The Book Of Jude

Chapter Three: The Girl Next Door

`And any time you feel the pain,

Hey Jude, refrain,

Don´t carry the world upon your shoulder,

For, well, you know that it´s a fool

Who plays it cool

By making the world a little colder´

The Beatles, `Hey Jude´

Side by side, the man and child entered the quaint little cottage. They hadn´t bothered to knock on the door, for they were uninvited guests--yet, expected, nonetheless. The door was no obstacle, even though it had been locked by means Muggle and magical--not an obstacle, of course, to Him. Although He´d made only a few of these visits as of late--He had let His minions handle that--He felt that this visit ought to be paid in person. It would also be a golden opportunity to test His little charge.

With the door in shards behind them, they advanced on a man with unruly ebony locks and round, rather bookish-looking glasses with a wand in his right hand raised stubbornly at the unwanted solicitors. The child stared at the man with curiosity--a blank look of mild interest diffused over her face. Her companion standing on her left was hidden within the folds of a black cloak, yet a cold and pitiless laugh betrayed to His host His identity. His face showed less curiosity and more seething hatred.

The cloaked man emitted a mocking laughter as the man threw himself in front of a flame-haired woman holding a small child, begging them to make there escape while he bravely held off their assailants. The woman ran up a flight of stairs--the only exit being blocked by the cloaked man and child--clutching her screaming infant, leaving her husband alone to face the man they´d tried to run and hide from for so long.

Before the woman had reached the landing, the cloaked figure had relieved the man of his weapon, which He cast aside in the rubble of the demolished door.

"It does no good to run, Potter. You will die, as will your son and your wife. You know this, and I know this. Your bravery does you little credit--yet it makes killing you all the more pleasurable." The cloaked man hissed the words as He leveled His own deadly wand in the man´s direction. The man stood rooted to the spot, but his eyes wandered from the man with the cold, yet flaming eyes, to the sandy-haired child, who stared up at him bemusedly from the shrouded figure´s right hand side. The child, with her shortly bobbed hair and plain black robes, looked like a student obediently observing a demonstration.

The man lowered His wand and turning to the child, spoke. "Child, I give the duty to you. Kill him." The man in the thick, black cloak nodded in the direction of the now defenseless man who continued to stare at the child, not with fear but with astonishment. He handed the child His wand.

By the look on the dark-haired man´s face, it was clear that he was not truly afraid of this child--he knew what was coming and knew that there was nothing he could do to escape it. The child raised her left hand obediently at the astonished man. She raised her Master´s wand. The figure at her side merely watched with His arms crossed, looking on with the pride of a tutor watching His prodigy perform an especially difficult task. She had done this complicated curse before--it was not as complicated as it seemed, but she had not actually used it on a person before, just rats, and the like. However, she was sure she could do it, and above all else, she did not want to displease her Master. She leveled her eyes at the man--a cruelly blank stare--and cleared her mind. If she thought about what she was preparing to do, she might lose courage and fail to follow through on her Lord´s orders. This man had done nothing wrong as far as she was concerned, yet it was her Master´s will that he should die--so die he would. This man did not matter--no one mattered if her Lord had decided it should be so.

Her expression remained stoic as she spoke the fatal words. "Avada Kedavra." As the man fell to the ground, she did not note the reaction of her Master to her obedient act, nor did she hear praises. All sounds and sights seemed dull, and time seemed to slow from seconds to eternities. She stared at the crumpled form on the ground. The moment the curse hit its intended target, the child felt a shock that penetrated to her very soul. She had felt the life being ripped irrevocably from a man who had never harmed her and had hardly put up a fight--a man who had sacrificed himself for his wife and child. She had taken a life and she knew at that moment that she would never be the same. She could not explain why her Master had the right to decide the life or death of a man, or even why it was so easy to end another´s existence. She only knew that it would never happen by her hand again.

"Come." The man´s beckoning voice roused her from her state of shocked silence. Taking the wand from her slackened fingers, He began to slowly ascend the stairs, stepping over the man as if he were not even there. She lifted her eyes from the body on the rug to the landing. Her Master was walking slowly and silently, like a stalking cat--He was on the hunt. He would kill the woman and her child, just like she had killed their husband and father. The child ran up the stairs as fast as she could. She had to stop Him from murdering that woman and her innocent baby.

