Easy Target [Max]

[mina pandora oliveira]

maxima ruqayyah greyback

Mina had been dying for this day to come. Almost literally actually. She had made sure not to get completely plastered the night before (which didn’t turn out too well because she ended up in Hogsmeade far earlier than she needed to) so as to look as positively competent and adult like as she could upon meeting her newly discovered younger cousin. They of course had held a correspondence throughout December and finally decided on a day that worked for both of them close to the end of January. Mina had had quite the month already, dabbling in her sister’s love life, among many other things, so this was a deserved break. Having Saturday’s off of work as well made it that much easier to get out on Fridays and actually do something with her life. Being forced to work hungover on the weekends had always been a drag, but now she didn’t have to worry about that at all. She was already a changed woman, just from that.

Spending a good portion of that morning in the Hog’s Head getting breakfast and chatting up some old faces, Mina eventually realized that she needed to meet her little cousin at the Three Broomsticks. Leaving the nice, warm pub to get out in the brutal winter weather all for one person was more than she had ever done for her siblings. Except Koda maybe. This cousin of hers had better be worth it. She was still early though, noting that not a lot of students were in the streets yet, the same could be said for the pub when she pushed the door open. It was almost eerily quiet, contrary to how it normally was. Giving a small wave of acknowledgement to one of the waitresses, Mina took a table near the back where it would probably be quieter once the crowds decided to show up. Now the tough part came into play: waiting for this Max girl to actually show up. If she didn’t get cold feet first.

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Max had always known that the wizarding world—or at least that of Britain—was relatively small. Never, though, had she expected to discover a cousin of hers from ordering a book from Flourish and Blotts via owl post. She didn't know much about Mina Wulfe, except from what she had told her in their letters back and forth to one another, yet she had agreed to meet with her in person.

As crazy as it might have sounded—which was why Max had kept it mostly to herself—she hadn't been foolish about it. She had let Jamie know who Mina was when they were first corresponding, and she had told her the date and time of when they were planning to meet at the Three Broomsticks. With the holidays, no time in December had worked for both of them, so it wasn't until Max had a free Hogsmeade weekend that she had been able to agree to anything without risking expulsion for sneaking out of the castle.

It wasn't until she got to the pub that Max realized one thing: She didn't know what Mina looked like, nor did Mina know what she looked like. Regardless, she walked inside, glad that the Three Broomsticks was familiar territory to her, at least. She was one of the first students there, which made it that much easier to find Mina among the patrons. There were a few older men there, but none looked particularly interested in anything but their alcohol—especially not in an underage girl like herself. (In other words, it was becoming more and more likely that Mina was probably the person she had claimed to be, which boded well for Max.)

Looking around, Max saw a young woman with brown hair who appeared to fit what she knew about Mina, who was older by a few years though young enough to remember some of the girls who were currently in their final year of school. Walking up to her, Max tried not to jump to conclusions, and she kept her hands in the pockets of her jacket. If it wasn't actually Mina, she would find a way to play it off… somehow.

She didn't want to seem overly rude if the young woman wasn't her cousin, but she kept her voice wary—almost defensive—as she spoke. “I'm looking for a girl called Mina…?”

mina pandora oliveira

[mina pandora oliveira]

maxima ruqayyah greyback

Mina was yawning nonstop. She had totally stayed up too late the night before and gotten up early this morning. To say she was somewhat excited was an understatement. Being at the Hog’s Head earlier, she hadn’t really had the time to notice exactly how exhausted she was though. There were more pressing matters at hand there, like eating and thinking about how this meeting would go. She wasn’t necessarily nervous, but it was a different experience for her. Family was everything to her though, so meeting more of them was bound to be a fun time. She had always been interested in her uncle’s kids, since they were basically relentlessly attacked once he knew about them. That didn’t sit well with her, considering being turned was an actual fear of hers. Shaking her head to get the negative thoughts out of there, she yawned again and leaned back in her chair. How could it be this boring to wait? Barely anyone was coming in too.

Drifting off slightly, Mina only opened her eyes when she heard a voice ask if she was the one called Mina. Hell yeah she was. Eyes snapping back open with renewed energy, she wasn’t exactly sure what to expect to see. But there she was, a small girl much younger than Mina was, standing before her. All she could think of was that this was the half of the family that she wasn’t supposed to really acknowledge, even though they were all from the same blood. “That must make you Max then.” Mina grinned, standing up from her chair rather quickly and moving over towards the girl to hug her. That shouldn’t be too weird, they were family after all. “And you said you weren’t little, but you kind of are.” She laughed, meaning age-wise, seeing as they were almost exactly the same height. In a way, it was kind of strange to have a family member be that much younger and be the same size as her.

