***A/N*** Hi! So this chapter is going to be broken into two POV's cause Violet's wasn't big enough for its own chapter. I've never done this before so maybe if you guys like having a split chapter I could do more of these in the future.
Also! This chapter contains some violence and mentions of wounds. Thank you in advance for keeping the comments a safe place, that means the world to me xx
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***Violet's POV***
"George!"
Nothing.
"George! George Fabian Weasley!"
I sit on our bed and stare at the ultrasound image in my hands. Fuck.
That's the only thing that I can think of right now.
Fuck.
Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck.
Did I say fuck?
George comes into our bedroom with Annabeth laughing on his back. My heart swells every time I see him interact with our children no matter what he's doing big or small. He's a fantastic father.
"Hey, peanut do you mind giving Daddy and me some privacy please?" I ask.
George lets Annie off his back and she skips out of our bedroom. George's face changes into a more serious look and he closes the door behind her.
"What's wrong?" He asks.
"I hate you, you know that? You and your fucking genes."
George furrows his eyebrows together and looks down at his trousers, "What's wrong with my jeans? I just bought them."
"Not jeans, genes."
"My love you're saying the same word twice and expecting me to understand the difference." He comes over and sits on the edge of the bed with me. I subtly hide the ultrasound picture in the folds of my jumper so he can't see it quite yet.
"Genetics Weasley. I hate you and your genetics."
"Now you're going to blame me for the kids' faults? You're no picnic either Missus."
I roll my eyes and pull the ultrasound picture out again and hand it to him, "You bloody Weasleys are fertile that's for sure."
George stares at the picture for a good long time, "I – wait... I – hold on, wha – I – pause..."
I laugh, "Do that for two more hours and you might be where I am right now."
George looks at me with tears in his eyes, "Are you serious?"
"No that's my cousin."
George chuckles dryly and clears his throat, "You're pregnant?" he whispers.
"Yeah," I whisper back, "I've missed three cycles in a row and I've been feeling gross but I thought it was just early onset menopause or whatever. But with Emma talking about babies I thought maybe? So I went to Saint Mungo's this morning and well... it's not menopause."
George chokes back his tears and smiles down at the picture. He traces his thumb carefully across the image, "Definitely not menopause," He whispers.
"We're nearly fifty G," I point out, "We're nearly fifty and we're going to have a kid."
George sniffs, "We're going to have a baby."
"Is that all you got out of that? Really?"
George lets the photo fall to the floor and places one hand on my stomach and the other on the back of my neck. He forces me to look at him, he's got the same dopey smile on his face that he had on his face every time I told him I was pregnant with the others, "We're going to have a baby. That's all that matters. Me and you, and our baby."
"And our five other babies?"
"Yeah them too."
Before George can kiss me, blue smoke seeps in from the window, we watch as it twists and forms into a snake... no, a Black Mamba. Cassiopeia's patronus.
"What the bloody hell..." George whispers.
The Patronus' mouth opens, "The Avery estate. Help me, Mummy, please."
Cassiopeia's voice is barely above a whisper but to me it feels like I've just been slapped in the face.
George jumps to his feet, "The Avery Estate? She was just outside – she was..." his voice trails off and he looks at me with defeat.
"Get our wands. Let's go." I say standing up from the bed. I haven't felt this way since I watched Draco get the dark mark. The anger inside me is unmatched. Like a switch just turned on and I've changed right back to how I was during the war. During my time without George. My baby is hurt. My darling Cassiopeia.
"You're not going anywhere near there!" George says louder than I would have liked him to, "No bloody way am I letting you go there when you're pregnant!"
I push past my husband and head towards the door, "I love you, I really do. But I don't give a damn what you say to me right now. I'm going to save my daughter."
I pull the door open and Freddie, Ophelia, Theo and Annie scatter. Bloody kids heard everything.
"Where's Cassiopeia?" Ophelia asks as George and I move swiftly through the kitchen and to the wand vase.