The cloaked figure had stalked into a room leading off of the hall. She immediately heard the woman´s pleading voice. The woman was begging her Master to have mercy on her child. Mercy was a concept He had never bothered with--it gained nothing and made one appear weak. He leveled the wand at the woman who had placed her child on the bed behind her. She was standing fierce guard over the infant, yet she held no wand and knew that she provided the child with minimal defense. The blonde girl stood in the doorway, not knowing what to say or do to convince her Lord--Voldemort--to spare these two. He had never spared a life before. Still she had to try--the man she murdered begged her in his last looks to save his family.

"My Lord, please," the child interrupted. The woman and the cloaked man turned to look at her. "Please don´t," she pleaded, moving closer to her Master. Her imploring look met only a cruel look of determination.

"Silence, child!" Voldemort commanded His pupil. He turned back to the woman and raised His wand.

The child moved to place herself in front of her Master, between Him and the woman. "Please, they don´t have to die, I mean, there must be another way..." the child attempted to persuade the implacable man. This did not serve to soften His resolve as much as it had fanned His anger. He grabbed the child by the front of her robes, drawing her closer as He hissed an enraged reply.

"You are silent when I say you are silent." He dropped her and leveled His cold eyes on her imploring face. Before she had time to back away out of His reach, He struck her hard across the face. As she hit the hard wooden floor, He continued, raising His wand to the woman.

"And we show mercy to no one."

The child raised herself enough to see the effects of the terrible words that followed. In a flash of blinding green light the woman dropped to the floor in the same manner the man had minutes earlier, leaving the infant undefended and helpless on the bed. The child got to her knees, but Voldemort had already advanced to the bedside and stood before the baby boy.

"Avada Kedavra," He hissed and the room was bathed in the wicked green glow.

***

"No!" the child screamed as she sprung to her feet. Jude sat up in bed, panting as if she had just completed her morning jog four times over. She glanced at the clock and sighed. Three-thirty. She had gone to sleep only forty minutes before. She had never been able to sleep easily, the same images replayed in her head, over and over. She could see their faces and hear their voices as if it had happened only moments before--not over seven-and-a-half years ago. Every night since that night, she´d seen the events played out in her dreams. Some nights it came to her mind more violently clear than other nights. The dreams, however, had dissipated in their intensity since her arrival in Cambridge--yet they had not abated in their frequency. Every night she dreaded sleep, and when by sheer necessity she would drift off, the dreams would startle her out of her slumber within a half an hour.

As she climbed out of bed, she wondered if she´d been loud enough to wake Rhys. She was amazed that in the eleven months that they had been flat mates, she´d never woken him from his deep slumbers with her loud awakenings. She pulled on a robe and headed for the common room and sat on the battered sofa as she flipped on the television. There was not a wide selection in entertainment in the wee hours of the morning, so she settled for a re-run of Blind Date. She tucked her feet under her and brushed the stray sandy locks from her face, placing them securely behind her ears. Only three more hours, and she will have survived yet another night.

***

"Morning, Love." Rhys greeted Jude with a quick kiss on the top of her head as he came into the bakery. He took a seat opposite her and sipped at a cup of coffee. "Where´s Adda gone to this early?" he asked, looking around for the old woman who was usually bustling around the store every morning.

"She´s delivering an order to the station. You know, I think she has a bit of a crush on Sergeant O´Reily," Jude answered as she continued to flip through the pages of the morning paper. She lowered the paper to take a sip of her dark espresso. Before she returned her gaze to the news, she noticed Rhys studying her intently. "What?" she remarked a bit more impatiently than she meant to.

"Nothing." He removed his scrutinizing stare. Then, cautiously, he attempted to make known to her why he was staring at her. "It´s just that, well, Bloody Hell, Jude--you look terrible." He looked at her with concern.

"I didn´t get much sleep, that´s all." She shrugged and returned to the news.

"You never get much sleep, Jude." He gave her a knowing smile. "Love, I live with you--did you honestly think that I wouldn´t notice?"

"Aw, did I wake you?" she teased, trying to lighten the mood of the conversation that, quite frankly, she did not care to be having at the moment.

