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Elsu - Two out of three is just not that bad!

11:20 PM 27 Jan 2013 NZDT
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 Elsu Elsu

It would be a fair enough statement to say; former New Zealand harness racing champion Elsu, hasn't to date, made the impact at stud that many thought he would. Sure he has left 168 NZ bred winners and some handy types like Anvil Best Ever, Stormy Sirocco, Miss Elsie, Wee Brother and Lucie Boshier; however, nothing that resembles his freakish ability or Nelson Mandela sized heart.

I know it seems a strange thing to have to say but people forget just how good Elsu was. When the now 13-year-old Falcon Seelster entire broke down and had to be retired to stud, he was on an eight win streak, which included the Auckland Cup, three Interdominion heats and the final, the Hunter Cup, and the Auckland City Of sails. The closest any horse had got to him in those eight races was one and a quarter lengths. He was the best New Zealand had seen and still probably has seen since Christian Cullen, and with his breeding and credentials, I couldn't see a single reason in the world why he couldn't do a similar job at stud.

To put it bluntly he just hasn't, and his stud career to date has slightly tarnished his name.

I'm hoping for his sake it's not going to be a similar case to Iraklis and Ill Vicolo. When someone say's to you "I'm breeding from an Iraklis mare or an Ill Vicolo mare," in all honesty, do you think gee Iraklis and Ill Vicolo, weren't they two amazing horses or do you think yuck?

Elsu's last week efforts are sure to help his case. Out of the three two-year-old races run in New Zealand during the weekend, Elsu sired the winner of two of them.

On Friday night, at Alexandra Park God Blessed, a daughter of Elsu won the first Young Guns fillies' heat for trainer Wayne Anstis and reinsman Jay Abernathy. She was impressive showing gate speed and leading from go to woe, running a bit of time in the process and closing off with a slick last 400m of 27.6.

Then at the other end of the country, Invercargill to be exact, Elsu repeated the dose in the first race on Saturday when Simply Susational was successful in the Cruickshank Pryde Two-Year-Old Mobile Pace for trainer David Mitchell and reinsman Jonny Cox.

Maybe, just maybe, one of these youngsters will be the horse that Elsu sires that resembles his own ability?

The other two-year-old race that was run during the weekend was another Young Guns fillies' heat that was won impressively by Angelina Jolie, a daughter of Art Major.

Elsu - Hunter Cup win

Mitchell Robertson

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Growing Up with Mum and Dad by Mutt N Feathers
Chapter 4 : Chapter 4: October-November 1981: The Dark Half of the Year
Rating: MatureChapter Reviews: 2

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Chapter 4:

October 31, 1981

Keacher was quite irritated as he moved through Grimmauld Place. There were far too many children in the house for his taste. Truthfully, any children were too many for him, but the number amassed on this late fall afternoon were simply unbearable for the old house-elf, who enjoyed order and quiet. He'd never say it out loud, but it surprised him how much his mistress was enjoying having all the little ones running amok today. She'd never been this happy when her own boys were small. Then again, Master Orion made life unbearable for every creature living in the house. Kreacher relished the beating free years he’d had since the master’s death. He enjoyed serving his mistress. He tolerated Master Sirius and his wife was growing on the old elf, even if it was her idea to have all these children here today.

Kreacher went about trying to stay ahead of the messes, but it was proving difficult. The house needed to be clean for The Society meeting here late tonight. Wiping the stair railing down, he grumbled at the jelly he had just found smeared on the banister. While he knew the children and their parents would all be leaving soon, it wouldn't come soon enough to bring comfort to the elf.

For the adults, today was a difficult day. When they'd met the grown up Harry and assisted him in defeating Voldemort, the Potters, Blacks, Longbottoms and Remus had discovered what made this such a dark day in his original timeline. The tragedies which struck the versions in themselves in that life had occurred on Halloween night, or within the chaotic days which followed. In that time, James, Lily and Anwen had been murdered, Frank and Alice were tortured into insanity, Sirius was sent to Azkaban, and Remus was alone. For all of them, it was nearly impossible to consider this future and what it did to little Harry. Yet, it was all which was on any of their minds. The knowledge had provided the adults the motivation to celebrate the lives they had, and how blessed their lives were.

It was also the reason Sirius and Anwen had suggested this dinner party and then their taking the children out for their Hallowe’en trick-or-treating in their residential Muggle neighborhood. They'd be away from the nosy looks and whispers of the general wizarding society, and be allowed to mark the day in their own way. Unfortunately, they all were quite ‘famous’, which made blending in with their children difficult. None wanted to subject their children in the media fish bowl they regularly found themselves in. Muggle London was far easier to blend into. When it was decided the Weasley children and newborn Luna Lovegood should be included, the Blacks little London home was too small, and the party was moved to Grimmauld Place. It had made for a good distraction for the day, helping to keep each of their individual minds off the horrors of what could have been.

Anwen was alone in the basement kitchen, magically removing the pumpkin seeds from the sticky, stringy innards of the pumpkins. Pumpkin seeds, all toasty and salted, were one of her favorite treats from the holiday. Perfect thing to go with dark chocolate and a cup of warmed cider.

"Oh, Anwen, I thought everyone else was outside still," Iris Lovegood remarked as she entered the room. "I was going to start the preparations for the Samhain ceremony tonight. You'll all be there, won't you?"

"We will," Anwen confirmed. "My Ma and Mrs. Evans are staying with all the boys at our house. I've cleaned up most of this mess. Just let me finish it and then the kitchen is all yours. The carved turnips are by the sink. Alice, Lily and I made sure we carved them. I think the symbols turned out well." The five points of the pentagram were represented by their elemental symbol. Iris looked over to them and gave a nod. She then turned back to look at the young witch, the distracted nature of her gaze reminded her of similar looks she’d seen on the faces of all the young adults today.

"Are you sure you're alright, dear?" the elder witch asked. "You young girls all look rather preoccupied today." Iris didn't know about who Harrison Parker truly was. Even told Molly and Arthur hadn’t learned the true identities of the couple who'd come to help eradicate the Dark Lord. All anyone outside of their immediate circle knew was Harrison and Regina Parker were acquaintances of Dumbledore's. If they'd kept the secret this long, Anwen wasn't going to share it now.

"Isn't that what I should be asking you? Luna is only what, two weeks old?"

"Almost three, actually. Xeno is so much help, it wasn't hard to get back into the swing of things," Iris explained.

"Well, she's a beautiful girl, and a very interesting magical signature for her age. I'm anxious to watch her grow up." The last of the orange slop from removed from the table and the seeds were set atop the cabinet to dry before roasting. "I'll see you later tonight." Anwen quickly added before slipping from the room, relieved she didn't have to come up with a reason for the sense of melancholy which permeated the group.

From the hall outside the kitchen Anwen Disapparated to the backyard of the Black family home. It was surprisingly warm for a late fall day, the temperature having reached twenty-two degrees Celsius this afternoon. The mothers were all well aware of how chilly it would get once the sun went down, so the children’s hallowe’en costumes were created to accommodate bulky underclothing and jackets. They also wanted some healthy food in the children’s stomachs before it was filled with treats, so they’d been fed meat pasties and milk as an early supper. The adults would sit down to dinner before going to the late night Society meeting. The men had taken the boys outside to allow them to burn off some of their nervous excitement before they’d be wrangled into their costumes.

There were many throughout the UK who thought the activity of trick-or-treating was a crass commercialization imported from America, and were disgusted by the practice. Wizarding families, especially pure-blood ones, hated the bastardization of their celebration of the end of the magical year. However, for Anwen and Lily, having grown up as Muggles, it was simply a night of fun and frivolity they’d enjoyed as children. It was something they wanted to share with their own little ones.

Looking over the chaos of the backyard, Anwen smiled. Sirius was changed into his dog persona, something he did frequently with the children, while James and Remus were attempting to steer the toddlers and keep them safe from the roughhousing the twins, Charlie and the dog were engaged in. Frank, Alice and Arthur were working on putting together the two infant pram purchased for Luna and Ginny. Molly had Ginny on her lap, napping. Xeno was studying the plants and muttering to baby Luna in his arms. Anwen sat down next to Lily, letting a quiet sigh escape her as she did.

“It’s been quite a bit harder than I thought it would be,” Lily confessed. “To know sometime, in a different universe, I was killed tonight with my dear Jamie.” Anwen always liked when Lily called her husband by his nickname, since none of the rest of them could ever get away with it. “He seemed to turn out okay, though, didn’t he? Even without a mother’s love, he was still a good man?” Anwen reached over and took her hand.

“He was an amazing man, Lily,” her friend comforted. “He did great things in his world and ours. You should be proud.” Lily never looked at her girlfriend, instead her eyes were trained on her husband, holding their fifteen month old son in his arms.

“It’s still hard to reconcile my sweet little baby will one day be the brave, selfless man we all knew. Sometimes it feels like Harry and Ginny were a dream, not people we were friends with.”

“It does,” Anwen conferred. “I miss Ginny. She was ... well, we understood each other in a way I appreciated.”

“What do you mean?” Lily asked, sounding slightly hurt.

“Lily, in her adolescence, Ginny had been assaulted, by Tom Riddle no less,” Anwen explained. Lily was shocked.

“How did I not know this? How did Tom assault her, he would have been an adult and Voldemort by then? What did he do to her?”

“I’m surprised she never told you, or Harry hadn’t at some point. She had Tom Riddle’s school diary. It was a horcrux by then and he was able to possess her. Somehow, this bit of him was able to torture her, assault her ...” Anwen stopped, not wanting to think too hard about it, for it reminded her of the attack on her two years ago. “Needless to say, I was able to talk about the situation with Ginny in a way I never could with you, or Eva or even Alice. Harry apparently was the one who saved her. It cemented her feelings for Harry, the boy she knew rather than Harry, the boy who lived.”

