*Not me humming the "time to do some sketchy shit" theme while writing the internal collapse of the Fountaine family. You know, the usual melodramatics*
This was the summer of knocks at my door. For whenever I received such an announcement, I knew something new—whether good or bad—was here.
The first knock I received happened three days after my arrival home for the summer. Prior to that knock, I was left with food at my desk by the house elves, and books to occupy my time. I rarely touched the food and kept to my counterfeit cigarettes I had lingering around in overturned books and tucked in the ridges of the head board of my bed instead.
If anyone smelled the smoke, no one came up to inquire.
And so when that first knock arrived, I welcomed it with nervous apprehension for I knew it was the summons from my father. As well as information as to what was happening in the Fountaine residents.
Three days of dreading such a meeting made the reality very anticlimactic. Other than the usual gaslighting from parental figures about my feelings on what I thought of death eaters: their philosophy was destroying our family name. In the end, the conversation was very simple as it was very one-sided.
I was not to talk to anyone about my father's affiliation with the death eaters. Obviously.
I was to do what was asked of me and show loyalty to my family at all times. Whatever that means...
I was to maintain my house arrest and see it as a form of safety during this dangerous times. As if the danger wasn't caused by my father's actions.
Lastly, I was not allowed to say, write or correspond any news about the contents of this summer to anyone. As if my letter writing skills was top mark already.
If any of these rules were to be forfeit, I was to be taken out of school permanently, begin homeschooling under my parent's roof, and lose all privileges of freedom I have until now thought to be common place.
I listened to what my summer was to entail with the underlining message sinking into my gut. I was simply an ornament for the Fountaine Family to show off to reduce the gossip surrounding our family's recent inquiry made by the British Ministry.
The second knock happened three weeks into my stay at my father's London residence. And it happened very late at night when I was already wearing my sleep mask, trying to fall asleep.
"Theo?" I whispered, seeing him through the crack in my door. It was nearly 1 am and yet my brother was dressed in a black wizarding cloak. "What's going on?" I asked, opening the door wider for him to enter. He came in quickly, his movement quiet like a cat's and direct in their action. The door was shut before he answered my question.
"I'm leaving at any minute. Father has me going away for a bit and I don't know when I'll be back."
"Theo, you're not one of them now are you?" I questioned as the thought naturally sprung to mind. The room was dark but I could still see his eyes well enough and how they did not spark up in humor at my interjection.
"I am not marked. Not yet. But they might force me to—"
"Theo you mustn't!" I begged, grabbing his arm automatically. "Whatever our father has over you to even think to do this you must find another way. Run-away now if you have to. But don't sign yourself up to those killers!"
"I won't kill anybody," Theo bartered back. "None of us want to. Not Damion or Ed-"
"They're death eaters?"
My brother's nod was slow and agonizing as to what lay ahead of me.
"How? How has this happened and so fast?" I demanded, letting go of my brother's arm. "How can you three have lost your senses? Our family has never been so power hungry before. Why now?"
"It's not about that," Theo explained, following me to where I sat on my bed, my head in my hands. "Ava, our father has dirt on all of us. He's sick. Sicker than we had originally imagined."
"What do you mean by sick? How?" Theo dropped to one knee so that we were at eye level and there was an urgency in his tone as he went on. As if begging me to understand.
"Do you remember the day Uncle Aglibert got the headmaster position at Illvermorny? Do you remember how upset he was then?"
I barely remembered anything from my younger childhood. My uncle had received that position when I was five. And there is not much people remember from that age. Only snapshots... like how I cut my hands on glass after being found playing in my father's study.
My mother had written it off as the result of our house elves being too clumsy with my father's glassware at the bar and failed to clean up the mistake.
Funny how I never stopped to wonder if said glass was from a thrown drinking glass instead.
"Our family has always had an obsession with being in history books," Theo went on to the obvious. "And seeing his older brother beat him to the task was enough to get him going."
"But that's just being competitive," I replied. "There's no excuse for turning to the death eaters out of sheer power hunger."
"Unless the death eaters make it on the winning side of history."
