ACT ONE • ELEVEN
LOTS OF LOVE
ON MONDAY MORNING, I'd figured that the week's evenings would play out the same as they had for the past few weeks — I'd have dinner, I'd go to the library, I'd have to ask one of the boys to get a book from a high shelf for me, (I'd tell them to shut up when whoever helping me teased me for my lack of long legs), and I'd return to my dorm room. I walked into the Great Hall with Harleen and Roman, who were talking about the lessons we had that day.
Really, neither were aware of the fact that I had been inching our seats in lessons closer to Lily and Marlene, or the boys if possible. Quite truthfully, I was waiting for the day that they'd mention it, and I'd end up having to explain to them why I disliked their ways of thought. It was difficult for me to explain something to two that were both narrow-minded and stubborn.
"Hey, Laur," Roman said, waving a toast crust around as she read the Daily Prophet. I looked up from my cereal, brows furrowing and hand lowering to drop my spoon in the milk. "Is there a spell to turn someone's blood into poison?"
My stomach dropped.
That's my spell.
"Why are you asking?" I asked. My vocal chords had tightened, and my voice was close to cracking, as though I was on the verge of tears. I didn't want to cry. I didn't cry. I faced misery with a brain filled with solutions. Crying was something I shook off, and something I never did. If I had emotions to let out, they radiated out during moments of anger. Hot-tempered I may be, but able to cry I was not.
Roman brandished the newspaper in my face. Harleen peered at it, her dark hair tangling with my own. Stunned silent, I stared at the newspaper's headline, while Harleen read out, "Muggle Family Cursed, All Dead." She scoffed. "Sad as that may be, the Prophet could, at least, make their headlines more interesting."
"What family?" I asked. "Does it say?"
"Not that I know of—" Roman frowned, looking at the article's contents as she chewed on her toast. "I'm guessing they have a muggleborn in their family or something."
"If it's a muggleborn's family," Harleen began, "then I doubt that it'll be long before someone says their names."
Roman let out a sigh. "It's a weird spell, though—"
I snatched the newspaper from my friend's hands as I spotted my brother leaving the Hall. I ignored Roman's squeaked protests, and gripped tightly onto the newspaper in one hand as I followed Barty into the hallway.
"Laurel! Morning, big sis!"
"You absolute bastard—"
"That's not very nice," Barty frowned. I glowered at him, and Barty looked like he would when we were younger, and he was yet to come to terms with the fact that anything snarky he'd say, his sister could say better. "Fine. What have I done now?"
I showed him the newspaper. "Is this you?"
"No, that's a dead muggle," Barty said.
I narrowed my eyes at him. Barty didn't seem to notice the fault in his response.
"Do you know anything about this?" I questioned. Barty pulled a face, looking like I had just asked him what square rooting was. "Did you have anything to do with this?"
"Why?" he asked. "Do you think that Aster had something to do with it?"
My breathing hitched for a second. I restrained myself from swearing under my breath. When I had seen Barty, I'd jumped to that immediate conclusion. The background areas of my brain seemed to have already realized it — but the forefront had only noticed upon the mention of it. I was Laurel Crouch. I figured things out quickly, but I was also talented at hiding those truths from myself.
"He didn't go missing, did he?"
Barty smiled weakly. If our family had been closer — if our parents hadn't brought us up shedding limelight on our innocent faces only whenever we succeeded, rather than equally spreading out their love; if our parents hadn't brought us up in such a way that spite and resent would latch onto our bones while we stood in the shadows, desperate for glory — he probably would've hugged me. But we weren't that kind of family. We were the old-fashioned Pureblood type; glory and acceptance were all that mattered because that's the only way that parents would bother to love their offspring. I hated it, I wished I had been brought up with more hugs and less spiteful fighting and arguments, but I hadn't.
Aster Crouch was a Death Eater.
And I didn't blame him for falling that way.
I stood in silence, and Barty placed his hand on my upper arm for a moment, awkwardly rubbing it before excusing himself to go to lessons. I folded the newspaper, despite my fingers feeling numb, and began to wonder if I might be able to ditch the first lesson of the day, of the week.
"Laurel—"
"I'm such an idiot," I told Remus, as Sirius pulled James and Peter in the direction of whichever class they had first. "How did I not realize it? He's a Death Eater, isn't he? Everyone else figured that out, but I had to deny it and not realize that that was the case until there was proof — and the proof came in the form of him using one of my own spells to murder a whole family—"
Remus had taken the newspaper out of my hands. The action had been simple, because I was staring into thin air, and my fingers were only grasping the newspaper enough so as not to drop it, but not enough to stop someone from taking it away from me.
