Rebekah: Chapter 2
Story: Rebekah
Chapter: Family and Friends
Rating: General
Setting: Post-HBP
Words: 3,642
Summary:
From its claws, she gently took a heavy envelope hand-addressed in emerald green ink.
This was the dawn of a new era; the dawn of a new generation, free from fear.
Rebekah is discovering her new world. It is tattered, bruised and bleeding from a terrible war. She must watch - and help - it heal while discovering her past, present and future.
The prelude to this story can be found here.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
____________________________________________________________
For Linda.
Rebekah ran along the lane to the playground. Ellie was already there, pushing her little sister on the rusty roundabout, its blue paint peeling off.
“Ellie!” she cried. “Ellie!”
She came to a stop by her friend, her long plait flying over her shoulder and coming down with a heavy clunk. She pushed it backwards impatiently. Now she was here, it seemed so hard. How could she possibly hope to explain? How could she lie to her best friend?
Ellie grinned at her. They abandoned Amy to the climbing frames and took over the swings.
“Hey, Bekah. Where did you have to go yesterday? Talk about cryptic!”
“Oh!” she said, flustered. She should have been expecting this question. How could she go on about cauldrons and spellbooks and wands and potions ingredients? “Just to get my school stuff. Uniform, books, new, erm, pens… No, don’t say anything. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I only found out last week, and I didn’t know how, I mean, how do you explain all this? - and I didn’t really understand any of it…”
“Bekah, you’re rambling.” Ellie rolled her eyes. “What do you mean, uniform? I thought we were getting ours together next week!”
“Yeah, erm, you see, that’s the thing… I’m not going. To Underlow, I mean. I’m, erm, going somewhere else. To… to Hogwarts. It’s in Scotland, Ellie, and I promise you I only found out about this last week!”
Ellie rammed her feed down so hard she raised clouds of dust. “Scotland? But… are you… do you mean…”
“It’s a boarding school. I’ll only be home for the Christmas and summer holidays. There aren’t even any half-term holidays and everyone stays over Easter. I’m sorry, Ellie… I got offered a place, and my parents think it’s the best thing for me.”
“So this school just asks you to come out of the blue and you don’t get a say in anything?” she snapped, outraged.
“No! Oh, Ellie, please, it’s not like that… We know the school. A lot of our family have been. Please understand, I really don’t want to leave you, I’d do anything not to have to do that, but I need to go. To Hogwarts. It’s where I belong!” she implored, twisting the swing to look at her best friend.
“It’s a school, Bekah! You don’t just belong at a place you only heard from a week ago, you belong here, with me, and at Underlow! You’re…” Her voice faltered. “You’re leaving me. All on my own,” she whispered.
“Ellie… I’m so, so sorry. Truly. But you’ll make friends, ones just as good as me, I know you will. They’ll all love you, I promise. I’m going to some strange new place with different customs to learn odd things -” Rebekah clamped her mouth shut.
“What, like polo and Greek?” giggled Ellie bitterly.
“Oh - yes. Erm. Polo. You know these ancient schools, they’re so silly about traditions. This one’s been going since the tenth century, I think.” She sighed. “You know I’ll miss you, Elle. I’ll write. Every week. My mum will give you the letters, and if you want to write back, give her mine.”
Ellie leapt off the swing to hug her. Hard. They ended up in a heap in the dust, entangled and midway between tears and laugher.
“I will miss you, Ellie! It’ll be so strange without you. You must promise to write, or I’ll go stark raving mad - you know I will.”
Ellie got up, brushing herself off. “I do at that. Remember that month in Florida last year? I was supposed to be sending you the multitude of postcards, not the other way around! And I still can’t believe you painted your room that awful colour…”
Bekah jumped up. “Well I was bored! And lonely! You’ll do well to remember that, missy, when we’re into the second month apart and you’re going round the bend!”
“Hmph! Missy! Well, Tweety, I’m not the one with the strange nickname!”
“Oy! I resent that. It’s not my fault people called me that.”
“It was your fault you obsessed over your toy bird.”
“I was one!”
“You’re the one off to Scotland!”
“Pfft! Lame argument!”
“Point taken. But you are.”
“Yeah. On my own. Without even my parents around. At all.”
“Meh. I concede.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“We should shut up, shouldn’t we?”
“Probably.”
They remained silent for a moment, quivering, before Bekah spluttered with laughter and Ellie followed suit. The laughed until they couldn’t remember what was funny and Amy was hanging upside down on the climbing frame, just watching them, wondering if they were ever going to stop.
***
The sun was low in the east. Birds sang. The wind blew softly.
Bekah knelt in the grass, putting her laden bucket down beside her. She flicked her plait over her shoulder and pulled a bin bag and a pair of rubber gloves from the bucket. She tugged the gloves on and got to work.