"In which," I started seeing his point, "the Fountaine family will be the sole American dynasty involved in the death eater conflict."
The only thing that has remained oddly the same is how he wants you to remain uninvolved in all of this."
"I am already involved in this," I stated simply. My brother's face told me he thought the same thing.
"He thinks I dragged you into the department of mysteries," Theo went on. "That I corrupted your thoughts on who he is. I think it's part of the reason he's sending me off on this trip."
"That's ridiculous-- I was the one who wanted to go. You did nothing."
"Shhh," my brother froze as the sound of movement downstairs made my blood go still. Slowly, Theo rose from the ground and waited for further movement. There was nothing.
He turned back to me and draw something from out of his robes.
"A marble?" I asked, as he dropped it in my hand.
"I have a matching one," he said drawing another out. "Rub it like this and aim it out here," he showed me how to properly hold it and I followed suit. Instantly the dark marble shifted from static to a glazed mirror, showing Theo's face. He looked over from his marble toward me and I saw the hint of his humor return to his eyes at the success.
"You can keep contact with me on here. But I won't always be able to respond to it."
"You're not going to be gone all summer." I countered, standing up to face him. He sighed as he deposited his marble back into his cloak.
"I don't know yet where he's sending me, but I know he's doing it to get me away from you. I'm serious when I say he doesn't want you involved."
"Then why is he keeping me here?" I replied in a restrained tone. I knew I couldn't amplify my voice past a whisper but this topic was making it difficult.
"I don't know," he admitted hopelessly. "I've been questioning a lot of things over these past few weeks but I've gotten nowhere. Just don't step out of line. You need to get back to Hogwarts for the new term. Whatever you do, don't retaliate."
"The likelihood of that happening is next to none if our parents decides to keep me locked in here," I countered but something in Theo's look told me I wasn't exactly correct.
"I have to go. But think on what I said earlier about Uncle Algibert. It all relates. I'm sure of it." I silently drifted over to him and gave him the biggest hug I could muster and felt the tension returned back three-fold in his arms before he released me.
"What does our father have on all three of you?" I asked as he retreated towards the door. He stilled at my question but did not turn.
"Katie and her family are in harm's way as no-majs for Damion," Theo began slowly, bringing up Damion's fiancé. "And Ed's only in for his job was through a death eater. Once that news is leaked, his career would be sunk."
"Ed can't be that stupid as to sign up to be a death eater just because of that," I hissed and my brother released another sigh that I watched shift down the lines of his shoulders.
"No, I think there's more too. But he won't tell me. That's Ed though. Always a walking enigma."
"And you?" I asked patiently. Theo was measuring the wait of the door knob in his hand as he looked up at me with a pinched look.
"Just don't give our father a reason to keep you here, Ava. Please."
And then he opened the door and left into the darkened corridor.
The night I heard a knock at my door, it was that next evening. Damion was there inviting me down for family dinner.
I was looking at my older brother with new eyes since my talk with Theo. By this point, he would be gone. And if that's true, then maybe he was right to say I was locked in my room only to separate me from my brother.
As I followed Damion into the dining room, where everyone was just getting settled, and saw Theo's chair empty next to mine, the idea lingered.
"Look who it is," my father announced, coming up behind me from the stair well. His proximity to me made me smell his after shave. And the smell of bourbon.
The only thing more dangerous than an unhinged man was a drunken unhinged man.
He gave my shoulder a squeeze and cast me an assuring smile before walking to his chair absently.
My mother sat opposite him, next to me with glass of wine hanging lazily from her left hand. She was wearing a grey wrap dress that elongated her torso and highlighted the small curvature of her shoulder blades and neck. Her hair was long down her back and glimmered in the candle light.
When I took a seat next to her, she gave me a weak smile before passing the bread basket to me.
"You're favorite, mon ange," she said effortlessly before turning back. I took a piece, feeling the oddity in the room. But not able to point out exactly what was wrong.
Not yet.
I chose to remain quiet through most of dinner and let my mind churn just like Theo told me to. After all, I couldn't just sit at the table surrounded by family members that had no right to be death eaters. Something very wrong had to have occurred.
