Mount Everest (Evy)

[sarah jane oliveira]

April 9, 2027

After the nightmare that had been the full moon before Christmas, in which their mother had drunkenly claimed that Fenrir Greyback was Dakoda's father, Sarah had spent little time with her family—not that she had ever made a habit of it. Evelyn returned to Beauxbatons, and there really wasn't much that she, Callisto, and Mina had to say on the subject. They weren't sitting around and eating sweets from Honeydukes while gossiping about what it meant for them.

For Sarah, she couldn't decide how she felt. Dakoda was dead, so she wasn't sure what difference it made when it came to her feelings towards him. What she didn't need was for her parents' views to become more complicated if it would end up turning out badly for her. If anything, she was hoping that it would be another route to getting Sebastian back, but having that conversation with Ares would be a challenge. (She highly doubted that he would believe a word from her on the subject, and she couldn't exactly convince her mother to go and explain it to Ares for herself.)

And then… there was Evelyn. Sarah knew that it likely had rocked her youngest sister's world again, and she couldn't let some stupid row between their parents affect the one promising relationship that she had with one of her siblings. She needed naïve little Evy on her side, so staying as friendly and caring as she could manage was her goal. It was about a week past Easter, and it wouldn't be long before Evelyn would be leaving for Beauxbatons again. Making a good impression on her that would last until they could see each other again was a necessary evil.

Luckily, it wasn't close to the full moon, so the two of them could meet up without that hiccup. Assuming that Evelyn wanted nothing to do with their parents if she could help it, Sarah had invited Evy over to her flat that evening. Her flat was pretty sparse, but that didn't matter much. It was just the two of them, and it would be an excellent opportunity for Sarah to assess where her baby sister stood after the latest family drama and whatever they had had the students doing at Beauxbatons to pass the time until they were in the real world.

evelyn rhea oliveira

[evelyn rhea oliveira]

Need a place to hide

BUT I CAN'T FIND ONE NEAR

April 9, 2027
sarah jane oliveira

’Fenrir Greyback’. The name had always carried a weight of significance in her family. Her parents had known the infamous werewolf when they were young but had left before starting their family. Or so that was the story fed to Evy. More lies, more secrets. The only comfort about it all was that Evy wasn’t the only one not in the loop for once. She could still vividly see the expressions on her sisters’ faces that night, and Mina’s words still echoed in her mind constantly. It only made Dakoda’s memory seem so…false at times.

Evelyn actually contemplated staying at Beauxbatons for the Easter break. Whenever she went home, it was merely watching her father keep to himself even more than usual and her mother with a wine bottle in her hand. Evy still couldn’t tell where her father stood on this. Did he know? It was known that Fenrir had children with various women. One had been a year ahead of her at Hogwarts. But in the end, she went home—though she didn’t linger. Instead, it was easy to find somewhere else to be. For the time being, she’d found herself in Hogsmeade more often than she cared to admit, and she was even due to meet Luna the following day. Things had been tense between them, but these days Evy was barely getting by without her best friend.

Sarah had extended an invitation to her flat, and Evy was happy it wasn’t at the family home. Thankfully, Evy was of age to use magic. So she apparated in a familiar area near Sarah’s flat. Fortunately, it didn’t take her long to find the building and the right door. She knocked and waited. Evy wished she could talk to all of her sisters more. She longed for that secure feeling when they were all around.

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[sarah jane oliveira]

April 9, 2027

Sarah answered the door to Evelyn once she heard her knock and let her youngest sister inside, stepping back so that she could enter. There was nothing in her flat to suggest any of her past associations with Fenrir Greyback or Elaine Dupree, and it looked slightly nicer, perhaps, than might have been expected for a young woman who had once been in prison. Even a property that had been staged for an estate agent to show it to clients would have had more personality, though. There was no artwork on the walls, no photographs of her siblings or her son.

Where she once would have opted to decorate with empty liquor bottles, a few bottles with labels identifying their contents as Wolfsbane Potion sat on a coffee table not far from the entrance. If it were light outside, it would have been impossible to tell from the blackout curtains covering the windows, but the interior itself was adequately lit. Accompanying the coffee table was a black sofa made of something that was meant to look like leather even though it wasn't, where a copy of the Daily Prophet from a few days before sat partly folded.

"Hey, Evy," Sarah smiled, licking the jewelry in her smiley piercing as she tended to do. "Thought it'd be better to chat here than with Mum and Dad around."

evelyn rhea oliveira

[evelyn rhea oliveira]

Need a place to hide

BUT I CAN'T FIND ONE NEAR

April 9, 2027
sarah jane oliveira

Evy entered once Sarah opened the door and moved aside. Her flat was…not what Evy expected. But then she had to ask herself, what did she expect? They had all lived in shared rooms for so long as a family that a larger space for just one person felt so different. Even Mina shared a flat with Callisto, and Sebastian would stay with them at times. Not that Evy ever expected her other two sisters in a flat with Sarah, though she wished they would all try. It was all rather plain, however. Which is perhaps why it stuck out so much to Evy. Her family home was filled with photographs her mother had put up of the family at various ages. Though it also meant that the memory of Dakota always lingered.

