The Reluctant Auror 3/?
Title: The Reluctant Auror
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: G
Disclaimer: All Rowling's, except for the characters who aren't.
Pairings: Gen (OFCs, OMC, Albus Dumbledore)
Word Count:
Notes: Part 2 here
Dumbledore didn't tell her anything about the second child he had in mind during his first visit to The Hodge, just laid his finger beside his nose and winked. Artemis discovered why on his second visit, on which he was accompanied by a boy of about nine with tousled brown hair that topped a long, pale face. "Artemis, meet Feliks Dolohov. He is the second child I told you about."
To Artemis' credit, she reined in her reaction to a mere blink. "Hello," she said, dropping to a knee so that Feliks was looking down at her instead of the other way around. "I'm Artemis Moon. This is Amelia."
Amelia stepped forward, cocking her head as she studied this stranger to their home. "Who're you?" she demanded. She'd dressed herself that morning in a lavender party frock over a pair of pink sweatpants and sparkly silver sandals. In contrast to her girly ensemble, she had a brown plastic garden gnome tucked under one arm. The toy had originally been Charlie Weasley's, but Amelia had grown attached to the ugly little thing. According to Molly Weasley (who had sent the gnome home after a nasty screaming match between Amelia and Charlie, who'd forgotten he even owned the gnome until Amelia unearthed it from the bottom of a toy box), most children had a favorite toy or blanket that they clung to when they need comfort and security. If Amelia had such a thing, it was buried in the rubble of her parents' home. That Artemis' foster daughter--who had informed her the other day that when she grew up, she was going to be a princess--had chosen to replace it with what was possibly the ugliest toy in all of England said something. What it said, Artemis wasn't sure yet, but there was definitely something significant about it.
"Feliks," the new boy replied. Despite the Russian-sounding name, he spoke like any other kid from this corner of the world.
"Amelia, why don't you show Feliks your room?" Artemis suggested, knowing that would keep both children occupied for at least fifteen minutes. Maybe more, if Feliks found some toy that struck his fancy, and they started playing.
Amelia seized Feliks hand and dragged him into the depths of the house, already chattering away about her cool new room (very little of the furniture was actually new, but Artemis had bought new pink princess sheets and shiny silver bed curtains).
Artemis waited until she heard the creak of floorboards outside the little girl's room before rounding on her uncle. "I was one of the Aurors responsible for sending Antonin Dolohov to Azkaban, and you want me to raise his son?"
"His father is going to spend the rest of his natural life in Azkaban and his mother disappeared under mysterious circumstances years ago," Dumbledore said calmly, like he wasn't asking her to take in a Death Eater's child. "Most of his relatives are also on the list of known Death Eaters awaiting sentencing. The boy is nine years old. What would you have us do with him? He's too young to start at Hogwarts."
Artemis arched an eyebrow.
"The arrangements that were made for you were unique and maybe not for the best. Nine years old, Artemis-there is still a chance to show him another way of life. To show him a way of living that doesn’t include hate and contempt and constant power-struggles.”
“You think I can save him?” She flung herself up onto the kitchen counter, heedless of the dish rack, her scuffed work boots banging against the front of the cabinets. She liked sitting on things that weren’t made for sitting-always had. From up here, she was almost on eye-level with her taller uncle.
“I think you can give him a better chance than a Muggle orphanage.”
“For the record, I think you’re crazy,” she said, but her protests were already starting to erode. Uncle Albus had this way of looking at a person that made them want to be better, like he saw this potential and was convinced a person could meet it if he just kept prodding at them. “I’m not saving anybody. That is not who I am.”
“You saved countless people, witches, wizards, and Muggles alike, as an Auror.”
“I was good at killing, uncle. And ducking…usually.” She ran a finger along the scar on her cheek and felt a weird shivery tingle spread across her face at the passing touch. “Those were the skills they were looking for in Aurors by the time I graduated. Oh, here’s Dumbledore’s spoiled niece, let’s give her a blanket permission to use the Unforgiveable Curses, check that she’s got the will to use them, assign Shacklebolt to keep an eye on her, and point her in the direction of the Death Eaters. See how many she takes out before she becomes a problem. Hopefully, she’ll get herself killed first.”
He was stunned. She had finally done the impossible-startled the great and unflappable Albus Dumbledore. “You truly think this?”
“What happens five, ten years from now when Amelia comes to me and asks why her parents are dead? Somehow, I don’t think telling her that I killed the people who murdered them will be much comfort.” She punctuated it by slamming the heel of one foot into the cabinet and felt it splinter under the impact. Her eyes felt hot, and saliva flooded her mouth just like it always did when she was about to cry. Stupid witch couldn’t even cry right. She dragged the cuff of her jumper across her face just in case a tear had leaked out. “Does he know?”