“I understand now. Well, that’s one change for those two then, huh?” Anwen struggled with what to say next. The friends had discussed the differences between the lives of the children they were raising and the ones in the timeline Harry and Ginny had left. Lily was resistant to even the idea of the man her little son would become might be very different than the version who’d come back in time to end Voldemort.

“Yes, and a good one,” Anwen vaguely agreed.

“You still think there will be more, don’t you?” Lily quietly asked. It was the first time Lily had initiated a conversation on the topic, at least with her girlfriend.

“Lily, in some ways, I don’t see how your little baby and the man we were friends with couldn’t help but be different people. That man had a horrific childhood. I don’t like being  the same building with your sister and her husband. Grown Harry had to live with them for ten years. They made him their servant. Your little boy, he’s bound to be different from that change alone.” Lily turned and glared at her friend.

“You think he’s going to end up spoiled?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all,” Anwen backpedaled. “I’m saying growing up with a loving family is likely to make your son more self assured and confident in himself. Ginny had told me how often Harry second guessed his actions and how he was always looking for assurances if he was doing well. Lil, your son lives with praise and admiration for everything. It’s bound to make him different, but not in a bad way.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Lily conceded. “I just want him to be a good man.”

“I think that’s what we all want for a our children,” Anwen replied. “It’s up to us and how we raise them, and then when they’re ready, we’re going to let them go into the world and make their own decisions.”

“When did you get so philosophical on child-rearing?”

“When it hit me a few weeks ago how I haven’t been a child in a very long time, regardless of what my age is. It was also the same day I realized I needed to stop looking for my da’s approval. I don’t need it anymore,” she quietly explained.

“How your parents could be anything other than proud of you, I’ll never understand,” Lily  remarked. Anwen shrugged, and then looked at her watch.

“I think it’s time to get these children dressed, what do you think?”

Putting the costumes onto the squirming infants and toddlers proved to be an interesting chore, even with the adults on an almost one-on-one level with the children. Sirius had begun to snigger at the costume Neville was wearing, but hastily stopped when his wife connected her heel with his foot rather forcefully. Anwen was still wearing the metal “U” shaped brace while working to build up the strength in her right leg. The metal was heavy enough to damage through his heavy riding boots.

“Ouch, that hurt,” he complained.

“Don’t you dare say whatever it was which was passing through your mind there. Augusta purchased the damned thing in Paris, and was insistent Neville wear it. Alice hates it, but well, you know her mother-in-law,” Anwen explained with an eye roll. “I think it’s ugly too. Thank goodness he’s not old enough to know he looks like a --”

“Wuss would be the right word here,” Sirius interrupted. Earning him another kick. Neville was dressed as Montague Knightly, the famous wizards chess player, only discernible as to his identity by the large chess knight embroidered onto the front of his velvet coverlet. The Elizabethan styled outfit came complete with tights and pantaloons. Thankfully little Neville would have no memory of being dressed this way.

The remainder of the costumes were far more average. Lily had created a little lion costume for Harry, who was toddling around the room roaring and the children and adults alike. Bastien was a knight in shining armor while Draco was insistent he be a large black dog. Anwen had attempted to dissuade him, but he wanted to look like his Dad tonight. Sirius was even planning to change himself over, and walking beside his junior doppelgänger. Ron had insisted he be a chocolate frog. Thankfully Molly already had a frog costume from a previous year, and simply transfigured it brown.

Charlie was dressed as a unicorn tamer, while little Ginny was his unicorn. Fred and George were hilarious as a fried egg and bacon and little Luna was dressed as a daisy in her sleeper-sack. The oddest costume, however, belonged to Percy. He was wearing ancient Egyptian styled robes and holding a small telescope. When Sirius couldn’t come up with an answer as to whom he was, he decided to ask the five year old.

“I’m Ptolemy, Mr. Black,” the child responded. “You know, the famous astronomer.” Sirius nodded his head, indeed knowing who Ptolemy was. The Black’s were famous, or infamous, for their understanding and skill in Astronomy. That a five year old would dress as a dead Egyptian astronomer had never crossed his mind.

“I do indeed. Very original costume, young man. I doubt you’ll see another like it out there this evening,” Sirius remarked, trying to swallow down his laugh.

Once all were dressed, pictures were taken by Louise and Augusta, the group left en-mass to enjoy their evening.

November 1981

Anwen slipped out of the hospital room which held her mother-in-law and raked her hands through her hair, wishing beyond anything she could just rest. It had been a long week, and she’d barely had time to leave the hospital to change her clothing and wash. Sleeping was something she did in the chair while watching to see if Walburga Black would either wake up or pass away. The Healers had given her a fifty-fifty chance of either happening. Anwen wasn’t sure which one she was hoping for.

Less than forty-eight hours after her husband and their friends left on their second trip to attempt to track down Eva, Mrs. Black had suffered a stroke. James had followed up some of the leads they’d generated while in America, and had found a fresh trail of information; leading them to Bolivia. The distance was too far to contact them either through Patronus or via the enchanted mirrors, and while both of the family owls had been dispatched with messages, it was quite a distance to cover. Anwen was thus far, unable to tell Sirius of what had happened. She was anxiously awaiting any of the men to contact home, so he could be made aware of the situation. They’d been gone for almost a week now, she was sure someone would check up on their wife or child soon.

Anwen put the palms of her hands to her eyes and rubbed vigorously, hoping it would awaken her. Louise Malfoy was sitting with Walburga now, and had all but kicked Anwen from the room. The young witch was now debating whether she should head to the tea room for a strong cup of coffee or perhaps go home for a few minutes of shut eye and a clean set of clothes. The patter of small footsteps running toward her, and the persistent  cries of “Mummy” and “Mama” distracted her from her internal debate; her scowl replaced with a wide smile.

Draco ran to his mother, throwing his arms around her neck when she crouched down to kiss him and hug him tightly. She’d seen little of her boys in the last few days, and seeing them now reinforced just how much she’d missed them. Her children were the center of her universe, and without them there to keep her in orbit, she felt lost. Draco’s chubby little hands on her shoulders and his very wet kiss on her cheek immediately grounded her heart and soul.

The women had made the same arrangements as in August; all living at Potter Manor while the men were away. Anwen was thankful neither Lily nor Alice thought taking care of her boys as a chore, since they’d seen more of the ‘aunties’ lately than their Mum.

“Well this is the best surprise I could have ever had,” she beamed. “Do you know how much I’ve missed you, my little angel?” Draco’s face turned very serious and he pulled away from his mother’s embrace to look at her.

“No Mummy, how much?”

“More than all the gingersnaps your Grammy Rose could ever make for you,” she told him and he smiled.

“I wike Gammy Rose bicits,” he told her. Anwen knew it was true, so did her ma. She never arrived without a tin of biscuits just for him. Daddy was a fan too, and if Draco didn’t have his own tin, there wouldn’t be enough to last more than a day or two. Anwen had taken to enchanting her sons container closed and keep Daddy from snacking.

“I know you do,” Anwen said before she kissed him on the cheek. “Can I put you down to say hi to your brother?” Draco nodded excitedly. Anwen set him on his feet and reached for his little brother.

“Mamamama,” he repeated over and over as Anwen reached for ten month old Bastien  from Lily’s arms and kissed his little face. The older he became, the more he looked like his daddy. His eyes were nearly the same remarkable color of grey and his hair was coming in thick and dark.

“Hello my sweet one,” Anwen cooed. “Are you good today?” Bastien gurgled and cooed, putting his little hands on her shoulders and laying his head down on his mummy’s chest. “Hi, Lily. Thanks so much for bringing them. This is just what I needed.”

“I couldn’t imagine being away from Harry as long as you’ve been away from these two,” she answered. “Plus, James called me on the telephone we had installed last year. He and Sirius will be home late tonight. They were able to get an emergency Portkey out of the Brazilian Ministry offices at eleven, their time. Frank’s going to remain with Remus while they follow another lead.”

“Brazil, I thought they went to Bolivia?”

“They didn’t explain it all, but it’s apparently a very long story,” Lily answered and Anwen shook her head and rolled her eyes. It was always a long story with her husband.

“Thank God,” Anwen remarked, immensely relieved. “I was worried he wouldn’t make it home before she passed. Now, I just have to worry about it happening on his birthday.” Lily’s smile deflated at Anwen’s reminder of Sirius’s upcoming celebration. Speaking the words made Anwen’s eyes begin to fill with tears, her heart was near its breaking point.

“Anwen, come home for a while,” Lily begged her. “They’ll call if anything happens.”

“I don’t want her to pass alone,” the younger witch whispered through her shuddering breaths.

“Is Louise here?”

“That’s why I’m in the hallway,” Anwen explained. “She wanted me to get a few moments alone. Maybe even nap in a bed.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Lily affirmed. “We’ll take the boys in for a few minutes, let them see Grammy Louise, and then we can head home and you can get some rest and a good meal.” Anwen wanted to protest, not sure she wanted the boys in the room with her comatose mother-in-law, but just didn’t have the strength. Anwen passed Bas back to his Aunt Lily and then reached down to pick up Draco.

“Draco, honey, we’re going inside this room here so you can see Grammy Wally and Grammy Louise. You’re going to need to be quiet though, because Grammy Wally is sleeping, okay?” At the mentioning of the grammys, Draco’s eyes opened wide and he  revealed a wonderful few toothy smile.

“I wike grammys,” he said so earnestly. “I be good.”

“I know you will, sweetie,” Anwen replied with a kiss to his forehead. “You too, little man,” she directed to her other son. “You need to be quiet.” Anwen put her forefinger to her lips in the universal sign for quiet and Bas mimicked the motion. She pushed the door open and Louise Malfoy looked up and smiled at the boys. Draco’s mum set him down and he ran to the older woman. She slid over to the side of the recliner she was sitting in, making room for the toddler to join her. Draco pulled himself up into the seat on his own, very proud of his accomplishment.

