Chapter 45: The last Summer
It felt weird for Rick to be the only one around his age at the Manor. Andromeda, Ted and Nymphadora had moved out of the place to move inside one of the unoccupied properties of House Potter in the south of England. Ted had opened his business and thanks to Aunt Cassiopeia doing the advertisement by wearing some of his dresses at some parties for rich people, he was now crawling under work. So much that Andromeda had to put on hold her potion mastery she was undergoing with Dorea to help her husband with paperwork.
Orders, names, date of delivery, buying materials in case the client wanted the dress to be permanent. Plenty of married french witches who were bored to tears and had more money than they could spend were very interested. But now that the Tonks were earning a living - which they didn’t need since Arcturus gave back access to Andromeda’s vault - they couldn’t impose on the Potter anymore. As a good Hufflepuff, it wasn’t in Ted to stay idle and do nothing but enjoy someone else's hospitality without giving back in return at the very least.
Lily went home to Cokeworth to stay with her parents for the whole month of July instead of just one week like she did the previous year. Whatever she was doing with his mother in her lab must not have been something much important if she could put it on hold like that. That was fine with him, it was more time with his mother.
He had asked to properly train him in fighting. After what happened with Mulciber in January and the political climate in Magical Britain, Rick thought it prudent to know how to fight properly. Of course, Dorea had been delighted and had readily agreed. Even when she was wiping the floor with him she had a bright happy smile on her lips. Despite how utterly merciless she was, she also was encouraging.
One of the things he learned first was to pay attention to his footing. To always have means to dodge flawlessly if possible. If he was down he was dead she had told him and it made sense to him. Another thing she trained him with was recognizing curses from the wand movement and the color of the spell. It was useful to be able to do that, especially since he had shown a proficiency in redirecting spells with his own wand.
She had been shocked to hear that when he told her about it. To him it was as if time was slowing down and he just knew when to move his hand to catch the curse with the tip of his wand and send it back. After much testing from both her and his father they could do nothing but accept he was telling the truth.
The second reason why she was teaching curses was because he needed to get used to the feeling of dark magic. He couldn’t drop down sick because of it during a fight or he would end up dead. He had agreed and gritted his teeth. Curses after curses, he suffered and endured in silence to build a tolerance.
When he was not with his mother he was talking with his father about his ideas to make money in the muggle world with alchemy. When Charlus asked why he wanted to make more money when their family already had more than enough and already owned a few businesses in Magical Britain, Rick looked at him as if he had two heads.
That was clearly the answer of someone who never grew up in poverty without nothing, something that Rick pointed out. More money meant more power in a way, which in turn meant safety for the family. Furthermore, some ideas he had, needed costly ingredients or materials. The products may or may not sell too and in the case it didn’t it was a net loss of money.
Seeing the logic, Charlus scheduled a meeting with the goblin in charge of House Potter accounts. The goblin had been dismissive when Rick told him he intended to sell a metal for a higher price than gold. Gold was everything to gobelins after all. Proving to him that the muggle were more interested in those metals than gold had been easy when he pointed out the recent reports about it. More than that the demand kept increasing and so did the prices in response. Since the muggle were many times more numerous than magical, their economy was more important than the one in the magical world. The profit wasn’t negligible.
In the end the goblins asked questions about his competence in alchemy and Rick provided a bit of palladium for them to inspect. Of course it wasn’t possible to study the metal here and there so another meeting was scheduled. A week later and the goblin had already a plan. They would buy a small abandoned mine as a cover up for the muggles and Rick would be free to present the produce as much as he wanted. The goblins would sell it to the muggles and take a cut from the profits. Of course Rick was told to not have any funny ideas if he succeeded in making gold. The threat was there but he didn’t care. It made sense. Too much gold and its price would plummet and the economy would go down the drain. That wasn’t his objective.