Tin cans, beer bottles and cigarette stubs were swept away into the bag. A scrubbing brush took care of the ash on the headstone and dug the dirt from the engraving. The fence was lifted and propped up with a few wooden pegs and a mallet. The hedge trimmer snipped at the grass and the secateurs cleared away the small twigs drooping down from an old, overhanging tree.
Bekah stood slowly, stretching her arms and shaking the feeling back into her legs. The sun was high in the sky and it would be time for lunch soon. There was just one more touch.
Her bucket produced its final treasures. She removed one, placing it carefully on the ground behind her, and used the trowel to dig a hole before the headstone. She twisted to lift her gift into the hole and patted down the earth around it. Bekah smiled, satisfied.
“Do you like it? I do. It’s not as traditional as rosemary, but that’s rather dull - dusty purple is such a sad colour. Remembrance should mean happy memories. Bright memories.”
She lingered a few moments longer before rising. Tucking her tools back into the bucket, she walked away.
The petals of the yellow zinnia fluttered in the soft breeze behind her, marking out Frank Bryce’s resting place in an abundance of colour.
***
Packing.
She hated it.
It meant lists, of course, and Bekah liked lists. She wasn’t one to keep things in her head; it all had to be written down. In this particular case, she had lists with references to lists. She enjoyed the fact that she was different and that everything was planned out neatly.
But she still hated the packing part.
She didn’t like to leave things behind. Here she was, packing her witch equipment into her trunk along with clothes and a few books, and yet so much was left behind. Most of all, she would miss her books. She had two bookshelves and piles more besides.
Still, if she concentrated on the things she wouldn’t be able to take, she wouldn’t be thinking about the people.
She heard a soft mewling behind her and turned to scoop up the source. She held the kitten to her, stroking it under its chin.
At least she could take Antonia. Her letter said she could bring an owl, a cat or a toad, and she was delighted.
Antonia was a small tabby born the year before. Her mother was Bitsy, Ellie’s cat. Her three brothers had gone to homes in Great Hangleton, but Bekah had had the first choice and had known from the moment she laid eyes on the tiny bundle that that was the one she wanted.
She had poured over a baby names book searching for the right one. Her kitten was to have a proper name - not Paws or something silly. She’d found several pretty names, but in the end had picked Antonia. There was something very cat-like about it, and Antonia had agreed with a purr.
She wasn’t sure what sort of arrangements would be made about food for animals at Hogwarts. She could ask her cousins the next day. She was spending two weeks at their grandfather’s home before her final fortnight in Little Hangleton. She knew that both Owen and Michael owned owls - she would either use these or school owls to send letters home.
With a small sigh, she lowered Antonia to the ground and turned back to her trunk. She needed to finish this before she could pack a smaller bag for her stay with her cousins.
***
The doorbell rang later that afternoon. Bekah, who had been growing increasingly more impatient, shot down the stairs to arrive barely before her father and wrenched open the door. There stood Annie in a blue blouse, a plain skirt, normal, flat black shoes and a clear plastic rain cap complete with shocking pink strings and little yellow flowers.
“Annie! Come in, Mum’s just getting some milk from the corner shop - this is my dad, Daddy, this is Anneline, Mum’s cousin, she helped me buy my school stuff yesterday, remember?” She spoke very quickly.
Her father blinked for a moment like an owl who had remembered that windows were a hazard in a rather painful way.
“I’m Neil. We met at Bekah’s christening, I believe… Do, ah, witches shake hands? Ah, good, good…”
“Come into the kitchen, Annie! Oh, erm - do take off your… hat.”
Soon they were sitting around the kitchen table.
“I’m sorry, there’s no milk, Annie,” said Neil, who had recovered from the shock of having a witch turn up on his doorstep. “I’m sure you want tea…”
She laughed and flapped her hand. “No, no, I’m fine. Besides, Dad’s cooking up a storm at home.”
“I must say, it’s very strange to be sending my daughter to stay with people she met yesterday. Will you do much… magic?”
“My sons aren’t allowed to perform magic out of school until they’re seventeen, and my daughter is still seven, but Bekah will be allowed to practise some simple spells if she wants to try them. My father, my husband and I, certainly. Witches and wizards use magic like you use cars and dishwashies. Why scrub a floor when a cleaning charm will do?”
Neil raised his eyebrows. “Magic can be as mundane as that? It’s not all flying and intricate spells?”
“No, not at all - although that doesn’t make spells any less difficult. It takes a long time to learn the wand movements and incantations, let alone to do them right. Beyond that we study plants, potion-making, runes, magical creatures, even Muggles. It’s not all wandwork.”
