cxxvi. bridges
Under other circumstances, Elara would have found smashing delicate glass baubles on the floor therapeutic—but, seeing as those damnable baubles were not supposed to be breaking, she was instead rather frustrated.
"Oh dear," Professor Flitwick fretted as the Self-Repairing Sphere came back together and rose to Elara's hand again. It had grown hot from her skin and the magic bringing the shards together over and over. "Try placing more emphasis on the final syllable, Miss Black. Like so! Simul habere. Go on, give it a try."
Elara did as requested, holding the orb steady as she tapped the top with her wand and said, "Simul habere."
She dropped it—and the sphere shattered again.
Hers wasn't the only one to break, but most of the Ravenclaw side of the classroom and at least half of the Slytherins had successfully cast the Unbreakable Charm. Goyle's continued to splinter into a thousand pieces, and the goon kept scratching his head, but Malfoy had managed to coach Crabbe through it, muttering directions from the side of his mouth. Stephen Cornfoot's only broke into a handful of shards. Hermione had succeeded first—but Harriet had followed soon after and now bounced her sphere against the wall like a tennis ball.
Her attitude had lessened in aggression toward Elara ever since that odd detention with Snape at the end of the prior week. Slytherin hadn't been happy about her disappearing for his lesson and had come down to the common room later to demand accountability, but Harriet could be incredibly evasive when she wished to be, both physically and in her answers. She laid the blame at Snape's feet—something about cleaning equipment, a spilled potion, and being too ill to attend Defense. Elara didn't get the full story as Harriet still refused to speak with her and barely shared a word with Hermione either.
At least she doesn't run from the sight of me anymore, Elara thought, glum. And comes to the Great Hall to eat. She shouldn't be surprised by the other girl's cold, unfeeling regard. She'd known it would happen, hadn't she? From the moment she heard McGonagall call out the name, "Potter, Harriet!" and she realized her new friend was Sirius Black's godchild. She knew Harriet would find out one day, and she'd hate Elara for it.
Hermione said she thought Harriet's new behavior meant she was moving closer to reconciliation—but Elara didn't believe her. Elara didn't deserve reconciliation, didn't deserve forgiveness. She didn't deserve—.
A sharp pain stabbed her hand, and Elara gasped.
"Miss Black!" Flitwick grabbed her wrist and spelled her hand open, the broken sphere reforming, then shattering again when it hit the ground. Blood welled and dripped from the open slashes in her palm. "My goodness! Are you all right, Miss Black? We'll have to get you to the infirmary. Miss Granger, if you could—?"
"No," Elara interrupted, closing her dripping hand. Flitwick had her open it again, conjuring bandages around it. "I'll go on my own. I'll be fine."
Professor Flitwick hesitated, but Elara grabbed her satchel and gave him a reassuring nod before all but running from the room. She didn't dare look back at her friends—friend, singular, and who knew how much longer Hermione would stick with her? Everything Elara touched died or turned to dust. She didn't deserve anything—.
Her eyes stung. Elara stopped her mindless walking and wiped her face. The air in her chest hurt, and she tried to expel it, but it came out in a harsh, stuttered gasp. The water leaking from her eyes wouldn't stop. Turning to the wall, she covered her face and tried to steady her breath to no avail; her throat tightened, her heart raced, and at that moment, Elara hated everything—Harriet, Hermione, the school, Sirius Black, and herself most of all. She wanted—she just wanted it to burn, the words sitting in the back of her mind like hot coals on a hearth's edge, teetering, the desire to have all this hate and confusion and pain turn to nothing but ash and heat and—.
She remembered the drawings in the book, the book now burned to cinders. She remembered sitting up in the dead of night, finding the volume in her hands, fingers tracing over the sketches of fiery creatures bursting forth to devour—.
"Miss Black? Miss—Elara?"
A hand touched her shoulder, and Elara jerked, choking on a sob. She forced herself to look around and focus on Professor Lupin's concerned face, and he—in turn—focused on the hand she held tight to her chest. Blood had managed to seep through the temporary bandage, dribbling into the snug cuff of her shirt. The corners of Elara's vision grayed, spotted with black.
Professor Lupin cupped his hand under her elbow and held on even when Elara flinched. "Come along, let's go see Madam Pomfrey."
Elara didn't want to go see Madam Pomfrey. She didn't much like the Matron and didn't know how Harriet survived spending so much time in the infirmary, being poked and prodded and confined to a bed. Professor Lupin kept a steady pace despite Elara's dragging feet, and all too soon, he had the doors to the hospital wing open, Madam Pomfrey looking up from where she'd been stocking a cupboard with tiny potion bottles.
"Well, get her over here," the Matron sighed, gesturing them closer to the nearest bed, Elara eying it like something dead and mildly rotten. "Yes, yes, Miss Black, your objections are noted. Now have a seat and let me have a look at that hand of yours; I can see the blood from here…."
