Title: fish hooks in the corners of their mouths

Summary: "Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place." ... Not entirely accurate, but it'll do for describing the situation. People swallow that explanation easier than: 'I died once, but it's okay! I got better' [SI OC, Black!OC, Marauders Era]

Rating: Tentative T

Disclaimer: Disclaimed

Dedication: This one goes out to Gladoo89! Now there is a real cool cat.

Warnings: Pretty explicit child abuse (but nothing descriptive)

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08.

fish hooks in the corners of their mouth

the world seemed to burn

.

I should have known better.

There was a crack, and then my legs gave out.

Adrenaline coursed through my body; survival was a river rushing in my chest. The floor slipped from under me, tilting, and I caught myself on my hands. There was a movement in the corner of my eye — Kritter? — that had my nerves flaring. On the side of my face there was a swelling; a blooming.

(I began to wonder, Is this even real?)

The moment passes. The adrenaline crashes. I have no doubt of my existence — dreams have never caused my ears to ring like the solid connection of a well-aimed hand could.

I swallowed around my dry tongue and wiped at my face. When had I started to cry? It didn't feel like anything, maybe that was why I hadn't noticed. Usually my eyes stung and my nose burned before I cried. I guess the fact that my face was numb might have worked against that.

Mother stared down at me. I knew that face. I had not seen it in a while: the rage, the gritted teeth, the twitching, curling fingers, like her hands ached for something to hold, to squeeze. Mother twisted her wedding ring. Blew alcohol-stained breath across her throbbing knuckles. Said, "You made me break my streak."

I said nothing. What was there to say? I just hoped not to trigger another hit. I had simple desires.

Mother stared. Waited for something. Whatever it was she was searching for, I was determined not to give it. My face was composed of marble and steel. She could not read a single thing off it that I wasn't handing to her on a silver platter. I knew her patience would not support her long enough for my own resolution to fracture.

While she poked and prodded me with her eyes, I tucked myself away inside my own mind and waited. Muted. Reclusive.

Mother scoffed. She turned around. "Leave. Get out. Don't let me see you again, girl. I've no patience for blood traitors under my roof."

She kept her back to me.

I scrambled to my feet and felt the contents of my stomach jump to my throat. I swallowed down the bile and kept my hands flush against the wall, staggering out of the room. I closed the door to the living room behind me and tried to ignore the sound of shattering glass.

'Home sweet home', huh?

Ha fucking ha.

Kritter was standing at the staircase, floppy ears flat against her face. "Mistress — " she began, and did not continue. She ducked her head and stared determinedly at her scabbed feet. I thought she might say something. I was wrong.

From the living room, Mother shrieked. "Kritter! Come!"

Kritter didn't even dare to look at me before she disappeared with a pop. I stared at the spot she had once stood and had the most childish urge to grab the drapes and tear them down, to scream and cry and smash the three hundred year old vase that sat at the entryway. I wanted to shatter expensive things. I wanted to throw a tantrum and I wanted to get away with it and I wanted, I wanted, I wanted.

I stormed out through the veranda door and bee lined for the closest greenhouse.

I regretted it instantly.

The closer I got, the more obvious it became that my gardens had been tainted by outside influence. My ear throbbed. I picked up my robes and sprinted for the greenhouse, a disharmony of voices screaming in my head. I threw open the door and stepped into my sanctuary, and saw that it had been—it had been completely—

Bits and pieces of clay pots were all over the greenhouse, crunching under my soles. There was more soil on the concrete floor than there were around plants, dry like dirt. All of the plants had been uprooted and blasted, withered and crunchy under my feet as I searched for a little piece of this desolation that hadn't been ruined. I could find nothing of the sort. There was not an inch of my greenhouse that hadn't been hurt by resentful spell-work.

A vine hanging from the ceiling reached out and stroked my hair as I walked past. I stopped, stroked its leaves, greeted it softly with, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Everything had been destroyed.

My greenhouse had been polluted.

I collapsed to my knees and dug my fingers in the soil. In the handful I had clenched in my fist, there was a wriggling sensation. I opened my fist and saw an earthworm crawling, slowly inching across my palm. I stared as it made a full circuit around my palm a couple of times before dropping off my hand and landing in the soil on the floor.

The sun beat down on my back.

My bones were aching.

I wanted to hurt something. God, but I wanted to destroy something, make someone bleed, because this—this felt like an act of sacrilege .My garden, someone had entered my greenhouse and blindly threw curses until none of the beauty that I had cultivated remained. My plants were withered, my soil dry, my peace was compromised.