“Yes, I -”
The front door opened. “Neil? Bekah?” Jackie walked into the kitchen, milk in hand. “Jackie, here already?”
“I am indeed. We’ve just been talking about studies at Hogwarts,” smiled Jackie, rising. “I hate to dash off with your daughter, but I said we wouldn’t be long. Are you ready to go, Bekah?”
“I’ll get my bag!”
She darted upstairs for her small case and was back as quickly as she could, where Jackie was holding the rain hood and they were all laughing.
Annie glanced up to the doorway as Bekah entered. “Ready to go?”
Bekah hugged her parents and said goodbye. “Ready.”
“We’re going to Side-Along Apparate. When we’re seventeen we get lessons and a test for our Apparation licence, just like a driver’s licence. To Apparate involves just focusing on where you want to be and thinking about it really hard. So Side-Along Apparation really is quite simple - you just have to want it enough. As long as you’re holding on tightly, there’s no worry as to safety. I have a licence and plenty of practice - with the war going on, everyone practised, it was the quickest way to get children out of the house during an attack. But I should warn you, it’s going to be very uncomfortable. I thought the broom ride would be too long.”
Bekah walked over to her. “I’m sure it’ll be okay. Bye Mum, Dad!”
Annie took her bag in one hand and Bekah’s in the other. Gripping tightly, she suddenly felt Annie’s hand twisting in her own. It was like being forced in on herself as her body pressed tighter and tighter. Everything black, and suddenly they weren’t in the kitchen any more; they were in front of a large house in Wales. In the middle of the countryside, it was a peaceful spot with beautiful gardens and sprawling public fields around it. There was a village across a nearby stream, but far away enough that no one would notice the odd Quidditch game.
Rebekah still didn’t know what that was.
She had expected the house to be very old-fashioned and elegant; she got a big surprise when a regular front door lead her into a regular, cottage-like kitchen, if a little - well, a lot - bigger. Several people were there. Owen and Michael were peeling potatoes and flicking each other with the bits. Little Kim was painting some unrecognisable object at the kitchen table. A man who looked to be around forty was poking a strange, silver object with his wand next to her and a much older man was peering at an old-fashioned stove in the corner. Everyone looked towards the doorway as they entered.
“Mummy,” cried Kim, running over with her masterpiece, “look! It’s a Skiddlepow!”
“Scinndelpah, dear. How lovely! Aren’t the legs just perfect, Dad?”
The old man smiled indulgently at Kim. “Oh, I don’t know. I think they look like tree trunks, personally.”
“Grandpa!” Kim gasped, scandalised.
So this was Great-Uncle Thomas, her cousins’ grandfather. Tall and thin, he had a kindly look to his wrinkled old face, framed by very little white hair. His robes were plain and green with lots of interesting-looking pockets. There was flour on his sleeve and a smudge by his mouth suggested he’d been tasting whatever the wonderful smell in the kitchen belonged to. His mouth twitched and he ruffled Kim’s hair. “They look nothing like tree trunks. They are remarkable accurate.” Kim satisfied, he looked towards Bekah.
“My dear Rebekah!” He stretched out his hand.
Bekah took it. It was warm and firm, lightly wrinkled and slightly calloused. She shook it politely with a small smile.
“So lovely to have you here. Dinner is almost ready! Do you like shepherd’s pie?”
“I love it!”
“And you have no aversion to vegetables?”
“No - well, cauliflower, I suppose, but anything else is fine.”
“Never fear, I never let cauliflower enter this house! It’s too rubbery. Not enough flavour. Now, Peter, will you take that through to the drawing room? Ah - Rebekah, this is Peter, Annie’s husband.”
Peter, the man with the strange silver object, scooped it off and waved at her before vanishing through a door. Annie followed him, towing a complaining and paint-covered Kim. “But I want to play with Bekah!” Kim wailed.
She smiled as Annie soothed her, carting her away.
Something small and wet struck her cheek. She pulled it off. That was odd. It was a piece of potato skin. She glanced up to where Owen and Michael ought to have been peeling potatoes. There they were, no longer flicking bits at each other, but their shoulders were shaking with laughter. She walked over to them as Great-Uncle Thomas opened the oven.
Three could play at that game.
***
She had been at Neckworth House for almost a week. During that time, Annie had taught her to repair a broken window, she had charmed a carpet bright pink and managed to fix it again, and she had done what she had been determined to do since she had heard the word at Diagon Alley. She had found out what Quidditch was.
After breakfast, Kim grabbed Bekah’s hand and dragged her out into the garden. “Come on!” she cried. I’ve got something to show you!” She pulled her through a field, then a wood, and finally over a wall.
“Are we still on your land?” Bekah asked.
“Nope. It’s a public field. There’s a stream nearby, where Muggles like to have picnics.”
