Hi guys! Quite a long time since I uploaded. I realize this chapter is short and not much is going on but I promise I'll make it up in the next one. I'll try to write it as soon as I can but please review and comment with opinions and thoughts because that honestly makes me work much faster.
Pleaaase review and take care x
Sunday April 24, 1977
Natalia stared at the boy in front of her with both arms crossed over her chest while his face was twisted to the side, his eyes following the castle which grew in size as they got closer to it. Not that he ignored her penetrating eyes following his every move, it'd have been impossible, since they were only a few centimeters across from each other. Besides, she hadn't been able to keep her attention off him ever since he had arrived.
The man in front of her, because he wouldn't have been considered a boy by anyone anymore, had lost some weight, so his already pronounced cheekbones gave him a sickish semblance. His skin, which had always been a copy of her own, was as white as the snow that had washed away during the last month. The bag under his eyes, which had adorned his face ever since the beginning of sixth year, had only grown bigger. In addition to all that, he displayed a mild scratch on his right cheek, which by its appearance, had been there for the last couple of days.
"You never replied to my letter" she accused as she threw a look towards his very dirty boots which were dangerously close to her very clean coat. Had she not been so worried, she'd have hexed his feet back to the ground.
He sighed and turned to look her way, almost uninterested: "Didn't have the time to read it. Can you tell me what it said now?"
She rolled her eyes. Unlike her attitude, her voice came out as soft as that of a little child: "That you should've told me it was such dangerous training!"
He frowned: "How would you even know how training was like?"
"Amelia told me"
"She should learn to mind her own caldrum and leave you out of it"
"I'm glad she told me! You should've said something"
"With which point? To worry you just for the sake of it?"
"I'm entitled to worry about you!" she almost squaked "I'm your sister. Couldn't you trust me a little more with these sorts of things? Alfred tells Amelia about."
He sighed but his eyes also softened to the point they seemed like the exact replica of those staring right into his. "Yeah that's because Alfred doesn't actually listen to her whining every single day"
"Si!"
He laughed and once again he was looking at the background. After a few seconds, he spoke again: "Fine. What do you want to know?"
The look of surprise on her face must've been of such magnitude that it made her brother smile. To Simon's eyes, she looked exactly like she had when they had been kids and either he or Sebastian would tell her anything slightly out of the ordinary;more often than not, Sebastian would tell the truth and he would make up things in an attempt to mock her, but the face was the same nevertheless. The funniest bit were the eyes which he thought made her look like a giant pixie.
She could only justify her face with the following reasoning: Simon saying he had joined a poetry club would've caused the same reaction. Never before in her life had anyone in her family given her the liberty to actually ask about things that mattered. Of course she had asked anyway, but she had always been ignored or told to mind other things more agreeable with her age. What was even more surprising, this vouch of confidence was coming from no one else but Simon! Not that she had ever realistically expected to be taken seriously - she was mature enough to admit she didn't give them many reasons to do so. But if the chance ever came, she'd have guessed either her papa or Sebastian would've been the ones to actually trust her - after all, they doted on her the most and rarely ever told her off about anything, unlike her twin and mother.
Once her surprise wore off - and that took a good minute; she forced herself to put her ideas in line and make good use of the rare opportunity given and ask a question no one would dare to call stupid, something people wouldn't expected an empty headed witch to ask.
"What kind of organization is this?"
"You know that."
"Not really"
"We help our community" he said simply, as if he had said it a hundred times.
And he had, and so had she heard it a hundred times as well. That's how their mother had explained it that night at dinner when they were celebrating the fact that Simon had enrolled. Her father hadn't liked it, but he had said the same thing about it, that it was in aims of a better community. Even Sebastian seemed to agree with that definition. Now she wanted to know what that meant.
"How?"
Then he sighed and smiled lazily, as if he had known she wouldn't settle for an answer that vague. To be fair, he had known her his whole life, her whole life; they had known each other even before birth, of course he'd know she would keep digging, that's just how Natalia was.
