Post by Ashlyn Swallow G5 on Apr 20, 2022 7:36:39 GMT -5
She's certain that she'll scream again if she opens her mouth so Layla sits with her lips pressed together so tightly that it hurts, her entire body still as she gazes blankly at the wall. It would be a scream like a banshee, Layla thinks with distant certainty, because she's only ten years old but the twins leave their schoolbooks lying around during the summer and she'll read anything that she can get her hands on. So Layla knows what a banshee is, knows that their scream is linked to death and loss, and she can't imagine any instance where a banshee scream would be more appropriate because her mum is dead - lying in a pool of red, green eyes empty, and Layla's scream echoes sharp and piercing through her tears because it's her fault, all her fault, and there's no escape from the Potions lab because the wards are up and she doesn’t know how to use the wand lying next to her mum even if she could bring herself to crawl over there - and the twins are gone, scooped up by some cousin or other who made excited noises about magical twins. She hasn't seen Dad since he opened the door to the Potions lab in the basement and collapsed in the pool of red - Mum's blood, something in her insists matter of factly, that was Mum's blood because she's dead and it's your fault. He hadn't noticed her right away but the same low, mournful cry came from his chest when he finally prised her from her hiding place and carried her upstairs, tears raining down on her head through every step.
She doesn't really know what happened after that but now she's sitting in the dining room, staring at the wall with her lips pressed together so she doesn’t scream. There are aunts and uncles that she doesn't really recognise off to one side, discussing her in low voices and casting occasional glances her way, so she isn’t technically alone but she still feels it. They tried to coax her into speaking to them earlier but she was counting the stripes on the wallpaper and she'll scream again if she tries to talk so Layla had ignored them until they gave up. There's movement in the corner of her eye so one of them must be coming over again. Layla exhales and blinks and tries to summon up any semblance of energy or interest but fails miserably. She doesn't care which one of them it is or what they want. She just wants her mum and they're never going to be her so they don't matter.
This person doesn't kneel beside her like the other aunts did; she stands in front of Layla and must just look down at the top of her head for a few moments because Layla doesn't glance up at her. She can see enough to know that this isn't one of the relatives who have been hovering around her for the past few hours so this must be a new one. Maybe she came for the twins and was too late, Layla thinks humourlessly, because Keegan and Alexis have been gone for what seems like an eternity, swept away despite their sobbing protests. The new one moves slightly, weight shifting from one foot to the other, and then sighs the same way Dad does when he trips over something that one of them have left lying about on the floor.
“Come on then,” the new one says eventually. “Up you get. We can come back to collect your stuff later if you want, elsewise I'll just send Jigger for it.”
Layla still doesn't move and the new one sighs again, this time softer, and crouches down to meet her eyes. She's pretty, Layla notices distantly but her attention is caught more by the fact that they look alike. Layla is the only one of her siblings with their mum's light hair; the twins both have their dad's dark colouring and so do most of the relatives she's seen today. This one has blonde hair, almost like Layla's but longer and curly and a deeper colour. Not the same, she thinks dismally, and is ready to turn her head away when the stranger's fingers catch her chin in a firm grasp.
“None of that,” she murmurs so only the two of them can hear, stern but not unkind. “You can't sit here all night, kid. I'm not ideal but at least I'm a better option than most of them, trust me. You need to stand up and put one foot in front of the other until we get outside. That’s all. Baby steps, alright? You don't need to do anything else today if you don't want to but I need you to stand up and walk out of here with me. Can you do that?”
Layla blinks, her mind slowly making sense of the orders this stranger who isn't her mum has given her, and somehow figures out how to obey. She stumbles when she stands, her legs asleep after so long in one position, but the blonde has a steadying arm around her waist in an instant. She's stood up, Layla registers. That was step one. Now they have to leave but the hallway takes them past the door to the basement and she can't help the choked sound that rises in her throat when they approach, stubbornly digging her heels into the carpet and refusing to take another step. There's a hissed curse that her mum would scrub this girl's mouth out with soap for when Layla's nails dig into her wrist hard enough to draw blood but then there's a pale hand pressed against the side of her face to block her line of sight and a firm touch against her back, pushing her along those last few steps until they're out the front door.
It's nighttime, Layla realises in the seconds before she's swept away by the sickening rush of a portkey. It had been early morning when she and Mum went down to the basement.
