Fic: messages (Dumbledore/Figg
Finally. It's a week late but it's finally finished.
Title: Messages
Pairing Dumbledore/Figg
Rating: Mpg at most.
Summary: There's a bond between them ,but what is it made of?
Note: This was meant for viola_dreawalk 's rarehet challenge. I only got real plot bunnies days before the deadline though and then I had to keep the thing from growing into a novel. OH well...It's all good now.
There was always time enough for everything. For playing with the cats, for talking about books, for a glass of wine and a game of chess. There was almost too much time. Albus liked her house. Albus grinned when she was startled by one of his favourite wand tricks and finally called him by his first name. It was accidentally, and she blushed but he smiled at her the way he probably would smile at a student who gave him a correct answer or a good essay. There were marvellous things he could never teach her, but oh, the theory of all of it! She would do her best to learn it all by heart. She thought it was pure admiration. She thought she would get annoyed at his protectiveness, but it made her feel happy instead.
He came in one morning and told her that Diggle was moving away, told her that half the houses in the village where Lily's sister lived were for sale. Half an hour later her small suitcase was in the hallway. Albus minified some of her furniture and she didn't even doubt the spell would last for the owls to send it off to Magnolia Crescent. Her cats would follow that night, lead by a new one she'd never seen before.
Albus had a new way of announcing himself. His voice would come from her fireplace and the first time that happened she didn't know whether her cats were more startled than she was.
"Arabella," he'd say and then came either a bit of news or he would fall into her room and ask her questions. No, the neighbours still hadn't greeted her. She'd seen their son in the garden, but all he did was cry, and some of his toddler friends were there too sometimes, but their faces were always covered in chocolate, or ice cream. She didn't want to tell him that she'd actually seen Petunia a few times, that she hated the woman already, that she wished she herself was Harry's grandmother...
Months later, she was startled in bed and hurried to her window. All the street lamps went out and half an hour later there was the sound of thunder in the air.
"Who has the guts to play a prank like this on me when there's so much danger about!"
It woke her cats and one of them hurried into her room. It jumped in the window sill and then stared from the dark street back at her.
"What is it," she said. "Do you see a stray cat perhaps?" She mumbled more to herself than to any of her pets, and she sank down on the bed, not crawling back under the covers until the lights were on again.
"Arabella?" the kitchen door was opened in a minute. Albus stepped in. A cat was in the corner and looked up from her milk. Arabella almost forgot she'd let it in that morning. She was already used to the new meowing sounds. Albus smiled and nodded.
"You've brought him here?" she asked. He frowned. "Harry's here isn't he?" and she wanted to go to the door to look for a child curled up in a blanket.
"He's at Privet Drive," said Albus, "and that's where he'll be safe."
She swallowed, and saw the cat sit up and look in her direction.
"I'll keep an eye on this," she said softly. "if any of them so much as-" she froze. Petunia hated magic. Petunia didn't like her cats. Petunia had refused for more than a ear to talk about her sister. "I'll ask if I can baby sit," she said, and she hardly noticed she'd said it out loud.
Albus smiled. There was a kiss on her cheek and she started wondering if she was doing all this for Harry, or just for him.
There were less visits from then on, only a few minutes every now and then when his head was in the fireplace. She still sent him owls every month and told him far too much, how she hated petunia, how she called on that boy's last birthday to say she couldn't take Harry in. She sent him a note as soon as the whole family went on holiday, and she still wondered why all the Hogwarts owls flew past her house before they left the village.
"He has the letter," said Albus from her fireplace, and the next week she watched from the pavement as five people climbed into a large car. She felt strangely thin, as if she was just a part of the hedge behind her.
"Arabella!" it sounded triumphant. "He is the best seeker we've had in years!"
"And you are fifty years younger and breaking one of the most important rules of a headmaster." He smiled and she made tea. "Promise me you send a note to all of us when he needs help," she said quickly. Albus sighed.
"I wonder if he will want help at all."