Dumbledore blinked at her. The gears were whirring behind his eyes as his mighty brain processed everything she’d just spewed, but it appeared he hadn’t quite caught up to her jump in topic.
“Does Feliks know I was one of the Aurors who captured Dolohov?”
“I mentioned you by name several times on the way over, and he never showed any sign of recognition,” Uncle Albus admitted.
Artemis sucked in a deep breath. In the back of her brain, she was already starting to do calculations-mental budgets, room assignments-but mostly she still felt herself wavering. This was one of those moments when she was sure she would be advised to ‘follow her heart’, but it was impossible to discern which roil of emotions was being generated by her ‘heart’. So, as always, she picked the least safe of all the available options. “I suppose his things are sitting in the bushes, just waiting for me to say ‘yes’.”
Uncle Albus didn’t even have the good manners to look guilty at being caught out. “We brought them just in case.”
Artemis just sighed.
*
Feliks let the little girl, Amelia, drag him off to her room. It was easier than maintaining his petulance in the face of her childish instance. They passed what might have been a formal dining room, except the furniture was all shrouded in dusty sheets, a library with shelves reaching from floor to ceiling and groaning under the weight of all the books they held, and a parlor where the chairs had been dragged away from a large Persian carpet that sat in front of the hearth. Then, Amelia let go of his hand in order to hold onto the banister as she climbed the stairs to the second floor. All the doors leading off this hall were closed, but she led him to the second on the left that bore a paper sign that said ‘AMELIA’ in pink squiggly letters.
“This is my room,” she said as if it weren’t perfectly obvious. “Do you know how to play Wizard’s chess?”
“Of course,” Feliks said, a little bit of sneer accompanying his answer even though he’d resolved to be nice to this girl somewhere between the kitchen and the stairs. She seemed like a perfectly good kid, even if she lived with a blood-traitor. He was just so used to being nasty to everyone that it was hard to stop.
“Then you can play with Artie,” Amelia declared. She shoved open the lid of a truck and started to root through the toys inside. Feliks hovered by the door, unsure of what he was supposed to do now. Some of the toys she pulled out were brand new, still smelling like plastic and packaging. Others looked like they were old in his father’s time, the paint faded and chipped. “She likes to play, but I don’t know how to play. She’s teaching me Muggle checkers instead.”
He drifted across the room. The furniture was all too large for the little girl-a foot stool had been pushed up beside the bed to help her climb into it-and the conflicting smells of clean lemon and old dust mixed. He had a feeling this hadn’t been Amelia’s room for long. Who had lived in here before, her grandmother? Feliks didn’t have grandparents-as long as he could remember, it had just been him and Papa-but his friends at primary school had talked about grandparents often enough. They were funny-smelling old people who pinched and gave presents. There were two windows, one on each side of the large four-poster bed, and they looked out at the big old tree that scraped the side of the house with its branches. “Why are you learning a Muggle game? Muggles are stupid,” he said as he pushed the sheer aside so he could see the yard better. There was a swing hanging from one of the tree’s lower branches, and it was blowing slightly in the wind.
“Are not.” Amelia had dug a dress-up hat out of the trunk-pointy and lime green with silver stars all over it and a silver scarf hanging from the tip. The look on her face was pure stubbornness, and Feliks felt his cheeks flush in response.
“Are too. My papa said so.”
“Well your papa’s wrong. Muggles aren’t stupid…Artie says so. She says they aren’t stupid, just ig-nore-ant.”
He clenched his fist in the sheer. Who was this little kid to argue with him? She wasn’t old enough to know anything-she still slurred her words like a baby! “Why do you call your mum ‘Artie’?”
“She’s not my mum. My mum’s dead.”
Feliks’ mouth made an ‘oh’ shape, but he didn’t actually say anything. He didn’t know what to say. There had been several kids in his school whose parents had been killed by Mudbloods and blood traitors, but none of them had talked about it like this little girl did-like it was nothing at all. Her mom was dead, and she was learning to play some weird Muggle game.
Amelia opened a drawer and pulled out a wooden case that had a game board on top. Pieces rattled around inside the case as she set it on the floor in front of him. “Do you want to play?” The pieces were little discs of wood painted black and red. She plopped to the floor, her violet dress fanning out around her, and started setting up the game board. Red pieces on one side of the board; black on the other. “You can be black-black goes first.”
Feliks stared at her for a moment, a hundred hateful things dancing on his tongue. She looked so silly in her mismatched clothes. Didn’t she understand that his father had been sent away? He wanted to scream and kick the board over. The stubborn set of her mouth made him think she could guess what his intentions were and was daring him to just try. She looked like the type to scream if she didn’t get her way. “Fine,” he said and flopped down on the opposite side of the board with a huff.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: G
Disclaimer: All Rowling's, except for the characters who aren't.
