Dec. 13th, 2014

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I wrote this to a Thimbleful Thursday post and I can also see that it has roots in an AU Hermione Granger fanfic I've been reading...


“Thank you for agreeing to see me, sir.” The girl standing just inside the relocked door of what could only be called his cell, despite its resemblance to a plush hotel suite, was about fourteen and three quarter years old. He knew this because she was his granddaughter. He didn’t know any of his grandchildren as well as he would have liked, but he was locked up for good reasons and the distance that incarceration created was part of his punishment. Today this girl, dressed in her school uniform with a wolf’s head on the blazer lapel, looked nervous, uncomfortable and sadder than he’d ever seen her before.

“It’s not a problem, Tobia.” He indicated one of the other chairs at the tea table and said, “Please, sit down, have something to eat and tell me what’s troubling you.”

“Thank you.” She sat down, neatly arranged her grey, pleated skirt, and carefully put a shortbread biscuit on the plate in front of her. He poured her a glass of milk. “The whole family is angry at me over what I did in the House Cup competition.”

“And what did you do?” He sipped his Darjeeling from a translucent china cup and noted that Tobia kept her hands in her lap, neither eating her biscuit nor drinking her milk.

“Mum and Dad didn’t know that I knew they’d both signed up to mentor Cherie and Jack in House Bluejohn for the Cup. They said they wanted to see how I was, but they interrogated me on Wolf Pack’s plans and status so they could help Cherie and Jack. When I realised…I terminated them in the competition.” Tobia had kept her eyes on her hands through her entire explanation as if she didn’t dare look up. “Everyone says I’ve been disloyal.”

“Do they know that you were betrayed first?” He sipped his tea as she did look up, her face hopeful.

“They don’t see it that way. They say,” she faltered and started again. “Everyone else seems to think that Cherie and Jack’s scores are more important than mine.”

“Everyone else in the family was in Bluejohn or Princeps, except me.” He smiled kindly at her. “I was in Wolf Pack too. I’ll speak to your grandmother and she should talk sense to the others.” He sipped his tea again. “So, tell me, is Wolf Annex still condemned?”

“Not as much as it used to be.” Her dimple was delightful, just like her grandmother’s. “We won the House Cup and had some repairs done as part of our prize.”

He suggested, “Perhaps they’re really angry because you had the temerity to win.”


Kith and Kin 2 is here.
rix_scaedu: (Default)
This follows on from Kith and Kin.


“Greta,” he was being reasonable, “you can speak to them or I can call them all here and speak to them myself.”

“Tobia went beyond the pale, even if it was only in the House Cup.” His wife glared at him, her lips compressed, until she added, “There are things we just don’t do.”

“Like shafting one child to benefit another?” He let that question hang there, then asked, “How much did Antonia and Charles tell you about what led up to Tobia’s acts against them?”

“What’s to tell?” She gave him the compressed lip look again.

“Loyalty cuts both ways, Greta. It always has.” The look he gave her could have been subtitled ‘Remember?’

“You were in an entirely different position.   Tobia’s only fourteen, for heaven’s sake.”

“All the more reason she should have been able to rely on her parents, don’t you think? So, why would they ditch her so completely? How much help do Jack and Cherie really need?” He poured tea for both of them.

Greta picked up her cup and saucer, holding them steady but not drinking yet. “I can talk to them, but I can’t guarantee that they’ll listen. At the moment most of the family believe that she should at least apologize while the remainder want to just cut her loose.”

“For protecting her own position among her peers and in her own organisation?” He raised an eyebrow, “What planet are they living on? What planet are any of you living on that it’s come to this?”

“Andrew,” it was her turn to be reasonable, “Wolf Pack isn’t an organisation, it’s not even a proper school House. Tobia had nothing to betray and nothing to protect. At best, she made a mistake and she needs to apologise. If she does that and keeps her marks up, then when she finishes school, we can get her into a degree course and then get her a position as an agent despite the Wolf Pack thing. She can still have a reasonable career in the Agency, but the family isn’t going to get in behind and help her if she doesn’t apologize now.”

“Oh dear.” He put down his cup and saucer while she began to sip her tea. “None of you really understand what Wolf Pack is for, do you?” He sighed. “I can see that I’m going to have to give The Talk. Either you can arrange for everyone who’s available to come in, or I’ll do it. Your ignorance is quite chilling, under the circumstances.”

“What do you mean?” She looked at him in surprise over her teacup.

“Wolf Pack has a point and it does pretty much what the school founders designed it to do. We are going to sort this out now before you bunch of protected idiots manage to break Tobia beyond mending.”






Kith and Kin 3 is here.

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