"Are you nuts?" she wanted to say. "He is hardly twelve years old. Do you think he bounced off that killing curse on his own free will?" she pretended to choke on her tea instead.
Harry waved at her from his spot in the garden and pulled out some more weeds. "If you find any gnomes dear," she wanted to say, "give them to me."
If he only knew she had kneazles sitting in her window sill. If he only knew they climbed on the roof of his uncle's car at night. It had made Albus smile and weeks after Harry was off to Hogwarts he sent her the first note in ages. "Miss Granger has a cat," he said. "I'm surprised she doesn't know how much he's worth."
Would it be true? The half-breed that couldn't get along with Mr Tibbs? Did he finally have a home now? Then it dawned on her. Miss Granger...that was one of Harry's friends. "Oh heavens..." she whispered. "Skimpy, you're at Hogwarts." But the next day before Albus could say something she knelt before the bearded head and excitedly asked the name of that new pat. "Crookshanks," said Albus, and he fell into her living room. "Don't worry," he said with a grin, "It is the one we gave to the magical menagerie." She buried her head in the soft material of his robes. There was a small crown on his head. She only noticed it when she got up, and then he sighed and stared from her to the book on her table. "We have a most fascinating new teacher this year," he sighed, looking at the picture on the front cover.
There was a long silence. "I will say this one last time," she said, "send an owl to Lupin."
"This is the first time you said that," said Albus.
"Because you don't read my cards," she huffed, "and because I finally found out where he lives."
It took an escaped murderer for Albus to land in the doorway of her living room and ask her for the address.
A year and a month later Petunia was in her doorway. "He says he's sending letters to a convicted murderer" she called out, "to a criminal! Not that I believe any of it," but she said it much too fast and Arabella wished she would laugh as hard as she thought she would. She was worried instead, and asked Albus for the umpteenth time how the blood magic worked.
A year and another month later she knew exactly how it worked.
"Arabella,"
She dropped her platter and sank into a chair, shaking her head. A day after that, a dog barked into her fireplace and fell into the room. None of the cats fled, not even when the monstrous thing turned into a man she only knew from pictures.
"Albus-send me an owl," she stammered. "If he hadn't done that I would haves-"
"Called the police?"
She shook her head.
His hands were on the table, next to a teacup. She only just missed them when she poured his tea, and she wondered why he didn't pull his hands away.
"Dementors at privet drive!" she called out. It was forbidden for anyone to drop into the fireplace of the headquarters without an announcement, but she had to.
"What did you say?" She was always intimidated by the sight of the tall figure in front of her, but this time she was almost scared.
"Arabella?"
"Dementors, two of them. They-they almost got that Dursley boy and Harry wanted to-"
She heard a sound she'd never heard before. If this was the phoenix, she wondered what made him scream like this, it sounded worse than an owl who got attacked by one of her cats.
"I'll kill that fool of a fletcher if he dares to come near my house,"
"He's gone," said a soft voice.
"Right, i'll go home then," she squeaked. And she coughed when she fell back on her own floor.
"I need a wand," she wrote to Albus. "Not all of those death eaters can be clever enough to look in the records and see if i'm a witch or not."
"A disguise is a dangerous thing," he wrote back.
"Arabella? harry's trial is in half an hour. Will you come with me and witness for him?"
God. she'd have to play the silly old woman again. She hugged her cats, endured the apparition, ran from one floor to another, hardly noticed Harry, and hoped Fudge wouldn't notice her anger.
"Thanks figgy," said Dung as he passed her later in Diagon Alley.
"Albus knows you were supposed to watch Harry" she said in a low voice. "Now get on with your most important business."
"On my way already," he mumbled. "I'm off to meet the Weasley twins."
She'd rather see him choke on that pipe of his.
She was home an hour later and broke her favourite teacup.
"Arabella?"
"I need a wand." she called before Albus could continue.
"I have to leave Hogwarts," he said.
"I moved my bed downstairs," she answered. "If you find any perfumes in the bedroom upstairs you can send them to Minerva if you want to."
