(cue the boxing bells)
It took longer than anticipated for my mother to show up at Hogwarts. The letter Snape must have sent her either got lost for 2 weeks or Emmeline was just too busy to put on her mothering hat and stir up trouble.
Either way, when I spotted my mother loitering outside the great hall in the tail end of April, I cursed for naively thinking she wouldn't come to Hogwarts.
The snow had since completely melted on the grounds with the smell of fresh nature wafting in the wind, reminding all of us in our winter blues that summer was inbound. And OWLs were leering ever closer, two weeks to be exact.
Umbridge's reign hadn't been pleasant either, with all the students with inferiority complexes strutting the halls with the Inquisitor squad pin gleaming on their chests. Since the change in headmasters, the squad was no longer made up of only Slytherin house. There were a few up-turned Ravenclaws that felt God on their shoulders, and some turn-coat Hufflepuffs who believed in being both judge and executioner. The one house that seemed to avoid the squad altogether was Gryffindor. Whether it was because most of the D.A. was made up of that house or that Harry Potter was their house hold name, in the end, they stood strong as a unit with scars on their hands that gleamed in the afternoon sun with a course reminder to not tell lies.
It was the first thing I covered up once I spotted my mother. Followed by brushing back my hair and internally cursing for skipping hair day the other night out of laziness.
My mother caught me walking with Sam as we slowed our step, having just come from Defense Against the Dark Arts, and was stopping now for some lunch. It was hard for me not to spot my mother in the hall. She stood out strongly against the medieval castle like the women in white you read about in old novels.
My mother was clothed in a swan necked robes of sage green that made her skin look wonderfully pale and highlighted the green of her eyes. Even her hair shone beautifully in a half up style, softening the sharpness of her profile. The style was new to her but remained oddly familiar to me. It only took another moment as my mother walked over to me in a trial of flowing material for it to click.
She was wearing her hair like Narcissa Malfoy.
"I'm sure you know why I am here, Mon Ange."
I didn't have time to respond before the usual exchange of bise followed by my mother looking me over happened. Sam already knew her place in all this and detached herself from the two of us, integrating herself into the shadows by the wall.
I caught sight of Ella walking with Ginny from the opposing stair well as my mother continued to decipher every last mistake I've made with my appearance today. Ella didn't need a name tag to know who the woman was in front of me. My mother and I weren't exactly polar opposites in profile.
"You've gain weight." I turned back to my mother who folded a curl of my hair from my face and released a sigh of tsk's as she let go of that strand, rubbing her fingers together. "And what's this?" she asked, raising her fingers toward my eyes. "Ava- are you trying to look rancid? Your hair is atrociously greasy—let me see those nails."
She took my hands and displayed them in front of her, nails up to show my chipped red nails. A disgusted sigh released itself from my mother before she caught sight of the real problem.
"What's this?"
She went to roll up the sleeve of my left hand before I yanked my hand away subconsciously.
"I didn't expect you would have the time to come here," I stated icily, making my mother falter.
"Excuse me?"
I wasn't usually this brazen with my mother. But at the moment she was a perfect excuse to release all my other stress out on her. Granted, she sort of asked for it, coming here in such a state to nitpick at my every imperfection.
"Why are you here?" I asked, ignoring her pinched expression at my tone. "You're here about the trouble I caused with Pansy Parkinson, right? Well that happened over two weeks ago now Mamen, and I have well moved on since then."
"That's no excuse to act disrespectful to your mother, Ava. Professor Snape was right in writing to me," my mother continued with gleaming eyes. Her eyes faltered, like a thought of her own had momentarily taken her off track. Shaking her head, suddenly, she went on to add, "I knew this was a mistake."
She must have meant to say that under her breath.
"Leaving Beauxbatons?" My mother's green eyes shot my way, and I felt a click in my head like a puzzle piece fit into place. She was dressed like the professors at Beauxbatons. Hell, she would have fit into that's school the moment she walked in. It was Hogwarts that was wrong here.
"I would have thought you were better now to hold onto your past teaching at Beauxbatons while at this school. I see I was wrong there. A pity-"
"On the contrary," I cut in to her annoyingly dejected tone. "Umbridge is to blame for that one." My mother cast me a look all mothers give their daughters when they say something a little too outlandish. The sort of disbelief mixed with humor at their child being so naive.
"Come on, Ava... When will you stop this nonsense? Not everything is the teacher's fault!"
She wasn't going to see my view at all this trip. That's why she came. To supposedly set me straight. She might think Theo is rubbing off of me again just like in New York.
