CHAPTER TWO:

Up until I was eleven years old, I lived with my father in Florida. Reese Higgenbotham was an indecisive man, but when his grandparents passed away they left him enough money that he could afford to be. We'd lived in five different houses at that point, not including Forks, our latest one in Phoenix, Arizona.

Forks, the place of my birth and where my mother lived and worked as chief of police, was a sore subject for my father. He'd hated living there and had moved us away when I was only two years old. I suppose it could be considered strange that he was the one who got custody of me in the divorce, except it just... wasn't. My parents hadn't been in love, not really- my mother, Charlize Swan, hadn't even been married to Reese when I was born, which was why I had her surname, though they did marry a month later- and the fact she'd kept her maiden name was probably an early warning sign. Reese had been the one who stayed home to raise me while Charlize worked, so when he packed his bags, it was just natural for him to pack my things too.

I'd been content living with my dad– I loved him, he loved me; everyone was mostly happy. And then the representative from the American Ministry of Magic had knocked on our door, and everything changed.

To say that my dad wasn't a fan of the existence magic would be an understatement– so would saying that he wasn't pleased when I decided that I wanted to learn how to use the magic inside me. When attempting to change my mind didn't work, he turned to the old 'out of sight, out of mind' adage. There was a magic school in Oregon that the Ministry representative had told us about– the Pacific Institute of Sorcery and Thaumaturgy– that was a day school for boys I would have qualified for. Reese, however, had decided to send me off to a boarding school instead. In Scotland.

I'm not going to lie– that hurt. Of course, meeting Lyric eventually made it all worth it, but that didn't mean I didn't miss my dad. And then, when I was twelve and came back home for the summer holidays, Reese was living with a new girlfriend, a much younger woman named Phyllis who I hadn't known existed until that point.

Reese had ignored me to the point that I was actually glad to flee to Forks for my obligatory two weeks spent with my mother. Who had known nothing about the whole 'my son is a wizard' thing because Reese had never told her– and I hadn't realized he'd never told her. Believe me, that had been a very awkward conversation to have. Charlize took it well, though. And gloomy-weathered Forks had been a welcome relief from the blistering heat of Phoenix– Britain had ruined me for Florida.

After returning to Phoenix, I spent five more miserable days with my dad and then when Lyric wrote and invited me to stay at his house I left and I've barely spent more then a week a year with Reese since, spending the holidays either at Hogwarts, with Lyric, or, later on, with Charlize.

I missed my dad desperately those first few years, but when it got to the point that I realized I was exchanging more letters with Charlize then with him, I knew it wasn't going to get any better, and just... gave up. It didn't stop it from hurting– it still does hurt– but when you don't have any expectations of people, they can't let you down.

-

It was raining when I stepped off the plane. It wasn't any sort of omen, just highly inevitable. Forks existed under a near-constant cover of clouds, and it rained here more than any other place in the United States of America.

Charlize was waiting for me with her police cruiser. In my head I desperately added up my savings, which were depressingly low following my last trip to Sweden with Lyric and Xena (we were searching for proof of the existence of the crumple-horned snorckack– I feel it goes without saying we were unsuccessful), and came to the miserable conclusion that I couldn't afford buying a car. Which meant I was going to be stuck driving around town in a car with red and blue lights on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.

I stumbled into Charlize's awkward, one-armed hug. We patted each other's shoulders, slightly embarrassed, and then stepped back. I looked nothing like my mom– my dad, though, before my eleventh birthday, used to joke that one day I'd be able to use him as a shaving mirror. His chin was pointier then mine, and his lips fuller, but other then that, I understood where he was coming from. Our eyes in particular were the exact same shape and pale blue color.

"It's good to see you, Beau," Charlize said, smiling lightly at me. I could see the worry in her eyes, and very purposefully did not address it.

It had only been around three months since I'd last seen her, near the start of the Hogwarts summer holidays, but it felt like a small eternity.

"You too, mom." I responded, and she smiled again.

"Ready to head off?"

