Come the Revolution - Chapter 3
Tracey Davis - Slytherin, Muggleborn and Essex girl. This is her story, and the story of a revolution in the making.
Chapter 2
Having decided to go back to Hogwarts after all, Tracey must now face the consequences of her decision …
3. Childhood’s End
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
1 Corinthians 13
If some bright spark decided to run a competition to find the ugliest station in Britain Kings Cross would win hands down. Originally a serviceable but dull example of Victorian industrial architecture its front has been obscured by a breathtakingly hideous 70s concrete and glass concourse. This “temporary” structure, rapidly approaching its thirtieth anniversary, is the first thing the unfortunate traveller sees on arrival. The surrounding area, a seedy collection of takeaways, 24-hour supermarkets, cheap hotels and derelict wasteland, appears to have started out at the bottom of the architectural ladder and been going steadily downhill ever since. In short, the station and its environs present a classic picture of London at its least attractive. It is hard to imagine a place less likely to evoke thoughts of magic.
For precisely that reason the Hogwarts Express has departed from Kings Cross to Hogsmeade at 11.00 a.m. on the dot every September 1st for the past century and a half. Rejecting the gothic splendour of next-door St Pancras as “too flashy”, the Office for the Regulation of Magical Transport opted to build their staging post next to Platform 8 at Kings Cross. It was just their luck the Muggles decided to build their own Platform 9 right on top of it. Still, the wizarding world has its ways of dealing with these matters. All it took was a little twist and Platform 9 ¾ was born, sharing time and space with its Muggle counterpart but occupying a different dimension. Nobody talks about what happens to any Muggle unfortunate enough to stray across the border.
Running full tilt through the station entrance facing platforms 9 and 10, Tracey cursed silently. It was the same story each year. Every time Janet’s anxiety meant they arrived ridiculously early. Every time they ended up sitting in McDonald’s nursing cups of tasteless coffee and making strained conversation for far too long. And every time they had to run to get the train. Panting, she stopped to wait for Janet, Pete and Darren to catch up and looked up at the station clock. Ten minutes to eleven. Just about time for a hurried goodbye.
She had hugged her father and brother and was about to say farewell to her Mum when her attention was drawn to a small family group a few feet away. The parents were poring over a familiar-looking piece of parchment while their daughter, a diminutive blonde with tightly plaited pigtails, hopped from foot to foot impatiently casting agonised glances at the clock every few seconds. Janet followed Tracey’s glance.
“You’d think they’d learn by now, wouldn’t you? Go on, then.” Tracey hurried over to the family. The little girl had started to cry and the parents were arguing fiercely. She tapped the woman on the shoulder and the latter swung round, surprised.
“Excuse, me, are you looking for Platform 9 ¾ by any chance?”
Startled, the woman responded without thinking. “Yes, but how -“ She stopped. Tracey could see the wheels turning. “Oh.”
Tracey smiled at the distressed little girl. “I just need to say goodbye to my Mum, then I’ll show you.”
Janet, who had come up behind her enveloped her in a fierce hug. “Take care of yourself love.” Her voice cracked and Tracey pleaded silently, Mum, please, not now. She was glad of the excuse to disentangle herself and gather up her charge. She marched the excited first-year across to the unremarkable patch of blank wall half way between Platforms 9 and 10, the girl’s bewildered parents and her family trailing after them.
“It’s through there. Aim your trolley at the wall and keep walking. If it makes you feel better close your eyes. I had to the first time.” The little girl nodded solemnly, closed her eyes, marched forward gripping the handle of her trolley tightly and vanished into the wall. From behind she heard the child’s mother give a startled gasp. Her Mum patted the woman on the arm reassuringly.
“Bit of a shock, isn’t it? Don’t worry she’s quite all right. My Tracey’ll take care of her, won’t you love?”
“’Course.” Eager to get it over with before Janet could burst into tears Tracey hurried on, “’Bye Mum, Dad, ‘bye Darren. See you at Christmas.” Before they could reply she thrust her trolley forward and melted into the solid brick wall, breathing a sigh of relief. Going back to Hogwarts might be fraught with danger but it was beginning to feel like a rest after what she’d been through in the last eight weeks.
Family reaction to her decision had been mixed. Darren had called her mental. Pete had looked troubled. Janet simply nodded as if it were what she’d expected all along. After that it was downhill all the way. Janet’s heroic effort of will seemed to have completely exhausted her minimal reserves of fortitude. The following week saw at least one explosion of tears per day minimum and a full-blown rant every hour on the hour. Tracey found herself the primary target. With hindsight, she could not have been more pleased when, after one particularly virulent harangue about the state of her room, Tim Moon phoned again. Her first reaction, however, was guilt.
“Oh my god! I’m sorry.”