Eventually they arrived. It was life-size stone statue of a man. Despite its obvious age, the carving was clear. It had to be magic.
There was an engraving on the bottom: Kim Arian.
“Kim Arian? Is that his name?”
“Sort of,” her seven-year-old cousin piped up. “Kim is Welsh for leader. He was the leader of his tribe. Arian was his name.”
“Was he a wizard? Is that why the statue is still perfect?”
“Yup. The whole tribe was magical. It was like a big family. They were the Neckworths before that was their name.”
“Your family is so old… I bet you’re all really magical.”
“Yeah. We’re not supposed to brag about it to other people, though, because it doesn’t matter. You don’t count. You’re a Neckworth, too.”
Rebekah snorted, running her hand over the name. “I’m no Neckworth. I’m a Muggle-born.”
“Of course you’re a Neckworth,” said a voice behind her. It was Owen with Michael. “Muggle blood doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make you any less of a witch. Hermione Granger is the most brilliant witch of the age, and there wasn’t a drop of magical blood in her family before her. Besides, if you draw the family tree right, there’s a straight line from Arian here to you. You’re just as much a Neckworth as we are, and Mum is the heir of this place.”
They made their way back to the house. Owen lead the way to a room on the ground floor and pulled out his wand. He tapped a blank wall three times and a tree appeared.
“This was originally a slab of stone. Adair created it,” he said. “Every descendant is on this wall whether they’re Muggle or magical. Their name appears on here the moment they’re born. Have you got your wand with you?”
Bekah hadn’t been parted from it since she’d first got it. She pulled it out obediently.
“Say your name - your full name - and tap the trunk of the tree.”
Bekah did so. The wall came to life, and the bottom of the leafy part of the tree came closer and closer until -
“Names,” she whispered. “My name.”
In the middle of the wall, with no names below it, was the name Rebekah Arianrhod Miller surrounded by leafy vines. Above her was her mother, Jaqueline Idelle Thompson, and before that was Susan Rhiamon Neckworth. She traced the names up and up with her wand, the tree moving accordingly, past Nicholas and Nia, Eldred and Elaine, Aneulin and Anna.
“Why do so many names keep repeating themselves?” she asked.
“Old family names,” Owen said. “Mostly Welsh, of course. There are loads of people named after Arian - there are Adairs and Annas and Arianells galore. Look - you’ve reached him. There’s his daughter, Ariene, and a few generations down is an Arianrhod… Just like you.”
“Michael Adair Cauldwell,” Michael ordered the tree trunk, and it flew back down to the bottom of the tree. “Look - there’s Uncle Edward. He should have been heir to this place, but he was killed in the war last year.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, examining the names of her cousins. “Was it a Death Eater?”
“Yeah. He was an Auror, and the Death Eaters hate families like ours that don’t want anything to do with them. They almost wiped out the Bones and the Prewetts - and of course, the Potters, too, Harry’s the last one from that line.”
“So many people died from the family,” Rebekah whispered, taking in the dates of the deaths from close generations. “1975 - 1972 - 1980 - there’ve got to be thirty dates from the first war alone!”
She wasn’t stupid. She had known that a lot of people had died in the two Wizarding wars, known that the magical world wasn’t all roses and pretty spells. But she hadn’t realised how hard it would hit her to know that there were people from her family who had died, to see their names and dates of death carved into a tree surrounded with leaves.
All she could do was to remember, and she had never even met them.
***
By the time a fortnight had passed, Bekah had read The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1), Magical Theory, A Beginners’ Guide to Transfiguration, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection. She had continued to practise the spells from her main spellbook and was looking forward to going to Hogwarts more than ever. Meanwhile, she had been introduced to Gobstones, Exploding Snap, Shuntbumps and, of course, flying. On her first day, she had been taken up on the back of Owen’s broom under Great-Uncle Thomas’ watchful eye. Since then, her cousins had explained the rules to her in great detail. She loved to watch them play, but was clearly not a natural flier. She didn’t mind: she couldn’t catch, anyway.
Soon it was time to go back home. She would see them all again on the first of September at King’s Cross. Still, she almost cried as she said goodbye. She had loved her time with them. She wasn’t feeling nearly as scared about Hogwarts as she had been. Muggle-born she may be, but she was armed with information and two very, very nice cousins. When she went to school, she could always go to them, even if they were in different houses. They had told her she would probably be able to find them during mealtimes at their house table. She hoped so.
Her hand in Annie’s, she held on for dear life. Her eyes were pressed into her skull; her ribcage deflated her lungs; the world went black.
And Bekah was home.
____________________________________________________________
Rebekah is, as always, dedicated to Rebekah. I have used many names here from many wonderful people.
