Marauders, the next generation

Meet the Grandparents

I was still pondering over her reaction that night when Joseph reminded me that we had Transfiguration homework. I sighed and got it out. I stared at it for a while, winced, closed my eyes, opened them and winced again because it hadn't vanished in to thin air. Thus living out the trial of every student who doesn't want to do a particularly hard article of homework.

Except at the fourth go it actually did disappear. Then I heard the scrambling behind my chair. I sighed and turned the hamster into a plush toy before it ran away again. Then I just sat there, staring at it. Joseph glanced up at me, as did his yet unchanged hamster.

"I hear Lucy confronted you," he said casually.

"Yeah," I murmured.

"Good for her," said Joseph, "It took her a lot of courage to do that. Kept on coming to me to rehearse her lines. Strange, she's never had trouble with words before. Always been better than me anyway."

"Yeah," I jumped as Joseph's head appeared directly in my line of vision. He was examining my face curiously.

"You know she's right," he said, "There's something seriously up with your eyes."

"Is that your expert opinion?"

Joseph considered this.

"Yes, actually."

I sighed.

"You know," I said, "I think she's right. I snapped at her, Starsy! She's so young, and I snapped at her."

"She's five months older than you, Kettle."

"I know!" I cried, "But you know what she's like. She acts way younger than she is." I sighed again and scratched my shoulder.

"I'd stop scratching that shoulder if I were you," Joseph said, "People will think you've got eczema or something."

"But you wouldn't."

Joseph paused.

"No."

"Then what do you think?"

"I think something happened on that evening," he said, "I don't think you haven't told us something, just that there's something else happening here. I also think that we don't want to know what it is or go on any strange mission to discover it, just that we want it to stop. I also think that we should find more out about this ring."

I did a double take.

"The ring! No one's even mentioned the ring!"

"Gregory did. He reckoned that the Vampires were after it and I for one wouldn't mind getting my hands on it."

I was shocked.

"You would?!"

"Yeah," said Joseph, apparently shocked that I was shocked. "Who wouldn't?"

***

As the spring term progressed, the work pile increased. We didn't have very much time to check the library for anything about the Ring. We couldn't find it anywhere. Gregory checked and double-checked all his chocolate frog cards a thousand times on the basis that Harry Potter once found the information about the Philosopher's Stone on one. At which point I hit Asher over the head with his 'Harry Potter' card and pointed out that we weren't Harry Potter and his friends.

Gregory sighed wistfully and said, "Yeah, we'll never end up on a chocolate frog card!"

He then began to stare in to space and was completely out of it for several minutes. By which time we, being pranksters of course, had drawn an 'Insert brain here' sign on his forehead.

***

By the time the Easter Holidays swung around we knew nothing more than we did at the beginning of term and Gregory was in the habit of putting on a hat before drifting off to fantasy land.

After the excitement of Christmas, Lucy and Joseph decided to stay this time but I had to go home. I always visited my Mum's parents over Easter. There weren't as nice as my Dad's parents but they were really rich, lived in a giant mansion and always gave me lots of presents when I visited. Sometimes I thought they were trying to bribe me in to something.

People always asked why we didn't live the high life if the Lazaro family were so upper class. The reason was they were very old fashioned and all the money and estates would go to my Mum's brother; my Uncle Martin. Since my Mum had married they didn't see her as their problem anymore. But they still subjected me to two weeks of their charm every year.

As I approached Lazaro Manor, my Grandmother rushed out to greet me. It's strange that. My Dad's parents are happy to be called anything from Grandma to Pappy. But, although they'd never said anything on the subject, there was thing about my Mum's parents that said that 'Granny' was completely out of the question.

My Grandmother hurried over to me.

"Lione! Darling!"

She kissed me once on each cheek.

"How are you dear?"

She asked me that every time I saw her. I think I could have said 'Fine, except for the giant elephant on my head, of course' and got away with it. She was one of those Grandmothers.

"Peachy," I replied.

"Come in dear, come in."

