AN: I know this one is a little short again, but it's crammed with a lot of emotion, so maybe that makes up for it. Anyway, here's the next bit, enjoy!
Chapter Nine: Harsh Realities
Sianna felt sick, as if the harsh truth of her birth had invaded her digestive system and rolled her breakfast into a lump that churned grossly in her stomach.
Her steadily moving feet took her outside, right up to the edge of the lake and stopped abruptly. They slipped out of her sandals, nudging them safely onto the dry grass behind her, and squished into the muddy sand of the bank. The refreshing chill of the water pulled Sianna out of her blank reverie and triggered countless memories of family outings to the Pacific beaches of home. She could almost see Helena with a little girl attached to each hand dancing in and out of the relentless waves amid shrieks of laughter. She shook her head to rid herself of the thought, once wonderfully bright but now slightly disconcerting, even saddening.
Her legs trudged heavily through the shin-deep water, traveling in endless circles in both reality and in her mind. 'You're an orphan!' she yelled at herself, staring at the clouding sky. 'You don't have parents, they don't exist,' her mind screamed. It wasn't necessarily true, but she couldn't help it; she just kept throwing the worst possible scenarios at herself, masochistically branding at the front of her mind.
She pictured her mother and father as she remembered them best, Helena in her ripped and paint-stained work clothes and John in an impeccable business suit, and thought of their real baby, the one they had lost. Sianna was not that beloved child. She was nothing but a replacement, stolen from her dead mother and given to one still living, a patch ripped from fabric torn and stained beyond repair and sewn onto the inside of a family to make it whole again. Was that not something to be angry over?
Another piece of her confused and divided mind argued that the whole disastrous mix-up had been for the best, at least for her. 'Would you rather have never known a mother?' it asked cruelly. 'Would you rather see your family mourning a lost child instead of celebrating a healthy one? Is that what you want?' She didn't know anymore.
Sianna wished desperately that it would all just stop, that she could halt her train of thought and just jump off into a clean world without sentience and pain. But she couldn't...no matter how hard she concentrated on the good things, her treacherous mind disrupted her calm with reminders that all was not okay. She had thought the entire ordeal into a hole, too deep to climb out of, so deep that no one would see her hiding, torn and nearly schizophrenic, at the bottom.
She stepped out of the lake and plopped onto the prickling grass with mental exhaustion, letting herself fall back into the slope of the ground. Her frustration with herself was translating into watery eyes and self- loathing, but she would not cry. Only the weak and the young let their tears fall, and she was neither.
Sianna sat up suddenly and jumped at the sound of her name. She looked across the water and saw Draco standing beside the lake, her sandals in his hand. His eyes landed on her and he began to walk around the edge of the water, obviously eager to inquire about her earlier behavior. Revolting and infinitely annoying memories of former friends whining, "What's wrong?" flashed through her head, and she hopped onto her feet, looking around for somewhere, anywhere that she could go to find privacy. The last thing she wanted to do was tell Draco what was "wrong," friend or not.
She spotted a grove of trees where the muddy beach ended and the cliffs began, and she automatically began sprinting for it. Her long legs made her a naturally quick and agile runner, and her feet were conditioned to the rough terrain by a lifetime of barefooted adventures through the beaches and tide pools of the coast. Draco started to run after her, but thought the better of it. He stopped and watched her disappear into the trees, her shoes dangling in his fingers. He looked at them, almost surprised to remember that he had picked them up, and shrugged in resignation. He turned back to the castle and sighed, then began walking back.
