I'm Not Ready to Just Give In (Raleigh)

[parvati patil macmillan]

The reality of meeting with the eldest of Marcus and Pansy's children was more uncomfortable for Parvati than she could have imagined. She knew that it would be hard; just discussing some of the everyday issues that faced the students at Hogwarts wasn't a walk in the park, but sitting in the Three Broomsticks and waiting for Raleigh Flint to arrive at the time to which they'd agreed made the reality hit her once again.

Unless the children had another relative outside of school who would be willing to care for them, that responsibility was going to fall onto Raleigh. She had already spoken with one of his sisters, Dusti, a few days before, though it hadn't seemed appropriate to go into depth about her relationship with Marcus then—especially when the last time that they had met in her office had been when she had told her and her sister that Marcus wasn't their biological father.

Parvati wished that she could have gone back to when she was only upset about Ernie and their divorce. Then again, in a way, he had led her to Marcus. She sipped the tea in front of her sparingly, trying to work out where to start, as a tall young man walked through the door.

She stood as he approached, looking at him sympathetically. “Raleigh,” she addressed him and motioned for him to take the seat across from her. “I'm glad you came. How are you?”

@leigh

[Deleted]

parvati patil macmillan

he wasn't really sure why he was going to meet parvati mcmillian. he hadn't gone to see her once while she had worked at the school while he had been there, even though it had only been a short time. he made his way to the three broomsticks and opened the door, feeling the warmth from the building hit him square in the face in a stark contrast to the cold that was outside. he shrugged off his jacket and tucked it over his arm as he crossed to where he could see her sitting. he wondered if it was something to do with river for a moment. after all he was his guardian now, if there was a problem he was the one the school had to tell but he had been under the assumption that it would have been a little more formal so he relaxed a little knowing it probably wasn't about river.

“Raleigh,” he frowned at the sympathetic look that crossed her face. he didn't need sympathy. he wasn't mourning the death of his parents. he was mourning the loss of justice that they had both escaped. he was mourning the loss that river was feeling. he didn't want anyone to feel sympathy for him. it wasn't what he needed. he hung the jacket over the back of the chair she motioned to and he slipped into it, sitting down as she did. “I'm glad you came. How are you?” he shrugged a shoulder slightly. "i'm fine." he said, simply and without much in his voice to make her doubt him. he had had his moment, with magi the night his mother had died. he had gotten everything he had needed to out. any sort of grief he might have had for loosing his parents was gone and it had been replaced by anger at them. "why did you want to see me?"

[parvati patil macmillan]

Raleigh sat across from her after having placed his jacket on the back of the chair. “Why did you want to see me?”

Slowly, Parvati nudged her saucer away from the edge of the table before speaking. “I wanted to talk to you,” she told him, “about your parents.” That was the short answer, at least, but Parvati knew that Raleigh deserved better than that.

She sighed. Beating around the bush would only make it worse, and so she didn't. “Raleigh, the night your mother killed your father,” she began, pausing, “he… was meant to meet me,” Parvati admitted, then went quiet. It still pained her to think about how just a few minutes' difference might have changed everything. She would never know now.

@leigh

[Deleted]

parvati patil macmillan

“I wanted to talk to you, about your parents.” he had already come to that conclusion but he didn't voice that. after all he had asked. maybe there was some small part of him hoped it had been about something different. did she expect him to open up to her? to spill all his inner most feelings? she was going to be surprised if by some miracle he did open up and admit how he was really feeling. because the base feeling was relief. it was masked by the anger of the injustice that had been done to the flint children but there was relief there. “Raleigh, the night your mother killed your father, he… was meant to meet me,” he raised his eyebrow slightly.

well that was an interesting development. he didn't know why it angered him. well angered was the wrong word. though he couldn't think of another word to call it. "well i'm not surprised he was cheating on her." he said as he turned one of the coasters on the table around in his fingers, wanting something to do. "but with you surprised me. after all isn't that the reason you divorced? cheating?" he said as he narrowed his eyes slightly. he couldn't help but feel like parvati was now slightly to blame for rivers pain and that didn't bode well for how he was going to treat her. that was the only conclusion he could draw. if they had been meeting for a reason that didn't matter, she wouldn't have gone quiet. he could see the look on her face, the pain he was feeling and he didn't care one bit. he cared about his own family. dusti and rusti .. river. they were what mattered and parvati had played a part in this whole thing. "you do know we were hoping to watch them slowly rot, don't you? to watch them slowly drive themselves to madness locked in a cell smaller than what could be called humane .." he said at her, nothing but an icy chill in his voice.

