56I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Before you start, if you want a picture of how I imagined Roxanne to look, think of Madison Pettis. I imagined Roxanne to look kind of like her.
Chapter 1: Victoire's Demon
"Dominique! Dominique! Come out! You can't stay in there forever!" I shouted. My fist was getting sore from repeatedly pounding on the heavy oak door.
"It's your sister's wedding, you've got to come down! You're one of the bridesmaids!" Rose bellowed, and we both quieted to hear an answer, looking at each other with wide, panicky eyes. Dom's sobs only increased; she was wailing and noises that sounded like screams into a pillow were also coming from under the door.
Rose and I exchanged another exasperated look from our shared spot by the door. We probably looked very strange, yelling , red-faced, and antsy with our hair up and curled in identical hairstyles, our dresses swooshing around our knees; also identical.
"Blimey, this is getting ridiculous. Make sure no one's coming," I hissed, pushing off from the door and reached into the folds of my dress, where I had ripped a bit of fabric to tie my wand on the inside.
"Roxanne!" Rose blurted, her blue eyes wide.
"Alohamora," I whispered, and with a click the door flew open to reveal Dominique who was curled up on the bed and sobbing, teary-eyed, and messy-haired. She was surrounded by a pile of used tissues.
"Get out and leave me alone!" She screeched, voice raspy from crying. Honestly, she really took the form of her ancestors at this time, and I'm not talking about the silver-haired pretty dancing persona, I'm talking red eyed, clawed and scary hag.
"Up." I demanded, clapping my hands together and readying my wand. I'd already done one underage (I was sixteen, going into 6th year) spell, what would another hurt? It wasn't like the Ministry would actually do anything about it, not in the dwelling place of Sir Harry Potter himself. Besides, one half of the greatest prankster duo in existence, my father George Weasley, once told me that the ministry really had no way of knowing who fired off the spell if there was a lot of magic going on at once. They trusted the parents to keep their children under control. So, we were very safe indeed.
"Accio blankets," I said, in a no-nonsense sort of voice that Grandma Weasley would have been seriously proud of. With a swish and a screaming lunge from Dom, the blankets flew up, along with the avalanche of tissues, and were deposited neatly onto the floor.
Rose and I began to half-drag a squirming, screeching Dom into the shower, fully clothed and spluttering.
Then after, Rose wrestled a still screaming, sobbing, and writhing girl into her bridesmaid's gown as I violently tugged her hair into something as remotely presentable as it could be given her constant flopping. Honestly, Dom, are you three or nineteen? Trust her to be completely dramatic at the most inopportune, inconvenient moment. A.K.A, her sister's wedding.
By this point she was mostly calmed down and was only quietly sobbing into her hands as I stuck butterfly pins into her hair, hoping it resembled more of a half-up, half-down updo and not a tangled, failed attempt at a bun, which is, of course, what it really was.
"Now, Dom," Rose says calmly, looking a bit rumpled herself as she kneels down and takes both of our cousins hands. "This is just a little crush, right? You and Teddy aren't...you don't...you know he's your sister's fiancee?" Her pleading voice went up at the end like a question. Neither of us were particularly good at emotional stuff but I could tell Rose was pleading not for her own sake, but that Dom wasn't really about to have her heart completely broken by a sister she had never been too close to.
Dom peeked out at us miserably with one watery, long lashed, silvery blue eye. Neither confirming or denying.
"Well," I announced briskly. "That's all." I put the finishing pin in rather violently, relieved that although she had basically been wrestled into her makeup and dress, she still looked stunning.
Not. Fair.
"Alright," Rose took Dom's hand and pulled her up. "Let's run."
One would expect a calm, quiet, girly little affair, where we whisper secrets over fru-fru-y painted nails and giggle about boys while simultaneously curling our hair and-whatever else. Well, maybe elsewhere, but not at a Weasley family gathering. The estrogen that would have fueled that particular idyllic scene had a very different toll on this wedding.
