Fic Challenge #7, Part 2
Title: The Talking Photograph
Summary: While trying to hide a failed experiment, Lily Potter and Hugo Weasley find a talking photograph in the Room of Hidden Things. The woman in the photograph wants to know if they can help her find her baby...
Characters/Pairings: Hugo Weasley, Lily Potter, OCs
Genre: Mystery
Rating/Warnings: PG
Medium: Fic
Word Count: 2,036
In the afternoon, after Potions, Lily and Hugo quietly left the common room and headed toward the seventh floor. Neither said much, both wrapped up in their own thoughts. Hugo was excited, but Lily seemed a bit nervous and he couldn't figure out why. It was probably because of their silence that it was so much easier to hear the fight in the Charms corridor, catcalls and the occasional whoosh of a spell. Hugo tried to peer around the corner, just far enough to see what was happening but not far enough to actually be noticed, but Lily insisted on getting a closer look and dragged him right into the middle of the corridor.
It was clearly an uneven fight. One fighter, surrounded by a group of three or four friends, towered over the other. The smaller fighter's friends had all scattered except for one watching on nervously from around a corner, ready to flee at any second.
"Try a jelly-legs jinx," one of the friends suggested gleefully.
Instead, the older fighter aimed a fist at the younger one, who just barely ducked out of the way. He tried to put up a shield, but it faded out of existence within a few seconds.
"What do you think you're doing?" Lily demanded, stepping into the midst of the fight. "Do you really need to pick on first-years to make yourselves feel better? Because it's pathetic."
Startled, the fight paused for a moment as everyone turned to stare at Lily. She started to get the smug look on her face she wore when she had gotten her way in something, but it fell at the sound of a cackle. All eyes looked up to the ceiling where Peeves floated imperiously.
"Fighting in the corridors? Naughty, naughty," he sang. "Hope you don't get caught-y."
"Peeves, don't!" one of the older boys shouted, but the poltergeist had already disappeared off in the direction of the staff room. "Now we're in for it," he groaned.
Almost faster than Hugo could register what was going on, the corridor emptied of students until it was just him, Lily, and the smaller boy.
"Come on, we've got to get out of here before Peeves comes back with teachers," he urged as Lily stared at the boy.
"You're that boy I bumped into yesterday, aren't you? Mark or Mick or something," she said.
The boy nodded, wiping a bit of blood from his bottom lip and still looking on-edge. "Mark."
"Lily," Hugo said, eyes darting around. "I can hear Peeves cackling. Let's go!"
"Oh, you're right," she finally conceded. "But we probably ought to take us with him. I don't know if he'll be able to get far enough away in time."
Hugo gave her a pointed look, but she grabbed Mark's hand regardless and they ran off to the stairs and didn't stop running until they reached the seventh floor. They skidded to a halt in front of the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, panting, at which point Lily finally dropped Mark's hand and began pacing in front of the blank wall.
"We need to see the trunk with the letters in it. We need to know what happened to Charlotte," she muttered under her breath as she walked.
"So why were those older boys fighting with you anyway?" Hugo asked Mark.
The younger boy's face tightened, but he said nothing.
Hugo switched tactics. "Can I trust you to keep a secret?"
"Yeah."
"Can you promise not to tell anyone what we do in here?"
Mark looked a bit confused, but then the door to the Room of Requirement suddenly appeared and he gasped as he gaped at it. "I... I guess, yeah."
"Maybe we should leave him out here to stand guard," Hugo suggested to Lily. "In case anyone comes by."
Lily looked skeptical. "But what would he say if they asked him why he was hanging around the corridor all by himself? Are you a very good liar, Mark?"
"Er, no. Not really."
Lily gave Hugo an 'I told you so' look. "It'd be better if he just came with us."
Without further discussion, she strode toward the door and the others followed. Inside was the same room they had found to hide the Snitch but curiously dark, as if it were nighttime outside the high windows. Fortunately, there were a handful of candles and matches on a table near the door. Hugo took hold of the situation, lit three candles, and passed them out to Lily and Mark. They walked in silence toward the place where they had found the trunk. Something about the room made Hugo feel like he was in a library or somewhere else where he needed to be quiet. When they found the trunk and the lid creaked as it opened, the noise seemed almost deafening. Lily jumped a bit.