Other than that, he spent time finalising his broom. It turned out it had been easy to inscribe the proper runes and used the proper charms to go beyond the 100 km/h he wanted. By far. The problem was it was too much. A 250 km/h was useless as the rider would just be blown back away by the air resistance. The acceleration was difficult to deal with too. It was too sudden, too abrupt. That was why instead of finding a solution magically he found one mechanically. He reorganized the tail of the broom to apply Bernouilli's principle. Air would enter a huge hole in the tail which narrowed down extremely at the other end. As per the principle, when the compressed air exited it was strong enough to add a propulsion effect pushing the broom forward. With a respectable 147 Km/h, Rick believed he had finally made the broom of his dreams. At least until he could make one better but he was satisfied from now.
“Can I try it?”
He looked at his father who had nothing but wonderment in his eyes. Smiling to himself, Rick handed the broom and let Charlus go for a fly. As he was observing him doing different quidditch maneuvers, his mother came next to him from the Manor.
“You received your results.” she nonchalantly said, handing him a letter from Hogwarts, although on the inside she was excited. While the two previous years Rick had come home with perfect grades, she was still worried about his education. She knew it was nonsense but she couldn’t help herself. She blamed it on her motherly instinct.
“I’m surprised you didn’t tore open the envelope. You know I won’t be mad if-”
Without letting him finish his sentence, Dorea took back the envelope and opened it with a speed he only knew her to use with her wand. It was obvious he did more than well when her mouth almost split open her face horizontally. Taking a look he wasn’t surprised one bit by what he read.
Dear Mister Wald,
Please find below your final grades of your sixth year exams at Hogwarts’ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Reminder:
Six different grades exist for each subject.Passing Grades:
Outstanding (O)Exceed Expectation (E)Acceptable (A)
Fail Grades:Poor (P)Dreadful (D)Troll (T)
Mister Rick Wald’s grades are:
Alchemy: OAdvanced Arithmancy: OArithmancy: O
Astronomy: O
Care of Magical Creatures: OCharms: ODefense Against the Dark Arts: O
Divination: O
Herbology: OHistory of Magic: O
Muggle Studies: OPotions: O
Study of Ancient Runes: OTransfiguration: O
Rank in the year : 1 / 82
Sincerely yours,
Minerva McGonagall,Hogwarts’ Deputy Headmistress.
“I will never understand why they keep arithmancy if there is an advanced class. What’s the point?”
“Regular arithmancy is just… basic maths and there is plenty of it to learn. Advanced arithmancy on the other hand is a few steps above. It’s the kind of thing you need for spellcrafting. Difficult ones like wards, rituals, those kinds of things. You can’t do that with regular arithmancy knowledge. Though if you want to know more about it, you should ask Lily, she’s the one really into it.”
Dorea nodded and handed him two badges which were with the letter. One was of course for his role of captain of the quidditch team and the other was his prefect badge. Or so he thought as he didn’t really give it a look.
“It’s not a prefect badge.” His mother pointed out. He raised a brow and looked down at his hand.
“Head Boy? Does he want to kill me or what? I have enough responsibilities as it is.”
“Uh-huh.” His mother didn’t believe it for a second and her knowing smile showed it.Rick rolled his eyes and went back to watch his father high up in the sky. The corner of his lips lifted up when his mother gave him a kiss on the cheek and embraced him.
“When can I have a turn?”
“With the broom? When Dad comes down I suppose.”
“CHARLUS!”
Of course his mother would call out to his father. And of course the head of the Potter family got down to the ground. Before he could say anything, Dorea snatched the broom and flew away.
“...”
“...”
Rick couldn’t hold it anymore and laughed.
“Haha. Laugh while you can because one day it will be you. The difference is that my wife loves flying so I can still fly. Not sure Lily would let you.”
“… I… never thought about marrying Lily.”
Charlus did a double take to be sure he heard his son correctly. “Trouble in paradise?”
“What? No! We’re good! More than good even! I just… I never thought about the next step of our relationship. Marriage is a commitment for life. Sometimes more. It’s … more than just dating or spending time together. It’s accepting the good and mostly the bad of the other and…”
“You’re not sure you can endure Lily’s bad qualities?” Charlus venture.
