Chapter 5
Jaguar woke in a bad mood, her hair standing nearly straight up, and her dress horribly wrinkled. She stomped around her room for awhile, thinking about how bad her life was, and how much she hated everyone, and the fact that it didn't matter, because they all hated her as well. It was morning. Nivea would have gone home with her new niece Lily. They could go to Timbuktu for all Jaguar cared! But she did care. Deeply.
Eventually she pulled herself together enough to take a shower, while blasting sad music. Nothing made by Nivea, although a lot of Jag's favorite love songs were sung by her aunt.
She was surprised when she exited the shower to find her aunt seated on her bed.
Nivea looked at her as though she were unsure. "What's with the sad music?" she yelled.
"What are you doing here?" Jaguar replied in a quiet voice.
Apparently Nivea had very good hearing, or could read lips. "I drank a bit too much," she said, in a normal voice, because Jaguar's music had mysteriously turned itself off, "and couldn't drive. So I told Lily to go see where Sirius was. I assumed that's where you would be."
Jaguar's expression grew sour. "I don't want anything to do with him."
The events of the night before had grown in Jaguar's mind. Everything seemed worse now, in the light of the day. With some coaxing, and promised to purchase Jaguar things, Nivea eventually convinced her to go over to Pleasantville to get Lily. Jag was tempted to stay at Brazil Manor for the rest of the summer, but Nivea said that it wasn't an option, since Monica had so much work lately.
Jaguar used floo powder, which landed her right in the middle of an argument that was taking place between Mr. and Mrs. Black. She excused herself, humiliated, and nearly ran out of the room.
She broke into a run as soon as she reached the hallway, and flew up the stairs. Ari leapt out of her way, as she spoke to someone on what looked like a muggle telephone. "Goddess!" the girl swore. "What is your problem? Oh my Gah," she continued into the phone, "my brother's friends are so weird!"
Jag skidded to a stop outside of Sirius' door. She didn't know what she was going to say, but she knew that she was going to yell at him for blowing her off last night. And she would yell at Remus and James for never coming back down to the Ball. And she would yell at Lily for trying to take her friends away. But she didn't know how to begin. She never got mad enough to yell at anyone. In this case she was absolutely furious.
Bursting through the door, Jaguar glared around at her friends, who were playing some sort of board game. Sirius looked up, and opened his mouth to speak.
"Shut up," snarled Jaguar. "I don't even want to hear it. I don't know where you get off speaking to me the way you did last night, but as far as I'm concerned, our friendship is over. Especially if you choose Lily over me!"
Sirius' mouth clamped shut. He looked stricken.
"Jaguar!" James yelled. "Why don't you just let him explain?"
Jaguar whirled around to look at him. "Why don't you let me explain! You and Remus are the ones who abandoned me last night! I have no reason at all to listen to you!"
Remus stood up. "Jaguar, I'm so sorry," he said. And looking into his eyes, Jaguar knew that he was telling the truth.
"Yeah," she said, softly. "But what good does apologizing do? Sirius, you're an arse. I hate you! I never want to talk to you or see you again. I never want to see any of you again! I hate you all!"
"You don't mean that," said Remus, placing his hand on Jaguar's arm.
She looked at it for a moment before taking a step away from him. "How would you know? None of you know me at all!" She gasped for breath, suddenly on the verge of tears.
"Jaguar," whispered Lily. "Oh, Jaguar. I'm so sorry."
"Shut up! None of this would have happened if you hadn't climbed out of whatever hole you lived in before Nivea dug you up!"
Lily blinked several times, before standing up and pushing past Jaguar out into the hall.
"What's up your arse, bitch?" James asked as she ran after her.
"Mature, James. Your mother!" Jaguar yelled. "Please," she said in a normal voice. "I meant what I said. Every word of it. And I really never want to see you guys again. So please don't bother me."
To her shock and confusion, Sirius appeared to be crying, and Remus was even more pale than usual. His eyes were boring into hers. "Don't do this, Jaggie."
"Don't call me that!" Jaguar cried out, bursting into tears. She made to run out of the room, but Remus moved forward and embraced her. Jaguar leaned against his shoulder, sobbing for several seconds. Then she straightened up, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "It's not your fault, Remus. It's his." She pointed at Sirius, who was staring at her blankly.
"Jaguar," he whispered. "Please… Can't we talk?"
