i'll be keeping your head up [max]

[Deleted]

Jamie had messed up. What else was new, really? She had deluded herself into thinking she was something more than a screw up over the summer, but her conversation with Maria had proved that she had been wrong. She had been wrong to think that she was worth anything, because she was just stupid Jamie Greyback, the wolf who tried to be a badger and loved too many lions for her own good. She wasn't worth anything, because she pretended to love people but then put them in danger because she couldn't hold her temper. When you loved someone, you didn't put them in danger, not for anything. When you loved someone, you protected them, even though sometimes that hurt. It hurt Jamie horribly, but she knew what she had to do to keep her siblings safe: she had to cut them off from her life entirely. The only trouble was that Jamie couldn't do that without a warning, because that wouldn't be fair to Max. She doubted that Adrian would care either way, and Maria couldn't get to Odette or Aaron - though Jamie would have loved to see the part-Veela try to deal with her older sister. Jamie had asked her sister to come to a back corridor in the basement, far from any of the classrooms. It was only ever used once in a blue moon, and Jamie knew that they'd have privacy there. She was certain that the scene to come wasn't going to be a pretty one. There were going to be plenty of tears.

maxima ruqayyah greyback

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Maxima's fifth year at school had not started off well. She had been giving Georgiana the silent treatment ever since the end of the feast, and it was harder than it looked. She would have spoken with her best friend again, but Georgie hadn't shown any indication of wanting to talk to her, either. Until she did, Max thought, she would just have to pretend that Georgiana Linley did not exist and that she wasn't jealous of Louis Weasley for being more worthy of the Hufflepuff's time.

The one Hufflepuff whom she would never lose was Jamie. From what Max could tell, her half-sister's final year had gotten off to a similarly terrible start. Her girlfriend, Harper, was doing more interesting things now that she didn't have to worry about school, and Max had been there when they had gotten into their fight with the two Durmstrang students, Elias and Maria.

Down in a secluded corridor of the school's basement, the lighting was dim, but Maxima could see blonde hair illuminated by the light that her wand was emitting. “Jamie.” She had asked her to meet her there, probably because it was the closest place to both of their common rooms that wasn't barred to one of them or the other. “Hi.” Max stepped around to face her, as she had been approaching her half-sister from behind.

@jamie

[Deleted]

Jamie didn’t know how long she had been waiting in the corridor for Max to appear, but she had been in a sort of stupor for the entire time; she stared forward, nearly unblinking, until she heard her name being called. Jamie snapped to attention, whipping her head around for the source of her name. It was her little sister, holding her wand aloft to illuminate the dim area. “Max.” Jamie said, swallowing past the lump of self-hatred in her throat. “Hi.” She repeated her sister’s greeting, trying to buy some time before she had to tell Max that, after fighting so hard for a family, Jamie was going to give them up. To keep them safe, Jamie reminded herself. She wasn’t giving up for nothing. She was giving up for their own good.

“I really messed up, Max.” Jamie whispered after a silence that seemed to stretch for eons, but had only lasted a second or two. She took a deep breath, knowing that she needed to tell Max everything to make anything make sense. “Elias is our half-brother. Maria doesn’t want him to be a part of our family. She threatened to hurt you, and Adrian, and Aaron, and Odette, since I had the gall to want to know my brother. So she’s angry, and it’s my fault, and I can’t let any of you get hurt, and I…I messed up, Max.” Jamie said, finally letting the words tumble to a halt. “I’m sorry.” She added meekly, as if an apology would somehow reverse the fact that she had given a psychopath a reason to hurt her little sister.

maxima ruqayyah greyback

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Jamie told her that she had messed up. That made two of them, Max thought, listening as Jamie explained some of what she already knew: Elias was their half-brother. According to Jamie, Maria didn't want him to get involved with the rest of them, and she had somehow threatened to hurt every last one of the other Greybacks, or at least that was what Max got out of it. She was tempted to laugh when Jamie said that Maria was angry; she had yet to encounter the girl when she didn't look ready to attack someone.