“You know the first thing I thought when I got my results and saw that bright shiny E next to DADA? Must call Tracey. She made me promise faithfully I would, and she’ll give me a right ear-bashing if I forget. So, like a good little boy, I pick up the phone and call Tracey, and Tracey’s Mum tells me Tracey’s not in and she’ll call me back. And does she? Does she hell. I’m hurt, Tracey.”
“I meant to, honestly.”
There was a chuckle on the other end of the line. “That got you going, didn’t it? Don’t fret, the phone’s been knackered for the last week. Kitty had a row with her boyfriend and she blew it up.”
Despite herself, Tracey found herself laughing. “Tim Moon, you bastard!”
Tim could always cheer her up. He’d been there in the background of her life at Hogwarts ever since that first evening and over the last horrible year she’d come to appreciate his calm good humour and off the wall sense of humour more than ever. With Tim she could, as she called it privately in her thoughts, talk Muggle, as unlike most of her schoolmates he never pretended the Muggle world didn’t exist. She’d been flattered when he’d asked her to help him with his NEWT DADA revision, and proud of the obvious improvement in his skills.
“So, how’d you do?”
“Oh, OK.”
“What’s up? Did you fail all your NEWTS? Blow up your brother’s new PC? Get caught doing underage magic in Tesco?”
“Nah, nothing so exciting. My Mum’s a bit wound up.”
Tim made a sympathetic noise. He knew all about Tracey’s Mum. “Why not come over for a bit? Mum won’t mind.”
The Moon family had lived in the same three-storey Victorian terrace in a quiet street off Kilburn High Road for nearly a hundred years. Brian Moon, Tim’s great-great-grandfather, had arrived in London escaping from an Ireland ravaged by famine. Unlike many of his compatriots, Brian was blessed with three things - a small amount of gold, an eye for the main chance and the benefit of an apprenticeship with the best wizarding furniture maker in Europe. A decade later he was the proprietor of a flourishing business with enough money to pay outright for a house in one of the brand new terraces springing up not far from his workshop like mushrooms. The secret of his success was simple. Brian Moon was prepared to work for Muggles. It didn’t take a genius to see that Muggle London was in the middle of an economic boom. More rich people meant more people with money to spend on good furniture. He hired a workshop, had some handbills printed and went knocking on the doors of the big houses of South Kensington and Belgravia. Within six months he had a full order book.
Back home in County Antrim, Brian told the outraged Ministry officials who broke down his workshop door one morning, he’d worked for anyone, magical or Muggle, who had the money. As long as he didn’t let the Muggles actually see him using magic it was all perfectly legal. If they thought otherwise he’d see them in court, and good day to them both. The case of Ministry of Magic versus Moon (1848) became something of a landmark in wizarding jurisprudence. The Wizengamot was unable to reach a verdict, forcing the Chief Warlock to cast his deciding vote. Brian won his case and the Ministry retired to lick its wounds. From time to time the Misuse of Magic Office would raid the premises of what had now become Moon & Son for form’s sake but otherwise they left the Moons to get on with it. Get on with it they did, very successfully, until the late 70s when things began to get really difficult. Mass production and changing fashions had left craftsmen like the Moons out on a limb. Takings dwindled year by year, and Patrick Moon, Brian’s grandson, began to fear that by the time his son Simon left Hogwarts there wouldn’t be a business for him to go into.
The Moons were a lot more au fait with the Muggle world than most wizards. Even so Simon’s parents were somewhat disturbed when straight out of Hogwarts, and barely eighteen, he married a Muggleborn. This particular Muggleborn, however, was an excellent seamstress and if it was one thing they appreciated it was good craftsmanship. While her talent with a needle may have endeared Anita to her new in-laws it was her ability as a businesswoman that really won their hearts. It was Anita who convinced her father-in-law to make the rounds of the craft fairs to boost flagging sales, it was Anita who talked her accountant father into overhauling the company’s ricketty book-keeping to get the Inland Revenue off their backs and it was Anita who suggested to Simon that they diversify into collectors items like dolls houses. By the time the craze for period furniture hit Muggle Britain Moon & Son was well placed to take advantage of it. Business was booming.
Anita’s workroom on the ground floor had become the heart of the household. It was there she could be found making her own contribution to the success of Moon & Son in the form of her individually designed patchwork quilts, while her husband, her parents-in-law, her widowed father, her children and their friends came and went in an endless procession with news, questions and concerns. If the Moon & Son workshop near Kilburn Station was Simon’s kingdom, 25 Greville Road was Anita’s. It was a place of much laughter and loud arguments, where there were as many books on the floor as on the bookshelves and meals took place whenever people felt hungry. Tracey had been bought up in a house where everything had a place and everything knew its place and damn well stayed in it if it knew what was good for it. Tim’s family was a revelation. Over the following weeks the Moon household became her refuge. “Studying” was an excuse, Janet would happily accept, even if it did mean letting her daughter go God knows where with a boy she’d never met. It helped that she seemed to have taken to Tim.