And my brother believed it was over my father's competitive nature to have his name in history. Many Fountaine names can be in history for all I care. Whether one became prime minister and the other became a rather good novelist wouldn't phase me.
But to my father, he wanted to be better than his brother.
In a way, I guess it made sense why he wanted to beat our Uncle. While I haven't seen my Uncle in many years now, when I did see him, he was nothing but kind to me. He is much older than my father as well. A fact that no doubt played a role in him becoming so popular before my father had barely managed building his own career.
I never met my grandparents on my father's side. They had died between the time Damion was born and when Theo was expected.
But I had heard enough about them to know I would not want to know them. While my Uncle was kind, my grandfather was not. As there was a mistake having two sons instead of just one.
My grandmother was kinder, and her personality is said to resonate in my uncle though her eyes; the Fountaine eyes.
If my grandfather wanted nothing to do with a second child, I suppose it would make sense for distrust and an unhealthy competitiveness to bloom between the two brothers.
But again, could such distrust for each other lead to becoming a death eater?
I watched as my father coughed abruptly to the side of the table, making Damion pause in his conversation while my mother cleared her throat next to me, making me turn to her.
"You've been quiet all dinner, mon ange. Are you tired?"
It was the way she asked the question that told me that only certain answers would be deemed acceptable at the dinner table.
"Just a little tired," I admitted, before a sip of soup. "I've been reading a lot."
"What book are you into now?" My father asked, ignoring Damion mid-conversation. I turned to see my father's eyes trained on me a little too focused.
"Luckluster Potions of the 20th century," I made up quickly. My father nodded, accepting my answer while across the table, Ed was eyeing me.
"I think I've heard of that title," Ed said. "Remind me of the author?" A wave of annoyance towards my brother radiated over me as Ed returned to his soup absently.
"I-," I began, thinking fast, but Ed lowered his spoon with an aha moment.
"Avery Decante! Right?" He asked, and the odd sparkle in his eye was enough to tell me he was doing this on purpose.
What the hell was going on with him?
"Ah yes," I said idly, returning back to me soup. It seemed like my father was not the only one changing this past year.
"Perhaps one day we may see our Ava publishing her own potion's novel," my father predicted and when I looked up at him, I saw him grinning broadly at me. It took a lot out of me to mask my reaction.
What was my father playing at here? He never gave so much love and attention at our ages.
"She received an O in her Potion's O.W.L," my mother added calmly, making me turn to look at her. Her eyes were diverted to her soup when I saw it.
What was making me feel so odd about this dinner.
It was the light.
I was so used to how our dinners at home were bright with numerous gold candles lingering the table for all of us to see. But here in London, the dining room was small and the light was dim.
Perfect to hide how tight Damion's shoulders were as he held himself up in his chair or shadow the raw nail beds of Ed from his own nervous habits.
My father's face was tighter, as if the skin had been pulled too far back past his hairline and my mother was worst of all.
I saw grey hair.
Anyone who knew Emmeline Chapelle Fountaine would understand that there were few things that just did not happen to her:
1- she was never poorly dressed
2- she was never caught off guard
3- she never aged
Yes, yes—she is human, of course she should age. But the French have seemed to master the act of aging gracefully. Maybe not all—a civilization can't be perfect—but many know the 411 on graceful aging.
My mother was too young for a blonde woman in her mid 50's to have grey hair. Or rather silver in this case. All blondes get silver hair, not grey. That's for the dark haired folks in this world.
Granted, even if silver hides well in blonde hair, it was still a massive shock on my part to be reminded that my mother is not in fact an unmoving marker in time, like she acts in all other things: unmoving in her work, as a mother, stubbornly defiant on all aspects that she deems important.
You'd think she'd find her looks to be important. But now that the rose colored glass had shattered around me, all I saw in my mother was a sloppy attempt to look the part of her old self.
Now I understood what the Hermès scarf was for.
After dinner, I was left without an order to return to my room. However, with all the oddities at dinner and the naive state they have placed me in, all the shadows of this house made me anxious.
