[cardiff] on memory street [nerys]

15 july 2001

Fflur Blevins did not feel like herself today. Her hair was clean and freshly dyed a bright shade of blonde, hiding those dark roots she liked to deny having. She had on a very minimal amount of makeup, going for an attempt at a natural look, but still not straying too far from her usual heavy eyeliner and lipstick combination. She had taken care to buy new clothes, look as put together as possible. Still, her version of put together was a clean pair of jeans and a very bright white t-shirt, but she looked and smelled fresh; the woman hadn't had a cigarette since her shower, and she had done every possible spell she could to get rid of the smell before she left for Cardiff. It was all a very significant step forward in both appearance and demeanor from when she had last seen her parents, that one disastrous day a handful of years ago when she had decided to show up much less than sober to meet her nephew.

It was Sunday, the day before Pedr and Eleri Blevins' thirty-second wedding anniversary, just before tea time. She had decided against warning her parents of her arrival, fearful that they might actually consider telling her not to come. But she was in the UK, had been for over two months now, and had yet to go to Wales, let alone tell her parents she was there at all. She was sure Nerys hadn't told them; either they would have reached out to her or Nerys would have gloated because they had decided not to reach out. Either way, she was sure she would be a somewhat pleasant surprise. While not their favorite daughter, by far, she was still the oldest, akin to the prodigal son returning home after so long.

She assumed Nerys had something planned for the anniversary (how could she resist showing just how wonderful a daughter she was?), but she wanted to prove that she cared, too. So she had picked the day prior, not wanting to interfere with whatever family celebration Nerys had surely planned for them. She would stay for tea, invite them out to dinner, and be one step closer to maybe repairing her relationship with her parents. There was no reason to get any other family member involved.

It was just after four in the afternoon when she knocked on the door. It had been quite some time, and even if she knew where her key to the house was, she doubted she would receive a warm welcome if she just walked right in. Fflur was going over and over her planned words, but forgot every single one of them when the door opened. The face was similar to her mother's, but it looked much less pleased to see her than she had been hoping for. She opened her mouth to speak to her sister, standing there, just as surprised as she was to be seeing her.

But she was ushered inside quickly before she could find out just what was going on. Clearly the anniversary party was already in full swing and Fflur was most assuredly not an expected guest. After a flurry of tight hugs from all sorts of family members, it seemed that Nerys was passing off her arrival as a surprise for their parents, and Fflur had no choice but to go along with it. Just like always, whatever problems the sisters had between themselves had were swept under the rug whenever their parents were sniffing around. Neither of them wanted to be the one to cause the family problems, and besides the obvious lapses in Fflur's judgement the past decade, it was like nothing had changed.

After some time reacquainting herself with everyone, telling about her new job with as few magical details as possible (still a professor at a boarding school, but teaching an advanced driver's education course for those that absolutely needed to know), and glossing over her time spent in France, Fflur was able to escape to the back garden. She looked around; it was done up so nicely, and she was sure it would look even better once the sun had set and the fairy lights were lit. There were little rosettes and streamers set about, hanging from the trees, strung up between them. A few round tables were set up, complete with centerpieces with little framed photos of the Blevinses throughout the years. There was another long table set up with trays upon trays of food, all set around one magnificent cake in the center. It would have taken ages to set all this up without magic, and Fflur wasn't sure which option Nerys would have been more proud of accomplishing.

Still, no one was milling around outside. Everything must have been just set up, and Fflur decided she needed to seize the opportunity of being alone to sneak a cigarette. She stepped farther out in to the garden, rounding around the corner of a clump of trees to an area she knew was well out of the view from any window of the house. Her quest for a hidden smoke was halted, however, when there was someone else in her secret smoking spot. And not just anyone, but Nerys. And she was way ahead of her. The younger woman was trying to hide her own cigarette, but it was too late. Fflur was already smiling, her eyebrows raised in surprise, trying to decide what was the better option: to berate her here or run inside and tattle to Mum.

But there was no point in ruining their mother's happy day. "Oh, darling, don't you know those will kill you?" She asked her in an overly sweet voice, proud of herself for being amused, rather than upset, at this new mar on her sister's perfect record.