I picked up the bud of the seven-pointed flower that laid in front of me, half-buried in soil. I had been eight when Uncle Alphard gifted me with the flower. He'd said it looked pretty: that it needed talented, nurturing hands to guide it into adulthood, that he thought it would fit in well with the rest of my plants. I had loved it most, seeing as it was the first plant Uncle Alphard had ever given me. He was the first one to stop scoffing at my hobby. It had meant so much to me at the time – still did, in fact.

And now it was rotting on the floor of my greenhouse. Because I had been sorted into Ravenclaw.

I was surrounded by shattered clay and dirt and all I could think was, Filthy blood traitor indeed. There was nothing pure about me at all.

(I sat until the cicadas started singing and the owls started barking and the worms crept in between my splayed fingers.

I did not move, I did not move, I did not move, I did not move.)

.

.

No one has ever quite managed to grasp how much my greenhouse means — meant to me. So don't feel bad if it doesn't make sense to you. 'It's just a garden,' Right? 'They're just plants and a bunch of worms. What's the big deal about it?' I can tell that's what you're thinking. It's all over your face. Gardens don't mean much to you. It's just food, Callidora. Just herbs and leaves. There's nothing to be upset about.

Okay. If you think that then that's all I have to say to you: okay. Fine. If you don't get it, you don't get it.

If you choose to forget that I've been working on that garden since I was seven then fine, okay. If you choose to forget that I have bled for that garden then fine, okay. If you don't want to remember that some of my happiest memories are of me quietly tending to my garden, of me escaping my parents to harvest from the greenhouse that they despised, of me learning how to conjure fire without a wand for these dumb plants, then fine. okay.

You don't get it.

But just because it means nothing to you doesn't mean that that garden wasn't the only part of my house that was worth coming back to.

'Home is where the heart is', right? Well, guess where my heart had been.

Guess where my essence was concentrated.

If you want to know someone without talking to them, you find the space that they dedicate most of themselves to and you look at it. You know a poet by their poems, by their worn notebooks and cathedral of empty ink pots. You know a musician by their lyrics, by their music, by their instruments. You tended to know a teenager by their room.

A pureblood with muggle posters glued to the wall? —a rebel child; drapes of silver and emerald with newspaper clippings of attacks on muggleborns? —an aspiring death eater. Not being able to step two inches in any direction from the doorway without kicking a book? —a lover of books.

If you isolated a person's most beloved medium, you uncovered a vital part of their personality. You discovered where their souls journeyed off to in their idle moments, what drove them, what woke them up in the morning. Their muse, spite, the desire to learn, to live up to expectations, the urge to create. In my case, it was my yearning to nurture

My room was bare, superficial. Dark wallpaper, dark floors, posters from my younger years. The only thing that mattered in my room was the bed and the trunk, both of which were warded against intruders. My greenhouse, on the other hand, was an explosion of life. Artists bleed for their craft, I had no right to do any less than that for my garden. Gardening was my medium, my escape.

And someone had walked in there and blew it up. Four years down the drain, just like that.

So yeah, I was a bit upset.

Sue me.

.

.

At least the wards around my chest of ingredients were undisturbed. It was a small comfort. So small, in fact, that I could barely consider it a comfort at all. I was sorting through my inventory when someone knocked on the door. I froze. Was it Mother? Father? Cissy? I resolved to go back to my inventory. No one could enter my room without my explicit permission, I had made sure of that much.

The person knocked again. I paused. Someone called softly, "Dora?"

Oh.

I hadn't been expecting her.

I stood to disable the wards around my door. "Andy?"

"Can I come in?"

I returned to my chest and carefully stepped around my jars and beakers until I was in the middle. I sat cross-legged with a little circle of space around me. "It's open." I called only once I was comfortable. The door clicked open. I heard her shoes against the dark wood floors. I didn't turn to greet her, which was quite rude, but I really didn't have the patience for decorum today. "I thought you were spending the holidays with someone who doesn't live here. If I had known you were staying, I would have stopped by your room."

"No, I was with the Holloway's. I just got here now, in fact. I made my way over first thing in the morning when I received the letter last night. Cissy told me that…" Andromeda sounded tired, but jovial enough. Things must have been happening in her own life that she wasn't telling me. I couldn't think of another reason why she'd be tired. "I didn't think you would come back."

"I wasn't told not to." I grabbed a jar, noted its label, and crossed out something on my parchment. Amazonian Wonder-buds were accounted for, thank merlin. I hadn't grown these ones, I didn't have the right soil or temperate for them; they were very hard (read: expensive) to procure. "Did you come here immediately? It must have been a hasty departure. The family didn't take offence, did they?"

"No, Steph understood. They're half-bloods. Pureblood customs don't apply to them."

"Hooray." I murmured, shuffling through some vials. "There's a silver lining to everything, isn't there?"