"I'll put them on, of course," said Albus, walking up the stairs. "Why would lavender be wrong for old men?"
She giggled, she nearly stumbled over two cats. "I can also teach you how to knit!" she called out. Suddenly she hummed a stupid song. Celestina Warbeck would be on the musical magic show tonight.
Two days later he was gone. She'd heard a rushing sound and fell out of her spare bedroom door to find nothing but a hole in the thin carpet and a few feathers. "That idiotic bird of his," she snapped.
There were only messages from then on.
"Arabella, he's safe at Hogwarts."
"Arabella, Mr Weasley has been attacked,"
"Arabella, they found the prophecy..."
"Arabella?"
There was a mist in her head. She looked at his hand and could look at nothing else.
"S-Sirius black has been..."
"What did he do now?"
Silence. "Well?"
"He died."
She swallowed. poor Harry.
"That has to be Snape's's doing. That man, never trusted him."
There was a whooshing sound. "You should have known, Albus," but he was gone. In the kitchen was a large heart-shaped piece of chocolate. "It is no-one's fault but my own," the note read, "and so will it be for everything else."
She didn't see him in the next year. What was so important for him to stay away from her fireplace?
There was a new minister. So what? Professor Snape was Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. What had he done to force Albus to say yes at last? Dudley Wandered past her house every Saturday after eleven and tapped on her window sometimes, or perhaps he threw stones at it. She'd seen him kick one of her cats towards her kitchen door.
She still had a tin of lemon drops in her cupboard, right behind the large one that she used for biscuits.
It was just a breeze at night and she wandered Why it made her float from her bed to the window sill. In her living room the clock stroke five and she vaguely wondered why she heard it so clearly.
"Arabella?" what was so important now? The curtain almost opened. "Arabella?" She shivered in her nightgown and turned around in bed, tried to look for the blankets. "Very good," said
Albus, and the window closed softly.
When she sat up that morning and felt around for her slippers, there was a tabby cat instead. It made sad meowing sounds and she knew at once what it had to say. "Well, that's that then," she said softly, but she almost choked on the words.
Was there a funeral? There was only a long strain of notes, soft beautiful music that still made her cry when she thought of it at home.
"I hereby offer myself for any Fidelius charms the Order of the Phoenix wishes to cast," she wrote and it was the first time in decades that she used her official signature.
"Harry turns seventeen today," said an excited voice and she wished it was Albus bringing her the news.
A year and a half later there was a girl on her doorstep. without a word she took two hands in hers and they stood in front of the ministry building where the bits of lunch came out that she'd tried to eat before she left.
Once inside there was a mess of people, of wands, of streaks of light. She hurried into an lift and knew she was alone. When she came out, she felt like she'd stepped off a carousel and five men with black masks pushed her aside and burst in. Somehow she had the sense to pull a handle (it was a bit like a train compartment,, she thought). More rooms and all of them were circular. She wouldn't know the end of it if it wasn't for the thin mist in front of her face. Soon it would fill her head and she'd faint. There were voices behind her and in front of her. "Don't let any of them near this."
"There should be no need for anyone to disturb this place,"
"Luna? Luna! Finally!"
"Wait, everyone, stop!"
There was a breeze on her face, it wasn't cold or warm and it didn't smell of anything.
"Arabella?" was he shocked or surprised?
"Arabella?" She saw the familiar hand and reached out. No-one behind her said a word. The mist filled her head and she hoped she'd fall into her bed again, she prepared her ears for the ticking of the alarm clock...
"Arabella!"
She was behind a wall and someone Kicked it.
"And she isn't even a witch..."
"She didn't' have any family."
"She had us!"
"I had you," she heard herself say to the shadows in front of her. It felt like holding on to one of those things...one of those...portkeys? What a silly word.
"You are safe," he said as they entered a hall, a hall made of silver and glass. She heard the song again, the one from the funeral and this time she didn't cry. She didn't know why it had ever made her sad. She forgot the war, forgot her neighbours, forgot Harry...she forgot to look, to hear, to feel. She was singing along.