@Nerys Blevins

If Nerys hadn’t been walking by the front door of her parents’ home in Cardiff, carrying a tray of date and goat cheese appetizers to pass around to the guests, when someone had knocked on the door, she wouldn’t have heard it at all. The modest but clean living room was packed with guests: friends of her parents, colleagues, and extended family members were all milling about or else squeezed onto the two sofas, chatting and drinking sangria and looking at photos from the past thirty years of her parents’ marriage. The stress of the planning, small talk, and questions about the whereabouts of her own husband made the excuse to talk to whichever delivery boy or salesman was at the door a welcome one, and she handed the tray off carefully to her son. “Take these around for me, sweetie?” she asked, before turning back to the door and pulling it wide open.

Whoever she had been expecting, it wasn’t Fflur. Her sister looked much better than the last time she had seen her: brushed hair, laundered clothes, and a distinctly clean smell about her. After a moment of confused silence, Fflur apparently as shocked to see her as Nerys was, she stood back and opened the door. Had her parents somehow gotten in touch with her and invited her to the party? But the silence and shocked faces on her parents told her right away that this was either Fflur’s doing, or an unfortunate coincidence. Deciding to go with the flow, she ushered Fflur in, offering hugs to her parents amidst all the joyful tears, managing to pass the whole thing off as an anniversary surprise. Because apparently the cake, party, and actual presents hadn’t been enough.

After a while, Fflur seemed to settle in, conversing with the guests and family members who she hadn’t seen in years. Unwilling to watch as her parents forgave her sister at once and welcomed her home like the prodigal son, Nerys made herself scarce, finding ways to busy herself in the kitchen and out in the back yard, where the buffet still needed to be set up. She had put charms on the food to keep it fresh, and added a few more to keep away bugs and the humidity as she set the last dish on the long buffet table. Everything was going well; she was not thinking about her sister and how she had managed to make the party about her despite all of Nerys’ hard work. Everyone would come outside soon for dinner and she would be able to keep her distance and avoid a fight.

Her mother made her way outside first though, apparently wanting to check on how things were going. Nerys sidestepped the questions as best she could, trying to make it seem as though it was perfectly normal to hide that her older sister had been in the country for months and never mentioned to her parents that she was safe and employed and well. Wilting a bit under the half-­masked accusations, Nerys managed to shake her off by insisting that she needed to fix the lights before everyone could come outside. As her mother headed back toward the house, Nerys took a shaky deep breath through her nose, trying to stay calm. Her fingers were shaking from the unfairness of it all. Turning on her heel, she moved off to the edge of the yard, hiding herself among the tall bushes in case her mother came back with reinforcements to chastise or question her further.

Nerys pulled her box of cigarettes from her jacket pocket, lighting the tip of one with her wand. She nearly dropped it, the trembling in her hands as she tried to calm herself down making it difficult to coordinate her motions. She had barely blown the last of the smoke from her lungs, and was just moving to lift the cigarette to her lips for a second time, when she heard someone approaching. She turned too late to vanish the evidence, the grin on her sister’s face making it clear that she had been caught in the act. Fuck.

“Like you care,” Nerys responded at once, doing her best to appear as though she had no qualms about anyone seeing her smoke. “What are you doing out here anyway? Don’t you have parents to suck up to?”

“Well I won’t get your share of the inheritance anymore, so the smallest part of me really does care,” Fflur shrugged, doing her best to look like she really didn’t care that much. She ignored her questions for a moment, instead seizing the opportunity to pluck the cigarette from Nerys’s hand and bring it up to her lips. She took a long drag from it and was at least courteous enough to exhale away from the general direction of her sister’s face. “Same thing you’re doing, though this is news to me.” Fflur was speaking slowly and surely, not wanting this moment to go by too quickly. It wasn’t often that Nerys came down to her level and she wanted to be sure to enjoy it.

She didn’t bother answering the question about their parents. She could hardly call what she was doing ‘sucking up’ when all that had happened was Fflur trying to wish them a happy anniversary. She couldn’t help it if her presence had only improved the party. “Is this a recent development, or…?” Fflur had her own questions to ask. Maybe they would have had a better chance of getting along if she had known they had this in common. Unless, of course, this was just another thing that Nerys did to be more like her. She wasn’t sure which option was the worst.