“What a surprise,” Louise cooed at the child as she hugged him. “My two favorite men!” Draco pulled back, his little mouth turned into a scowl.

“What ‘bout Daddy? You wike him?” All three women started to snigger at the comment.

“Of course I LIKE your Daddy, but you and Bas give much better kisses,” Louise stated, leaning down so the little blonde boy could place one on her cheek.

“Mummy wikes Daddy’s better. She kiss him ALL da time,” the oldest Black child exclaimed, moving his little hands up and down on his emphasized word in an action mimicking his Mum.

“Draco, honey, it’s good Mummy and Daddy like to kiss,” Louise explained. “That means they love each other very much.”

“Dhen they weally wove,” he stated very emphatically, making the others laugh. Bas looked at Aunt Lily and put his finger to his lips and made the ‘shhh’ sound. The woman laughed more.

“We need be qwiet,” Draco explained. “Mummy said Grammy Wawwy sweeping.”

“Yes, she is, little love,” Louise agreed, understanding why their mother didn’t explain the situation to the two little ones.

Anwen and Lily only remained for a few minutes, telling Louise how Anwen was returning to the Manor. Louise agreed it was a good idea, and promised she’d stay with Walburga until someone returned to relieve her. Anwen took the emergency communication stone the medi-witches had provided, knowing it would go off if there were any change. Louise hugged and kissed both boys goodbye, and Anwen had her sons kiss their Grammy Wally’s hand before leaving, worried it could be the last time they would see their grandmother. Lily and Anwen each carried a child to the Floo fireplaces on the ground floor and were quickly back at the Manor.

At Lily’s urging, Anwen went a drew herself a bath in the en-suite loo of the room she and Sirius always used. Lily had left her a wonderful bath oil with hints of lavender and hibiscus in it, which calmed her greatly. After slipping on her silk pajamas on, she went and laid down in the bed. Her intent was to sleep for an hour, two at the most. She was surprised when she awoke to find it dark outside. She’d been asleep for far longer than she’d planned.

Anwen dressed and headed downstairs, finding the others just about to sit down for supper. Kreacher had become distraught at his mistresses condition, and Lily had excused him from making dinner. Instead, she cooked, making a hearty lamb stew and fresh bread. She ate quickly and returned to the hospital, feeling badly she’d left Louise there all afternoon, alone.

The evening dragged on in the quiet hospital room. The Healer came in and checked Walburga over, and didn’t have good news for Anwen.

“Her body is growing weaker,” he explained. “She’s struggling to clean her blood. There’s also fluid beginning to form on her lungs. We can do charms to alleviate this problems, but it’s unlikely we’d ever be able to stop them.” Anwen closed her eyes, and ordered her thoughts. She wasn’t surprised by the prognosis, but it didn’t mean it hurt any less.

“My husband will be here late tonight,” she explained. “I really do believe it should be his decision to make any long-term care choices. Do you think she’ll pass before he gets here?” The Healer shook his head.

“I can treat her now, continue to make her comfortable and then leave the palliative care issues for him to deal with tomorrow or the day after,” he explained and Anwen nodded.

“That would be best,” she quietly responded. “I think I know what he’d do, but we hadn’t ever really discussed it. Unless there is an emergency, let’s just keep her comfortable.”

“That’s fine, Mrs. Black.” With the exchange over, the Healer went back to Walburga’s bedside and moved his wand over her. Anwen watched the small flashing orbs over the bed react and adjust, returning to their synchronized flashing and beeping. She hadn’t realized they weren’t in unison anymore, her mind was too filled with other worries.

Time wore on slowly in the dark hospital room, the oppressive inkiness only interrupted by the flashing of the alarms over Walburga Black’s bed. The door opening was like a golden sword, slicing through the encompassing velvet of the charcoal night. The room went from being all in hues of graphite, smoke, steel and platinum to subtle plums and violets. The things directly in the path of the light were restored to their brilliant Technicolor hues. Anwen was restored from the monotony of twilight to the vibrancy of sunlight.  Framed in the brightness of the lights from the hall stood the figure of a man, his head moving as he surveyed the room. Even without the features of his face, Anwen could feel it was her husband. He brought with him more than just physical brightness, he filled her heart, her soul, even whole being with luminosity. He immediately lifted the  yoke of worrying from his wife’s slender shoulders and took it upon himself.

Anwen had curled into a ball while she was waiting, making herself as physically small as she felt emotionally. She unraveled herself from the overstuffed chair she’d transfigured from the hard, stiff one the hospital had provided and propelled herself into her husband’s arms. Since the day they’d met, Sirius had been Anwen’s safe place, her shelter; he was her protector. The second she was wrapped in his arms, she felt the anxious tension which had invaded her muscles seep away.

“Thank God you’re home,” she whispered into his chest as her arms snaked around his torso, her hands pressing him into her, wishing to meld them together.

“I’m home, my love. I’m so sorry you had to deal with this on your own,” Sirius apologized. Anwen moved her right hand from his back to caress his cheek.

“My only worry was you wouldn’t arrive in time,” she explained. “She loves you. I wanted you to have time to say goodbye.” Sirius chose not to reply with words, instead cradling his wife’s face with his hands and pressing his lips to hers. The kiss was languid, passionate, the kiss given with the familiarity of lovers wanting to bring comfort to the other. When his lips separated from hers, Sirius leaned his forehead onto hers, wishing he could draw the information from her mind directly to his. He hated to make her repeat the difficulties which occurred while he was gone.

“Tell me what’s happening,” he asked. Anwen took his hand and lead him toward the bedside, summoning the chair so he could sit next to his mother. Anwen climbed on the hospital bed, past the dying woman’s feet. A second set of footsteps alerted her they weren’t alone. She turned to see who they belonged to.

“James, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were here,” the young witch quickly revealed. Her cousin shook his head at her while transfiguring himself a seat.

“Anwen, it’s alright. Please, tell us how she’s doing.” She went about explaining the situation, starting with Louise’s frantic fire-call the night after the men had left and ending with the healer’s prognosis from rounds just before he went off duty this evening.

Sirius had wound his fingers with his mother’s with one hand, and with the other he was gently caressing her forehead. The minute he looked at her, he’d known his mother was not long for this world. He felt angry. He’d only just gotten his mother back. No, that wasn’t right, he’d only just gotten a mother. Period. The abuse his father heaped upon everyone in the Black house had kept his mother from loving her boys in any outward way while they were small. He’d only reconciled with his mother and brother at the behest and intervention of Harry; grown up Harry. They’d reconciled and bonded over their mutual hatred of the Dark Lord and his followers. Sirius didn’t want his emotions to tarnish Anwen’s goodness, so he hid his anger.

Two years, it was all he was given with his mother, two years. He knew his wife believed in a benevolent and loving God. He would never tell her, but he was quite suspect such a being existed. If there was a God, then this had been a cruel gift. He’d had his Mum long enough to love her, but just when he was secure in the emotion, she was being taken back.

“Prongs, would you take her home? I’ll stay with Mum tonight,” Sirius asked his friend.

“Sweetheart, please let me stay,” Anwen begged as she ran her hand down his back.

“Love, Lily told us you’ve been here for days, nearly non-stop. Go home, sleep in a bed, spend some time with the boys and then come back in the morning,” he urged her.

“I went to the Manor and took a nap this afternoon, as well as ate supper with everyone. I’m fine to stay tonight --”

“Anwen, I’m going to need you to take care of things when she does pass,” Sirius said in near monotone. “For me, go home and sleep.” Anwen didn’t want to leave him alone, but she also wanted to abide by his wishes. Even with the few hours of rest she had this afternoon, she was profoundly overtired. “Please, love,” Sirius nearly begged as he pulled his hands away from his mum to thread them in Anwen’s delicate hands. “If you were to get sick or have an accident from being overtired, I just --” Anwen’s heart broke at the look of love in his eyes.

“I’ll go, but I will be back first thing in the morning,” she promised.

“Good,” Sirius said, getting up to help his wife off the end of the bed. She faltered slightly as her feet touched the floor and she needed to get her balance. They hugged and shared in one brief kiss before James lead Anwen out.

“I’ll come back and stay with him once I get you home safely,” he told her as they made their way to the bank of Floo fireplaces on the main floor.

“You do know I can Floo by myself, right?”

“Of course you can. I’d just really like to see my Lils before I come back.” Anwen smiled and blushed. Of course, why didn’t she think of that.

Everything was dark at the Manor when they’d arrived, save one light on in the library. The pair walked across the marble hallway and into the stately room. Sitting at the large table in the center of the room was Lily, pouring over an old and weathered book. When she heard their footsteps, she looked up, her face exploding with love when she saw her husband behind her friend.

Their reunion was sweet and passionate, and Anwen looked away from the pair, instead surveying the tome her friend had been so intently studying. She was surprised to find the book of rituals for the Society open to the rite of passage at death. Lily and Alice must have been reading up so they could help Anwen and Sirius prepare for the ceremony.

Anwen reviewed the ancient words, appreciating how different death was viewed among the magical. She’d only experienced death as a Methodist Muggle. While her family believed in an afterlife, the service of remembrance was about comfort in loss. The words she read here were about the completion of a circle, rejoicing in the life the person had lead and how death and life were merely separate marks along the the timeline of life.

“I’m going to go back,” James explained. “I don’t want him being alone. He stayed with me for days when my parents were ill and passed, I need to be there for him now.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Lily said. “Come home tomorrow to see Harry, please. I know he’s missing you.” James kissed her forehead.

“I promise. Now go on, get some sleep, he’ll be up before sunrise.” Lily nodded and turned to Anwen.

“You coming up now?”