There was only one way to cut this short. Time to be dramatic.
Again
"Explain this, then, mother," and I lifted up my left hand to her gaze, dropping the fold of my sleeve.
My mother's already pale features went white like parchment and any lingering annoyance from our conversation was whipped clean with a mother's automatic protective and worrying nature. She snagged my hand from the air and cradled it with both hands closer to her eyes, before releasing a very slow exhale.
Umbridge had maintained her weekly detention with the D.A. with occasional additions in the week whenever she had an opportunity to nail me for something I did. My once delicate little hand was configured into patchy red skin that screamed out at you against white skin built up with scar tissue and scabs. Against this backdrop where the unmistakable message everyone at this school had ingrained in their minds.
I must not tell lies.
Then my mother did something I absolutely hated, especially when my friends were around. She dragged me into an suffocating hug with a kiss to the side of my head that sent me flashbacks to when I was a little girl with satin bows in my hair, coming in from a day in the garden with tears in my eyes from being pricked one to many times from a rose bush. My mother would stop whatever she was doing and kiss the pain away while soaking and bandaging my fingers until they were all better.
Back then I loved that sort of attention. Now it was flat out embarrassing.
"Merlin—Mamen! I'm at school!"
My mother let me go instantly and looked away toward the great hall with her arms tightly crossed in front of her. I knew the trick she was doing by the way her eyes were focused on the candles floating in the air in the other room. Tears always stop dead when you focus on bright light.
"Your brother's hand must terrible if yours's is in that state," my mother said evenly, turning back to me after a moment with a steady tone. Her eyes were tear-free but pained.
"Who's method of detention is this?"
"Umbridge," I said with a feeling of passive delight. I knew what my mother's next move was going to be. "She's the headmistress now, but her office is still in the Dark Art's classroom."
My mother's gaze shot from me to my friends who had, during this pleasant back-and-forth, congregated together in a mass watch party. One look from my mother sent them faltering back.
She turned back to me with a calculating look that didn't reach her voice as she asked, "Remind me of your friends names."
A moment later I followed her toward my friends who were visibly nerved by my mother's movements towards them.
"Girls," she said, stopping short by them. "I'm afraid my daughter hasn't been polite in introducing me to most of you," I had to suppress an eye roll as she turned to Sam expectingly. "Hello, Sam."
Sam, to her credit, did not falter as she responded back automatically with a polite and steady, "Hello Mrs. Fountaine."
"This is Ginny Weasley and Ella Taylor," I introduced while my mother nodded to both of them. Her gaze was still sharp like a tac, but her smile seemed warmed, and her voice remained so as she complimented the girls are on one thing or the other.
You know, the usual fakeness my mother brings to every conversation to seem genuine and likeable.
It didn't take long before my mother's real questions came out in the conversation.
"Do you three also share the same message on your hands?"
Ginny gave me a questionable look which I responded with the go ahead. She showed her hand first with the other two following behind. My mother's soft smile turned flat in a moment as she took stock of the proof in front of her.
"I see."
"We've been putting a calming balm after each detention so it's really not as bad as it could be," Ella added, a little too forward but my mother simply ignored this and waved me closer. "Where's your brother?"
We found Theo leaving the common room for lunch, after skipping fourth period I suspect. He did a great job in masking the surprise of seeing Mamen in the halls before quickly coming up for why she was here.
"To my credit, I've been relatively tame this year, Mamen. You should be proud," he said with a snarky grin that only heightened at my mother's perplexed look towards him.
"I'm proud of you for many things, Theo. You're ability to find trouble everywhere is not one of them. Now show me your hand."
My brother cast me a glance that I only had time to shrug back to before he pulled back his sleeve.
Theo also kept to the balm regimen, but unlike me, who always wore gloves outside to keep my skin soft, Theo's hands were dry and brittle from playing quidditch in the cold wind.
My mother released another breath as she looked at his hand before Theo took it back from her adding, "Don't tell me you came all this way to pine over my hand. There are others who can do that for me."
I had to bite down my comment to his boldness while my mother chuckled passively at his commentary.
"You're a piece of work. Come, I'm bringing you two to lunch. You have some explaining to do."
We didn't ask if she could take us off the grounds. If we did I'm sure she would have a perfectly reasonable response that ended with "I'm your mother. I will do as is best."
Either way, thirty minutes later I found myself sitting in the three broomsticks with a butterbeer in front of me with plenty of froth on top.
My mother eyed it with distaste before ordering a glass of wine.