"Aster used one of the spells I made," I told him. "Aster's exactly what I've been saying he isn't, ever since he was declared missing—"
He pulled me into a hug. The newspaper was still in his hands as I hugged him back, half of my face pressed against his chest. I felt bitterly resentful that I was hardly five foot three.
Again, I didn't cry. At that moment, I didn't know how to react to the realization. I couldn't remember a day when I was younger where I had seen my dad look at all stressed because of work, or my mother looking even somewhat upset when my maternal grandmother died of cancer, and my mother had been visiting her for years. Although Bernice didn't genetically have Crouch blood, she completely accepted it as her own and still had the same bitter backbone — emotions didn't faze us unless it was through anger and a reason to strive for a better life.
And that was the same with Aster. Only, his thoughts and opinions fell in line with someone claiming themselves as the Dark Lord, rather than ideas that didn't lead to a life being lead by a dictator.
It was safe to say that, no matter how much I denied it, I was just like my brothers. Dark haired, bright eyed, and able to commit ourselves to something until it no longer mattered to us, we three Crouch children were different sides of a coin; having spent months trying to save someone who didn't need a rescue, I had come to conclusion that while my brothers and parents shared one side of the coin, I was alone on the other side.
While they were on the dark side of the coin, I was on the light side — because I, unlike Barty and Barty and Bernice and Aster, hated the fact that my blood status meant that I hadn't grown up feeling like love was unconditional. The rest of my family, however, acted as though love was meant to be a prize, a treat gifted upon the aftermath of success.
"I don't blame him," I mumbled. Remus stepped away so he could look at my face, his hands on my arms. My eyes were still dry. Tears were the last thing on my mind. "Not the murder. That's bad. He can rot in hell for that. But I don't blame him for going that way. It's not like we were taught that fair and foul weren't equal. I mean, we weren't ever really taught to love family."
"Well," Remus said. "You know what the Black family is like. And Sirius is fine."
"Oh, you're wonderful," I muttered.
— — —
During lunch, I had escaped Roman and Harleen's sides, and had weaved my way through the students around the school quickly enough that I was able to dodge anyone and everyone that might question the reason why I had stormed after my little brother earlier, and why I was slightly late to my first lesson. I had gone straight to the Owlery, with the letter I had carefully written in the hour leading up to lunch.
To my darling, bastard brother,
If you want to make an impact, you wouldn't join the first conquest. Power doesn't come in trends. Only cowards join rulers in fashion.
Your dearest sister.
(Who is currently sending you lots of middle fingers.)
(Fuck you, jackass.)
I thought that the last part was a nice, personalized touch. If the letter got to Aster, at least he'd be able to read it, and know that it was definitely from his little sister, the one in the family with the hottest temper and the brightest brain.
The more I thought about it, the more I began to realize how my innocent refusal to acknowledge my brother's reason for disappearance was less than innocent, and more of a cover-up. In all of my family, I was closest to Aster. And yet, Aster was the one that had left me, and my mind couldn't accept the idea that my favorite family member — my big brother, the loser that had shown me around Hogwarts in my first week, and taught me the ways to get to classes easiest — was the one that went bad.
Actually, no. Trust my past self to favor the one that became everything I stood against.
When I was younger, it was Aster and me, and Barty. The comma separated us, the comma showed that Aster and I were friends, we would stick together even if siblings weren't expected to do that in certain situations. In birthday cards to our parents, it was me and Aster that bought or made the cards together, signed them together, then called Barty to do his part, because he hadn't been included in the process. And although it wasn't the nicest to exclude Barty, he had never tried to include himself. He stayed by his lonesome, he sometimes played with us when we were children and our idea of a fun afternoon was making a train track that ran from one bedroom to the other.
— — —
At breakfast the next day, when the post arrived, my owl landed in front of me while I was chewing on a slice of buttered toast. The envelope attached was slightly brown and looked like it was a part of an old, fancy set of envelopes and corresponding letters, but it had been left in a desk to age for a few years.
I frowned. Aster used to buy lots of fancy stationary—
I opened the letter, which had been pathetically sealed. In my brother's distinct handwriting, the letter simply stated:
RAVENCLAW COMMON ROOM. MIDNIGHT. TONIGHT. BE ALONE.
LOTS OF LOVE XOXO
I would've jumped for joy if I hadn't been in the process of accepting the reason why it had taken my brother so long to reach out.
— — —
lol those that thought "lots of love" was raurel related
(im sorry) (i wish it had been) (but nOpe i have a plot to go through with)
anyways, i hope you enjoyed, and let me know what you thought! :)