“Give me a few,” she requested. “I’m going to make a cup of chamomile tea to help settle me, then I’ll be up.” Lily gave James a quick peck and then turned and went to the hallway. Her quiet footfalls were heard fading into the night as she climbed the stairs.

“You’re not really going soon, are you?” James asked. Anwen shook her head.

“Too much going through my mind right now,” she explained. “I think I’ll stay here, read through this. His mind isn’t going to be on rituals and ceremonies. He’s not truly interested in them, even in the best of situations.” James chuckled at her insinuation.

“You know him too well,” he quipped. Anwen shrugged.

“I know his heart is going to be broken because of this,” she said quietly. “He had a loving family for such a short time.” Tears she’d struggled to hold back now rolled down her cheeks, no fear of recrimination within her.

“Winnie, he’s still has his family. You and the boys, you’ll be with him. I know you, you’ll carry him through this.”

“James, you give me too much credit,” she quietly disagreed. “He’s so strong.”

“Anwen, he’s nothing without you. He never would have opened himself up to her if it wasn’t for you.” She shook her head in protest. James directed her to the pair of leather wing-back chairs near the window where they each took a seat.

“You’re not giving him enough credit --”

“Anwen, I’ve known him much longer than you have, and I can tell you, he is a different man than he would have been if you weren’t in his life. The man he would have become,” James stopped to consider his words. “That man would have been bitter, unfeeling and destructive. I doubt I would have remained friends with him.” Anwen was shocked at his words.

“You can’t know that.”

“I can,” he insisted. “Winnie, we met when we were seven. Sirius was already jaded, angry and closed off. He was seven. My mother showered him with love and affection, sometimes more than she showed me. I didn’t care, I knew I was loved, he had no such assurances in life. Even with all my mum did for him, part of him knew it was because we were friends and was thereby doing it for me. It’s not like mum and dad would have gone looking for Sirius if we weren’t friends.”

“You paint such a desolate picture of him.”

“He was desolate and emotionally stunted and very much alone. He only trusted people to a point. He believed everyone had an agenda and nothing was ever done just because it was right. He figured everyone was out to use everybody else. Do you know what changed that?” Anwen shook her head.

“You. You are the first person who ever cared about him for him. You didn’t need his money or his reputation. You didn’t ask for anything from him except to grant you the respect you gave him. Sirius was perplexed by you at first. He couldn’t figure out your angle, and didn’t want to believe any of us that you didn’t have one. He was in fifth year when he finally figured out you simply loved him.”

“How could I not?” she asked, the light in her eyes that was present whenever she spoke of her beloved husband. “He’s ...”

“I know. I love him like a brother, but believe me when I tell you how different he would have been without you. He’s going to hurt, deeply, when his mother dies, and you’re going to hold him together like you always do. I’m just saying it’s a miracle he’ll mourn her, after everything which transpired between them, and it’s entirely because you taught him to love.” James stood, and kissed his cousin on the forehead. “Thank you,” he whispered to her before leaving. Anwen leaned her head against the headrest and wept.

The evening following Sirius's returning home, Walburga Black passed quietly in her sleep. She'd never awoken after her stroke, although Sirius had spoken with her, somehow sure she heard him. Anwen was with her husband, as was his oldest and closet friend. James had known his Aunt Wally since he was a very small boy. He knew she was his mothers best friend, and if it wasn't for their friendship, he and Sirius might not have become as close as they are today.

The three stayed at the hospital late into the evening, making arrangements for the cremation, squaring away the death certificate and the necessary announcements. James sent owls to Minerva, Iris, Louise, Alice and Molly, as they would be responsible for the Society service. He also made sure Andromeda and Ted were notified in Spain, hopeful they would return to pay their respects. Anwen asked Lily to call her mother in Wales and Floo call her grandmother in France. She would need their help in the days to come.

The trio readied to leave St. Mungo's, when Sirius asked if Draco and Bas could spend the night with the Potters.

"Sure, Sirius," James answered the request. "They're probably already asleep in your old room anyway."

Anwen looked up at her husband, unsure why he wanted to be alone with her, but willing to grant him any small favor he would ask of her. He had lost his brother and now his Mum. He truly was without kin.

"We'll be by in the morning. I'm sure there's things we need to do for the ceremony. Someone is going to need to take Mother's station --"

"Sirius, I've already been studying. There will still be a Black wearing the white robes," Anwen quietly explained. Sirius lifted her up so her face was even with his and stared into her mossy orbs.

"I don't deserve..." her finger to his lips halted him, which he then took the opportunity to kiss her. While James Flooed home to Scotland, Sirius walked aside his wife, their fingers entwined, to the Disapparation platforms. A moment later they were in the back yard of the London detached two-story they'd shared since Anwen was fifteen.

The yard of the little house was cluttered with the play toys of the boys. A tricycle, a wagon, sandbox and swings pocked the green grass of the garden. Even the old peach tree hadn’t escaped the impact of children residing there, as the trunk was decorated in chalk drawings. The small porch had muddy trainers lined up against the wall, and even a small pair of very dirty trousers was thrown over the railing.

Anwen took Sirius’s hand and lead him into the house, waving her hand to clear a path through the building blocks and stuffed animals which hadn’t been put back into their proper places before Anwen had taken the children to have Lily watch them this morning.

“Anwen, I need you, please,” Sirius mumbled in desperation, his voice weak and thin.

“Love, you never need to beg,” she replied ever so gently. Taking hold of his hands, she Disapparated them into their bedroom. She sweetly lead him to the edge of their bed, and pushed his shoulders down so he was sitting. Anwen lifted one foot, slid the zipper of his riding boot down and then eased it from his foot. Her eyes never leaving his as she repeated the process with the other. As her fingers worked on the buttons of his oxford shirt, her lips followed, kissing the newly exposed flesh of his chest.

Slowly and systematically, she disrobed her husband, her hands and mouth soothing his pain, hoping to take it upon herself. When they were both disrobed, the curled together in the pocket of sheets and blankets upon their bed. Sirius had found being intimate with Anwen had always been different from being with any of the others from his past. While the physical act was satisfying, he made love to his dear little one, rather than screwing. He never let their time together end without making sure Anwen was as satisfied as he.

Tonight was different, he needed to take from her. He needed assurances that life was good, that there was joy and passion to living and being. He wanted to devour her, consume what made her alive and hope it would rekindle the spark of life within him. While not rough enough to hurt her, he was far more insistent than usual. He wanted to bury himself in her, and feel nothing but her around him. Anwen, sensing what her husband needed, gave and gave, not seeking anything in return. When he was finally spent, Sirius laid his head upon his wife’s chest and wept. He fell asleep this way.

Anwen was awake long after he had succumbed to exhaustion. Sirius usually slept on his back, Anwen curled into his side, his arm around her, his hand resting on her hip, hers over his heart. Tonight it was she on her back, his head nestled between her breasts, his body diagonally across the large mattress. The calf of his leg was nestled between her legs and both of his hands rested upon her flesh. She ran her hands through his hair and down his back, quietly singing to him as he rested. Eventually she too slipped into the numbness of slumber, her heart and mind heavy with loss.

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The Calendar Girls by ValWitch21
Chapter 5 : Owling
Rating: MatureChapter Reviews: 7

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"And you're sure your Patronus doesn't take the shape of a wolf?" Flitwick asked me, peering over the edge of his glasses.

"Absolutely certain, Professor."

Louis and I had decided that the best thing we could do was go to the Headmaster's office and explain the situation to him.

"Well," the tiny man rubbed the bridge of his nose, perplexed. "I'm not quite sure how to deal with this situation. The best thing I can do is send you back to your dormitories, and if anything similar occurs, come and report it to me. In the meantime, I'm going to contact experts in wandlore and see if they know anything about this."

As we exited the office and walked back to the Ravenclaw tower, a sudden thought struck me.

"What type of wand do you have?"

"Oak, fifteen inches, Veela hair, why?"

"It could have been because we have twin cores, but that's not the case. My wand is elm, fourteen and a half inches, dragon heartstring."

"Definitely not twin cores then. Isn't that your sister?" Louis had paused by a window and was now staring out the window at the lake, which was illuminated by the beams of light of a few wands. I looked over in the direction he was indicating, and, sure enough, Summer was outside, with a group of Hufflepuffs I vaguely recognised – swimming late at night in the Black Lake in the middle of February.

"What did I do to deserve this?" I asked, rolling my eyes. "She probably lost a dare again. Do you mind if I go find out?"

"I'll come with you."

As we stepped outside through a door I had never noticed before, the cold hit my skin fully, and I wondered even more, through two shivers, how mad Summer could possibly be.

"Here," Louis draped his jacket over my shoulders, "you need this more than I do."

"Thanks," I gladly pulled it more tightly around me. It was a little too large, but warm and comfortable, the smell of Louis' fancy French aftershave lingering on the collar.

As we got closer to the lake, Summer waved at us, before turning to her friends. "Twenty-seven minutes, I win! Galleons this way please."

I arched an eyebrow. "What was the bet on?"

"I said it'd take you less than half an hour to find me if I did something stupid."

Despite a little irritation at the fact that Summer reduced me to the controlling sister, I burst out laughing at the sight of her head bobbing out of the water, and held out a hand to help her out.

She immediately collected the Galleons she was due, and handed them to me. "My share of Mum's present, that you had to pay for me."

We'd sent the money off two weeks ago, and since the Quidditch match hadn't taken place yet, I'd had to pay entirely for Summer, who had promised to pay me back as soon as possible.

I grinned at her. "Come on, let's get you inside before you turn into an ice-cube."

It was only once we got inside that I got a proper view of her.

"Why is your hair blue?" I questioned sharply.

She turned slightly pink, clashing dreadfully with her capillary experiment. "Matthew and Henry felt like trying a spell they found in a Witch Weekly in the common room."

