A/N: I was suffering from writers block for my main story when this idea came to me, I had all this stuff running around in my head and couldn’t resist the urge to get it all down. I hope you all enjoy it and if you have an opinion on it feel free to share it with me!
So far the month of April had been miserable. The rain continually teemed down in liquid sheets and showed no signs of ending. The angry clouds sent the large droplets pounding down towards the earth without mercy, drenching anything that lay unprotected. The wind lashed the rain at a large house that was cowering from the weather in the middle of an open meadow. The dark sky that was massing overhead created the need for the lights to be on in the house despite the fact that it was only four o’clock in the afternoon. Two lights were on in upstairs windows, which were adding to the worried look of the house. The two luminous windows looked like frightened eyes glowing dimly through the gloomy air.
The external worry echoed through the rooms of the house, the atmosphere of apprehension seemed to be seeping out of the structure itself and dispersing through the humid air. All but one of the downstairs rooms were in darkness and the excess light that was trying to escape down the staircase was creating eerie shadows in the hall. The only room that was basking in light was the large country kitchen. A small ugly-looking elf came scuttling out of a door on the right, floating a large pile of food in front of it. It then set the ingredients out neatly before beginning to prepare a meal. On the kitchen table there were several editions of a newspaper and, quite startlingly, the occupants of a picture on the front page were moving. In a large image, which covered almost half the page, a tall but rather plump man with shoulder length mousy brown hair was standing on a podium in the middle of an elegant looking room waving his hands in the air while his mouth flapped silently. The headline read ‘Minster Of Magic Confirms 50 Wizards Dead “ Carnage at the Quidditch Cup!’
A sudden laugh pierced through the slightly nervous tranquillity. It was high pitched and hearty. It rang with the innocence that can only be attributed to youth. For a moment, as fleeting as it was, a bright, warm and cheery feeling was breathed in to the residence. The despondency, that had been trying to force its way through the gaps around the doors and windows, was driven from the darkness with astounding speed. A second later another laugh, distinctly different from the first, swished down the stairs. This sound was deeper and undoubtedly older, it echoed with mirth and was laced with love. The noise could be followed up the sweeping flight of stairs, across the landing and in to a large room that was littered with toys. In the middle of the room a tall, strong looking young man of not more than twenty-five was kneeling on the floor over a little girl of three. He was leaning down to smile at her as he tickled her energetically. She wriggled from side to side giggling frantically, “No, Daddy, no!” she tittered. He stopped tickling her and allowed her to climb to her feet. “Do it again!” she pouted, thrusting her arm in her father’s direction.
“Now, now, Ellie. What do you say?” he asked her firmly. She looked up at him thoughtfully for a second before she answered.
“Potter’s Rule?” she replied excitedly. Her face fell when her father gave her a stern look.
“Is that what Uncle James told you to say?” He hated it when his younger brother tried to undermine the manners he and his wife were trying to teach their only daughter.
“Ummm…” Ellie said with her tiny little finger resting on her chin as she thought over her father’s question. “No,” she replied, pushing her chin down the way and shaking her head from side to side innocently. She didn’t want to get Uncle James in to trouble; he was her favourite person in the whole world, tied with Uncle Sirius. They let her eat all kinds of sweets, stay out when it was raining and play with their wands. Sometimes Uncle Sirius would make himself in to a dog so that she could play catch with him.
“I know you’re lying to me, Elizabeth Potter. I know that it was your Uncle James. Now, tell me what the magic word is.”
“Plllleeeeaaaasssseeee,” she said sweetly.
“Very good,” he praised as he reached out to take her tiny, delicate hand in his large and rough one. “Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear. One step, two step, tickly under there!” he sang as he danced his fingers around her palm, up her arm before tickling her armpits once again. The shrill laughter began all over again.
“Andy?” another female voice called from the next door down the landing.
“Yes, sweetheart?” he replied.
“Did you owl your mum this morning?” The petite woman now appeared in the doorway dripping wet and wearing nothing but a towel. In the light her auburn hair, which hung all the way down to her hips, was glinting gold. It gave the impression that a halo was hovering just above her head.
“Of course I did. Can you imagine the ear bashing I would get if I didn’t?” He picked himself up off the floor and plonked a little vibrating broomstick in his daughters lap. He then pulled a little golden ball from a box near him and threw it in to the air. It sprouted wings and began to fly around Ellie before zooming off. She immediately mounted the broom and began running her own little Quidditch commentary as she searched for the snitch that was bewitched to fly no higher than three feet off the ground. “Now why don’t you go and dry off before you start giving me ideas about having my wicked way with you,” he whispered in her ear seductively, as he wrapped his arms around her towelled waist.