“Probably because you can use the phone,” Tracey told him as they were walking back to Greville Road from their twice-weekly DADA practice in the yard behind the Moon & Son workshop. “That makes you seem normal.”
Slytherin’s resident comic could never resist a good feed line. “’Course I’m normal. Well, except for the persecution complex. Oh, and the manic depression. Not to mention the lycanthropy but that’s only round the full moon, so it hardly counts -“
“Shut up, you idiot!” Tracey swiped at him with her sports bag. In the course of the resulting tussle she caught sight of their reflection in the plate glass window of the Nationwide Building Society. A teenage girl dressed in a crop top, lycra shorts and trainers with her hair pulled back into a pony tail and a tall boy with brown curly hair in a black t-shirt and tatty jeans - just two normal kids messing around. Of course, that depended on your definition of normal. If the more paranoid sections of the wizarding community and the kind of TV programmes her brother was fond of watching were to be believed Muggles would label them mutants, lock them up and take them apart to find out what made them tick. To the pureblood supremacists she was less than human, an abomination that should have been strangled at birth, while Tim’s status was debatable.
Being around the Moons had only served to add to her confusion. It was not at all like previous summers, when her contact with the wizarding world had been limited to the Greengrasses who lived in a wizarding enclave, dressed in robes and never went near Muggles if they could help it. The Moons lived and worked among Muggles. They dressed Muggle most of the time and were adept at a variant of the Disillusionment Charm that hid the wizarding aspects of their home from their Muggle neighbours. To said neighbours they were just another ordinary family doing all the things that ordinary families do. They successfully blurred the boundaries between wizard and muggle. They made her wonder if all this secrecy with its attendant heartache was really necessary.
As they entered the house they could hear the sound of voices and the busy whirring of a sewing machine coming from behind the closed door of Anita’s workroom. Tim opened the door and struck his head round it. Patrick Moon, a copy of the Daily Prophet in his hand, was holding forth from a rocking chair in the corner while Anita’s father, Frank, leaned against one of the shelves with his arms folded, expressionless. Anita, outwardly calm, was working on her latest commission.
Patrick’s chubby face was red with irritation, and he banged the paper in his hand with the back of the other, as if to emphasize the seriousness of what he was saying. “First Fortescue, now Ollivander. It’s time you stopped burying your heads in the sand - “ He broke off at the sound of the door opening. Anita threw her father-in-law a warning glance.
“Da, leave it.”
Frank eased himself away from the shelf and caught his daughter’s eye. “Come on Pat old chap, let’s take a stroll down to the pub and have a pint and a game of dominoes. You owe me a rematch.”
Patrick threw him a scathing glance. “Don’t you try and distract me Frankie boy.” He turned to his daughter-in-law. “Anita, child, you’ve got to listen to me. You don’t understand. You weren’t born to this life and at times, God help us, it shows.”
Anita stiffened. “Thank you so much for reminding me, Patrick.” Tim and Tracey beat a hasty retreat for the kitchen before the explosion occurred. Anita didn’t lose her temper often but when she did the fallout was pretty spectacular. The shouting started before they had got halfway down the hall.
“What’s that all about?” Tracey asked as they raided the pantry to make themselves sandwiches.
Tim shrugged uneasily. “Grandda thinks I shouldn’t go back to Hogwarts. He’s been on at Mum and Dad about it for weeks.” Tracey felt a cold knot of fear in her stomach. Unsurprisingly, there had been no letter from Daphne. She couldn’t face going back to Hogwarts if it meant total isolation.
With an uncharacteristic display of temper, Tim lobbed the bread knife in the direction of the sink. “Grandda’s living in the past.” He put on an exaggerated imitation of Patrick’s London Irish lilt. “My Da and his Da managed fine without all these OWLs and NEWTs.” He dropped back into his normal tones, and continued sarcastically, “Which is fine if you just want to be another Son in Moon & Son but I don’t. You can’t get a decent job without NEWTs.”
… Those of great ambition … The Sorting Hat’s song played itself back in Tracey’s head. She’d often wondered how someone with Tim’s devil-may-care attitude could possibly end up in Slytherin. She filed the realisation for future reference and concentrated on the matter in hand.
“So your Grandda was the first in your family to go to Hogwarts?”
“Yeah.” Tim paused and negotiated a mouthful of the extraordinarily messy concoction he had made himself for lunch. “Grandda couldn’t wait to get out. He left straight after his OWLs and joined the business.”
“If you don’t want to go into the business, what do you want to do?”