”Right…” Evy agreed. Things were tense, and there wasn’t any sign of it letting up. Unlike her sisters, Evy didn’t exactly have anywhere to go that wasn’t school or someone else’s flat. As she placed her bag near the door, Evy slowly walked to the couch but still surveyed her new surroundings. And she took a seat, still leaving her jacket on for the moment since she was still a bit cold. ”I haven’t seen them both in the same room since I’ve been home.” She could only imagine what it was like without any children but Sebastian at the house. Though he was young enough to possibly not notice—at least she hoped. Evy had been observant even at that age. ”Have you talked to them at all?”

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[sarah jane oliveira]

April 9, 2027

"Right…" said Evy, as though she hadn't thought about what their mother had revealed to them since it had happened months before. She had hopefully had Beauxbatons life as a distraction in the interim, anyway, or had that as an excuse that she could use to avoid the topic. She sat down upon the sofa and mentioned that she hadn't seen their parents in the same room since she had been home from school.

After locking the door again, Sarah followed Evy over to the sofa. She sat down, too, but left enough space so that she wasn't crowding her sister.

"Have you talked to them at all?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, er, I haven't done." Maybe she should have spoken with either or both of them (though probably not at the same time), but she hadn't. It was better not to rock the boat, and even Sarah knew it in that case. Besides, she had no idea how to start that conversation without having it go downhill quickly. Approaching their mother to check if she had only said that their brother was fathered by Fenrir in the heat of the moment would only lead to more arguing. "I don't know if we could find any proof," she added. It wasn't as though there would be documentation of it. In the Muggle world, people seemed to care more about things like that than in the magical world.

evelyn rhea oliveira

[evelyn rhea oliveira]

Need a place to hide

BUT I CAN'T FIND ONE NEAR

April 9, 2027
sarah jane oliveira

All the family members appeared to be avoiding one another, though Evy, unfortunately, did not have the privilege of avoiding them for long. Although she was of age, she was still a student. It was a little silly in her mind, but she only had to put up with it for less than two months. Now, what happened after was still a bit up in the air. She wondered if Sarah would have room for her or if Luna would move to London soon. It was expensive to have a flat all on your own. She thought of the small space Nate rented. He’d somehow made it work.

Maybe it had been a silly question to ask. The topic of her late older brother was sensitive, especially for their mother. And if what she’d yelled that day was true, then it explained why their mother only seemed to drink her calories when she didn’t have Sebastian with her. Sarah asking about those details would likely not go well. Evy paused for a moment. ”Mina said that Fenrir liked to turn his children.” The thought was still one that was vile in Evy’s mind. As if to ask, what kind of a monster did that?

”Or at least he tries.” Evy knew Max from school, though not as anything more than a housemate. But she wasn’t a werewolf, at least Evy didn’t think so. It was exactly the follow-up ice breaker question after asking one’s name. Evy sighed, bringing her legs up but turning to face Sarah on the couch. There was something always comforting about curling up like this when she felt overwhelmed. But she figured she’d start with the same question she’d asked Mina months ago. ”Do you know any of them?” Her chin rested on her knees. ”His…other children.” Her mind still struggled to accept that Dakoda fell into that bucket, or possibly did.

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[sarah jane oliveira]

April 9, 2027

"Mina said that Fenrir liked to turn his children," Evy commented, and Sarah knew that she—and Mina—wasn't wrong about that. At least, it had been true for Rhys… and for Dakoda, too, with what they knew. Sarah didn't know what the ratios were when it came to Fenrir's werewolf to non-werewolf offspring, but she imagined that the werewolves must have outnumbered the ones who weren't. "Or at least he tries."

Ending up with werewolf children was a faster way of rebuilding up the pack of werewolves he'd once had following him, supposed Sarah. She was one of those followers, as their parents had been, but Fenrir's reputation had been impacted negatively by his involvement on the losing side of the Second Wizarding War. People didn't realize the freedom that they could feel when they weren't restrained. Instead, they had been made to think that they had to fear their lycanthropy and view it as a curse as opposed to something that could benefit them.

Evy shifted her position but remained on the same subject in their conversation, asking, "Do you know any of them?" She then followed this up by clarifying, "His… other children."

