#c:ted

The water at the Thames is dancing, light reflecting off its melodious waves. Molly brings her coat closer to her as she carries a coffee and a pack of cigarettes she planned to smoke only one of, use a charm to hide the smell, and then walk her way to Mungo’s where Ted would be.

She relishes these quiet moments in the dark, when the crisp air tickles her neck and her thoughts can run wild. She can scheme without anyone intervening, think her wildest and most maddening thoughts, let herself spiral if she has to. 

During her smoke, her mind drifts to Arthur, to their anniversary dinner. She looks at her ring finger and the ring that adorns it: simple and sweet, not obtrusive, a welcome addition to her hand. It glints in the lab lights sometimes, catches her off-guard, but she isn’t frustrated by it: she lets it sit with her, simmer, the feelings she can hardly express it words flooding her mind. 

She stamps out her cigarette, breathes Evanesco into the rest of the pack (sending it to her lab), and Apparates to the back door of Mungo’s, where Ted was waiting.

“Hey,” Molly says, holding out the coffee with her left hand. “Long shift?”

He had only been at school for one single month, but Edgar knew that he absolutely did not like Augustus Rookwood. So, when their professor told the room of first year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws that there would be a change in the seating chart, Edgar practically jumped at the chance. “Charity Burbage, you’ll be sitting with Ludovic Bagman,” Came the voice of the Defense Against the Dark Arts. “Mr. Longbottom, you’re next to Alice, over there towards the back.” The professor’s eyes flickered in his own direction, settling first on Rookwood. “Augustus, you’ll be next to Mr. Lovegood and you, Mr. Bones, can go and sit next to Mr. Tonks.” 

Edgar turned in his seat, eyes settling on the muggleborn Hufflepuff he knew to be called Tonks. Edgar had never talked to him before, but anyone would be better than Rookwood. Turns out, Ted Tonks was a much better seating partner. And he made learning the Knockback Jinx especially fun. Edgar always had liked showing other people how smart he was, and Ted was the perfect person for that. Together they worked through the lesson, laughing and falling over together as they tried to get it right. By the time class was finished, the two of them were chatting happily. Edgar grabbed his backpack and started putting away his things. “I can’t wait to tell my sister that I know the Knockback Jinx.” Edgar said smugly, grinning at Ted. “She’s going to be so jealous.”  

The time had come, Cygnus had decided, for something to be done about the mudblood. He had been patient and had bid his time. He had been at Hogwarts for about a month now, and he had learned quite a lot. He found out, unfortunately, that Bellatrix could make mistakes. However, he also learned of her true power, and it had opened a pathway the likes of which he had never seen before. She was doing well. He’d discovered that Narcissa had tangled herself with the likes of the Bones boy, Edgar. However, he had learned of her devotion to her family, and was confident her in her engagement to the Malfoy boy. Andromeda, however, had been a bit more disappointing. Perhaps he should have expected as much, but he never would have imagined that she would have fallen so low as to consorting -- even if it was feigned as she said -- with a mudblood. 

After some investigating, he had come to believe that Andromeda’s attachment to the mudblood Hufflepuff was more than she had let on. It was time to fix that problem. He had chosen to focus himself on the matters nearby, so that he did not have to think about what waited for him beyond the castle walls. For now, his brother-in-law would have to be in charge of the family affairs. Druella, his beautifully cold and wondrously terrifying wife. What would he do without her? How could he raise his girls without her? His little sister, Walburga, who had always tried her best. She was gone too. The Black family had been attacked, splintered, and Cygnus was heartbroken over it, despite the face he kept on. He would have to face these demons when the week ended, and he knew he would rise to the challenge. But, he still had a few more days. A few more days to keep his focus on his girls, and only his girls. He had decided to dive head forward into that. 

So, that was how Cygnus found himself standing in the shadows of the second floor corridor. Ted Tonks, the cursed mudblood, would be on prefect rounds tonight, and would be coming down this corridor any minute. He’d gotten the information from Narcissa the night before, and the time had come to put things into play. He held a cigar between his fingers, and occupied himself by watching the smoke rise. It was about a quarter of an hour before he heard anything, but eventually, he heard footsteps rounding the corner. He straightened up, eyes squinting to see if it was his intended target.

Yep. Those were the yellow robes of a Hufflepuff. Now adequately satisfied that he had found his mark, Cygnus stepped suddenly out of the darkness. The flickering lights of the torches around them gave his face an eerie sort of glow, which he was more than aware of. He put his cigar out on the wall, leaving a small black spot of ash, and then he vanished it with a wave of his wand. This took all of twenty seconds, after which, he finally settled his most intense, most severe gaze on the boy in front of him.

“Edward Tonks.” He drawled flatly, a smile pulling at his lips. “It’s time you and I talk, don’t you think?” 

      “Has anyone ever told you that you look just like John Travolta?” Pandora asked, tilting her head to and fro to study Ted Tonks’ warm face. “Oh! Can you dance?”

@edwardtonx

Narcissa knew better than to do magic in public of course, but knowing a thing and doing a thing are not always synonymous; thus her wand was out and she was presently pointing it at the dirty surface of a brick wall. That wall was down a narrow, dingy alley whose sole streetlamp had broken or burned out some time ago -- so it was not as if she was exposed to casual view! The only other living thing in the alley was a mangy rat that peeked out nervously from under the rusting dumpster whose fragrant bulk blocked most of what Cissy was doing from the sight-line of the alley’s mouth.

What she was doing was practicing. While she had received no formal training in wandwork she had learned a lot – unofficially, sporadically, and under the extreme pressure of learn or die – and one of the things she had learned well was that an unfamiliar spell was sometimes riskier to the caster than to the target…at least when the target was a sloppily-trained witch who had picked-up what she knew here and there from her older sisters and various other wix they had met over the course of their guerrilla activities. Some spells she had learned quite well indeed, but other things – some of them simple, basic, everyday spells that Hogwarts students would have learned in their first years but which rarely came in handy for underground freedom fighters – she had little to no experience with, and it showed in her spellwork.

That was why she practiced, even the little spells, the simple spells that even children could do. Right now she was working on Color Charms. Particularly, Color Charms combined with spell-writing so that she could leave a suitable message on Muggle walls. It was meant to be a threat and a warning, a sign that wix could show up anywhere and no Muggle deterrent could stop them; a means of causing fear and confusion among Muggle forces. The problem was that to put the messages where she wanted to she would have to be able to leave them very, very fast – at least if she wanted to escape with her freedom afterward. And right now while she could do the charm the way she wanted, she could only get it right if she did it slow. Slow wasn’t good enough, so she was practicing.

Brow furrowed in concentration she stared at the changing colors and letters forming on the wall in front of her; so fixed was her attention on what she was doing that she didn’t hear the crunch of footsteps until they were nearly past the dumpster and right beside her. Narcissa dropped her wand to her side, pressing it against her leg as though the scuffed wood might blend with her flesh if enough pressure was applied. She might have had better luck to simply slip it up under her flared miniskirt, but there was no holster to hold it there.