Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

7 March, 1996 - Parenting

The chaos of early January died down into a rather depressing and grey February that saw Miriam returning to work. This was one of the only bright spots of the month, if Lavinia was being honest, but, at the very least, there hadn't actually been any particularly dark spots. It was a momentary relief and one Lavinia would have made more of an effort to enjoy if she'd known what was coming in the months to follow. But she didn't. So she merely took it as it was: a gloomy month at the start of what was shaping up to be a bit of a gloomy year.

Gloomy or not however, it was, Lavinia supposed, mostly decent, if only because life, for the most part, returned to its new normal. She went to work, as always, and visited Sirius as regularly as she dared, spending evenings out in the hills beyond her house as often as safety and the cold weather permitted. She was more conscious of spending time with Heather too with the end result that Lavinia kept herself busy with friends and family and whatever it was that Sirius was to her. And she tried to pretend that she couldn't feel the cloud of fear hanging on the horizon.

It wasn't until March that things got shaken up. And the shake up was, in Lavinia's opinion, far from good. Especially since it had to do with Harry. Lavinia, who paid absolutely no attention to The Quibbler because it was, quite simply, The Quibbler and had never once printed an article she had any interest in, was a bit late to figuring out what was going on. Actually, the main reason she found out anything at all was because of a letter from Jasmine that at first seemed to be a general life update, except for one odd sentence in the middle:

Something I thought you'd be interested to know since I know you enjoy the magazine: The Quibbler has been banned here at Hogwarts, which is a real shame because the Ravenclaw common room was keeping a collection of them, mostly thanks to Luna Lovegood. They're fun magazines, as you know, and we've enjoyed out little archive. But now, with the ban, we can't collect the new editions without risking detention.

Lavinia stared at this for several minutes. Mostly because the start of that passage was blatantly false. She did not enjoy The Quibbler. Actually, she didn't enjoy much of any magazines, though she made a point to keep up with The Healer's Herald simply because it usually documented more cutting edge treatments that were always useful to be aware of. Other than that, however, magazines simply weren't Lavinia's thing.

And Jasmine knew this.

It was this odd discrepancy that led Lavinia to bother seeking out a copy of the magazine, which, she later realized, was almost undoubtedly what Jasmine had hoped she would do. Because splashed across the front page was Harry's face and a very odd headline.

Harry Potter Speaks Out at Last: The Truth About You-Know-Who and the Night I Saw Him Return

Lavinia read it once. Then twice. Then a third time. By which point she was reasonably certain she was, actually, seeing it correctly. Not that she really had any idea at all what to do with that information because... well because what was she supposed to do with that information?

Her initial reaction, of course, had been one of pride. Good for Harry, that he was speaking out. Good for Harry that he was doing something about all this madness. It was the sort of thing his parents would have done.

But then, of course, Lavinia had remembered why none of the rest of them had been doing anything about the mess they were in. And the pride had melted into worry. Wouldn't he get in terrible trouble for this? The Ministry couldn't publicly punish him for it but... But Jasmine had said that the magazine had been banned at Hogwarts, a move she doubted Dumbledore had made. Which meant it must have come from that Umbridge woman. Which was the same thing as saying it had come from the Ministry, who had been looking for any excuse to expel Harry ever since he'd first claimed the Dark Lord had returned.