Chapter 2: To Be So Alone
The morning dawned cold and rainy; the wind came in little gusts, penetrating the stone walls bare of tapestries. Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were all too aware of the icy drafts as they made their way down to the dungeons after an early breakfast, clutching their cloaks tight about them.
Stella's boots, seemingly filled with lead, made quite a bit of noise plodding down the crooked stone steps. She nearly tripped over the black laces slithering around her feet as symbols of her lethargy. She had rolled out of bed having slept no more than an hour total: typical. Lusting after the sweet solace and solitude of slumber incessantly, her mind's active performance in the darkest hours of night affirmed her curse.
She blamed it on the stars.
So tired, she sometimes wondered if she had not awoken at all, considering the fact that no one looked at her as she passed. When she smiled, no one smiled back. When she spoke, no one heard. No one listened. When she wrote, no one read.
Likewise, no one looked up when she entered the dungeon classroom. Gazing around, she tried to make eye contact with someone, anyone, but all eyes averted from hers. Stella looked down at herself and touched her waist to make sure she existed. Hipbones poked her palms beneath the thick black robes. Yes, she was there. Her angelic face glanced back at her from within a cauldron of water.
'Good morning!' she called out into the classroom experimentally. Some people glanced up as though an insect were buzzing in close proximity, but made no more of it. Many had ignored her.
Frustrated, she said, 'Good morning!' more loudly. Usually she would have been too drained to pursue courtesy, but a kind of disgust had come over her. She had a point to make, though she couldn't count on the others getting it.
'Good morning!' some irritated voices yelled back at her, suggesting anything but goodness. Her chest swelled angrily, and she was about to march to her usual seat in the corner when a voice in her ear halted every thought and pending movement.
'Good morning,' it said deeply, just over a whisper. It did not sound annoyed, mocking, or even forced – but simply civil.
The tall frame of Sirius Black brushed past her shoulder, and she shuddered slightly in spite of herself. Staring at his back, she now thought of mockery. Why should he be kind to her? He never had been. He had no more reason to than anybody else.
Professor Irving entered the classroom from her office via a thick wooden door lined with iron that made a bone-chilling screech as it scraped against the stone floor upon opening and closing. Irving had never acknowledged the noise – hearing it twelve times a day – but even the fifth years failed to grow accustomed to it, and cringed whenever she entered.
'What?' she would then say, touching her face in mock self-consciousness. This joke was rather funny, as most saw her as a very beautiful woman. She bore the dark, noble features of Black, having married out of the family. Her raven hair fell about her like a second cloak, clasped in the back by a silver serpent. It was the kind of hair that was so perfectly straight that one could run a fine-toothed comb through it at the speed of light without encountering the slightest snag, despite its length. She glided about the dungeons wraith-like, embodying the grace of darkness and the intricate wisdom that lingered in shadow, waiting for the wandering student to unlock its secrets.
'Good morning, everyone,' said Irving in a dusky voice that made Stella think of black satin and dew drops. Mist curled outward from perfect lips as Irving spoke into the chill of the dungeons, giving instructions for the day's potion. 'Today we will be making the Draft of Peace, a potion that will give its drinker a temporary sense of well-being, in case that somehow wasn't obvious. It is often used as an antidote for intense and unnecessary worry. Though the affect may sound simple, the process with which to gain it is not...at all. I've found that students tend to have trouble with it, so you're probably wondering why I'm not saving it till later in the year. The Draft of Peace in an O.W.L. standard, very tricky. Testing officials love it. You don't need to perfect its concoction yet, but I want you to grow familiar with it now so that we can continue improving your skills as the year progresses. Come O.W.L.s, you'll have this down flawlessly.
'For those of you who have read ahead, can you name any of the ingredients that make up the Draft?'
Silence.
'No one?' Black eyes flashed in Sirius' direction. 'I'm sure my little cousin can.'
Black eyes flashed back. The smirk grew more pronounced. 'Essence of hellebore,' he muttered in a bored tone. Girls' heads turned.
Stella's didn't. He wondered why...
James guffawed. ''Cause you read ahead.'
'Maybe I do,' said Sirius, putting down the sarcasm.
'Pff, yeah!'
'Alright, that's enough,' said Irving, waving a slender white hand with its darkly-painted nails. 'Sirius is right, hellebore is crucial to the Draft of Peace.' Turning swiftly on her heel, she slid over to the chalkboard and took out her wand. With a flick the chalk rose up and began writing the ingredients as Irving explained how and when to administer each to the cauldron.