Title: Messages
Pairing Dumbledore/Figg
Rating: Mpg at most.
Summary: There's a bond between them ,but what is it made of?
Note: This was meant for viola_dreawalk 's rarehet challenge. I only got real plot bunnies days before the deadline though and then I had to keep the thing from growing into a novel. OH well...It's all good now.
There was always time enough for everything. For playing with the cats, for talking about books, for a glass of wine and a game of chess. There was almost too much time. Albus liked her house. Albus grinned when she was startled by one of his favourite wand tricks and finally called him by his first name. It was accidentally, and she blushed but he smiled at her the way he probably would smile at a student who gave him a correct answer or a good essay. There were marvellous things he could never teach her, but oh, the theory of all of it! She would do her best to learn it all by heart. She thought it was pure admiration. She thought she would get annoyed at his protectiveness, but it made her feel happy instead.
He came in one morning and told her that Diggle was moving away, told her that half the houses in the village where Lily's sister lived were for sale. Half an hour later her small suitcase was in the hallway. Albus minified some of her furniture and she didn't even doubt the spell would last for the owls to send it off to Magnolia Crescent. Her cats would follow that night, lead by a new one she'd never seen before.
Albus had a new way of announcing himself. His voice would come from her fireplace and the first time that happened she didn't know whether her cats were more startled than she was.
"Arabella," he'd say and then came either a bit of news or he would fall into her room and ask her questions. No, the neighbours still hadn't greeted her. She'd seen their son in the garden, but all he did was cry, and some of his toddler friends were there too sometimes, but their faces were always covered in chocolate, or ice cream. She didn't want to tell him that she'd actually seen Petunia a few times, that she hated the woman already, that she wished she herself was Harry's grandmother...
Months later, she was startled in bed and hurried to her window. All the street lamps went out and half an hour later there was the sound of thunder in the air.
"Who has the guts to play a prank like this on me when there's so much danger about!"
It woke her cats and one of them hurried into her room. It jumped in the window sill and then stared from the dark street back at her.
"What is it," she said. "Do you see a stray cat perhaps?" She mumbled more to herself than to any of her pets, and she sank down on the bed, not crawling back under the covers until the lights were on again.
"Arabella?" the kitchen door was opened in a minute. Albus stepped in. A cat was in the corner and looked up from her milk. Arabella almost forgot she'd let it in that morning. She was already used to the new meowing sounds. Albus smiled and nodded.
"You've brought him here?" she asked. He frowned. "Harry's here isn't he?" and she wanted to go to the door to look for a child curled up in a blanket.
"He's at Privet Drive," said Albus, "and that's where he'll be safe."
She swallowed, and saw the cat sit up and look in her direction.
"I'll keep an eye on this," she said softly. "if any of them so much as-" she froze. Petunia hated magic. Petunia didn't like her cats. Petunia had refused for more than a ear to talk about her sister. "I'll ask if I can baby sit," she said, and she hardly noticed she'd said it out loud.
Albus smiled. There was a kiss on her cheek and she started wondering if she was doing all this for Harry, or just for him.
There were less visits from then on, only a few minutes every now and then when his head was in the fireplace. She still sent him owls every month and told him far too much, how she hated petunia, how she called on that boy's last birthday to say she couldn't take Harry in. She sent him a note as soon as the whole family went on holiday, and she still wondered why all the Hogwarts owls flew past her house before they left the village.
"He has the letter," said Albus from her fireplace, and the next week she watched from the pavement as five people climbed into a large car. She felt strangely thin, as if she was just a part of the hedge behind her.
"Arabella!" it sounded triumphant. "He is the best seeker we've had in years!"
"And you are fifty years younger and breaking one of the most important rules of a headmaster." He smiled and she made tea. "Promise me you send a note to all of us when he needs help," she said quickly. Albus sighed.
"I wonder if he will want help at all."
"Are you nuts?" she wanted to say. "He is hardly twelve years old. Do you think he bounced off that killing curse on his own free will?" she pretended to choke on her tea instead.