“Oh I can. I can handle her stubbornness and her fiery temper. I also can handle her dictating things. I really do not mind.”
“Then what’s the problem then?”
“Will she be able to accept my bad qualities?”
“Ah!” The realization hit Charlus. He never had this problem with Dorea because she knew he would and even if he did not… he didn’t really have a choice on the matter. She didn’t let him have one. Not like he had minded at the time and he was glad he didn’t.
“Stupid ‘black madness’.” Rick grumbled.
“It’s not that bad, honestly. It’s terrifying to see, I admit but it’s just one relatively bad thing among many many other good things. Heck most of the time it doesn’t bother me when this side of your mother shows up. I’m sure Lily would feel the same.”
“How do you know? You don’t know her that well, she spent most of her time here with mom. You probably know Marlene more at this point.”
Charlus hesitated for a bit then revealed why he knew. “Because she asked your mother to teach her the healing arts.”
Rick turned his head, diverting his gaze from his looping mother to his father. That he had questions was obvious on his face.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you because it’s a secret. After your last quidditch match, Lily wrote to your mother and asked her to teach her the healing arts during the summer. She didn’t want to be powerless again should you ever get hurt. She could have done anything more interesting than spend her Summer break inside a lab learning to heal someone. She could have spent time with you, with her family, doing some shopping, absolutely anything else. Yet, she chose to learn how to take care of you. That’s dedication, son. Born out of love. A love very deep and very pure. Irrational. That’s why I know she will be accepting. So don’t worry about it.”
“...”
Rick felt touched at what Lily did. She had gone further than she ever did over the years since they met on the Hogwarts Castle. Did more than anyone in fact even his own mom. He couldn’t help but love her and how kind she was.
“You wouldn’t mind if…”
“You married her? As far as I know it’s already a done deal. Even if I objected, which I do not, your mother would kill me. She already considers Lily her daughter-in-law and I pray for the poor soul of the idiot that would even dare think of saying otherwise.”
The day after, Rick went to actually visit Lily in her hometown. She always wanted him to visit and show him around the place she grew up. He apparated at King’s Cross and took the train to the Midlands. It was a three and half hour trip in the direction of Manchester but he didn’t care. Once in the city he had to take a bus for thirty more minutes to reach Cokeworth. To his surprise, Lily was there, waiting at the bus station for him. He gave her a loving kiss for a greeting.
“What are you doing here? Not that I don’t like it but-”
“I knew you'd take the first train to Manchester and then the first bus here.” She was quite proud of herself for knowing him so well and surprising him.
Rick smiled stupidly at her but also in awe. “You’re amazing.”
“I know but don’t let me stop you reminding me.” she teased.
“What’s the plan?”
“I’m bringing you home, so you can see my parents, the town and afterwards… I don’t know, I thought we would figure it out.”
“Sounds good to me.”
He took her hand in his and began to walk. Lily didn’t move a single step however and that confused him. Turning around he saw her with an apologetic face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just remember that my sister is here and her oaf of a fiance is supposed to visit too. She warned us two days ago and I already sent Morrigan back.”
“An oaf huh?”
“He’s shorter than my sister and has the body of a rugbyman. The brain of one too." The distaste in her voice made Rick frown.
“I’m sure I can manage.” he reassured her and moved towards the exit again, unfortunately Lily still stayed stuck on the spot. “Something else?”
“Snape.” she said after a moment of hesitation. “He lives here, remember?”
“I don’t see what does it have to do with-”
She raised their connected hands at eye level and swung them a bit. “This. He could see us.”
“You still want to keep our relationship a secret? Even here?”
“Yes. Publicly at least.”
“...If your sister knows, I doubt it will remain secret, regardless of us holding hands or not.”
“...That’s true. And the neighbors talk.” Taking a deep breath and releasing a sigh, she squeezed his hand and led him outside the bus station. She made her choice and didn’t think about it more.