"We… are just training now. Preparing until the right time comes and we can… do our task"
"Which task?"
"Protecting us."
She squinted her eyes and didn't even need to open her mouth to follow up with her inquiry since he began explaining: "There's too many of them, not enough of us. We're a dying race. The more of them we let in, the more of our heritage we lose."
"I know that, Simon, I'm not ignorant. My question was what are you doing about it?"
For a good minute there was silence. Natalia's worry had left her face, leaving space for such seriousness that it almost made her look callous; on the other hand, his seemed to have picked up on some of that nervousness - something odd, since he never got nervous.
"Nothing yet. We're just learning for when the time comes."
"The time for what?"
"Defend ourselves and do whatever it takes"
There were no more questions after that.
The tone in which he said that… what was implied with it… she didn't like it. Natalia wasn't sure what it meant nor did she want to think about the possible scenarios. Whatever it was, she could sense it wasn't good and her brother knew it too.
After spending the day with Dolores Nott, which was even more depressing than being on her own, Natalia's natural response had been to leave early Sunday afternoon to meet Jane at the Hogsmeade station. Despite knowing the express wouldn't be there for at least another hour, since it always arrived at 4pm sharp, the boredom that awaited her in Hogwards made her act oblivious of that fact. Remus had been busy with prefects things which apparently prefects have to get sorted before the rest of the students arrived, hence, he refused her invitation for tea; Amelia had missed lunch because she was still hangover from Saturday night, and since she tended to be an aggressive girl by nature, Natalia thought it best to not bother her when she was feeling especially inclined to yell and abuse others; and Sirius, who she'd be lying if she said wasn't her first thought that morning, hadn't been seen in the whole day - she thought perhaps he still felt embarrassed about the whole nose thing - he shouldn't be, she couldn't love him any more if she tried.
She had been reading her magazine for the second time in the day when she heard the unmistakable sound of the express approaching. The magazine was dropped almost immediately and she stood from one swift jump, causing the pink hood to fall off her head. After standing for ten minutes, the train finally pulled in and the older students began descending first. Natalia stood on her toes trying to catch the adorable face of her best friend, bu another one caught her attention first.
She waved energetically towards her brother as slowly, her initial joyful smile started losing its defining emotion as she noticed his state.
When he noticed her, it took his mind some adjusting until he was able to understand the one shouting and waving at the station with a bright pink coat on was his sister. His walking fastened just slightly, but now his full attention was on the girl standing just a few meters away.
Once he was close enough for her to touch, she reached out for his face and placed her hand on his cheek, noticing how pale his skin looked against her own, which was the hue he should be having as well, as they've both always been quite tan. Surprisingly enough, he didn't pull away at the touch as he would've normally done, especially in the presence of several other students. Instead, he smiled lazily and did the unexpected: he hugged her.
The hug was brief but lasted enough for a few Quidditch players to catch a glimpse of the scene and realize perhaps their captain wasn't as heartless as one thought him to be. And of course a minute was enough to confuse Natalia.
When he pulled away, he ran his arm over her shoulders and began pushing her towards the place where the carriages were stationed. She almost opened her mouth to say they should wait for Jane and Hippolytus, but as they were closer now and she got to get a better view of his deteriorated features, she realized she needed to have a talk with her brother without anyone else present. If there was one thing Simon did not like were indiscretions, and confronting him about the cause in front of anyone outside their family circle had little chances of succeeding.
There were two Hufflepuff furth years and three Ravenclaw standing next to the first carriage with their hands all over it, ready to hop into it. One look coming from Simon Yaxley convinced the whole lot that perhaps it was better to wait for the next one. No one could dare to call them cowards for doing that, even Gryffindors would've known it was in their best interest to let it be - during those last two weeks, Simon Yaxley, who already had a dangerous reputation going for him, had now acquired this older and most mysterious aura around him, as did the people with whom he rode with from England.
He lended her a hand so she could go up and sat across from her. Not even a minute had passed for his shoulders to loosen up and for his legs to be stretched and rested next to where she sat.