Sianna finally stopped when she realized that her footsteps were the only set she could hear—no one followed. She looked around and was relieved to see that her blind flight reaction had not taken her into unfamiliar territory, out of sight of the lake. She lingered a moment, catching her breath and bearings. A twisted, ground-brushing tree caught her eye, and she approached it languidly, making as little noise as possible as her feet crushed the dead leaves that carpeted the earth. Her fingers brushed lightly against the chipping, lichen-covered bark, and she hoisted herself one-armed onto the lowest branch. She stood precariously, testing the stability of the thick, wiry limbs, and, satisfied with their integrity, climbed higher. She grabbed branch after branch, pulling herself up messily with only her right arm, ascending as high as she dared. On the highest of the large branches, she sat, leaning her back against the trunk and dangling her legs on either side. She sighed again and closed her eyes, trying to feel the wind that she knew rose off the lake, now buffered by the trees to only the tiniest of breezes. The interruption of her thoughts had only pulled her halfway out of the well, and as her mind returned to the letter, she felt herself slipping down further back by the moment.
Sianna cursed her indecision and the warring thoughts that plagued her. Why could she not just have one train of thought, one belief, one opinion? Did she always have to scrutinize every facet of every piece of information, weigh the rights and wrongs, linger on the cons of everything? Yes, she admitted, she did. It was her nature to vacillate over the smallest of choices, had been as long as she could remember. It was the reason she was never religious, could never please her parents by going to church or joining a youth group. She just could not bring herself to choose between beliefs; she agreed with pieces from many religions, not just one.
She sat up and inhaled a deep breath of the terrene forest air. It calmed her and begged her to relax, to clear her mind and start again. The bark scratched the palms of her hands as she slowly but surely made her way back down the tree, sticking close to the trunk and steadying herself with her weakened left arm. Her legs bent when she dropped to the ground, absorbing the impact.
After all that time, she only ended up back at the very first thought that had occurred to her: what difference did it really make? Her parents, whether related by blood or not, would still consider her their daughter. They'd said so in the letter. Why should anything change?
Deep down, she didn't honestly believe that, but it was the best thing she could think of, and by that point she just did not care whether it was true or not.
Draco was disappointed that he had not been privy to the contents of the obviously upsetting letter. He'd gone after Sianna to ask her about it, but she didn't seem any more inclined to share than she had been earlier, so he'd given up. Of course, the thought of offering some sort of consolation had crossed his mind, but he decided that it wasn't worth it; he'd probably just make her cry or something. When was the last time he'd talked to someone in that manner, as an honest, caring friend? Um...how about never, he laughed to himself. Not having true friends had never really bothered him, although perhaps it should have. What kind of Slytherin would he be if he couldn't make it in life on his own?
He'd gone down to his room after the almost-encounter by the lake, but he was soon bored again, so he wandered over to the Potions room, where Professor Snape was working.
Snape gave off the pretense that he had not noticed Draco's presence, but the boy knew better than to think that he could surprise the Potions Master.
"Good morning, professor," he greeted.
"It's hardly morning anymore," Snape answered snidely.
Draco glanced at his watch and saw that indeed, it was nearly one o'clock. "I was just wondering if you needed any help, sir," Draco said, hoping to find something constructive to do. He always felt better when he spent his leisure time doing something worthwhile.
Snape's eyes darted around, taking inventory, and landed on the table to his left. "Start preparing those," he ordered curtly. "The slug tails need to be thinly sliced and the parrot beaks should be powdered finely, but everything else gets chopped. Neatly, mind you," he specified.
The two worked quietly for a few minutes, but Snape broke the silence when he asked, "Have you seen Miss Castell today?" He truly had not wished to voice the question (he didn't want to look like he actually cared or anything), but he was slightly concerned about the girl's reaction to her parents' revelation. He was decidedly not interested in a nervous breakdown during his class, or any other for that matter.
"Yes, I had breakfast with her this morning," Draco said. Looking up at his godfather, he added, "She read the letter and ran off to the lake...no, she didn't seem too suicidal or anything, just upset." He was intelligent enough to infer the reasoning behind the inquiry, whether Snape had said it aloud or not. "What did it say, anyway?" he wondered, hoping to get his answer from Professor Snape.
"That's for her to say. It's not your business unless she decides it is," Snape reminded Draco harshly.