I shook my head, laughing to myself. "I'm not doing anything about that, just so you know."

"Fine," she huffed in mock irritation, before looking at Louis (who was a couple of feet away from us) out of the corner of her eye, grinning slyly. "What's happening between you and pretty boy?"

I laughed quietly, following her gaze. "Nothing's happening."

"So you wouldn't mind me going after him?" One look at her told me she was testing my reaction, and I decided to go against her game.

"Feel free."

She gave me a condescending pat on the shoulder. "I know you better than you know yourself, Ton. This guy is all you've been waiting for."

"Sod off, Trelawney Junior! We're only friends."

 She pulled a face that clearly said I know better, but didn't add anything and instead punched me lightly on the shoulder before running down the corridor after the Hufflepuffs that had just left. I made my way up the stairs, where Louis was waiting for me.

"Sorry to have dragged you along through this," I told him quietly, handing him back his jacket.

"It's always your sisters first, right?"

"Yes, I suppose," I said apologetically.

"Do you ever think of yourself?"

"Sometimes. I think."

He laughed. "They're very lucky to have you."

"If I agreed with that, I'd be terribly arrogant. I think I'm lucky to have them."

We walked in silence, shoulder against shoulder, until we reached the bronze doorknob that Louis rattled.

"Just when I liked the song they were playing!" it complained. "Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?"

"Neither, a circle has no beginning," Louis replied after a very brief moment of hesitation.

"You should listen less carefully to your Uncle Harry's stories," the eagle chuckled. "I'd feel younger. Now, in you go, before you get caught!"

The door swung open and we stumbled directly into a slow song. I paused, looking for a familiar face in the middle of the crowd, but to no avail.

"Can I have this dance?" Louis looked at me with amusement.

"I will murder your feet, but sure."

I put my hand on his shoulders, and he put his on my bare lower back.

"Your hands are freezing," I mumbled.

"It's either my hands on your bare back or my hands on your covered bum. Take your pick."

"I think I'll survive the cold."

"I thought so."

I couldn't help but notice how tall he was compared to me, which was definitely an achievement – my nose reached up to his shoulder, approximately. This was the first time, I realised, that we had this type of contact: most of the time, we stuck to quick hugs or shoving each other around. I knew some girls were jealous of my relationship with Louis: apparently, I was one of the few single, non-Weasley females to be allowed near him. For me, it seemed entirely natural, as we'd known each other for so long. I couldn't have counted the memories of him even if I'd wanted to, though a few stood out more than the others.

I was thirteen, it was the summer of the year of Bill and Fleur's divorce. They had sent their children to the Burrow, and Dom had asked to bring me along. Louis tossed me into the garden pond fully dressed, then proceeded to pelt me with apples. One of them fell out of his hands unnoticed, and as he moved forwards to get a better aim, his foot rolled onto the apple. He crashed head first into the swampy waters next to me.

I must have smiled at the memory, because Louis looked at me curiously. "Knut for your thoughts?"

"I was thinking about the time when you fell into the pond at your grandparents' house."

He grinned. "Wasn't that the year when you, Dom and Roxanne convinced the other girls to put makeup on all the boys during the night?"

I laughed, remembering the adults' faces when their sons had turned up in the morning, mascara, eye shadow and lipstick smeared all over their faces. "Green was a wonderful shade on you, it complimented your eyes beautifully."

He batted his eyelashes exaggeratedly. "Why, how kind of you… I looked better in yellow and black though."

A couple of months ago, to celebrate the end of our O.W.L. examinations, Roxanne, Dom, Sophie, Summer and I had managed to turn everyone's face the colours of another house over breakfast. Summer had stolen the ingredients, Sophie and I brewed the potion, and Dom and Roxanne smuggled it into the various drinks.

We'd never been discovered explicitly, but Louis had found us out – without ever spilling the beans.

"I never told you, but that was a brilliant prank."

"I have no idea what you're on about," I shrugged innocently. The song ended, and I smiled, suddenly feeling extremely awkward – I couldn't shake the thought of Summer's comments away. "Okay, well… I'll see you around, I guess."

He let go of me only once he'd kissed my cheek. "Goodnight, Autumn."

I couldn't stop smiling as I went up the stairs to my dorm, changed into my pyjamas, and slid into bed, enjoying the rare silence, free of all evening chatter. The picture of Louis' smile continued to dance against my closed eyelids.

"Good morning sunshine," Dom whispered loudly next to me.

"What time is it?" I mumbled, still half-asleep.

"Half-past ten. You never sleep this late – what did my brother do to you last night?"

My eyes sprung open as I caught my pillow and hit Dom repeatedly across the head with it. She dodged it easily, throwing herself to the floor to avoid my blows, but I rolled out of bed, squashing her with all my might.

"Nothing happened!" I whacked her again. "Nothing!"

"I get it, I get it," she shrieked defensively, wheezing both with laughter and because I was sitting on her abdomen. "Please, release me!"

Sophie came out of the bathroom just then, and sat down on Dom just as I stood up. She then proceeded to tickle her wildly, letting Dom thrash about for a minute, screaming bloody murder and spitting her hair out of her mouth.

When Dom started to go purple, Sophie decided it was time to release her, and dusted off her clothes nonchalantly.

"Come on," she chirped brightly, "get dressed, Ton, and we'll go get some breakfast; then we can do that bloody potions essay and then we've got the entire weekend to do nothing."

The best part about weekends in Hogwarts, in my opinion, is the possibility to dress however we want, and leave our uniforms behind. Of course, those are okay: girls are allowed to wear pants (big improvement compared to when my mother was at school, apparently), and we are allowed to modify our uniforms a little, the shape of sweater necklines, or the length of skirts, for instance (hooray).

Nothing's worth a pair of jeans and a hoodie though, and that's exactly what I pulled on, hastily tugging my hair into a ponytail and sliding my feet into a pair of battered All Stars.

"Finished?" Dom banged her fist on the door.

"Almost," I applied some mascara to my lashes. I erased a tiny black smudge from the corner of my eye, then soared out of the bathroom and ran after Dom and Sophie's retreating voices.

For someone who usually had breakfast between seven and eight on weekends, the noise in the Great Hall was near deafening. I piled my plate high with bacon, eggs and toast, and drowsily poked around my plate for a moment, until I realised that my fork kept hitting the china and not the food.

I blinked, regaining focus, and stuffed a first forkful of breakfast in, almost elbowing Sophie in the ribs.

A flutter of wings made me raise my head, just as Polka skidded to a halt, sending my bowl of hot chocolate flying. He held out his leg for me, on which a heavy envelope was attached.

It contained a long roll of parchment, divided into three sections of different handwritings.

My darlings,
Thank you so much for the present! I'm sorry not to have written earlier, you know how work goes… I hope school has been treating you well since you've come back, that you're staying out of trouble (Summer, I'm talking to you), and that teachers aren't burying you in homework.
It's my turn to have a present for you: I finally got the promotion I was hoping for, and with that, I was able to find another apartment, bigger than the one we have now, which means you'll have a room for two instead of four. Hopefully, we should move in over the Easter holidays!
Noah is pushing me off the chair now (Emily invited us all, but I'll let Newton explain why later), I'll let him add a note before he breaks my bones.
(Autumn, it's your job to make sure your sisters read this).

Hello my favourite four,
Your mother is reading over my shoulder to make sure I'm not too vulgar when writing to you, the silly cow –
there was an ink blot here – see, this is her fault, she tried to steal the quill from me. Anyway. Anything happen at Hogwarts that I deserve to know about? Boys? Pranks? Dead teachers? Roger says hi, and we both hope all your houses kick Gryffindor's ass in Quidditch (go Ravenclaw in all other cases though).

We came back two weeks ago and we wanted the rest of the family to meet her before we started sending off pictures. (You know how jealous Noah gets).

This last part was scratched out and Noah's loopy handwriting was scrawled next to it: That's bullshit!

I giggled, and continued reading.

Ahem. So, tonight was Yuna's first meeting with her Mamie, her aunt and her crazy uncles. She smiles a lot, babbles away in her sleep, and has discovered a passion for painting, though she prefers the walls to paper. I've added a picture of her here. She's seen some of your four already, and can't wait to meet you all! Hopefully we can arrange something for your next Hogsmeade outing…
Newton & Emily

A tiny handprint in paint was added at the bottom, with the letters YUNA traced next to it. From the bottom of the envelope, I pulled out a snapshot of a small girl with ebony hair and wide eyes, a goofy grin on her face. I recognised Newton and Emily's living room in the background, with their ochre walls (reminder of their wedding trip in Senegal) and bright paintings. Sophie peered over my shoulder and smiled.

"Who's that?"

"My cousin," I replied, an inexplicable warmth rising in my stomach. "Newton and Emily adopted her. I need to find my sisters to give them this."

I tied the letter back to Polka's leg, interrupting him as he nibbled a piece of toast off my plate, and scratched his head.

"Bring this to Ivy, Fern or Summer, okay?"

He hooted his approval, and was off again.

"I'm bored," Roxanne stated for the umpteenth time, staring blankly out the window. Two weeks had taken place since the party, steering us well into March and its constant drizzling. We had grouped in our dorm, Charlotte and Isabel away in the library.

"So are we," Sophie lay on the floor, holding a book over her head. "Except we shut up about it."

Roxanne stuck out her tongue at her, and flopped back onto my bed with a sigh. "Can't we do something, even something stupid? Exploding Snap? Chess? Monopoly? Hide and seek?"

"I'm fine with doing nothing," Dom replied cheerfully, sprawled on top of her bed with her eyes closed. "It's the first time in ages that we don't have any homework."

Sophie's book clattered to the floor at Dom's words, the corner of it hitting her in the face. "I do, I completely forgot! I have Runes to translate for tomorrow first thing in the morning." She hastily stood up, yanked her bag off the floor, and turned to us apologetically. "I'm going to the library, see you in a bit!"