[parvati patil macmillan]

Making judgments about what was “wrong” and what was “right” in regards to her relationship with Marcus wasn't among Parvati's strengths. Hearing Raleigh say that he wasn't surprised that Marcus had cheated on Pansy wasn't that surprising, either; Marcus, himself, had been upfront with her about his inclinations. “But with you surprised me.” Raleigh must have known them, too. “After all,” he reminded, “isn't that the reason you divorced? Cheating.”

Parvati drew in a breath but felt as though the air had been taken from her. She had jumped headfirst into a situation in which she should have used more caution. If only she had done that, then maybe she would have been spared the hurt that she felt now. Thinking of herself as a fool and a hypocrite did nothing to improve the situation, however.

“Raleigh,” she said weakly, “I can explain…” Neither she nor Marcus were the villains, in her view. What had they done? They had taken a situation in which neither of them had been in favorable positions, and they had tried to make the best of it.

“You do know we were hoping to watch them slowly rot, don't you? To watch them slowly drive themselves to madness locked in a cell smaller than what could be called humane…”

The pained look on Parvati's face spoke before she could. Marcus hadn't been saintly, but he was never deserving of what his eldest son had so coldly suggested. Even Pansy—even though she had murdered him—shouldn't have died the way she had. Parvati wanted to say something to Raleigh about how two wrongs didn't make a right, but she didn't want it to be misconstrued. The description alone that Raleigh had used spoke to his ill will towards his late parents, and it was something that Parvati could not shake.

She made a futile effort to gather her thoughts, not knowing whether she first needed to address Raleigh's comments about her personal life or the ones about his and his siblings' having wanted their parents to rot in prison. The comments that Raleigh had made to her were too damning not to speak.

“A-After my divorce,” she began, clearly emotional, “after I learnt that my ex-husband had fathered your sisters, your father was the one person who understood what I felt.” Ernie had been her husband, and Pansy was his wife; their connection hadn't been the strangest outcome. “I saw him in Hogsmeade just before Christmas, and he told me what had happened with your mother, how he'd kicked her out…”

“And if I'd thought—even for a minute—that I'd've been ruining their marriage, I-I wouldn't have done it.” Parvati had been down that road before, as Raleigh knew, and she knew how much agony it had caused her. “They were estranged,” she said. Pansy would have fought divorce from Marcus even harder than Ernie had with her.

“Your father, he made me feel a way that I hadn't felt in years…” Parvati explained further. “I knew your mother well before Hogwarts, and I can't say I know what he saw in her,” she admitted, then added bitterly, “Or what my ex-husband saw in her, either…”

“I don't know what happened on New Year's Eve, Raleigh,” she sighed. “All I know is that I didn't hear from your father. Your mother's use of an Unforgivable Curse must have alerted the Ministry… Before that, who can say?” Parvati shook her head. “The papers are speculating that your mum went mad—I don't doubt that—but your dad? He wasn't deserving of that…”

@leigh

[Deleted]

parvati patil macmillan

raleigh listened to her. quietly sitting there as she tried to make her affair with marcus sound justified. for all these reasons that made it different apparently. he didn't see it. it was the same to him. not that he really cared what his father got up to in his own time but if this had something to do with why he'd been killed then he didn't want to change his opinion on it. he had figured on excusing himself when she'd finished talking. he hadn't come here to talk to her about what she'd gotten up to with his father but then she stepped too far. in his mind she stepped too far. “but your dad? He wasn't deserving of that…” he wasn't deserving? he curled his hand into a fist and then stretched his fingers out, trying to collect his thoughts on what he should say to her. he had wanted to walk away but he wasn't going to. she thought marcus had been a decent person. she was wrong. oh so wrong.

"i agree. he wasn't deserving of that." he said as he clenched his fist and then let his hand out again, using it as something to focus on in that moment. maybe he hadn't got as good a hold on the anger he'd been feeling. "he deserved worse. both of them deserved much worse. and i'm going to tell you why" he said as he leaned into the table and he looked her in the face, his light ice, the colour of ice trained on her and there was no emotion in them except anger. "marcus flint knowingly turned a blind eye to what our mother did to us. he didn't care. he didn't try to stop it and honestly .. there were times when he himself indulged in making us miserable." he leaned back slightly and he shook his head. "if he told you any differently and you believed him. you're a fool. if he told you he cared about us and you believed him, you're a fool. our father was cold. he could be violent when he so felt." if she thought she knew marcus, she had another thing coming. "could you do that parvati?" he asked again as he leaned forward. "could you stand by and do nothing while your children screamed in pain or fear?" he wanted to know whether she could. he didn't know much about how she parented but he knew she had children. they'd only been two years below him in hogwarts.

