A: No, the "ia" was not necessary; but I have a friend named Artemis who is a boy, and every time I think of the name without the superfluous "ia", I think of him. It's really more for me than anyone else, but besides that, I thought the name sounded kinda spiffy with it.
Chapter 3:One Lost and Things Found
IN WHICH A Friend has Lost, and our Friends have Found
Moira was nice; Art certainly thought so.
She wasn't very pretty, but she was loud, and sometimes, loud was good.
Art, ever since the deafening silence of her grandmother's funeral, and the deafening silence that followed, fostered a conditional dislike for quiet.
There were times, like all the proverbs in any book or any poster on any Muggle teacher's wall, when silence was smarter than words.
But just because it was smarter, didn't mean it was better. At least, Art certainly thought so.
Other times, it was the best relief you could ask for, because you couldn't possibly think of anything to say anyway.
Art wondered if this was one of those times.
Moira looked at the ground expectantly.
Art thought for a moment if she was waiting for it to crack open and swallow her up; if so, she knew the feeling.
Lines of tears had saturated the colours of Moira's cheeks, and her light eyes were brighter with the red that rimmed them.
Her fingertips, red from the cold just like her own, grasped a letter.
In that letter were things that made up Art's worst nightmares, which made up anyone's most common nightmare – common, but frightening none the less.
It was the kind of terror you didn't like to think about, that when someone brought it up, you pushed it away as quickly as you could or said a quick "God forbid."
Because it was that bad, because it was that terrifying, because it was that close to hitting home sometimes.
The letter floated to the floor, and Art bent down to pick it up.
She offered it to Moira to take it, but she didn't.
Art read it herself, the entirety of it, not the clips and glimpses Moira had almost inaudibly mouthed along to.
We are devastated to inform you, Miss Briggs, that your father has passed on.
It was an automated handwriting, in which every letter that was 'a' looked the same and every letter that was 'b' looked the same.
It wasn't even from her mother.
She turned it around, and thought for a moment there was something written there.
A shimmery type, invisible and pearly, was there, she could swear it, but she could not read it…Perhaps it wasn't there at all. Art quickly disregarded it quickly.
"Would it help if I said everything would be okay?" Art asked quietly, keeping her hands to herself, fully knowing that contact at the moment was the last thing the poor girl needed.
She tucked the note away into her sleeve, casting a helpless glance at her messenger bag.
Priorities being what they were, she could not move.
Moira shook her head, smiling a tiny, miniscule smile at her before the tears began to make her sniff a mighty sniff. "Art, you're something else."
oOoOo
"How very noble of you, Miss Bray," bit the expectant Professor Vidal, "to stay the duration of my class out of class to comfort a crying friend. Now that, if nothing else, deserves a handshake."
He was expectant because there was undeniably a better excuse hiding the folds of Art's robes.
He was waiting for that excuse – in the form of a note, no doubt, holding an interesting secret as to what or perhaps who had kept her from classes – to tumble out of her sleeve soon as an unnecessarily hearty handshake was delivered on his part.
Hopefully, it would be something incriminating a certain Sirius Black or Remus Lupin or one of the Marauders, as they were friends of hers and had a fondness for making trouble as well as dragging others into it.
"Well, really it was nothing at all," Art murmured, smiling despite herself.
She didn't want to be recognized for a deed she felt was required of her, but damn her, if she wouldn't be polite about it, and from a professor made it important to be nice moreover.
He shook it vigorously.
Her face contorted impossibly, worried that he would rip her arm off.
Seeing her face mirror worry (misinterpreting was a particularly prominent characteristic of the professor) he was heartened and shook with renewed fervor.
Neither the note nor her arm came loose.
"Damn," he whispered inaudibly through clenched teeth, but smiled all the while. Gruffly, he said, "Well, get to your seat this instant. I'll not have you miss anymore of my class."
Art nodded, shaken both mentally and physically, and stumbled to her seat.
"What's the real reason?" Sirius murmured as the professor's back was turned.
Art furrowed her brows. "I told the truth."