Hugo looked down at the pile of letters and grabbed one off the top at random, hoping it would be useful. It was someone's old shopping list, which included several items of dubious legality. He put it back with a sigh of annoyance and grabbed another letter. This one proved to be more helpful.
"It's addressed to Charlotte," he exclaimed in a whisper, then began reading aloud. "Dear Charlotte. It seems lonelier here without you. I still can't believe your parents made you move to France. Did they even ask your opinion before they decided to go? It's so unfair. Anyway, school started. Maybe it's good you're not here, because Hogwarts is really weird this year. Did you know Snape is Headmaster now? And the new Defence teacher is evil. As bad as Umbridge, I think. Maybe worse... The rest of the letter is just talking about school. But it's signed by someone named Michael. Charlotte told me that her husband was named Michael."
"Are there any more letters about her?" Lily asked. Mark just looked confused.
Hugo rifled around some more, shoving aside the brown wool sock where they'd hidden their failed experiment of a Snitch, and retrieved another letter. "This one's from Charlotte. Dear Michael. Mum wants to get me into Beauxbatons next year, but they don't usually allow transfer students. She's teaching me at home this year, which is dead weird. I've met new people, though! Everyone in the village is really nice. There are a couple other families with kids near my age, but they're all off at school... These letters are all from 1998. So whatever happened to her, it must not have been too long ago. Especially since they were written when she was still in school. Obviously, she's older than that in the picture. I wonder if there's anything more recent..."
"Here's one, but it's in French," Lily offered.
Hugo pulled out another one in English, written from Charlotte to Michael. "Dear Michael. I'm going back to England. It's kind of a long story, but the Ministry here is passing a lot of really strict laws. There's a whole movement springing up. It's not exactly about blood purity but it's very anti-magical creatures. I lost my crup because I didn't renew her registration papers on time. They're restricting the centaurs' territory and forbidding them to leave. Antoine can't hold down a job at all anymore. He's tried in the Muggle world but he can't find anywhere that will give him enough vacation time. He's really down about it all. I don't like it. He's getting moody and paranoid, he keeps thinking I'll cheat on him. I can't deal with it anymore. I'm going to break up with him. When I come back to England, will you be there for me? Yours, Charlotte. This one was written twelve years ago."
"A wedding certificate," Lily said quietly, unfolding a piece of paper. "Dated eleven years ago. Charlotte Deschamps married Michael McGuire."
"Er, is this little stone supposed to be glowing?" Mark spoke up, startling Lily and Hugo for a moment. He was holding the piece of moonstone in his hand and it did indeed seem to be glowing faintly. "Is there something written on it?"
"La vérité est dans la gemme," Hugo muttered, snatching the stone from Mark. He squinted at it, then held it up to the candlelight and peered very closely. He gasped softly. "A and C. She never told."
"Never told what?" Lily asked. Hugo was already pulling out the photograph of Charlotte.
"What did you never tell?" he demanded. Charlotte winced. "What did you never tell that someone, probably Antoine, wanted known?"
After a long moment, she finally said, "I was already pregnant when I married Michael. I was pregnant when I got back to England. The baby wasn't his. It was Antoine's. I gave him the middle name Anthony, but Michael just thought I was making a Muggle history reference. Mark Anthony, you know."
"Wait, so your baby's name was Mark Anthony McGuire?" Mark asked wide-eyed. "That's my name, too."
"What?" Lily asked deadpan. Hugo just stared.
"I'm adopted," Mark added helpfully. "I don't know what happened to my birth parents."
"Charlotte, I think we found your baby," Hugo muttered in shock.
"I knew there was a good reason to bring him with us," Lily said happily. "Guess my instincts were right. We must have kept running into him for a reason."
"Are you really my mother?" Mark asked, staring down at the photo.
Charlotte just looked up at him, faintly confused.
"She's stuck in the moment the picture was taken," Hugo explained. "I don't know if she'll be able to realize how long it's been and that you're not a baby anymore."
"Oh." Mark's gaze turned sad as he looked down at the photo.
