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THREE
——THE TRICKSTER
A POOL OF ANXIETY SETTLED IN HER STOMACH WHEN SHE OPENED HER EYES, SLOWLY SITTING UP, ONLY TO JUMP BACK INTO THE COUCH (THE COUCH?) WHEN SHE SAW CEDRIC KNELT DOWN IN FRONT OF HER.
"C—Cedric?" She stammers, looking at him, frightened. She looked around, noticing she wasn't at Grimmauld. Instead, she was back home at the Stark household. "You're—You're. . . dead. . . "
"What are you talking about Lily?" He laughs. "I'm perfectly alive."
With a jolt, Effie looked at him, bewildered. She's never been called Lily before. Bloody hell, she stood up, pushing away from Cedric only to turn and find Pansy and her mum standing there.
They have these. . . these creepy as hell smiles on their faces, and what they were smiling for. . . Effie didn't want to find out. "No, leave me alone."
She ventured to the kitchen, the nearest room at the moment—but they followed her, and that caused her panic to spike up more. What the fuck is happening? What on earth is this?
"Effie," Pansy called, causing Effie to walk faster because she sounded close behind. "Effie, wait—"
Thoroughly overwhelmed, Effie proceeded on to the kitchen. They were running now, eager to follow her. Effie reached it first, her back facing them. Then they caught up.
"Effie, Effie. . . "
"Effie, let me explain. . . "
"Lily—"
Tears of frustration filled her eyes, grabbing the nearest knife from the knife block. They continued speaking, voices overlapping each other and it fueled her frustration that she thrusted it first into Cedric's torso, he keeled back, her mum looking at him in shock.
"Effie, you're—" She stabbed her mum in the torso almost by instinct.
"Effie—" Pansy tried to yell. She repeated the same notion—but they kept fucking speaking. They kept speaking and they wouldn't stop, a tear falling down her cheek. Why wouldn't they stop?
Effie cried out, putting her hands over her ears with a loud sob. "Why can't you leave me alone?! Shut up! SHUT UP!"
"Effie!"
"EFFIE!"
"What?!" The female blonde gasps awake, looking around, searching for the faces that she'd just seen. The first set of people she sees were clustered around the doorway; Eleazar, Remus, Sirius, Mrs. Weasley, Fred, and George.
Effie then turned to the person in front of her when her name was called again. Effie gasps, flinching when she sees a familiar redhead—Ginny, who wore a concerned expression. Effie seemed to realize that her other hand was up high, holding a knife.
Her eyes widened, a shaky sob falling from her lips. Her eyes well up in tears as her hand trembled, lowering the offending object. "It's okay," Ginny said to her as the knife fell from Effie, and clattered to the floor. "Breathe like we practiced. It's okay," Ginny continued, hands wrapping around Effie's wrists gently.
"Well, it's not!" Effie snapped, ripping herself away from Ginny. Great, parasomnia, hallucinations, and now sleepwalking. Bloody hell. "Get away!"
Ginny casted the other people in the room a look that says get out, to which they hesitantly obliged to even if she knew they would listen in, before walking closer to the distraught blonde. "It's okay, I can help you, it's okay—"
"See, that's the problem!" Effie bursts out. "You don't care about getting hurt! What if—What if I get you killed for real this time?" That's twice she put Ginny in danger, the first time at the Astronomy Tower. "But you know how I'll feel? The other people in outside the room? Devastated. Ginny," Effie whimpered out. "If you die, I will literally go out of my freaking mind."
She turned away, digging the palms of her hands in her eyes. She used to only care about herself, Eleazar, and Pansy, what the hell was happening to her?
Effie whirled around again, angry. "You see, death doesn't happen to you, Ginny. It happens to everyone around you, okay? It happens to all the people left standing around at your funeral, trying to figure out how they're going to live the rest of their lives without you in it."
"Stop acting like there isn't a problem about you too!" Ginny snapped angrily.
Effie let out a bitter laugh, "I don't need to be reminded of how problematic I am, my mind already does that—"
"Everyone goes to you for help and you help them!" Ginny spits, glaring at Effie before her eyes soften. "But who helps you when you can't take it anymore if you push us—if you push me away? Merlin, Effie, recovery is a long way to go. And Lillian Euphemia, you can't do that alone. I'll be damned if you try to push me away again."
