Author's Notes: Sorry for the long gap between the updates; I had exams in January and then the queue closed when I was ready to post - but it's all good. I want to once again thank Tash, my beta, for doing an awesome job betaing and helped me with Mrs Black's characterization. Hope you like. (3262 words)
Chapter 2: A White Christmas Is Only The Beginning
24 December, 1975
A lonesome figure stood on the snowy doorstep of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, her hands stuffed in her pockets as she waited for someone on the other side of the door to let her in. The sun had fallen hours ago, leaving the sky dark as a bottle of ink and quite starless with all of the cloud cover which was spread out across the sky. The snow on the ground and the rooftops of houses was as white as ever, so thankfully it wasn’t daytime, for then the girl standing on the doorstep would be squinting and straining her eyes against all of the brightness. The girl could also feel a cool, crisp breeze on her face from the snow blowing off of the rooftops. She shivered slightly as she brushed her cheek off.
She also wore a large, black hood over her head and would glance over her shoulder every moment or two, hoping that no one could see her standing on the doorstep of a house that normally wasn’t visible to the neighbors. She sighed just as she heard several clicks on the other side of the door, which then swung open to reveal an elderly woman who looked quite annoyed.
“Oh, Jordanna,” the elderly woman began, her annoyed expression fading. “I thought that you maybe were one of those Muggle sales “ oh never mind,” she shook her head and stepped back, allowing Jordanna to enter the house. The woman shut the door quickly and with a tap of her wand, the locks sealed themselves shut again. Jordanna lowered her hood and observed the foyer she stood in.
It was rather dark to be the opening of a house, Jordanna thought; however she had been to Grimmauld Place a few times before in order to know that just like the foyer, the house in general was rather dark. A serpent shaped gas lantern on the wall beside her burned a black candle; Jordanna noted that the candle did not seem to diminish.
She turned around, breaking concentration from the candle and turned to the elderly woman, who was now stowing her wand back into her apron. “Mrs Black, you look better than ever.”
Mrs Black merely shook her head. “I’m old, dear.”
Jordanna smiled and looked over her shoulder slightly. “So, er, is Regulus home by any chance? He told me to drop by if I felt like it-”
Mrs Black nodded and pointed to the staircase behind Jordanna. “He’s in his room; he doesn’t want to come out.”
“D’you know why?”
Mrs Black shook her head. “I think he and Sirius had a bit of a fight, to be honest. He hasn’t come out all day.”
Jordanna smiled again. “Thanks, Mrs Black. I’ll just show myself up.”
She turned on her heel and began walking up the staircase which led to the several floors above. She heard Mrs Black disappear into a door down the hall. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, as it was called, was a typical large house which housed some of the purest of pure-bloods in the entire wizarding world. It was quite intriguing to be in the house, Jordanna thought, for it had everything from a dungeon below to a library on the highest level. She passed the first floor and continued onto the second.
Like the foyer on the main floor, the rest of the house was just as dark. Each level had its own serpent shaped gas lantern, illuminating the area just enough to see where you were going, and where each door was located in the hall. Each level, Jordanna noted, had around three to four doors that were visible from where she stood.
Once reaching the third landing, Jordanna exited the staircase and walked down the hall. Regulus, the youngest Black, had his room right at the end of the hall. Like the other doors, his door was made of dark wood and had an old fashioned brass knob. She pressed her ear to the door and listened for any noise, but heard none. She looked at the doorknob and slowly placed her hand on it, turning it quietly without bothering to knock.
Jordanna pushed the door open and cringed at the sound of a slight creak. She paused and looked around the room and smiled at the sight of the boy on the other side of the room at a desk, his back to the door, hunched over what looked like a stack of papers.
“Bother to knock much?” he spoke, not making an effort to turn around and look at the entrant.
Jordanna chuckled silently and closed the door, making her way ever so quietly to the desk he sat at. She extended her arms and placed her small hands over his eyes.