"But why did you leave Antoine?" Hugo asked. "That's what I want to know. If you knew you were going to have his baby."
"The Ministry in France," Charlotte said, hesitating. "They passed new laws. I couldn't handle it anymore."
"Moonstone, scars, the shape in the crystal ball..." Lily said thoughtfully. "I bet Antoine was a werewolf. That's why he couldn't find a job anymore."
Charlotte nodded.
"My dad's a werewolf?" Mark asked, starting to look worried.
"Oh, don't feel bad about that," Hugo said, smiling in what he hoped was a comforting way. "We know someone else whose dad was a werewolf and he turned out just fine. His name is Teddy and he's awesome."
"Not that it's a problem to begin with," Lily said pointedly, then suddenly got an excited look on her face. "It all makes sense now! The shapes in the crystal ball. It wasn't a dog and a weasel, it was a werewolf and a badger, for Hufflepuff. And they were changing shape because you two were related. I bet Antoine put some kind of spell on the stone, like an imprint of himself so that he could work his way into the mind of whoever picked it up and get them to want to find out the truth."
"But what happened to them?" Mark asked, still staring at the picture. "My mum and Antoine and Michael. Are they still looking for me? Are they still alive?"
Hugo shrugged. "Hard to say. Charlotte in the picture doesn't know anything about what happened after it was taken. We could see if there's anything in old copies of the Daily Prophet. Maybe start in the library. The library's always a good place to start."
"I think the important thing is that you two found each other," Lily said. "Hugo, it'll take ages to do all that research. Do we really have to?"
"I want to know if my parents are still alive," Mark said, with feeling.
Lily sighed. "Well, yes, I suppose we do have to, then. But I think we should get other people involved. Adults. I don't think we can everything on our own."
"Yes, yes. So when should we start?" Hugo asked, looking rather like an excited puppy.
Lily sighed again. "Mysteries are so much work. We should have just stayed out of the Restricted Section and not go wrapped up in this all in the first place."
Hugo merely grinned. He was sure it had all worked out for the better in the end.
2036/30 = 68 + 5 for challenge
Total: 73 points
Summary: While trying to hide a failed experiment, Lily Potter and Hugo Weasley find a talking photograph in the Room of Hidden Things. The woman in the photograph wants to know if they can help her find her baby...
Characters/Pairings: Hugo Weasley, Lily Potter, OCs
Genre: Mystery
Rating/Warnings: PG
Medium: Fic
Word Count: 2,036
In the afternoon, after Potions, Lily and Hugo quietly left the common room and headed toward the seventh floor. Neither said much, both wrapped up in their own thoughts. Hugo was excited, but Lily seemed a bit nervous and he couldn't figure out why. It was probably because of their silence that it was so much easier to hear the fight in the Charms corridor, catcalls and the occasional whoosh of a spell. Hugo tried to peer around the corner, just far enough to see what was happening but not far enough to actually be noticed, but Lily insisted on getting a closer look and dragged him right into the middle of the corridor.
It was clearly an uneven fight. One fighter, surrounded by a group of three or four friends, towered over the other. The smaller fighter's friends had all scattered except for one watching on nervously from around a corner, ready to flee at any second.
"Try a jelly-legs jinx," one of the friends suggested gleefully.
Instead, the older fighter aimed a fist at the younger one, who just barely ducked out of the way. He tried to put up a shield, but it faded out of existence within a few seconds.
"What do you think you're doing?" Lily demanded, stepping into the midst of the fight. "Do you really need to pick on first-years to make yourselves feel better? Because it's pathetic."
Startled, the fight paused for a moment as everyone turned to stare at Lily. She started to get the smug look on her face she wore when she had gotten her way in something, but it fell at the sound of a cackle. All eyes looked up to the ceiling where Peeves floated imperiously.
"Fighting in the corridors? Naughty, naughty," he sang. "Hope you don't get caught-y."
"Peeves, don't!" one of the older boys shouted, but the poltergeist had already disappeared off in the direction of the staff room. "Now we're in for it," he groaned.
Almost faster than Hugo could register what was going on, the corridor emptied of students until it was just him, Lily, and the smaller boy.