This is completely un-beta'd.
Chapter: Family and Friends
Rating: General
Setting: Post-HBP
Words: 3,642
Summary:
From its claws, she gently took a heavy envelope hand-addressed in emerald green ink.
This was the dawn of a new era; the dawn of a new generation, free from fear.
Rebekah is discovering her new world. It is tattered, bruised and bleeding from a terrible war. She must watch - and help - it heal while discovering her past, present and future.
The prelude to this story can be found here.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
____________________________________________________________
For Linda.
Rebekah ran along the lane to the playground. Ellie was already there, pushing her little sister on the rusty roundabout, its blue paint peeling off.
“Ellie!” she cried. “Ellie!”
She came to a stop by her friend, her long plait flying over her shoulder and coming down with a heavy clunk. She pushed it backwards impatiently. Now she was here, it seemed so hard. How could she possibly hope to explain? How could she lie to her best friend?
Ellie grinned at her. They abandoned Amy to the climbing frames and took over the swings.
“Hey, Bekah. Where did you have to go yesterday? Talk about cryptic!”
“Oh!” she said, flustered. She should have been expecting this question. How could she go on about cauldrons and spellbooks and wands and potions ingredients? “Just to get my school stuff. Uniform, books, new, erm, pens… No, don’t say anything. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I only found out last week, and I didn’t know how, I mean, how do you explain all this? - and I didn’t really understand any of it…”
“Bekah, you’re rambling.” Ellie rolled her eyes. “What do you mean, uniform? I thought we were getting ours together next week!”
“Yeah, erm, you see, that’s the thing… I’m not going. To Underlow, I mean. I’m, erm, going somewhere else. To… to Hogwarts. It’s in Scotland, Ellie, and I promise you I only found out about this last week!”
Ellie rammed her feed down so hard she raised clouds of dust. “Scotland? But… are you… do you mean…”
“It’s a boarding school. I’ll only be home for the Christmas and summer holidays. There aren’t even any half-term holidays and everyone stays over Easter. I’m sorry, Ellie… I got offered a place, and my parents think it’s the best thing for me.”
“So this school just asks you to come out of the blue and you don’t get a say in anything?” she snapped, outraged.
“No! Oh, Ellie, please, it’s not like that… We know the school. A lot of our family have been. Please understand, I really don’t want to leave you, I’d do anything not to have to do that, but I need to go. To Hogwarts. It’s where I belong!” she implored, twisting the swing to look at her best friend.
“It’s a school, Bekah! You don’t just belong at a place you only heard from a week ago, you belong here, with me, and at Underlow! You’re…” Her voice faltered. “You’re leaving me. All on my own,” she whispered.
“Ellie… I’m so, so sorry. Truly. But you’ll make friends, ones just as good as me, I know you will. They’ll all love you, I promise. I’m going to some strange new place with different customs to learn odd things -” Rebekah clamped her mouth shut.
“What, like polo and Greek?” giggled Ellie bitterly.
“Oh - yes. Erm. Polo. You know these ancient schools, they’re so silly about traditions. This one’s been going since the tenth century, I think.” She sighed. “You know I’ll miss you, Elle. I’ll write. Every week. My mum will give you the letters, and if you want to write back, give her mine.”
Ellie leapt off the swing to hug her. Hard. They ended up in a heap in the dust, entangled and midway between tears and laugher.
“I will miss you, Ellie! It’ll be so strange without you. You must promise to write, or I’ll go stark raving mad - you know I will.”
Ellie got up, brushing herself off. “I do at that. Remember that month in Florida last year? I was supposed to be sending you the multitude of postcards, not the other way around! And I still can’t believe you painted your room that awful colour…”
Bekah jumped up. “Well I was bored! And lonely! You’ll do well to remember that, missy, when we’re into the second month apart and you’re going round the bend!”
“Hmph! Missy! Well, Tweety, I’m not the one with the strange nickname!”
“Oy! I resent that. It’s not my fault people called me that.”
“It was your fault you obsessed over your toy bird.”
“I was one!”
“You’re the one off to Scotland!”
“Pfft! Lame argument!”
“Point taken. But you are.”
“Yeah. On my own. Without even my parents around. At all.”
“Meh. I concede.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“We should shut up, shouldn’t we?”
“Probably.”
They remained silent for a moment, quivering, before Bekah spluttered with laughter and Ellie followed suit. The laughed until they couldn’t remember what was funny and Amy was hanging upside down on the climbing frame, just watching them, wondering if they were ever going to stop.
***
The sun was low in the east. Birds sang. The wind blew softly.
Bekah knelt in the grass, putting her laden bucket down beside her. She flicked her plait over her shoulder and pulled a bin bag and a pair of rubber gloves from the bucket. She tugged the gloves on and got to work.