Draco turned his gaze back to his work, his curiosity still unsatisfied. It suddenly occurred to him that he was behaving just as Pansy Parkinson might: going from source to source, asking the same questions and hoping to come across information that really had nothing to do with him and wasn't his problem. When Pansy did it, he said she was a nosy gossip, but when he did it, he passed it off as "curiosity." Draco wrinkled his nose in self- disgust and wielded his knife with more determination.
He could not, however, get his mind off Sianna. He found himself wanting to spend a disproportionate amount of his free time with her, not because he was really attracted to her, but more because she was—there was no better word for it—fun. Slytherin was never famous for spirited girls, at least not in his generation, and those in his year were much more likely to be found trying to seduce him than having even a halfway-meaningful conversation. Sianna didn't seem too interested in him, though, and maybe that was why he was so drawn to her.
But she was always having those damn tutoring sessions. Every single bloody time he went looking for her, she was always in some teacher's classroom having lessons or in her room studying. In the middle of summer, for Merlin's sake! Surely America was not all that different. How many ways can a person learn to do magic?
Draco suddenly noticed that his knife was still; there were no unprepared ingredients left on the cutting board. He showed Professor Snape, who nodded with grudging satisfaction before dismissing Draco from the room. Draco nodded and left, his head down in resignation. He had been hoping to stay and continue to aid the Potions professor, but one did not argue with Snape over such things.
As he wandered lazily through the dungeons, taking an indirect route back to the Slytherin dormitories, he wondered if Sianna had come back to the castle yet. She was such a strange girl in some ways...why did so much of the wizarding world seem new to her? And she was always referencing Muggles, as if they mattered or something. Draco shrugged and supposed that American wizards were of a less pure culture, as they seemed to mingle shamelessly with lower class human beings.
After arriving back at his rooms and finding, once again, absolutely nothing to do, he huffed discontentedly and marched right back out the concealed stone entryway, heading for the library. Maybe the Restricted Section would be unguarded during the holidays...
Unfortunately, it was not. Madam Pince still roamed her precious aisles and trained her beady eyes on his every movement. It was really extraordinarily irritating.
Draco worked his way silently to the other side of the room, where the less mundane books were kept, but he stopped halfway there when he saw a table full of open books and sheaves of notes, but no one sitting at it. I guess Sianna is back, then, he thought to himself. He wandered over to the table, intending to wait for the girl's return so he could speak to her, but the table's contents caught his eye and made him lean closer.
Standard Book of Spells, Grade One? Notes on paralyzing charms? But we did this in first year, Draco thought. He was thoroughly confused, and more than a little suspicious.
At that moment, Sianna turned a corner around the bookshelves and was horrified to see Draco leaning over her homework and reading with a befuddled look on his normally smug face.
"What are you doing?" she asked rather angrily, stalking over and dropping her stack of books on top of the papers with a surprisingly loud smack.
Draco almost let himself get apologetic before he remembered what he had seen. "What is all this, Sianna?" he asked disbelievingly. "We studied this in first year, it's simple, fundamental wizardry! What the bloody hell are you writing an essay on it for?!"
Sianna was busily gathering her things and stuffing them into her rucksack. "What do you care?" she shot back. She was really not in the mood. "I told you, we learn things differently in the U.S.!"
"Not this differently," Draco asserted, blocking Sianna's attempt to brush past him.
"Get out of my way, Draco," she said with quiet force.
"And what was with that letter?" he sneered. "It seemed pretty suspicious to me."
Sianna's face fell, then turned into a disgusted scowl. "Did your mother never teach you to mind your own fucking business?" she spat, her voice rising in a crescendo. She knocked Draco's arm out of her way and shoved past him, seething in rage. What did he know about anything?
"I'm going to find out," Draco called after her. "I'll figure out what going on here."
"You do that," she retorted, banging out of the library. Draco stood, breathing heavily for a moment, then swept away, heading directly back down to the dungeons. If Sianna wouldn't tell him, somebody else would. He would have to be sneaky about it, but he would find her secret one way or another.