The other students took our their notes and copied Irving's words frantically, but Sirius folded his arms and listened, absorbing and storing every bit of information as he glared at the back of Stella Pendragon's head. So she had not spared him a glance since the beginning of class, what did it matter to him? He had just grown so used to it. Perhaps he found it flattering, and perhaps he counted on having that particular person's attention in every class they shared.
Soon, the fact that it bothered him bothered him more than what was doing the initial bothering. In the middle of trying to explain away his feelings, he realised he had been neglecting to listen to Irving. There was always that risk when one refused to take out quill and parchment. But then there was always the risk of being too busy taking notes to really retain what was being said. Explain away everything, Sirius thought, rubbing his face tiredly.
'Am I boring you, Sirius Black?' Irving hissed threateningly.
'Of course not,' Sirius responded. He was going to add 'Brenda Irving', but held his tongue.
'Then you've been listening,' she challenged.
'For the most part.'
'Very well then: what must I do to the moonstone before mixing?'
'Grind it.'
'Why?'
'To diffuse the properties.'
'That?'
'That...that balance out the rest of the ingredients, especially the poisonous ones.'
'Significance?'
Sirius raised an eyebrow. 'From what I've heard, it's rather difficult to gain peace by drinking poison.'
'Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour, Mr. Black. You may see me after class.'
James and Sirius exchanged a look once her back was turned. Remus shook his head and added to his notes, while Peter stared out the window.
'I'll be assigning groups today since we must use the class cauldrons for this Draft. The volume it requires exceeds that of your personal cauldrons, and since many of these ingredients are rare and costly, namely moonstones, I simply cannot provide them for every single one of you. As such, whilst on the subject of balancing things out, I'd like to pair up Sirius Black and Stella Pendragon.'
Deep down, Sirius had had a feeling this would happen, but shock took him nonetheless. Aimlessly, he asked himself why – why things like this happened. He also asked himself why people believed in coincidence.
With her, it seemed like there was no such thing.
Irving continued to assign partners to cauldrons while Sirius reclined on his stool, waiting for her to come to him.
Waiting in vain.
Keeping her back to him, she picked up her notes and walked straight over to the cauldron by the window through which Peter had been staring, and sat down on a lower stool next to the small table where everything they would need was laid out. She set to work assembling tools and arranging ingredients, waiting for no one.
With a sigh, Sirius rose and stretched lazily, flicking the black strands from his eyes and striding casually over to where Stella sat, head bent over her work.
Now would be the time to say something, he thought. It felt so much like breaking the ice, something he had never had a problem with, but something he simply could not manage to do at this point in time.
After standing there stupidly for several seconds more, a straight- forward voice emerged from the curtain of golden locks: 'Hi.'
'...Hi...'
'Don't suppose you'd like to give me a hand with this?'
'Er – sure.'
She handed him a mortar and pestle, followed by a heavy silver orb. 'Since you know so much about moonstones,' she explained.
'Right.' He sat down and began grinding the stone, which proved to be a less-than-easy task, and was worsened by her observing his progress from time to time.
Once all the ingredients were measured and put in their proper tubes and flasks, Stella wiped her hands and craned her neck over to his side of the table. An amused expression crossed her face.
'What?'
'You didn't have to grind the whole thing.'
'Well you could have told me that!'
'Well you could have taken notes!'
Sirius glared. Who was she to deride him like she knew him personally? 'How do you know I wasn't? I didn't see your prying eye turn my way once this class. Shocking, really...'
'There was no need. You've proved yourself rather predictable, Mr. Black. Cyaneus incendio.'
'Wha - ?'
A hoard of bluebell flames shot out from the tip of Stella's wand beneath the cauldron. At Sirius' look of fleeting bewilderment, she said, 'Perhaps you can explain why the fire must be blue in spite of your inability to listen to the teacher. You seem to be rather good at finding the answers you were never given.'
'In other words, I'm rather good with this new thing called common sense. If you bore an ounce of it perhaps you wouldn't have shouted at your fellow students this morning to their extreme annoyance.'
Stella pursed her lips, and stared searchingly into his eyes. 'I'm not sure you understand me, Mr. Black.'
Her eyes were so clear, Sirius noted, clear like southern waters, but deep like primordial seas – bearing ancient secrets. He thought that if, perhaps, he stared into those limpid pools hard enough, he would see her soul.