[parvati patil macmillan]

When Raleigh told her that he agreed with her in her having said that Marcus hadn't been deserving of the end he had gotten, Parvati expected that to be the end of it. She had no time to brace herself, however, to hear him say that Marcus and Pansy had both deserved “much worse” than that. And what Parvati took, initially, as an exaggeration rapidly became worse.

She heard every word of what Raleigh was telling her, and, with every word he said, Parvati could feel her stomach dropping farther and farther inside of her. Closing her eyes, she tried to make it all disappear from her memory. That wasn't the Marcus she had known, not by a long shot. She didn't want to wonder if she had been used by the man in whom she had found so much comfort, but she couldn't doubt that the man had had a side that he hadn't shown her. And she felt—somewhere inside of her—fortunate that he hadn't.

Raleigh was right, she thought; she was a fool. She opened her eyes, staring back into his. “Could you do that, Parvati?” he asked her. “Could you stand by and do nothing while your children screamed in pain or fear?“

Ashen-faced and shaking long before that question—though entirely unaware of it herself—Parvati felt as though she was going to be sick. “No…” Even she couldn't discern whether her response had been because of Raleigh's question or in denial of the abuse of which she was just learning. There was a difference, she hoped, between loving the person she had believed Marcus to be and the person he had been at home.

Gripping the table's edge for support, she drew in a long and uneasy breath. It explained why Dusti and Rosaria had always behaved around her the way they had—why one had seemed so distrustful and the other so meek. And it went without saying that it explained Raleigh's hostility towards her, too. “They're gone now,” Parvati reminded him, her voice sounding nearly hollow. It didn't change what had happened to them in the past, but it meant that all of the pain that their parents had caused them would stay behind them.

Parvati wanted to distance herself from what Marcus had done to his children, and she tried not to think of the man she had known. The man she had thought she had known was the one whom she was mourning, instead. Gradually, she let go of the table, and, with a little more composure, spoke again, brushing her hair away from her face. “They can't hurt you again, Raleigh.” It was one less danger for him and his siblings.

Remembering that he was now responsible for their care—or at least for that of the youngest of the four of them—despite being hardly older than school age himself, Parvati paused. “I asked you here because of what happened—because I wanted to be there for you and your siblings—” Her tune towards the situation had changed, but that hadn't. “Whatever you need. Merlin knows my ex-husband isn't going to do anything to support your sisters, either, so even if it's me having to send him a Howler…” she said, thinking back to the purse of Galleons Marcus had given her. She wished that she had thought to bring it with her.

@leigh

[Deleted]

parvati patil macmillan

“They're gone now,” he nodded once, a sharp nod as he agreed with her. they were gone. that was a given, but they had left something he'd never have thought they would. a void. there was a void in him now, a hole that would never be filling with the knowledge that they would never suffer the way their children had suffered. oh some could argue that marcus being murdered by his wife and the way pansy had died was horrible enough but it wasn't. not by a long shot. they had both deserved to have a drawn out demise .. one that lasted for the length of time they had tortured and broke their children. that was something that would never happen and it was going to take him almost a life time to come to terms with that fact. “They can't hurt you again, Raleigh.” he laughed, a hard laugh, a cold laugh and one that held no humor in it. "that's where you're wrong. they're still causing misery from beyond the grave." he said as he gripped his hand into a fist and rested it on the table. "they're still hurting the one person i care most about." river was suffering. and that hurt the most.

“I asked you here because of what happened—because I wanted to be there for you and your siblings— Whatever you need. Merlin knows my ex-husband isn't going to do anything to support your sisters, either, so even if it's me having to send him a Howler…” that made him react. his gaze turned harder and he lifted his eyes to hers, leaning forward slightly at the mention of dusti and rusti's biological father. "don't you dare." he said, meaning it. "that man, paid for years to keep them from finding out. he didn't want them then and he doesn't get to want them now. now if they want to contact him .. then that's fine. but the only way he'll be coming into their lives is if they decide they want it .." he said, shifting a little as he leaned against the table. he didn't want someone else to come in and confuse how dusti and rusti would already be feeling and there was the whole added issue of how river might see it. as much as he loved his sisters, he might though sour about his sisters getting another chance with a father figure when his had been ripped away from him like it had. "got it?"