“What the-?” Regulus spluttered, sitting up straighter and attempting to turn around to see.
“Guess who?” Jordanna whispered into his ear. Regulus stopped moving and sighed.
“I know that voice,” he said. Jordanna removed her hands from his eyes, made her way a few feet over to the bed and sat down while Regulus turned around fully.
“You better,” Jordanna said. “We’ve known each other for how long now?”
“Four and a half years,” Regulus answered.
Jordanna grinned and shook her head in a laughable manner.
“Sounds about right,” she said.
Regulus nodded and leaned back in his chair; the only source of light he had in his room now shone directly upon him, illuminating his handsome features. Regulus had a pale, oval shaped face with a rather small forehead. His grey eyes stood out amongst his facial appearances; they almost looked like a dull sheet of ice which could pierce anything in its path. Jordanna had seen and known this feeling before. Even though Regulus’ company was rather enjoyable, he was known to make even his closest friend in his company feel unwanted at times, especially in his time of anger.
Jordanna watched Regulus lick his lips casually; unlike the rest of his face, his lips stood out the most, even more so than his eyes. Unlike the rest of his face, his lips were full of color and always so soft.
“So how come you’re here?” Regulus asked, bringing his hands together in front of him.
“I needed time away from my home,” she said truthfully. “You can only take so much of quiet at a time.” Jordanna paused. “Plus it’s Christmas Eve. I wanted to see you …”
Regulus nodded slowly and then stood up, making his way over to the girl on his bed, sitting down next to her. “I wanted to see you too,” he told Jordanna. “I haven’t seen or heard from you since break started.”
“I’ve been with my mum-”
“Is she feeling better?” Regulus interjected, his voice still quite casual.
“Not really,” she told him. “She’s still quite sick. She’s as pale as a ghost, but she’s hanging in there.”
There was silence amongst the two of them. Jordanna took the time to look around his room, which, in the two years they had been dating, had not changed in the slightest sense. Somewhere in the house, Jordanna then heard a loud conversation take place between a man and a woman. The woman she could easily identify as Mrs Black, however the man seemed to sound a bit young to be her husband.
“Is your mum arguing with your brother again?” she asked slowly.
Regulus glanced towards the door and shrugged. “Wouldn’t doubt it,” he said. “He’s been arguing with everyone today; I heard him telling my father that he wanted to move in with Potter,” he shook his head and then looked back at Jordanna who had taken to staring at him intently. “What?”
“You two are so different,” she told him.
“I should hope so.”
“In a good way, of course,” she said to him. “I mean, you’re everything a girl could want, Regulus; you respect your family’s traditions; you know what is considered right and wrong in this excuse of a world and you can be so evil at times it could make anyone want to jump in your arms and snog you senseless.”
Regulus looked impressed with himself. “And him.”
Jordanna sighed in thought. “I guess he’s everything a blood traitor could want. I mean, okay I’ll admit it, he’s good looking “ hold on, hold on, let me finish,” she added, seeing Regulus’ expression turn cold. “But he hangs out with Lupin, Potter and Pettigrew - I mean c’mon, they’re all absolute idiots …”
Jordanna raised his eyebrow mischievously. “Plus,” she said, “He can’t be half the man you are.”
Regulus grinned. “You think?” he asked quietly.
“I know,” Jordanna grinned. She extended her arms and wrapped them around Regulus’ neck and was about to expect a long snog session when …
“Think you ought to be doing that Reg?” came an unexpected voice from the door. Both Regulus and Jordanna looked around to see Sirius standing casually against the door frame.
“Get out,” Regulus said coldly, standing up and making his way over to his older brother.
“It’s a free country,” Sirius said, “plus you’re always snooping around in my room, I’m just returning the favor.”
Jordanna sat up on the bed, now slightly annoyed at Sirius. She had to put up with him and his cockiness all of the time in class when at school, but on the holidays, Jordanna sighed, it was overwhelming.