“Andrew! Uncle Aberforth will be here in half an hour!” she said in a scandalized tone, but her husband could see from the twinkle in her eyes that she actually appreciated the comment. It was nice to know that he still found her attractive after nearly five years of marriage.
Jane was desperate to have more children. She had grown up as the baby in a large family with two sisters and four brothers. Ellie had been such a good baby compared to the others that had been born at the same time as her. Molly Weasley had given birth to her fourth and fifth sons, Fred and George, just a couple of months after Jane had brought Ellie in to the world and they were a completely different kettle of fish. They were smack dab in the middle of the terrible threes and were running poor Molly ragged. From the second she entered the world Ellie had been a quiet baby, she seemed perfectly happy to be out of the cramped and clammy conditions of her mother’s womb and into the big, bright world. She had always been a contented child, she rarely cried and was very easily distracted. Last Christmas her godfather Remus had bought her a toy cauldron to store some of her toys in but Ellie had been happier playing with the box. She was good with other children too. She loved nothing more than spending a day at the Weasleys where she could get up to mischief with Fred and George and when she knew that her little cousin Harry was coming over she was as high as a kite and would ask when he would be here constantly.
“Half an hour is a long time,” Andrew said cheekily. “Gem?” he called gently. The small house-elf appeared at his side.
“Master Andrew called?” the elf squeaked.
“Yes, could you watch Ellie for a little while? Jane and I have some things we have to do.”
“Of course, Master. Gem will take very good care of Miss Ellie.” The house-elf bowed to her master. Gem had been Jane’s personal house-elf since she was just a little girl and had got her peculiar name after her mistress had continually told her she was ‘such a gem’ after she completed the numerous tasks that a teasing Jane set.
“Thank you.” Andrew then pushed his wife in the direction of the master bedroom.
Twenty minutes later he was back. “You can go back to what you were doing now Gem, sorry to have interrupted it,” he apologised.
“Gem is here to help, sir. Dinner is almost ready,” the elf informed him as he gave another little bow.
“Wonderful, wonderful. We’ll be down in just a second.” Gem disappeared with a sharp crack. “Right, missy, it’s dinner time. What do we do at dinner time?”
“We wash our hands!” his daughter replied merrily. She dashed out past his legs and in to the bathroom.
“That’s my little angel,” he muttered happily to himself as he followed her to make sure she didn’t flood the bathroom. While she was washing her hands she heard the front door creaking open.
“Is someone coming to see us, Daddy?” she asked, her eyes focused on what little of the hallway she could see from the bathroom sink.
“You’ll have to wait and see,” he teased. When she was done he carried her down the stairs towards the dining room. As he pushed the door open his daughter caught sight of the long white hair that she loved and the smell that she recognized.
“Uncle Abby!” she shouted, her arms sprang away from her father’s neck and she kicked her legs until he put her down. She ran around the table and jumped up in to the lap of the aging man.
“How many times do I have to tell you that it’s Uncle Aberforth, not Uncle Abby?” he scolded.
“Sorry,” she mumbled on the verge of tears.
“Well, Aberforth is very hard to say when you’re three,” Jane complained to her Uncle.
“That’s no excuse, Jane, you’ve got to teach her that she can’t just call things what she wants,” he rebutted.
“Gem tells me that dinner will be another five minutes so why don’t you take your Uncle upstairs and show him what your Dad brought you the other day,” Jane added to her daughter. Ellie jumped from the chair and pulled her reluctant great uncle from the room.
Ellie pulled him in to her bedroom and opened the drawer in her bedside cabinet; she pulled a long thin box from it and placed it in his hands. She tugged the lid of the box open to reveal a six-inch wand. “ And what’s this?” Aberforth asked her suspiciously.
“Daddy bought me a wand,” she announced proudly. “I can do magic like Uncle James now!” she said excitedly picking up the wand and swishing it in front of him.
“Is that so? Why don’t you show me?” he said playfully. People always thought that he was so grumpy but very few of them knew that his great nephews and niece brought out the best in him. He liked the way children held no preconceptions, they way they didn’t judge and the way they said what they felt. It was only a few months ago, on Christmas day, that Ellie had turned to him at dinner and told him he was smelly. There was instant uproar in the room as all the adults began to scold her for saying something so rude and the children looked shocked that she had dared say something like that to their weird relative. That moment had endeared his great niece to him more than any other. He was determined that she would retain that need to say what she felt, she would not have diplomacy crammed in to her to the intolerable level that her grandfather had.
She was still showing him how her special new wand worked when an almighty crash sounded in the entrance hall. Aberforth immediately cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself and Ellie before he scooped her up in to his arms and stepped out on to the landing with his wand out in front of him. “You hold on nice and tight there Elizabeth and you must be very, very quiet,” he instructed the frightened little girl in his arms. She nodded fervently and gripped her uncle’s neck as tightly as her tiny arms would allow her.