Tin cans, beer bottles and cigarette stubs were swept away into the bag. A scrubbing brush took care of the ash on the headstone and dug the dirt from the engraving. The fence was lifted and propped up with a few wooden pegs and a mallet. The hedge trimmer snipped at the grass and the secateurs cleared away the small twigs drooping down from an old, overhanging tree.
Bekah stood slowly, stretching her arms and shaking the feeling back into her legs. The sun was high in the sky and it would be time for lunch soon. There was just one more touch.
Her bucket produced its final treasures. She removed one, placing it carefully on the ground behind her, and used the trowel to dig a hole before the headstone. She twisted to lift her gift into the hole and patted down the earth around it. Bekah smiled, satisfied.
“Do you like it? I do. It’s not as traditional as rosemary, but that’s rather dull - dusty purple is such a sad colour. Remembrance should mean happy memories. Bright memories.”
She lingered a few moments longer before rising. Tucking her tools back into the bucket, she walked away.
The petals of the yellow zinnia fluttered in the soft breeze behind her, marking out Frank Bryce’s resting place in an abundance of colour.
***
Packing.
She hated it.
It meant lists, of course, and Bekah liked lists. She wasn’t one to keep things in her head; it all had to be written down. In this particular case, she had lists with references to lists. She enjoyed the fact that she was different and that everything was planned out neatly.
But she still hated the packing part.
She didn’t like to leave things behind. Here she was, packing her witch equipment into her trunk along with clothes and a few books, and yet so much was left behind. Most of all, she would miss her books. She had two bookshelves and piles more besides.
Still, if she concentrated on the things she wouldn’t be able to take, she wouldn’t be thinking about the people.
She heard a soft mewling behind her and turned to scoop up the source. She held the kitten to her, stroking it under its chin.
At least she could take Antonia. Her letter said she could bring an owl, a cat or a toad, and she was delighted.
Antonia was a small tabby born the year before. Her mother was Bitsy, Ellie’s cat. Her three brothers had gone to homes in Great Hangleton, but Bekah had had the first choice and had known from the moment she laid eyes on the tiny bundle that that was the one she wanted.
She had poured over a baby names book searching for the right one. Her kitten was to have a proper name - not Paws or something silly. She’d found several pretty names, but in the end had picked Antonia. There was something very cat-like about it, and Antonia had agreed with a purr.
She wasn’t sure what sort of arrangements would be made about food for animals at Hogwarts. She could ask her cousins the next day. She was spending two weeks at their grandfather’s home before her final fortnight in Little Hangleton. She knew that both Owen and Michael owned owls - she would either use these or school owls to send letters home.
With a small sigh, she lowered Antonia to the ground and turned back to her trunk. She needed to finish this before she could pack a smaller bag for her stay with her cousins.
***
The doorbell rang later that afternoon. Bekah, who had been growing increasingly more impatient, shot down the stairs to arrive barely before her father and wrenched open the door. There stood Annie in a blue blouse, a plain skirt, normal, flat black shoes and a clear plastic rain cap complete with shocking pink strings and little yellow flowers.
“Annie! Come in, Mum’s just getting some milk from the corner shop - this is my dad, Daddy, this is Anneline, Mum’s cousin, she helped me buy my school stuff yesterday, remember?” She spoke very quickly.
Her father blinked for a moment like an owl who had remembered that windows were a hazard in a rather painful way.
“I’m Neil. We met at Bekah’s christening, I believe… Do, ah, witches shake hands? Ah, good, good…”
“Come into the kitchen, Annie! Oh, erm - do take off your… hat.”
Soon they were sitting around the kitchen table.
“I’m sorry, there’s no milk, Annie,” said Neil, who had recovered from the shock of having a witch turn up on his doorstep. “I’m sure you want tea…”
She laughed and flapped her hand. “No, no, I’m fine. Besides, Dad’s cooking up a storm at home.”
“I must say, it’s very strange to be sending my daughter to stay with people she met yesterday. Will you do much… magic?”
“My sons aren’t allowed to perform magic out of school until they’re seventeen, and my daughter is still seven, but Bekah will be allowed to practise some simple spells if she wants to try them. My father, my husband and I, certainly. Witches and wizards use magic like you use cars and dishwashies. Why scrub a floor when a cleaning charm will do?”
Neil raised his eyebrows. “Magic can be as mundane as that? It’s not all flying and intricate spells?”
“No, not at all - although that doesn’t make spells any less difficult. It takes a long time to learn the wand movements and incantations, let alone to do them right. Beyond that we study plants, potion-making, runes, magical creatures, even Muggles. It’s not all wandwork.”
