The Parents who Misunderstood

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Parents who Misunderstood

Tuesday 3 July – Wednesday 25 July 1984

From Shrewsbury to Caernarfon; Kincarden, Inverness-shire; Diagon Alley, London

Rated PG for adult themes (specifically, psychological separation from parents and money).

Three days later Ariadne met her friends in Shrewsbury for the long-projected walking holiday. Despite the early protests of Ariadne, Ivor and quite a few others, they had decided not to venture anywhere near Macnair territory after all since they didn't have enough information to pursue their nagging questions about Veleta Vablatsky; so this excursion was nothing but a straightforward holiday.

Mamma had lamented, "It's a great pity Remus could not stay with us a few months longer; he would have taken good care of Ariadne," but she had accepted Ariadne's clarification that, "My friend Kingsley is doing all the planning and organising this year, Mamma, so Miss Vance will be able to put more time into taking care of me. And this year we'll not be climbing mountains."

This year there were thirteen of them. Sarah had told her parents that she could not join them in Tuscany until after her holiday with her friends; Richard now had a permanent job with Quality Quidditch Supplies and had negotiated not to begin it until after "my last carefree fling with the companions of my youth"; and Joe's parents had been instructed that Joe was to be made to accompany the excursion whether he knew about it or not. The older members of the group had also been surprisingly keen to rejoin them. Sturgis had cancelled a booking in Cornwall when he heard that Kingsley was inviting him to Wales; Emmeline announced that she was taking annual leave in the first half of July despite the contrary wishes of her boss; and Glenda explained to Ariadne on the first day, "But of course I wanted to come. After all you people did for me last year, how could I not want to see you all again for a happier reason?"

The past year had been kind to Glenda. She had a new job, newsreading on the Wizarding Wireless Network, and she had bought her first house, "a very pretty three-bedroom semi in Coventry, with a front garden full of rosemary and lavender". She also had a new boyfriend, a clock merchant named John Chittock, who was affable to everybody and turned out to be a buff on mediaeval castles. Richard brought his new girlfriend, a Ravenclaw sixth-year, and Sarah brought her new boyfriend, a Frenchman whom she had met over Easter.

Inevitably, Ariadne received six separate enquiries about why Remus had not come this year. Six times she held her head high and said that he was needing to work. Sturgis said that it was a great pity and owled him a postcard of Llangollen, to which Ariadne scrupulously avoided adding her signature.

Ariadne sent postcards to her parents every day, postcards that suggested that she was having a wonderful time. She had never been to Wales before, and she was able to report that the weather was fine and warm, the campsites were comfortable, the scenery was breathtaking, the castles were fascinating. She remained very grateful to her parents for teaching her to control herself and concentrate on pleasant conversations, for she had never needed to do so more. She regretted the times she had silently criticised them for being so polite, for sacrificing the truth every time it might cause a fuss. She understood her parents now: when truth was such an uncertain commodity, why not have the courtesy to say what other people were wanting to hear?

For as the fortnight progressed, it became clear that missing Remus was only one of Ariadne's problems. Last year, she had liked Glenda Foster and felt that Glenda liked her. Now, she suddenly wondered if Glenda really liked her or was only being polite. After all, she had been wrong about Remus; she could just as easily be wrong about Glenda. Once that thought occurred to her, everything snowballed. What did she know for certain?

She had always felt that her Cousin Lucius was an evil man who had lied about not being a Death Eater. Now she wondered if she had been unfairly judgmental. What if Lucius had been telling the simple truth? What if she had been inexcusably rude, that long-ago day when she had accused him of the worst? What if even Walden Macnair, for all his violent threats, turned out to be perfectly virtuous?

If Uncle Macnair were a decent man, then he'd probably not even been interested in her inquiry into the Vablatsky family. In that case he was probably not the person who had misrepresented her to the M.E.S.P. last spring. So who had? Surely not Madam Bones; but how could she be sure that Madam Bones was as respectable as she seemed? Or what if Severus or Professor Slughorn had lied when he claimed that he had given her a good character? She had assumed he would tell her the truth, but she didn't know either of them as well as she had thought she knew Remus.

On a battlement of Caernarfon Castle, she looked around her friends in black panic and wondered why she trusted any of them. How was she to know?

