Hell's Bells

It was Wednesday afternoon, after Minnie had said good-bye-for-now to Florean Fortescue and they'd had a light lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, that Isobel apparated them home to the manse at Faere Dhu. They'd been gone less than a week and Minnie already couldn't believe that she'd ever believed the world to be as ordinary as it was before she'd known of magic and all of the things the wizarding world offered. The moment that the CRACK in the yard had sounded, the Reverend had run from the house, slamming the screen door, and running across the porch, down the path through Isobel's garden and swept Minerva up from the ground, hugging her tight to his chest, his arms wrapped about her as though he dared not to let her go. He held her close, tears squeezing from his eyes and trickling over his cheeks in relief, and he'd reached one arm out and drawn Isobel in, too.

"You came back," he praised, "You came back."

"Course we've come back," Isobel replied, "You silly man, to think I'd ever leave you for good would be madness."

But he held them tight nonetheless, for his fear was not quenched.

Malcolm and Robbie had come out, too, Robbie shouting for his mum and Malcolm begrudgingly admitting he'd missed sparring with Minerva while she was gone. "Where've you been, mother?" Robbie asked in a scolding voice, imitating the one that Isobel used when she called the children and Robbie took his time in coming to the call. "Where've you been?"

"Mummy had some errands to attend to, little one," she said, kissing his cheek and brushing his hair off his forehead gently.

"What's that you've got there, Min?" Malcolm asked, pointing at the wand in Minerva's little fist.

Minerva flushed, "Nothing. Just a stick." And she tucked the wand into her skirts where Malcolm could not get it.

But it was not quick enough to conceal it before the Reverend had seen, and his eyes flickered to Isobel's. "Is that --??"

Isobel nodded.

The Reverend stared at Minerva uneasily a moment, then back to Isobel.

"Is it what?" Malcolm asked. "Is it what? What is it?"

Minnie stared up at her dad, worried, and tucked the wand into her skirt pocket, similar to how her mum had done, though her skirt was much less full than her mum's was. She cowered back slightly, nervous of how her da would react... Not that she expected anything more than shouting (Robert had never been one for corporeal punishment - he had spanked the children, of course, as was normal punishment in those days, but only when they truly deserved it, and he cried harder than they did when the time came for it), but she so hated displeasing her father that she feared seeing the look of disappointment in his eyes.

Robert had an unreadable expression on his face - something between confusion and hurt.

"Da? What is it?" Malcolm tugged on his father's shirt sleeve.

"Go inside," Isobel commanded, and she lowered Robbie. "Take your brother and go inside."

"But ma, I --"

"Listen to your mother," Robert said in his best Reverend voice.

"Yes sir." Malcolm too Robbie's wrist and dragged him away up the steps of the porch and into the manse, looking back over his shoulder at Minerva.

Robert's face was still unreadable.

"She's a witch, Robert," Isobel said quietly once the door of the house had closed, "She got her letter from Hogwarts last week. I was going to tell you --"

Minerva's eyes filled with tears as Robert's did.

"We can't suppress it, Robert," Isobel begged, "Obscurial happen that way... if she contracts an obscurial, its the worst that could happen... we can't hold her back... we have to let her be magic, let her be trained... Even if she chooses a muggle lifestyle later, she can't be suppressed..."

Robert turned away, bringing his hands to his head, shaking his head vigorously, "Stop, stop," he pleaded, "Please. Stop talking about - about muggles and obscury-things..."

"Obscurial," said Isobel, her voice trembled over the term, "Obscurial. That's the term, Robert, and it'll happen. It's happened to dozens of muggle-born children and half-bloods living muggle lives, Robert, children like MInerva that've been raised without magic... They come to themselves and they begin showing the traits and it backfires and --"

"Stop, damn it!" Robert begged. He turned around to face them again and his eyes were sopping. "I love ye so much, Is... I love you Is. But I don't - I don't know what ter do about this! I fear for our daughters verra soul!" his brow tightened with stress as his accent thickened with the emotion, "I don't be wantin' ter suppress 'er, to bring harm to 'er -- ye know that's the last thing that I be wantin' but she's jus' a child, Is! A child dabblin' in somethin' as evil as magic? Makin' deals with the devil?"

"It isn't like that, in reality, Robert!" Isobel cried, "How many times must I tell yeh!" Her accent thickened, too. "How many times? The wizardin' world, it isn't like how you imagine it, how you preach it to be when yeh talk of witches and magic, it isn't like you believe! You don't know how it hurts my heart to hear yeh talk to witches and their sacrificial fires to Satan - it isn't like that, Robert, and if yeh paid me half a mind when I talk of it -- instead of goin' on about the devil and hellfire like yeh do -- you'd know it! She can't be kept from the wizardin' world, from magic, just because her father doesn't understand it! She deserves better'n that, Robert, she deserves a chance --"

Minnie was crying.

Robert shook his head, "Aren't our lives here in Faere Dhu good enough for the girl? Haven't I done the best I could to provide a lovin' home and aren't we be puttin' meals on the table before her? What happens when Malcolm and lit'l Robbie be turnin' eleven, are we goin' ter be losin' the boys, too, then?"

"They - they've shown signs --" Isobel's voice quaked.