“Yes, I -”
The front door opened. “Neil? Bekah?” Jackie walked into the kitchen, milk in hand. “Jackie, here already?”
“I am indeed. We’ve just been talking about studies at Hogwarts,” smiled Jackie, rising. “I hate to dash off with your daughter, but I said we wouldn’t be long. Are you ready to go, Bekah?”
“I’ll get my bag!”
She darted upstairs for her small case and was back as quickly as she could, where Jackie was holding the rain hood and they were all laughing.
Annie glanced up to the doorway as Bekah entered. “Ready to go?”
Bekah hugged her parents and said goodbye. “Ready.”
“We’re going to Side-Along Apparate. When we’re seventeen we get lessons and a test for our Apparation licence, just like a driver’s licence. To Apparate involves just focusing on where you want to be and thinking about it really hard. So Side-Along Apparation really is quite simple - you just have to want it enough. As long as you’re holding on tightly, there’s no worry as to safety. I have a licence and plenty of practice - with the war going on, everyone practised, it was the quickest way to get children out of the house during an attack. But I should warn you, it’s going to be very uncomfortable. I thought the broom ride would be too long.”
Bekah walked over to her. “I’m sure it’ll be okay. Bye Mum, Dad!”
Annie took her bag in one hand and Bekah’s in the other. Gripping tightly, she suddenly felt Annie’s hand twisting in her own. It was like being forced in on herself as her body pressed tighter and tighter. Everything black, and suddenly they weren’t in the kitchen any more; they were in front of a large house in Wales. In the middle of the countryside, it was a peaceful spot with beautiful gardens and sprawling public fields around it. There was a village across a nearby stream, but far away enough that no one would notice the odd Quidditch game.
Rebekah still didn’t know what that was.
She had expected the house to be very old-fashioned and elegant; she got a big surprise when a regular front door lead her into a regular, cottage-like kitchen, if a little - well, a lot - bigger. Several people were there. Owen and Michael were peeling potatoes and flicking each other with the bits. Little Kim was painting some unrecognisable object at the kitchen table. A man who looked to be around forty was poking a strange, silver object with his wand next to her and a much older man was peering at an old-fashioned stove in the corner. Everyone looked towards the doorway as they entered.
“Mummy,” cried Kim, running over with her masterpiece, “look! It’s a Skiddlepow!”
“Scinndelpah, dear. How lovely! Aren’t the legs just perfect, Dad?”
The old man smiled indulgently at Kim. “Oh, I don’t know. I think they look like tree trunks, personally.”
“Grandpa!” Kim gasped, scandalised.
So this was Great-Uncle Thomas, her cousins’ grandfather. Tall and thin, he had a kindly look to his wrinkled old face, framed by very little white hair. His robes were plain and green with lots of interesting-looking pockets. There was flour on his sleeve and a smudge by his mouth suggested he’d been tasting whatever the wonderful smell in the kitchen belonged to. His mouth twitched and he ruffled Kim’s hair. “They look nothing like tree trunks. They are remarkable accurate.” Kim satisfied, he looked towards Bekah.
“My dear Rebekah!” He stretched out his hand.
Bekah took it. It was warm and firm, lightly wrinkled and slightly calloused. She shook it politely with a small smile.
“So lovely to have you here. Dinner is almost ready! Do you like shepherd’s pie?”
“I love it!”
“And you have no aversion to vegetables?”
“No - well, cauliflower, I suppose, but anything else is fine.”
“Never fear, I never let cauliflower enter this house! It’s too rubbery. Not enough flavour. Now, Peter, will you take that through to the drawing room? Ah - Rebekah, this is Peter, Annie’s husband.”
Peter, the man with the strange silver object, scooped it off and waved at her before vanishing through a door. Annie followed him, towing a complaining and paint-covered Kim. “But I want to play with Bekah!” Kim wailed.
She smiled as Annie soothed her, carting her away.
Something small and wet struck her cheek. She pulled it off. That was odd. It was a piece of potato skin. She glanced up to where Owen and Michael ought to have been peeling potatoes. There they were, no longer flicking bits at each other, but their shoulders were shaking with laughter. She walked over to them as Great-Uncle Thomas opened the oven.
Three could play at that game.
***
She had been at Neckworth House for almost a week. During that time, Annie had taught her to repair a broken window, she had charmed a carpet bright pink and managed to fix it again, and she had done what she had been determined to do since she had heard the word at Diagon Alley. She had found out what Quidditch was.
After breakfast, Kim grabbed Bekah’s hand and dragged her out into the garden. “Come on!” she cried. I’ve got something to show you!” She pulled her through a field, then a wood, and finally over a wall.
“Are we still on your land?” Bekah asked.
“Nope. It’s a public field. There’s a stream nearby, where Muggles like to have picnics.”