Although Simon's expression remained in essence the same when she switched the conversation towards Hippolytus' absence, she could see how his eyes grew colder.
Despite her growing worry regarding her twin, she noticed he wasn't accompanied by his best friend. Since the previous subject seemed to be already dead and buried, she decided to switch the subject towards Hippolytus - who she liked very much before, but had grown to adore during the past year.
It took Simon one long breath to answer her question: "I'll just talk about this once. I'd appreciate it if you didn't bring it up again, as I know you'll want to do. Hippolytus and I have agreed not to associate with each other any longer, both of us have our good reasons not to"
"Ha, ha. Good joke, fool me. Now can you tell me the truth?"
His eyes met hers as he simply said: "That is the truth."
It took her a few seconds to process his words and open her mouth again.
"But he's your best friend! We've known him since we were six!"
"Exactly. That's why we decided this friendship lasted long enough. You're free to continue befriending him, of course; not that you'd listen to me if I told you not to."
"Of course I'm still going to be his friend. As should you! You care for him and he-
"The only things I care about is our family and the cause. Beyond that, I don't trust anything or anyone else. This will be the end of our conversation, so please find something else to talk about or let's not talk at all"
Of course she tried to get more information about it, but her brother's will could not be blended by anyone, not even her. When he started pursing his lips and pulled out a book, she sighed and decided it did no good to anybody that she kept on insisting - it was better if she tried her luck with Hippolytus; true, the boy was even more private than Simon himself, but perhaps he would be willing to share his feelings with her now that he didn't have a best friend anymore.
Instead she brought up the fact that their parents weren't talking to her anymore, completely convinced he knew about it already and had been put in charge of convincing her to apologize to their mother so things could go back to normal.
However, things weren't like she imagined them at all.
"What do you mean?"
"Haven't they written to you about it? They're very angry at me."
"No. I'm sure she'll grow out of it. Father and Sebastian will talk to her into forgetting about it"
"But papa is angry at me too!"
"Yeah, right" he snorted
"I swear! He didn't even write for Easter"
His brows furrowed and he put down the leg he kept up in the seat.
"But he sent you chocolates…?"
"No, he didn't. I haven't heard word from them since my last letter"
"That's strange."
Of course it was strange. Their father rarely got angry at anyone, a trait only his eldest child seemed to have inherited - but when he did, his anger was justified and directed to those outside his family, with the exception of Simon and Sebastian on the odd occasion in which the boys would have those momentary flashes of teenage rebellion or childhood foolishness (the latter, as any parent knew, could be presented still way past teenage years, with much more serious implications for their lives). Although they had never seen it, everyone assumed he must've gotten angry at his wife and he had simply either kept it to himself or expressed it in such privacy that was typical of the Yaxleys - after all, one did not simply live with a woman with such character as Petra Yaxley and pass untouched by anger and frustration. However, he had never before gotten angry at his only daughter; everything she did was charming, endearing or simply clever for a girl her age - at worse, he had felt a mild irritation when she displayed her worse behaviour, but not even then had he let it show.
When Simon left for London two weeks ago, he had known about his sister's wishes to either go with him or to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays and naturally, when she had a wish, their father usually let her get away with it. When she had waved him and Jane off at the Hogsmeade station, he had almost rolled his eyes thinking about the fact that if he had wanted to skip a family holiday without a justifiable reason (especially one with such an inherent importance for the family's reputation, as it was the case since they were meeting their brother's in laws for the last time before the wedding), Bruno and Petra Yaxley wouldn't've rested until they knew he was on the express on his way to France. Of course he'd have expected their mother to get angry at Natalia, but his sister would've surely done something else from Easter to the summer holidays that'd have made her forget about the whole Easter incident - he imagined his twin's life would've remained unchanged from it.
"Well, he can stay angry all he wants. I'm not apologizing for living my life. It's ridiculous"
She had her arms crossed across the chest, imitating her brother's exact position, but while his face expressed nothing but confusion, hers showed a stubbornness that was typical of hers.