A tear fell down Effie's cheek as Ginny ended her statement by pulling Effie in a hug. "I'm sorry," Effie whimpered. "I'm sorry I have so many psychological problems that I almost hurt everyone around me—"
"Stop apologizing for it, Effie," Ginny shushed her. "You can't control it. . . and if you ask me, control is overrated."
"That was the most intense but quickest lover's quarrel I've ever watched," Sirius suddenly said from the doorway. Ginny rolled her eyes as Effie wiped her tears. "Hey, technically we're outside of the kitchen."
From behind him, Eleazar and Remus shared a smirk. Mrs. Weasley pushed Sirius to the side, bustling into the room and—bless her—bursted into tears, pulling the two girls in a rib-cracking hug. "Oh, my girls!"
George scowled at Fred, who had his hand smugly extended towards him. "Next time, don't bet on them because we can't win."
"Oh Georgie, admit it. You just suck at this."
Later that midday, when Effie was much more composed, she strode down to the kitchen, where Bill, Remus, and Eleazar were already waiting along with the rest of the Order.
The letter turned out to be from Theo's father, Brutus Nott, asking to meet up with her in the Leaky Cauldron. For what reasons, Effie didn't know, but she assumed he would bring people with him if he knew just what she was capable of.
Eleazar, Remus, and Bill were going to accompany her if it turns ugly (you could never know with Death Eaters). "You're sure about this, Effie?" Tonks gave her a concerned glance.
"It's about time I got in touch, don't you think?" Effie raised an eyebrow. "Who knows, you might get lucky if other death eaters besides Nott is waiting, interrogate them if need be."
The letters she found in her mum's things looked like a bunch of bullshit, but Effie knew better. It was coded to hide the message, all she had to do was decode them. How, she didn't know yet.
"Surely you like tea?" Nott asked the moment Effie walked in, alone. The three Order members had already walked in before her before the clock hit two o'clock in the afternoon, all in their respective disguises. He gestured to the tea set in front of her, "I took the liberty of ordering for us."
Of course, he probably put poison in my tea, she though as smiled briskly. "Tea is fine," She said, sitting down. A quick scan around the room lended Effie the idea that he came alone. "Now what was it you wanted to talk about?"
"Ah, straight to the point," He mustered a fake smile. "I suspect you've heard of what happened to Mulciber and Avery, if you know where they ended up?"
"Somewhere in China, I think," Effie responds, and picked up the small china. By the way he eyed it, with almost excitement, she knew he poisoned it. So, Effie faked a sip, so close that she could smell the bitter, tangy scent associated with poison. "They haven't made it back, I assume? Well, unsurprisingly they're not exactly renowned for geniuses."
"Where is Harry Potter, Miss Lillian?" He asks coldly, straight to the point. His voice had lowered.
"In the same residences, I think, where he's been living for the past fifteen years now," She raised an eyebrow. "Speaking of, what is the Dark Lord's business in the Ministry?" Nott looked startled. "What? Did you buffoons think I wouldn't keep in the loop? I am one of his ranks, after all."
"A prophecy," Nott hissed, falling in her trap. Before long, he's spilling some information to her. Why wouldn't he? He thought she would die anyway, so why wouldn't anyone want to tell a dead girl? "How does the drink taste, Miss Lillian?" He finished.
"Quite bland," Effie commented. Joke's on him, I brought an antidote. Must be surprising, considering she hasn't dropped dead. "It lacks taste, Mr. Nott, don't you think?"
He snatched her tea cup from her, prompting her to raise her brow as he gulped down all the untouched, poisoned tea in one gulp, and Effie clasped her hands together, smirking at his mistake. "Poisoning me, the trickster, of all people? Really? I presume Theodore never told you I had a knack for poisons, besides pyrotechnics."
Nott falls out of his chair, wheezing. Effie rolled her eyes and stood, reaching into her coat with a hand around a bottle of antidote. "Breathe a word of this meeting to anyone, and you'll do well to remember that the Dark Lord is in my favor."