He crept forward to the banister at the top of the stairs and peered down in to the hall below. Five Death Eaters were now standing in the passage and just behind them, Aberforth recognised the ice-cold eyes of Lord Voldemort. The thundering of feet in the section of the passage that he couldn't see suggested that Andrew and Jane had just burst in to the hallway.
“Get the hell out of my house!” Andrew roared as he moved forward to try and block their path up the stairs. He was trying to pull his wife in behind him so that he could shield her.
“Now, now, Mr Potter, there’s no need to be rude. This is very cozy,” Voldemort said casually as his eyes roamed over the house. “I assume that my invitation to the moving in party was lost in the post?”
“GET OUT NOW!” Andrew had drawn his wand.
“I’m afraid we have unfinished business and I won’t be leaving until it is cleared up. Destroy the house,” the Dark Lord addressed his servants as he drew his own wand. “Where is the Muggle-loving old fool now?”
Andrew took a step towards Voldemort and whispered ‘go’ over his shoulder to his wife. She looked at him hesitantly but he gave her one of his intense looks, the kind that had been able to reduce her legs to jelly when they were courting. She immediately knew that it was not open for discussion and began to edge her way towards the stairs. Her husband began a fast paced duel with Voldemort and in the moment of distraction Jane saw the opportunity to race up the stairs. She only made it up a couple of steps before the Killing Curse hit her in the back. Andrew raced up to catch his falling wife. “Jane?” he called emptily. “Jane?” He tried desperately to fight the tears that were forcing their way from his eyes. It was his daughter’s cries that brought him out of his devastated reverie.
“Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!” Ellie cried until her great uncle clamped his hand over her mouth. Andrew’s eyes shot to the space where he was sure she was and sure enough he saw her tiny brown eyes floating between two of the spindles in the next space along he saw the piercing blue eyes that belonged to Aberforth, immediately the two appeared on the landing. A silent message passed between the two men and Andrew knew he was going to die.
“Is that perhaps your charming daughter? Elizabeth isn’t?” Voldemort walked to the bottom of the stairs. “Elizabeth, my dear, I’d very much like to meet you. Why don’t you come and say hello?” There was a horrible playfulness in his voice that disgusted Andrew and provoked him in to action.
“You stay away from my daughter!” His wand was pointing straight at Voldemort and shaking with grief.
“It isn’t quite so funny any more is it, Andrew? You will never laugh at me again.” Andrew didn’t even have time to defend himself and the last thing he saw was the beautiful little girl who looked so like her mother trying to kick and scream her way out of Aberforth’s arms. He smiled up at her and whispered ‘My little angel’ before he died.
“Severus, get the girl,” Voldemort said coldly. The young Death Eater did as instructed and swarmed past the fallen figures on the stairs. He drew his wand but knew that he would not use it. Aberforth was in the master bedroom trying to activate an emergency Portkey while keeping a hold of the screaming Ellie.
“Portus!” Severus whispered.
“That you, Snape?” Aberforth asked suspiciously.
“Just go,” Snape snapped, another Death Eater was coming up the stairs now. “Stop there! Petrificus Totalus!” Severus shouted. He completely missed them with the spell, instead hitting the wardrobe that was five feet to their left. Aberforth forced Ellie’s finger on to the picture in his hand and they disappeared from the room. “They got away,” Snape informed Lucius on his way back down the steps. “I am sorry, my Lord, the girl has escaped,” he told his master regretfully.
“How?” The anger in Voldemort’s voice went unmasked.
“Dumbledore’s brother was here, they took a Portkey,” he replied dutifully.
“Do not say that name in my presence!” the one with the cold eyes barked. “Very well, we shall find her at a later date. We shall leave immediately, burn it down,” he said surveying the walls with disgust. This was a house belonging to the doddering old fool that was his greatest nemesis. How foolish the old man had been to believe that he would not find them here. He strolled out to the front drive and watched the house burn, then he and his servants Disapparated, leaving the place behind.
When the Order of the Phoenix arrived the house was nothing more than a smouldering wreck. Albus carefully picked his way through the wreckage to where his daughter’s body lay. “My dear, Jane, I failed you. I will not fail Elizabeth.” He rose and returned to the group of order members that had arrived with him.
“What are you going to do with all this now?” Aberforth asked.
“Nothing, I have no desire to do anything with it,” Albus replied before disappearing to check on his granddaughter. He swore he would never again return to the place that had taken the last of his children.
A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed that. There’s going to be another two chapters to this, hopefully you won’t have to wait too long for them.
Thanks go out to my dear Magical Maeve who was kind enough to beta this in addition to my main story. You’re a gem!
It would be very nice if you could review!