“Haven’t a sodding clue,” Tim said blithely, some of his natural good humour returning. “I’ll think of something. You?”
Tracey hesitated. She hadn’t told anyone of her secret ambition, formed after Bill Weasley, a former head boy who now worked for Gringotts, had given them a careers talk last year. She felt slightly embarrassed voicing it at last. “I’d like to be a curse breaker.”
Tim grinned. “Not one for the safe option, are you? You heard that Weasley bloke. Homicidal mummies, giant beetles and nasty diseases are all in a day’s work for that lot.”
“Yeah well, it beats rotting away behind a desk at the Ministry.”
“Tell me that when you’re thirty and look like Mad Eye Moody.”
Tracey was groping for a suitably scathing reply when the sound of the front door slamming reverberated through the house. A second later Frank entered the kitchen. He ambled across to the Aga and addressed the kettle.
“Boiling water, please. Enough for a nice pot of tea.” The kettle obediently picked itself up, sailed across to the sink and filled itself, returned and plonked itself on the stove, which lit up with a hiss.
Tim raised his eyes to Heaven. “Grandpa it’s a kettle. You don’t have to say please.”
“It pays to exercise good manners,” his grandfather responded with a twinkle that reminded Tracey of Tim in one of his teasing moods. “Even inanimate objects have feelings, you know.”
Tim shook his head. “Grandpa, you’re as bad as Dumbledore. Where’s Grandda?”
“He went for a walk.” Tim’s face fell, and he hunched himself over his empty plate, brooding. The kettle whistled. Frank spooned tealeaves into the pot, and the kettle, rising from the hob, poured boiling water on to them. “Thank you. Tea, Tracey?”
“Yes, please Mr Dickinson.”
Frank bustled about fetching mugs, milk and sugar. “Tim?”
Tim shook his head. “No thanks.” His grandfather pulled up a chair, sat down opposite him at the kitchen table and poured tea for himself and Tracey. Tim’s attention remained fixed on his plate. He pushed crumbs into a little pile in the centre with the tip of one finger, maintaining a stony silence. Tracey stared at the swirling brown liquid in her mug and wondered if she should just make some excuse and go.
Tim looked up. “Why did he do that? He might as well call her Mudblood.”
Frank took a sip of tea. “He’s afraid, Tim. Fear makes people say some very stupid things.”
“I’m going back to Hogwarts,” Tim said, angrily. “I don’t care what he says.”
“Of course you are. Your Mum and Dad wouldn’t dream of stopping you. We were talking about something entirely different.”
“What?”
Frank hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “Your Grandda’s got this idea that with things the way they are at present your Mum and Dad should sell up and leave the country.”
Tim looked stunned. “He’s bonkers. Dad’d never sell the business, not in a million years.”
His grandfather nodded. “Which is exactly what your mother told him but he thinks if he can convince her she’ll sell the idea to your father. Of course, being Pat he’s going about it in entirely the wrong way.”
“You can say that again,” Tim concurred. “Why does he want to get rid of the business? It was his life. He drives Dad and Mum mad interfering all the time.”
“Deep down he knows that Hogwarts is probably the safest place for you right now but it’s not just you he’s worried about.”
“Mum’s a great witch!” Tim protested indignantly. “She can take care of herself.”
Frank shook his head. “No lad, not your Mum - me. As Patrick put it, truthfully but a tad tactlessly, having a Muggle in a wizarding household these days is like hanging out a sign and asking the Death Eaters to pay you a call.” Tracey watched her friend’s face as the realisation sank in. She could imagine his feelings all too clearly. “So, Pat, bless him, is prepared to sacrifice the most important thing in his life because he feels responsible for my safety, and of course I’m not going to let him and your Mum and Dad do that. I’ll move out, find myself a little flat somewhere.”
“Grandpa.” Tim’s face was a study in misery.
“Don’t worry yourself, my boy.” Frank patted his grandson on the shoulder. “I’m not going to disappear completely. You can come and visit me during the holidays.”
“Frank Dickinson, I have never heard such tosh in my life!” The speaker was standing at the kitchen door, arms folded, a stern expression on her face. To Tracey Eileen Moon was exactly what a grandmother should look like. Of medium height, silver haired and slightly roundish, she exuded an air of comforting warmth. This made her even more frightening when she chose to play the stern matriarch. Tracey had seen her husband, son and grandchildren quail before her when she was in one of her forceful moods. Frank, however, was not so easily intimidated.
“Eileen, my dear, I can take care of myself.”
Eileen’s face assumed a world-weary expression. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, man, did I say you couldn’t? That is not the point. Have you spared one thought for Anita? How do you think she is going to feel with you on your own and vulnerable to attack at any moment?”