Andromeda sighed. "Steph is a good friend, but that's… that isn't relevant. How are you?"

"Fine." I sniffed. "Tired, I guess. I was up all night."

"Doing what?" She asked. I didn't answer. She made a discontented noise but, thankfully, did not press the subject. "Kritter tells me that you didn't come in last night."

"Figured I'd do some impromptu-camping. Try it out. Get some experience under my belt. All the, you know, all the cool stuff." Andromeda made a non-committal noise. I felt something cold in my hand and focused on the label I was reading. I hadn't even realized I had picked something up. Look down at my list, I saw that I had apparently crossed some ingredients out. Well… that was annoying.

"What about you? Did you enjoy your apprenticeship?"

"Yes. Ainley is more knowledgeable than one might expect when first meeting her. Her appearance belies her experience that way, I'm certain that she is older than she admits to being." I nodded absently in agreement. "I believe last month was her—fifth? sixth? time turning thirty-five. She holds the record in the office for it."

"Mmhm."

Krypticks: check. Mandrake stems and leaves: check. Gillyweed is still there and as insubstantial as ever—I seriously had to remember to stock up on that.

"What about your friends? Is Pandora intending on visiting?"

"She's intending as such, yes."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know, it's complicated." I screwed my mouth to the side. "She'll come if she can."

Andromeda at least resists asking what could possibly keep Pandora from here. It's nice not to be patronized.

"And the other one? Xenophilius? Or is it Alice?"

"Xeno's staying with Alice for two weeks,"

Andromeda's voice was warm. "He's the orphan?"

"Aye." I went back to my bottles. "He's the orphan."

Andromeda waited. When she understood that I was not going to continue speaking, she snapped, "Would you please look at me?" My shoulders tensed. "Your letters have been short, sometimes you don't reply for weeks, and now that I'm back, you can't stand to look me in the eye? Did I do wrong by you? How am I supposed to apologize if I don't know where I've misstepped—"

"You haven't misstepped."

"Then turn around."

I deliberately placed my jar down.

"Dora, please. I want to see my little sister."

I clicked my teeth together and surprisingly didn't sigh. I stood and stepped out of the circle of jars, keeping my back to my big sister until I was certain a stumble wouldn't smash all of my jars. I bee lined for a closet and plucked out a wide-brimmed hat. I briefly considered the matching lace gloves as I spoke.

"Do you want to go to Fortescue's? Alice promised that I could get a discount with her father if I mentioned her."

"You already know what I want."

'I'll give you that if you agree to get ice cream with me," I bargained, "and some of that concealer I know you have somewhere. I don't think Cissy wants to share with me."

"Concealer? What could you possible want concealer fo — Merlin." I had turned around. Andromeda's eyes were stuck to the bruise on the side of my face. Her chin trembled. I knew without looking that her fingers were curled into fists. "She struck you?"

"Just once." I murmured, looking away. "She could have done worse." Indeed, the ugly purple thing on my cheekbone wasn't the worst injury I'd ever received from my mother. "Don't be mad,"

"How else am I supposed to feel?"

"It isn't like I didn't deserve it—"

"You didn't." I hunkered my shoulders even higher. Andromeda's voice was trembling. "Is this because of your sorting?"

"Probably my choice of friends as well. But mostly, yeah, the sorting."

Andromeda swayed forward until we were nose-to-nose. She reached down and gently prodded the bruise, causing me to flinch violently. The corners of her eyes crinkled in apology, so I grounded my feet and let her fingers stroke the damn thing. I considered telling her that it was better than it looked, but I wasn't sure how much truth was in that. "Have you put ice to it?"

"Of course I did,"

"Does it hurt terribly?"

"No."

"Are you lying to me?"

"It's likely."

Andromeda's fingers fell from my face. She looked like someone had reached down her throat and closed a hand around her lungs. "She really hit you," She breathed, lips curling. "Merlin, I hate that woman. I wish she'd never—" Andromeda cut herself off sharply, "Have you seen Father yet?"

"He's still in Bulgaria."

"And Cissy? What did she have to say about" — she gestured at my face — "this? I can't imagine she was happy."

I scoffed at that. "I'm having a hard time imagining Cissy saying anything due to the fact that she and I haven't spoken a word to each other since September."

'Surprised' was too mild a word. "You and Cissy aren't speaking? But she was the one—"

"The one who what?" I said, probably a mite too sharply. "What did she do?"

"…Nothing—"

"Andy."

Andromeda stared at me for a moment. She sighed irritably and crossed her arms. "Cissy and I have been communicating all year. She regales me with tales of her housemate's antics and her personal musings on the matter of school. She also likes to keep me up to date on what you're doing."