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

The young woman whom Max had believed to be Mina acknowledged her by name, and she knew then that she had found her. In spite of the tone of her letters, there was something about Mina that was pleasant. Max hadn't expected her cousin to greet her so warmly, but she hadn't shied away from hugging Mina back, either. It would have been awkward to leave her hanging.

How was it possible, she thought, that Mina had come from the side of her family through which they were connected by Fenrir Greyback? From her letters, it didn't sound to Max as if Mina hadn't been in contact with her parents, the way that she had never once met Fenrir. She had made, to say the least, a positive first impression.

“And you said you weren’t little, but you kind of are.” Mina laughed, and Max was confused for a moment. They were about the same height, and she didn't even have two years to go before she would be turning seventeen.

In response, she rolled her eyes, taking a seat in the booth. “I am not. It's not my fault I'm fifteen,” she argued, though she wasn't upset. This was the Mina she expected, the one who would goad her just a little bit.

mina pandora oliveira

[mina pandora oliveira]

maxima ruqayyah greyback

Even though Mina had just met this cousin of hers, outside of their letters of course, Max didn’t shy away from the hug. Mina knew she could be overbearing and physical sometimes, Callisto made sure to mention that about every other day, and her dog was constantly trying to pull away from her grasp when all she wanted was something warm and fuzzy to hold. Because Callisto was definitely far from anything warm and fuzzy. Mina returned to her seat and watched Max do the same, knowing full well that she had just pushed the button again by calling her little. She hadn’t anticipated the other girl to be as tall as her, especially at fifteen, but maybe kids these days just grew faster. Mina could fondly remembering being rather small until her seventh year, making all her old hideaways in the school almost impossible to fit into. That had put a damper on her spirits. “Embrace it. Because soon you’ll be old. Like my sisters.” Mina yawned. She had purposely omitted Koda from that because she could never see him as old. Being a professional Quidditch player kind of embraced the whole youth thing.

“So I guess we could do a Q&A type thing if you want. Can’t promise I’ll be able to answer all your questions though, especially regarding Uncle.” Mina hesitated, wondering if Max did have questions about Fenrir. Didn’t they all? Personally, she was terrified of the thought of him coming back to finish what he started. “Is your sister coming too? It was your sister right?” Mina distinctly remembered Max mentioning some type of relative that would probably be interested in coming too. Tapping her fingers on the table for a few seconds, she decided to jump right in before Max could ask a question. “I’m the fourth Wulfe child. There’s Callisto, she’s twenty-two, Sarah is twenty-three and has a son named Sebastian, and then Dakoda, who is a professional Quidditch player. Then there are two younger than me, whom I’m sure you can guess just by the last name.” There was definitely going to be a question about why now, all of a sudden, was there a member of the Wulfe family stepping up to talk about their relations to the Greybacks. Mina understood it was weird, but it was for the better after all.

[Deleted]

As a general rule, Jamie tried not to sneak places. But, as a general rule, her sister didn’t go off to Hogsmeade without such a word her way, and with the way Max was walking like she was on a mission, Jamie was curious. Her first thought was that maybe Max had been late to a meeting with Georgie, but Jamie had seen the younger Hufflepuff climbing upstairs past the entrance level, so she was likely to be meeting someone on one of the higher floors – which was, needless to say, not Max, who lived in the dungeons. Another thought Jamie had had was that her younger sister was going to some romantic meeting of sorts, but with what Max had told her about her sexuality and her opinions on romance in general, Jamie didn’t think that was likely. And if it was a dalliance of sorts, then why hadn’t Jamie heard about this person before? Jamie trailed Max at a distance, far enough back that her younger sister couldn’t tell she was being followed, until they reached the Three Broomsticks. Once they were inside the building it was harder for Jamie not to be obvious about her pursuit, but she managed to get a table nearby to where Max was talking with a youngish looking woman. Jamie pretended to be browsing the menu, but it was obvious to anyone who gave her more than a passing glance who she was really focused on.

mina pandora oliveira
maxima ruqayyah greyback
(permission from Colin to crash)

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Mina advised her to “embrace” her youth, saying that, soon, she would be old, like her sisters. Max admittedly thought that it was amusing that Mina found her sisters to be so old; she didn't think of Jamie or Odette that way.

It was Mina's suggestion that they do a question-and-answer format to get to know one another. That seemed to avoid some of the awkwardness of trying to find common ground with a cousin she barely knew, and it skipped all of the talk about what weather they were having and how it was even more of a given adjective than they had expected it to be and everything else that seemed so fake yet came so naturally to most people. Max wasn't too concerned that Mina didn't think that she could answer much about her father. What was there to know about him, aside from the obvious? He was a werewolf and a sadist and a murderer; everyone knew all of that.