Not returning her borrowed cigarette, Fflur took another long draw from it. She looked at her sister, somehow coming to the conclusion that she didn’t really care why she was smoking. Only that she liked it, even if it was more than just a tad hypocritical. She wasn’t sure what caused her to pose her next question, the sudden rush of emotion or the sheer absurdity of the situation. “By the way,” she started, avoiding Nerys’s gaze. “I wouldn’t have showed up if I knew there was a party.” She looked down at her feet, nervously toeing at a particular blade of grass as she gave her mouth a break from confession as she brought her cigarette back up to her lips.

“I wasn’t trying to complicate things for you.” She was still speaking to the ground, convincing herself to not ruin whatever sort of moment this had turned into by saying that it would have been easier to avoid the party if she had known about it at all. “I wasn’t going to tell them that you knew I was back.” She looked up, trying to catch her sister’s eye, hoping she would be able to see that she was telling the truth. “Honestly,” she added, just in case. Fflur finished off the cigarette, quickly checking over her shoulder that they were still alone in the garden before vanishing the end of it with her wand. Hiding things from their parents was second nature to her by now.

Standing there as casually as she could, boldly keeping the cigarette in view and trying not to look the least bit phased by the sudden appearance of her sister, had its costs: Fflur extracted the smoke from her fingers, Nerys' loose grip on it making the transfer easy. But as angry as she was with her sister and frustrated as she was with her mother, Nerys knew she couldn't deny Fflur a drag. If anyone knew the pressures being at this house could bring, it was the woman who had grown up with her there, sharing in the constant criticism and tone of disappointment. Nerys was willing to share, but that smug look on her sister's face that she hated was back again. "Well, you don't have to look so pleased," she pointed out.

Nerys snorted in reply, choosing to ignore Fflur's comment. As far as she could tell, most things going on in Nerys' life would be news to her sister, since she had disappeared without a word years ago, without even saying goodbye. There was a reason they hadn't stayed in touch. Whatever closeness there might have been between them as girls was long gone now. "It's not really a development at all," Nerys replied, avoiding the question as best she could and eyeing the cigarette that her sister had yet to return. "I mean, it's not a habit." She put a particular emphasis on the last word, determined not to let her sister think they were somehow on the same level now. An occasional cigarette to ease her nerves was hardly the same as drinking and smoking her way into oblivion. Besides, she made up for it in every other aspect of her life: the dieting, the running, the careful cleaning of her home.

Nerys could only stare out at the trees in response to Fflur's almost-apology. If she didn't know better, it almost would have seemed like Fflur meant it. Nerys turned the idea over in her mind, considering Fflur's position. Clearly her parents hadn't invited her, and Nerys sure knew she hadn't. Was it possible that Fflur really had only shown up at the party by mistake? It just all seemed to be too much of a coincidence. Fflur was looking at her directly, and Nerys turned her head reluctantly to meet her sister's eye for a moment before turning back.

"Fflur," she replied after a moment of silence. "What are you doing here, honestly?" She looked at her sister full-on, trying to understand how everything had gone wrong. She knew she hadn't expected to see Fflur again in Britain, let alone at her parents' home. "Not just here, now, I mean. Back in Scotland, at Hogwarts?" The words sounded harsher than she had meant them. In a hurry, she added, "I'm not saying I don't want you here, exactly. I just don't understand. Why did you leave, and why are you back now?"

She watched her sister for a moment, not too sure what she should be thinking about this new revelation. "Whatever you say," she replied, one hand up as she conceded to believing whatever Nerys wanted her to think about her smoking habits.

Whatever she was expecting from her sister in response to the excuses Fflur had made for herself, it wasn't a complete launch into questions about all the motives she had for all the decisions she had made. "Seriously?" Fflur shrugged, searching for the simplest way to summarize the last six years without making herself sound just as terrible as she actually was. "I needed a job," she started slowly, "And apparently all Hogwarts needed was an incredibly shit year to lower their standards enough to hire me." Never mind that she had just recently been reminded that the school had made much worse hiring decisions than her. Something told her that Nerys wouldn't really take that into consideration here.

She stalled for time for a moment, fumbling in her jacket pocket for her own pack of cigarettes. Freeing one, she held it loosely between her lips and tossed the pack towards her sister, not wanting to be indebted for that stolen cigarette for too long. She pulled her lighter from her pocket, much preferring the feel of the manual lighter every time rather than using her wand. After a long and deep inhale, Fflur started again. "I thought it would be nice to have more than fifty quid in my pocket at once." She shrugged again, not wanting to get into the details of just how she had gone into debt, not even wanting to admit that out loud in front of her sister.