"Very ready to collapse on my bed." I told her, trying to stop myself from yawning too obviously. Despite my rest on the plane, I was already looking forward to a horizontal surface to collapse on.

I blamed my tiredness for when my foot caught on the lip of the exit door, and I bit back a curse as I accidentally elbowed some guy in my effort to reclaim my balance.

I'd been a clumsy kid when I was younger, but navigating Hogwarts had gone a long way to fixing that. The castle was not a friendly place to those who struggled with their equilibrium, and in true sink or swim fashion I'd learned how to sprint across flat surfaces without tripping before I'd even learnt to walk them. I hadn't accidentally tripped into someone for years now, and it was actually quite embarrassing.

"Sorry about that." I apologized, very genuinely. The guy I'd crashed into wasn't much older than me and he was shorter, but he stepped up to my chest with his chin raised high. I could see tattoos on both sides of his neck. A small woman with hair dyed solid black  and wearing sticky-looking red lipstick stared menacingly at me from his other side.

"Sorry?" she repeated, like my apology had been offensive somehow.

"Well, yes," I said, not intimidated. After surviving not one, but two life or death battles against Death Eaters, classes with the Carrows– hell, classes with Snape– and seeing the Dark Lady herself in the flesh, these muggles didn't exactly rate on my frightening scale anymore, no matter how hard they scowled.

Before the two muggles could try and make some sort of scene, Charlize cleared her throat, causing them both to register the fact she was wearing a police uniform for the first time. My mother didn't even have to say anything– she just looked at the guy, who backed up a half-step and suddenly seemed a lot younger, and then the girl, whose sticky red lips settled into a pout. Without another word, they ducked around me and headed into the tiny terminal.

Charlize and I both shrugged at the same time, and didn't speak again until we were strapped in her cruiser and on our way.

"I found a good car for you, really cheap," she said. Relief flooded me.

"I'm going to build an altar in your honor," I told her, and she laughed.

"Don't get too excited, kid– it's not exactly a Ferrari. Bonnie Black, from down on the reservation, she's in a wheelchair now so she offered me her old truck at a good price. It's a Chevy, the engine's had a lot of work done, so it's only a few years old, but the actual truck was made in the early sixties– or late fifties."

"I hope you know I won't be able to fix anything that breaks," I felt needed to be put out there, "or afford a mechanic." Charlize laughed again.

"Really, Beau, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that anymore."

"The thing," I mused, out loud. "It has possibilities... as a nickname, at the very least. How cheap is cheap?"

"Er," Charlize looked a bit embarrassed, her cheeks pinkening. "I kind of already bought it for you. It was going to be a present for your seventeenth birthday– I know that's an important one for, you know, wizards."

I looked over at her with wide eyes. "A temple," I told her, "not just an altar, I'm going to build you a whole bloody temple, and proclaim myself the very first believer and priest of the goddess among us mere humans that you are."

Charlize looked over at me, fondly. Reese had always rolled his eyes when I was a 'drama queen', which was hypocritical of him– not that I'd ever mention that– but Charlize always seemed either genuinely amused or fond. "I've missed you, Beau." She said warmly and there was a lump in my throat I had to swallow past before I could speak again.

"I've missed you too, mom."

Both of us feeling a touch awkward about our not-so customary display of emotion, Charlize turned on the radio and I looked out the window.

The surroundings were actually pretty neat. Forks, despite the rain, was a pretty place– everything was very green: the trees were covered in moss, both the trunks and the branches, the ground blanketed with ferns. Even the air had turned green by the time it filtered down through the leaves. Lyric would love it here– would blabber on about how it was the perfect breeding ground for the crown faced hornswoggles, and I'd nod and hmm and uh-huh and pretend to remember exactly which issue of the Quibbler those had been mentioned in.

The reason I'd gone back to Hogwarts, despite the massive risk, was because that's where Lyric had been– Gordy too. And now they were still locked up there; in the school run by Death Eaters and out of my reach. I had no way to contact them, to know that they were safe, and frankly, that was terrifying.