The poor bar maid gave my mother a look but returned a moment later with a glass of merlot as per my mother's taste.
"You've got the be the first person Rosmerta has ever served wine to," Theo commented in true fashion after taking a massive gulp from his cup. It resulted in a foam mustache across his lips that was comical.
My mother merely ignored her son, taking a sip, while I threw my bemused brother a napkin.
"So I assume you wanted to talk about something important outside the castle?" I asked, flipping to French immediately.
"Not really no," my mother replied stubbornly back in English. She lowered her glass gently while Theo rose a brow at me with a line of humor. "I just wanted to see how my children are doing."
"Maimed. But otherwise, I'm brilliant," Theo said without missing a beat. My mother eyed him heavily while I took another drink from my cup. The bar was quieter than normal, granted it was the middle of an afternoon in the middle of a work week. Not many even in the town of Hogsmead would be out to drink until the work hour ended.
"I will handle your headmistress later," my mother said, more so in Theo's direction than mine. "But at the moment I want to hear how classes are going. Anything interesting?"
"We joined a banned group to learn defensive spells," I commented happily to my mother's dread.
"It's how we got these shiner's in the first place," Theo chimed in with a flash of his hand. My mother took his arm and turned it down on the table, as if worried those in the bar would see. My brother reacted in an affronted manner while Mamen dusted her hands and sat back in her seat, looking pristine.
"The pair of you can't say anything without bringing up this headmistress of yours or those ...marks."
"Well it's not often a student gets to experience detentions quite like these," Theo commented with a slump. "And take my word for it, I would know-"
"Yes, Theo, I am quite well aware of your astute ability to land a detention. And I would prefer it if you would avoid involving your sister in these dealings."
"It's why she's here," I cued to my brother's confused stare. "Pansy."
A look of understanding clicked in my brother's eyes before he snorted and started to cackle while my mother looked on, displeased.
"For the record, I was not involved in that," my brother pointed out, as my mother seethed following his hysterics. "I don't get involved in petty girl drama."
"And yet you sure do start shit," I muttered into my cup making my brother turn but my mother was already starting to speak.
"I can't understand how my two eldest children have made it out of school with limited to no detentions while you two can't seem to pass a year without being involved in something atrocious."
"Clarify atrocious for me," Theo stated with a smug brow. But I was less cocky in my answer.
"I did nothing while at Beauxbatons." My mother flashed me a don't-start-with-me look before Theo added, "The only reason why Damion looks all shiny is because he knows how to hide his detention notices from coming to the house. Ed's just a big fat wall-flower without a hint of interest to compensate."
"You didn't have to drag Ed that hard," I said with a hitched laugh before snorting into my drink, very unlady-like. My mother looked positively sick of us.
"Well, then. I expected to have a decent conversation with my two children and instead all I get is unhelpful surprises." She ignored Theo's Chesiree grin before rounding on me, adding, "What could have possibly possessed you to cause such a scene at lunch to that girl?"
"She drowned all my things in the toilet and ruined my leather bag," I rose it up to her eyes for further emphasis before adding, "not to mention being attacked out of the blue for no apparent reason."
My brother snorted this time, adding, "she had a reason, she just didn't handle it right."
My mother dropped her anger after my confession but she still wasn't exactly pleased. "What did you do to cause this reaction from the girl?"
"Nothing that serious."
To my relief, Theo kept to his drink, leaving me to handle the situation with a simple lie.
"When did you start wearing your hair like that?" I asked after a spell. We were walking back to the castle following a lunch that was both an interrogation and a lovely catch-up between mother and children.
My mother's hand automatically went up to her hair, protectively, before stating the natural response: "Do you like it?"
"Not really," I replied unkindly. My brother gave me a bewiled look opposite my mother who maintained a strained expression as she shot another look in my direction. "It makes you look older than you are. I figured you'd want to know. Father wouldn't think to say such things, now would he?"
"No, but I'm sure there could have been better ways to phrase your thoughts, Ava." We were walking up toward the front entrance when my mother slowed her step and turned to me again, her jaw set.
"In fact," she added sternly. "I don't like what I see from you, Ava. And no, it's not just about you being away from Beauxbatons. Hogwarts may not be French but it's a good school. And it has no reason to turn my daughter cruel. Whatever has caused this, you best sort it out because I will not stand this attitude over the summer, do you hear?"
I was too sheepish to respond, casting my gaze down from her penetrating one. My brother went on ahead, opening the doors. Waiting almost comically midline from the door stood the wicked witch of the hour, staring out of us looking oddly bug-eyed.