And she wasn't about to tell her the decision making process that had gone into leaving Wales in the first place. Those details would only make Nerys feel superior, and rightly so.

"That'll be easier now that my job includes free room and board and I'm not spending money on al--" Fflur stopped abruptly, fidgeting for a second before bringing her cigarette back up to her mouth. Why couldn't she finish her sentence? If Fflur wanted anyone to know about her attempt at sobriety, it would be Nerys, and what better time to do it than now? The pair of them standing together, hiding from their parents, smoking like it would be the end of the world if they got caught. And surely that little tidbit of information would make Nerys feel bad about how she had dropped in on her unannounced her first week back.

She exhaled sharply, launching quickly into a poor explanation for her pause earlier. "Not spending money on all the random French things." She sighed as she paused again, trying to recall if she had mentioned earlier that she had been living in France. "Sorry," she said eventually, though she wasn't quite sure what she was apologizing for: leaving, coming back, the awkward conversation, existing, whatever Nerys wanted to think at this point.

Meeting her sister’s eyes in silence, Nerys waited for the story, not sure now that she had asked whether she wanted to hear the truth or not. The reality was that Nerys had been hurt when Fflur had left without saying a word, but perhaps even more so when she had returned in the same fashion. The fact that Fflur had made yet another huge decision without even bothering to notify her, let alone consult her, felt like a betrayal. From her view, Nerys had done nothing over the years but try to be a good friend to her older sister: as a child, always idolizing her and doing everything she could to be like her, and then as an adult, trying her best to keep Fflur from throwing her career and life away.

Once she had gotten over the shock of Fflur’s return, Nerys had felt twinges of guilt and regret over their disastrous reunion. As rude as her sister had been, Nerys knew she had let her temper get the better of her. Nerys was supposed to be the responsible one, the caretaker. What with her inability to rise above her sister’s immature behavior that morning, Nerys wasn’t so sure anymore that she was any better than Fflur.

Nerys rolled her eyes and looked away, not sure whether she believed that this was the truth. There were no real grounds for her skepticism, but trust was going to take a while to come back into their relationship. “Best school of magic there is,” Nerys repeated, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She only barely caught the pack of cigarettes that her sister tossed her, just managing to trap the box against her leg as it slipped out of her hand toward the ground. She hesitated for a moment before pulling a cigarette free, resigning herself to situation. Nerys held the tip out to the flame her sister had sparked into existence, avoiding Fflur’s eyes but matching her movements and inhaling deeply.

“I suppose so,” Nerys replied quietly, gazing out over the lawn. She would have gladly lent Fflur the money, had she known her sister needed it. All the same, she supposed it was a good thing for Fflur to finally be growing up a bit.

She let her sister’s apology hang in the air for a bit, closing her eyes to try to master whatever emotion it was that seemed to be pressing down on her chest. It was rare that she felt this kind of anonymous strain, and even rarer that a cigarette did nothing to alleviate it. It was a mixture of pity, regret, shame, and something else she couldn’t quite name.

“Me too,” she replied, eyes still closed. Completely inexplicable as it was, Nerys was afraid that if she looked at Fflur she might betray herself and start to cry.

The toxicity of her words, the absurdity that Hogwarts could hire someone like Fflur, made her wonder if Nerys had already started looking into education Niall at home, maybe sending him abroad, anything to keep him away from the school that had clearly lost its touch if it had sunk so low as to hire her. She watched her sister’s movements, looking for any clues to how long she had been smoking, not willing to believe that it wasn’t a habit like she had claimed. She arched a dark eyebrow as Nerys leaned in to the lighter, flipping the lid shut and taking a step back as she straightened back up.

She nodded as Nerys somewhat agreed with her, or at least appeared to, hoping she could accept that explanation for her taking the job. They could drop the subject of being broke and never return to it. She silently thanked her for not asking questions, but the silence that followed her quiet apology was palpable. She knew she deserved worse than silence, really, though she would never admit to that aloud.

Fflur took the chance to study Nerys without being seen; she hadn’t noticed the little wrinkles around her eyes, noticeable even with her eyes closed. Still, she looked so incredibly put together, a feat Fflur had never really been able to accomplish, even today when she had put the effort in. Of course, she considered taking a shower and not smelling like stale smoke effort, but that was beside the point. Her gaze darted back and forth across her sister’s face, almost willing to ask her to open her eyes and look at her, to say anything at all. She had never known Nerys to be the one to ignore her and she certainly wasn’t ready for her to start now.