What kept him from doing so now? Well, if the passage was not cloudy, perhaps the end was. He didn't want to see the end.
Not yet.
'We sure are talkative over here, aren't we?' came the silky voice of Irving drifting over the smoke. 'But then,' she enlightened herself, 'human error is inevitable when it comes to measuring, and uneven quantities sometimes allow the bolder solution to overpower the more passive one.'
'If I may, Professor,' Stella cut in, 'it is also possible for said inevitable human error to cause the potion-maker to overestimate certain properties in a solution, or miscalculate how they react when mixed with certain other solutions.'
Irving narrowed her eyes. 'What are you trying to say, Pendragon?'
'I initiated the conversation. Apologies, we'll work now.'
The corners of Irving's mouth twitched, and the eyes flickered beneath the shadows of her eyelids. 'Very good.'
Once she was out of earshot, Sirius turned back to Stella questioningly. She shrugged and added a pinch of powdered moonstone, then checked her watch.
'We need to add a dash about every nine seconds,' she told him. 'I'll put you in charge of that. I need to monitor the heat.' She slid off her stool and knelt by the blue fire, prodding it with her wand.
But Sirius's mind was elsewhere.
'Why do you not think I understand you? Or did you just say that to make me think there's more to you than you let on?'
'Only the self-centered long to be enigmatic,' she informed him. 'Or the very – 'she paused, in search of the correct word, '– uncomfortable.'
'What do you mean by that? Uncomfortable...'
'Moonstone.'
'What?'
She threw a pinch in for him.
'Let me ask you this: have you ever felt like hiding? Like you didn't want anyone to see you because you didn't like how you felt - how you felt about yourself?'
Sirius shifted his eyes. 'No, I'm pretty sure I haven't.'
'Of course you haven't.'
'What are you trying to say?'
She leaned forward, her face stricken and her glassy eyes wider than ever. 'What I'm trying to say, Sirius of Black, is that some people like to know they exist, because otherwise they think they shouldn't. Do you understand that?'
He eased his eyes away from hers – to the table top. He felt the connotation of her words like poison, but further he pondered the several ways he could interpret them. In the meantime, he tried to look impassive, like she had not struck a single chord within him.
But she knew she had, as it was she who had to keep adding the moonstone.
The morning dawned cold and rainy; the wind came in little gusts, penetrating the stone walls bare of tapestries. Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were all too aware of the icy drafts as they made their way down to the dungeons after an early breakfast, clutching their cloaks tight about them.
Stella's boots, seemingly filled with lead, made quite a bit of noise plodding down the crooked stone steps. She nearly tripped over the black laces slithering around her feet as symbols of her lethargy. She had rolled out of bed having slept no more than an hour total: typical. Lusting after the sweet solace and solitude of slumber incessantly, her mind's active performance in the darkest hours of night affirmed her curse.
She blamed it on the stars.
So tired, she sometimes wondered if she had not awoken at all, considering the fact that no one looked at her as she passed. When she smiled, no one smiled back. When she spoke, no one heard. No one listened. When she wrote, no one read.
Likewise, no one looked up when she entered the dungeon classroom. Gazing around, she tried to make eye contact with someone, anyone, but all eyes averted from hers. Stella looked down at herself and touched her waist to make sure she existed. Hipbones poked her palms beneath the thick black robes. Yes, she was there. Her angelic face glanced back at her from within a cauldron of water.
'Good morning!' she called out into the classroom experimentally. Some people glanced up as though an insect were buzzing in close proximity, but made no more of it. Many had ignored her.
Frustrated, she said, 'Good morning!' more loudly. Usually she would have been too drained to pursue courtesy, but a kind of disgust had come over her. She had a point to make, though she couldn't count on the others getting it.
'Good morning!' some irritated voices yelled back at her, suggesting anything but goodness. Her chest swelled angrily, and she was about to march to her usual seat in the corner when a voice in her ear halted every thought and pending movement.
'Good morning,' it said deeply, just over a whisper. It did not sound annoyed, mocking, or even forced – but simply civil.
The tall frame of Sirius Black brushed past her shoulder, and she shuddered slightly in spite of herself. Staring at his back, she now thought of mockery. Why should he be kind to her? He never had been. He had no more reason to than anybody else.
Professor Irving entered the classroom from her office via a thick wooden door lined with iron that made a bone-chilling screech as it scraped against the stone floor upon opening and closing. Irving had never acknowledged the noise – hearing it twelve times a day – but even the fifth years failed to grow accustomed to it, and cringed whenever she entered.