"Come on, we've got to get out of here before Peeves comes back with teachers," he urged as Lily stared at the boy.
"You're that boy I bumped into yesterday, aren't you? Mark or Mick or something," she said.
The boy nodded, wiping a bit of blood from his bottom lip and still looking on-edge. "Mark."
"Lily," Hugo said, eyes darting around. "I can hear Peeves cackling. Let's go!"
"Oh, you're right," she finally conceded. "But we probably ought to take us with him. I don't know if he'll be able to get far enough away in time."
Hugo gave her a pointed look, but she grabbed Mark's hand regardless and they ran off to the stairs and didn't stop running until they reached the seventh floor. They skidded to a halt in front of the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, panting, at which point Lily finally dropped Mark's hand and began pacing in front of the blank wall.
"We need to see the trunk with the letters in it. We need to know what happened to Charlotte," she muttered under her breath as she walked.
"So why were those older boys fighting with you anyway?" Hugo asked Mark.
The younger boy's face tightened, but he said nothing.
Hugo switched tactics. "Can I trust you to keep a secret?"
"Yeah."
"Can you promise not to tell anyone what we do in here?"
Mark looked a bit confused, but then the door to the Room of Requirement suddenly appeared and he gasped as he gaped at it. "I... I guess, yeah."
"Maybe we should leave him out here to stand guard," Hugo suggested to Lily. "In case anyone comes by."
Lily looked skeptical. "But what would he say if they asked him why he was hanging around the corridor all by himself? Are you a very good liar, Mark?"
"Er, no. Not really."
Lily gave Hugo an 'I told you so' look. "It'd be better if he just came with us."
Without further discussion, she strode toward the door and the others followed. Inside was the same room they had found to hide the Snitch but curiously dark, as if it were nighttime outside the high windows. Fortunately, there were a handful of candles and matches on a table near the door. Hugo took hold of the situation, lit three candles, and passed them out to Lily and Mark. They walked in silence toward the place where they had found the trunk. Something about the room made Hugo feel like he was in a library or somewhere else where he needed to be quiet. When they found the trunk and the lid creaked as it opened, the noise seemed almost deafening. Lily jumped a bit.
Hugo looked down at the pile of letters and grabbed one off the top at random, hoping it would be useful. It was someone's old shopping list, which included several items of dubious legality. He put it back with a sigh of annoyance and grabbed another letter. This one proved to be more helpful.
"It's addressed to Charlotte," he exclaimed in a whisper, then began reading aloud. "Dear Charlotte. It seems lonelier here without you. I still can't believe your parents made you move to France. Did they even ask your opinion before they decided to go? It's so unfair. Anyway, school started. Maybe it's good you're not here, because Hogwarts is really weird this year. Did you know Snape is Headmaster now? And the new Defence teacher is evil. As bad as Umbridge, I think. Maybe worse... The rest of the letter is just talking about school. But it's signed by someone named Michael. Charlotte told me that her husband was named Michael."
"Are there any more letters about her?" Lily asked. Mark just looked confused.
Hugo rifled around some more, shoving aside the brown wool sock where they'd hidden their failed experiment of a Snitch, and retrieved another letter. "This one's from Charlotte. Dear Michael. Mum wants to get me into Beauxbatons next year, but they don't usually allow transfer students. She's teaching me at home this year, which is dead weird. I've met new people, though! Everyone in the village is really nice. There are a couple other families with kids near my age, but they're all off at school... These letters are all from 1998. So whatever happened to her, it must not have been too long ago. Especially since they were written when she was still in school. Obviously, she's older than that in the picture. I wonder if there's anything more recent..."
"Here's one, but it's in French," Lily offered.
Hugo pulled out another one in English, written from Charlotte to Michael. "Dear Michael. I'm going back to England. It's kind of a long story, but the Ministry here is passing a lot of really strict laws. There's a whole movement springing up. It's not exactly about blood purity but it's very anti-magical creatures. I lost my crup because I didn't renew her registration papers on time. They're restricting the centaurs' territory and forbidding them to leave. Antoine can't hold down a job at all anymore. He's tried in the Muggle world but he can't find anywhere that will give him enough vacation time. He's really down about it all. I don't like it. He's getting moody and paranoid, he keeps thinking I'll cheat on him. I can't deal with it anymore. I'm going to break up with him. When I come back to England, will you be there for me? Yours, Charlotte. This one was written twelve years ago."