Pairings: Gen (OFCs, OMC, Albus Dumbledore)
Word Count:
Notes: Part 2 here
Dumbledore didn't tell her anything about the second child he had in mind during his first visit to The Hodge, just laid his finger beside his nose and winked. Artemis discovered why on his second visit, on which he was accompanied by a boy of about nine with tousled brown hair that topped a long, pale face. "Artemis, meet Feliks Dolohov. He is the second child I told you about."
To Artemis' credit, she reined in her reaction to a mere blink. "Hello," she said, dropping to a knee so that Feliks was looking down at her instead of the other way around. "I'm Artemis Moon. This is Amelia."
Amelia stepped forward, cocking her head as she studied this stranger to their home. "Who're you?" she demanded. She'd dressed herself that morning in a lavender party frock over a pair of pink sweatpants and sparkly silver sandals. In contrast to her girly ensemble, she had a brown plastic garden gnome tucked under one arm. The toy had originally been Charlie Weasley's, but Amelia had grown attached to the ugly little thing. According to Molly Weasley (who had sent the gnome home after a nasty screaming match between Amelia and Charlie, who'd forgotten he even owned the gnome until Amelia unearthed it from the bottom of a toy box), most children had a favorite toy or blanket that they clung to when they need comfort and security. If Amelia had such a thing, it was buried in the rubble of her parents' home. That Artemis' foster daughter--who had informed her the other day that when she grew up, she was going to be a princess--had chosen to replace it with what was possibly the ugliest toy in all of England said something. What it said, Artemis wasn't sure yet, but there was definitely something significant about it.
"Feliks," the new boy replied. Despite the Russian-sounding name, he spoke like any other kid from this corner of the world.
"Amelia, why don't you show Feliks your room?" Artemis suggested, knowing that would keep both children occupied for at least fifteen minutes. Maybe more, if Feliks found some toy that struck his fancy, and they started playing.
Amelia seized Feliks hand and dragged him into the depths of the house, already chattering away about her cool new room (very little of the furniture was actually new, but Artemis had bought new pink princess sheets and shiny silver bed curtains).
Artemis waited until she heard the creak of floorboards outside the little girl's room before rounding on her uncle. "I was one of the Aurors responsible for sending Antonin Dolohov to Azkaban, and you want me to raise his son?"
"His father is going to spend the rest of his natural life in Azkaban and his mother disappeared under mysterious circumstances years ago," Dumbledore said calmly, like he wasn't asking her to take in a Death Eater's child. "Most of his relatives are also on the list of known Death Eaters awaiting sentencing. The boy is nine years old. What would you have us do with him? He's too young to start at Hogwarts."
Artemis arched an eyebrow.
"The arrangements that were made for you were unique and maybe not for the best. Nine years old, Artemis-there is still a chance to show him another way of life. To show him a way of living that doesn’t include hate and contempt and constant power-struggles.”
“You think I can save him?” She flung herself up onto the kitchen counter, heedless of the dish rack, her scuffed work boots banging against the front of the cabinets. She liked sitting on things that weren’t made for sitting-always had. From up here, she was almost on eye-level with her taller uncle.
“I think you can give him a better chance than a Muggle orphanage.”
“For the record, I think you’re crazy,” she said, but her protests were already starting to erode. Uncle Albus had this way of looking at a person that made them want to be better, like he saw this potential and was convinced a person could meet it if he just kept prodding at them. “I’m not saving anybody. That is not who I am.”
“You saved countless people, witches, wizards, and Muggles alike, as an Auror.”
“I was good at killing, uncle. And ducking…usually.” She ran a finger along the scar on her cheek and felt a weird shivery tingle spread across her face at the passing touch. “Those were the skills they were looking for in Aurors by the time I graduated. Oh, here’s Dumbledore’s spoiled niece, let’s give her a blanket permission to use the Unforgiveable Curses, check that she’s got the will to use them, assign Shacklebolt to keep an eye on her, and point her in the direction of the Death Eaters. See how many she takes out before she becomes a problem. Hopefully, she’ll get herself killed first.”
He was stunned. She had finally done the impossible-startled the great and unflappable Albus Dumbledore. “You truly think this?”
“What happens five, ten years from now when Amelia comes to me and asks why her parents are dead? Somehow, I don’t think telling her that I killed the people who murdered them will be much comfort.” She punctuated it by slamming the heel of one foot into the cabinet and felt it splinter under the impact. Her eyes felt hot, and saliva flooded her mouth just like it always did when she was about to cry. Stupid witch couldn’t even cry right. She dragged the cuff of her jumper across her face just in case a tear had leaked out. “Does he know?”