'What?' she would then say, touching her face in mock self-consciousness. This joke was rather funny, as most saw her as a very beautiful woman. She bore the dark, noble features of Black, having married out of the family. Her raven hair fell about her like a second cloak, clasped in the back by a silver serpent. It was the kind of hair that was so perfectly straight that one could run a fine-toothed comb through it at the speed of light without encountering the slightest snag, despite its length. She glided about the dungeons wraith-like, embodying the grace of darkness and the intricate wisdom that lingered in shadow, waiting for the wandering student to unlock its secrets.
'Good morning, everyone,' said Irving in a dusky voice that made Stella think of black satin and dew drops. Mist curled outward from perfect lips as Irving spoke into the chill of the dungeons, giving instructions for the day's potion. 'Today we will be making the Draft of Peace, a potion that will give its drinker a temporary sense of well-being, in case that somehow wasn't obvious. It is often used as an antidote for intense and unnecessary worry. Though the affect may sound simple, the process with which to gain it is not...at all. I've found that students tend to have trouble with it, so you're probably wondering why I'm not saving it till later in the year. The Draft of Peace in an O.W.L. standard, very tricky. Testing officials love it. You don't need to perfect its concoction yet, but I want you to grow familiar with it now so that we can continue improving your skills as the year progresses. Come O.W.L.s, you'll have this down flawlessly.
'For those of you who have read ahead, can you name any of the ingredients that make up the Draft?'
Silence.
'No one?' Black eyes flashed in Sirius' direction. 'I'm sure my little cousin can.'
Black eyes flashed back. The smirk grew more pronounced. 'Essence of hellebore,' he muttered in a bored tone. Girls' heads turned.
Stella's didn't. He wondered why...
James guffawed. ''Cause you read ahead.'
'Maybe I do,' said Sirius, putting down the sarcasm.
'Pff, yeah!'
'Alright, that's enough,' said Irving, waving a slender white hand with its darkly-painted nails. 'Sirius is right, hellebore is crucial to the Draft of Peace.' Turning swiftly on her heel, she slid over to the chalkboard and took out her wand. With a flick the chalk rose up and began writing the ingredients as Irving explained how and when to administer each to the cauldron.
The other students took our their notes and copied Irving's words frantically, but Sirius folded his arms and listened, absorbing and storing every bit of information as he glared at the back of Stella Pendragon's head. So she had not spared him a glance since the beginning of class, what did it matter to him? He had just grown so used to it. Perhaps he found it flattering, and perhaps he counted on having that particular person's attention in every class they shared.
Soon, the fact that it bothered him bothered him more than what was doing the initial bothering. In the middle of trying to explain away his feelings, he realised he had been neglecting to listen to Irving. There was always that risk when one refused to take out quill and parchment. But then there was always the risk of being too busy taking notes to really retain what was being said. Explain away everything, Sirius thought, rubbing his face tiredly.
'Am I boring you, Sirius Black?' Irving hissed threateningly.
'Of course not,' Sirius responded. He was going to add 'Brenda Irving', but held his tongue.
'Then you've been listening,' she challenged.
'For the most part.'
'Very well then: what must I do to the moonstone before mixing?'
'Grind it.'
'Why?'
'To diffuse the properties.'
'That?'
'That...that balance out the rest of the ingredients, especially the poisonous ones.'
'Significance?'
Sirius raised an eyebrow. 'From what I've heard, it's rather difficult to gain peace by drinking poison.'
'Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour, Mr. Black. You may see me after class.'
James and Sirius exchanged a look once her back was turned. Remus shook his head and added to his notes, while Peter stared out the window.
'I'll be assigning groups today since we must use the class cauldrons for this Draft. The volume it requires exceeds that of your personal cauldrons, and since many of these ingredients are rare and costly, namely moonstones, I simply cannot provide them for every single one of you. As such, whilst on the subject of balancing things out, I'd like to pair up Sirius Black and Stella Pendragon.'
Deep down, Sirius had had a feeling this would happen, but shock took him nonetheless. Aimlessly, he asked himself why – why things like this happened. He also asked himself why people believed in coincidence.
With her, it seemed like there was no such thing.
Irving continued to assign partners to cauldrons while Sirius reclined on his stool, waiting for her to come to him.
Waiting in vain.