This distrust and confusion did not even end with people. What about her deep-seated intuition that the Girl-at-the-Window of Macnair Castle had been Veleta? It had been a moment of recognition: she had known Veleta's personality and character so well. But it was only the same kind of recognition that had misled her about Remus. She suddenly had no assurance at all that the Girl-at-the-Window had been anybody she had ever seen before, or even anybody real. Subtract her confidence in her own judgment, and there was no evidence that Veleta lived. Ivor thought he had seen something, of course, but why should Ivor's judgment be any better than her own?

Hestia noticed her subdued mood and begged, "Tell us about it, Ariadne."

When Ariadne was able to think of anything at all to say, it was a question. "Hestia, how are you knowing when you can trust a person?"

"I don't until I know the person. It takes time, I suppose."

Ariadne struggled with the idea that Hestia found the question so simple. "Were you ever fooled by a person whom you trusted when you should not have?"

"Of course. All the time. Why are you asking me? You do this kind of thing much better than I do."

"Well ... why should I trust you? I'm not saying I do not, but why should I?"

Hestia was perplexed. She was trying to help (or was she only being polite?) but she did not seem at all bothered by the thought that she never knew whom to trust. "Because ... Ariadne, we've been friends for seven years! Of course you should know by now that I'm not going to drop a Killing Curse on you in the middle of the night. If I'd wanted to, I'd have done it a long time ago."

But of course benevolent, cheerful Hestia would never play with the Killing Curse. The usual problem was not murder, but all the small everyday issues that were never spoken in words ... when people were worried, when they were lying, when they would not admit that they needed help ... when they were truly hurt and when they were just trying to manipulate you ... when they truly agreed and when they were simply trying to avoid a quarrel... the difference between genuinely wanting to help and only being dutiful, between merely wishing for company and desiring another's specific friendship ... Most people did not recognise these things, yet they somehow managed to deal with each other anyway, like blind people who didn't even notice that they were bumping into each other in the dark ...

And the only summary of all this that Hestia was likely to understand was: "So after seven years, you know a person well enough? Does it not worry you that it takes so long to know a person?"

"Not today," laughed Hestia. "Today we aren't likely to meet a situation where we'll have to trust anyone who can betray us." She managed to be so serene amid such frightening uncertainties; she would never understand why the uncertainty frightened Ariadne.

Remus would have understood. He might blunder through the world mistaking people as often as herself or Hestia – he had mistaken a criminal like Sirius Black! – and accepting his mistakes far more philosophically than Ariadne ever could. But he would have understood exactly why being uncertain of what was immediately in front of her disturbed her so much. At least ... she had always thought he would understand ...

As the full moon rose, she wondered where he was this month. Was he in Hogsmeade, and if so had he a friend to let him out of the Shrieking Shack? Or would he lie there all tomorrow until he was strong enough to force the door and then repair it with a charm? Had he found a friendly isolated hut with a simple Muggle key? Or had he to take his chance – and other people's too – on running wild in the forest?

After the holiday ended, Ariadne spent only one more week under her parents' roof before leaving it forever. On Tuesday morning she followed them through the Floo to the Leaky Cauldron and out to Diagon Alley. A small door in a Georgian terrace separated Flourish and Blotts from Madam Malkin's. Mamma paused at the sight of dress-robes and cloak clasps in one bay window, while Papa was distracted by the display of books and scrolls and quills in the identical window on the other side. Then he recalled the errand at hand and pushed the dividing door open. They climbed two flights of stairs to a door on their left. Ariadne knocked, and a very excited Sarah flew out to greet her.

"Yes, this is it! Good morning, Mr and Mrs MacDougal. No, don't come in, we'll sort out the right of entry first." Sarah placed her wand-tip on the key point below the door handle and said, "Put your wand next to it, Ariadne. Right. Agnosce et licentio! That should fix your access to the flat. Now we have to authorise your Apparition."

"But I cannot Apparate."

"You will soon. Step through and put your right hand on the inside of the door – a little higher – yes, there. Can you feel the sensor? Agnosce et licentio! Now you'll be able to Apparate to the inside of the building – I know, I know, once you have your licence."

The hall was long and narrow, the light from a large everlasting candle suspended from the ceiling revealing a polished wood floor and wood-panelled walls.

"This is a smart place, Miss Webster," said Papa. "You were lucky to find such a good lease so quickly."