"What's going on?" Freddie demands.
"Mummy?" Annie asks.
I look at my kids, they're terrified and I am too but I can't show them that, "Your sister will be fine..."
"But she's not now?" Freddie snatches his wand out of the vase. Ophelia does the same.
"We don't have time for this. You two stay here, take care of your siblings. Your mother and I will be back." George snaps at the kids. It takes them all by surprise. George has never spoken to them like that before, it's always me that does the snapping.
I whisper an 'I love you to my children before grabbing George's hand and apparating off. I've only been to the Avery estate once. Here's hoping I remember it enough to apparate there.
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***Ophelia's POV***
"Theo you're in charge. Keep Annie here. Don't even bloody think about following us."
I tie my hair up into a ponytail so it doesn't get in my face when I apparate.
"Go watch a movie or something. I'm sure it's all going to be fine." Freddie says. He's calmer than me which is something I didn't expect. "Call Nan, tell her to come over for a bit."
I take my wand out of my mouth and hold it in my hand, "Ready?" I say to my brother.
"Do you even know where we're going?" Freddie asks me.
I take his hand in mine, "Not at all," I say before closing my eyes and spinning on the spot. I think of Cassie. Nothing but her, her laugh, her smile, how she looks, how her voice sounds.
The wind is rushing around me a mile a minute. I hold onto Freddie's hand so tight I think I've burst a few blood vessels in my fingers.
The wind dies down and I open my eyes carefully.
We're standing on a big plot of land with the biggest house I've ever seen sitting in the middle of it.
Freddie and I look at each other once before sprinting as fast as we can towards the house and inside.
"Violet LeStrange, so lovely to see you again." A man's voice that isn't my fathers says.
"You're a sick bastard," Mum spits.
Freddie and I carefully turn the corner so we can see what the fuck is going on. Dad is standing in front of Cassiopeia who is propped up against the wall. Her eye is black and her lip is busted and I can tell from here she's fading in and out of consciousness.
Theseus is on the other side of the room. Badly beaten and bloody. I can't even tell if he's alive and it's clear that neither Mum nor Dad cares that much about it in this moment.
Freddie goes to run into the room but I pull him back as hard as I can, "We have to get to Theseus. We have to make sure he's alright."
There's a loud explosion from the room that our parents and sister are in and we flinch back. The man, who I can assume is Theseus' father laughs and calls Mum a bitch. She responds with a laugh of her own and a 'tell me about it.'
"Our sister is in there half dead and you want to worry about the bastard that brought her here?" Freddie whisper shouts at me.
"And if she survives and he doesn't she'll never be the same," I whisper shout back before running down the corridor of this massive house, towards the door closest to Theseus' limp body.
I pop my head in and make eye contact with Dad. He sees me and goes dark, he's furious not just with Theseus' father Damon but with me now too. Freddie comes up behind me and looks into the room too. Dad of course sees him and nearly shouts.
Mum is stalking Damon like she's hunting him for sport. A sick smile is on her face. I've never seen her like this. It's almost like she's feeding off of this guy's fear. I swear on my life her hair has a mind of it's own now. If I don't blink then it moves, like tentecles coming up and around her face. The darkness in the room is drawn to her, like she's controlling she shadows and using them to her advantage in this fight.
Damon is distracted by Mum. Which means he's not paying attention to his son. I look at Theseus again and I can see him move like he's trying to crawl to the closed door right beside him. I pull out of the doorway and look at Freddie.
"We get him into that room, he's trying to get there anyway. We heal him the best we can and we get him back home. Mum and Dad have got Cassie. Okay?"
Freddie's eyes are dead inside and I can tell he's not thinking straight. I shake his shoulders and that seems to help a bit, "Hey. Do you understand?"
"Get the bastard healed and home." He snaps, "Got it."
I roll my eyes before turning back around. There's no way that Theseus brought her here on purpose. No fucking way would he put her in danger in any way, shape or form.