Harry waved at her from his spot in the garden and pulled out some more weeds. "If you find any gnomes dear," she wanted to say, "give them to me."
If he only knew she had kneazles sitting in her window sill. If he only knew they climbed on the roof of his uncle's car at night. It had made Albus smile and weeks after Harry was off to Hogwarts he sent her the first note in ages. "Miss Granger has a cat," he said. "I'm surprised she doesn't know how much he's worth."
Would it be true? The half-breed that couldn't get along with Mr Tibbs? Did he finally have a home now? Then it dawned on her. Miss Granger...that was one of Harry's friends. "Oh heavens..." she whispered. "Skimpy, you're at Hogwarts." But the next day before Albus could say something she knelt before the bearded head and excitedly asked the name of that new pat. "Crookshanks," said Albus, and he fell into her living room. "Don't worry," he said with a grin, "It is the one we gave to the magical menagerie." She buried her head in the soft material of his robes. There was a small crown on his head. She only noticed it when she got up, and then he sighed and stared from her to the book on her table. "We have a most fascinating new teacher this year," he sighed, looking at the picture on the front cover.
There was a long silence. "I will say this one last time," she said, "send an owl to Lupin."
"This is the first time you said that," said Albus.
"Because you don't read my cards," she huffed, "and because I finally found out where he lives."
It took an escaped murderer for Albus to land in the doorway of her living room and ask her for the address.
A year and a month later Petunia was in her doorway. "He says he's sending letters to a convicted murderer" she called out, "to a criminal! Not that I believe any of it," but she said it much too fast and Arabella wished she would laugh as hard as she thought she would. She was worried instead, and asked Albus for the umpteenth time how the blood magic worked.
A year and another month later she knew exactly how it worked.
"Arabella,"
She dropped her platter and sank into a chair, shaking her head. A day after that, a dog barked into her fireplace and fell into the room. None of the cats fled, not even when the monstrous thing turned into a man she only knew from pictures.
"Albus-send me an owl," she stammered. "If he hadn't done that I would haves-"
"Called the police?"
She shook her head.
His hands were on the table, next to a teacup. She only just missed them when she poured his tea, and she wondered why he didn't pull his hands away.
"Dementors at privet drive!" she called out. It was forbidden for anyone to drop into the fireplace of the headquarters without an announcement, but she had to.
"What did you say?" She was always intimidated by the sight of the tall figure in front of her, but this time she was almost scared.
"Arabella?"
"Dementors, two of them. They-they almost got that Dursley boy and Harry wanted to-"
She heard a sound she'd never heard before. If this was the phoenix, she wondered what made him scream like this, it sounded worse than an owl who got attacked by one of her cats.
"I'll kill that fool of a fletcher if he dares to come near my house,"
"He's gone," said a soft voice.
"Right, i'll go home then," she squeaked. And she coughed when she fell back on her own floor.
"I need a wand," she wrote to Albus. "Not all of those death eaters can be clever enough to look in the records and see if i'm a witch or not."
"A disguise is a dangerous thing," he wrote back.
"Arabella? harry's trial is in half an hour. Will you come with me and witness for him?"
God. she'd have to play the silly old woman again. She hugged her cats, endured the apparition, ran from one floor to another, hardly noticed Harry, and hoped Fudge wouldn't notice her anger.
"Thanks figgy," said Dung as he passed her later in Diagon Alley.
"Albus knows you were supposed to watch Harry" she said in a low voice. "Now get on with your most important business."
"On my way already," he mumbled. "I'm off to meet the Weasley twins."
She'd rather see him choke on that pipe of his.
She was home an hour later and broke her favourite teacup.
"Arabella?"
"I need a wand." she called before Albus could continue.
"I have to leave Hogwarts," he said.
"I moved my bed downstairs," she answered. "If you find any perfumes in the bedroom upstairs you can send them to Minerva if you want to."