In the end, Draco decided that Professor Sprout would be the most likely to let information slip about Sianna. She was a Hufflepuff, after all. (That, and she was the only professor that he hadn't already asked.)
When Draco knocked on the greenhouse door (which was open), Sprout's head popped up from the plant she was tending. She looked rather surprised, as Draco had never been fond of her class, and she welcomed the boy in with a gesture.
"Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Malfoy?" she asked sincerely.
Draco had the whole conversation planned out. "Actually, I was wondering, professor," he began, "if you could give me a bit of extra tutoring while I'm here...seeing as I didn't do very well in your class last year," he explained.
Professor Sprout looked thoughtful, and Draco supposed that she was reviewing her schedule. Perfect. "I could just come with Sianna and we could have a session together. I mean, we are in the same year and all..." he suggested, knowing she would turn the offer down.
"Oh dearie, that couldn't possibly work. You may not be my best student, but even so, your ability is far beyond that of Miss Castell," she said regretfully.
"Really?" Draco asked, falsely curious. "How is that?" He was about to get his answer...
Sprout went back to her plant and began feeding it again. "She didn't tell you?" she asked suspiciously.
"Well, to tell you the truth, we haven't really gotten much of a chance to talk at all. She's always in class, you know," he said, hoping she would buy it.
She did. "Oh, well you see nobody knew she was a witch until just this summer. Her parents are Muggles and everything, so of course they never would have suspected, and she never got invited to a school of magic because..." she paused for a second, as if recalling her memory. "I'm not sure I've got the story straight, but I think there was a kind of spell of some kind that concealed her presence, if I'm not mistaken. You should ask her, I'm sure she knows much better than I do."
Draco was not as shocked as he was angry. And he'd actually liked that filthy piece of Muggle trash! He succeeded in keeping his facial expressions down to mildly surprised as he slowly backed towards the door.
"Well, thank you for the explanation, professor. I guess we'll just have to find another time for that tutoring," he lamented, falsely disappointed.
"Sure, dear. Just come to me when you need help," she offered.
"Thanks," Draco said again before making his escape. He needed to find that Castell girl and talk to her about something.
The professors could all sense the underlying tension between Sianna and Draco at dinner the next night. Both teenagers were abnormally quiet, and Draco kept sending furtive glances at Sianna, who kept her gaze fixed rigidly on her dish. She was not eating. Draco would look at her hatefully then turn back to his food, shaking his head and stabbing at his meal angrily. The teachers tried to carry on with normal conversation, but even they could not ignore the situation entirely.
Sianna remained at the table only the minimal amount of time before excusing herself quietly and leaving the room, her eyes strictly trained on the door. She would not escape so easily, though. Draco immediately followed her, his meal left unfinished on the table. The staff shared knowing looks, rolling their eyes at teenage drama. No one seemed to know the cause of the disturbance, and none cared to investigate.
Draco sped up his pace, determined to confront Sianna before she disappeared off to wherever she slept. He caught up with her quickly, cornering her in a narrow and obscure little hallway on the second floor.
When she felt the hand on her shoulder, Sianna felt the sudden urge to run and hide, but she pushed that aside and merely turned to stare at Draco with resigned annoyance. He thought she looked remarkably like Hermione at that moment. How odd. Then again, they were both mudbloods.
"Muggle-born?" he said scornfully, sneering in disdain at the girl in front of him.
"Do you have a problem, Mr. Malfoy?" Sianna asked politely.
"Do I have a problem?" he repeated incredulously. "All this time, I have been associating with some filthy mudblood who can hardly perform the simplest of spells, who has been lying to me about—well, everything, and who presumes to be on my level! Now, why on earth would I have a problem with that?" he asked sarcastically, turning away and putting his hand on his hips. "I should have just let you fall off your damn broomstick," he mumbled.