I didn't dare say as much out loud, but it was obvious that I was doubting that.

Andromeda frowned at me. "I'm telling the truth. Half of Cissy's fortnightly letters are about the details of your exploits that you conveniently forget to share with me. Like the potions incident in your second month."

There was a toad in my throat. Narcissa had been thinking of me? Writing about me? What did that mean? "What else does she tell you?" I probably came off a bit rabid.

Andromeda's frown didn't let up. "Have you two really not been talking?"

I shook my head. "Cissy hasn't so much as looked at me since the — the sorting. You're saying she writes to you about me?" Andromeda nodded. I thought that this must be what it's like to be hit with a concussion grenade. Things were swimming in and out of focus. My ears were ringing. I had a throbbing headache that had come from nowhere. And I was kind of pissed off. "Well, if she has so much to say about me, why doesn't she just say it to me?"

"I don't know, Dora," said my sister, sounding vaguely apologetic. "I'd assumed you two were still talking. She seemed to be aware of an awful amount of your life, I had no reason to suspect you two were at odds with each other." A well and true rage was beginning to bubble in my gut.

"She wouldn't look at me." I tried to hiss this, but it came out more… wobbly than I was hoping for. Almost like I was going to cry. Which was completely absurd. "She wouldn't—she couldn't even look at me—and now you're saying that she, she's been, what, watching me? All this time, she's been watching me?"

Andromeda made an ambiguous gesture.

"Why didn't she—" say anything.

"I was so—" alone, I was stranded.

"I—" I needed her. I needed her and she wasn't there for me.

I took a breath. "She doesn't get to do that to me, Andy. She doesn't have the right."

Andy looked — torn. "She's your sister, Dora. She'll always care."

"Then why—" couldn't she act like it?!

I had to stop.

I couldn't breathe.

Andy watched me warily, obviously undecided on which sister's side she was supposed to be taking. The thought almost made me laugh.

(Jesus, I hate this family.)

"It isn't my fault! Andy, it isn't my fault!" Andromeda jerked, brow furrowing in confusion. She opened her mouth and I cut her off before she could speak. "If I'm — if I'm doubting her, it's because she wants me to! I couldn't, what was I supposed to think? She wouldn't even — I didn't even think that she still — it's her fault, what was I supposed to do — "

Realisation dawned.

"Oh. Oh, Dora, my dearest sister,"

I was being hugged. My arms remained at my side, tense like a string of wire pulled tight. Andromeda placed her hand on the back of my head and carded her fingers through my hair.

"Don't blame yourself. You know how Cissy is; she probably has some sneaky hidden agenda that none of us mere mortals are aware of. If you began to doubt her then that's surely what she intended. It isn't your fault." I ground my molars together. "Are you listening? I believe you. It isn't your fault. There's no need to hold it in anymore."

I trembled.

I wasn't finished yet.

I still had novels to write about this, I could redefine the definition of 'resentment' with the swell of the emotion inside of me.

She left me stranded. Did Andromeda understand that? I was deserted. I needed my big sister to stick by me and she hadn't.

She hadn't.

"I'm here, Dora." Andromeda was whispering lowly. If I had any awareness of my body outside of this raging surge, I'd probably be embarrassed. Being hugged and whispered to as if I were some sort of child… how humiliating. "I'm here. I'm sorry I didn't realize how alone you were feeling. I'm here now. I'm here." I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. That was all she was saying, as if I didn't understand it the first time. "I won't leave you."

I snorted.

The hand in my hair clenched. "Have you heard from Bella?" She asked. I hesitated but eventually shook my head negatively. Andromeda didn't make a sound. She just continued to rub my back. Like I was a baby. I struggled a bit in her hold. Her arms tightened instead of loosening. "I'm so sorry, Dora. You have every right to be as angry as you are. I'm here. I'm listening."

And that was just—

I'm not angry, I wanted to scream at her, I'm not sad and I'm not lonely, and you wanna know why? You really wanna know? I'll tell you. Because someone destroyed my greenhouse, and yeah, maybe I do want blood, maybe I do want to bruise my knuckles against someone's face and maybe I want to tear Cissy's pretty fair hair from her head and maybe I want throw away my wand and dive head-first at Mother and hit her and ask her how it feels to have her own technique turned against her but that isn't sad or lonely or angry—

(and I wasn't angry—)

"Let it go, sister. Let it all go. It's okay, I'm here, I'm not leaving you again. It's okay to cry. I'm here, Dora. You aren't alone." But I wasn't going to let it go. Those who had driven me to this point did not deserve that mercy. I shook in Andromeda's arms and she hushed and soothed me and my eyes were dry.