***
She had been right. The moment Layla opens her mouth for the first time, she screams. The darkness presses against her, shadows jumping and flickering, and Layla sits upright in the bed that her new cousin has given her, mouth open in a scream that never seems to end. She doesn't realise that her hands are tangled in the roots of her hair, tugging hard enough that some strands stay wrapped around her fingers when Ashlyn takes a firm grasp around her wrists and forces her arms down.
It's only been a few hours but Layla has already figured out that Ashlyn isn't the type of person who likes hugs. It would bewilder her if she had the mental capacity to think about anything but the sight of her mother's dead body; she comes from an affectionate family and waking from a nightmare like this would normally result in all of them in her parents' bed with hot chocolate and plenty of cuddles, twins included despite their usual protests that they're too old for that sort of thing. She isn't wrong so she's surprised that Ashlyn wraps a loose arm around her shoulders and pulls against her with enough gentle force that Layla curls willingly into her side with a ragged sob, hiding her face against the older girl's stomach.
Ashlyn jostles her just enough so that she can stretch her legs out on the bed, back resting against the headboard, and then settles a hand against her head. It isn't hot chocolate and cuddles but it's enough, especially with the light spilling in from the hallway. Layla falls back asleep to a hushed chorus of her own cries and Ashlyn's voice murmuring something so softly that she can't make out all the words.
***
Ashlyn hates that she unbends enough to agree to a floo call with Damon, hates the weakness that it betrays. It hasn't even been two weeks and she’s already exhausted to the point of tears. Layla doesn't speak, hardly eats, and doesn't sleep without waking up screaming in the middle of the night. That first night had nearly given her a heart attack: waking up from a light sleep on the couch - because the second bedroom at the back of the house had been transformed into her music room years before so she had given her bedroom over to Layla until she found time a few days later to sort things out properly - to her cousin screaming like she was being murdered. Ashlyn had already worn proof that the girl scratched like a wildcat thanks to the little breakdown on their way out of her house but she hadn't expected the nightmares to be so bad, not until one of her aunts finally gave her the full story after Ashlyn penned a particularly scathing letter after too little sleep. Being locked in a small room with a dead body for hours on end is enough to give anyone nightmares, especially a child.
She startles when Damon says her name, something in his tone indicating that this isn't the first time he's tried to get her attention. Floo calls are undignified at the best of times but at least the fire will hide the exhaustion in her face and the dullness of her hair and eyes better than anything short of a glamour would if they had met in person. “I just don't think she's ready for anyone else to be in the house,” she tells him stubbornly, “much less try to settle in an entirely new place with a lot of new people. It's...well, I don't know if you’ve ever noticed but your siblings tend to be rather overwhelming even in small doses,” Ashlyn says dryly. “I have difficulty with them at the best of times - and you think a traumatised 10 year old will thrive amidst that chaos?”
Her tone was a bit too sharp towards the end, she thinks, and gives into the weakness of digging the heel of her hands against her eyes for a few seconds. She’s so tired that everything feels as overwhelming as she's just told Damon his family is. Her memory is a bit hazy because she doesn’t think she's slept more than a few snatched hours a night since Layla arrived but she's pretty sure she dropped a cup this morning and almost burst into tears. “It wasn’t even a nice cup,” she mutters under her breath irritably, caught by the memory now that it's surfaced. “I don't even know why I bought it in the first place.”
“Maybe later, towards the end of the summer,” Ashlyn offers after a few moments of silence. “Once she's a bit more settled. She'll have to get used to new people before September anyway. She missed the cut off for Hogwarts this year by a few days but I have a meeting with the Headmistress to arrange for her to be enrolled in September anyway. She’ll be the youngest kid in her year by a fair bit but what else is she going to do, stay here by herself?” Even she hadn't lived by herself until she was eleven, Ashlyn acknowledges grimly, and Layla simply isn't a self-sufficient type of kid right now even if she might have been under different circumstances. The kid would never survive in this house with only Jigger to wake her from her nightmares.
***
They adjust, after a fashion, because that's what humans do.
Layla can't bring herself to speak even though she's fairly sure now that her screams are reserved for the times when she wakes in darkness. Ashlyn has layered various lamps throughout the bedroom so that doesn't happen anymore; Layla flicks each of them on every night as she walks from the door to the bed, counting them off in her mind like other children count sheep, and turns them off the following morning. She doesn't speak but her hunger had broken through the resounding numbness on the third week, which had delighted Ashlyn's house-elf to no end.