She opened her mouth to say something, maybe apologize again, to make sure Nerys had really heard her the first time, but she closed it without coming up with anything. It would probably be easier at this point to continue with a mutual silent treatment rather than trying to repair the relationship that Fflur had destroyed alongside her career. They could just time their visits to Cardiff so they would never have to interact, never have to put on the happy we-get-along faces they wore so often for their parents. In fact, maybe they ought to move this interaction, sans cigarettes of course, out into the open, so everyone could see the evidence.

Taking a final drag of her cigarette, Fflur stamped it out on the ground with the toe of her boot before vanishing away any trace of it. She nearly missed the words from Nerys, the two simple and quiet words that meant more than Fflur might have ever been able to express. She wanted to press for specifics, to know what, exactly, Nerys was apologizing for. She searched her face for any sign that would point her in any direction of emotion, but she just nodded again. “Right, well, I, uh--”

Fflur wasn’t sure what she had meant to accomplish by apologizing at all, still unsure why she had done it in the first place. She regretted tossing her cigarette away before finishing it, really wanting something else to focus on rather than her awkward stammering. “We should have tea sometime,” she said quickly, looking out over the lawn. The sun was starting to set now, dipping behind clouds as they stood there in their corner of the garden. “Talk.” She nodded, still not looking at her sister. “If you want.”

It only took half a second after shutting her mouth for Nerys to wonder whether she ought not to have said those two little words at all. Feelings aside, it felt like a weak move after their last encounter to admit any kind of fault in the way things had gone, or were, between the two sisters. But it was too late to take it back now, and Nerys couldn’t help feeling that the words were true, even if she might have preferred to keep them to herself. Fflur’s stuttered response made Nerys guess that both women were a bit uncomfortable with the situation, so she simply took another drag of her cigarette and blew out the smoke, watching it disappear into the air and avoiding eye contact.

What was she sorry for?

Everything, she supposed. Barging into Fflur’s place of work, waiting so long to seek her out after she returned, failing to contact her in France, letting Fflur leave the country in the first place without a fight ... the list went on. It was hard to feel that any of that had been her fault, but at the same time Nerys was exhausted. She was tired of being angry and resentful and hurt. She was tired of making things worse for the both of them.

Fflur was sorry too, and maybe that meant it was time to just move on. Both their apologies were pretty nonspecific, and though they certainly wouldn’t have done if they had still been children and it had been their mum making them apologize, they somehow didn’t feel inadequate now. Maybe they didn’t need to talk about it; at least not for the time being. As furious and hurt as Nerys had been, and maybe still was, it didn’t change the fact that Fflur was her sister. She still loved her. Deep down.

It wasn’t until Fflur spoke again, abruptly changing the subject, that Nerys looked back at her older sister. She allowed herself half a smile as she replied, “Sure,” but she looked away again, convinced that she would master all emotion through sheer force of will. When she was sixteen, it would have been a dream come true for the cooler and more interesting Fflur to invite her to hang out. Nerys was an adult now, and such things weren’t supposed to matter so much. But the wave of nostalgia that swept over her at the prospect made it seem as though she was just nine years old again, and Fflur was home for the first time from Hogwarts and inviting her to play.

Nerys had half a mind to follow up on Fflur’s offer straight away by suggesting a date, but the other half of her, the one that was less concerned with her calendar and more eager for this embarrassing and unexpectedly ­emotional encounter to be over, won out. In a rather ­abrupt return to the perfect ­daughter charade that Nerys had been putting on all afternoon, she vanished her cigarette with a wave of her wand.

“We should get back inside,” Nerys told her, pulling a small bottle of perfume out of her bag and spritzing it on in an attempt to cover up the cigarette smell. “I should check on Niall, anyway, and it’s nearly time for dinner.” She half­-offered the bottle to Fflur with an awkward jerk of her hand, but then settled for squirting it absently into the air in front of them. Fflur could interpret that as a general odor-­cover move or as an invitation to walk through it herself. Nerys was trying not to care.

“Thanks for the smoke,” she added, and turned to walk back toward the house, pushing the conversation out of her mind as best she could. She would have time to overanalyze the whole exchange later that night; Nerys hardly slept these days anyway.

[fin]