As soon as the door slammed shut behind her, Dom sat up and pulled a notebook out from underneath her pillow, before propelling herself onto my bed next to us.

"Okay. Sophie's birthday is in a week, what do we do about it? She's turning seventeen, it's a big thing."

"We need to do something we've never done before," Roxanne immediately offered. "Plus Sophie doesn't have any siblings in Hogwarts like Ton or we had for our seventeenth birthday, so we have to fill up for that."

"I think we should throw her a surprise party."

"Surprise party it is then," Dom scribbled a few words down. "Okay. What do we do?"

We sat in silence for a moment, contemplating this vast question. A small smile appeared on Roxanne's face.

"We kidnap her."

"Excuse me?" Dom sputtered.

"We slip her some sleeping solution over dinner and kidnap her during the night, carry her to the boathouse, pig out on junk food, and creep back into the castle in the dead of the night."

"That could actually be fun," I said slowly, thinking it over. "Sophie would love it."

"And I can ask dad for some of Wheezes' Diamond Drip – you know, that really bright, sparkly powder that glows in the dark? It's part of the kids' face paint set, but if we smother our faces with it we can freak Sophie out properly while we carry her down to the lake."

"You're a monster," Dom shook her head, laughing, "but it's a good idea. We are not, however, putting Sophie to sleep: if you want her to be scared, she needs to be awake during the entire trip."

"So we wake her up, dressed entirely in black and with eerie faces, petrify her and kidnap her to the boathouse?"

"That sounds about right," Roxanne beamed at me. "I'll go owl dad about getting us the things we need."

"Wait!" Dom, ever the pragmatic, shouted before her cousin's figure disappeared away. "What about presents?"

That took an even longer time to think about.

"I do have an idea, but it's not an actual, physical gift," I eventually said.

"Go on."

"Well, my grandma's sister has a small apartment in the French Alps, at the foot of the Mont Blanc, so maybe we could go there for a few days…" A wide, identical smile spread on Dom and Roxanne's faces.  "And she's been wanting a cat for ages now, so maybe we can find a kitten in the coming week?"

"That's not a problem," Roxanne immediately said. "We can easily get into Hogsmeade, with James' help."

Dom nodded. "That much is settled then. We won't even need to owl George then, because we can get the food and face paint ourselves when we go buy the cat."

"When do we go?" Roxanne asked. "And when do we organise Sophie's kidnapping?"

"Next Saturday," I decided after a moment's thought. "It'll be easier for me to keep Sophie from asking questions about your location over the weekend."

"I have another suggestion," Roxanne added hesitantly, "but it's a bit of a nasty thing to do. We could act as if we'd forgotten it was Sophie's birthday, to make the surprise bigger."

"No," I immediately said. "That's one of the worst feelings in the world, we can't do that."

"Fine, but then she'll know we've planned something, because we traditionally wake her up with a chorus of 'happy birthday' the day of the party."

I grumbled at Dom's irrefutable logic. "Oh, alright! It'll be your fault if she's furious though."

"She won't be, trust me."

I had yet to be sure of that.

I rolled my wand across the palm of my hand carelessly, watching as it emitted blue sparks. The events of the previous weeks kept coming back to me, generally at night – more than once, I'd dreamt of simultaneous streams of water and of a silvery wolf. Nothing strange had happened since then, and I continued to produce magic normally in classes. Having only glimpsed Louis at mealtimes, I hadn't been able to talk to him about it, and though it didn't haunt my thoughts constantly (schoolwork made that impossible), it still kept coming back to nag me at times where I had nothing else to do… such as now, sitting in the Great Hall with my sisters.

"Autumn, are you listening?" Fern waved her hand in front of my eyes, automatically attracting them to her teal-painted nails.

"Yes," I snapped out of my reverie. They stared at me with questioning eyes, to which I smiled in defeat. "No. What were you saying?"

"We wanted to write back to Newton and Emily to congratulate them, are we sending off one letter per person or one for everyone?"

"As a group is better, I think, but that's not excuse for me to write the entire thing and you just add your names at the end," I warned.

Ivy had already rummaged in her bag for a quill and a piece of parchment. Once everything was ready, she paused, looking at us expectantly.

"Dear Newton, Emily and Yuna," Summer and Fern instructed at the same time, exchanging a smile.

Dear Newton, Emily and Yuna,
Congratulations! We're not quite sure what sort of sentence is expected in this type of situation, the usual 'it's a girl, hope the mum is alright' doesn't seem too adapted. So we'll just act stupider and more stereotyped than we already are, and let you know that we're really excited for you guys, and can't wait to meet our baby cousin – before Noah has a chance to corrupt her and give her a lecture on how sad it is to be a female in today's society.
Knowing the Seasons way of functioning, however, we're sure you've got a day set up during the holidays already, and that you'll probably be at King's Cross to pick us up anyway, so we won't make this any longer!
Ivy, Fern, Summer and Autumn.

The knocker's riddle is directly inspired from chapter 29 of Deathly Hallows. It's entirely JK's, and I have no claim to it.

A/N: Okay, so... Due to a wonderful review from the even more wonderful Sarah, this chapter has gone through some fairly important edits. The birthday scene will therefore be in chapter six, Hirrandipopping, with a few added moments that weren't there before! It's going to be an eventful chapter, so please stay seated and keep your seatbelts attached.

As always, thanks goes to Sarah, for her constant support -- you should be using her as an example, you know. Also, thanks to Claire for kicking me here :)

Are there any scenes you'd like to see in future chapters? Thoughts on this one? Let me know... One-liners are very much appreciated! ♥

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Penname: river
Member Since: 2005.04.11

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Fan of Draco malfoy. All my friends hate that. And my roommate says I therapy. Cant stand slash stories. Love snowboarding, football and basketball

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1 : There you'll be by river     One-shot
Rating: 12+   Chapters: 1   Reviews: 2

this fic is based on the song by Faith hill 'there you'll be'. Angst and romance. Quite a sad story.

Genres: Angst   Characters: Hermione
Advisory: Sensitive Topic/Issue/Theme
Published: 2005.08.17   Latest Chapter: 2005.08.17 Updated: 2005.08.17 Status: COMPLETED (1581 words)

2 : come back to me by river     Novella
Rating: Mature   Chapters: 3   Reviews: 12

this is the sequel to Dragon's desire. You all requested it so here it is. Hermione is now on erh own in the muggle world. With her five year old daughter.

Genres: Romance   Characters: Draco, Ginny  Pairings: Draco/Hermione
Advisory: Scenes of a Sexual Nature
Published: 2005.04.26   Latest Chapter: 2005.04.27 Updated: 2005.04.27 Status: WIP (2806 words)

3 : Dragon's desire by river     Short story
Rating: Mature   Chapters: 9   Reviews: 112

hermione is so excited to get back to hogwarts. She has just been made head girl but is furious to learn that malfoy is head boy. This is awful she thought... or is it?

Genres: Romance   Characters: Draco  Pairings: Draco/Hermione
Advisory: Scenes of a Sexual Nature
Published: 2005.04.12   Latest Chapter: 2005.04.23 Updated: 2005.04.23 Status: COMPLETED (8247 words)
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Penname: PurplePhoenix16
Member Since: 2006.04.29

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1 : Violet Sky by PurplePhoenix16     Novella
Rating: 12+   Chapters: 1   Reviews: 1

Harry is just turning 16, and the wizarding world is getting quite suspicious. When a beautiful violet-eyed girl suddenly appears on the night of his birthday saying she's sent by Dumbledore, he's swept away to a part of wizardy he didn't know existed. Full of love, pain, and great sacrifices. Told through the eyes of the incredible Guardian Violet Krystal as she deals with the pain of giving up her life for another.

Genres: Drama, Romance, Action/Adventure  Era: Hogwarts   Characters: Draco, Dumbledore, Ginny, Harry, Hermione, McGonagall, OC, Ron  Pairings: Ron/Hermione, Harry/OC, OC/OC
Advisory: Scenes of a Mild Sexual Nature
Published: 2006.04.29   Latest Chapter: 2006.05.06 Updated: 2006.05.06 Status: WIP (1593 words)
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[Documents menu] Documents menu

Writing Robeson

By Martin Duberman, The Nation, 28 December 1998

It was Paul Robeson Jr. who invited me, back in 1981, to be his father's biographer. He had offered me exclusive access for seven years to the vast family archives long closed to scholars, and had stressed at our very first meeting that he wasn't looking for a "Saint Robeson" but rather a tell-it-like-it-was account that would make his father an accessible human being rather than a pedestalized god.

Impressed, flattered and eager as I was to accept Paul Jr.'s offer, it also puzzled me. "You can see that I'm white," I said to him during that first meeting, "but do you also know that I'm gay, and that I've been actively involved in the gay political movement for years?" He casually replied that he did, that he had had me "thoroughly checked out." He had become convinced that I was the right biographer for his father because (as I recorded his words in my diary) of my "nuanced prose," my "complex understanding of personality," my left-wing politics and my experience in the theater.

Since I was not the only historian with left-wing views who wrote "nuanced" prose, I remained skeptical that Paul Jr.'s stated reasons for inviting a white gay activist to become his father's biographer exhausted the range of his motives. But wanting to believe him, I kept my skepticism to myself and accepted his invitation.

I did set one condition. I told him that I could comfortably undertake the biography only if we drew up a legal agreement in which he formally gave up all control over what I might ultimately choose to write. No self-respecting scholar, I explained, could work with someone looking over his shoulder__and especially not a son, deeply invested emotionally, and with his own pronounced views and agenda. Paul Jr. said he had expected me to set those conditions and was willing to sign such an agreement. "As we move ahead," he added with a sly grin, "I'll doubtless backslide." (Oh Lord, would he backslide!)