“Just get out, Sirius,” Regulus said again. “Or I’ll-”
“What?” Sirius cut his younger brother off. “You’ll tell Mummy and Daddy?” He chuckled whole-heartedly. “Please, then I can tell them that you were about to shag your girlfriend under their roof …”
Regulus’ eyes thinned, and was about to open his mouth to say something when Jordanna cut him off. “Well at least they like me,” she said, making her way over to the door. “I think they’d rather be in the company of me rather than you, so if their real son wants to have sex with his girlfriend … so be it.”
Sirius laughed again and grabbed his heart. “Ouch! That hurt, Benton. Please, you think I don’t know that?” He shook his head. “Of course they prefer you over me; dunno why to be honest, you’re not a Slytherin either …”
“Sirius, shut-”
“You shut up, Regulus,” Jordanna cut him off. “I can handle this. I may not be an official Slytherin, Sirius, but I’m whole lot better than you; you’re just a blood traitor, I’m not. End of discussion.”
Jordanna turned to Regulus and pecked him on the cheek. “I ought to be going,” she said quietly. “I need to tend to my mum.”
Regulus did not nod or say anything. Instead he continued to stare at his older brother, who was knocked slightly off balance as Jordanna exited the room. Sirius watched her go, and once out of sight, he laughed.
“That’s one piece of work you got there-”
“Just get out!” Regulus took his wand out of his pocket and waved it, sending the wooden door slamming shut in front of Sirius’s face, locking it in the process. Regulus made his way over to the dresser he had been sitting at earlier and was sitting down when he heard:
“I’m going to pretend that that door didn’t just slam on my foot! Just watch your back, Regulus, I’m warning you.”
He listened as he heard Sirius begin walking down the hall, and huffed when he heard them disappear down the stairs.
“Idiot.”
It was the last day of Christmas Holidays and Jordanna was sitting quietly in the kitchen, lazily mixing the cereal in her bowl. Even though it was ten o’clock at night and cereal was quite the morning thing to eat, Jordanna didn’t care. She always ate cereal; she could live off of it if she had to.
She had spent all day packing her belongings so she could return to Hogwarts the next day. She would, of course, be riding the Hogwarts Express back to the school, and hopefully would be in the company of Regulus, or Elena, and not anywhere near Sirius Black. As she contemplated that night when she had been at Grimmauld Place, she realized she hated Sirius even more, if that was even possible. She somewhat dreaded going back to school just because she didn’t want to put up with him and his attitude.
She gently threw her spoon back into her bowl, not wanting to finish the rest of her late night snack, and was putting the bowl into the sink when she heard her mother calling her weakly.
“Jordanna, please come here.”
She sighed, paused, and then said, “I’m coming.” She made her way into the den where her mother was lying on a pull-out bed which they had placed in there a year ago. Her mother was lying on her back, her quill in her right hand and had her left hand extended, attempting to grab something off of the desk beside her.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Will you be a dear and pass me my notebook?” Mrs Benton said quietly. “I just saw something I thought I ought to write down.”
Jordanna pursed her lips together and made her way around the bed and grabbed the black wire bound notebook. She handed it to her mum and then sat down on a chair.
“Are you sure you ought to be tiring yourself out?”
Mrs Benton shook her head. “Jordanna this isn’t tiring; it’s my life. I’ve gotten used to the strain it puts on my mind.”
“But-”
“I’m alright, dear, trust me. Now pass me that ink bottle.”
Jordanna obeyed. She sat in the room for half an hour, watching her mother hastily scribble notes into her notebook, pausing every couple of minutes to close her eyes to think. When she finally stopped writing, she flipped her notebook back a couple of pages and began to read from the top, hastily adding in notes here and there. Jordanna waited another couple of minutes for her mother to stop, and when she finally did, Adelaide turned to her daughter.
“Now tell me, what did you do today?”
Jordanna shrugged. “I packed …” she said. “And cleaned.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah.”