Everyone was clustered behind the doors of the church when Dom, Rose, and I came running up.
"Enfin, vous folle, où avez-vous été! Vous êtes allé fou!" Fleur hissed through her teeth at Dominique, practically growling. From the tiny bit of French that I understood, I picked something out sounding like where have you been, crazy girl! Or possibly something about a street vendor and a male stripper, but I was more inclined toward the former.
"It's about time!" Grandma Molly's eyes flashed as she swatted each one of us in turn.
"Better late than-" Grandpa Arthur started.
"Mon Cherie!" Fleur gasped. "You are not still going on about this Teddy-"
"Everyone!" Victoire whisper-screamed, and we all shut up instantly. She was taking on a pink tinge to the cheeks, but she looked more nervous than angry. She looked terrified. "This is my special day," she said, dangerously quiet. "Can we all just be a normal family, this one time? For-"
The music began, interrupting Victoire's passionate speech, and all the Weasleys, Potters, and Delacours began a mad, scrambling dash to be out of the view of the doors-except fifteen year old Lily Potter and fourteen year old Louis Weasley, who walked in, arm in arm, throwing out dazzling smiles as the doors opened.
The audience oohed and aahed, and all of us pressed against the walls on either side of the doors in an effort to stay hidden let out a deep breath.
Rose and I locked eyes, and we both peered over simultaneously at Dominique. She and Victoire were pointedly not looking at each other.
When the appropriate time came, Albus Potter and I stepped out, smiling and whispering to each other through our teeth.
"Dom?" He asked through his smile.
"Not bloody well at all," I whispered out of the corner of my mouth. The walk down the aisle seemed like hours.
At the end we separated gracefully and floated over to our respective sides, surrounding Teddy and the space where his bride-to-be would stand.
The church had great, colorful stained glass windows whose illustrations moved, and they flashed and glowed in the sun, spilling a beautiful colorful sort of light onto the seats which were strung with bows and filled with fancy people.
The ceiling was enchanted to look like the weather outside, much like Hogwarts. So in this case, sunny without a cloud in the sky.
I scanned the crowd, growing extremely bored as our extensive family came through the doors. Something was going to happen, I could sense a feeling of nervousness beginning to eat away at my stomach.
In one of the front seats, Mum gave me one of her smiles that was really a glare: I could practically hear her saying "Roxanne, how many times? Don't slouch! Be proud of your height, be glad you've got a little extra vertical and not horizontal!" At 1.85 meters (6"1) with shoes, I had to walk down the aisle with Albus because he was one of the only groomsmen who were taller than me. I shrunk down even more. I'd calculated and if I really hunched myself down and contracted my spine I could just make 1.70 meters (5'10 1/2).
"Please stand for the bride," the minister announced, and the audience rose.
Victoire stepped out from behind the doors and slowly began to her walk down the aisle.
The audience all gasped as my beautiful cousin floated down the aisle, a charmed platoon of glowing silver and golden butterflies covering her flowing veil.
Her pearly white dress trailed behind her, hair in a perfectly elaborate updo. She was a vision. A perfect, glowing, vision. No man could resist her.
But Teddy was looking at her with a strained smile, eyes that held conflict and didn't glow like they had when he was laughing with Dominique.
Everyone but Victoire, Teddy, and the pastor sat down on the first rows and with a flash, the church around us disappeared.
A gasp rippled through the audience as a spectacular, panoramic forest scene appeared around us. Flower and vine covered trees, mossy ground.
"These new-fangled weddings are just too extravagant," came a small but commanding voice from a frail, old lady.
Everyone settled back down and Victoire's butterflies alighted from her veil.
Suddenly, it struck me just how almost ridiculously flamboyant the wedding was...Teddy looked a little scared himself, like Victoire hadn't filled him in on the detail concerning the church vanishing.