Dumbledore blinked at her. The gears were whirring behind his eyes as his mighty brain processed everything she’d just spewed, but it appeared he hadn’t quite caught up to her jump in topic.
“Does Feliks know I was one of the Aurors who captured Dolohov?”
“I mentioned you by name several times on the way over, and he never showed any sign of recognition,” Uncle Albus admitted.
Artemis sucked in a deep breath. In the back of her brain, she was already starting to do calculations-mental budgets, room assignments-but mostly she still felt herself wavering. This was one of those moments when she was sure she would be advised to ‘follow her heart’, but it was impossible to discern which roil of emotions was being generated by her ‘heart’. So, as always, she picked the least safe of all the available options. “I suppose his things are sitting in the bushes, just waiting for me to say ‘yes’.”
Uncle Albus didn’t even have the good manners to look guilty at being caught out. “We brought them just in case.”
Artemis just sighed.
*
Feliks let the little girl, Amelia, drag him off to her room. It was easier than maintaining his petulance in the face of her childish instance. They passed what might have been a formal dining room, except the furniture was all shrouded in dusty sheets, a library with shelves reaching from floor to ceiling and groaning under the weight of all the books they held, and a parlor where the chairs had been dragged away from a large Persian carpet that sat in front of the hearth. Then, Amelia let go of his hand in order to hold onto the banister as she climbed the stairs to the second floor. All the doors leading off this hall were closed, but she led him to the second on the left that bore a paper sign that said ‘AMELIA’ in pink squiggly letters.
“This is my room,” she said as if it weren’t perfectly obvious. “Do you know how to play Wizard’s chess?”
“Of course,” Feliks said, a little bit of sneer accompanying his answer even though he’d resolved to be nice to this girl somewhere between the kitchen and the stairs. She seemed like a perfectly good kid, even if she lived with a blood-traitor. He was just so used to being nasty to everyone that it was hard to stop.
“Then you can play with Artie,” Amelia declared. She shoved open the lid of a truck and started to root through the toys inside. Feliks hovered by the door, unsure of what he was supposed to do now. Some of the toys she pulled out were brand new, still smelling like plastic and packaging. Others looked like they were old in his father’s time, the paint faded and chipped. “She likes to play, but I don’t know how to play. She’s teaching me Muggle checkers instead.”
He drifted across the room. The furniture was all too large for the little girl-a foot stool had been pushed up beside the bed to help her climb into it-and the conflicting smells of clean lemon and old dust mixed. He had a feeling this hadn’t been Amelia’s room for long. Who had lived in here before, her grandmother? Feliks didn’t have grandparents-as long as he could remember, it had just been him and Papa-but his friends at primary school had talked about grandparents often enough. They were funny-smelling old people who pinched and gave presents. There were two windows, one on each side of the large four-poster bed, and they looked out at the big old tree that scraped the side of the house with its branches. “Why are you learning a Muggle game? Muggles are stupid,” he said as he pushed the sheer aside so he could see the yard better. There was a swing hanging from one of the tree’s lower branches, and it was blowing slightly in the wind.
“Are not.” Amelia had dug a dress-up hat out of the trunk-pointy and lime green with silver stars all over it and a silver scarf hanging from the tip. The look on her face was pure stubbornness, and Feliks felt his cheeks flush in response.
“Are too. My papa said so.”
“Well your papa’s wrong. Muggles aren’t stupid…Artie says so. She says they aren’t stupid, just ig-nore-ant.”
He clenched his fist in the sheer. Who was this little kid to argue with him? She wasn’t old enough to know anything-she still slurred her words like a baby! “Why do you call your mum ‘Artie’?”
“She’s not my mum. My mum’s dead.”
Feliks’ mouth made an ‘oh’ shape, but he didn’t actually say anything. He didn’t know what to say. There had been several kids in his school whose parents had been killed by Mudbloods and blood traitors, but none of them had talked about it like this little girl did-like it was nothing at all. Her mom was dead, and she was learning to play some weird Muggle game.
Amelia opened a drawer and pulled out a wooden case that had a game board on top. Pieces rattled around inside the case as she set it on the floor in front of him. “Do you want to play?” The pieces were little discs of wood painted black and red. She plopped to the floor, her violet dress fanning out around her, and started setting up the game board. Red pieces on one side of the board; black on the other. “You can be black-black goes first.”
Feliks stared at her for a moment, a hundred hateful things dancing on his tongue. She looked so silly in her mismatched clothes. Didn’t she understand that his father had been sent away? He wanted to scream and kick the board over. The stubborn set of her mouth made him think she could guess what his intentions were and was daring him to just try. She looked like the type to scream if she didn’t get her way. “Fine,” he said and flopped down on the opposite side of the board with a huff.