There was a long pause in which Jordanna moved uncomfortably in her chair. She honestly did not like sitting by her mother’s side in the den because it made her feel depressed. Just sitting there, watching her mother waste away while quickly writing as much as she could in her notebook … Merlin, she hated that notebook, the only good that came from it was that if her mother had not pressured her those somewhat years ago for her to befriend the Slytherins, she would not be whom she was today. She would probably be friends with the Gryffindors … Jordanna shuddered.
“What exactly do you write in there?” she asked quietly.
Mrs Benton looked up and smiled. “Everything,” she answered. “Well everything to do with the war; I’ve been fascinated by it ever since I had that first premonition, Jordanna. I know I won’t be here to see the end of the war, which could be years from now, so this is my only means of communication. I have pictured the ending so many times, and while at times it changes, there are still lots of gaps. I hope that by the time I die, I will have it all figured out.”
“But what if someone finds out?” Jordanna asked quietly. “What if they figure out you knew all along just what is going to happen? Doesn’t that put you in danger? Doesn’t that put me in danger?”
Mrs Benton shook her head and attempted to sit up in her bed. Jordanna stood up quickly and helped her.
“Remember when you were eleven and going into Hogwarts?” Jordanna nodded. “And that I told you I wanted you to become a Slytherin, befriend the side of the dark so you could be safe?”
“I thought you said that the ending changes every time?” Jordanna asked.
Mrs Benton nodded. “Not every time, dear. There are times, few times, when the side of light wins but I don’t pay attention to those ones much because the details are unclear. You can’t live off of unclear details. But that’s why I am so grateful that you are friends with the sons and daughters of the pure-bloods in the world … you’re in a relationship with Regulus Black, Jordanna, you couldn’t be any safer …”
“But-”
“But nothing, dear,” Mrs Benton said quietly. “After years of studying the matter, and fearing I won’t figure everything out before I die, I can say that I feel safe leaving this life because I know you will be safe.”
Jordanna was quiet. Sure she had known her mother was passionate about the future and what it would bring but she had never known she would do anything to make sure it turned out the way she wanted it to.
“How do you known that one action won’t change the way the war will turn out?” Jordanna asked quietly.
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “You’ve always said that everyone in the world plays a part in how it will end, how it will impact the future. What if, say, someone close to the Dark Lord, his most faithful servant say, dies of, I don’t know, a stray curse?”
“But I still know, dear,” Mrs Benton said quietly. “The only way for the war to take a drastic turn is if all of those details in those certain premonitions I’ve had are filled in, so they all make sense. The likelihood of that happening, Jordanna, is very small.”
“How do you know? What if they are all filled in?”
Mrs Benton sighed and placed her hands folded on top of her notebook. “You’re right, dear, they could be filled in, but that’s not what I was concerned about. One of the first visions I had, dear, was of you, and ever since then I’ve based my information and theories off of that particular one.”
Jordanna looked up slightly confused. “What?”
“I’ve seen your future dear, and every time you are happy, living and most importantly, safe. And if I always have premonitions of the side of dark winning, it’s not hard to piece two and two together.”
Jordanna looked at the notebook in her mother’s lap. So that was why her mum had been so urgent about everything. She had known all along that her daughter would be safe … Jordanna felt somewhat small in a sense. She felt something tug at her heart. It wasn’t only just because Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters would win the war; it was much more than that. She had left out half of the details as to why she wanted her one and only child to be someone she wasn’t.
Don’t think like that. Jordanna shook her head. She was happy who she was. She had some of the best friends in the world, and had a boyfriend who made her feel happy.
“Aren’t you happy, dear?” It was almost like her mother had read her mind.
Jordanna fidgeted in her chair. “Of course I am.”
“Then why are you worrying?”
Jordanna suddenly stood up. “I’m going to go and eat a bowl of cereal,” she said quietly. “G’night.” She exited the den quickly, leaving Adelaide Benton to smile sadly.