After a few seconds, he asked slowly: "What does Sebastian say about it?"
"Nothing." the annoyance in her voice was almost palpable "His chocolates arrived two days late and all it was with them was a stupid little note that might as well said nothing"
"He is a busy man" despite the content of his statement, there was nothing in his tone that indicated he was defending or justifying his brother. If anything, his voice came out rather cold.
"So? I'm his sister and I'll still be his sister after he marries that frog. Can't he take an hour of his time to write a decent sized letter to me? Would it kill him?"
And her indignation was, to a point, understandable. In her daily life, not many people adored her, much to her consternation, but Sebastian and her father did so in such a way that she didn't even need other people's praise to feel good about herself. Sebastian was always in the smallest of details and his taste was just as good as her own; whenever he bought her robes and shoes she knew not only would he get her size right, but he'd also buy the things she'd have chosen herself if given the opportunity. Now, she understood why her father had refused to write or send anything for Easter (despite the fact he was wrong and should understand her point of view); but Sebastian had no other excuse than that stupid wedding of his and his even stupier bride to be, and his job, but that wasn't as stupid.
Even Simon, who took pride in pretending he didn't adore her as much as he did, had sent a small letter while on the two toughest weeks of his life and it had arrived exactly on Easter day.
Conversation turned trivial after that. She told him she had saved some of the chocolates for him and he failed to suppress a small smile. Not even once did he shut her up or tell they needed a few moments of quiet, as he usually did - she took it as proof that he had missed her dearly - and she wasn't mistaken.
He excused himself when they got to the castle so he could unpack and sort things out for the next day, since classes were starting first thing in the morning. So she decided to stay around the entry of the castle and wait for Jane.
There were a few other students waiting there for their own friends, who little by little started showing up. One of those students, she quickly noticed, was Sirius Black.
Without even thinking about the implications of her actions - and to be fair, had she thought about it, she'd have still done the same thing - she started walking his way, completely bright eyed and with a smile that threatened to show on her lips (the only reason that kept her from wearing the dumbest of smiles was that one tiny part of her brain, that was still somehow attached to reality, told her she shouldn't let him see she cared that much - had that bit of brain been smarter, it'd have known she shouldn't smile because other people were around and he was so close to being a blood traitor and she should've hated him).
It wasn't until she was close enough to touch him and see his desperate face that she realized what a mistake she had made. The starry eyes were gone in less than a second.
"Hi"
He stood quiet for a bit too long and Natalia started doubting if he was going to reply at all. But in the end, he did it but with such indifference perhaps silence was better.
Hadn't she been so embarrassed by her own behaviour, she'd have been majorly pissed - why was he acting in such a way? People weren't even paying attention to them. They probably thought they were either arguing about something or discussing something from class; they weren't even near enough to listen to their conversation!
No matter how embarrassing walking towards him had been, she knew walking away now before saying anything was even worse. So she came up with the best and most inofensive subject she could find: "My nose fully recovered yesterday"
After how worried he had been about it, she guessed it would relieve him to hear that. Perhaps that's why he was acting so moronic, he simply felt guilty and didn't know how to express it.
Without even looking at her, he answered: "Great"
Natalia's eyes were wide in indignation. Wasn't he crying for her forgiveness two days ago? What idiotic reason could he have to be angry at her? She hadn't even seen him ever since then, what could she have done wrong?
Instead of following her instincts, which were to turn on her feet and leave him to have whatever stupid tantrum he felt like having, she decided to sallow up her pride for once in her life, and try having a conversation to find out whatever could be bothering him. Perhaps it didn't have anything to do with her at all and he was just taking it out on her - not that he should do those sort of things, but if it was the case, she wanted to help.
"I was thinking we could go on a study lesson this week"
Since he was considerably taller than her, he always had to crook his head down in order to look her in the eye, which is why it made it so obvious when he was deliberately avoiding her. His head was up high and his eyes were placed on some ravenclaws seventh years that stood a few meters away from them, as she found when followed his line of vision. When the girls noticed he was staring, they all began giggling. When she turned to look at him instead, she found he was smiling.
