Unconquered
from late June into early July
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AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Again, thank you for waiting so patiently for the next chapter.
me a while to shift through my raw ideas and get it ready for posting.
think. Feel free to email me too.
Sarah sighed as she pulled into the
driveway of Gatewood House. Her car gave
a shudder as she pulled it to a stop.
‘Damn,’ she thought, ‘This one’s way beyond repair.
one, on top of everything else! Damn,
damn, DAMN!’
There were a few people home, but
nobody talked to her and she didn’t talk to them.
glass out of her skin and set a few healing charms in place before the hopped
ie she shower. Mud, blood, ash, and
whatever else she’d gotten into sloshed down the drain.
under the hose outside in the garden.
She wished her spirit could be cleansed as easily; just as easily put to
rest in something that might make it reborn as life.
the stains of fresh blood, dripping from re-opened wounds.
room to change.
She preferred the Muggle way of
healing wounds—it felt more real to her.
She wanted to keep her pain. She
wanted to remind herself of the cost of keeping others alive... of keeping
things right and true.
Dressed in old jeans with holes in
them, a black leotard, and combat boots and shovinr har hair into a worn
baseball cap, Sarah threw another similar outfit into a duffel bag and checked
on Harry for the hundredth time that hour.
She kissed his forehead and laid a pale hand on Chloe’s sleeping
face. She blew a breath of healing onto
Harry’s lips, and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
Downstairs, she swiped a bottle of
vodka and lit up an herbal cigarette.
Exhaling the smoke, she threw raisins and bottle of Gatorade into the
duffel. Making a mental note to stop at
the pharmacy and pick up more painkillers, she stuck the vodka into the bag and
filled a bottle with water. After
grabbing some Nutri-Grain bars, she left the house without anybody knowing she
was there. With one last look at her
bedroom window, she started in mild surprise when Nia came walking out of the
shed. She was wearing one of Nadia’s old
summer dresses in a casual floral print.
It suited her.
“What are you doing here?” Sarah
asked.
“I was potting some herbs for
Nadia,” she answered honestly, “Where are you going?”
“I’m going
to talk to our Beauxbatons people, and then to Durmstrang for some news and
supplies. You be careful not to pop in
and out from now on, unless I tell you.”
“I understand.
gets too rough, please don’t hesitate to call for help.
“No,” Sarah cut in calmly, “I won’t
involve her at all. Hermione needs to be
stabilized right now. I don’t want her
finding out about all of this, and then gallivanting off with the Suicide Pack
trying to take on His Asshole-ness too early, before we’re ready.
experience in the field yourself.”
“But...”
“And,” Sarah continued smoothly, “I
need you to keep your eyes and ears on Dumbledore!
back from... well, when it happens, you’ll know.”
“Not when you keep giving me only
half of the truth,” Nia crossed her arms over her breasts.
over them for a few seconds before clearing.
She sighed then, and Nia thought she could see bursts of white in her
eyes, but it may have been a trick of the sun.
The moment was over when Sarah abruptly kissed her cheek and strode
purposefully to her truck.
Nia watched her peel out of the
parking lot and driveway at breakneck speed, her arms wrapped around herself
and her eyes almost unfocused. Then she
turned and went into the shed to finish potting the rosemary.
A few weeks later, early June of
1999, Gatewood House:
“When Sarah gets back....” Nadia
sighed. When Sarah gets back... and when the hell will that be?! she wondered.
Dear God, the stress was getting to her.
She understood what had to be done, and did her part to help... but
Gods, she wished she could be out there with her sister, and not stuck in the
kitchen with a Death Eater’s brat on the way.
STOP RIGHT THERE! she
commanded herself, Don’t you dare go down
that road. You’re doing your part
here... it’s just a different role this time.
And my baby is not a Death
Eater’s brat... it’s MY BABY. Mine...
“When Sarah gets back... what?
her thoughts.
“When Sarah gets back, maybe we’ll
get some more answers for Harry,” Nadia replied calmly, hands folded neatly
over her swollen belly. “Have some
faith, Saskia.”
“Hey, I’m sorry, babe.
“I know,” Nadia stated
quietly. Of all of them, Sarah was the
worst case in the end, and yet she would still believe that the dawn would
follow the
keep the world of pain and darkness she knew away from those she loved.
“I hope she meets somebody...
someday... who can save her from herself,” Saskia said quietly, her hands
shoved into her pockets, where moments before they had been balled into
fists. Nadia had to bite her cheeks to
keep from saying that she agreed.
They both knew that it was exactly
that—Sarah giving herself wholly unto the world—which kept so many nightmares
from becoming a reality.
It was amazing how easy it became
to just overlook the , mi, mire, blood and soot... to simply blur ones vision,
and instead of a grimace of pain, see a smile of Sarah’s patented brand of
sarcastic humor. Her lips would quirk to
one side first, before blossoming into a radiance unknown before.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve
seen Sarah smile,” Saskia remarked quietly, seemingly reading Nadia’s thoughts,
as usual. She was looking at the floor,
her long blonde hair, long overdue for a haircut, obscuriost ost of her
face. Shadows encased her, as though
embracement. Nadia suppressed a
shiver. Saskia tilted her head up a bit
to look at Nadia, her cornflower blue eyes almost too big for her face.