(this isn't anger—)

I wasn't angry, not because those things did not bother me — did not cut straight to my heart — but because 'angry' was too soft a word for the boiling surging in my veins; like the only reason my heart continued to pump blood through my body was the promise of retribution. That wasn't anger. This wasn't even an emotion.

This? This was balancing on the edge of a knife; this was being tied to a burning stake and not uttering a sound; this was the absolute stillness of a sniper's heart nanoseconds before they pulled the trigger.

This was not an emotion;

it was a reckoning.

I was not angry.

'Angry' did not even begin to cover it.

.

.

( "…You mentioned a discount at Fortescue's?"

"25% on any of the seven original Fortescue flavours."

"How'd you manage that?"

"The Alice I mention in my letters? Her last name is Fortescue. She's the owner's daughter."

"That's very, er, nice..."

"…"

"…"

"…"

"… You know… I really expected to find Sirius dogging your steps when I came back. I'm surprised he isn't lingering. Is he actually staying with Lady Black?"

"… Erm… well, about that…" )

.

.

Callidora arrives by Floo at eleven o'clock on the dot, just as she promised she would. Pandora is there to greet her, swallows her best friend in a hug without caring for the ash that clings to Callidora's robes. Her best friend lets out a startled noise, hands only belatedly remembering to come up and return the hug. Cal's always been like that, far as Pandora's ever known: skittish, awkward, a bit lacking in the emotions department.

…Not that Pandora minds it! If anything, she likes teaching Callidora about these things.

Callidora's hands are awkward on Pandora's back, but they're there, which is good enough. "Hello," she says, sounding a bit strangled. Considering Pandora is crushing her against her chest, that is completely fair. "I don't think it has been four days since we left Hogwarts, Pan. You can't have missed me that much."

Pandora tightens her grip for a moment—ignoring Callidora's tensing because Callidora only gets worse if Pandora asks about that—before pulling away. She's in the middle of saying, "But I have missed you that much," when she finally notices the disgusting yellow thing on Callidora's face.

She freezes. Holds her breath. Stares.

Callidora shifts, backs up enough so Pandora can't hold onto her anymore, looking so uncomfortable with Pandora's staring that Pandora wishes she could stop staring, but that isn't something she is capable of. Pandora doesn't know what she's feeling at all, honestly. A bit sick, a bit confused, a bit uncomfortable, a bit like her skin is crystalline pulled tight over steel bones. All of them at once. It's a mite bit distressing.

Mostly, she thinks she just wants it to go away.

Callidora says, "I, uh, fell from a tree."

The confusing emotions all dim down a bit, shift to the side to make room for indignation. Pandora's offended.

"'You fell,'" Pandora's tone is insultingly disbelieving. She keeps her hands on Cal's biceps in case she gets any ideas. "Don't insult me."

"I didn't," The smaller girl replies. "I would have remembered something like that."

"Then don't lie to me," Pandora snaps, and Callidora sighs, flicks her eyes so they're looking everywhere Pandora isn't. "Did you get into a fight?" She asks, then quickly feels silly for it. Callidora doesn't go looking for fights. If anything, fights go looking for her, and even then, Callidora never hits back (which, huh, is probably why Cal loses all the time).

Besides, Pandora's met Druella Black so she already kind of knows what fist gave Cal that bruise, she's not dumb.

(Just… not sure what she's supposed to do about it.)

"Only with gravity."

"So—a person didn't give you that?"

"No," Callidora replies, scratching her nose.

Pandora feels her face crumble. She says, "I wish you were a better liar than that, Cal," and watches as Callidora's muscles freeze. She shoves her hands in her pockets. She looks shifty and skittish and uncomfortable, which is not a nice look when paired with the mustard-eggplant coloured bruise on her face, and Pandora just wishes it would.

Stop.

She just wants it to stop.

"One day," Cal looks at the ceiling, "I will train myself out of that tell, and you and god damn Edgar Bones will be lost."

Pandora wants to laugh. It makes her feel bad because this isn't really a situation to find humour in. It never is. Cal has been showing up at Pandora's house with bruises since… forever, really. Pandora can't remember when she started asking about them either, only when she started getting a response. And even that was a special circumstance.

Pandora doesn't know what her face looks like, but it must be bad, because Callidora is doing it.

It being the thing where she wipes clean her face of all expression and leaves nothing behind but a bland smile (like stale bread, it is) and her eyes — which have never been able to hide much from Pandora. Even when Callidora practically beats her facial expressions into obedience, Pandora has always been able to count on Callidora's eyes to tell her what she's really feeling.

And when Callidora starts doing the thing with her face, her eyes are just — old.

And sad.

And dark.