So like a hermit, I returned to my room and locked the door.
I was soaking in the tub when I heard the next knock on my door. It was the following afternoon.
"I'm in the bath!" I shouted, expecting whichever brother it was to kindly bite off and leave me to my peaceful respite. I inhaled a drag of my cigarette just as the sound of my bedroom door lock clicked.
My bedroom door opened with a notable creak. I peered out of the crack of my bathroom door, and spotted my mother.
Cursing, I hid my cigarette in my soap dish behind the tub and started to swat the smoke from the air.
She looked around my room with a single glance that all mothers pulled in their children's room. No doubt making mental notes of how messy I've been these past few weeks.
Then she turned toward my door and spotted me starring.
"Really mon ange, of all times to be taking a bath—"
"Well seeing as I have all the time in the world here, I do what I want," I replied, hinting at annoyance. My mother didn't seem too keen with my answer and so barged into the bathroom making me drop deeper into the bubbles of my bath with a curse.
"Mamen!"
"Oh please. I've seen you naked more times than I can count-"
"That's great and all but you don't need to add another mark to that list."
My mother was crossing her arms as she leaned back on the countertop of my sink. She was in an off-blue ensemble. Almost as grey as the last dress she wore the other night. Except this one was notably a two piece skirt and top that intertwined in the middle with a leather belt that snitched up her waist beautifully.
Her hair was up in a high bun, illustrating the curvature of her eyes and the lines of her face. Like my father, her cheeks were just a tad sharper than what I was used to seeing. The silver in her hair was cleverly hidden back in her updo but it was too late for me.
I knew it was there.
My mother cleared her throat.
"You can come down for breakfast now. And you should let the house elves in to clean, your room is in absolute disarray."
"I wasn't aware that I was off house arrest," I berated back turning back to the pool of bubbles cleverly hiding me. I didn't need to see the look my mother gave me to know she was staring.
"You have behaved well enough to come out again. As a reward. That was what the dinner was supposed to emphasize. Did Damion not tell you?"
"Why should he? He's as miserable as I am. And to call that dinner a reward," I scoffed, lowering myself further into the water. "Nothing about this summer is going to be a reward, as you put it."
"I won't hear of this talk if you want to get out of the house." I twisted around to my mother who was looking at herself in the mirror. Her eyes looked through the glass back at me with the smallest hint of a smile.
"I have spoken to your father," she continued, turning back to me. "And he has agreed with my proposal to have you appear as a debutante this summer."
I snorted in the most unladylike matter possible before dropping back into the suds.
Brilliant. What a perfect way to hide the dirty laundry of the Fountaine family name. It was almost too perfect.
"What's with the attitude?" My mother reacted, no doubt surprised with my response. "You always liked the idea of being a debutante."
"Sure," I agreed. "Back when the worst thing I had to worry about was finding a date and getting rid of acne."
I heard my mother's footsteps before she appeared in my vision of sight against the far wall near the foot of the tub. She was frowning and it made her look older.
She needed to stop doing that.
"We can still go dress shopping—you always liked that. And you will be lucky enough to go to two different balls. One in New York and the other in Paris. I've arranged for both."
"Meaning you can't get out of your promises now," I concluded with little mercy. Any hope my mother had in her eyes to cheer me up vanished in an instant. She folded back her shoulders and stood tall.
"I am trying to help you, Ava. No doubt you will wilt if you continue like this all summer. Your first meeting with the seamstress is tomorrow afternoon and you will go."
I released an obnoxious humph! As my mother turned to go but at my comment she paused again by the door.
"And if I smell smoke in your room one more time I will have your room ransacked and your mail stripped of its contents, am I understood?"
She left with my bedroom door slamming shut behind her leaving me to follow the last line of bubbles trailing after my fingers that traced the water.
"Hypocrite."
-
Hello there,
Apologizes for the delay. It took me a moment to write out my plan for her summer. I had a few different ideas for her that didn't all fit in one storyline so I had to do some rewrites. The next chapter will be posted on Saturday. I will see you then!
-WG-