"Black!"
"Huh?" he looked down at her with annoyance.
If her eyes had been able to produce a gubraithian fire , Sirius Black would be dust by then.
She didn't ask again. In fact, she refused to spend another second in close proximity to him, so she walked away closer to the gate. On her way there, as she passed those Ravenclaws (whose giggles and flirtatious looks were still an ongoing thing), she threw the most menacing glance their way - only one of them noticed it, but it was enough to scare her: luckily, she attributed the attitude to the Slytherin's wretched nature and didn't think anything else of it.
So Natalia waited next to the gate with her arms crossed across the chest, only allowing herself to look back his way once or twice (well, maybe a little more than that). Every time she saw him, the red on her face went one shade darker and her anger one level higher. How could she not get angry? Just two days ago he had read her books and accidentally slept and broke her nose, and afterwards acted like the sweetest wizard when taking her to the nurse ward and now he was flirting with other girls right in front of her all while ignoring her?
Thankfully, Jane didn't take too long to arrive.
When the tall witch walked through the doors she did so with James Potter next to her and both seemed to be sharing a rather interesting conversation, judging by the smiles on both faces. It was almost as if they had no eyes but for each other. Had Natalia not been so happy to finally see her again, given her current situation, she'd have felt extremely jealous.
Before the other witch even saw it coming, Natalia jumped at her shoulders, almost making Jane lose balance. She hugged her tightly and even closed her eyes, smiling when she felt Jane's vanilla scent. Finally someone that knew her, loved her and had stayed the same as she was the last time the two were together.
"I missed you!"
Everything she had planned? About coming clean to her best friend about being in love with the least expected person? Natalia had decided to postpone it for the near future, at least until she figured out whatever was his problem. Not that she was planning on spending much of her time analyzing his volatile and immature personality; whatever interactions they had from then on would be on his account; when he felt like behaving like someone his age, then they would talk.
Having failed to convince Jane to leave unpacking for later so the two of them could have dinner early, Natalia sat on the verge of Jane's bed as the other witch changed clothes and pulled out her summerly ones which she had brought from home. It was an odd and annoying (in Natalia's opinion) trait Jane Abbott had - she just had to get things done as soon as she arrived from anywhere. During that half an hour, Natalia listened to her best friend's holidays, which had given an unexpected twist on the last week.
As they made their way towards the great hall, Jane kept going on about James Potter but Natalia wasn't listening anymore. It wasn't that she didn't care; she cared a lot, but not only did the fact that James Potter could manage to behave like a gentleman every now and then but Sirius Black couldn't put her in a mood, but also there was something else demanding her attention.
It was the lonely and dark figure sitting at the end of the table, slightly leaning towards his plate of soup. Despite the fact winter was slowly wearing away, he still wore dark turtle necks which made his already pale complexion look even whiter. However, no matter how gloomy his appearance was, she was truly happy to see him.
"Hippolytus!" the blonde witch smiled brightly, waving her hand towards the boy.
He looked up slowly and on his face she saw nothing different. He looked tired, sure, but not as bad as her brother had been. When he noticed she was approaching his way, he did not smile nor complain.
Both witches took the seat in front of him.
"You don't look so bad" Natalia mentioned as she grabbed a piece of chicken.
He raised a brow.
"Is that supposed to offend me?"
"Not at all. After seeing Simon I imagined you'd look just as miserable but I recall you having bigger bags when we took our OWLS"
He shrugged.
"I wasn't as busy as your brother"
"Speaking of… " she said, looking around for him but failing at finding him "Do you know where he is?"
"No"
"Does that have anything to do with the fact you're not speaking anymore?"
Finally there was a reaction!
As Natalia slowly chewed her food, she saw Hippolytus eyes grow bigger and his face a little paler. She almost frowned, but controlled herself - by his reaction, it was more serious than it initially appeared; by pretending she already knew all about it, he was more prone to talk of it.