Hearing the desperation with which Jamie apologized, Maxima spoke. “I know,” she said cautiously. She didn't think that Jamie knew that she knew. “Well, I know about Elias, anyway.” She hadn't anticipated learning that they had another half-sibling when she had been stopped in front of the Slytherin Common Room, but that was what had happened. “This Durmstrang girl—shaved hair, a bit pushy, really—told me.”

That was beside the point. “There are three heads of school and a team of Aurors here, Jamie,” and Maxima could guarantee that none of them were going to let some girl from Durmstrang attack every Greyback in Britain. “If anyone is going to attack me,” she tried to joke, “my bet's on Georgie Linley.”

@jamie

[Deleted]

Max knew? Jamie had expected some big, climactic explosion from her little sister, who could have a bit of a temper when provoked, but apparently none was coming, because the Slytherin had already known about her relationship to Elias. Jamie hadn’t heard of any shaved headed Durmstang girl, but she was interested in knowing why, exactly, the girl had taken it upon herself to inform Max of that relationship. “I…I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.” Jamie offered. “I met him over the summer, and things were crazy, and I haven’t gotten to sit down and talk to you…” Jamie should have told Max sooner. Another red mark on her ledger.

“You don’t know this girl, Max.” Jamie said with a sigh. “She’s dangerous. I know that, and I’ve barely even spoken to her.” Maria was barely constrained, a fire hiding in the shell of a person. Max ought to have known that from their lakefront conversation. The Hufflepuff was cut off in her self-flagellation by her sister’s next statement. “Georgie?” Jamie repeated. Max didn’t have many friends, so Jamie knew their names. Georgie was one of them. “What happened?” Jamie asked. Something must have happened, otherwise there wouldn’t have been such an abrupt change of heart. Maybe arguing was in the air. Remembering her owl with Harper, Jamie’s shoulders sagged. Maybe Maria wasn’t as much of a problem as she had spun up in her head, but that didn’t change that she had broken up with Harper.

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[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Jamie apologized that she hadn't told her earlier. If it hadn't been a while since she had learned that Elias was one of them, so to speak, Maxima might have been upset with her; instead, she brushed it off. Her half-sister, however, couldn't seem to forgive herself for her mistake.

On the subject of Maria, Jamie sighed, telling her that she “didn't know” her. Neither did Jamie, Max thought, unless there was something else that Jamie hadn't told her about Elias's cousin. “She's dangerous,” Jamie warned, as though that hadn't been made glaringly obvious by the first and only time that Max had interacted with her. “I know that, and I've barely spoken with her.”

Surprisingly, Jamie hadn't realized that something had happened between her and Georgie. Max figured that her behavior must have just seemed like her usual moodiness. “Well, she didn't sit with me on the train…” Max quickly backtracked. “That's not why I'm angry, though.” She knew that she couldn't explain what was going on in Georgiana's head. She didn't even understand. “So… She got herself a boyfriend over summer, right?” Max started, “Louis Weasley.”

She picked up her pace. “And, suddenly, he's more interesting than her best friend who's been there for her since we were eleven… And then she tells me that her parents aren't actually dead. They're alive, but she didn't want to tell me and told the boy she was probably snogging all summer…” Max gave an exasperated sigh to catch her breath. “I can't stand her anymore.”

@jamie

[Deleted]

There was more to this whole Max and Georgie thing than Jamie had realized. She felt bad for thinking it, but the issue seemed rather childish, at least at the start. Not sitting with someone on the train wasn’t that big of a deal – sometimes the logistics of who would sit with whom were more trouble than they were worth. Max amended her statement, claiming that wasn’t why she was angry, and Jamie made a small motion with her hand to encourage her sister to continue. Luckily, Max did continue, and Jamie began to see how the situation got a lot stickier. Louis Weasley was one of Max’s sort-of friends, if Jamie was remembering correctly. He was also Harper’s cousin, not that it was relevant to Max. It was relevant to Jamie, though – her patience with anyone with the last name Weasley was already wearing thin, and to hear that another Weasley was playing a part in ruining another Greyback’s life wasn’t helping that situation.