She shook her head gently. "I'm so sorry."
She turned and walked out of the room, feeling the tears starting again.
"What!" Nivea gasped, as Lily told her what Jaguar had said. "Don't mind her… She's just upset." But Nivea was unsure. Jaguar never got very upset. She was a happy person most of the time.
Lily was angry. How dare Jaguar say things like that to anyone? She didn't even know why Sirius had been rude to her last night. And why would she blame it on Lily!
"She doesn't blame it on you," said Nivea, as though reading Lily's mind. "She's blaming herself. I don't know why…" Nivea stood up, and placed her cup of coffee down. The table shook as one of Sirius' parents threw something at the other. She glanced down the hall to where the fight was going on. "I guess I should look for Jag."
"I'll go sit in the car," said Lily. She stomped out of the house, wearing a scowl.
Jaguar was too angry to speak to Nivea. She crossed her arms over her chest and refused to say anything at all. But when Nivea ordered her to go sit in the car, she went, dragging her feet. She supposed going back to Nivea's house was better than staying here, with Sirius next door.
Seeing Lily in the car, she loitered outside of it for several moments before climbing into the passenger seat and turning on the radio as loud as it would go.
When Nivea came outside several minutes later, leading Sirius and Remus, Jaguar looked terrified.
Lily looked at her curiously. "You okay?"
"Sure," snapped Jaguar, throwing Lily a sneer. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Lily shrugged and sat back in her seat. Sirius and Remus climbed in beside her, silently. Nivea sat down in the driver's seat, and switched the radio off. Jaguar moved to turn it back on, then decided that she hadn't cared about the music anyhow.
"So," said Nivea. "How is everyone?"
"I'm okay now," said Lily, quietly, when no one had responded for several seconds.
Remus nodded in agreement.
Nivea looked pointedly at both Sirius and Jaguar, and when both looked away, she said, "I'm uh… Worried."
"Worried?" whispered Jaguar. "There's nothing to be worried about."
"That's what you think!" Nivea laughed. "But I'm worried every moment of my life. Oh, Jaguar. I want you to be happy!"
"I…" Jaguar began, before trailing off and staring out the window. Tears were coming to her eyes again. She wished that she had sunglasses like Nivea did, to cover her tears. Instead, she put her head down on her arms and fell asleep.
Although the day was very hot, Sirius began shaking violently. Nivea, seeing this, rolled up the window next to him. He leaned his head against it, silently.
The rest of the ride was spent in silence. Even Nivea didn't say anything.
At her house, she got out and slammed her door shut, before vanishing. She literally disappeared into thin air. Lily stared in amazement.
Jaguar woke up, yawned, and looked behind her, at Sirius, who was climbing out through the back door. Narrowing her eyes, she ran past him into the house without looking back.
"Come on, you guys," said Lily after Jaguar had disappeared into the house. "I'll show you around."
Jaguar barricaded herself into her room for the rest of the day, although it was very hot. She didn't even have the energy to listen to music. She just lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling for hours and hours, until she fell asleep. Later, she woke up and took a shower, before sitting at her desk to write in her diary.
Someone knocked at her door. And although she didn't want to see anyone, and in fact wanted nothing more than to sink into the center of the earth until she burned away, she called out, "Who is it?"
"It's me," replied Remus' voice. "Can I come in?"
Jaguar frowned uncertainly before closing her diary and putting it away. She crossed the room and pulled the door open.
"What?" she asked, standing aside so that he could enter. She peered out into the hallway, and, seeing no one else, shut and locked the door again.
Remus seemed to be expecting her to speak. She glared at him for a minute before sitting on her bed heavily.
"How's Sirius?"
Remus looked away. "Bad. He won't come out of his room. And Lily is really angry. She doesn't want to talk to anyone either."
Jag pursed her lips and stared at the floor. "They're faking."
Remus shook his head. "Did you know he cried?"
Her mouth fell open. Then it shut again, and her wide, purple eyes stared at him in disbelief. "Oh my God." She shook her head gently. "Well… He deserves it." But her words were said with no conviction.
She and Remus sat up watching movies for the rest of the night, and Jaguar slept through the whole next day, after the boy had left.
When she woke up, and left her room, there was no one else in the house. Drifting into the kitchen (although she was not hungry at all), Jaguar discovered a note lying on the counter.