Elara relinquished her hand to Madam Pomfrey's care, pursing her lips when the bandages tugged at the wounds. Professor Lupin remained with her, and Elara flushed when she realized her eyes must be red from sniveling, her cheeks splotchy and wet.
"Gracious Rowena, what mischief have you gotten yourself into, Miss Black?" Madam Pomfrey asked once the bandages came free.
"I broke some glass in Charms. By accident."
"I should hope it was by accident! Some of these are quite deep." She waved her wand over Elara's prone hand and green, numbing mist fell over it, followed by a fresh wad of gauze. "These will need a potion. I need to pop down to the dungeons—Professor Lupin?"
"Yes?"
"Stay with Miss Black, please."
"Of course."
With that, Madam Pomfrey gave Elara a warning look and bustled away.
She's an unholy menace. "You don't have to stay, sir," Elara said to Professor Lupin, fidgeting with the gauze. "I'm not going to wander off."
To her surprise, Professor Lupin chuckled. "You wouldn't be the first to try." He smiled, and the action lessened the apparent stress in his pleasant face. "I had to come here quite a bit in my own student days. Still do, unfortunately. My immunity isn't the best, you see, and there's only so much magic can do."
That sounded true enough to Elara. She'd noted Professor Lupin typically had an absence every other week or so, canceling a class here and there, and some days he arrived weathered and exhausted. She and Hermione had speculated over his illness but, in the end, decided to respect his privacy. "I knew a girl who was immunocompromised in the—where I lived, before."
"Did you?"
"Yes. She had lupus, and the others, they were…cruel."
Professor Lupin kept his eyes on her face, his scrutiny almost too much to bear. Elara hadn't said the word orphanage, but it hung there, all but written out letter by letter. Acknowledgment, professor McGonagall had told her. Is often the first step toward healing.
"They avoided her whenever they could and called her names. I tried to be friendly, but—." But the girl, Gabbie, had believed all the same rumors as the others, that Elara Black had the devil in her and it would lead them all to ruin. Sometimes, Elara wondered if they were right. "She wasn't open to my company."
"What happened to her?"
"She died about a year before I came to Hogwarts." Elara didn't feel one way or another about Gabbie's passing; children entered and left St. Giles' all the time, not usually through death, but the transitory nature of their presences left little impact on Elara. Her head filled with the distant chanting and name-calling the others used to heap upon her, but years removed from St. Giles and Wiltshire had dulled their sound.
"You and Harriet are fighting."
Startled, Elara squeezed her injured hand, and more blood stained the gauze, pooling warm and sticky in her palm.
"You're fighting about Sirius Black, aren't you? About his relation to Harriet."
"How did you—? No, never mind. Is it obvious to everyone, sir?"
Professor Lupin shook his head, attempting another comforting smile, but it came out more of a grimace than anything. He was a strange wizard. No stranger than Professor Selwyn had been, of course, but peculiar in his own way. Harriet had mentioned spending time talking to Professor Lupin during the first Hogsmeade trip of the year, and in their discourse, he commented on his prior relationship with the Potters.
Which meant—.
"You knew him, didn't you?" Elara asked. If he'd been friends with James Potter, he must have known or associated with Sirius Black. He couldn't have avoided the man. Elara tried to not hold that against him, but the anger came again, a wary flicker glinting in her eyes like light on a knife's blade. Professor Lupin saw it and lowered his head.
"Miss Black, I—."
Madam Pomfrey returned, trailing soot and Floo Powder, muttering darkly about surly Potions Masters and their acerbic tongues. She doused Elara's hand in a sticky, oozing cream that burned like hellfire but healed even the deepest of the cuts in seconds, then administered a Blood Replenishing Potion. During that time, the bell rang to signal the end of the period—and, as Elara's luck would have it, her next class was History of Magic, leaving her no other option but to follow Professor Lupin from the ward and up the stairs.
He didn't attempt to make small talk.
Elara entered the classroom before him and made for her desk—shocked to find Harriet seated in her accustomed spot next to her empty seat, pulling out a textbook. Hope dared to burgeon in Elara's heart, tenuous as the morning frost, and it melted just as quickly when Harriet made no move to acknowledge Elara's presence other than to shift her satchel to her own side of the table.
Elara sank into her seat and faced the blackboard. She didn't know what to do, or say—didn't know how to fix any of the things she'd ever broken in her life. "She's cursed," the orphans used to whisper to one another. "Elara's got the devil in her. Black as her name."
By what right did she expect friendship from a girl whose parents her own father betrayed? He hadn't been there in the flesh as far as she knew, but part of Sirius' conviction had been the "conscious and malicious impartation of sensitive information to the enemy." A facilitation to murder and attempted murder. Attempted murder on the girl who sat not a whole foot from Elara now.