"I'll put them on, of course," said Albus, walking up the stairs. "Why would lavender be wrong for old men?"
She giggled, she nearly stumbled over two cats. "I can also teach you how to knit!" she called out. Suddenly she hummed a stupid song. Celestina Warbeck would be on the musical magic show tonight.
Two days later he was gone. She'd heard a rushing sound and fell out of her spare bedroom door to find nothing but a hole in the thin carpet and a few feathers. "That idiotic bird of his," she snapped.
There were only messages from then on.
"Arabella, he's safe at Hogwarts."
"Arabella, Mr Weasley has been attacked,"
"Arabella, they found the prophecy..."
"Arabella?"
There was a mist in her head. She looked at his hand and could look at nothing else.
"S-Sirius black has been..."
"What did he do now?"
Silence. "Well?"
"He died."
She swallowed. poor Harry.
"That has to be Snape's's doing. That man, never trusted him."
There was a whooshing sound. "You should have known, Albus," but he was gone. In the kitchen was a large heart-shaped piece of chocolate. "It is no-one's fault but my own," the note read, "and so will it be for everything else."
She didn't see him in the next year. What was so important for him to stay away from her fireplace?
There was a new minister. So what? Professor Snape was Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. What had he done to force Albus to say yes at last? Dudley Wandered past her house every Saturday after eleven and tapped on her window sometimes, or perhaps he threw stones at it. She'd seen him kick one of her cats towards her kitchen door.
She still had a tin of lemon drops in her cupboard, right behind the large one that she used for biscuits.
It was just a breeze at night and she wandered Why it made her float from her bed to the window sill. In her living room the clock stroke five and she vaguely wondered why she heard it so clearly.
"Arabella?" what was so important now? The curtain almost opened. "Arabella?" She shivered in her nightgown and turned around in bed, tried to look for the blankets. "Very good," said
Albus, and the window closed softly.
When she sat up that morning and felt around for her slippers, there was a tabby cat instead. It made sad meowing sounds and she knew at once what it had to say. "Well, that's that then," she said softly, but she almost choked on the words.
Was there a funeral? There was only a long strain of notes, soft beautiful music that still made her cry when she thought of it at home.
"I hereby offer myself for any Fidelius charms the Order of the Phoenix wishes to cast," she wrote and it was the first time in decades that she used her official signature.
"Harry turns seventeen today," said an excited voice and she wished it was Albus bringing her the news.
A year and a half later there was a girl on her doorstep. without a word she took two hands in hers and they stood in front of the ministry building where the bits of lunch came out that she'd tried to eat before she left.
Once inside there was a mess of people, of wands, of streaks of light. She hurried into an lift and knew she was alone. When she came out, she felt like she'd stepped off a carousel and five men with black masks pushed her aside and burst in. Somehow she had the sense to pull a handle (it was a bit like a train compartment,, she thought). More rooms and all of them were circular. She wouldn't know the end of it if it wasn't for the thin mist in front of her face. Soon it would fill her head and she'd faint. There were voices behind her and in front of her. "Don't let any of them near this."
"There should be no need for anyone to disturb this place,"
"Luna? Luna! Finally!"
"Wait, everyone, stop!"
There was a breeze on her face, it wasn't cold or warm and it didn't smell of anything.
"Arabella?" was he shocked or surprised?
"Arabella?" She saw the familiar hand and reached out. No-one behind her said a word. The mist filled her head and she hoped she'd fall into her bed again, she prepared her ears for the ticking of the alarm clock...
"Arabella!"
She was behind a wall and someone Kicked it.
"And she isn't even a witch..."
"She didn't' have any family."
"She had us!"
"I had you," she heard herself say to the shadows in front of her. It felt like holding on to one of those things...one of those...portkeys? What a silly word.
"You are safe," he said as they entered a hall, a hall made of silver and glass. She heard the song again, the one from the funeral and this time she didn't cry. She didn't know why it had ever made her sad. She forgot the war, forgot her neighbours, forgot Harry...she forgot to look, to hear, to feel. She was singing along.