Jigger is a fascinating creature to Layla, who has never seen a house-elf before. He calls her ‘little mistress’ and flutters around her like an anxious bumblebee, fretting over her and Ashlyn as if they'll fade away without his solicitous care. Ashlyn brushes him off with a roll of her eyes, although she always eats from whatever plate Jigger pointedly puts at her elbow without comment, but her voice is gentle when she speaks to him, not the cautious softness she adopts with Layla as if she's worried that saying the wrong thing will break her but something that feels like the quiet, sad way Mum had talked about her parents sometimes. She's never met a house-elf before but she quickly learns that it makes him sad when she doesn’t eat properly or when she gives into the fog that makes her want to just sit in a chair all day and let the hours pass by. Layla doesn't like making people sad, or house-elves apparently, so she chokes down food until it stops tasting like dust and ash in her mouth and forces herself to push past the heavy cloud that tries to consume her sometimes. Ashlyn doesn't share Jigger's evident pleasure at the small changes but she runs a soft hand over Layla's hair and some of the shadows in her expression seem to lighten.
Layla can spend hours curled in the window, a book in her hands that she can't concentrate on long enough to read, when Ashlyn plays. Her cousin has an obvious preference for the violin and will quite happily while away the hours first playing and then cleaning the instrument, but it isn't until she hears the soft, sad melody forming from Ashlyn's fingers against the piano keys that Layla cautiously pads to the new music room that Jigger seems to have created from thin air and leans against the doorframe silently. Ashlyn doesn't notice her immediately, head bent as she alternates between pressing keys and scratching out new notes on a piece of parchment with a ragged quill, but she tips her head in subtle invitation once she's finished.
“This,” Ashlyn tells her once Layla is settled on the bench beside her, “is the first instrument I ever learnt how to play. My uncle taught me when I was a little bit younger than you because it was his favourite. We started with very simple scales, just like this.” Ashlyn demonstrates with deliberately slow movements and Layla watches through a gaze that feels sharper and more aware than anything she's felt in weeks. When Ashlyn moves her hands aside, Layla copies her movements, clumsier than the older girl had been but still bringing forth the same notes that had rang out for Ashlyn, and feels something within her settle.
Jigger finds them both in the music room hours later when he calls them for dinner, positions swapped so Layla sits in the middle with Ashlyn to one side, murmuring encouragement and soft corrections. His large eyes are perhaps a little watery when he summons them but Ashlyn pushes Layla on ahead before the younger girl can take notice, pausing a moment to rest a hand on Jigger's shoulder and offer a sad smile before she follows. They both remember a different blonde head bent studiously over the same piano, picking out the same melody with clumsy, uncertain fingers. It feels like a lifetime ago but Layla's wide-eyed determination brings back memories Ashlyn thought long buried.
“Let’s not dwell on the mistakes,” she quotes under her breath, swallowing against the vivid memory of her uncle smiling down at her childish frustration. “All the sweetest melodies start out as wrong notes.”
She doesn't really know what happened after that but now she's sitting in the dining room, staring at the wall with her lips pressed together so she doesn’t scream. There are aunts and uncles that she doesn't really recognise off to one side, discussing her in low voices and casting occasional glances her way, so she isn’t technically alone but she still feels it. They tried to coax her into speaking to them earlier but she was counting the stripes on the wallpaper and she'll scream again if she tries to talk so Layla had ignored them until they gave up. There's movement in the corner of her eye so one of them must be coming over again. Layla exhales and blinks and tries to summon up any semblance of energy or interest but fails miserably. She doesn't care which one of them it is or what they want. She just wants her mum and they're never going to be her so they don't matter.
This person doesn't kneel beside her like the other aunts did; she stands in front of Layla and must just look down at the top of her head for a few moments because Layla doesn't glance up at her. She can see enough to know that this isn't one of the relatives who have been hovering around her for the past few hours so this must be a new one. Maybe she came for the twins and was too late, Layla thinks humourlessly, because Keegan and Alexis have been gone for what seems like an eternity, swept away despite their sobbing protests. The new one moves slightly, weight shifting from one foot to the other, and then sighs the same way Dad does when he trips over something that one of them have left lying about on the floor.
“Come on then,” the new one says eventually. “Up you get. We can come back to collect your stuff later if you want, elsewise I'll just send Jigger for it.”