She led me in to the house, I looked around. I used to think Lazaro Manor was huge but then I went to Hogwarts. My Grandparents' house was tiny in comparison. My Grandmother knelt down in front of me and brushed all the non-existent hairs off my top.

"Come on, Lione," she said, "Lets get you upstairs and changed."

I made my way up to my room and opened the closet. I wasn't surprised. Rule Number One of Lazaro Manor, all girls must wear dresses. True, they were really nice, not the usual flowery thing my Dad's Mum was always insisting I wore, but real decent dresses. It was the pointlessness of it. My Grandparents had never fully asserted themselves in the twenty-first century. Come to think of it, they never really asserted themselves in the twentieth century. Why were trousers on a girl so immoral to them? My Mum used to tell me that she would wear leggings to dinner, just to annoy them. I always swore I would do that some day, just to see their reaction.

I selected a pale blue dress and went to see my Grandfather in his study.

"Lione!" he cried as I entered. "So good to see you!"

"Hello Grandfather," I said.

The old man gave me a head to toe inspection. He always did this. It wasn't a friendly inspection leading up to statements like 'My have you grown' and 'I love your hair short!' and 'Whatever did you do to your arm?', the sort of things I got from my other Granddad. This was a proper military inspection. And he wasn't always pleased. Sometimes he was, but sometimes he would have a 'She'll do' expression on his face. Or worse, he'll look downright disappointed in me. But this time he looked oddly pleased.

"How are you enjoying Hogwarts?"

Okay, it was only a teeny tiny thing but I couldn't help but notice the subtlety of his question. How are you enjoying Hogwarts. Not are you enjoying Hogwarts but how. Like I'm not allowed to not enjoy it.

"Fine, sir." It's funny how the sir always slips out.

"I hear you were sorted in to Gryffindor."

"Yes, sir."

"An awful shame. Your Grandmother and I were hoping you'd be a Slytherin. Gryffindor is such a disappointment."

I felt myself blush.

"It was Mother's house." I pointed out.

"Hmm," he said, "Well, we can't have everything. At least not yet anyway, Ha ha!"

"Ha ha."

A bell rang out.

"Ah!" said my Grandfather, standing up. "That'll be dinner."

As we went downstairs for dinner I couldn't help thinking something:

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And Lucy thinks her family is weird.

***

The worst two weeks of my life followed. Every day I opened my closet with the exact same prayer but every day there were dresses. My Jeans and 3/4 length trousers were just as missing as the day before, maybe even more so.

There were fancy dinners, big meetings with my Grandfather's mates and 'cosy' nights in which were as uncomfortable as Hell. Hell was a good word for it. Soldiers in the Second Muggle World War thought they had it bad, they'd obviously never spent a fortnight with my Lazaro Grandparents. It wasn't that I didn't love them, of course I did. I just wished they'd be more... modern!

My Grandmother took it in to her head to teach me something every young lady should know. Sewing. This meant long drawn afternoons in the library, watching my grandmother sew amazing tapestries while my efforts turned in to some kind of Muppet. It was supposed to be a square saying 'God bless this mess'. My Grandmother could sew amazing, large dogs off the top of her head. I had to have a key. It was colour coded. It was cross-stitch. And it still went wrong.

I absolutely detested needles. I mean, they're sharp! Grandmother got to do it with her wand but I had to learn with sharp pointy things that drew blood. If she was trying to get a point through to me then she succeeded. Sewing hurt.

One particular afternoon I decided to ask my Grandmother something that had been bugging me.

"Grandmother," I started, "You know my snake mark? The one on my shoulder?"

"Of course I know about it," she said, threading a needle. Another thing that had always been beyond me. How come a perfectly ordinary, smooth piece of thread always frays the moment it comes within an inch of a needle? Does it happen to everyone or was it just a conspiracy against me? Thread hates me. But anyhoo.

"Your mother was in a right state. Told us straight away. Well not straight away, we had to calm her down. Panic, panic, panic."