For the first time, Frank looked angry. “I’ve already heard all of this from Pat. None of you can guarantee my safety. Safety is a myth. I learned that at the age of fourteen every time the air-raid sirens sounded. I saw my best friend’s house flattened by a bomb and helped dig his body out of the rubble. The trouble with you wizarding folk is you have delusions of grandeur. You cannot keep away the outside world with the wave of a wand!”
“Do you think I don’t know that? While you were sleeping on a Tube platform, Patrick and I were up guarding this house, night after night, trying to keep awake and fearing that Gridelwald’s bully boys would break in and kill us all.” Eileen sat in a chair next to him, and put a hand over his. “We made it through then and we’ll make it through now but we need to stand together. If you let them drive you away they’ve won and we’ll be no safer simply because you’ve left.”
They exchanged a long look, and finally Frank spoke. “I’ll think about it.”
Eileen stood. “You do that. Now I’m going to have a word with Anita about dinner. Somebody in this house needs to pay attention to what we’re going to eat tonight.” She bustled out of the kitchen. Frank watched her go with a rueful smile on his face.
Tim laughed. “Give up, Grandpa. Don’t you always say it’s the women who rule the roost in this house?”
His grandfather responded with a chuckle. “Never was a truer word spoken in jest. I suppose I’d better go and make it up with Pat.” As he rose, the question Tracey had been longing to ask for a long time burst forth.
“Mr Dickinson, do you ever wish your daughter had been - well - ordinary?”
Frank shook his head. “Good heavens, no. Being a witch is part of what makes her Anita. Besides, the wizarding world is such fun, although I never will learn to appreciate Quidditch. Pointless game; give me cricket any day of the week.”
That conversation gave Tracey much food for thought. Refusing an offer of side-along Apparition from Tim’s elder brother, Brian, she opted to take the train. She needed some time alone before she had to face her mother. As the packed commuter train rattled its way through the outer suburbs she stared out of the window, isolated phrases floating up from her subconscious.
- fear makes people say some very stupid things -
- being a witch is part of what makes her Anita -
- the wizarding world is such fun -
Tracey grimaced. Is it? Oh, it had seemed fun when she was eleven but she’d been through an awful lot since. Now she was standing on the threshold of adulthood and she felt very alone. Mum had finally accepted that being a witch was something she couldn’t give up but that very acceptance was putting a distance between them. In a moment of painful clarity Tracey realised that was the last thing she wanted. She was not Granger and she had no intention of adopting Tim’s family as a surrogate for her own. Janet might be irritating but she couldn’t bear the thought of them drifting apart. Nevertheless, estrangement seemed inevitable if her Mum continued to refuse to have anything to do with the magical world.
Back home, she wearily surveyed the disaster area that was her bedroom and set to work. She had to admit Janet was right. The place looked like a tip. Two hours later, she was just stuffing a pile of dirty clothes into the washing basket on the landing when her mother came up the stairs carrying a pile of freshly ironed sheets. Glancing through the open door of Tracey’s room she smiled approvingly.
“Now that’s much better.” She opened the airing cupboard and stowed the sheets away neatly. The very ordinariness of it bought a lump to Tracey’s throat. As Janet turned, she flung her arms around her and hugged her tightly.
“I love you Mum.”
“What bought all this on?” Janet returned her hug.
“Nothing.”
Janet drew back, looking her daughter sceptically. “I very much doubt that. Never mind, I’m glad you’re home for dinner. I’ve made spaghetti bolognaise.” Relieved, Tracey followed her mother downstairs. The feeling was temporary. The next step was going to be a lot more difficult. As it happened her luck was in and help was at hand.
That wasn’t exactly the way it seemed at first. The following Saturday, she and Tim had barely made it through the front door of 25 Greville Road when they were stopped in their tracks by a shriek of rage. Tim’s sister, Kitty, came thundering down the stairs in her dressing gown. She was half way through her elaborate grooming ritual and seriously pissed off.
“That sodding Kneazle of yours got into my room again! The wretched thing’s lying on my new velvet robe. When I tried to move it, it scratched me. Look!” She waved her left hand under Tim’s nose. “I swear, I’ll hex that bloody animal into next week if you don’t come and get it this instant!”
“I bet you’d scratch if someone grabbed you by your tail!”
“I did not! That beast should be put down. Smelly, vicious, evil little -“
Tim’s brown eyes blazed. “You’re just nasty about him because he doesn’t like you. And you know why he doesn’t like you? Because Kneazles can - ” He broke off as Kitty sent a Jelly-Legs curse straight at him, dodged and was about to retaliate when the door of Anita’s workroom flew open.
“Katherine! Timothy!! Stop it at once. Tim, go and get that damned animal out of Kitty’s room RIGHT NOW! And as for you, madam -” Tim shot up the stairs as if pursued by a Blast-Ended Skrewt. Tracey dumped her bag in the hall and followed. She had no intention of being caught in the crossfire.