I looked back again at the old lady, but she had disappeared among the sea of faces. As I was turning back, I caught the eye of a dark-eyed, dark-haired, solemn looking boy, whose gaze was flickering between me and the rest of Harry Potter's relatives. I didn't like to sound snobbish about this, but we were all sort of used to being stared at in public, being relatives of the Great Harry Potter and all. And he was great, not just because of what he did back when he was a teenager.
James, Albus, and Lily were especially well-known, with Rose and Hugo coming in a close second. I turned back around, only to see Dominique...standing up. Just as the preacher was beginning to speak.
"Yes-yes, young lady?" He turned to Dominique, looking perplexed. The entire audience sat soundless, glued to their seats.
The silence was deafening. My hands were clenched, teeth grinding together, and my knees pressed painfully hard against each other. What was she doing?
"Teddy."
Just one word, searing through the thick, silent air.
A plea, a word heavy with heartbreak but a shard of hope.
Teddy stood stock still, motionless, and the look he locked on Dominique was a wide eyed, parted lips sort of expression full of final decisions and something else-was it love?
Wordlessly, Ted stretched his arm out to Dom.
She ran forward and touched her fingertips to his.; the moment she did this, they both vanished with a loud, resounding crack.
With them, they pulled the silence, and every last drop of quietness was sucked out faster than the crack of disapparation had taken to reverberate.
The tumultuous sound of hundreds of chairs scraping together spiralled towards the sky and the space in the woods was filled with arms reaching, voices shouting, hair flying-
"-that little slut-"
"Don't you call Dominique a-a you-know-what, your boy left with her!" A Weasley screeched back, and with that, a full scale riot broke out. Teddy's side of the clearing was at war with Victoire's; people were yelling, there was fighting, and children were wailing.
I would always remember this moment as my respect for Victoire increased exponentially, and I started seeing her in a new light.
I looked toward her and she was standing, as if shell shocked, eyes wide and glassy, hands hung limply at her sides. But not for more than a few seconds.
I saw her mouth move and her wand tap to her throat.
"Everyone!" She said, her voice suddenly magnified. The effect was instantaneous. Like an Augumenti over a match.
"Well, this is certainly a dilemma I never expected to be in," she laughed a little, shaking her head as if the situation was no bigger than forgetting to feed the family goldfish.
I couldn't believe it! She was standing up there, completely calm and collected in front of all the people who'd just seen her almost husband disapparate off with her sister.
The audience laughed a bit uncomfortably, like the humiliation you'd have expected Victoire to feel was distributed among the audience themselves.
"The sister of the bride runs off with the husband as they're taking their vows...sounds like a bad joke. Since this was all so unexpected, and we're all here anyway and all dressed up-why not just continue to the reception?" Victoire clapped her hands together like this had been her plan all along. Her parents and many other adults took this as a cue to start bustling around, summoning portkeys and shepherding people towards them. "In the meantime," Victoire continued. "I'd appreciate if my sister and Teddy weren't spoken ill of. We don't know the full story yet. And besides, I'd rather just forget this whole ordeal and enjoy myself."
We all transported to the reception area in the magical area slightly outside of Paris, a ballroom where Victoire wouldn't be dancing with Teddy.
Tap, tap, tap. Our dancing clump of cousins-loud and laughing, eventually twirled our way past the window, where a flash of feathers caught my eye. Really, it was a wonder I heard the beak striking glass at all. I disentangled from trying to stop James and Albus pleading to dance with some veelas.
"Some things never change," Hermione half-sighed, half-laughed with Ginny as she nodded her head at the boys.
What were my aunts talking about?
I continued toward the door, making sure no one had seen me go.
"Why, hello there," a pimply wizard looking to be no older than twelve slid smoothly in front of me, cracking his fingers and then sliding his hands down his slightly protruding belly. He had a nasally French accent.
"Er, hi." Slightly impatient, I crossed my arms, and tapped my foot. "Can I help you?" I asked in my politest voice.
