Orion Black (novus_orion) wrote in novus_sceptrum, @ 2009-09-12 03:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | rating: pg, when: september 1999, where: private residence, who: npc, who: orion black |
Characters: Orion Black and Dori Meadowes (NPC, his mother)
Date: September 10-11, 1999
Location: The Meadowes family farm in Rowena's Vail
Rating: PG
Summary: Orion Black decides that the time has come to take control of his own life. His mother does not agree. A crossroads has been reached.
Status: Complete
September 11th, 1999...
Dorcas Meadowes had had a hard life, there was no real way to dispute it. She had once been a vivacious and carefree woman, who enjoyed lazy afternoons reading books and spending the evenings with her son. She had worked hard on the family's farm, to make her own money and to pave her own way. She had been engaged once, and had walked away in order to provide a better life for her boy, a dark haired, blue eyed embodiment of the man she had abandoned. She had tried her hardest, had done everything she could to ensure that Orion never had to live a life of fear, regret, or paranoia.
She had failed.
Things had not turned out at all like she had hoped, and an unforeseen obstacle had inevitably cropped up in the form of curious Death Eaters. Did she know the 'war criminal' Sirius Black? They had heard that she was once engaged to the former auror. Did she know anything about some 'secret society' formed by Albus Dumbledore? Because they had reason to think that she just might.
Her refusal to answer the questions (she had left Sirius yes, but that did not mean she didn't care for him), had gotten her taken away from home, from her child and from her life. It had gotten her thrown into a purification facility, a fancy name to cover up what truly went on behind the walls. She had suffered unfathomable torture; she had been beaten, raped, abused, starved, and neglected. Ten years. She had endured everything they had to give her for ten long years, and then, just like that, she found herself standing at the head of the once familiar lane, looking down on the same old farm she had been forced to leave behind.
It didn't seem possibly to Dori that she was home, that this was her house and that her family as still here, tucked away safely inside. The morning fog was just lifting as she started carefully ahead, breathing in the fresh country air and just taking in everything she could with her tired eyes.
The Order of the Phoenix, the very organization that had gotten her thrown into the camp, had likewise set her free from it. She had been one of the lucky ones, spotted during of the raids and rescued when by fate she had been permitted to leave the grounds to work as a slave in some rich mans kitchen. James Potter could be thanked for her freedom, he had orchestrated the entire ordeal, but Sirius could be thanked in turn for the next move she was about to make. In her money she held over nine thousand dollars in American muggle currency, enough to get her and Orion across the pond to the United States. Her parent's could surely loan her enough to get on her feet there, and that would be it. They would disappear, fade into obscurity and go on to lead the lives they had both deserved for so long.
She had been in the Order safe house for over a month, owling her family and telling them not to worry. She had had injuries that needed healing, and more than that she'd needed time to think. A plan of action had been required, time to mull over her options, and now that she was sure of what she wanted? Merlin himself could not of kept her away.
Dori had made it halfway up the lane, just past the apple orchard, when the front door of the house opened and her son came bolting out. She had last seen Orion when he was only eight years old, and now here he was, running towards her as fast as he could go, a very different boy.
Where there had once been an adorable child was now a man, because he wasn't a boy any longer. He was tall and nicely built, with broad shoulders and tones arms from helping around the farm. He had the shaggy hair, blue eyes, and impish grin he had inherited from his father, Sirius, though he was not grinning now as he reached her and pulled her into a hug so tight it nearly choked her to death.
It was the best feeling in the world, being able to hug her little boy, grown now but still hers. She slid her arms around him and squeezed him just as hard, running her fingers through his dark hair and breathing shakily. Ten years. Ten long, long years and here they stood finally, no more wondering or waiting or hoping. It real and not just another dream because Dori touched his face and his neck and his arms just to be sure.
Never in her life had she felt so thankful, so absolutely overwhelmed that she couldn't even speak. Her son had been spared, her reason for living and for getting on, the only thing that had kept her going through all she had suffered. Perhaps she hadn't failed, because Orion hadn't suffered, he had known safety and security, and that had been her ultimate goal.
Now she just had to keep him that way.
September 12, 1999...
"I'm not going."
The words hung in the air with a crisp tinge of finality, lingering in between them and above the dinner table. Orion's eyes were focused on his mother's shocked face, and they were unblinking. To be honest his expression startled Dori a bit, as did his very sure way of speaking. She had expected to come home to a sheltered and frightened boy who had sheltered himself away after what had happened to his mother.