“It’s been a long time since anyone
smiled,” Nadia said in whispery voice. The
Grandfather clock in the Den struck
of the old wood and the soft tinkle of the wind chimes in the open window above
the sink.
“Sarah would think that was
important.”
Both women were silent.
flushed, and soft footsteps padded back to bed.
Nadia felt her child kick within her womb.
it. Suddenly, though not surprisingly,
she felt Saskia’s hands over her own.
The baby kicked again.
“Just don’t tell Uncle Brian I told
you that you could be a ballerina,” Saskia told Nadia’s belly.
twilight forest, they were sparkling.
They both smiled before they
realized it.
“Good,” Nadia said finally, and
hugged Saskia close.
women went off to bed. Saskia departed
at the second floor landing, and Nadia climbed to the third floor landing.
padded softly down the hallway towards a light she saw coming down the back spiral
staircase from the attic. It was Magen.
“Come sleep with me tonight, dear,”
said Magen, keeping her voice low, “Gabriel’s taken to doing Sarah’s nightly
rounds these nights. You’re lucky he
hasn’t given you hell for being up at this hour in your condition.”
“And what are you doing up?” Nadia
asked, reaching out a hand for her sister.
Magen hesitated a second before handing her the candle and grasping her
other hand.
“I was waiting for you,” she said
simply.
Nadia knew what she meant.
“It will do us both good to have
somebody in the bed with us again,” she said to Magen as she turned the key to
her room, “We need to get back in the practice.
Especially since Sirius and Remus are both bed-hogs.”
The rest of their conversation could
wait until morning it seemed, as Nadia closed and locked the door and Magen
flopped herself on the bed, asleep the instant her head hit the pillow.
MEANWHILE... on the road to
Gatewood House...
Sarah sent another prayer of thanks
to the car gods that Derek was able to fix her truck again.
what she was doing, the only payment he would accept was food.
several meals, freezing most of them before she left so that he’d be well-fed
for weeks. Derek loved her cooking.
nickname for her, “Lassie-girl”. God, he
was something else, that man. A good
friend and a steadfast ally, with some of the best wards in the game.
needed him too...
A wave of dizziness took Sarah, and
it was all she could muster to keep the covinoving in the right lane of
traffic. She knew she’d hit her head a
good one when she’d bounced it off the dashboard—yet again—while in the midst
of her fourth attempt to run over a Dementor.
She’d also taken a bad hit from Goyle, who’d gotten lucky when he
tackled her, putting most of his considerable weight behind his punch.
throwing a killing curse at Lucius Malfoy, and they both knew it.
popped her jaw out of its socket.
But
he won’t be doing much of anything these days, she thought grimly,
six feet fucking under. There was no
satisfaction for her. It was merely what
had to be done. Too soon there would be
far too many events out of her sphere of control.
understand; who couldn’t possibly do anything more than shoot into the darkness
surrounding them and hope to hell they hit something.
Harry
will be waking up soon, she thought with a tinge of lightness.
will be waking up soon, and then...
...
and then we’ll have to pray to God that Dumbledore won’t hold us against
him.
I’m
trying Lily, she thought, slightly sad for a moment, I’m trying... we’re all breathing
a little bit easier. We’ll be a family
again, just like it used to be. You’d be
proud of him, Lily...
Her throat constricted suddenly,
and she wheezed out a coughing fit. She
spit out blood. She had managed enough
healing spells to heal the worst of the damage, but for some reason, healing
magic never worked quite well on her family.
It never worked just the way it was supposed to; healing the injury
to heal slowly by Muggle methods. Sarah
often used a combination of two two realms of medicine.
Against what she knew to be better judgment,
Sarah rummaged through the glove compartment and swallowed some pain pills
dry. She lit up the second last
cigarette of her third pack. She had two
more packs left. Blowing the smoke out the
open window, she felt herself getting dizzy and tired again.
which had gone warm by now. Her lower
lip split and started bleeding again.
She sucked on it absently, snubbing the remnant of the steamy dream she’d
had the last time she’d grabbed some sleep before it even planted itself into
her head, and switched on the radio.
She frowned when she realized that
the Dementor attacks were getting closer to some of her safe-houses than she
liked. Damn, more time off my ass, she grumbled in her head,
Oh
hells... not another damned drunk driver... yeah, yeah, asshole—fuck you
too. Y tu Mama tambien!
She sighed heavily, and cursing
under her breath, she took the next exit and turned the car around.
She just couldn’t leave Arabella
Figg in the open like that.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Sorry that took so long.
guys! Review me!
too slow, too complicated, if I should focus more on Gatewood House or
Hogwarts... I mean, you guys breathe, right?
So then you have opinions. Let me
know what they are!
By the way... check out my non-fanfiction stuff at www.fictionpress.net
where I have all of my REAL Gatewood House stories.
into a book!