And Pandora doesn't know what her eyes are saying but she hates when they say it anyway.

It isn't a nice thing.

Suffice to say, Pandora really, really, really hates It.

"It's nothing for you to worry about, Pan," Callidora tells her. Tells her, as if she's one step away from ordering Pandora, as if she can. "I promise."

Pandora grits her teeth and wishes she wasn't comforted by Cal's words. Wishes that she could push and push until Cal bent and gave up, just a little, just enough to let Pandora in. Wishes that she understood enough about this situation so she could be angrier about it (and she knew that anger was the appropriate response, if only because that was her mother's response to the bruises, and Mother was always right).

Merlin, but if wishes were horses…

"Okay," Pandora gives in, "okay, I'll believe you. For now."

Cal smiles, and it's less bland than her other one, but still a league away from breathtakingly genuine.

It's good enough for Pandora.

Any of Cal true smiles usually are. They're funny that way.

"Thanks," Cal whispers, and it's the sheer relief in her voice that settles the last of Pandora's stubborn nerves, "… and I've missed you too. For whatever it's worth."

Pandora feels her mouth stretch into a grin. She steps forward and winds her arm in Callidora's, begins to walk her towards her room. "It's worth more than you could imagine, Cal," and Cal, well, Cal's smile softens and blooms just that little bit brighter, and the feeling of helplessness that's nagging at the edge of Pandora's mind goes a bit quieter at the sight of it.

Cal kind of laughs in that disbelieving way she does sometimes. "I'll take your word for it." Her voice sounds like how the first glimmer of sunrise looks.

Pandora's stomach does a strange clenching thing that she really doesn't understand. Instead of chasing that feeling, Pandora says "Will you at least let Jinkee look at that bruise? We have bruise paste somewhere, I'm certain."

"… Sure."

"Good. Jinkee!"

.

.

I was in the middle of pretending to do my Transfiguration reading for my second year (an extra credit assignment that I picked up because I desperately needed my foot in the door, so to speak, when it came to that fucking subject) and actually reading my fifth year textbook on Transfiguration when my door slammed open on its hinges and an unwelcome voice announced, "I have returned!"

I studiously kept my eyes on my book, not reacting at all. "It's been nine days. I had thought you weren't coming back."

"I wanted to see how long I could keep it going," Sirius said, sounding quite pleased with himself. And also very happy. I took that to mean that he had had a nice time with the Potter's and didn't see a need to know any more than that. "You don't have to worry any longer, however, as I am back and here to stay. You can breathe easier knowing that I will be at your side again."

I sighed and turned a page. I didn't know which book the page belonged to. The contents of the books had gotten blurry and mixed up around thirty minutes ago. At this point, the only thing keeping me in the library was spite.

"You are misunderstanding me. I'm not upset that you're late, I'm upset that you returned at all."

"That isn't very nice,"

I scoffed.

And then had the sneaking suspicion that he was pouting at me.

"If I had even remotely missed you while I was away, I've been disillusioned," he declared, throwing himself across my lap without so much as a 'hey you should watch out because I'm going to completely upend your plans for the evening with my obnoxious face and you should probably put a bookmark down before I do that'.

Dios santo, what was wrong with him.

"Pay attention to me." He—demanded. That fucking snob.

I scowled, "No."

He frowned back at me. "Don't make me have to do something drastic,"

"Go ahead and try it, kid."

"I was on my best behaviour for the Potter's, Cal. I have a lot of pent-up annoyingness that I am prepared to unleash on you if you don't give in to my demands."

"… Did you learn new words while you were gone?"

Which was about the time when Sirius started screaming. He wasn't even using any words. It was just one long, high-pitched note that was disturbingly on-key.

I was, like, instantly irritated by it. "Sirius, stop."

" — aaaaaahhhhhh — "

"Why are you like this,"

" — aaaaaaaaaahhh —"

"Could you just consider toning it down a little,"

" — aaaaaaaahhhhh ! ! ! — "

"FOR GOD'S SAKE SIRIUS WHAT DO YOU WANT."

Sirius abruptly stopped screaming in order to take several deep breaths. "I want you to entertain me," He ordered.

I clicked my tongue and finally looked up at him. He looked precisely the same as I remembered him, if not just that little bit happier than usual. You know, that type of joy that lingered in the lines of your face. I wasn't used to seeing it on him, but it suited him. Sirius had a face that was meant to look happy, I think. Not a face meant for Grimmauld Place.

I narrowed my eyes, "I dislike you immensely," I said.

"For some reason I doubt that," Sirius said, "It's probably the fact that you're letting me sit in your lap."