"Are you related, by any chance, to the great and powerful, the stunning, the magnificent, the totally awesome war god Harry Potter?" He asked, completely solemnly. Definitely not a relative of us, this kid.
"Yup," My eyes flickered over his head and toward the door.
"You're tall," he observed. "I see no heel wearing for you in the future, darling," he observed, patting my arm consolingly.
"Well, you're pretty short. So you can have mine, for when, you know, you want to reach a counter or something," I said coolly, examining my fingernails. "How old are you anyway? Twelve?"
The boy looked offended.
"Fourteen!" He corrected, aghast. "What's your nationality?" He suddenly changed tracks.
"Well...I'm a quarter black," I squinted at him.*
"Oh. I like it. It's foxy."
I wasn't used to this, I usually didn't have strange boys hitting on me, twelve or no. I wasn't especially pretty, but I guess the bridesmaid dress Victoire had selected brought out the best in everyone.
"Ohh-kayyy. I've got to go, it's really important-" I started to edge toward the door. I really wanted to tell this kid where he could shove it-
"Oh no, my African princess!" Okay, this was getting slightly personal- "I shall be your escort, you never know what may be lurking-"
"We're just in a ballroom outside of downtown non-muggle Paris," I pointed out, exasperated. "In case you didn't hear, Voldemort died quiet a while ago."
"See, silly girl! You don't even know what the location is called! That would be-"
I didn't get to hear what it was called, because I had bolted out the door.
"Kodi!" I whisper-yelled to my snowy white owl, who blinked her golden brown eyes at me from her perch in the tree. She cocked her head at me, perplexed.
"I know, I hardly recognize me either in this fancy dress and actually non frizzy hair...look, it's actually curly and not frizzy!" I said excitedly, holding up a piece that had slipped out of my hairdo. "I'm thinking about making the change permanent, but Mum won't let me..." I put down the strand of dark hair.
I took the letter from Kodi, who held her leg out patiently.
My eyes bugged out, and I almost dropped the letter in surprise. The handwriting was Dom's.
Dear Roxanne,
I couldn't decide who to address this to, you or Rose. We're all so close! But I'm hoping you will be understanding about why I did what I did. I am so, so so very sorry. I've embarrassed Vic terribly, I'm sure. Not to mention the whole entire family. Vic and I have never been the closest but I am still horrified at myself but at the same time, Teddy and Victoire were not right for each other.
I suppose you're old enough-16-to be wondering if the reason Ted left was because I was...oh, this is so awkward...well, let's just say I don't have a bun in the oven. we haven't done anything like that. Oh, I'm so sorry, but I'm so happy...we're fine, both fine, tell Mum and Dad. And from Ted, tell Victoire he's so, so sorry. Tell her I am too. And I will make it up to her someday, I promise. Don't know when we'll be back.
Love, Dominique
P.S. Sorry this letter is a bit all over the place, I'm very emotional right now. I promise I'll send a follow up letter soon-ish explaining everything. I didn't have time to take anything, much less my owl, so I've disapparated back and given this letter to Kodi to give to you. By this time I've packed some things from my room and left. Please don't search for me.
"Dominique," I growled, crumpling the letter into a ball and shoving it angrily into my bag. If she was here, I'd give out to her with a shouting match to rival Ginny Weasley, Professor McGonagall, and my mother all put together. And that was a damn sight scarier than Voldemort himself.
For the first time, I was taking Victoire's side. Dom was right; if she wanted sympathy, and for someone to tell her she'd done the right thing, she should have addressed the letter to Rose. Because she certainly wasn't getting any from me. I was so mad at both her and Ted that right now, I didn't care where either of them had gone.
Snap.
"Who's there?" I whirled around, eyes wide. Kodi took off behind me, white wings practically glowing against the dark sky.
"Fat load of good as a guardian owl you are," I murmured under my breath. I took a step forward, peering around the tree in front of me, my stomach tight with worry. "Hey!" A dark shadow began to run away, sprinting back toward the reception.