"A wedding certificate," Lily said quietly, unfolding a piece of paper. "Dated eleven years ago. Charlotte Deschamps married Michael McGuire."
"Er, is this little stone supposed to be glowing?" Mark spoke up, startling Lily and Hugo for a moment. He was holding the piece of moonstone in his hand and it did indeed seem to be glowing faintly. "Is there something written on it?"
"La vérité est dans la gemme," Hugo muttered, snatching the stone from Mark. He squinted at it, then held it up to the candlelight and peered very closely. He gasped softly. "A and C. She never told."
"Never told what?" Lily asked. Hugo was already pulling out the photograph of Charlotte.
"What did you never tell?" he demanded. Charlotte winced. "What did you never tell that someone, probably Antoine, wanted known?"
After a long moment, she finally said, "I was already pregnant when I married Michael. I was pregnant when I got back to England. The baby wasn't his. It was Antoine's. I gave him the middle name Anthony, but Michael just thought I was making a Muggle history reference. Mark Anthony, you know."
"Wait, so your baby's name was Mark Anthony McGuire?" Mark asked wide-eyed. "That's my name, too."
"What?" Lily asked deadpan. Hugo just stared.
"I'm adopted," Mark added helpfully. "I don't know what happened to my birth parents."
"Charlotte, I think we found your baby," Hugo muttered in shock.
"I knew there was a good reason to bring him with us," Lily said happily. "Guess my instincts were right. We must have kept running into him for a reason."
"Are you really my mother?" Mark asked, staring down at the photo.
Charlotte just looked up at him, faintly confused.
"She's stuck in the moment the picture was taken," Hugo explained. "I don't know if she'll be able to realize how long it's been and that you're not a baby anymore."
"Oh." Mark's gaze turned sad as he looked down at the photo.
"But why did you leave Antoine?" Hugo asked. "That's what I want to know. If you knew you were going to have his baby."
"The Ministry in France," Charlotte said, hesitating. "They passed new laws. I couldn't handle it anymore."
"Moonstone, scars, the shape in the crystal ball..." Lily said thoughtfully. "I bet Antoine was a werewolf. That's why he couldn't find a job anymore."
Charlotte nodded.
"My dad's a werewolf?" Mark asked, starting to look worried.
"Oh, don't feel bad about that," Hugo said, smiling in what he hoped was a comforting way. "We know someone else whose dad was a werewolf and he turned out just fine. His name is Teddy and he's awesome."
"Not that it's a problem to begin with," Lily said pointedly, then suddenly got an excited look on her face. "It all makes sense now! The shapes in the crystal ball. It wasn't a dog and a weasel, it was a werewolf and a badger, for Hufflepuff. And they were changing shape because you two were related. I bet Antoine put some kind of spell on the stone, like an imprint of himself so that he could work his way into the mind of whoever picked it up and get them to want to find out the truth."
"But what happened to them?" Mark asked, still staring at the picture. "My mum and Antoine and Michael. Are they still looking for me? Are they still alive?"
Hugo shrugged. "Hard to say. Charlotte in the picture doesn't know anything about what happened after it was taken. We could see if there's anything in old copies of the Daily Prophet. Maybe start in the library. The library's always a good place to start."
"I think the important thing is that you two found each other," Lily said. "Hugo, it'll take ages to do all that research. Do we really have to?"
"I want to know if my parents are still alive," Mark said, with feeling.
Lily sighed. "Well, yes, I suppose we do have to, then. But I think we should get other people involved. Adults. I don't think we can everything on our own."
"Yes, yes. So when should we start?" Hugo asked, looking rather like an excited puppy.
Lily sighed again. "Mysteries are so much work. We should have just stayed out of the Restricted Section and not go wrapped up in this all in the first place."
Hugo merely grinned. He was sure it had all worked out for the better in the end.
2036/30 = 68 + 5 for challenge
Total: 73 points