"Yeah." Sarah nodded. She didn't find the subject as uncomfortable as Evy did, apart from Dakoda's parentage. "I was at school with one of them," she said, not that Evy likely would have remembered that. "A bloke called Rhys."

evelyn rhea oliveira

[evelyn rhea oliveira]

Need a place to hide

BUT I CAN'T FIND ONE NEAR

April 9, 2027
sarah jane oliveira

Sarah had also been turned by Fenrir. The thought that Sarah could also be a Greyback was too much for the moment. And it seemed unlikely. Like Callisto, Sarah looked far more like their father than Evy and Mina did. Despite all the children’s individual features, there was never a doubt they were related when standing next to one another. Evy mentally focused on the image of Dakoda’s face in her mind. The happy smile and their shared features. Did he look like the Greybacks she had met? And behind that smile was all that violence simply sitting there waiting to erupt?

Mina’s words from Christmas floated through her mind. Evy trusted Mina. She had no reason not to. However, she’d never been given a reason not to trust Sarah. Well, outside of the thing with their brother. Was it possible that everything could be true? Dakoda wasn’t violent, and Sarah didn’t kill their brother. Evy figured it was best not to mention it since she could hardly wrap her mind around it. She looked at Sarah. Well, that was a new fact. So Dakoda could have possibly known a half-brother but not of their relation? It felt like some made-up story. ”I didn’t know that.” Evy could ask more. But then she’d really never stop thinking about it.

She paused, letting out a soft sigh. ”I sent in an application to intern at the Prophet.” Evy hadn’t spoken to any of her siblings, least of all Callisto, about what she would do post-graduation. The important thing was that she would return home and not have to go back to Beauxbatons. Luna had always encouraged her writing, but Evy hadn’t recalled ever talking to her sisters about it.

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[sarah jane oliveira]

April 9, 2027

Evy commented that she hadn't realized that she had gone to Hogwarts with Rhys Greyback, and Sarah nodded. She was glad that her younger sister didn't ask her anything else about Rhys, though, because that would make the whole situation involving Fenrir and Dakoda even more complicated for her than it already was. Sarah and Rhys had been good friends in their adolescence, and explaining how that had gone was… a story for another time, Sarah supposed.

On a more positive note, and entirely unrelated to the complex web of lycanthropy in which they were embedded, Evy told her something else. "I sent in an application to intern at the Prophet," she shared.

"That's nice," Sarah responded, actually interested by that piece of news. Obviously, an application for an internship was just that, an application, but getting an internship with the Daily Prophet was a step in the direction of building a career in some sort of journalism. The good thing was that Evy wasn't following down the same path that she had, as far as getting expelled and then eventually imprisoned to be a mole for Elaine Dupree, so she had that going for her. "What would you be doing?"

evelyn rhea oliveira

[evelyn rhea oliveira]

Need a place to hide

BUT I CAN'T FIND ONE NEAR

April 9, 2027
sarah jane oliveira

The way Mina floated through life was the bane of Callisto’s existence. And while Evy never took things as seriously as her older sister did, she floated through life differently. Something akin to ambition always simmered beneath the surface, though it was hard to say what lit the fire. What Evy knew for sure was that she enjoyed writing. It was a simple escape and a way to control something—even if only a measly narrative.

She shrugged. ”Whatever interns are supposed to do there.” The Prophet sold it as some wonderful learning experience, but everybody knew it really meant years of getting coffee and grunt work. ”It depends where I land. Sports is the most competitive, but I don’t think I want to write about that all the time.” Evy admitted. In her mind, solely writing about Quidditch matches felt sort of like branding oneself a one-trick pony. Unless there was more to it. At least other reporters would pick up stories about crimes or the happenings in the world.

Evy didn’t know why she’d kept this information to herself. She hadn’t even told Mina about her application nor Callisto. A strange wave of emotion passed over her as she pictured Dakoda’s happy grin. She would have told him for certain, and he would’ve been supportive. But even now, sharing this news felt like she’d dropped a dungbomb regarding information. Sarah did seem genuinely interested, however.

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[sarah jane oliveira]

April 9, 2027

The response that Sarah received from Evy was nowhere near as exciting as she hoped. She would be doing whatever interns at the Daily Prophet did. If Sarah had to guess, well, then that could be just about anything. Ideally, the people at the newspaper would have Evy doing something that actually had to do with writing news or putting together the layout of the paper itself. Most interns, from what she had experienced at the Ministry, were really just there to grab things that people in higher ranks were too busy (read: lazy) to get for themselves.

"It depends where I land," Evy went on to say. "Sports is the most competitive, but I don't think I want to write about that all the time."

"Yeah," agreed Sarah. Writing about sports wouldn't be a bad job, provided it was Quidditch. Beyond that, though? Some of the other magical sports were far less interesting. "Imagine you get stuck writing about Gobstones or something," Sarah said with a chuckle. If the paper was anything like the Department of Magical Games and Sports, there was an obvious hierarchy. "Better to keep your options open, Evy. Politics would be boring, but at least you'd have a job."

evelyn rhea oliveira
Fin!