[parvati patil macmillan]

“Raleigh!” After what he had just told her about his parents, getting angry with him was just about the worst thing that Parvati could have done. He was making assumptions about what she was saying, when she wasn't trying to force him or his younger siblings into anything. Realizing how sharply she had spoken to him, Parvati immediately regretted having raised her voice, gasping at how awful she must have sounded. She might not have made the greatest choices where men were concerned, but she had never once planned to send Ernie any letters on the supposed behalf of his daughters without their consent. Her whole point had been only that she had a better chance of actually getting through to her ex-husband than his two illegitimate daughters did.

“Look,” Parvati told him, rubbing her face. “I'm not going to interfere with anything.” She couldn't have been defensive about that if she had tried. “I've caused your family enough pain because I couldn't see what was going on, and I know that nothing I say is going to fix that.” In her sessions there were three instances in which she was compelled to break confidentiality, and one of those was if someone confided in her that they were being hurt. Years of abuse from both parents more than qualified, though she couldn't blame the children who were still in school for not having told her of it.

“But I know Ernie was paying your dad.” Frankly, Parvati was surprised that Raleigh knew, something that translated to a laugh at her own expense as she sat up straighter. She was still frustrated by it and especially with Ernie for his having done it. “He… gave me the money back, once he knew that I knew.” There was an uncomfortable shiver that ran down Parvati's spine to say it now. She should have known then and trusted her instincts that maybe something wasn't entirely right.

“And if your sisters want to know about Ernie, that's their decision. It's not ours to make for them,” Parvati reminded Raleigh softly. He was only trying to protect his siblings from any more pain; she understood that now, but his sisters were seventeen. As for her own thoughts on her ex-husband, Parvati held her tongue. As terrible as he must have thought that she was—not that she wasn't developing the same attitude towards herself after this revelation—she didn't want to worsen it.

It then hit Parvati that she had been so focused on the situation with Ernie that she had neglected to ask after the youngest of the four. “How is your brother, by the way? River? He's in the same year as my sons, come to think of it.”

@leigh

[Deleted]

parvati patil macmillan

“Raleigh!” raleigh felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as she almost tried to reprimand him. the hand he had resting on the table clenched into a fist and he met her eyes with his own. an icy blaze burning behind them as he leaned forward a little and narrowed his eyes, his mouth set in a thin line as his gaze burned into his face. "parvati. don't think for a second that you have the right to reprimand me." he said as his eyes narrowed a little more and he unclenched his fist and he leaned back slightly. "i do not have to sit here and be nice. i don't have to apologize if i offend you or make you upset." he said as he shifted a little in his seat. he might be younger than her but he didn't have to bite his tongue for her sake. he was going to say what was on his mind and damn how she felt about it. it was no secret what he was like.

“Look, I'm not going to interfere with anything. I've caused your family enough pain because I couldn't see what was going on, and I know that nothing I say is going to fix that.” he nodded his head, once but sharply. he couldn't argue with her. while his parents had always seemed to be heading on the path of destruction, as much as he could shout from the rooftops they they had hated each other he hadn't really figured one would kill the other. though he did know now, in hindsight that his mother would have reacted that way had the lavish life she'd built for herself been threatened by another. "no it's not." he said as he folded his arms on the table in front of him. he wondered why they were really here. if she'd wanted to talk to him about how he was she could have just owled him. if it was about his siblings he assumed it would be done at the school although he had no say over dusti and elizabeth, he figured things would be sorted out between them and the school by themselves. river was the only one he could talk to them about and it didn't seem like she wanted to talk about him yet. "are we here because you're trying though? in some small way .. maybe you're thinking if you suddenly care about us, that'll make it better for you? you can deal with it easier? because then you wouldn't be part of the problem .. but the solution."

“But I know Ernie was paying your dad. He… gave me the money back, once he knew that I knew.” raleigh shrugged his shoulders a little. he didn't care what had happened to the money. it wasn't like it had anything to do with him. it wasn't like his parents had known he'd know. "well that's nice. seventeen years of hush money would be a pretty penny for you." he said as he waved his fingers to the man at the bar and a glass of fire whiskey appeared before him. he picked it up in his fingers and downed it in one swallow. he wasn't one for getting drunk but he was thinking this conversation would go a little easier with help. "my mother had a loose tongue when she drank. among other things" he said as he put the glass down on the table, turning it slightly so the straight line on the side of the glass was the same way as the table.