It was quite the opposite, however, because Orion was not sheltered or frightened. He was a rather outspoken youth, with loud opinions and an even louder mouth. He worked on the farm, outside all day now since he had finished his homeschooling, and he had a lot of local friends, some muggle and some wizard though the two did not exclusively mix. He read the Daily Prophet every day and loudly complained about everything from the conversion of a galleon to a pound to the way that the Ministry was trying to get the upper hand on vampires again.
When she brought up the topic of moving to America, he had again thrown out that strong voice of his, looking very stern and set in is ways, poised with his fork halfway to his mouth. His tone suggested no room for argument, but that didn't mean that Dori wasn't going to try. She was, after all, his mother.
"What do you mean you're not going?" She asked, putting her own fork down and wiping the corners of her mouth. Her own parent's, sat on either side of them, wisely kept quiet. This was not their fight. "Yes, you are, Orion. We are leaving tomorrow afternoon. The Order helped me get papers, for both of us. You and I are getting on that muggle airplane and we are leaving here, and the discussion is closed."
Slamming his own fork down on the table, Orion crossed his arms over his chest and eyeballed her. "Says who? Says you? I'm sorry, mother, I really am. I love you, and I missed you, but I'm an adult, and this isn't your decision to make. You might be content with running, but I'm not. I had enough of that as a child. For four years we moved from place to place to place, just in case they came back and asked questions about me. I couldn't keep steady mates, I couldn't go and do normal things. I really hate what you went through, and I wish I could have more time with you, but this is your choice. Not mine. You can't make me live a life you want."
Blinking hard, Dori threw her hands into the air and laughed, a very fake and mocking sounding laugh at that. "Oh, I can't? I'm your mother! I gave you life! I protected you! I made sure you got to live a decent life of relative safety! What, is that not enough for you? What will you do, Orion? Live here for the rest of your life, working for your grandparent's and living under this...this dictatorship? Waiting for the day that they find a reason to haul you to one of their 'facilities'? Huh? Is that what you're going to do?"
"Actually, I'm going to find him."
Those words stung even more, and for a moment Dori honestly couldn't really believe what she was hearing. She didn't have to ask who he was, she just knew. She knew it in the way he said it, in that same revered tone he had used as a little boy when she'd told him stories about his father. She had never kept him from knowing about Sirius, but she had never made knowing Sirius an option. That was just asking for a big target on the back.
"You aren't," she hissed, voice much lower now. "Orion. That is dangerous. Your father is wanted for crimes against the Ministry! Do you have any idea what would happen to you just by association with that man? You are a Meadowes-"
"I am a Black," Orion snapped, cutting her off. "Come off it, mother. You wanted me to know about the guy, you really thought I'd never want to meet him? I decided this months ago, before you ever came back. I was saving up my money, to fix up my car so I could go to London. I didn't want to have to disapparate that far, since I'm still not that great at it from a very long distance. This decision has nothing to do with you, okay? You're giving yourself far too much credit here."
Feeling absolutely scorned now, Dori pushed back her chair and got to her feet. "So what do you intend to do when you meet his father of yours? Hide out with him in his old dank house? Learn how to fiddle with motorbikes and torment people with your wand? He has nothing to offer you, Orion! You belong with me, where it's safe!"
Getting to his own feet, Orion slammed his chair in, both hands curling around the smooth wooden backing so tightly his knuckles turned white. "Safe? I have been safe my entire life mother, and where has it gotten me? Nothing! I've done nothing to help, and I want to help! I can be useful out there, fighting! What do I intend to do? Offer my help, and I can only hope he'll offer me his in return. I want to know him, because you would never let me and they would never let me, and it's my right to know him! I want to talk to him, about anything and everything! I want him to show me spells I don't know, and I want to be able to have him in my life.
"I want to join this Order, the people that saved you. I want to do what I should have been able to do the minute I decided I was old enough. You got saved, mum, but how many more didn't, huh? I can help those people, I can do something instead of sitting by under the thumb of a Ministry I don't believe in or agree with. You go ahead and run, that's what you're good at. You run, and turn your back on the people that saved you. I, however? Am not going to do that. I'm sorry."
Turning around, Orion walked away from the table and from the conversation, leaving the tension thick between them. He had his mind made up, and Dori had hers made up, and it seemed like perhaps, yet again in her life, things were just not going to work the way she had intended for them to work. The willing little boy she had expected was gone, and a very mindful man stood in his place. If he wanted to go to Sirius, to be part of the resistance, then she really didn't have it in her power to stop him. It would hurt like hell to let him go, but he was strong in ways that she wasn't anymore, not after what she had suffered.
Dori knew that Orion would never do anything to hurt her, that he had simply grown up and there was nothing she could do about that. She could just hope, as a mother hopes, that he would see reason by morning. Otherwise, she'd have to let the man in her life go. Again.