"Who cried?"
"You wouldn't know her."
"Who the hell wouldn't I know?"
"Hubris," Art muttered under her breath, quickly covering her mouth the moment she registered that he had heard.
"Huh? 'Sthat her name?"
"Hubris is a literary term, Sirius; it means a supreme amount of pride, which is usually the character's downfall," Remus muttered from behind them. He was scribbling like mad on a piece of parchment as the professor wrote up their homework.
"Then I am deeply offended, Art, my dear, and I do not like you anymore," Sirius informed, pouting like a scorned child and looking like one too.
"Suck it up, Sirius, and don't be ridiculous," James muttered, leaning back in his seat.
"Besides,I just lost a family friend, and I still managed to make it to class. I'm even the victim, not like you, who was just the consoler." Sirius glared, but straightened out and toppled his upper body over onto the table.
He sat stalk straight like a shot. "Hogsmeade trip tomorrow."
And after that, the grin could not be burnt, torn, or punched off his face.
oOoOo
"This one, please." Art pointed at a tangerine-yellow lollipop the size of her head. "And a box of those."
"There you go, doll," the woman behind the counter replied, giving her the large lollipop and the dainty tin box of lemon bursts – they literally burst into a hullabaloo of golden tasty sparks!
At the very least, that's what the box read.
She opened it to pop one in her mouth, but her action was punctuated by a comment.
"You know those put someone's eye out once," Remus said, being the usual encyclopedia of a plethora of useless information to aid in one's search for more reasons to be neurotic and fear the world around them. He was chewing a stick of EverChew Chewing Gum, and having no trouble as his jaw sprang up and back and up and back with the rubbery candy in his mouth.
Art glanced at him, then put the little yellow sphere back in the tin box, closed the lid, and placed the box right into her bag. "Save that for later, then."
Remus smiled slightly at her reaction, and he would have stopped chewing if it had been an option.
"Will you guys stop smiling at each other and get over here! McGonagall's talking to some guy."
Art and Remus looked at each other and smiled somewhat nervously, then frowned at Sirius and did as he instructed.
James, Peter, and Sirius were peering voyeuristically into a window of the Hog's Head.
They staggered around behind them to look into the ice-frosted window, which had a current view of McGonagall conversing quite hurriedly an odd man, stubby and short, who was twisting and fiddling with his grimy handkerchief.
"Who is that?" Art whispered, leaning on Sirius's back and watching McGonagall and the man as he seemed to anger the Scottish woman about one thing or another.
"I recognize him…I don't remember where, though…" Sirius began, looking off into the sky briefly.
James glanced at him. "Looks like he's really doing a number on pissing McG off."
"I don't know – she looks a bit intimidated." Peter's voice was a squeak, and upon realizing he had contradicted James, returned much more strongly with, "Yeah, she looks really angry."
A unanimous rolling of eyes was performed, until Remus muttered, "Yeah, we gathered that much, Peter."
"Wait, she's leaving," Art said, pushing herself practically onto Sirius's back, toppling the entire group and causing them to fall in a gawky jumble of elbows and knees.
"Well, that was odd," Remus said, "What do you think that was all about?"
Sirius still looked thoughtful, as if he hadn't been paying much attention to the rest of them.
"No time to wonder now; I've got an appointment at the Three Broomsticks."
"With who?" Sirius pushed, eyes narrowed playfully, "You're not supposed to have friends outside of us; it's written clearly in the unwritten laws, doncha know!"
"With Moira, to do some heavy consolation," Art said matter-of-factly.
"Moira Briggs?" Sirius asked off-handedly, still with seemingly divided attention.
"Yeah," she replied, furrowing her brows in surprise, "how'd you know?"
"That's the daughter of the family friend. I know her."
"You really do know everyone."
Chapter 4: ...
Working on it, promise!
For now, this is all I got.
But put it in a big type, okay?
Please!
So it looks less like I slacked off and such.
I won't be updating for two weeks because of quarterlies and the preceeding studying it demands of me.
See ya.
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Once more, see ya, cats and kittens!