I take a deep breath to try and calm my nerves but that's totally not working.
"fuck it," I whisper to myself before sprinting into the room and falling to my knees right beside Theseus. I drag him over to the sofa so we are hidden behind it and he groans.
"Cassiopeia..." He whispers, "forget about me."
There's another loud bang from the other side of the room and Freddie takes that distraction to come running over to us.
"We can't move him," Freddie whispers, "This guy is bat shit crazy and he and Mum are just getting started."
I hold my wand overtop of Theseus, "Healing charms. Not that hard." I whisper.
Theseus groans and tries to stop me, "Cassiopeia, please..."
Freddie looks at me then back at Theseus, "My Dad's got her. She's okay."
He takes out his wand too and together, my brother and I start to slowly heal as much of Theseus as we can. Mums better at this than we are, so all we have to do is get him stable enough to bring him home.
"Nearly twenty years later and you still can't aim," Mum taunts Damon, "Tell me again, how many times did the Dark Lord ridicule you? Is that why you have to dominate this house? Torture your wife, torture your son? Because the Dark Lord treated you with the same respect as the dirt under his nails?"
Theseus' father roars with anger and the room lights up with hundreds of colours as Mum and him fire spells back and forth.
I make the mistake of looking over the sofa.
Mum is terrifying. She uses her wand like it is moulded to her body, firing shields and hexes all at the same time. She dodges each of his spells with grace, with ease. She could have ended this as soon as she got here. But she's playing with him. Like a cat plays with a mouse before it kills it.
"CRUCIO!" Mum screams. I duck behind the couch again in case she misses.
The room lights up so much that I have to shield my eyes. I've never seen a spell that powerful before, but it might just be what an unforgivable looks like. I don't know, I've never seen one used.
The screams that come from Damon's mouth will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. It's so bad that I almost feel bad for him.
Almost.
My friend is still in pain because of him. My sister is hurt because of him. He deserves as much as my mother can give him.
"You're nothing," Mum's voice cuts through my thoughts like a blade, "You've never been anything special. You know, I don't even remember going to school with you. Tell me, did you become a spineless bastard before or after Hogwarts? I'm curious."
I go to look over the top of the sofa again but Freddie pulls me back down, "Don't," He whispers, "Mum doesn't want us to see her like this. Mum doesn't want us to see what she can do to people."
"Crucio," Mum says again. She doesn't scream it this time, she speaks it, pronouncing every letter perfectly. It sounds like she's having fun.
The screams from Damon are worse than what they were before. Tears that I can't stop stream down my cheeks. I need to focus on Theseus. A few more cuts on his body start to seal and I watch the bones in his legs move back to their rightful place under his skin. Nearly there. Nearly there and we can get out of here.
"Do you remember Severus Snape?" Mum sneers, "My mother used to call him Sevvy. A good-for-nothing bastard if you ask me but he was talented."
I can't help myself. I peek over the sofa again. Mum is walking in slow circles around Damon who is lying broken in the middle of his living room. Dad is still with Cass. She looks better, I can tell from here that the bruise on her face is faded away and she's sitting against the wall rather than using the wall to support her. Dad's muttering something that I can't make out but it looks like he's healing Cass while keeping an eye on Mum in case she needs backup.
Newsflash.
She doesn't.
"Snape taught my mother a spell you see. I've only ever seen it be used once. On a child. And I've always wondered... what would happen if it was used on an adult."
Mum crouches down to Damon's face' he reaches for his wand but Mum takes it and breaks it in half, "No," she tuts, "No I don't think you'll be needing that anymore."
"Georgie? Why don't you take Cassiopeia home now," Mum sings, "I don't need you two seeing this."
I can't hear what Dad says but there's a crack and when I look over the sofa again both he and Cass are gone.
"Okay we've got to get home," Freddie says, "He's good but we're going to have to do this together."