Professor Lupin commenced the lesson when everyone quieted down, not that Elara heard a single word of it. Her mind drifted somewhere in between, the muffled sound of the professor's voice bouncing against her ears, her hands limp and pale like dead things in her lap. All she could think about was the injustice of it, the sheer unfairness of having to answer for her father's crimes and losing the only things she cherished in her life.
She shut her eyes, and recalled Diagon Alley in 91', Harriet grinning as she said, "It was really nice to meet you," and shook Elara's hand. Her hand had been so warm. Elara must have glanced at her palm half a dozen times after she returned home with Kreacher.
Maybe she should transfer school. It wasn't a common practice, almost unheard of really, but would they make an exception for her? Or would Beauxbatons and Durmstrang reject a madman's daughter just like the students of Hogwarts did?
"Miss Black?" Elara blinked, turning her stiff neck. The others gathered their things together, slipping quills and parchment back into their bags, but the class couldn't possibly be over already—? "Miss Potter? May I see you both for a moment?"
Confused, Harriet and Elara rose from their seats and approached Professor Lupin seated behind his desk, careful to keep several feet of distance between each other. Harriet didn't appear much inclined to listen to whatever the man had to say, and Elara mirrored the sentiment, especially after the conversation in the infirmary. Nevertheless, there they stood as the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs packed their belongings and chattered, oblivious to the two silent, grim-faced witches at the front of the room. Hermione didn't leave, opting instead to linger far enough away to give the illusion of privacy, and Professor Lupin allowed it.
The door came shut with a final, muted thump, and the happy noises disappeared in the corridor, abandoning them in a bleak, stifling quiet.
Professor Lupin moved first, exhaling a heavy, tired breath. He ruffled his messy, gray-streaked hair once before lowering his hands, lacing the fingers together. "Harriet," he said, addressing the bespectacled girl. "I owe you an apology."
Harriet's nose wrinkled in befuddlement, and it seemed she couldn't help but glance in Elara's direction. "Er—for what, Professor?"
"For not being truthful. For—in my negligence—contributing to the rift that has come between you two."
Elara reddened, embarrassed and angry. "Professor," she began. "It's—."
He shook his head, eyes still leveled at Harriet. "Sirius Black is your godfather. Several people are aware of the fact and, for the most part, decided against informing you, wishing to spare you the pain of having to know. I believe Sev—Professor Snape was the one most vocal in giving you the truth, but I think even he hesitated when given the chance. Elara should have been the last person forced to tell you of Sirius Black's unfortunate friendship with your parents and his connection to you. After all, she didn't know the man." Professor Lupin dropped his eyes to the desk's top, shoulders slumped. "Not like I did."
The silence stretching after Lupin's words could have smothered a person with its weight, and Harriet had her narrowed green eyes set on him. "You…told me you were friends with my parents," she said, speaking slowly. "So you were…friends with Sirius Black, too."
"Yes," Lupin replied, voice strained but steady. "I was friends with him. I—." He cleared his throat. "I was almost named your godfather, Harriet. Sirius—Black was perceived as irresponsible, even in our friend group, but things were difficult then. He was in a better financial situation to support you should the worst come to pass. And your godfather, Elara—." He smiled at her, the dark green of his eyes glassy. "Was James Potter."
"You never said anything. You wouldn't have said anything."
"No. Probably not."
Harriet shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she sorted through her thoughts. She looked terribly peaky still despite returning to regular meals in the Great Hall. "I don't need stuff like this being kept from me," she muttered. "I don't need to be protected from the truth like some stupid little kid. I'm mad, but not—." She turned and addressed Elara for the first time since that horrid, horrid day in Hogsmeade. "It's not all about you not telling me. I just need—time, okay? Just a little. I'm not going to be angry forever."
The damnable prickling returned to Elara's eyes. She had to swallow twice before saying, "Okay."
Harriet nodded and made as if to follow their classmates from the room to the Great Hall, but she hesitated, her gaze on Professor Lupin. Elara had become fluent in translating Harriet's looks and expressions over the years, but even she couldn't quite decipher the emotion behind the younger girl's glance. "You're off my Yule list, Professor Lupin."
The wizard laughed, though little amusement lurked in the sound. "Well, that sounds fair."
Unimpressed, Harriet departed, huffing out, "Bloody adults," on her way to the door—which she held for Elara and Hermione, only letting go when they'd crossed into the corridor with her. She didn't walk with them, but she remained only a few steps ahead, and that shortening distance meant everything in the world to Elara.
She had never been forgiven for anything in her life before, and she liked to believe that, just this once, she might earn it. Might deserve it.
Hermione bumped Elara's shoulder with her own, giving her hand a friendly squeeze. "She'll be all right," she remarked, a fond smile on her face. "You both will. It's perfectly common for sisters to fight, after all!"
A/N: Harriet pulled the primary school equivalent of uninviting Remus to her birthday party.
Harriet: "I'm not getting you a Christmas present."
Lupin, inwardly sobbing. "Okay, that's totally fine."