Keeping her back to him, she picked up her notes and walked straight over to the cauldron by the window through which Peter had been staring, and sat down on a lower stool next to the small table where everything they would need was laid out. She set to work assembling tools and arranging ingredients, waiting for no one.
With a sigh, Sirius rose and stretched lazily, flicking the black strands from his eyes and striding casually over to where Stella sat, head bent over her work.
Now would be the time to say something, he thought. It felt so much like breaking the ice, something he had never had a problem with, but something he simply could not manage to do at this point in time.
After standing there stupidly for several seconds more, a straight- forward voice emerged from the curtain of golden locks: 'Hi.'
'...Hi...'
'Don't suppose you'd like to give me a hand with this?'
'Er – sure.'
She handed him a mortar and pestle, followed by a heavy silver orb. 'Since you know so much about moonstones,' she explained.
'Right.' He sat down and began grinding the stone, which proved to be a less-than-easy task, and was worsened by her observing his progress from time to time.
Once all the ingredients were measured and put in their proper tubes and flasks, Stella wiped her hands and craned her neck over to his side of the table. An amused expression crossed her face.
'What?'
'You didn't have to grind the whole thing.'
'Well you could have told me that!'
'Well you could have taken notes!'
Sirius glared. Who was she to deride him like she knew him personally? 'How do you know I wasn't? I didn't see your prying eye turn my way once this class. Shocking, really...'
'There was no need. You've proved yourself rather predictable, Mr. Black. Cyaneus incendio.'
'Wha - ?'
A hoard of bluebell flames shot out from the tip of Stella's wand beneath the cauldron. At Sirius' look of fleeting bewilderment, she said, 'Perhaps you can explain why the fire must be blue in spite of your inability to listen to the teacher. You seem to be rather good at finding the answers you were never given.'
'In other words, I'm rather good with this new thing called common sense. If you bore an ounce of it perhaps you wouldn't have shouted at your fellow students this morning to their extreme annoyance.'
Stella pursed her lips, and stared searchingly into his eyes. 'I'm not sure you understand me, Mr. Black.'
Her eyes were so clear, Sirius noted, clear like southern waters, but deep like primordial seas – bearing ancient secrets. He thought that if, perhaps, he stared into those limpid pools hard enough, he would see her soul.
What kept him from doing so now? Well, if the passage was not cloudy, perhaps the end was. He didn't want to see the end.
Not yet.
'We sure are talkative over here, aren't we?' came the silky voice of Irving drifting over the smoke. 'But then,' she enlightened herself, 'human error is inevitable when it comes to measuring, and uneven quantities sometimes allow the bolder solution to overpower the more passive one.'
'If I may, Professor,' Stella cut in, 'it is also possible for said inevitable human error to cause the potion-maker to overestimate certain properties in a solution, or miscalculate how they react when mixed with certain other solutions.'
Irving narrowed her eyes. 'What are you trying to say, Pendragon?'
'I initiated the conversation. Apologies, we'll work now.'
The corners of Irving's mouth twitched, and the eyes flickered beneath the shadows of her eyelids. 'Very good.'
Once she was out of earshot, Sirius turned back to Stella questioningly. She shrugged and added a pinch of powdered moonstone, then checked her watch.
'We need to add a dash about every nine seconds,' she told him. 'I'll put you in charge of that. I need to monitor the heat.' She slid off her stool and knelt by the blue fire, prodding it with her wand.
But Sirius's mind was elsewhere.
'Why do you not think I understand you? Or did you just say that to make me think there's more to you than you let on?'
'Only the self-centered long to be enigmatic,' she informed him. 'Or the very – 'she paused, in search of the correct word, '– uncomfortable.'
'What do you mean by that? Uncomfortable...'
'Moonstone.'
'What?'
She threw a pinch in for him.
'Let me ask you this: have you ever felt like hiding? Like you didn't want anyone to see you because you didn't like how you felt - how you felt about yourself?'
Sirius shifted his eyes. 'No, I'm pretty sure I haven't.'
'Of course you haven't.'
'What are you trying to say?'
She leaned forward, her face stricken and her glassy eyes wider than ever. 'What I'm trying to say, Sirius of Black, is that some people like to know they exist, because otherwise they think they shouldn't. Do you understand that?'
He eased his eyes away from hers – to the table top. He felt the connotation of her words like poison, but further he pondered the several ways he could interpret them. In the meantime, he tried to look impassive, like she had not struck a single chord within him.
But she knew she had, as it was she who had to keep adding the moonstone.