Layla still doesn't move and the new one sighs again, this time softer, and crouches down to meet her eyes. She's pretty, Layla notices distantly but her attention is caught more by the fact that they look alike. Layla is the only one of her siblings with their mum's light hair; the twins both have their dad's dark colouring and so do most of the relatives she's seen today. This one has blonde hair, almost like Layla's but longer and curly and a deeper colour. Not the same, she thinks dismally, and is ready to turn her head away when the stranger's fingers catch her chin in a firm grasp.
“None of that,” she murmurs so only the two of them can hear, stern but not unkind. “You can't sit here all night, kid. I'm not ideal but at least I'm a better option than most of them, trust me. You need to stand up and put one foot in front of the other until we get outside. That’s all. Baby steps, alright? You don't need to do anything else today if you don't want to but I need you to stand up and walk out of here with me. Can you do that?”
Layla blinks, her mind slowly making sense of the orders this stranger who isn't her mum has given her, and somehow figures out how to obey. She stumbles when she stands, her legs asleep after so long in one position, but the blonde has a steadying arm around her waist in an instant. She's stood up, Layla registers. That was step one. Now they have to leave but the hallway takes them past the door to the basement and she can't help the choked sound that rises in her throat when they approach, stubbornly digging her heels into the carpet and refusing to take another step. There's a hissed curse that her mum would scrub this girl's mouth out with soap for when Layla's nails dig into her wrist hard enough to draw blood but then there's a pale hand pressed against the side of her face to block her line of sight and a firm touch against her back, pushing her along those last few steps until they're out the front door.
It's nighttime, Layla realises in the seconds before she's swept away by the sickening rush of a portkey. It had been early morning when she and Mum went down to the basement.
***
She had been right. The moment Layla opens her mouth for the first time, she screams. The darkness presses against her, shadows jumping and flickering, and Layla sits upright in the bed that her new cousin has given her, mouth open in a scream that never seems to end. She doesn't realise that her hands are tangled in the roots of her hair, tugging hard enough that some strands stay wrapped around her fingers when Ashlyn takes a firm grasp around her wrists and forces her arms down.
It's only been a few hours but Layla has already figured out that Ashlyn isn't the type of person who likes hugs. It would bewilder her if she had the mental capacity to think about anything but the sight of her mother's dead body; she comes from an affectionate family and waking from a nightmare like this would normally result in all of them in her parents' bed with hot chocolate and plenty of cuddles, twins included despite their usual protests that they're too old for that sort of thing. She isn't wrong so she's surprised that Ashlyn wraps a loose arm around her shoulders and pulls against her with enough gentle force that Layla curls willingly into her side with a ragged sob, hiding her face against the older girl's stomach.
Ashlyn jostles her just enough so that she can stretch her legs out on the bed, back resting against the headboard, and then settles a hand against her head. It isn't hot chocolate and cuddles but it's enough, especially with the light spilling in from the hallway. Layla falls back asleep to a hushed chorus of her own cries and Ashlyn's voice murmuring something so softly that she can't make out all the words.
***
Ashlyn hates that she unbends enough to agree to a floo call with Damon, hates the weakness that it betrays. It hasn't even been two weeks and she’s already exhausted to the point of tears. Layla doesn't speak, hardly eats, and doesn't sleep without waking up screaming in the middle of the night. That first night had nearly given her a heart attack: waking up from a light sleep on the couch - because the second bedroom at the back of the house had been transformed into her music room years before so she had given her bedroom over to Layla until she found time a few days later to sort things out properly - to her cousin screaming like she was being murdered. Ashlyn had already worn proof that the girl scratched like a wildcat thanks to the little breakdown on their way out of her house but she hadn't expected the nightmares to be so bad, not until one of her aunts finally gave her the full story after Ashlyn penned a particularly scathing letter after too little sleep. Being locked in a small room with a dead body for hours on end is enough to give anyone nightmares, especially a child.
She startles when Damon says her name, something in his tone indicating that this isn't the first time he's tried to get her attention. Floo calls are undignified at the best of times but at least the fire will hide the exhaustion in her face and the dullness of her hair and eyes better than anything short of a glamour would if they had met in person. “I just don't think she's ready for anyone else to be in the house,” she tells him stubbornly, “much less try to settle in an entirely new place with a lot of new people. It's...well, I don't know if you’ve ever noticed but your siblings tend to be rather overwhelming even in small doses,” Ashlyn says dryly. “I have difficulty with them at the best of times - and you think a traumatised 10 year old will thrive amidst that chaos?”