"You can´t sleep because..." he pressed on. "You have nightmares?"

Jude said nothing, pretending not to hear him. She appreciated his concern, but felt that this was none of his business.

"Come on, Love. You don´t expect me to believe that you just can´t live without late-night re-runs of Count Down and Eastenders, now do you?"

Despite her best efforts, she could not hide a half-hearted smile. He always made her feel better about everything. "It´s nothing to be worried about, really," she reassured him. "I´ve had these dreams for years and I´ve never been good at sleeping. It´s just not my thing." She grinned, and to her relief, he laughed. She knew that he would not push the subject further.

"It´s everyone´s thing, Love," he called to her as she left the table and made her way into the kitchen of the bakery to retrieve a parcel.

"It´s your thing, you mean. I´ve never met anyone who can sleep twelve hours every single night." She smirked and grabbed a banana as she headed for the door.

"It´s a talent," he replied, picking up the paper that she abandoned.

"Watch the store for Adda, okay? I have to deliver this order and then I´m off to class," she instructed, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, and good luck on your exam. Knock that bastard professor on his Nancy arse." He turned to face her, placing his hand over the one she rested on his shoulder.

"Thanks," he laughed. "You coming to the Mill, tonight? You didn´t forget, did you? Marcus and Lex and I are playing." He raised his eyebrows in a questioning manner. "Aw, come on, Love. I know you didn´t forget." He frowned in the most pitiable manner he could accomplish.

"No, of course I didn´t forget," she lied. "I´ll be over as soon as the shop closes. Shouldn´t be too busy." She smiled and headed for the door. "See you then, I guess?"

"Yeah. Don´t forget, now." He grinned at her as she walked out the door. He watched her make her way down the street and around the corner. When she was out of sight, he returned to his paper.

***

As she walked back from her last class, the bright sun of the last days of May fell on her face. She turned to soak up its pleasant warmth. She had successfully completed her first year at King´s College and all that was left was the rowdy partying of May Week and the posting of final grades in the Senate house next week. She smiled as she rounded the corner of Elm and Eden Street. The upcoming festivities would allow Rhys and herself plenty of opportunity to ridicule the unsuspecting student population. She wasn´t worried about her grades--she had immersed herself in studying as she had done since her very first days at school as a way of escaping from her tormenting thoughts. She looked forward to the break summer would give her, and yet, she dreaded it. Classes were a distraction, if nothing else. Now, she would just have to bury herself in work around the bakery. Rhys was now helping out around the shop more as well, running deliveries for Adda and other tasks that she shouldn´t have to tackle at her age.

Classes for Rhys at Trinity College were over today, as well. He had been worried about a horrid exam for a wretched professor in one of his various architecture classes. Jude had helped him study and, as far as she could judge, he was more than prepared for this daunting task. He was very bright and intelligent, but the smallest test could throw him into a nervous breakdown, even though he was sure to get the highest marks in the class.

Rhys and two of his mates, Lex and Marcus, were booked for the night at the Mill, which expected a sizeable crowd to celebrate the end of classes for most of the colleges around Cambridge. This was an important gig for Rhys, so Jude had little hope of seeing him around the shop, as he would be spending every spare moment with Marcus and Lex preparing their show. Lex was a saxophonist and Marcus played the drums. The three musicians had a penchant for a semi-bluesy form of rock that Jude loved. She wouldn´t miss the show for the world because, least of all, it was so important to her best friend.

She entered the bakery, sounding the little bell above the door. Darcy bounded over to her, wagging her tail in an excited frenzy. "Adda, I´m taking Darcy for a walk, then I´ll be back," Jude shouted to the kitchen. She was answered by a sound of consent from the old woman. She grabbed the leash off the hook by the door and attached it to the dog´s collar. The pair then headed out the door and for the open, grassy park of the Midsummer Commons.

Jude and Darcy exchanged greetings with familiar customers as they crossed the street for the park. She released Darcy from the lead and let her run. Jude found a shaded and grassy spot on which to sit and watch the dog run to greet a group of children. She had been thinking all day on the same subject and had yet to come to a decision. Rhys had been such a good friend to her for the past year--a better friend she could not have asked for, he was really her first real friend at all. She had all that she could want, more than she felt she had a right to ask for. Yet now she wanted to turn all of that on its head.