The recalcitrant Kneazle raised his head as they entered the room, purring smugly. He allowed Tim to lift him off the bed without any fuss. Tracey felt a pang of sympathy for Kitty. Her green velvet robe was a mass of white hair and Tracey knew, from bitter experience, that Kneazle hair clung like mad. It was like the stuff was made of Velcro or something.
They’d reached the top of the stairs when Tim stopped abruptly, causing Tracey to bump into him. She’d just opened her mouth to ask what the hell he was playing at when he jerked his head towards the sound of voices drifting up the stairwell. Tracey and Tim exchanged looks. Normal everyday rows in the Moon household were conducted at maximum volume. From the second floor landing they could barely hear what was going on below and there was a quality in the voices that told them this was very bad indeed.
“You can’t tell me what to do.” Kitty’s vicious whisper held more than a hint of desperate bravado. “I’m of age. I can do magic anywhere I like.”
“While you live in this house, Miss, you abide by my rules. Get yourself a job, get your own place and you can do what you like.”
“I’m trying!! Nobody wants to know.”
“You’ve got nine NEWTS.”
“The moment I tell them my name they switch off.”
“Don’t give me that guff, my girl. You spend as much time job hunting as you do with your boyfriend and I might believe you.”
“That’s not fair! If you and Dad acted like decent respectable wizards I’d have no trouble getting a job. Everybody says so.”
“Everybody being that Warrington boy and his pals?” Tracey winced. Anita’s tone was stiff with controlled fury and she wondered how Kitty could be as thick as to push things this far. “I’m disappointed in you. I would have thought a daughter of mine would have had more sense than to believe that rubbish.”
“Yeah, that’s it, dismiss everything I say, like usual,” Kitty hissed malignantly. “You think you know everything but you haven’t got a clue what it’s really like. I’d like to see how you’d have coped if you hadn’t had Dad. You’ve got it easy here, tucked away in your cosy little hidey-hole. You’ve never had go out there and put up with people ignoring you or calling you filthy names. If Dad had married a proper witch I might’ve had a chance at a decent life!”
There was a sudden cold silence that seemed to last forever. Finally, Anita said flatly, “Get out of my sight.”
“Mum, I didn’t mean -.“ Kitty’s frightened protest was cut off by the sound of the workroom door closing with a decided click. A moment later she came running up the stairs, flushed and tearful. She shouldered past them and rushed into her room, slamming the door. Tim descended the stairs and crossed the hall, Tracey following. As they entered the kitchen he dumped the Kneazle on the floor and closed the door carefully, leaning against it. The animal, sensing his upset, began to brush itself against his legs, purring consolingly. Automatically, Tracey put the kettle on. At home it was something she always did in the aftermath of one of Janet’s emotional storms. She hunted for mugs while Tim sank into a chair and picked up the Kneazle, stroking him absently. As Tracey placed a mug of tea in front of him he looked up.
“Stupid bitch. Mum’s got enough on her plate without all that.” Tracey, unable to find anything supportive to say that wouldn’t sound trite, merely nodded. She admired Tim’s fierce partisanship but couldn’t help feeling a guilty pang of recognition when she thought of how many times she’d wished Aunty Tan had been her mum instead of Janet.
“Stupid cow thinks she’s the only one who has to deal with that crap,” Tim continued bitterly. “It isn’t Mum’s fault the world’s full of racist pureblood wankers.”
“Not all purebloods are racists,” Tracey replied, attempting to look on the bright side. “What about the Weasleys?”
Tim snorted. “Yeah, the Weasleys are very big on Muggleborn rights but none of them’s ever marriedone. Weasley’s mum’s some kind of distant cousin of Grandma’s. They’re as pure as they come.” He looked at the mug of tea in his hand as if seeing it for the first time then took a swig. “You and Mum are the best witches I know. So much for all that blood will tell stuff.” Tracey felt suddenly hot with embarrassment and seized with a desperate desire to change the subject. Fortunately, Tim did it for her. “Trace, I’m sorry for going on about this. You get far more shit than I do.”
Tracey grinned at him. “Don’t be a plonker. What are friends for?” She loaded her own tea with sugar and stirred it. “Look - it doesn’t only run one way. My Mum refers to Hogwarts as “that school of yours” and in six years she’s never even been to Diagon Alley.”
“That really bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Tracey admitted miserably. “She’s my Mum.” She didn’t feel the need to say more. Tim understood. They sat drinking their tea in companionable silence for a while.
“D’you think she’d come with us if Mum asked her?” Tim was obviously in the grip of a flash of inspiration. “You said she thinks we’re normal - well, sort of.”