Dear Jaggie,
I've taken Lily, Sirius and Remus to the cinema and out to eat.
-Niv
"That's great," Jaguar said to herself. "Just great." Of course, she was excluded. And it was probably for no reason at all. Now that she wasn't friends with them, she couldn't even see a movie with her own aunt. But she had been sleeping… Not that it's impossible to wake people up.
In a sour mood, Jaguar walked into the Quidditch Room of the palace. It was enclosed, and the weather was warm all year round, independent of the outside weather. It surely had a ceiling, but you could fly higher and higher, straight toward it, and never hit it. Eventually the air started to feel thin, and you had to land. And the ground looked so far away that even the padding on the floor wouldn't be able to save you. It was very realistic. No one flew that high in Quidditch anyhow. Snitches never went that high. Nivea was only average at flying, so the Pitch had not been built for her. As she explained it, her boyfriend at the time had been a Quidditch player, and his hot Quidditch playing friends liked to come fly at her property, so she had the room built.
Jaguar grabbed a broom from the supply closet and kicked off the ground. Flying took all the negative thoughts from her head, and she flew for hours, until the sun had completely descended beyond the horizon, and the ground was so far below it would have been impossible to see any people who might have been standing there. When it was entirely dark, she drifted slowly to the ground, humming to herself.
Suddenly the front door slammed shut, and she realized that her aunt and ex-friends were home. Scowling, she ran off to her room and locked herself in again. Nivea knocked gently several times, but Jag pretended that she was asleep.
"We picked up food for you," her aunt whispered. "I'll leave it outside your door."
But Jaguar was not hungry at all. In fact, she never wanted to eat again.
Two days passed by almost unbearably slowly for Jaguar, as she refused food and company, and lay in bed for hours and hours, not sleeping, not thinking… She felt like she was going to waste away. She just wanted to go back to Brazil Manor. Here there was always someone fussing over her, or worrying about her. She just wanted to go home.
On the fourth morning, Jaguar woke up to a horrible pain in her stomach. She knew that she needed to eat, but she didn't want to leave her room, and besides, she wasn't hungry. Her body was, but her mind was repulsed at the thought of food. She drank huge amounts of water from her bathroom, and stared at herself in the mirror.
She looked like Paris, the girl she had avoided so meticulously at the Ball. Her hair hung limps around her face, and her body looked thin, fragile, as though it were continuously being racked by pain. Her eyes even looked empty.
"Come on, Jaguar!" she said to her reflection sternly. "This is bullshit. They are not worth you wasting away over!" But her words made no difference.
No one came to bother her that day, and she lay on her floor, moving her hands through the carpet aimlessly. The next day, not only did no one speak to her, but she didn't even hear anyone in the house. She wondered if they had all left and abandoned her there. But when she struggled to her feet (she had still been laying on the floor) and looked out the window, she could see that her aunt was lounging around on the lawn. Jaguar didn't see Remus, Sirius, or Lily, but she didn't much care where they all were.
That night she lay in her bed, hoping she wouldn't wake up in the morning.
But she did, and after a week without eating, she was too weak to get up. Whenever she moved, her head spun and her eyes flooded with water. She retched horribly, but nothing came up, except some water, which soaked into her sleeping gown.
They really must hate me, she thought, if they don't even realize that I'm starving to death!
As if on cue, someone knocked on her door. Jaguar cast her eyes toward it helplessly. There was no way she could open it and no sound would come out of her mouth save for a quiet gasp.
"Jaguar…" someone said slowly. It was Sirius, she realized. She felt no anger toward him anymore. Just anger toward herself for being so damned stupid. "Please, can we talk?"
Tears escaped Jaguar's eyes as she struggled to respond. She wished she hadn't been so stubborn… Now all she wanted to do was eat and get some fresh air.
"Are you even in there?" Sirius asked a minute later. "No one's seen you around… Lily thinks you ran away, but Nivea thinks you're here."
"I'm here!" Jaguar yelled, but it warped in mouth and emerged as a whisper demanding more beer. "Sirius!"
He heard her somehow. "Jaguar!" he knocked on the door again. "What's wrong?"
She shook her head desperately. Her vision swam and the room spiraled around before crashing down onto her head. Before everything turned black, she heard Sirius calling for Nivea.
Jaguar opened her eyes. She obviously hadn't been out long. She was still wearing the same stained gown, and her stomach still ached with hunger. As she stared up at the worried faces around her, they seemed to coalesce into one form.