"You aren't sitting on my lap," I hissed, and then shoved him out of my lap and onto the floor, forgetting that he was sitting on top of a book. It went tumbling after him with an ominous ripping sound. There was a sharp silence. Sirius twisted around and pulled something out from under his back.

It was exactly what I suspected.

He hummed. "I hope this wasn't important. Why are you reading about…" He brought the paper closer to his face. "… Animagi transformations? Isn't that a bit, er, advanced for you?"

"Just because I can't put the theory into practice doesn't mean I can't understand it."

"What's the point of understanding if you can't do? There's no fun in that." Sirius huffed and sat up. "Why are you reading about Transfiguration anyway? I thought you hated it. Almost as much as you hate DADA."

I frowned. "I don't hate Transfiguration." Which was a lie, and I knew that much. I had once said, while looking Sirius straight in the eye, that anyone who genuinely enjoyed Transfiguration deserved to be burned at the stake. I suspected that he hadn't dared forget that.

"Such a flagrant lie." He sighed. Dramatically. Because Sirius Black was the King of all Dramatics and I ought to have gotten used to that. "Well, I suppose you've twisted my arm, with all your pleading and those crup eyes!" Sirius pronounced to the room, grinning like a god damn loon. "I'll do it."

"Do what,"

"Stop it, stop it! Merlin, your begging, it's so embarrassing, I can't stand it."

"Why are you never upfront about things?" I asked no one in particular. "I think I prefer Iola."

"Don't be daft, I'm far prettier than Iola. And I have a pulse, so I'm instantly better than her in every which way. But not my point." Then get to it, I considered screaming at him. Sirius cleared his throat and stood up only to crawl back and force himself onto my chair. I ended up having to sit on the arm so he would stop squirming. "If I help you with the — whatever it is you are doing — will you go with me to annoy Dromeda?"

"Andy?"

"Do you know any other Dromeda?" He snarked.

Ignoring that, I spoke over him, "Why do you want to annoy her? She hasn't done anything wrong."

"I'm bored." Sirius answered, like that was a serious excuse.

I huffed. "No." Sirius then had the gall to look surprised by my response. I heard myself explaining my reasons, an unprecedented thing that I had absolutely no control over. "She took me out for ice cream. I don't want her to end up regretting that."

"Ice cream?" Sirius looked like he was deciding whether this was worth breaking our truce over. He evidently came to a decision. "Never mind, don't care, I need you with me on this."

Well now.

"You're plenty annoying on your own, Siri."

"Yeah, but you're her little sister, so she'll go easy on me if you're there too! Big siblings are always soft on their little siblings, it's the law of things. You've never seen me snap at Reg, have you?"

"Er, yes. I have seen that. Plenty of times. I was also there when you swapped his hair potion with sticky sap solution, remember? You peed your pants laughing at him instead of helping. He was screaming the house down. Your mother had to take three headache potions."

Sirius let out a bark of laughter, eyes sparkling. "Merlin, I remember that. Good times though, right? Wasn't it fun? Don't you want to go back to those golden years? Relive our youth?"

"Not particularly."

"Well that's because you were born one hundred years old and as a statistical outlier, you should not be counted. But, like, pretend for a second that you're an actual human person, and that you aren't an Inferi incapable of fun, and then think of how great it'll be to annoy your older sister." I opened my mouth. Sirius shushed me. "No, stop. Don't speak. Think. Think of how great it will be."

"Siri — "

"Cal,"

I sighed. I paused. I thought.

… Actually, I didn't mind the idea at all.

Except: "Andy's scary when she's mad."

Sirius didn't miss a beat. "It's either Dromeda or Cissy. Pick your poison." Well.

When he put it that way…

"You'll help me with my homework?"

"Sure," Sirius shrugged, "It's not like it's hard," I sneered at him for that but I don't think it was that great a sneer since he didn't react. Or he had been expecting that type of reaction and was thus unmoved by it. Which was honestly kind of frustrating. Was I becoming predictable?

I dropped that line of conversation and brought up a secondary concern. "As great as it will be to have your help with this," I said, ignoring Sirius' laughter and the beginning of the smug comment that was coming out of his mouth, "I'll have to purposefully get some answers wrong otherwise Professor McGonagall will get suspicious."

Sirius gave me a look, one that said, 'You're not fooling anyone, Cal, there's no 'purposefully' about it,' because Sirius was a know-it-all asshole who didn't need to study and thought I needed frequent reminders of it. I flushed. Humiliating but expressive. Sirius was good at those looks.

"I don't think we'll have many problems there," He said.

I slugged him in the shoulder.

Sirius laughed at me. Again.

I really hadn't missed him at all.

.

...

Bonus #02

—1970, Free Period, Greenhouse No. 7

...