Despite the suspicious way my eyes had started watering, we made it to Charlize's without me bursting into unmanly tears. She still lived in the small, two-bedroom house that she and my father had bought in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had—the early ones. I used to think that dad was the lucky one, to get away from Forks. Now I was pretty sure mom was the lucky one, to get away from him.

Charlize had to park on the street, instead of in the driveway, because in the place where her cruiser normally parked was my new—well, new to me—truck. It was a faded red color, with big, curvy fenders and a rounded cab.

And I loved it. I wasn't really a car guy, so I was kind of surprised by my own reaction. I mean, I didn't even know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron monsters that never gets damaged—the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had just destroyed.

"It's bloody brilliant." I told Charlize, who looked pleased.

"You really think so?"

"Look at it!" I gestured, a wide smile on my face. "I'm going to be freaking invincible in that!" Charlize suddenly looked a lot less sure.

"Maybe this was a bad idea," she said, but I shook my head.

"Nope– no take backs." I said, firmly. "The Thing is mine now."

"Try not to make me have to arrest you, at least." She sighed, and I nodded very seriously at her.

"I solemnly swear."

"That really doesn't make me feel better." She said, but she fished a set of keys from her pocket and handed them to me. I recognized the key to the house, and assumed the other, bulkier key was for The Thing.

We both knew better then to wait for a break in the rain to make a run for the house, so we were both shaking the water from our hair as we stepped inside.

My trunk was still marble sized, so it only took a single trip to get all my things up the stairs. I placed the miniature trunk on the middle of the floor of my room and changed my clothes, pulling on a pair of sweat pants and one of my favorite t-shirts, a Monty Python one, that I'd left in the wardrobe from the summer holidays.

My bedroom faced west, over the front yard, and had belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the faded blue-and-white checked curtains around the window—these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlize had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The desk held a secondhand computer, with the phone line for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.

There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I shared with Charlize, but she wasn't the sort to leave her make-up and stuff everywhere, so it wasn't a bad thing– at Hogwarts I'd shared a bathroom with three other boys, and even though none of us were very messy, we weren't particularly neat either.

I was genuinely fond of my dorm mates. Lyric, of course, was a given– he was my best friend, and sure he was a total oddball, but he was bloody awesome, so that was that.

My two other dorm mates were Irvine MacDougal and Shaun Li. Irvine was a true Scotsman– proud, loud and passionate; he was sharp-tongued and quick to anger, but as loyal as a Hufflepuff. Shaun was nearly his exact opposite in temperament; slight and timid with gentle eyes and a kind smile, I don't think I've ever heard him raise his voice. He spoke very little English in our first year, but Irvine had been more then happy to take him under his wing.

Outside of my dorm mates, my friendship group had definitely been on the smaller side– and by that I meant it had consisted of one other person, a Gryffindor; Gordon 'Gordy' Weasley, but over the years it had grown to include Gordy's older sister, Ronda, and her two best friends, as well as another older Gryffindor in Ronda's year, Neve Longbottom.

Gordy was the quintessential Gryffindor; stupidly brave, fiery temper and fierce as a nesting dragon when it came to protecting his friends. We– Lyric and I– had befriended Gordy in our second year after he hexed a group of older Gryffindors with the bat bogey curse his twin sisters had taught him. He'd then taught it to both of us. He and his family lived only a ten minute walk from Lyric's house and, seeing as I practically lived at Lyric's house over the holidays, we visited each other often.

And like I said, thanks to the time spent around Gordy, especially during the holidays, I also got to know Ronda and her two best friends, Harriet Potter and Hermes Granger, even before the D.A.. But that's a whole other thing altogether.

Merlin, I miss them– Hogwarts too. Hogwarts is more then just a school, she's my home.

Well, she was my home.

Feeling utterly miserable now, I crawl under the covers of my bed and try not to think about how much my heart hurts. It takes longer then I thought it would to drift off to sleep, and the only dreams I have are nightmares.