Sianna had been prepared to weather the storm without retorting, but that last comment struck a nerve.
She scowled furiously. "How can you possibly expect anyone to tell you the truth when they know that all they'll get is a racist bigot yelling in their face about their goddamn blood?!" she shouted at his back.
He turned and glared at her, red and seething. Before he could retort, she added quietly, "Makes you wonder how many others aren't telling you the truth, doesn't it?" Draco's face paled as he thought of his father.
"Racist bigot, am I? When, I ask you, did race enter this discussion?" he wondered pompously, trying to shrug off that last remark.
"If discriminating against people based on their background and parentage isn't racism, please tell me what is," she said reasonably.
Draco looked as if she had just sprouted a second head. He had no answer to that.
"That's what I thought," Sianna said with finality.
"You don't know what the bloody hell you're talking about, bitch," he whispered, his teeth clenched in fury. "You haven't got a clue about what goes on in our world, do you? It's people like you that are killing us off, we're the ones who belong here. We've been here since the beginning, you Muggles have no right to come barging in and taking away everything we've built."
"Is that what Daddy told you?" she asked scathingly. "From what I understand, the wizarding world wouldn't exist if not for people like me. You would all be dead from low birth rate and genetic mutation, because you would rather put up with incest than 'tainted blood.' Then what would happen to everything you've built?"
Draco couldn't get a word in edgewise as Sianna continued her tirade, but even if he could, he was having trouble thinking of things to say. "And what really boggles my mind is how yesterday you would have followed me like a dog if you could, but suddenly you hate me because you know just a little bit more about what you're after—and get ready for this...nothing has changed! I. Have. Not. Changed. Wow, is that a revelation for you, Malfoy?" she asked, falsely amazed. "Did it never occur to you that judging people by their character instead of their parents might just be a good idea? That maybe you would have friends that way? I was your friend, now look what you've gone and started."
Draco was slowly backing away, her well-aimed remarks chipping away at his protective wall. But for every step that he took backwards, she took another towards him. Why did everything she said have to be true? He hated her more than anything in that moment.
"I don't give a flying fuck who your parents are," Sianna told him in complete honesty. She had Draco backed against the wall by this point, but he was too furious to notice. "But from the way you talk, maybe I should stay away from them. I mean, maybe they seems like great people to you, but from all the biased things I've heard you say, I'm thinking that their example may not be the one to follow." Draco wanted to smack her, but barely held his hand back. "I'd suggest you look elsewhere for a role model," she continued. "And during your search, do you think that maybe you should consider that blood isn't everything after all?" she sneered, her nose barely inches from his.
"Shut up!" Draco screamed at her, finally cracking as he shoved away from the wall. "Just shut up. You have no idea what it's like to live with my father. He controls everything—do you understand that? I have no choice!" Draco yelled, close to tears. Sianna somehow knew all his weakest points, and she'd poked and prodded at them until he could take it no more.
"You always have a choice," Sianna corrected him. Draco stared at her, breathing heavily and sweating as she walked away calmly and left him standing alone in the torch-lit hallway.
Sianna watched from the Astronomy Tower as Draco followed his father down the front steps and towards the gates of the school. A house elf bobbled behind, levitating Draco's bags. They had not spoken since the argument two days before before, and Sianna couldn't help but feel a tinge of regret for some of the things she had said. Her temper, which could be deceivingly calm and even, was volatile in situations like that, when her pride was likely to get the best of her. She could normally keep herself off the soapbox when someone tried to argue against her political views or morals, but last night had been an extreme exception. After living in America—the supposed land of the free—for so long, she was not about to let someone discriminate against her, especially over blood and heritage. Perhaps she had gone a little too far, though.
So it was with sadness and a hint of relief that she watched Draco leave Hogwarts grounds. Perhaps, if any luck was with her, she had made him think for himself a bit, maybe even doubt the teachings of his family and past. She would know in September, when the term began again.