He'd been spying one me! I began to chase after him, but could barely manage a fast hobble in my flats and dress-
The bloke opened the door and turned around. I was still a ways behind him, too far to see when the light caught his face. He looked back at me once, before he turned back and slammed the door behind him.
"Please proceed to terminal Dumbledore for Destination: London," the cool female voice instructed all almost 25 of us. The wedding and reception had been two nights ago, and now we were on our way back to London. School would be starting soon: in twelve days, to be exact.
The Portkey Station was much like a muggle airport, Grandpa Weasley had been telling us for the past half hour.
"And they all get in these steel metal box things, and sit in these seats and-and-Harry, do tell me again how muggle jet airplanes fly?" Graying Grandpa Arthur was talking excitedly to a bored looking Rose and Hugo.
The center of the station was huge, tall, and circular. Much like a large dome, the whole thing made of glass except for the many tunnels branching out from it. All sorts of levitating conveyor belts rumbled over our heads, but down where we were standing was much like the lobbies of many different hotels all smushed together, the waiting area for the portkeys. Before you could come into the airport you had to go through security, a lengthy process where your bags and you were scanned with all sorts of Dark Magic Detectors. Then, before you went into your respective portkey tunnel, you were scanned all over again in case something appeared that wasn't there five minutes ago.
Floating along with the conveyor belts were levitating platforms of glass: mini office rooms, where employees worked and answered floo calls and responded if you needed them to.
"Terminal Dumbledore," Grandma Molly said briskly, picking up her suitcases and bags and waddling over to the closest waiting area as soon as our tickets had materialized in front of us, winding themselves around our bags.
We practically took up our whole section of waiting lobby, all twenty-some of us and our bazillion suitcases, piled together and waiting. It wasn't long before Albus and James nicked something from their mother's suitcase and began to throw it around, all the while making loud commentary as if it were a Quidditch match.
"And Potter passes to Potter, those devilishly handsome brothers are on fire this season! With a daring Wronski fiend followed by a sloth roll, a daring combination expertly pulled off by none other than-"
"James Potter!" Ginny Weasley screamed, and the half of the airport that wasn't watching James and Albus make complete fools of themselves (with Fred, Hugo, and Louis tagging along a step behind) was now watching as well.
And then, the whispers grew louder.
"That is Harry Potter!"
"Yes-why, yes it is! They've just got back from their cousin's wedding, I read in Witch Weekly-"
Victoire sank a little lower in her seat.
"And there's-that's- Hermione and Ron as well!" Suddenly-
Wheeeeeee-oooooo-eeeeeeee-oooooo-eeeeee-oooooo-
"Ahhhh-ahhhhhh!" Everyone began to scream as the lights turned red and began to flash.
Pandemonium erupted like someone had set a pair of hungry Basilisks out in the middle. Suitcases were being thrown and pushed over, and people were tripping all over them.
"Rose!" I yelled, grabbing her arm.
"Roxanne!" My little brother Fred screamed, his eyes wide with terror as he locked his arms around my waist and held on for dear life. The three of us stood grimly still holding onto one another as the chaos continued around us. Mostly because we were afraid to move for fear of getting trampled.
Maybe the people had all gone crazy for good reason: the only reason we weren't screaming and bolting for the door was because we didn't know what the alarms were for. And the trampling thing, of course. Everyone else knew about the alarms, apparently.
"Roxanne! Fred!" I heard Mum shrieking, and I caught a glimpse of her as she was pushed away by the crowd. We had already been separated from the rest of the family: the area where we had all been sitting was directly on the pathway to the nearest exit.
"Dark magic detected-level seven, level seven," a voice was suddenly magically magnified. "Please, we ask you to stay calm, and walk at a brisk pace to the nearest exit-"
"Level seven hasn't happened since You-Know-Who!" A man screamed, about the same age as our parents. Meaning, he had lived through Voldemort once already.
So that's what the alarm meant. That's why people were so terrified.
