WHO: Alicia and Roger WHAT: A rough night WHERE: Her mother's home, then the Leaky Cauldron WHEN: Monday RATING: Surpassing PG13
Alicia sat in the dimly lit kitchen. The sun had just set, leaving an orange glow that cast long shadows across her mother's yard.
A key turned in the front door. The door swung open, revealing two figures outside. The woman reached in and turned on a light. She jumped.
"Jesus, Alicia."
Alexandria Spinnett was forty three years old. She had brown eyes, reddish brown hair, and the same small, strong features as her daughter. The man next to her was her husband of four years, a gray-haired wizard named Mathis Winter.
"You can't just break in and sit in the dark, kiddo," Mathis said, "I damn near hexed you."
"You should probably charm your locks better," her voice was choked, but only enough to feel it, not to hear it. Her mother, however, could feel it too. It had just been the two of them, with a decent support system, for nineteen years before Mathis came along. They could read each other well.
"What's wrong, darling?"
"Mathis, can I talk to my mother alone?"
He nodded his gray head and went upstairs.daughter, looking for clues as her husband's footsteps faded up the carpeted stairs.
Alicia threw a ring of old keys on the kitchen table. There was a large iron key a small silver one, and a little gold Gringott's key. "Tell me the truth for once, why did I just inherit an estate from Antonin Dolohov?"
Alexandria sat down quickly. She'd been waiting for this to come up for years, but hoping it never would. "I'd hoped you'd never find out."
"Is it what I think it is?"
"Antonin and I knew each other as small children," she tried to explain. "But he changed by the time we were seventh years. When I found out he was a Death Eater I tried to leave him, but by then I was already pregnany and he wasn't going to let me go."
Alicia felt sick.
"He was violent," her mother went on, "And to free myself, to free us, I had to blackmail him. I made him voe never to contact you and to never tell anyone that he was your father. I told everyone your father was a muggle I didn't know. A one night stand. I was never that kind of girl, I had never been with anyone but him. Alicia, I'm sorry."
A chill ran over Alicia's back. It felt like spiders were crawling across her skin. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You didn't need to grow up with that weight on your shoulders."
"I'm not talking about when I was five," she raised her voice, "I'm twenty five! It should have come up at some point at least in the last seven years."
"As things got worse it was harder to tell you, harder to hurt you."
"Did you love him?"
She nodded, "I loved the lie, not the real man." She got up and went to the book case, pulling out a faded purple book with a Hogwarts crest on the front. She flipped automatically to a page with a collage of photos of happy students. Their late 70's haircuts dated the photos. In one photo Alex posed with a group of girls, one who had red hair and Harry Potter's eyes. In another she rode piggy back, laughing, on a handsome eighteen year old boy. He had fair skin and dark brown hair. His jaw was square and chiseled and his lips were shaped like Alicia's. He had icy blue eyes. Alicia had seen them before.
She got up, pushing back the kitchen chair.
"Alicia, wait, talk to me."
Alicia shook her head. "I can't be here right now." She pushed the front door open and once she crossed the threshold, vanished with a loud crack.
Mathis came down the stairs, alarmed by the sudden noise. Alicia was gone and Alexandria sat with her head in her hands, crying.
"What happened?"
Alex tried to dry her eyes, "I messed up."
"How?"
"Nothing ever stays buried, right?"
Alicia sat alone at the bar at the Leaky Cauldron. She had stopped crying two drinks ago.
She was well covered and her body language was closed. She wasn't looking for any attention tonight, but she got it anyway. Someone sat next to her.