Her tone was a bit too sharp towards the end, she thinks, and gives into the weakness of digging the heel of her hands against her eyes for a few seconds. She’s so tired that everything feels as overwhelming as she's just told Damon his family is. Her memory is a bit hazy because she doesn’t think she's slept more than a few snatched hours a night since Layla arrived but she's pretty sure she dropped a cup this morning and almost burst into tears. “It wasn’t even a nice cup,” she mutters under her breath irritably, caught by the memory now that it's surfaced. “I don't even know why I bought it in the first place.”
“Maybe later, towards the end of the summer,” Ashlyn offers after a few moments of silence. “Once she's a bit more settled. She'll have to get used to new people before September anyway. She missed the cut off for Hogwarts this year by a few days but I have a meeting with the Headmistress to arrange for her to be enrolled in September anyway. She’ll be the youngest kid in her year by a fair bit but what else is she going to do, stay here by herself?” Even she hadn't lived by herself until she was eleven, Ashlyn acknowledges grimly, and Layla simply isn't a self-sufficient type of kid right now even if she might have been under different circumstances. The kid would never survive in this house with only Jigger to wake her from her nightmares.
***
They adjust, after a fashion, because that's what humans do.
Layla can't bring herself to speak even though she's fairly sure now that her screams are reserved for the times when she wakes in darkness. Ashlyn has layered various lamps throughout the bedroom so that doesn't happen anymore; Layla flicks each of them on every night as she walks from the door to the bed, counting them off in her mind like other children count sheep, and turns them off the following morning. She doesn't speak but her hunger had broken through the resounding numbness on the third week, which had delighted Ashlyn's house-elf to no end.
Jigger is a fascinating creature to Layla, who has never seen a house-elf before. He calls her ‘little mistress’ and flutters around her like an anxious bumblebee, fretting over her and Ashlyn as if they'll fade away without his solicitous care. Ashlyn brushes him off with a roll of her eyes, although she always eats from whatever plate Jigger pointedly puts at her elbow without comment, but her voice is gentle when she speaks to him, not the cautious softness she adopts with Layla as if she's worried that saying the wrong thing will break her but something that feels like the quiet, sad way Mum had talked about her parents sometimes. She's never met a house-elf before but she quickly learns that it makes him sad when she doesn’t eat properly or when she gives into the fog that makes her want to just sit in a chair all day and let the hours pass by. Layla doesn't like making people sad, or house-elves apparently, so she chokes down food until it stops tasting like dust and ash in her mouth and forces herself to push past the heavy cloud that tries to consume her sometimes. Ashlyn doesn't share Jigger's evident pleasure at the small changes but she runs a soft hand over Layla's hair and some of the shadows in her expression seem to lighten.
Layla can spend hours curled in the window, a book in her hands that she can't concentrate on long enough to read, when Ashlyn plays. Her cousin has an obvious preference for the violin and will quite happily while away the hours first playing and then cleaning the instrument, but it isn't until she hears the soft, sad melody forming from Ashlyn's fingers against the piano keys that Layla cautiously pads to the new music room that Jigger seems to have created from thin air and leans against the doorframe silently. Ashlyn doesn't notice her immediately, head bent as she alternates between pressing keys and scratching out new notes on a piece of parchment with a ragged quill, but she tips her head in subtle invitation once she's finished.
“This,” Ashlyn tells her once Layla is settled on the bench beside her, “is the first instrument I ever learnt how to play. My uncle taught me when I was a little bit younger than you because it was his favourite. We started with very simple scales, just like this.” Ashlyn demonstrates with deliberately slow movements and Layla watches through a gaze that feels sharper and more aware than anything she's felt in weeks. When Ashlyn moves her hands aside, Layla copies her movements, clumsier than the older girl had been but still bringing forth the same notes that had rang out for Ashlyn, and feels something within her settle.
Jigger finds them both in the music room hours later when he calls them for dinner, positions swapped so Layla sits in the middle with Ashlyn to one side, murmuring encouragement and soft corrections. His large eyes are perhaps a little watery when he summons them but Ashlyn pushes Layla on ahead before the younger girl can take notice, pausing a moment to rest a hand on Jigger's shoulder and offer a sad smile before she follows. They both remember a different blonde head bent studiously over the same piano, picking out the same melody with clumsy, uncertain fingers. It feels like a lifetime ago but Layla's wide-eyed determination brings back memories Ashlyn thought long buried.
“Let’s not dwell on the mistakes,” she quotes under her breath, swallowing against the vivid memory of her uncle smiling down at her childish frustration. “All the sweetest melodies start out as wrong notes.”