Professor Sprout liked to keep a steady stream of chatter going while she worked. Three semesters working as an extra pair of hands in the greenhouses during her free periods meant that Callidora had built up an immunity; more like a selective hearing, if anything. Sometimes Professor Sprout rambled on about the most irrelevant things and Callidora—well, she wasn't exactly known for her patience. Selective hearing was a necessity at this point.

But it was all worth it. Suffering through all the random comments about her students, all the anecdotes about some of the plants she kept with human personalities and their antics, plus the tale of that one time she taught her dancing daisies a professionally choreographed dance routine, all of it, was worth it.

Because sometimes — okay, pretty often, really — Professor Sprout said something fascinating.

"It's important to keep a tidy workspace; and to label your foods and your harvests so you don't get them confused," she was saying, relocating plants from pots to soil with long-time familiarity. Callidora was clearing her work bench of the trowels and fertiliser, as she had been asked to.

"An old acquaintance of mine taught that to me."

(Like all conversations with Professor Sprout, however, finding the gold of the conversation often involved sifting through ten pages of dialogue tags.)

Callidora listened to her favourite Professor bustle around before softly clearing her throat. "Sounds like there is a story there, if you don't mind me saying, Professor,"

Professor Sprout hummed. "Indeed there is, though I'm afraid that it is not a humours story,"

"If there's a lesson to be learned…" Callidora replied, careful to keep her voice light and absently curious.

"Quite right, Miss Black, quite right. That said, it really is not the longest or cheeriest of stories. My friend simply confused his glass of milk with a beaker of weeping starlight sap. Just swallowed it all down, just like that." Professor Sprout twisted around and beckoned with her hand. "Pass me that over th—yes, that's a dear. Thank you."

"Welcome," Callidora settled back on the bench. She watched Professor Sprout pack some soil around the new plant and waited until she was suitably immersed. "What happened to him? Your friend?"

Professor Sprout made a bumbling noise and didn't respond for a minute, attention evidently focused elsewhere.

"Well, he died of kidney failure. It's the way of things, I suppose, though it did stump the Auror's for however long it took them to consult with a Herbology expert. As I'm sure you're aware, weeping starlight sap doesn't show up in standard diagnostic spells."

Weeping starlight sap? That was advanced stuff.

Callidora's eyebrows ticked up.

"The body doesn't register the sap as bad, right?"

"That's right. I'm sure his history of alcoholism didn't help things along either." Professor Sprout stopped and sighed. Seemed to take a moment to silently pay her respects to the memory of her friend. "Still, however sad his fate, I learned from him." Sprout threw herself back into making the plant's new home was as comfortable as possible.

"Yeah?"

Sprout pursed her lips, gesturing for the watering can beside Callidora's hip. "He certainly taught me to never confuse what I consume with what I harvest from toxic plants." Sprout snorted and shook her head sharply. "My friend was a fool boy, always had been. I ought to have been watching him more carefully."

"… Do you miss him?"

"Every day." Sprout answered simply, and then did not speak much at all.

Callidora let her work in relative silence for a few minutes, but she didn't intend to let the subject matter drop. She pressed as soon as she felt she would not be yelled at for it. "I didn't know the sap you collected from the weeping starlight tree was that toxic. If it's so bad, why doesn't the human body consider it foreign?"

Sprout shot her a look — something nearly suspicious but altogether pleased, as if she liked being asked questions — before she dusted her gloves off on her pants and huffed. She put her hands on her hips and whirled to face Callidora, giving the eleven-year-old her full attention.

"It isn't usually, unless you happen to have weak kidneys, which my friend coincidentally did. Then it'll send you into an early grave quicker than you can say 'septenerant fletus stellis'." Sprout's voice had taken on a vaguely-lecturing tone, which was to be expected.

Callidora's eyes widened.

Sprout saw and made a clucking sound, waving her hand. "You have nothing to worry about at your age, Miss Black, I assure you. Your kidneys are safe from the sap should you accidentally consume it — though I would still be cautious." At that, Callidora sighed. Sprout looked slightly amused. "Painful way to die. I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

"Of course, Professor. I'll be careful." Callidora hopped off the bench and walked towards the line of new potted plants. "Do you want the Pentapods or Giggleguffs, Professor?"

"The Giggleguffs, if you would, Miss Black — ah, thank you, dear. Would you like to assist me with this one? I believe you will find it quite simple."

"Oh, yes please."

"Good, good. Now, come closer, you need to look at the roots to understand the process a lot better…"

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Authors Note:

y'all: nothing happens this chapter?
me: u right

Everyone in this chapter is so angery. NEXT CHAPTER IS A TIME SKIP TBH.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter! Made my little heart swell thrice its maximum size.