"Hello there dears, I see you have made it back safely," Umbridge's high pitched voice broke my mother and I short as we turned toward the troll in pink on her high step. "As for this lady here," Umbridge continued, walking past my brother who was glaring menacingly at her, "I assume you are their mother?"
"I am," my mother replied in a moderate tone as she looked to the wicked witch. But I watched the subtle differences of mother that only a daughter would notice. Her back had straightened as her elongated neck slowly turned up to the one behind the barbaric inflictions on her children. A glimmer that some would just call the reflection of the sunlight was in my mother's eyes as they rested solely on Umbridge.
"Well," Umbridge went on with a little clear of the throat (hem hem), "I would understand under the change in headmasters that you may have in the past, Mrs. Fountaine, been able to take your children from the grounds however, under my leadership, I find this behavior unkept. At least," she went on with a small hitch to her voice, "while your children are considered under severe detentions. If they learn to behave themselves, I am sure benefits such as a visit from their mother can be accommodated with enough preparation.."
My mother blinked, and for a moment the silence that followed was uncomfortable. Umbridge seemed to have felt she had rendered my mother speechless as she then turned to my brother affirmingly, adding "Now then, Mr. Fountaine. I believe Professor McGonigal is awaiting you for your fifth term class. Off you get-"
"My son will leave when I tell him to," my mother said, stopping the two on the steps dead. "As for what you so loosely put it," my mother went on, moving up the steps towards Umbridge. "These detentions of yours are quite concerning."
Umbridge stood tall as my mother approached but it did little good for her toad figure against my mother's slender frame. Even if she was a few steps higher than my mother, Emmeline still managed to look down on Umbridge with shinning eyes that you could no longer mistake for the light's reflection.
While my mother was in all explanations of the word, calm, she was radiating pure protective anger. And Umbridge was not naive to this fact.
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Fountaine. But if you have a problem with my teaching methods than you indirectly have fault with the prime minister. Something I should know you not to feel—"
"Fudge could go rot in his ignorance for all I care," my mother snapped, sending Umbridge into her own fit of utter speechlessness. Furry soon followed but my mother did not let up for her to speak.
"I came with the honest expectation to see my children and I am met with the sight of mutilated hands from every student who has passed these halls."
"I run this school to the best of my ability!" Umbridge cut in rashly. "It is not on me that your children have been raised poorly. Such a fault, I pity Darious for such misfortunes, let alone now add the rudeness of his wife!"
My mother cooled as she spotted what I had always suspected from the beginning of this year.
"Ah yes," my mother replied in a velvety soft voice. "Well as his wife," my mother maintained a steady tone as she took another step forward. "I will make sure to inform Darious of your tactics of educating his two children. Do you suspect him to enjoy hearing how you torture his precious children? I can at least attest to his displeasure not to mention the other mothers from the Hogwarts school board. I say, what will become of you once the board fires a resolution to ban you from the school?"
Umbridge's face was as red as the summer strawberries that grew wildly on the slopes of Belcourt. But she kept her ground as my mother stood directly in front of her.
"You forget I have been appointed by the prime minister himself! You may not understand the gravity of this, but the Hogwarts Board will."
"An appointment from the prime minister can be withdrawn as quickly as it has been bestowed. All it needs is evidence of your poor conduct. Something no doubt a roundup of students and parent outrage can start up."
While Umbridge was taking stock of my mother's words through her squinted little eyes, my mother surprised me by turning her back to Umbridge, looking to me instead with a raised brow of a scolding mother.
"Shouldn't you and your brother be in class? Go on. I will see you soon enough, I am sure."
Umbridge didn't have time to respond before Theo and I walked up and around the two battling witches without another word. I gave my mother a quick glance back following seeking refuge in the great hall, but my mother was already back to speaking the fear of God in Umbridge's tiny ears. Any thoughts from our past row were no longer on her mind.
I knew it would be a long shot, but of all the mothers to start a coup against Umbridge, my mother seemed prime for the task.
In fact, I'm sure she'll take devilish pleasure in ruining this woman.
But only time will tell.
Hello there,
Thank you all for being patient over this small hiatus. I have had the pleasure of going through midterms followed by getting hit with the most obnoxious cold. I am still trying to get better at the moment so I apologize for any run on sentences and what not.
But I have to ask you guys to give me a moment to try and feel better. I won't be able to post Wednesday but, I plan to post on Thursday instead. I'm sorry for the push back. But at least this is almost done. Exciting stuff ahead.
Thank you for those sticking around to read this, you guys are awesome.
With love,
-WG-