Rain
Memories
It was the day after when Harry found her, sitting in an abandoned room. The room was full of windows, in fact, it seemed almost to be nothing but. It was bare and empty - so Koda sat on the floor, watching the rain. It was true rain, once again, no longer hail, but bitter cold. The birds were singing anyway, and the sound of that was there as well...
It was then she started talking.
Harry forgot exactly what happened before. He remembered sitting down beside her, wanting to bring her some comfort, because, for all his faults, Harry Potter was a good person, and even if Koda was the daughter of the one teacher at Hogwarts who seemed to be after his blood... She was still miserable. She was still human. And she still needed cheering up.
They didn't talk, really. Koda talked, Harry listened. His intuition told him that she just needed someone to listen to her for a bit, nobody really in perticular - just someone.
Harry didn't remember how they got on the topic of family, but he did remember what she said.
She looked down, sighed. "Oh, Harry. You would've loved Father if you'd met him before Mother died... I didn't see much of him before I was about seven years old - before - well - you happened, I suppose... I remember being so terrified during the trial, but then so relieved when they finally let him go... He came home to a hero's welcome, at least from us, because we both knew exactly what he was doing - Mother was the one who made him, after all, she vowed that he had to start giving information to Dumbledore before she would even go out on a date with him... My mother, she fretted over him so much - after he was gone all that time... They kept him in Azkaban for a good solid three months, in the worst cell they could find, so his health was pretty awful when he came home, but he didn't seem to mind - he was so happy to see us again. He got enough work after that, working at home on some sort of potions research - some potion to counter lycanthropy, I think it was. It was strange - we wouldn't see him for most of a day, or he'd come down in a bad mood and pace for awhile, then he'd work - the entire night - and the next morning, he'd be in the best mood, he'd rush downstairs and kiss Mother and swing me around, laughing all the while. It was funny, in a wonderful sort of way."
"But then, you know... It's the Snape curse, I call it. All good things come to an end. I was thirteen (you would've been six - funny, isn't it? My birthday's in the summer, too). Mother had insisted on my having a private tutor instead of going to Hogwarts - I think it's because she knew I'd be in, oh, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff house, not Slytherin - Father would've disowned me on the spot. You know how he is... Mother got him to behave most the time, but there are some things you just can't change. I remember, it was August, and Mother had gone out to get something from a few shops, then stop and have tea with her lady friends. Father got worried after awhile, but he just dismissed it as his worrying, because he had been reading The Daily Prophet about some new Death-eater activity... he was worried they might come after him, or us. Well... he... he was right, Harry.
"The next thing I remember is worrying about dinner, because it was five, and Mother had left just after lunch, and she needed to be there, starting supper. There was a knock at the door, Father ran to get it, thinking it was Mother. It wasn't - it was an Aurorer, one of the policeman-types from the Ministry. Father almost always got a glaring from them, they always held things against him even with Dumbledore's vouch for him... But this one didn't... He just asked Father to step outside a moment, come see something. I followed after, I was so nosy then, and I was curious - that bad sort of curiosity, the sort of kind that turns your stomach to ice."
"I heard the Aurorer explain to Father that they had found something at the base of the path to our house - we lived out in the country, so the base of the path was about a mile and a half away. I heard him say that he knew Father was in the house all day, and I heard him explain about the Dark Mark, and the footprints, and the pile of ashes... the pile of ashes that...
"And I heard him say that all they found in the ashes was a locket, one gold locket. He handed it to Father, and then... Well... Have you ever just known something? That's when... when I knew. Even before Father asked shakily if there was any chance she'd be alive. Even before he shook his head no with a deep and solemn frown..."
"And Father... sort of went to pieces."
"Both of us broke down sobbing at the news. I didn't believe it. It's... horrible, knowing you'll never see someone again. I just sat in the den, staring at Mother's picture she painted on the wall, crying, hugging the teddy bear I'd had all my life like I was five instead of thirteen, but I didn't care. Father... took the news worse. He... managed to make his way up the stairs, and locked himself in his workroom."
"And... the next thing I remember was smelling something strange... this bitter sort of smell, it... and it was coming from Father's workroom..."
"When I went up, he wouldn't answer, even when I banged on the door.... And... A few Aurorers were staying around, you know, looking for any evidence, making sure they - the few Death-eaters - didn't come back to go after Father or me... One of them heard me screaming and trying to get Father to answer me, and... he came... knocked down the door..."
"Father was there - just - just lying there, sprawled out on the floor. And... I don't remember very much... They rushed him off to Saint Mungo's, me, too, because I didn't have any relatives who could come look after me - just a few of the men from the Ministry who were nice to me, out of sympathy, I guess. Besides, even if my Aunt Myra could've come, it would've been a few days - she did some work in Kenya. Still does, too... But..."
"It was four days before the doctors could finally get my father to snap out of it... He had tried to kill himself, Harry. And you know how he is with potions - he did it right properly, too, that's why it took four days, and it was nearly a week before they actually let me see him. And... it was the most terrifying thing in the world. He was my father, but... when I spoke with him, when we talked, it was like... I didn't know him at all. Thirteen years, just.... gone."
"That's when we had our first real fight. Not any fists - just a screaming match. The nurses said they could hear us clear into the next floor. Finally I just stormed out - ran away from home, from him. I stayed with a few friends... older friends... I play fiddle, so I was part of a band - celtic, folk music, mostly. Annoyed Father with his classical tastes so bad... He didn't bother to mail anything, even when he got out of the hospital. I got wind of the fact that he was teaching here by the gossip chain. ...Finally, about five years ago, he sent me a letter, apologising, sending some money and a key to our old summer home along the tracks of the Hogwarts Express. We made up... well... sort of. As best you can over mail, anyhow. I lived in the old house. And..."
"I remembered Cei from an old meeting - You-Know-Who made Father hold one meeting at our house, out of loyalty, or so he said. Mother lamented on her dirty carpets for months afterward - but - that meeting was when there was the first rumor that he was slipping into the Dark Arts. I actually met him when I was seven.... He was a cell away from Father - younger than you are now - just sobbing. I remember I stopped and tried to comfort him as best I could, because he was so young, but a Dementor chased me away before he could really do anything... I just remember his blue eyes, and that haunting stare, and his name..."
And Harry listened.
He listened to when Koda first fetched Cei away, gave him a home. He listened through their trials. He listened to Koda's meeting with his godfather - and did stop to reassure her that Sirius was a good man, at that, she seemed to relax. He listened through Diagon Alley, and the run through the crowd. He listened to the sound of the assassin's arrow, and... there she stopped.
"It's all right. I know what happens." She was on the verge of tears, so Harry stopped her there. He clumsily stood. "Er... Miss Koda, if-if I can get you anything -"
"No, no. I'm okay." Her voice was a whisper, so delicately broken that Harry found the lump in his throat growing. "And please, Harry. Just call me Koda. It's all right."
They looked at each other for a moment, and then Harry left. Koda... maybe she was still miserable. But she seemed to take comfort in the fact that someone there was her friend.