"Well, wouldn't you?" I said, remembering Gregory's reaction when he saw it.

"Of course not," she said, "A Lazaro never panics. It's very important to keep a clear mind when one is dealing with sort of thing. Poor girl told us everything eventually. But she was in a right state."

"Weren't you there?"

"Goodness me, no! We were at a Gala."

"Your own daughter was giving birth to her first child and you weren't there!"

"What? Of course we were. I was talking about Halloween, when you were two. Your parents came home to find baby-sitter dead and you in the main room, bawling your eyes out. That was when you got that mark. Of course that was back when you lived in a two-bedroom in Godric's Hollow. They've closed the place off now. Say it's cursed. Silly. Just because two people have unfortunate accidents doesn't mean they should destroy a whole block of houses. Close your mouth, dear."

I hadn't realised it had been hanging open. I quickly closed it.

"You mean it's not a birth mark?"

She laughed.

"Goodness me no," she said, "Only people like Salazar Slytherin have snake birthmarks. Yours was given to you. No one really knows how. Except probably Dumbledore, dreadful man, isn't he?"

I decided to go for something else. Partly because it was also bugging me but mostly because the conversation was beginning to freak me out and I wanted to change the subject.

"Grandmother," I ventured, "Do you know anything about Vampires?"

She laughed again.

"You're the one who passed the subject at school," Her face suddenly took on a sinister look. "You did pass it?"

"Full marks."

Her face softened again. "Good."

"What about the Gravity ring?" I persisted, "What about that?"

"It's a funny thing," My Grandmother commented in the drifty off way that grandparents always do when you're asking them about something important. "But that's exactly what your mother wanted to know when you got that mark. Something about the baby-sitter's head being smacked against a wall with no signs of struggle." She waved her hand vaguely around the library. "Spent hours in here trying to dig something out. Came to the point where that awful father of yours-" Yeah, real subtle Grandma. You don't like him, we all know. "-Had to come and collect her. But he brought you so that was all right. You were such a sweetie then."

"Grandmother!" I moaned. Why couldn't she just get on with it? Were all Grandmothers like that?

"Lione!" she snapped, "Manners!"

I breathed.

"Sorry Grandmother," I apologised, "But it's kind of important. Did Mother find a book?"

She glanced at me suspiciously, didn't seem to find anything wrong and said,

"Yes actually."

She pointed at the book case across the room. "That case, top shelf, on the left." she added predicting my next questions. "Use the ladder dear! A lady never climbs on tables and chairs."

I, carefully since my Grandmother was watching me like a cat watches it's prey (I have to say that those words entering my mind at the time did freak me out a little), placed my sewing down and dragged the sliding ladder along to the bookcase. It came to me that my Grandmother could have helped by simply floating the book down I seemed to be undergoing some sort of test. I found myself hoping I'd passed.

I pulled the book off its shelf and stared at it. It had a very fancy leather cover and no title. It was scuffed here and there and smelled of fire. I recognised the marks on the cover and immediately knew why. Somebody had tried to burn this book but Reparo had been performed. Someone had wanted this book destroyed and my Grandparents had kept it. I think that my anxiety was not amiss.

I opened it and began flicking through the pages. A phrase caught my eye 'The ring of Gravity'. I was just about to read the page when my Grandmother's voice floated up.

"A Lady reads on a chair, not up a ladder."

I pocketed the book and descended the ladder. I'd read it later.

***

Back at Hogwarts I was far too excited to stand still. I'd copied half of the book in to a notepad so I could bring it with me and I couldn't wait to tell the guys what I'd found. I belted straight up to the Gryffindor common room as soon as I arrived. Lucy was playing Gregory at chess in a corner and Joseph was watching. I ran straight over to them and had to grab Joseph to stop myself running straight in to the fire. The three of them looked at me, concerned. I rested for a moment to catch my breath, still hanging on to Joseph's shoulder.

"Lione!" Lucy exclaimed, "What's wrong?"

I stared straight at her and almost laughed with excitement.

"I know where the ring is!"