Jane, on the other hand showed a slight frown as her eyes travelled from wizard to witch, politely asking for an explanation.
"He told you?"
"Yes." she replied after a few seconds. When she saw his body stiffen and heard him swallow, she felt bad, so she proceeded with the truth, even if it cost her knowing what all of that was actually about. "He didn't tell me why, of course. You know Simon, always wanting to be the most mysterious person in the room." She shrugged, resting importance to it and hoping her tone would tranquilize her friend a bit.
And it did. His upper body relaxed and they saw a small sigh coming off his mouth.
"So can you tell us why?"
"No, I can not"
"Why?"
"If he didn't tell you, then neither should I" by now, his cool, calm and deep tone had made its way back to him and any traces of his previous state were completely erased; his cheeks as pale as ever.
"Ugh…" she rolled her eyes "You two really deserve each other. I'll give you a week until you're friends again. Right, Jane?"
"I'm sure things will be solved quickly. When we argue it never lasts more than a few days."
"Days?" Natalia frowned "We've never been angry at each for more than a few hours"
"You haven't" Jane shrugged, as she put some food on her mouth as well.
The argument that arose among both witches deviated the subject away from him, which suited Hippolytus right. Unfortunately, he was still expected to take part in their conversation, giving his opinion on the most insignificant of matters, as Natalia would point out over and over as she not so concededly asked for him to take sides.
Fortunately for him and much contrary to what he thought, Natalia didn't bring up his recent strangement with her brother again. When the little query with Jane Abbott ended, Natalia started talking about how excited she was for spring to come; even then he was expected to throw some comments here and there, but was mostly left to himself.
The following morning, Natalia woke up late, with a headache and completely unmotivated to return to school work. What made everything even worst was the fact that Jane, on the contrary, seemed to have developed a rare facial desease which forced her to smile all day long, showing off her happiness.
"Come on, you can't tell me you didn't get a good rest these past few weeks. You didn't even have to deal with your mother, wasn't at least that relaxing?"
Natalia threw a dark look at Jane. She had just complained about how tired she was and the least one needs when complaining about those sort of things is another person telling us we shouldn't be feeling that way.
They were on their way to Transfigurations and if she hadn't been ignored that morning at the great hall, she'd have made the effort to overlook the day before's impertinence and allow herself to feel happy about spending time with Sirius again. Perhaps it showed a weakness of character, but she truly would've forgiven him had he not been talking to Marlene McKinnon of all people during breakfast time. Yes, she saw it all – he sat next to her, out of all places available, and he talked to her the whole thirty minutes about all good things, which was clear by the way her eyes shinned and her smile wouldn't dissapear from her face (althought, judging from the conversation she had heard at the owlery a few weeks ago, Sirius Black could've been calling her names and making fun of her family and McKinnon would've still smiled). Was it pathetic, to stare at him after how he had treated her the day before? Surely, but fortunately no one noticed – her brother sat with some seventh years that were also part of the cause and Jane and Hippolytus were discussing a DADA assigment they were supposed to hand over that same morning.
It was very annoying, because on one hand, she missed him terribly – having spend the last two weeks with him had made her so used to his prescence that even when he was on his worst behaviour she wanted him to pay attention to her, to be with her and on the other, she felt like hexing his balls off every time she laid eyes on him.
As she promised herself, not a word escaped her mouth when she sat down for Transfigurations that morning. Meanwhile, Sirius only spoke to her on a short number of ocassions, when it was strictly necessary and everytime he did it, it was done with such indiference in his voice and manners that she would've prefered he said nothing at all.
Despite the fact she was reluctant to ask for explanations from him, her mind couldn't stop wondering whatever had happened to him. It was obvious he tried to push her away, but why? Could it be he didn't want her anymore? If that was the case, then she feared for her heart and mind – she had allowed her feelings to wonder too far and his indiference was something she could only tolerate for so long.