And so we were launched. Paul Robeson Jr. had given me the necessary assurances, had insisted he wanted a wholly truthful__not a plaster cast__portrait, and was soon, moreover, introducing me to some of his father's closest friends. But as I set to work on the mountainous source materials, a sense of unease lingered. Was this, I asked myself, a case of bizarre miscasting, a grotesque mismatch of author and subject__as some were quick to charge as soon as the project was publicly announced?

To quiet my discomfort, I tried putting the issue in a larger context: What, after all, are the essential qualities in a given biographer that heighten the chances for understanding a given life? Who is best qualified to write about whom__and why? Are there certain unbreachable guidelines that must be followed, certain fundamental boundaries that must not be crossed? Do we want to argue, for example, that no man should attempt to write about a woman, no younger person about an older, no adult about a child, no straight person about a gay one, no white person about a person of color (or vice versa)?

Even the most committed essentialists, I feel sure, would balk at strictures this severe: We have become too aware of how reductive the standard identity categories of gender, class, race and ethnicity are when trying to capture the actual complexities of a given personality. (Paul Robeson cannot simply be summarized as "a black man," nor Martin Duberman as "a gay man.") Besides, many people have overlapping identities that compete for attention over time; and how we rank their importance in shaping our personalities can shift, which in turn leads to a re-allocation of political energies.

But why is the assumption so widespread in the first place that a matchup between author and subject in regard to standard identity categories is the best guarantor of understanding? Indeed, why do we lazily assume that these categories are, in every case, the critical ones, while ignoring any number of other commonalities between biographer and subject that might provide critical insights__matters such as having been raised in comparable family or regional cultures or sharing similar psychologies of self, professional experience or religious affiliations.

Which of the affiliative links, standard or otherwise, between biographer and subject are likely to prove the most trenchant pathways to understanding? Perhaps__heresy!__the answer is none, or none that can be presumed in advance to guarantee access into the furthest recesses of personality. Perhaps what will turn out to matter most is that which is least visible and hardest to define: something to do with an elusive empathy of the spirit between biographer and subject, a shared if shadowy sense of how one should best navigate through life, treat other people, leave a mark and make a contribution without succumbing to self-importance__or self-destruction. How one positions oneself in the world will always reflect to some degree the seminal experiences and indoctrinations of class, race and gender, but may also, perhaps even to a greater degree, float above them, wondrously unanchored in categorical imperatives, mysteriously untraceable in derivation.

The simplifications currently at work are easily enumerated. Whether, for example, one defines "working class" in terms of income, job status or educational level, it should be obvious that not all working-class people have had an interchangeable set of experiences; being on an assembly line cannot be equated with cooking hamburgers at McDonald's, nor illiteracy with a high school education, nor life in a trailer park with life in a slum. A historian with a "working class" background cannot assume that that fact alone will open the gates of understanding to his or her working-class subject.

As for race, surely whites now realize that there is no homogeneity of lifestyle or opinion among members of a minority group. African-Americans, for example, vary widely in their views on everything from parenting to education to politics to white people. As for gender, the mere fact of being a woman would not in itself prepare a university-trained PhD doing the biography of, say, Grandma Moses, to understand a rudimentary rural life, the techniques of primitive painting, the process of aging or the morass of celebrity-hood.

To take as a given that no white person is able (or morally entitled) to write about someone black can itself be seen as a form of racism__a particularly simplistic form, for it is based on the insidious assumption that fellow-feeling hinges on the color of one's skin and that an individual's character can be accurately prejudged on the basis of his or her membership in a particular group.

Since no biographer can duplicate in his or her person the full range of the subject's experience__or exactly duplicate any of it__every biographer will be found wanting in some areas. And, yes, the disability can sometimes be directly linked to racial (or class or gender) dissonance. I do not doubt, for example, that as a white person I failed to capture some of the nuances of what it meant for Robeson to grow up in the black church (his father was a minister). Yet, oppositely, my own second career in the theater gave me a background few if any scholars could bring to bear in evaluating Robeson's stage experience.

Which brings us to the "gay issue." Soon after my biography of Robeson had been published, in February 1989, I was in San Francisco on the final leg of the book tour. Between the usual signings and readings, I made time to pay a return visit to Lee and Revels Cayton. Both had been helpful during the seven years I spent on the biography, and Revels, a radical veteran of the trade union wars and one of Robeson's closest friends, had at several points given me crucial information and advice.

I had sent the Caytons an early copy of the book, and Revels greeted me with a bear hug, effusive with congratulations for having "gotten it right." Later, over coffee, he made a comment that startled me: "you know, I've been thinking about it and I believe that only a gay man could have understood Paul's sex life."

I had been thinking about that too__for a long time__and thought I knew what Revels meant: Most heterosexual scholars, a conservative breed not known for their erotic capers, would be likely to share the mainstream view that lifetime, monogamous pair-bonding is the optimal path to human happiness__not to say moral decency. That assumption, in turn, would incline them, when confronted with the unconventional erotic history of someone like Robeson, to evade, minimize, condemn or apologize for his robust sexuality.

A legion of heterosexual scholars strenuously believe in their hearts, not merely in their public pronouncements, that sexual "restraint" is one of the admirable moral cornerstones of our national character. (It took DNA, remember, finally to break down their adamant denial of a sexual liaison between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.)

Confronted with Robeson's many sexual adventures, such scholars would most likely characterize them as "womanizing" or "Don Juanism." Additionally, they would probably "explain" the fact that Robeson's most intense, long-lasting affairs were nearly all with white women by regurgitating hoary, simplistic formulas about his need to prove himself to the white world__or to work out his anger toward it.

By the time I visited the Caytons, Revels's view that most heterosexual scholars would react uneasily to Robeson's sexuality had already been borne out in some of the early reviews. The critic in the San Francisco Chronicle had referred to Robeson's "compulsive womanizing." The Village Voice reviewer had wondered about "the unquenchable need that lay behind his behavior." Ishmael Reed, while praising my "fine" biography, had taken me to task for the book's "excessive and voyeuristic detail" about Robeson's romantic and sexual encounters. And Paul Robeson Jr. would soon issue a formal statement, printed in the Amsterdam News, characterizing my biography as "prurient." When I later told Revels about that, he shook his head in disbelief, chuckling over what he called my "restrained" account of Robeson's erotic activities.

Was Revels Cayton right in seeing my homosexuality as an asset in writing Robeson's biography, or was it__as many more have asserted__an offensive liability? Lloyd Brown, who collaborated with Robeson in the fifties on his autobiographical manifesto, Here I Stand, has been among the more publicly outraged. When my editor at Knopf sent Brown an early copy of the biography, he wrote back that I was "a sick writer" whose "homosexual values" were asserted throughout the book. Down to the present day, Brown continues to denounce my "preoccupation with the bedroom aspects of Robeson's life."

One of the ironies in all this is that my biography is, if anything, a rather truncated__one might even say chaste__rendering of Robeson's highly charged erotic life. Only Robeson's half-dozen significant romantic attachments are discussed in any detail, and his many short-term encounters are barely mentioned. Nor do I ever describe, let alone itemize, his actual sexual behavior__his preferences and performances in bed.

Moreover, as I made clear in the biography, Robeson's wife, Essie, had early on understood that her husband was not cut out for monogamy and domesticity; wanting to remain Mrs. Robeson, she had made her peace with his extramarital pleasures. That Essie was knowledgeable about Paul's sexual adventures would not, of course, make them more palatable to traditional moralists__including many churchgoing African-American adherents of mainstream sexual mores.

White conservatives, long since enraged at Robeson's political militancy, gleefully latch on to his erotic history as an additional weapon in portraying him as a "moral transgressor." For white racists, moreover, Robeson's exuberant sexuality can usefully be made to play into the longstanding, vicious stereotype of the black man as a "rampaging lustful beast." That almost all of Robeson's major affairs were with white women, finally, can be used to diminish his stature even among those who otherwise deeply admire his unyielding struggle againt racism and colonialism. (After my biography was published, Paul Robeson Jr. claimed that I had deliberately omitted a "list" he had given me of his father's black female lovers. If there is such a list, I was never shown it. Besides, the evidence of Paul Sr.'s preference for white lovers is overwhelming and incontestable.)

The biographer's job is to tell the truth__to the extent that inevitable gaps in the evidence and subjective distortion will allow for it. The biographer is not responsible for how others manipulate that truth to serve agendas of their own. Those who despise Robeson's socialism will always manage to find grounds for justifying their hostility; neither the inclusion nor the omission of evidence about his sexual life will dislodge their underlying animus toward his politics.

Yet even some who feel deeply sympathetic to Robeson's politics experience discomfort over his troubled marriage and his frequent extramarital affairs__and especially traditional socialists of the older generation, for whom economic, not sexual or gender, liberation remains the one legitimate issue of abiding importance.

This discomfort needs to be directly addressed, along with the underlying assumption that feeds it: namely, that monogamous, lifetime pair-bonding is, for everyone, the only defensible, natural, moral path. But how much sex is too much sex? Does the answer hinge on the number of different partners involved, the number of encounters with the same partner, particular configurations (three-way or group sex, say) or particular sexual acts (anal intercourse, say, or sadomasochism)? The answers will hinge on individual assumptions about what is "normal," "healthy" or "moral." In this country numbers alone are likely to settle the argument: The higher the figure, the more brows start to furrow__even when we are talking about consenting adults.

We need to take a closer look as well at what most people in our culture mean when using the designation "womanizer"__the charge Robeson's detractors most often level at him (that is, when they are not denouncing his "Stalinism"). Three definitions currently predominate: A "womanizer" is someone whose self-regard hinges on multiple conquests; is someone incapable of love and, to disguise that fact (not least from himself), pursues multiple sexual encounters; and, finally, is someone who treats his partners as exploitable objects, to be used disdainfully and discarded cavalierly.