"For what?" she asked herself. "For the off chance that he still wants to be more than friends with you and that he wouldn´t mind the fact that you´re a witch and a murderer?" She shook her head. It was becoming increasingly harder to pretend that she didn´t like Rhys in a manner more than friendly. But why would she give up everything she had now in hopes that he would understand the truth about her.

"I could just keep my past to myself, I mean, I could give this a go. Who´s to say that we wouldn´t annoy the hell out of each other and break up within the first week, without me even needing to open my mouth about anything?" she mused. "I wouldn´t have to tell him until it became absolutely necessary. But then, I would have been lying to him the entire time. And I know myself better than anyone--I´d probably run before he had the chance to ask me for the truth." She picked apart a leaf of grass and watched the kids throwing a frisbee for Darcy.

"He´s my best friend and he deserves better than that--better than anything I have to offer," she concluded after a time and rose to her feet, calling Darcy over to her. She and Darcy made their way back to the shop, where Adda was shelving a fresh batch of cookies. Jude had reached a decision, she thought--or maybe she had merely decided not to decide.

***

"See you in the morning, dear." Adda waved to her as Jude left the shop. She walked down the dark streets toward the river and the Silver Street Bridge. The Mill was on the corner overlooking the river as it slipped silently past its banks. The place was already packed and Rhys and his mates had already finished their first set.

"Didn´t know if you´d make it, Love." Rhys beamed as he caught sight of Jude. He ushered her into a chair at the table his friends occupied.

"You didn´t really think I´d miss this, did you?" She smiled at Rhys, who seemed immensely gratified. She ruffled his curly brown locks in a sisterly fashion and took her seat.

"We´re on in five," said a man Jude recognized as Lex, holding a fistful of mugs. "Drink up quickly, boys." He slammed the mugs down on the table and took a seat.

"So, how´d the first set go?" Jude turned to Rhys, who was busy draining a glass.

"Oh, you know," he began. "Same old shite, but I was saving the best for when you got here." He grinned mischievously. Jude wondered what he had up his sleeve, knowing that it was nothing good. "I really need to work on some more stuff for us to play. This crowd doesn´t seem to mind, though." He gestured to the throng of partying students celebrating the end of the year.

Five minutes later, the three were back on stage in front of a cheering crowd. "I have a bit of an old classic for you folks out there," Rhys announced. "The Girl Next Door, by the great Frank Sinatra." It was a rather stunning feat to perform a song that required a full orchestra played only by a solo guitarist, sax and drums. Yet Rhys´ smooth voice lent itself amiably to the lyrics.

The moment I saw her face, I knew she was just my style

Rhys sang as Jude watched. When his eyes found hers fixed on him, he smiled and winked, then looked away just as quickly. Was he embarrassed? Jude tried not to laugh. She knew that this song was for her, as if in answer to the questions she had been entertaining all day. He still loved her--he always would. The song gave her courage to hope for more.

After a few more songs, and cheering from the crowd, their second set ended. Rhys made his way back from the bar with two glasses of dark beer. He handed one to Jude as he took a seat. The talk around the table was lively but short, as the musicians were wanted back on stage in ten minutes for their final set.

Rhys was on stage before much was said between him and Jude about the song. He seemed a little shy around her at the table, and she found this rather--adorable. She listened to Rhys´ numbers as she watched him perform. He was so at home on the stage, as if being in front of a crowd was the most natural place for him to be.

After a song of Rhys´ own creation, `Slipping On a Banana Peel and Falling...Out Of Love,´ he introduced the next number. "This is for my best friend, my flat mate, and the biggest damn Beatles fan out there." He smiled in Jude´s direction, as she hid her head in her hands. She couldn´t complain--he´d given her ample warning.

"Hey, Jude," Rhys began, as she lifted her head from the table. She smiled wryly at her friend who was now making a spectacle of her. He raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment as she gave him the finger. Their mutual friends around the table were all laughing hysterically as Rhys continued with the embarrassment. "Don´t make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better..."

He smiled at her as she joined in the laughter. Maybe she´d take John, Paul, George, and Ringo´s advice. The world was already cold enough without her contributing to the problem. She returned his sweet smile. She was going to take her sad song and make it better.