"Rose-Rose! Roxanne and Fred too! They're all here, Angelina, Hermione-I've got them!" Harry herded both of us in front of him and he began pushing us with the flow of terrified people. Kids were wailing and parents were screaming for their kids. Harry's face looked dark and for a moment, not like Harry at all, as the red flashing lights washed across his features.
In the emergency lights, everyone looked sinister and-
"Uncle Harry!" I yelled. My hand had been ripped from Rose's as a fresh surge of people were pushed through. I stumbled into a middle aged wizard-I couldn't fall, I had to stay on my feet or I'd be trampled.
A scream burst from my mouth, adding to the other cries of terror.
Finally, I was jostled and bumped outside the current of people and I gulped in several breaths as I fell hard to the floor, breathing shaky and heart racing. I was sweaty and my hair was a mess; it had come out of its ponytail and was sticking out around my head.
I began to push myself shakily to my feet, but what I saw stopped me.
I ducked back behind the chair I had fallen next to, on my hands and knees so the people I had spotted couldn't look over and see me.
There was a group of men-boys-all dressed in dark robes with matching serious faces. No-there were several girls, too, looking just as serious. They were all standing by the dark magic detectors before the tunnels...they must have been the one who caused the alarms!
My heart began to beat faster. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, and peeked out again from behind the chair.
I could see the dark robed people from behind the security wizards legs, where they looked surprisingly casual for having just caused the evacuation of a whole portkey station.
"-understand me? Answer! You have just caused a level seven-"
"I do not speak English," the man in front, who seemed to be the leader, said in a thick, heavy accent. He sounded almost Bulgarian. There were several grown men but mostly boys and a few girls, all looking to be around the age of 16 or 17. They looked like they had been impedimented, the way they were just standing there stone-faced-
"Stop that. I heard you speaking English earlier to your friends here and you've got to give yourself up for questioning or-"
"I do not speak English."
"Dan, call the aurors," the security man said quietly to the man next to him, who nodded and did something with his wand behind his back so they couldn't see.
"You have caused a full evacuation of the station," the security wizard said in a loud, slow voice. "You have been caught to be possessing level seven dark artifacts, which alone is a sentence to Azkaban for up to ten years. The caliber of these objects have not been seen since You-Know-Who himself," the man's voice was hard and unforgiving.
"Well," the Bulgarian man said,standing up from his chair where his following had been clustered behind, as if it were a throne. He was tall and heavy set-everything about him was large.
All seven security wizards had their hands in their pockets instantly.
Where were the bloody aurors?
"Perhaps you had best forget us, then," the man said, as if on cue, the boys and girls behind him were suddenly holding wands.
Spiraling through the air they cracked down. The security wizards were on the ground faster than I could even blink. What? Had a bunch of teenagers just taken down adult wizards?
What kind of mental nightmare had I entered into?
I clamped my hand to my mouth to bite back a scream. I pushed myself closer to the chair, heart racing and in my throat.
The man said something too low for me to hear.
Footsteps began to approach and I shut my eyes tight, clasping my clammy hands together. In a wild moment of panic I realized I'd left my wand in my bag.
The footsteps came to a stop, and I cracked open an eyelid. The man was staring down at me, and began to smile cruelly. The teenagers behind him were stepping over suitcases, heading the opposite direction that the people had run earlier. He was the only one who had noticed me.
"Hello there," the man's smile widened, revealing a row of yellow, rotting teeth. "Such a shame you had to see this." He raised his wand, still smiling, and suddenly I was swimming in darkness.
A\\N (Okay, did my research on this one and African persons in Britain do NOT refer to themselves as "African British" Or anything. People over there think that's ridiculous. They just refer to themselves as British, but as Roxanne is explaining her nationality, I am using the phrase "black." I may be overreacting but I thought I should probably explain, even if unnecessary.)
A/N Okay guys, this is the first chapter of a new story...if you like it, drop me a review! I want to know what you think! :D
-Cassia