When Mina asked if her sister was planning to come, Max shook her head. “No,” she replied, though she didn't think that Jamie would have disliked Mina. “Just me.”

The talk turned to Mina's own siblings, the cousins whom Max had never known as her family. It had taken long enough to get all of her half-siblings in a room, and then Elias had turned out to be one of them, too. For that reason, Max felt safe to assume that getting the Wulfes all together to meet all of them would be the greatest logistical nightmare of all time, especially when it seemed as though any coordination in that regard would probably fall upon her and Mina.

“There's six of you,” Max continued once Mina had finished, “and six of us,” if they weren't including Mina's nephew. “There's me,” she began, counting with her fingers, “then Adrian, Elias, Jamie…”

Just then, something compelled her to look over, and she caught sight of her half-sister at another table. “Jamie!” Since when had she been there? As far as she could remember, she had told Jamie that she was meeting Mina. Sure, she hadn't reminded her on her way out of the castle, but she hadn't been trying to exclude her. Max looked back to Mina. “That's her,” she explained quickly, in case it wasn't a given.

She motioned for Jamie to come over to them and couldn't help smiling as she introduced the two of them. “Jamie,” Max announced, “this is our cousin Mina.”

@jamie
mina pandora oliveira

[mina pandora oliveira]

maxima ruqayyah greyback & @jamie

Mina was somewhat disappointed that today was only going to bring one cousin to her. She loved family, and adding more members to it only made her happier. Obviously she had to work on that notion on a few other fronts, namely one that started with O- and ended with -phelia, but she was getting around to it. Koda always made pretty good choices, and if it was going to be Ophelia from now on, then she was going to have to get over it eventually. “Even numbers of siblings is good, that way nobody is stuck in the middle.” Mina pointed out, rather quickly upon Max’s comment that she also had five other siblings. Of course Mina always felt like she was the middle Wulfe child, being the only one that was a few years apart from her closet siblings on both sides of her. The three oldest were all a year apart, and the same went for the younger two as well. She liked to think she managed it fairly well though.

As Max listed her siblings’ names off, she paused on the third one, Jamie, before suddenly shouting it out again. Mina turned to her head to follow the smaller Slytherin’s gaze, towards a blonde girl sitting a few tables away, staring at a menu. If that didn’t scream that she was following Max, then Mina didn’t know what did. She was on her feet before the other girl was, already walking towards her. Obviously Mina was going to give her a hug too. They were family after all. “Nice to meet you too, Jamie. Care to join us? I’ve been answering any questions Max has, so if you have anything as well, feel free to ask away.” She said with a big smile, before returning to her seat. This was definitely going to be an interesting day.

[Deleted]

Of course Jamie couldn’t have just continued sulking in relative anonymity at her own table. Max just had to look over and see her and say something. Jamie knew there was no getting out of this now, so she stood up, not even bothering to pretend like she was surprised to see her little sister. She didn’t see why Max was smiling so big, considering that this whole ‘cousin’ thing didn’t seem likely to work out. At best, they got another family member to keep from dying, and at worse, they got someone like Maria, who was crazy and a little too overprotective. Jamie winced a little at the unexpected contact when her cousin – Mina was her name, Jamie reminded herself – hugged her, but returned the embrace nonetheless.

Instead of asking a question of her cousin, Jamie turned to Max. “You forgot about Lily.” She said rather stiffly. She knew that Max and Lily weren’t all that close – Jamie wasn’t sure if they had ever even had a conversation together – but she was, for all intents and purposes, a Greyback. There were seven of them, not six. As for questions, Jamie shrugged. “Why now?” If what she had heard was true, and some of the Wulfes were upwards of twenty years old, it seemed a little foolish that they hadn’t contacted their cousins before. Jamie had been using her last name as long as she had been at Hogwarts, and one of the Wulfes must have heard it, must have known. Jamie had waited to approach her siblings until she had thought that they were ready, but now, with a Greyback as a Triwizard Champion, Jamie couldn’t rule out the Wulfes coming forward for some sort of compensation, should Elias win. Sure, Jamie wasn’t the closest with her brother, but she wasn’t about to let him be extorted by relatives who had just come out of the woodwork.

mina pandora oliveira
maxima ruqayyah greyback

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

“You forgot about Lily.”