“And if your sisters want to know about Ernie, that's their decision. It's not ours to make for them,” he raised a brow slightly and looked at her with slight confusion. hadn't he said that? he nodded once. "yes i said that. if they want to know him it'll be on their terms, no one elses. you were too busy telling me off to listen i think." he said as he leaned his back against the back of the chair. “How is your brother, by the way? River? He's in the same year as my sons, come to think of it.” river. river was the hardest for him to talk about. he'd shut down. when he'd been at the school to see him his brother had been like a shell. raleigh understood that, despite his best efforts to keep his brother from his father's grip, the two had become closer and their father's death had shattered his brother. "how do you think he is?" he asked her. in actual fact she'd had more chance to see him than raleigh had. "he's devastated. he was the only one of us close to our father. guess it wasn't just you my father's lies worked on"

[parvati patil macmillan]

Parvati didn't need to be told that it wasn't within her rights to reprimand Raleigh for his manner of speaking to her. She knew it and wished that she hadn't overstepped there. Yet, still, Raleigh seemed to believe that she wanted to overstep her boundaries even more. He asked if she was there, meeting with him, because she wanted to interfere. He questioned her motives, wondering if it was just because having a clear conscience would make things easier on her.

She searched in vain for an answer that she thought would satisfy both herself and Raleigh. Even as the conversation turned to the hush money, she didn't know what to say. Raleigh claimed that it must have been “a pretty penny” for her and then requested a drink from the bar. He commented about his mother none-too-kindly, the sort of remark that Parvati couldn't tell if it was meant to be humorous or just another means of rubbing salt in the wounds of her side of the situation.

And then, for what seemed like the first time since their conversation had begun, Raleigh agreed with her. He said that what he had said was the same, although she had been “too busy telling [him] off to listen” to that.

There was nothing else that Parvati could do but take it in stride. She had never claimed that she was a perfect person or that she knew what was right for four teenagers she barely knew. The youngest, River, didn't seem to be handling the loss of his parents well; in fact, Raleigh described his younger brother as being “devastated”. “He was the only one of us close to our father,” he said. “Guess it wasn't just you my father's lies worked on.”

Breathing out a sigh, Parvati was well aware that she couldn't pretend that she hadn't fallen for a man who wasn't a true representation of the person he actually was. “I guess not.” Really, they couldn't have been the only ones. The members of the Wizengamot were meant to be of moral repute.

“I came here because I thought that I was in love with your father—or at least the man I thought he was,” she clarified softly. “And I was mourning him and thought that you must have been, too, even though—I guess—what I was mourning was just in my imagination.” She couldn't lie; it hurt considerably. What had been the truth? “But you and your siblings have still lost your parents, and I know Neville and Hannah can only do so much.” She couldn't expect Raleigh to know precisely what he needed, but—“Whatever I can do… I know I've been an absolute hypocrite today, but I'm always here if you need me.”

@leigh

[Deleted]

parvati patil macmillan

“But you and your siblings have still lost your parents, and I know Neville and Hannah can only do so much.” he shook his head slightly. they had lost parents that was true. but those parents meant little to him and his siblings. well his mother at least. his father had meant something to river and that still hurt raleigh more than their parents deaths. the fact that his father, before he'd been killed had managed to get his hooks into his little brother and start trying to mould him into how he thought a person should be. raleigh knew all about that molding, it was why he was the way he was. his father's lessons. "we're fine on our own. we've never needed anyone else." he said. it was true, the four siblings had survived with their parents and they'd survive without them. to him it wasn't as if anyone actually cared enough to be there, no matter what they said. there had always been signs, raleigh knew there had been and while he'd tried to hide them in himself he'd been almost desperate for someone to notice them in river. that someone could care enough to look past their name to help. till he'd come to hogwarts he'd thought all families were like his. turns out almost none of them had been. he'd been the oldest, the strong one so he'd never been able to show the weakness of what happened at home but there had still been signs. "i'll take care of them." he stated, without any room for argument from anyone. this had been his plan anyway, to get his siblings away from his parents. he hadn't planned on killing them to make it happen but it had worked out all the same. “Whatever I can do… I know I've been an absolute hypocrite today, but I'm always here if you need me.” he shrugged a little and folded his arms across his chest, a purely defensive move. "like i said. we don't need anyone."