None of those definitions, I would submit, apply to Paul Robeson. That is the overwhelming testimony of both his lovers and his psychiatrists. Every woman I spoke to who had been involved with Robeson for an extended period emphasized that he treated her as an equal, not a mere convenience or appendage. He could be difficult, neglectful and secretive, but was much more often tender, considerate and loving. As if in confirmation, one of Robeson's psychiatrists described him to me as a man whose "motivational spring was compassion, not ego."

And so when I hear Robeson described as a "womanizer," I've learned to take it as a rule of thumb that I'm listening to someone who despises the man politically and wishes to discredit him__as nothing can do more powerfully in our sex-negative culture than the accusation of "philanderer."

Unless it be, of course, to spread rumors that he was to some degree erotically involved with men. Such rumors, as I learned to my astonishment, were already in circulation when I began Robeson's biography. In a 1981 issue of the left-wing magazine WIN (now defunct), an article on Robeson had referred to his bisexuality as if it were a well-established fact. Some years later The Advocate (a national gay magazine) printed the claim that Robeson had "recently [been] revealed to have been gay." I protested both pieces and in the biography wrote that, "I had found absolutely no evidence of Robeson's erotic interest in men."

While I was working on the book, the candidate most often urged on me as Robeson's male lover was the Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. When I discussed that possibility with, among others, Zina Voynow, Eisenstein's sister-in-law, she scoffed at the notion of such an affair__though she did not, as some of his biographers have, deny Eisenstein's homosexuality.

Nevertheless, even after my biography was published, the rumor surfaced yet again (in a 1990 article by one Hugh Murray) that insisted__at length, and based on a fatuous twisting of suspect scraps of "evidence"__that the matter of Robeson's bisexuality remained "an open question." It does not. Barring the (almost unimaginable) surfacing of new evidence to the contrary, Robeson was__as I wrote in the biography and as I have repeatedly said in response to ongoing queries__singularly, rigorously, contentedly heterosexual.

For merely insisting on scholarly standards of evidence, I expected no medal for Meritorious Resistance to Political Correctness. But I was surprised that among the several critics who denounced Robeson as "oversexed" and my biography of him as "prurient," only one__in Commentary, no less__so much as mentioned that my book had put to rest the longstanding rumors of Robeson's bisexuality. Not even the Commentary reviewer thought to mention that I had done so as a gay man who might have been expected to maximize every remote innuendo or shard of evidence that could have left open the opportunity to claim Robeson for Our Side.

When nongays credit anything of value in the gay perspective__and only a few leftists ever do__they usually cite its iconoclasm, its insistent challenge to "regimes of the normal," especially in regard to gender and sexuality. In writing Robeson's biography, iconoclasm stood me in good stead. Yet ultimately I came to feel that it was less important in helping me get beneath the layers of his personality than what I would call our shared status as outsiders__outsiders who to a significant degree had been "let in," had been treated by the mainstream as an acceptable representative of an otherwise despised group.

Years into researching the book, I continued to mull over the question of whether I was an appropriate biographer for Robeson. I finally came to the conclusion that a strong argument could be made__just as Revels Cayton would later suggest__that far from disqualifying me as an effective interpreter of Robeson's life, my being gay had in fact given me some important advantages. Here is how I ultimately summed it up in a diary entry:

Like Robeson, I know about the double-bind of being accepted and not accepted.

I know about the outsider's need to role-play (the uses of theater offstage).

I know about the double-vision of the outsider who is let inside; about being a "spy" in the culture.

I know some of the strategies for concealing pain, including from oneself.

I know about the exuberant investment of hope in a "liberation" movement__and the attendant despair when it falls short.

I know about the seductive double-talk employed, when considered serviceable, by the white male power structure.

I know about the tensions of trying to be a "good" role model.

I know about the conflict between the yearnings of lust and the demands of a public image.

I know about the tug-of-war between the attractions of career and of doing "good works."

I know about the disjunction between the desire to be liked (and knowing one has the necessary social skills to accomplish that) and feeling disgust at the neediness of the desire.

I know about stubbornness__and about the need to sometimes play the supplicant.

I know about the counterpulls of feeling gregarious and longing for__requiring__solitude.

I know about concealment.

I know about buried anger.

I know about politeness substituting for anger, about anger eating up one's vitals, distorting one's judgment.

I know about loneliness.

Once the biography was published, it came as an enormous relief to me that many African-American intellectuals__including Herb Boyd, Nathan Huggins, David Levering Lewis, Nell Irvin Painter and Arnold Rampersad__hailed it. The review that perhaps pleased me most was Painter's. Some years earlier, she had rather sharply attacked me and other white historians (during an American Historical Society panel on "Black Biography") for "wrongheadedly" undertaking biographies of African-Americans. Yet reviewing my biography in the Boston Globe, she reversed fields, writing that the book especially "rates high marks for having seen much that white biographers of African-American subjects frequently disregard, notably anger and strategies for its management...."

Nell Painter did not suggest that my being gay might have been importantly connected to my ability to see "much that white biographers...frequently disregard." But after years of inner debate, I have come to hold that view decisively. To whatever extent my biography of Robeson does represent an empathy of the spirit, I believe the sensitizing factor of critical importance was precisely my homosexuality.

Martin Duberman is the Distinguished Professor of History at CUNY's Lehman College and the Graduate School. This essay will appear in Dangerous Liaisons: Blacks, Gays, and the Struggle for Equality (New Press), which is edited by Eric Brandt and will be published next June.


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 The Communism that Has Drenched Mankind in Blood -1-

The Communism that Has Drenched Mankind in Blood -1-

Since the communist ideology that claims to represent equality, social justice and freedom actually holds materialist and Darwinist beliefs that favor conflict and explicitly denies the obvious existence of God, it has inflicted countless tragedies on all the countries in which it has been applied. The communism that cost the lives of hundreds of millions in the 20th century still survives today.

We can see the kind of world that communism desires by looking at previous examples:

The Savagery of Lenin

Lenin adopted a new interpretation of Marxism by saying that the revolution needed to be carried by a Communist Party made up of professional revolutionaries, run with military discipline and empowered to speak on behalf of the working class. And that interpretation made revolution based on terror and violence an inseparable part of communism. Lenin’s view, which appeared in the magazine Proletari as early as 1906, 11 years before the Bolshevik Revolution, in the article “The phenomenon in which we are interested is the armed struggle,” (Vladimir I. Lenin, 30 September 1906, Proletari, No. 5) led to the establishment of ruthless, oppressive regimes that ruled with violence and persecution in the wake of that revolution.

In the wake of the October revolution, both Red Army units and the secret police organization known as the “Cheka,” set up by Lenin, inflicted wave after wave of terror on those sections of society they regarded as counterrevolutionary:

From Nakhimovksky, all one could see was the hanging bodies of officers, soldiers, and civilians arrested in the streets. The town was dead, and the only people left alive were hiding in lofts or basements. All the walls, shop fronts, and telegraph poles were covered with posters calling for "Death to the traitors." They were hanging people for fun. (S.P. Melgunov, La Terreur rouge en Russie, 1918-1924, p. 81)

In all the towns and villages they entered, the Bolsheviks slaughtered those sections of society that did not support their ideology, and carried out extreme acts of violence for the purpose of terrorizing the people. The orders for many of these massacres came directly from Lenin himself.

For example, in one telegram to the Central Executive Committee of Penza soviet, he said:

Comrades! The kulak uprising in your five districts must be crushed without pity. The interests of the whole revolution demand such actions, for the final struggle with the kulaks has now begun. You must make an example of these people. Hang (I mean hang publicly, so that people see it) at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and known blood-suckers. Publish their names. Seize all their grain… Do all this so that for miles around people see it all, understand it, tremble… Reply saying you have received and carried out these instructions. Yours, Lenin. (Russian Center for the Conservation and Study of Historic Documents, Moscow (RTsKhIDNI), 2/1/6/898, Pavlyuchenkov, Krestyankskii Brest)

As a result of many other orders and measures similar to the one above commanded by Lenin, tens of thousands of people were executed without trial. Many opponents of the regime were sent to be worked to death under the harshest conditions in the concentration camps known as the "Gulag"; most didn't survive these camps. As a result, hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants who rebelled against the Bolshevik regime in 1918-1922 were slaughtered.

Man-Made Famine

A famine that cost the lives of 5 million people across Russia took place under Lenin’s government. In 1918, a policy of abolishing private property was initiated with a command issued by Lenin. The most important consequence of this was the nationalization of peasants’ lands and the confiscation of food products.

A quota to be given to the Bolsheviks was determined for each peasant. But in order to meet that quota, most of them had to give up all that they had harvested. Peasants who tried to resist were savagely silenced. Some of them hid part of their harvests in order not to have to hand over all their wheat; but such behavior was regarded as “betrayal of the revolution” by the Bolsheviks and was punished with unbelievable savagery.

On February 14th, 1922, an inspector went to the region of Omsk and described what happened there:

Abuses of position by the requisitioning detachments, frankly speaking, have now reached unbelievable levels. Systematically, the peasants who are arrested are all locked up in big unheated barns; they are then whipped and threatened with execution. Those who have not filled the whole of their quota are bound and forced to run naked all along the main street of the village and then locked up in another unheated hangar. A great number of women have been beaten until they are unconscious and then thrown naked into holes dug in the snow. (Black Book of Communism, Harvard University Press Cambridge, p. 119)

He enforced a ruthless sanction in 1920: Not only were all the peasants’ foodstuffs to be confiscated, but also their seeds. Confiscation of these seeds meant that the peasants could not grow new crops and would inevitably starve to death: And that is exactly what happened. In 1921 and 1922, fully 29 million people were confronted with starvation inside Russia’s borders, of whom 5 million eventually starved to death.

2013-11-16 21:38:48
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