“Lily Potter,” Max clarified quickly for Mina's sake, before Jamie could raise a fuss. She looked to the Hufflepuff with a raised brow. It wasn't as if Jamie really believed that they were actually related to Lily. Besides, something in her doubted that Mina had any interest in getting to know Lily Potter, who wasn't her cousin and who already had more cousins than Max could name. Still, Max was willing to humor her older half-sister. “The unofficial seventh Greyback.” Jamie, especially, might have considered Lily to be like another sister to them, but, thankfully, she wasn't actually related to them by blood. That would have made her relationship with Adrian—who was actually related to them—very, very awkward, and they had enough going for their family name already without adding incest to the mix.

“Why now?”

Max blinked. Why what? They hadn't met yet because of—Oh. “Yeah…” Max looked at Mina for an answer. It was strange to see Jamie as the skeptical one. That had been her job, Max realized, wondering if how she was viewing Jamie was how Jamie usually viewed her. Maybe she shouldn't have gone through with meeting Mina, she thought. Maybe she should have ignored that letter enclosed with her book, but it wasn't every day that people found their cousins by their father's sister from ordering a book through owl post. Had her nearly having died made her into Jamie?

Whatever had happened, Jamie made a good point. (Granted, none of them, as half-siblings, had made a considerable effort to be “family” until the previous year, either.) She echoed precisely what Jamie had asked. “Why now?” It had just seemed like an opportunity seized. Wasn't that all there was to it?

mina pandora oliveira
@jamie

[mina pandora oliveira]

maxima ruqayyah greyback & @jamie

The returned hug was definitely hesitant, Mina could tell that much. That was actually what she had expected out of Max, especially considering how they had communicated through their letters. Max had also seemingly lauded over this sibling of hers, Jamie, right? Still, Mina didn’t expect as much as she had already gotten, and this was only a start of course. If things worked out then it wouldn’t be as awkward in no time flat. She hated awkward conversations anyways, so talking her way out of them was probably the tactic she’d employ here if it got any worse. It seemed like her cousins were doing all the work though, having some kind of disagreement over a girl named Lily and whether or not she was really one of them. Quite the strange thing to say, although dropping the last name Potter helped Mina along a little bit. It wasn’t exactly her concern right now though.

The first question out of Jamie’s mouth, and subsequently Max’s as well, was not the one she thought she was going to be answering first. There was a chance they’d ask her to leave them alone if she told them it was all for fun because she was bored. Which is kind of was, but there was also a good reason why she had never contacted any of them until now. “Because I was told not to while I was in school. I’m sure you probably know my two younger siblings as well, or have at least heard of them. Mum and dad told the three of us to keep our mouths shut about the family while at Hogwarts.” She paused to make sure that they were keeping up with her. “It’s because mum and dad left uncle’s army, that’s your father, Fenrir, and he wasn’t a big fan of that. He came back at some point and turned the two oldest, Dakoda and Sarah, and left the third as a warning that he would come back again, I assume.” At least that’s what Mina had been told. She was pretty sure her parents wouldn’t lie to her, and then again, she was also the reckless one, so if there was a deeper truth to it all, she wasn’t the one they were going to divulge that information with. “Then I came along, and the last two later on. I don’t know what our parents told the oldest three to do while in school, but the rule for us was to keep our mouths shut about all of it. We’ve moved around a lot to avoid uncle finding us again, so I think not telling any of you was to keep all of us safe. I’m not really a fan of hiding things, or listening for that matter, but they were dead serious about me not saying anything while still in school. Guess I screwed that up for the other two now…” As she finished, Mina took a deep breath and looked back and forth between Max and Jamie. She was pretty sure that was all of it.

[Deleted]

Max didn’t seem pleased with Jamie’s insistence on including Lily in the list of Greybacks, but forgetting her was just as bad as forgetting Odette or Adrian, as far as Jamie was concerned. She was certainly closer to Lily than she was to some of her other siblings, and the Gryffindor was a lot easier to read than the other Greybacks, too. Jamie sighed a little when Max had to make a point of insisting that Lily was the ‘unofficial’ seventh child in their family. She couldn’t have just said Lily’s name and been done with it?

It seemed like Max needed Jamie there for a little dose of reality; her sister was only now considering that it was strange that Mina had appeared not long after Elias was named Champion and Jamie was poised to make a leap into a lucrative career. Her younger sister echoed her question, and the Hufflepuff tilted her chin up just slightly, a challenge for their cousin. Jamie tried not to begin to feel bad as Mina explained the entire situation. She had asked if Jamie had any questions, and Jamie had, so…