"Drink this," said Nivea, holding out a bottle of potion. "Drink all of it."
Jaguar reached up feebly, but had to set her arms back down quickly.
"Drink it!" said Nivea. "I don't even know why I bother! What were you thinking? You did this to yourself!"
Angry and humiliated, Jaguar willed herself to grasp the bottle. She tilted it into her mouth and spewed fiery, red, viscous fluid over her chest. It seemed to be burning a hole through her throat. Nivea raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms over her chest, waiting.
Jaguar seemed to have a bit more strength now. She sat up a bit to prevent herself from choking as she took a gulp of the potion and struggled not to spit it all out. She swallowed it with a great deal of gagging. The rest of the potion was gone within ten minutes. No one had said a word that whole time.
Jaguar set the bottle on her bedside table and promptly fell asleep.
"What was in that?" asked Sirius, as he followed Nivea out the room. Remus was right behind him, and Lily shut the door gently as she left.
"In the potion? Oh, nothing much. Just something to make her sleep and have horrible nightmares. The hunger and fever were easily cured… The potion was unneeded."
The children gaped at her.
"You were torturing her for nothing!" exclaimed Remus.
Nivea looked at him as though he were a bug. "Not for nothing. She has to learn her lesson. What a drama queen."
Jaguar felt completely refreshed the next morning, but she still didn't feel comfortable leaving her room. It was protecting her from being judged. As much as she wanted to make up with Sirius, she knew that if she did, everyone would think she was weak-willed.
Nivea pounded on her door furiously. "Wake up!" she yelled. "Get up now!"
Jaguar leapt to her feet, knowing better than to ignore Nivea when she was in this sort of mood. She flung the door open, surprised that she was able to.
"Breakfast," said Nivea simply, before turning to walk away.
"I'm not hungry," whispered Jaguar half-heartedly.
Nivea let out a bitter laugh and turned around to grab Jaguar's hair. She yanked the yowling girl all the way to the kitchen before depositing her into a chair across the table from her former best friend.
Lily was standing at a counter, and when she saw Jaguar sit down, she smiled and set a heaping platter of food in front of her. Jaguar felt slightly nauseous as she forced some of it down. She refused to look up, because she was worried that if she did, Sirius might happen to be looking back at her. She didn't look over at Remus or Lily either. Nivea had (thankfully) vanished.
"Are you okay?" asked Remus gently, touching her arm.
She moved it away from him before nodding.
"You really scared us, Jaguar," Lily said from her other side.
Sirius just stared at her. She could feel his eyes boring a hole into her head.
"I'm fine!" she yelled, leaping to her feet. The chair she had been on skittered away before returning to the table on its own. Glaring around the table, she realized they thought she was crazy. Jaguar turned and fled the room.
She ran down the hall, crying as the open doors to rooms she had never seen before passed by. Finally, just when she thought she was lost, she tried to open a door, and emerged out into the bright sunshine. It surprised her and burnt her eyes. She lost her balance in her haste to get out of the house and sprawled on the grass. After a moment spent gasping for breath, she stood up and tore away across what looked like a large grassy meadow. She knew that if she could reach the forest, she would eventually make it back to Brazil Manor.
I'm really overreacting now, she thought. Nivea is going to kill me.
Jaguar came within ten feet of the first trees. Then Nivea stepped out of the forest directly in front of her. Jaguar froze, getting chills. Nivea had never looked so beautiful. She was wearing some sort of thin white fabric, and had leaves stuck in her hair. She was wearing no makeup and no sunglasses. She just looked pure. Like an angel.
"What is wrong with you?" Nivea cried out in desperation. "Why are you doing this!"
Jaguar shook her head and turned around to run. Quicker than should have been possible, Nivea had grabbed Jaguar's shoulder, pulling her to a halt.
Jaguar cried out in pain as her aunt's nails dug into her skin.
"How did you find the door?" Nivea asked as though she had suddenly come to a realization. "Oh Jaguar!" she cried out, embracing her niece. "That's wonderful. We have to celebrate, eh? Just me and you. Come on!" And suddenly she was racing through the field, pausing to skip and spin and dance. Jaguar could either run into the forest now, or follow her aunt. The darkness of the forest seemed overwhelming, and after a moment, Jaguar was running away from it too.