Any sophomoric undertones of the argument were obliterated when Max mentioned that Georgie’s parents, who had been dead, weren’t anymore. Well, that was a curveball. As an older sister, Jamie felt like she had an obligation to encourage Max to make up with her friend, but this had the potential to be a minefield in a myriad of different ways. “That kind of thing can’t be easy for someone to process, Max.” Jamie began gently. “When I found out my mother lied to me about how I had come to be a werewolf, I was a mess. And finding out that your parents lied to you about being dead for however long can’t have been easy.” Jamie paused, and swallowed, trying to figure out how to spin this so her sister knew that Jamie was still entirely on her side. “That doesn’t make it okay, but sometimes when we’re emotional, we don’t trust the people that we’re supposed to trust, and we don’t do the things we’re supposed to do.” It had started out as a comment about Max and Georgie, but somehow, at the end of the sentence, Jamie found herself talking about her and Harper. She sighed. This school year was already too complicated, and it was only September.

maxima ruqayyah greyback

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Max wanted to understand. She couldn't picture anything like what had happened with Georgie's parents happening with hers, but Georgie probably hadn't pictured that, either. She knew that Georgie couldn't do anything about her parents, but it was mostly the fact that she had decided to tell Louis first that had bothered her so much.

Jamie gave her some sort of lecture about emotionality, but Maxima really didn't want to hear it. “It's like she's a different person now, Jamie. She's got her boyfriend,” Max tried not to cringe at referring to Louis that way, “and she's got her parents. And I guess she doesn't need her best friend anymore.” She shrugged her shoulders, trying to hide the hurt in her voice.

@jamie

[Deleted]

Jamie frowned when Max seemed to altogether ignore her well-intentioned sisterly advice. Sometimes people didn’t want to talk about their problems, though. Jamie positioned herself on the floor, sitting with her legs crossed. “Come here, Max.” Jamie said, opening her arms and indicating that she wanted her little sister to sit on her lap. There was something oddly comforting about having someone hold you when you were having a bad day, and even if Max didn’t want to be held, Jamie felt like she needed to do some holding. “She will always need her best friend.” Jamie reassured her sister softly. “She might not realize it yet, but she needs you. Life is lonely without people who love you to share it with.” Once again, Jamie found herself wondering if she was talking about something other than Max’s problem with her friend. “And even if she’s too blind to reach that realization, there will always be people who love you, and people who need you, and people who want you.” Like Jamie – Jamie would always be there for Max. It was what siblings were supposed to do for each other. Jamie winced. She really oughtn’t to think any more about siblings, especially not about Elias; the whole situation became a lot easier to stomach when she narrowed her specifications to the word sister. It was what sisters were supposed to do for each other: Odette did it for Jamie, and now Jamie was doing it for Max.

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[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

She was too old to be sitting on anyone's lap, much less Jamie's—they were nearly the same size—but Max obliged. It was Jamie, and she wasn't going to take no for an answer. If she crushed her, it wasn't her fault.

Listening to Jamie tell her that Georgie would “always need” her best friend, Max wanted to cry. She knew that Jamie and the rest of her siblings needed her—save for Elias, maybe—but that wasn't the same. Georgie had chosen to be her friend.

“I need her,” Max responded, her voice cracking. “I need Georgie Linley, with her funny American sayings and her avoidance of anything to do with water, even if other people don't understand why she does it…” She knew Georgiana better than anyone else. “And I know that she can be a bit odd at times, but she's my best friend. And she's the only one I've got.”

@jamie

[Deleted]

Holding Max in her lap made Jamie feel infinitely better. It didn’t matter that she was barely any bigger than her little sister – it was nice to feel like she was helping, just a little bit, by comforting Max in an almost maternal way. When the tears began to fall down her sister’s cheeks, Jamie pulled her closer, nuzzling her nose into her sister’s hair and making soft, nonsensical noises. “It’s okay to need people, Max.” Jamie whispered. Merlin knew that Jamie needed people – she needed a lot of them. “It’s okay to need people, and it’s okay to want people.” She repeated. “And sometimes, when we need people, we have to let them know. Because they don’t always know that.” The Hufflepuff swallowed. “Here. I’ll start. I need you, Maxima Greyback.” She squeezed Maxima closer to her for just a second, then kissed the side of her sister’s head softly. Jamie had never gotten around to saying it, but yes, she needed Max. And that was okay.

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