Rick was surprised by how lifeless Cokeworth was. Streets upon streets of identical brick terrace houses. Grey and black were the dominating colors. Even the red of the brick seemed washed out and gloomy. He didn’t say anything but he didn’t have to.
“It’s dreadful, isn’t it? It’s even worse in winter with the cold. From each chimney you can see a column of black smoke and the sky is completely covered. The river is so polluted that there hasn’t been any fish way before I was born and people have been disposing of everything in it. Thankfully there is some green around the town, you just have to walk a bit. That’s why growing up here wasn’t all that bad. Despite that, as soon as I can, I’m leaving this place. I love my parents but I want to live somewhere more colorful. With more life.”
He kept silent and focused on her voice and the warmth of her hand. There was nothing he could say. There was no cheering up to do and he had no words to make the town sound better than it actually was.
The walk to her home lasted only fifteen minutes. They had reached the edge of the town where homes were of better appearance. Bigger, with a garden and more importantly cleaner. He didn’t know what her father did for work but he must have earned enough to live in this part of town. Or the prices were low. Considering how bad the area and the town was it was possible.
“We’re home!” Lily warned when she entered her home and took Rick’s jacket to hang it on the coat rack. Rose came out from the kitchen or so he thought since she was wearing a beige apron and was whipping her hands on it.
“Rick! It’s so nice to see you.” He didn’t have the time to greet her back when she took him into a hug. “You’re early! Lily has been beside herself all morning. Luke and I wondered if we would have to tie her to a chair to stop her from going to the station right after breakfast.” she added when she let him go.
Lily immediately denied it. Her face was stricken in panic at her embarrassing behavior. “I wasn’t!”
“You were, dear.” Rose wouldn’t let it go however. Her daughter had brought her boyfriend home and she would certainly tease her about it a lot.
“Don’t listen to her!”
“I think I will, because that’s adorable and makes me happy to have such a loving girlfriend.” He put a hand around her waist and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek.
After two years of relationship he could still make her blush. Or perhaps it was being in front of her mother that did the trick. Regardless, her face turned from white to a light shed of red and she hit him with her elbow.
“Is dad out?”
“Yes. He went to visit a friend, he’d be back for lunch. Your sister is enjoying the sun in the garden. Why don't you introduce Rick to her?”
“Not if I can avoid it.” Lily muttered to herself. “Sure thing, mom.” She took Rick by the hand and began to lead him to her room. He dragged his feet down however.
“One moment.” He went to his jacket and pulled out a huge box from an inside pocket. Something that should normally be impossible since the pocket was way too small for a box the size of a head. He gave it to Rose. “It’s an apple pie.”
“Lovely!” the older redhead said as she opened the box and smelled the apples’ aroma. “I was going to make a cake for dessert. It’s perfect, less work for me.”
Rick gave her a smile and let Lily bring him into her bedroom upstairs. The door barely closed that Rick’s back hit the mattress with Lily straddling him. She couldn’t wait anymore and kissed him like she had wanted to do ever since they left Hogwarts in late June. The one they shared at the station did nothing but spur her hunger even more. When she removed her mouth from his for some air, she was breathing heavily. Rick affectionately put his hand on her cheeks and she melted in it, wanting to feel his touch and warmth more. He bucked his hips up and made Lily fall forward right onto his chest. She didn’t raise and just buried her head in his hair and neck.
“I missed this. I missed you.”
“Me too. Every morning I wake up and instinctively-”
“Reach with your arm for me?” She laid small kisses on his neck.
“Yeah.” His hand went to the back of her head to push her down. He loved what she was doing and wanted more. “I guess after sharing a bed every night for ten months it has become the new normal.”
“Hm.”
She stopped kissing and got off him to lay by his side showing her back. He understood the message and spooned her, taking her in his arms. The moan of satisfaction she let out was music to his ears.
“I love the scent of strawberries on you. It makes you even more delicious.”
She laughed when he licked her neck and turned around to capture his lips. Had she let him, he would have used his tongue on every inch of her body and they didn’t have the time for that.