"Not a lease," said Sarah, then added, "sir." Papa had this effect on Ariadne's friends; they almost automatically addressed him formally. "My parents bought it for me as a school-leaving present. That is, they paid the deposit. I'll be paying off the bank loan myself."

"How exciting," said Mamma. "You have your own property already."

"Entirely wise," said Papa. His approval of Sarah seemed to have increased, but perhaps, thought Ariadne, she was reading too much into it. "So you are my daughter's landlady. I hope she'll be a well-behaved tenant."

Sarah indicated the first of three doors to their right. "This is to be Ariadne's room." They carried the luggage in.

Like the hall, the room had wood-panelled walls and a polished wood floor; it also had natural light, through a large diamond-paned window that overlooked the green park between Gringotts and Charing Cross Road. There was no furniture, not even curtains. "We'll fix that when Hestia comes," said Sarah. "The other two bedrooms are exactly like this one, so there's nothing really to see yet."

Opposite the front door was the bathroom. At least, Sarah said it was the bathroom, but it was a very dark room with no windows. "The previous owner took every candle out of the chandelier," said Sarah. "And the next-door neighbours forgot to sound-proof their bathroom, so we can hear every flush of their toilet and every word they say when they quarrel in the bath. Don't worry, I have sound-proofed ours, so they won't know our business the way they're letting us know theirs."

Since there was nothing that Sarah liked better than to know everybody's business, Ariadne did not imagine that she found this arrangement too uncomfortable. But the nagging voice in her head persisted even for this trivial moment: do you really know Sarah as well as you're thinking you do?

"And here's the living room," Sarah finished, opening the door to their left. "I've been sitting on the floor for twenty-four hours, but we'll start furnishing as soon as Hestia arrives." The room ran the full width of the house with three diamond-paned windows looking out onto Diagon Alley and a large fireplace against each short wall. The hearth to their right was flanked by the only furniture, built-in cupboards and a sink, indicating a kitchen area, but there was no clear point where the kitchen ended and the sitting room began.

Mamma began to say how nice and suitable the flat seemed. Papa opened his wallet and counted out Galleons "to furnish your new home, young ladies." Suddenly, Ariadne realised they were leaving. They might have stayed for a cup of tea if the flat had contained a kettle, but it was so empty, there was nothing left to do. Ariadne hugged her mother and found that she was stifling tears.

"Mamma," she said, "I've not been a good daughter."

Mamma seemed very surprised, but perhaps she was only being polite. "Of course you've been a good daughter," she said. "You were always very hardworking on the farm, and you put enormous efforts into your studies. I'm sure we'll be proud of your N.E.W.T. results."

"But I've not – I did not – " She could hardly express what she meant, not in words that Mamma would understand.

"Do not be silly, dear. You were never one of those rebellious types who sniffed at magic mushrooms or chased boys, and I think you've not raised your voice or disobeyed us since you were five years old." Mamma was forgetting, or pretending to forget, Ariadne's quarrel with the Macnair cousins. "You've chosen suitable friends, and Janet has always been pleased by the attention you paid to Morag. Do not cry just because you've grown up and reached the time to leave us. You can talk to us by Floo this evening."

"Actually, we're not connected yet," said Sarah. "That will change, but maybe not until tomorrow."

"Perhaps that's better," said Papa politely. "It will give us all thirty-six hours to settle down to the change."

Ariadne squeezed down the lump in her throat and the sting in her eyes – crying seem to come more easily these days – and kissed her parents goodbye. They walked out of the front door, still chatting happily about what a charming girl Miss Webster seemed to be and how Ariadne was certain to settle in quickly. They didn't seem to understand at all how ungratefully eager she had been to leave them for the last twelve months, or how much she had resented their values for the last twelve years. Unless, thought Ariadne with a chill, they did know, and were mortally hurt about it, but were too polite to admit that they knew. She would never know, now, whether she had really hurt them or not.

One thing was clear, however: they had finally given her permission to be an adult. She had to make a new home here.

The Floo had hardly been connected for a minute the next day before there was a blast of green flames and a voice was calling, "Aunt 'Radny!" Morag was standing in the fire, dangerously close to swaying right into their living room.

"Hello, darling, careful you do not fall."

"Auntie, I've been trying to Floo you all day, but the powder kept jumping back into the jar. Where were you?"