Tracey’s immediate response was a shake of the head. “No chance.”
“C’mon,” Tim urged her. “If she says no you’re no worse off and she just might say yes.” Her expression told him she was wavering, and he pressed his advantage. “It’s worth a try.”
“I suppose so,” Tracey said, dubiously. “I just don’t want to drag your Mum into it when it’s my problem.”
“Mum’ll be happy to help,” Tim assured her. He rose and headed for the door.
“Hang, on!” Tracey protested. “This isn’t the time to go barging there in right after -.”
Tim turned, hand on the door handle. “I know what I’m doing, Trace. It’ll be good for her. Take her mind off it.”
“Well, let’s take her a cup of tea, at least!” Tracey insisted. Tim roared with laughter.
Anita was still in the workroom. It was obvious she had been crying. Eileen, who was sitting beside her with a comforting arm round her shoulder, looked up as they entered. Tim put the tea tray down on the table.
“We thought you might like a cup of tea.”
Anita managed a watery smile. “That’s very kind of you, darling.” Eileen gave her grandson an approving look. As soon as the tea was poured Tim plunged straight into an explanation of Tracey’s problem. Anita listened sympathetically.
“My mother was exactly the same, Tracey. “Dad revels it but Mum was rather frightened.” She turned to Eileen. “Do you remember what happened at our wedding reception, Ma?”
“You mean when our account manager from Gringotts asked your mother to dance?” Eileen smiled. “Ah, how could I forget? The look of relief on her face when that dance was over will stay with me for the rest of my days.” Tracey couldn’t join in wholeheartedly in the family hilarity that followed. She’d been hit by a sudden vision of what Janet might do in a similar situation and it didn’t involve dancing with a green scaly monster with two-inch talons in order to be polite.
As the laughter died down Anita said briskly. “We’ll go next Saturday. It’ll give us a chance to get Tim’s school supplies in good time for a change. Give me the number and I’ll ring your mother tonight.”
That evening Tracey was on tenterhooks every time the phone went. As is usual in such situations the world and his wife seemed to have decided to give the Davis family a ring that night. So it was that when the fatal phone call actually came Tracey was well out of earshot in the bath. The first thing she knew of it was when she came downstairs to find Janet talking to Pete.
“She seems a perfectly nice woman -” her mother was saying with a worried frown. On hearing her daughter come in, she turned. “Oh, Tracey, your friend Tim’s mother phoned. They’re going to go shopping for his school things next Saturday and she asked if you’d like to come along.“ Pete cleared his throat and she shot him a panic-stricken glance. Tracey assumed her best innocent expression and waited.
Flustered, Janet continued. “Well, she actually -“
“She asked if you and your Mum would like to come and have a bit of lunch with them before going to Diagon Alley,” Pete put in, straight faced, giving Tracey a knowing look.
Janet was pink with embarrassment. “She was so charming. I didn’t like to say I never -“ Visibly pulling herself together, she met her daughter’s pleading gaze. “So I said we would go.” Her troubled look melted in the warmth of Tracey’s ecstatic smile.
At least the summer had ended on a more positive note thanks to Anita, Tracey reflected, breaking through the other side of the barrier into the usual pre-departure chaos of Platform 9 ¾. The unexpected bonus was the genuine friendship that had sprung up between her and Janet.
“It’s beautiful,” Janet said quietly, staring with obvious appreciation at the huge quilted seascape hanging on the far wall of Anita’s workroom. She moved closer. “It must have taken you ages.”
Anita smiled. “Not as long as you would think. Magic cuts out a lot of the donkey work.”
Tracey glanced warily at her mother, wondering how she would take this casual use of the M-word but Janet merely nodded absently, still absorbed in tracing the intricate pattern of stitches that outlined each separate element of the picture. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Would you like to see what else it does?” Anita enquired with a mischievous smile. She pointed her wand at the picture and it sprang instantly to life. A patchwork seagull skimmed the blue cotton waves as they broke upon the neatly stitched outline of the rocks. Puffy white clouds drifted across a glowing picture-book sun. The sound of the waves and the seagull’s cries filled the room. Janet gasped.
“It looks so - alive.” She turned to face the taller woman. “This is wonderful.”
Anita looked gratified. “I’m glad you like it. Do you sew?”
“I do a bit of needlepoint,” Janet replied, “but it’s nowhere near as good as your stuff.”
“I’d like to see it sometime.” Anita’s voice was warm.