"Give—me—that," He wheezed, pointedly glancing at the vial of the teal antidote in her hand. "Or—Or—else—"
"Mr. Nott," She sneered. "Seeing as it is I who holds your only way to elude the doors of death, you aren't in any position to make demands. . . but one of us is, I suggest you cough up now. Did you bring anyone else to this seemingly clandestine meeting?"
"No, but I assume you did," He splutters out.
Effie's gaze darkened as she lied. "If you are implying that I am that weak to bring reinforcements, I'll have you know I don't need magic to hurt you."
"Please," Nott wheezed out pleadingly, looking at the antidote. "I'll do anything, I will—I will owe you, just please—"
"Poison me again, and I give you my word, my malice will be in full bloom that by the time you've tasted it, you will choke," She says with controlled fury mixed by with a soft tone as she throws the antidote at his feet.
Once he got to his feet again, Nott pointed his wand at her chest. "Who do you think you are, making demands? The Dark Lord may trust you, but we don't. If you break your word to him—" Effie wants to scoff. She never breaks her promise. "—I will personally see to it that you will never feel an ounce of happiness in your life—"
His ego got hurt, Effie concludes in her head. Making threats to make up for it. . . pathetic. "What a hollow, pathetic, little life you lead, Mr. Nott," She says in dangerous, quiet voice. Her eyes darkened as she raised her chin, straightened her coat. "The devil lives in my words. Until then."
She made her exit, heading to the rendezvous, which was Flourish and Blotts. Effie took out a prescribed inhaler from California—that she rarely ever used now—and took a puff just as the three Order members who went along walked in.
"You're okay?" Eleazar asked, concerned as he took his disguise off. "He didn't hurt you?"
"I'm fine," Effie replied. "I sure hope you all were listening to what he said."
"It's profound how easily he spilled the information to you," Remus commented. "But then again, he did think you were dying, after all."
"Oh my—Effie!" A head of curly brunette hair and tall stature crashed into Effie, engulfing her in a hug. "Now that you're back, all our problems can turn into pixie dust and float away!"
"I'm not a fairy, dogberry," Effie rolled her eyes, hugging Pansy back. She thanked Ginny mentally for filling Pansy in on everything (they knew Pansy wouldn't believe them before it all happened) so she doesn't have to explain.
"Will you please stop calling me by the character that embodies idiocy?" Pansy rolled her eyes, kissing her cheek and hugged Eleazar, who was insanely relieved his other daughter was fine. "We have a lot to catch up on," Pansy said to Effie with wide eyes. "Like the hot boys in America. How different are they from Europe?"
The three of them—Effie, Pansy, and Ginny stayed at the Stark household this time, come back to Grimmauld Place for dinner and stay the night at Stark household. "Pansy, I came to California for a reason."
"You spent two and a half months in California and never met any hot guy or girl?" Pansy snapped, and rolled her eyes. "Typical, I should've known your love life would stay anticlimactic still."
"She went to California to recover, not to camaraderie, Pansy," Ginny said with a roll of her eyes as she returned with ice cream and cookies. Effie could never cook to save her life.
Pansy dismissed her, "I ordered some stuff online for my closet. I should go check it out—you two might want to come if Effie's stuff came in too."
"You can order stuff online?" Ginny says with wide eyes.
"Yes, Gin, we could," Effie told her with a smile. "Muggles don't live in the Alps, you know. I did mention the Wizarding World is quite behind on all the technology."
They start the trek out to the mail, Pansy leading the way. Ginny's eyes widen when the scenery changed—where the pristine household once was, now stood a derelict junkyard. "What. . . this is brilliant."
"There's a will that binds the house to certain wizards, that's how only Pansy and I could see it," Effie informed her as Pansy let out a squeal of delight, although there was a great deal of stuff awaiting them. "Muggles can see the house fully, but magical folk—even squibs cannot. The Starks can already see this, and Pansy could because she was included in the will of the house."
"Well, I have to see what exactly it is I'm going to inherit, right?" Pansy humored. "Don't worry, Weaslette. Maybe one day you'll see it as well."
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