"We've been home, darling, but the Floonet man only left a minute ago. You're our first caller."

"Can I come and see? I'm wanting to look at your new house."

"We've not authorised anybody to walk through our Floo yet."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that if anybody tries to walk through the hearth, the flames will jump up and push her back. It could hurt quite a lot. You have to ask your Mamma if she'll let me authorise you to visit me by Floo. Just look at our house through the hearth."

"You have a rug. Have you curtains too? Grandmamma said you had not any."

"That was yesterday. We bought some this morning. Long blue ones; you'll maybe see them if you look sideways. We bought them at the shop where Miss Dearborn works."

Morag swept a long glance at the sofa and cushions, at the table and dining chairs beyond it, and at the new cauldron in the kitchen hearth. "Where does Miss Dearborn work?"

"At a shop called Chippendale and Hepplewhite in Diagon Alley. They sell chairs, rugs, kitchen pots, all kinds of things that make a home. We could buy everything we needed there, even a wash tub."

"What's that black bird?" Morag pointed. "Has he no head?"

"It's a sooty owl; you can see his head when he's awake. He belongs to Miss Webster and his name is Thangalaathil."

"That's a funny name."

"It's an Australian name because sooty owls come from Australia. What did you do today, Morag? Did you go up to the sheep?"

Morag was not deflected. "Auntie, are you yet sad? You were sad all the days you were at home."

"You do notice things carefully, Morag. But I'm thinking I'll be happier here. What about you – had you a happy day today?"

Morag's account of her day lasted until Janet pulled her back "because Grandmamma's wanting to brew a potion now".

Twenty-four hours' work had made the flat very habitable. The girls had placed double sound-proof spells on the floor and ceiling to keep their noise in and the neighbours' out (Sarah said that Madam Malkin, below them, was very quiet, but that the elderly couple above them never turned off their wireless). Hestia, after only three days at her new job, had been able to point them very quickly to rugs and curtains, beds and sofas, shelves and cupboards, glassware and china. They had bought a grandmother clock (with help from John Chittock) and a wireless and a gramophone and a set of terracotta window-boxes. After they had stocked the larder, replenished the bathroom chandelier (and scoured away the spider's webs from the claw-footed bath), stacked their books on the shelves and filled the Floo jar, Sarah broke it to them that they would need to tolerate a Muggle telephone.

"But there's no eckeltrickery here!" said Hestia.

"This telephone doesn't need electricity, it works like a wireless. They call it a mobile phone. But it makes a horrible noise when a Muggle wants to ring me, and I can't do my work without it."

"What is that work you do again?" asked Hestia. "Why do those Muggle photographers want to take pictures of you wearing bathing costumes?"

"Because Muggles are like that," said Sarah. "They think they can't sell robes – clothes – unless they have a photograph of somebody wearing them. And the kinds of clothes they like to wear change every year, so they need new photographs every year. My job is to be the person in the photograph."

"And they pay you, just for having your picture taken?"

"It's jolly hard work," said Sarah. "Keeping still in awkward positions, or keeping moving without leaving the camera's range, and smiling when you're tired, or trying to look sultry just when someone's made you laugh."

"What is 'sultry'?"

Sarah demonstrated. Ariadne didn't dare comment, but Hestia spoke for her. "Why would they want you to look like that?"

"A tall blonde girl who can look sultry is really big business," said Sarah. "They pay her more than they – or wizards – pay an apprentice. Possibly more than you can earn as fully qualified Home Supplier or Apothecary in independent business. Just think of all the money I'll be bringing into the Wizarding economy by living here but working for Muggles."

"You only 'bring it in' if you spend it," Hestia pointed out.

"Of course I'm going to spend it. What else would one do with money?"

"Ivor's always talking about the virtues of saving and investing."

"Well, Ivor would." The words would have sounded rude from anybody but Sarah. "I'm going to pay off my mortgage, but otherwise I'm going to spend, spend, spend and enjoy my freedom, at least until I'm twenty-five. I have big plans for my hard-earned cash."

"Do you think about money a lot?" asked Hestia suddenly. "Just lately, Ivor hasn't been thinking about anything else."

"In my experience," said Sarah, "the day people stop thinking about money is the day they have as much of it as they want."

Ariadne suddenly wondered why she only ever thought about money in connection with Remus.