"Hells bells, Is!" he cried and he turned and started for the door of the house.

"Da!" Minerva ran forward, grabbing onto his wrist, stopping him, "Da, no please, don't go away angry with me, don't go away angry!" She was sobbing. "Please, for you da I'll not go, I'll not go to Hogwarts and be a witch, I'll stay, da, I'll stay. I'll be a muggle. I'll be a mugge fer you!"

Isobel covered her mouth, horrified.

"I don't want to be a witch if it hurts your heart, da!" Minerva begged, "Don't be hurtin', da."

"Robert -- she can't ---"

Robert held up his hand to stop Isobel from finishing the sentence and he turned and he knelt down before Minerva so that he could look her in the eyes - for he was very tall and she was very short for her age - and he put his hands on her little shoulders and looked at her for a very long moment. He could see the heartbreak in her eyes - could see it, and recognized it. It was the same as the heartbreak that had plagued Isobel's so many times. Twelve years, Isobel had worn that look in her eye - twelve years, she'd held herself back for her love of her husband and her family. Isobel had chosen this life - this muggle life, as she called it - over the magical world she spoke so fondly of and it had dampened the spirit he'd known her to have once, more and more each passing year... And he stared into Minerva's eyes, the flickering light behind her them... That light of all that his daughter was - the sass and the wild, often misguided adventures she went on. He thought of her climbing the rafters in the barn and running about barefoot and wild-haired, how long Isobel spent taming the child's curls each night as a result of that spirit that thrived with unmatched vibrancy within her. That light flickered now, dangerously close to being blown out - and he imagined her holding that light like a candle, offering to snuff it out on his behalf, just as her mother had done.

He couldn't bare the thought of it.

"No Minerva," the Reverend said quietly, and though his voice trembled and his face twitched with the pain of it, he continued, "Ye must never let any person - be it me nor any other - change who yeh are so easily. Do not e'er let that happen. Stand, Minerva, for what yeh believe in, for goodness sakes, stand even if ye be the only one standin' - fight even if ye be the only one fightin' - and yeh do not ever let any person tell yeh to be anythin' other than you. Any person who loves you properly, would'na let yeh do it."

Minnie stared into his eyes, the words he spoke etched themselves into her heart, engraving upon the very muscle.

"If you want to be a witch, Minerva, then a witch ye shall be, and you canna' let me stop you. Do yeh understand?"

She trembled, "I... I s'pose..."

The Reverend pushed her shoulders back, squaring them, forcing her to stand upright, and he said, "Tell me, Minerva. Tell me what you want. In yer strongest voice, my girl."

Minerva thought of the wonderful weekend they'd just spent at the Leaky Cauldron, of the wand that pressed into her back, of Florean Fortescue and his friend Fleamont Potter. She thought of the golden snitch and the goblins and Garrick Ollivander and the Tales of Beedle the Bard and the Fantastic Beasts, she thought of the cauldrons and the owls and how she'd looked forward to telling Puddy all about the magical world Isobel had taught her of... she thought of all of the funny clothes and lovely shop windows, of the way the butterbeer ice cream had felt melting upon her tongue and the sound of people laughing and talking all up and down Diagon Alley...

"I want to - to be a witch," she whispered.

"Stronger, my girl," he whispered back.

Minerva's eyes filled with tears. "I don't want to break your heart, da."

"And I don't want to break yours," he answered. "Fight for yer heart, Minerva, before yeh go protectin' mine. Go on. Fight for it!"

"I want to be a witch," she said a bit louder - a mumble.

"Is that your strongest fight?" he demanded, "Is that all yeh've got in yeh girl?"

"I want to be a witch!" she said harder.

"Yeh don't mean it!" he encouraged her.

"I want to be a witch!" she said a bit louder.

"With all of yeh strength, Minerva!"

"I WANT TO BE A WITCH!!!!" she cried.

A tremulous smile went across his face then and he pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her. She could feel the tension and the pain coursing through him. His heart was broken in one way, but he was comforted in another. She'd stood up for herself - the strength in her voice and the fire in her eyes had been so great... but he felt he was losing her at exactly the same time he was preserving her and he did not know how to reconcile the split emotions that jostled within him.

"I'm sorry, da," Minerva cried, pulling back to look at him again, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to disappoint you. But if that's what I am, then I want to be it!" The fire lit, she added, "And there ain't no way to be stopping me from it!"

"Verra well, Minerva," her father whispered thickly, "Verra well."

"Do you hate me now, da?" she shivered.

"No, my girl, I could'na ever hate you."

Tears slipped over her cheeks, "Do you swear it?"

"I do," he answered. "I love ye far too much for that."

Minerva wrapped her arms around his neck.

Robert's chin hooked over her little shoulder and he stared up at his wife, whose eyes looked down upon him with a balance of love and adoration for him and jealousy that Minerva had been granted a grace that she herself had never had the courage to demand the way her daughter just had. She drew a deep, shaking breath, and she went inside the house, leaving father and daughter in the yard.

Minerva drew back from the embrace as the porch door closed behind Isobel, staring after her mum for a long moment, and then she looked to her father and she kissed his forehead. "I swear to do you proud, da. I swear it with all of my heart."