I nod and put my wand away so I can grab a hold of both Theseus and Freddie at the same time.
Freddie looks nervous and I have a sinking feeling that I look the exact same way. I can hear Mum taunting Damon. She's a lot more aggressive now that she knows Dad and Cassie aren't here anymore but she hasn't got a clue that we are still here. Still listening.
"I haven't killed a man in years," She whispers. She laughs to herself before she continues her train of thought, "I forgot how... how good it feels to watch the life drain out of someone's eyes. Especially when it's something like you. I do hope you had fun nearly killing your son. Cause that was the last thing you'll ever do."
"We wait till she casts her spell. It'll make a noise and it'll muffle the noise of our apparition," I whisper.
Freddie nods, he's on edge listening to Mum talk the way she's talking and I am too.
"What was it again? Secum... Sertum... oh! I remember!"
Freddie's grip on my hand tightens even more than it already was. He looks at me and I nod.
I can hear Mum's smile in her voice when she says, "Sectumsempra," A spell I've never heard before.
But I never figure out what it does, cause Freddie and I are home before her wand lights up.
Dad is pacing back and forth in the kitchen, pulling on his hair. When we pop into the room he glares at us.
"You two," he snaps.
Freddie and I look at each other, "We had to," I say, taking the pressure off of Freddie. He always protects us, it's my turn to protect him, "I knew that your attention will be on Cassiopeia and Mum, not on Theseus. And the fact that they went off together I knew that they would still be together. And it's a good thing that we did." I look down at Theseus, "We saved his life."
Nan comes out of Cassie's bedroom, wiping her hands on her apron, "She's going to be just fine, a minor concussion if that." She says before looking at Theseus, "My goodness! George, come here, Freddie takes his head, carefully now, that's it," Together the three of them lift Theseus off of the floor and bring him towards Freddie's bedroom. Theo runs to get the door and hold it open for them.
Mum comes back as soon as Freddie's bedroom door closes, her hair is back to normal, her clothes clean. She puts her wand back into the vase and looks at us, "Hi my darlings."
It's like the past half-hour didn't even happen. Mums just... Mum. Like she didn't just... kill a guy.
Dad comes back out of Freddie's room and instantly scoops Mum into a massive hug, holding her like I've never seen him hold her. Mums humming something against his ear but I can't make it out. I don't think I want to make it out honestly. Healing Theseus was exhausting, and the fact that Freddie hasn't come out of his bedroom yet makes me think that he's asleep right now. I think I might do the same.
I get up and carefully step over Annie who is playing a card game with Pops, I didn't even notice that he was here till just now. Mum and Dad don't notice that I step out of the room. They've got bigger things to worry about right now obviously.
I open my door as quietly as I can but at the last second, I change my mind and cross the hallway to Cassiopeia's room.
I make sure to be quiet, I know as good as anyone how it feels to be hit in the head.
She's lying on her side, facing away from the door. I pick my way through her room carefully. I know where all the squeaky boards are from the countless amount of times I snuck in here when we were younger and she was sick in bed.
I crawl in bed beside her and cover myself with the blanket.
Cassie opens her eyes slowly and looks at me. Neither of us says anything but soon she's crying. Not loud cause it's clear that she doesn't want anyone else but me to see her like this but she cries all the same.
I pull her into my chest as carefully as I can and she lies there, sobbing into me, muttering something about not being able to do anything, how scared she was, all that crap.
I lose track of time but I know for a fact that she cries for a lot longer than an hour.
I pull away just slightly when I know she's asleep. I dunno if Mum and Dad are pissed at me, relieved, proud for saving Theseus or what but it doesn't matter. I almost lost my sister today and now that the adrenaline has faded away I realize how fucking terrified I was.
It takes me a while to finally get to the point where I'm calmed down enough to close my eyes and begin to fall asleep. Till of course, I remember one very important thing. My eyes spring open and I stare at the wall on the other side of the room as I whisper,
"Mums pregnant."