These Hallowed Halls

Our Tiny Rebellion

Her father's grip on her arm was painful.

"Merlin."  Audra was knocked back against one of the dusty filing cabinets, her hair hanging down loose from her face.  She had been wearing a mask, but the moment that her father had closed the door and pushed one of the desks up against it, he had turned to her and ripped it off, taking strands of her hair with it.  Now he's just got her by the wrist, looking like he can't decide whether he wants to hold her or break her.  "What are you doing here?"

Audra yanks herself away.  "I came to see you."

I wanted to make sure that we were safe.  I wanted to make sure that he didn't hurt you for what I did.  I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry that I didn't go with you that day at the train station, that I'm sorry I never had it in me to run away. 

"You shouldn't have."  He closes his eyes, just long enough to take in one harsh breath, and when he reaches out to her again, his hand is shaking.   "You shouldn't have come anywhere near here."

"You're the one who dragged me down here."  He had caught sight of her across the room, and broke off from his conversation with the minister to get to her, and Audra wanted to tell him no, that he would have to wait, but part of Audra had become a little girl again who cared about nothing about getting her father to tell her that everything was going to be okay, so she followed him to the elevator like he said, carefully not looking at him until the grate pulled closed and the party disappeared from sight.  "I don't think you could have been more obvious if you tried."

"Don't put this on me," He snarls, and then he rounds on her so that they are face to face, and Audra is surprised to find that she is taller than him.  "Don't pretend that you're not the one who abandoned me, abandoned this family,"

"I didn't abandon you," She shoves at him and he catches at her wrist, throws her back into the counter.  Audra had never remembered her laying a hand on her before.  "I just wanted to protect my friends, there's nothing wrong about that, you made your choice and I made mine, you can't punish me for that!"

"You killed your mother!"  His voice cracks, and Audra remembers what Muriel had said, the one warning.  It wasn't about how reckless it was to be going to a party or about the stupidity about walking into a ministry where there were warrants out for her arrest, but about her father.  They tell you that love is unconditional, she had said, fastening Audra's mask into place so it hid her face from the mouth up.  But that's not always true, even for fathers.  Especially for fathers.  Not so much mothers.  "Killed your mother,"

"I didn't do that."

"You left her to die."  He had moved across the room, the furthest from her that he could get, and Audra doens't know if it because he is afraid of what he might do to her or if it is because he can't stand the sight of her.  "It came to the same result."

"She was going to kill me.  What kind of mother does that?  What kind of parent?"  Audra takes a step further into the room, into the light, and he cringes away from her.  "Would you have rather it been me?"

"I want it to be you.  I've wanted it to be you ever since Vance died.  Since you let him die.  She said it was awful, but," Audra isn't crying, but her father is, and she knows that it wasn't her that he was crying for.  "But I wanted it to be you instead.  Even before I knew that everything about you was a lie, I wanted it to be you."

They stare at each other across the room- her father in his suit and her in her ruined dress, and Audra is struck by the thought that he really was a mirror image of Vance, and that there was nothing of him in her.  She never did look very much like either of her parents, always her aunt.  Just the shadow of Bellatrix painted all over her face.

"Why did you come here?"  Her father says, after a moment.  "Really."

Audra doesn't have an answer.  She had known that it was idiotic to go from the moment Muriel got the invitation in the mail, inviting her and a guest to the costume party fundraiser that the ministry was throwing in honor of the new minister's time in office, but then she had seen her father's name printed at the bottom with the list of donators and knew that she would be going.

To make sure that you were safe.  To give you another chance to run away, but this time with me rescuing you.

Instead of answering, Audra pulls on the chain at her neck, forces it into her father's hand.  "You had that made for me when I was seven.  Do you remember what you told me?"  The necklace was goblin made, custom ordered, and it cost more than Audra could probably hope to make in her entire life.  "You told me that family was everything.  That it was the only thing that mattered.  And then you abandoned me."

"You did that-,"

"You made me do that.  Everyone keeps telling me that we all have choices, but I never did.  Join or die, that's what you and mom told me, but I couldn't join you.  You made me into this.   Not The Dark Lord.  Not Fred, not Dumbledore, not me."  Her breath is coming out in sharp bursts.  "You."

"You ruined us."  He's shaking his head, and even though his hair is streaked with gray, it is still the same shade of golden as Vance was, and unwanted the thought comes that she could take care of him right now, could end her entire family in one sweep.  "You ruined this family."

"Is that why you locked me out?"  Audra sags against the counter, and the dust piled up on it smears over her dress.  "Why you shut the doors to the mansion against me?  When they went to find mom, I couldn't open the doors to get in."

There's a drawn out pause where Audra thinks that he has no idea what she's talking about.  Where she thinks he's about to tell her that it was her mother who shut her out of the manor and the family, after all, her mother who took away her right to the Stanton name, but then he's fumbling behind him for the door knob and she knows that it was him.  It's life that makes you bitter, not the end of it.  "You don't deserve that name."  He spits the words at her.  "Not with everything you've done.   Not with Vance."

The door flies open with a bang and Audra chases him out into the hallway.  "I don't deserve it?"  She screams the words after him, and he stands at the elevator with his hands shoved into his pockets, calm and collected, like nothing had ever happened.  Audra had learned to pretend by watching him.  "I'm the only one who deserves it.  The only one who makes it mean something, the only one of whose worth a damn.  Vance knew it, mom knew it, and you're the only one still hanging onto this idea that your way is the best way, still putting on an act."  Fred's words, which were so comforting to hear at the time, were bitter in your mouth.  "Who are you putting on a show for?  Everyone who loved you is either dead or about to be."

He still doesn't move to face her, but he does flinch, just an imperceptible shake of the shoulders.

"Dad," She says, when the elevator doors grind open and he steps inside, and he hesitates, his hand hanging in the air right before he presses the button that would take him away from her.  "Dad, please."

"What, Audra?"  He sounds so tired, worn through.  She had never thought of her parents as old before.  One of them never would be.

"I love you.  I want you to know that.  Even with everything," She swallows, hard, and the other elevator is lighting up, bring people down to them, which means it is time for her to go.  "I'm still your daughter.  I still love you."

The elevator closes.

He never says it back.