[parvati patil macmillan]

Raleigh remained adamant that he and his siblings didn't need anyone else to get by. That viewpoint seemed terribly naïve to Parvati, who refused to say anything of that nature for the anger that she was certain that she would receive in return for it. She couldn't put herself in Raleigh's shoes completely; the whole truth was still a mystery to her, but she had to approach from the most cautious angle she could.

After a deep breath, she spoke up. “You will need other people, Raleigh,” she informed him. “Maybe not me, specifically,” she explained, “but you will always need other people.” He couldn't expect to get by while shutting himself out to the world. It had probably become a protective instinct for him, Parvati guessed, which might have explained some of it—a lot of it, actually—but he had to recognize, too, that the rest of the world wasn't out to get him.

“When I was in my seventh year at Hogwarts,” she began as an example, “some of us—Dumbledore's Army—We were forced to hide out in the Room of Requirement.” Those had been dark days. Parvati paused as she wished that she could have filtered out some of the accompanying memories. “We were barely younger than you are now.” She shook her head. “We wouldn't have survived, Raleigh, if it hadn't been for other people. You understand that, don't you? Sometimes, you can't rely on luck.”

Parvati forced herself to smile. Even if Raleigh decided to drink all of the Felix Felicis in the world, she thought, she still would have told him not to leave it all to chance.

@leigh

[Deleted]

parvati patil macmillan

“You will need other people, Raleigh, Maybe not me, specifically, but you will always need other people.” he raised a brow at her insistence that he would always need other people. he refrained from biting back at that one, by telling her that he'd grown accustomed to not having people help him and his siblings. while they hadn't told anyone outwardly what was happening at their house, through fear of retribution by their parents and the shame of what was going on, there had been signs. long ago had he given up on someone seeing and knowing what they were. the realization he'd come to was other people didn't care. they didn't want to care. “When I was in my seventh year at Hogwarts, some of us—Dumbledore's Army—We were forced to hide out in the Room of Requirement. We were barely younger than you are now. We wouldn't have survived, Raleigh, if it hadn't been for other people. You understand that, don't you? Sometimes, you can't rely on luck.” he laughed harshly. he couldn't stop himself from doing that."i never said anything about luck." luck? she thought he was going to try and rely on luck? and she was using a sob story from her high school days to make him see that? "you want to hear another seventh year story that luck had nothing to do with?" he shook his head and leaned forward again, his hands resting back on the table. "i know as well as anyone that you can't sit and cross your fingers and hope help will come. in my seventh year at hogwarts .. i was kidnapped while saving my brother from someone who would have taken great delight at killing him .. tortured because of my last name and who my father was and if i'd relied on luck, i'd still be sitting in that basement waiting for the order to find us." he said, an almost growl behind his voice. "i learned to rely on myself because i learned pretty quickly that the only person that i'd be able to count on was myself. " he shook his head a little and let his hands fall from the table down to his sides. "i don't expect you to understand that."

[parvati patil macmillan]

“I never said anything about luck,” Raleigh said after laughing. It stung, having a young man who was hardly out of Hogwarts sitting in front of her and making light of a past trauma that she would carry with her for the rest of her days. “You want to hear another seventh-year story that luck had nothing to do with?”

Parvati knew that he wasn't actually going to give her an opportunity to answer him before delving into what he had to say. She tensed up, the look in her eyes expressing the words that she couldn't speak as he went on: “Please don't.” She couldn't take much more.

“…And if I'd relied on luck, I'd still be sitting in that basement waiting for the Order to find us.” Parvati didn't know if that was truly how he had felt about it, but his slandering the Order of the Phoenix wasn't helping anyone, she thought. “I learned to rely on myself because I learned pretty quickly that the only person that I'd be able to count on was myself. I don't expect you to understand that.”

Forced to take in a breath before she spoke, Parvati was unaware that she had clenched her fingers around the edge of the table until her knuckles had gone white. “Raleigh…” she began again. She knew that the Order had never once given up on the safe return of the kidnapped students.

“Do you think we don't know what it's like?” she asked him, her voice falling. “Do you think that any of us escaped the Carrows unscathed? That we weren't tortured?” That wasn't to mention the Fallen Fifty—those who had lost their lives in the fight to save Hogwarts—or the others outside of the school who had had to face the Death Eaters and the Snatchers. “Do you think for a minute that any of us wanted our children to face what we did?”

“But you're right, Raleigh,” she answered him softly. “I don't know what it's like not to have people I can trust, and I'm sorry that your parents made that difficult for you.”

@leigh