Eventually they arrived. It was life-size stone statue of a man. Despite its obvious age, the carving was clear. It had to be magic.
There was an engraving on the bottom: Kim Arian.
“Kim Arian? Is that his name?”
“Sort of,” her seven-year-old cousin piped up. “Kim is Welsh for leader. He was the leader of his tribe. Arian was his name.”
“Was he a wizard? Is that why the statue is still perfect?”
“Yup. The whole tribe was magical. It was like a big family. They were the Neckworths before that was their name.”
“Your family is so old… I bet you’re all really magical.”
“Yeah. We’re not supposed to brag about it to other people, though, because it doesn’t matter. You don’t count. You’re a Neckworth, too.”
Rebekah snorted, running her hand over the name. “I’m no Neckworth. I’m a Muggle-born.”
“Of course you’re a Neckworth,” said a voice behind her. It was Owen with Michael. “Muggle blood doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make you any less of a witch. Hermione Granger is the most brilliant witch of the age, and there wasn’t a drop of magical blood in her family before her. Besides, if you draw the family tree right, there’s a straight line from Arian here to you. You’re just as much a Neckworth as we are, and Mum is the heir of this place.”
They made their way back to the house. Owen lead the way to a room on the ground floor and pulled out his wand. He tapped a blank wall three times and a tree appeared.
“This was originally a slab of stone. Adair created it,” he said. “Every descendant is on this wall whether they’re Muggle or magical. Their name appears on here the moment they’re born. Have you got your wand with you?”
Bekah hadn’t been parted from it since she’d first got it. She pulled it out obediently.
“Say your name - your full name - and tap the trunk of the tree.”
Bekah did so. The wall came to life, and the bottom of the leafy part of the tree came closer and closer until -
“Names,” she whispered. “My name.”
In the middle of the wall, with no names below it, was the name Rebekah Arianrhod Miller surrounded by leafy vines. Above her was her mother, Jaqueline Idelle Thompson, and before that was Susan Rhiamon Neckworth. She traced the names up and up with her wand, the tree moving accordingly, past Nicholas and Nia, Eldred and Elaine, Aneulin and Anna.
“Why do so many names keep repeating themselves?” she asked.
“Old family names,” Owen said. “Mostly Welsh, of course. There are loads of people named after Arian - there are Adairs and Annas and Arianells galore. Look - you’ve reached him. There’s his daughter, Ariene, and a few generations down is an Arianrhod… Just like you.”
“Michael Adair Cauldwell,” Michael ordered the tree trunk, and it flew back down to the bottom of the tree. “Look - there’s Uncle Edward. He should have been heir to this place, but he was killed in the war last year.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, examining the names of her cousins. “Was it a Death Eater?”
“Yeah. He was an Auror, and the Death Eaters hate families like ours that don’t want anything to do with them. They almost wiped out the Bones and the Prewetts - and of course, the Potters, too, Harry’s the last one from that line.”
“So many people died from the family,” Rebekah whispered, taking in the dates of the deaths from close generations. “1975 - 1972 - 1980 - there’ve got to be thirty dates from the first war alone!”
She wasn’t stupid. She had known that a lot of people had died in the two Wizarding wars, known that the magical world wasn’t all roses and pretty spells. But she hadn’t realised how hard it would hit her to know that there were people from her family who had died, to see their names and dates of death carved into a tree surrounded with leaves.
All she could do was to remember, and she had never even met them.
***
By the time a fortnight had passed, Bekah had read The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1), Magical Theory, A Beginners’ Guide to Transfiguration, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection. She had continued to practise the spells from her main spellbook and was looking forward to going to Hogwarts more than ever. Meanwhile, she had been introduced to Gobstones, Exploding Snap, Shuntbumps and, of course, flying. On her first day, she had been taken up on the back of Owen’s broom under Great-Uncle Thomas’ watchful eye. Since then, her cousins had explained the rules to her in great detail. She loved to watch them play, but was clearly not a natural flier. She didn’t mind: she couldn’t catch, anyway.
Soon it was time to go back home. She would see them all again on the first of September at King’s Cross. Still, she almost cried as she said goodbye. She had loved her time with them. She wasn’t feeling nearly as scared about Hogwarts as she had been. Muggle-born she may be, but she was armed with information and two very, very nice cousins. When she went to school, she could always go to them, even if they were in different houses. They had told her she would probably be able to find them during mealtimes at their house table. She hoped so.
Her hand in Annie’s, she held on for dear life. Her eyes were pressed into her skull; her ribcage deflated her lungs; the world went black.
And Bekah was home.
____________________________________________________________
Rebekah is, as always, dedicated to Rebekah. I have used many names here from many wonderful people.
This is completely un-beta'd.