Bond established, the two women hadn’t stopped talking for the whole afternoon and the shopping trip had become a mere backdrop to the mutual exchange of life stories. Dizzy with relief, Tracey followed them from shop to shop, studiously ignoring Tim’s smug grin. She was glad that Janet had something to distract her as Diagon Alley was crawling with the signs of oncoming conflict from the warning posters plastered on every available flat surface to the tense faces of the passers-by and the boarded up windows of Florean Fortescue’s. Janet must have noticed the atmosphere but she had said nothing about it either during the trip or since. She had confined herself to chatter about trivia like the robes in Madam Malkin’s and the wonders of the shop where Anita bought her quilting materials. For the last two weeks of the holiday she maintained a brittle cheerfulness, as if unwilling to mar the remainder of her time with her daughter with any domestic discord. Tracey found it thoroughly unnerving. By the eve of her departure for Hogwarts she would have given anything for one knock down drag out row to restore her sense of normality. She looked around for her charge. The kid was staring open-mouthed at the Hogwarts Express.
“Cool.”
“Say that when you get out the other end smelling like an ashtray and covered in bits of soot,” Tracey snapped. For some reason she found the girl’s wide-eyed enthusiasm particularly irritating. At the sight of the kid’s stricken face her anger abated a little and she added in a friendlier tone, “We’d better find you somewhere to sit.” She chivvied the excited youngster along the platform, threading her way through the milling crowds of Hogwarts students, their parents and assorted hangers-on.
Further down she spotted Tim, accompanied by his mother, father and grandmother. He waved enthusiastically and jerked his head towards the open door of a nearby carriage. She ploughed towards him herding the little first year before her and stopped dead as she came face to face with Daphne Greengrass and her mother. Caught by surprise, all three of them froze for a second. To Tracey it seemed like an eternity. Mrs Greengrass was the first to recover. Giving Tracey a chilly nod she turned away, leaving Tracey and Daphne staring at each other.
“Hello.” Daphne’s tone was neutral.
Tracey fought for the same neutral tone and succeeded. “Hello. Have a good summer?”
“Yes thanks.” Daphne was already turning to follow her mother. “See you at school.”
“Yeah.” Fury bubbled up inside her. Snotty bitch. Who needs her? She turned to her little companion. “Come on.”
As she reached the group Anita and Eileen were chatting with another woman around Anita’s age. Both smiled at her and continued their conversation. Simon, Tim’s father, greeted her warmly. Stocky, curly-haired and bearded, he was a younger version of Patrick, except for the sardonic grin just like his son’s. It had become obvious to her fairly quickly where Tim got his warped sense of humour.
“Hello, Tracey. Who’s your friend?” Mortified, Tracey remembered that she hadn’t even asked the first-year her name.
“I’m Isabelle Hurst,” the little girl piped up, holding out her hand. “I’m going to Hogwarts. It’s my first year.” Anita and Eileen had finished their conversation, and turned back to the rest of the group in time to hear this announcement.
“Hello Isabelle.” Simon shook her hand, gravely. Over her head, the four adults exchanged a quick glance. Muggleborn, it said, as clearly as if they’d spoken it aloud. Anita turned to the stranger, and for the first time Tracey noticed a young boy of about Isabelle’s age hanging back behind the woman.
“There’s someone here you might like to meet, Isabelle.” His mother gave him a gentle push and the boy came reluctantly forward. “This is Gerontius. He’s starting school today as well.”
His mother nudged the boy, who was looking at his feet. “’Lo.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Isabelle was obviously on her best behaviour. Gerontius, on the other hand, looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else.
“Gerry, why don’t you take Isabelle to meet your friends?” his mother suggested, brightly. Reluctantly, her son jerked his head in the direction of the train.
“C’mon.”
Tracey watched them go with mixed feelings. She knew Gerry’s mother was trying to be kind but it wasn’t likely to do much good. She’d made Isabelle into a duty; a duty he’d soon forget once he was on the train and amongst the wizard born friends he’d known for years.
“Isabelle!” she yelled. The little girl turned and looked back. “My name’s Tracey, right? Tracey Davis. I’m in Slytherin. If you need any help come and see me.” The tiny first year nodded gravely then shot off after her impatient companion.
Several hours later Tracey, now clad in her Hogwarts uniform robe, squeezed her way through the tangle of half dressed bodies and out of the compartment into the corridor. She pulled down the window, and leaned out. The train was just rounding the last bend into Hogsmeade. Above the village the fairytale silhouette of Hogwarts loomed against the growing dusk. Her stomach lurched with the queasy combination of excitement and apprehension the sight always provoked in her. Mixed in with these familiar sensations was something else - an overwhelming feeling of melancholy, the cause of which she couldn’t for a moment identify. Then it hit her.
A picture of little Isabelle’s bright excited face flashed through her mind, and she realised that she had crossed an invisible border. She, Tracey, would never feel that way again. She looked up at Hogwarts. No matter the difficulties and dangers, no matter the pain and heartache it cost her, she belonged there - like it or not. She didn’t need fairytales anymore. She had left childhood behind.
***