the corner. She ordered her fish and chips, I ordered my own meal.

"I've never noticed how short you were," I randomly comment. Adriana furrowed her eyebrows at me.

"...Okay." I sipped my drink and said nothing else. She continued to blink at me. "Is that all you have to say?"

"Yea. Not much else to it." She stared at me.

"...uhm... All right. I'm going to go to the bathroom now..."

"Enjoy yourself." I have no idea why I made the declaration about her being vertically challenged, and that is all I can say as an explanation. Adriana came back from the bathroom and sat down, her face flushed and looking very cheery.

"Someone just asked me if I'd like to have coffee with them," she said. I looked up at her.

"That's nice. What did you say?"

"Well, I was tempted to say yes since they seemed appreciative of my height, but I decided against it."

"I have no problem with you being short. I was merely making an observation."

"Uh-huh. So. What do you have to say about that?"

"That you're short?"

"No! About my being hit on!" I thought on it.

"...Nothing?"

"Mm hm... You know, if I had gone out to coffee with the boy, then he'd probably expect sex afterwards. What about that?"

"Well, I'd like to point out that you probably wouldn't oblige because you're incredibly self-conscience about that lump of yours, so I'd not be too worried."

"Say that I did sleep with him, what would you do then?"

"Under the unlikely circumstances of you sleeping with him, then I'd ask you if you told him that you were pregnant. Considering that most men aren't so willing to date a pregnant woman, then I still wouldn't be so worried."

"You're making this very difficult."

"What's difficult. Seeing what lengths I'd go through to search your loyalty? You could simply ask me instead of asking me these hypothetical questions."

"Fine. What extremes would have to be taken to get you to worry about the stability of this relationship." I smiled knowingly at her.

"Suggest that I'm not smart enough not to answer that question," I replied. Adriana shook her head with a smirk while she poured the catsup bottle over her chips.

The day when Adriana finally gave birth to Rosalyn came on August third. It was a simple birth, she went into labour, she had the kid a few hours later, it was all good. Penelope, her midwife, announced its gender, she cleaned up, gave tips, showed her how to breast feed (where I awkwardly examined the carpet), and flittered off. Adriana was very happy. However, she did admit she had sudden doubts and fears referring to her life as a nineteen-year-old mother.

"Isn't she just darling?" Adriana said fondly, holding the newborn closely. I grimaced my remark. Whether it was Adriana's or not, I did not like children. I still don't at that.

"Have you decided a name?" I asked as Adriana fed it.

"Yes. Her name is Roh-sah-leen," she answered, trilling the name in the thickest accent imaginable.

"Rosalyn?" I repeated, abusing it with my Cockney accent as "Roe-zuh-lin." She nodded, grinning.

Eventually, 'Rosalyn' had fallen asleep and I managed to talk Adriana into putting the child down to take a shower.

We hadn't slept together yet, Adriana and I. After she came out of the shower, she looked ravishing. The water droplets that were still collected at her temple and her flushed face gave her a fresh look. Her black curls were still damp and were twisted into a knot perched on her head. She had no make up on and her naturally thick eyelashes and thin eyebrows made her eyes look bright and open. Her blue eyes rippled lazily like soft waves through a pond. She wore her silky lavender bathrobe and I suspected either a light negligee or tank top under it. She made my mouth water.

I sat on the sofa and watched her walk down the stairs with ever so slight hunger in my eyes. She sat on the other side of the sofa. The atmosphere was thick with confusion. She nervously smoothed her robe and crossed one leg over the other rather twitchily. She glanced at me, and I quickly looked away. She propped her head on her hand with her elbow against the arm of the couch and continued to glance over at me, trying to look casual, but she was very stiff. I clutched onto my book and though I wanted to get closer to her, I couldn't move.

"Er... Do you feel better?"

"Huh?" she said, almost jumping and looking over at me. "Oh... yea," she gave a little smile. "Yea, I feel great..." She anxiously inched toward me. My knuckles were white. As she clumsily came closer to me, images of her from age ten with bruises flooded my mind despite how much I wanted them out. Somehow, looking at her the way I did made me feel ill, as though I were some sort of child molester (even though she's older than I am by ten months).

"Well, that's good. I... I reckon that it's a relief... erm... fitting in your old clothes again..." She couldn't fit in her old clothes, she still had baby fat, but that seemed to have left my brain at the time. She made a noise.

"Heh... yea. I... I really kinda... I kinda really appreciate you putting up with me... You know, while I was kinda crazy..."

"Oh, no... No ... uh, no problem..." I coughed. She was sitting right next to me and fidgeted around until she was perched on her knees. She stared right at me and I felt my mouth go dry. I tried giving an easy smile, though I think I grimaced more than anything else.

"I mean, you know... I bet it's kind of hard... dealing with a crazy pregnant girl..."

"It wasn't all that bad..." I glanced down her robe to her cleavage enhanced by motherhood. I looked back up at her and she seemed to have followed my eyes because she blushed deeply when I looked back at her face.

"I... I'll be out of your hair after a little while, though... You know... Just gotta find..."

"No, no, take your time, I don't mind." She smiled nervously. Her hand found its way to my knee.

"I just hope that we can keep this--this thing, you know? That we have..."

"Yea, no problem. Me too." She finally delved into a kiss. I less than gracefully returned it. Her hand moved up my leg and I tried putting my hand somewhere on her, but I just couldn't.

"Maybe we should do this some other time," I said suddenly, jumping out of the couch.

"Yea, yea. That's a good idea," she said quickly, almost gratefully. "I'll--I'll just go to bed."

"Yea, me too. See you in the morning," I stuttered. She nodded and we went up the stairs and into our separate rooms. I lied back into my bed and let out my constricted breath and stared at my ceiling for a long time.