They stayed for a good fifteen minutes before they heard Lily’s dad coming home. They went downstairs and Rick greeted Luke but also introduced himself to Petunia and her fiancé who had arrived at the same time. Rick wondered how the sisters could be related. They were the total opposite in appearance. Lily got her mother’s hair and her father’s eyes while Petunia was blonde with blue eyes. She also had a very long neck and an almost just as long face. Were it not for her resemblance to her father, Rick could have sworn that either Rose had cheated on Luke or Petunia was adopted.
Vernon Dursley, as the young man introduced himself, looked like a walrus. He was exactly as Lily described him with the exception that he had some weight on him. He wasn’t obese but definitely had a bit of a gut. He discreetly exchanged a look with Lily who looked surprised.
It was quickly obvious that Petunia didn’t like him one bit. From what he knew of her it was because she was jealous he had magic. She made a grave mistake however. She believed that since Rick was a wizard he knew nothing about the muggle world. As such she led the conversation towards topics she thought he would know nothing about and appear like an idiot. It helped for her that Vernon liked to talk about himself and that for some reason his objective was to show he was better than Rick.
“A shame that I don’t have time for rugby anymore, really. A true sport for gentlemen. Do you play?”
“No. We don’t have the space for a field at school. I chose track and field instead.”
“With how thin you are, I’m not surprised. You should eat more to put some muscle on you.”
Before Rick could reply, Lily ‘accidently’ knocked over her hot tea on Rick’s sweater. He let a low ‘hm’ of pain and she quickly apologized while she removed his sweater and by ‘inadvertence’, his T-shirt at the same time.
“Oh, sorry. I got your t-shirt too.”
“That’s alright.”
Rick gave her an amused look for her innocent and very obvious act. Why? Because he may have been thin but years of quidditch had made him quite muscular. He had well toned abs and well defined arms and pecs. The whole family and Vernon were also able to see that his back was muscular too, when Lily dragged him out of the living room to give him something he could wear. A white shirt that Lily had appropriated to have something with his scent. Of course it was a dirty shirt but a wave of her wand and it was clean.
“That was childish.” he said and she just huffed.
“That walrus is trying to put you down when he’s not a tenth of the man you are.”
“I admit mister Macho is… really pathetic. You shouldn’t care, he’s not worth it. He’s in his late teens and he’s already a bit fat. In ten years he could pose at the zoo.” The snort she let out was proof she was clearly picturing that. “And your sister will be stuck with that unpleasant walrus. If the only way they have to feel good about themselves is by putting down others, they’re not worth your time.”
He kissed her on the lips and the irritation she felt melted away.
“Let’s go back and be in our own world? How about that?”
That sounded like a good idea in her ears and that was exactly what they did. Regardless of the subject discussed, both answered vaguely and politely but never really engaged properly into it. Too busy faking making googling eyes at each other. After dinner, Vernon took Petunia away in his ‘brand new car’ - a blue Ford Cortina - and gave a smug smirk to Rick who at seventeen certainly didn’t own one and couldn’t legally drive one he had.
“Thank god, he’s gone!”
“Lily!”
“She’s right, honey.” Luke came immediately at his daughter’s defense. “Don’t tell me you like that young man. It would be a lie and we both know it.”
Rose frowned but there was no real heat in her words. “He’s still Petunia’s fiancé.”
“For whatever reason.” the man muttered but decided to change the topic. “What about the two of you? Going somewhere?”
“We don’t know, yet.”
“I heard people talk about a movie called Star Wars on the train. So I was thinking of going to the theater although I’m fine with whichever activity Lily wants to do.”
“Star Wars? What is it about?” his girlfriend asked.
“From what I understood it’s a space opera. A young man joins the rebellion against an evil empire.”
Immediately Luke’s eyes lit up with interest and Rose told him ‘no’ in a heartbeat. Dejected, he looked with envy at his daughter and her boyfriend going to the garden and disappearing with a loud bang.