“It’s not as bad as you’d think.” Jamie said bluntly. “Being bitten by him, I mean.” At least, it hadn’t been for her. She had been young, though, and the experience so traumatic that it was all but gone from her brain. Now that she knew how it had gone down, things were slowly begun to fit back together, and Jamie was getting a clearer picture, but…She didn’t know why she had admitted that her father had bitten her in front of a woman who was practically a stranger. Perhaps for the shock value, Jamie mused to herself. Mina didn’t seem to be all that interested in anti-werewolf propaganda, considering her two eldest siblings were wolves, but it also served to remind Mina that just because her parents were afraid of Fenrir didn’t mean that Jamie was. She had gotten past that when Max had almost died and she had come up with the hare-brained scheme to kill him.

mina pandora oliveira
maxima ruqayyah greyback

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

While she was in school, Mina explained, she had been instructed not to say anything about her relation to them. It made enough sense, not wanting to have that association. Her parents—their aunt and uncle, then—had left their father's werewolf army—Mina had called it an “army”, anyway, which was probably more accurate than “pack”—and he had taken offense to that, biting their two oldest children. Then she had come along, with even younger siblings after her.

Mina said that she didn't know what the instructions had been to her older siblings, but she and the younger ones had been told to “keep [their] mouths shut about all of it.” She added, “We’ve moved around a lot to avoid Uncle finding us again, so I think not telling any of you was to keep all of us safe. I’m not really a fan of hiding things, or listening for that matter, but they were dead serious about me not saying anything while still in school. Guess I screwed that up for the other two now…”

Jamie chimed in that it actually wasn't that bad to be bitten by Fenrir Greyback, but Max remained more focused on what Mina had just said. “…So you're in hiding?” she asked, both quizzical and concerned. Reaching out to a fifteen-year-old who had never met her murderous werewolf father and her seventeen-year-old sister who didn't think much of his bite that had given her her lycanthropy was obviously the quickest way to get help, Max thought.

She paused, beginning to consider her own safety. Like Mina, she wasn't a werewolf; though, if Fenrir had found the others… “You don't think he'll be back, do you? With Elias's name everywhere?” she asked in a hushed voice, looking between the other two.

mina pandora oliveira
@jamie

[mina pandora oliveira]

maxima ruqayyah greyback & @jamie

Mina chose to purposely ignore Jamie as she commented on being bit not being as bad as it seemed, specifically by Fenrir. That was all nice and stuff, but she wasn’t his flesh and blood; she was from his sister, a traitor to the cause or whatever his silly little game was. That bite that Jamie didn’t think was so bad would be Mina’s life, or that of one of her siblings. Of course there was the possibility that the same could be said with Jamie or any one of Fenrir’s other dozen (or more) kids, but the likelihood of him offing one of his own was far slimmer that it was with her family.

She decided to let it go though, because clearly it wasn’t important enough to argue their ideologies on what was better: being a werewolf or not. Mina understood both sides relatively well, and she assumed Jamie did as well. They’d probably agree on more than they thought too. What was important though, was little Max’s questions, seeing as that was why Mina was there in the first place. To answer them to the best of her abilities. “Something like that. It’s a little hard to be in hiding when you have such a large family spread out across London, but yeah. At least growing up we weren’t allowed to tell where the house was and we moved around a lot because of that. It’s a little safer in the city,” Mina pointed out.

Not that her nightly activities of getting wasted and partying helped her on that front. The safest she had probably been in her entire life, aside from being at school, was while she was in America. There were other things that could kill her there, but not as many werewolves devoted to good old Uncle Fenrir. Mina shrugged at Max. “To be honest, there’s a better chance now more than before. But who knows?”

[Deleted]

No one mentioned anything about Jamie being bitten by Fenrir, and she was oddly okay with that. She wished that one of her werewolf siblings was there to corroborate her story, since neither Max nor Mina had any idea of what she was talking about, and it was plausible that they didn’t say anything because they thought that she was crazy for expressing such a thought. The conversation moved on to whether or not Mina and her family were in hiding, which Jamie listened to with mild interest. Mina explained that they were only semi in hiding, and Jamie nodded, even though she didn’t really understand how the city was safer.

Finally, Max touched upon the thing that Jamie had been worried about since their half-brother had been selected as Champion. Their father coming back. The name Greyback was a household name again, but not for a bad reason, and somehow Jamie didn’t see Fenrir’s ego being able to withstand that kind of blow. Mina agreed that there was a chance that he could be back, which was when Jamie decided to share her biggest worry about the whole thing: Max being hurt. “Which is why it’s not a good idea to go meeting strangers in Hogsmeade.” Jamie chastised. “Even if you two had talked before now, it’s not beyond belief that someone would masquerade as a long-lost relative in order to get you alone.” It was something that they had been taught in Muggle primary school, and something that Jamie had always thought to be common sense.

mina pandora oliveira
maxima ruqayyah greyback