"Luv," she heard Alexander Sykes whisper under his breath, his eyes staring as he watched the witch down an entire mug of coffee and pour herself another. The steam that rose up and covered her face caused not even a blink as she sipped it down. She looked up at him, the hot liquid stinging her tongue and burning through her throat into her chest. It was bitter, black but not black enough. "You're gonna have the runs," he continued in the lowest tone he could manage, leaning forward in his seat to close the gap between them. "What's wrong? You need to wake up or something?"
Her eyes searched his as if they were two strangers sitting next to one another at a bus stop, as if they hadn't shared the same living commons for 6 years, as if they did not dance at the same socialite parties since they were children. She felt like she was shaving her head in public while beating a cement block with a stick in the middle of Piccadilly Circus.
"At this point, I reckon you're better off taking something… you know… a bit stronger?" She paused but she wasn't entirely sure why. Eve hadn't been one to do much thinking as of late— it was more just doing. Doing what she was told, going where she was told to be— so it didn't really need much thinking, explaining, or convincing from Alex's end to sway her. A little nudge in the side was more than enough.
"I can't be seen with Fletcher," she said, glancing over at the Ravenclaw table. A half truth, at best, but Alexander was her people and half truths were their way of life.
"No need." Alex shrugged, leaning back and looking into her wide but empty eyes. A hint of mischief danced in his own. He nodded, tilting his head towards the entrance, indicating for her to follow him. Alex got up first, not bothering to look at anyone or in any direction before turning around the bend. Eve, however, waited, pushing around the food on her plate to feign a mirage of normalcy to anyone who may have been watching. When she was sure unwarranted curiosities had been put to bed, she got up— following the wizard's path and turning the corner to where she found found Alexander Sykes waiting against a wall. He looked both ways, his eyes lifted but his once-enclosed palm opening up to her own. Eve kept her eyes on the wizard but felt something light but rough drop into it.
The moment it did, she narrowed her eyes on it. It was one of the ugliest rocks one could fathom. The one that she would step on at the seaside and not give a second thought to if it crushed to dust under her weight. It was jagged, uneven, and gray with a tint of blue at its outer edge. She knew what it was— she had heard about it, jokes mostly, but she had never seen one in her own hands.
"How?"
"Chip off a piece. Under your tongue. Let it melt."
22 October 1977
Their bodies lazily slung over splintered chairs, bright red lipstick sloppily pressed onto the edge of a gold-flickered champagne bottle, and the Vaping Vipers screeching their poor excuse for music. The witch had worn the fanciest heels she had brought to Hogwarts, and the wizard flicked his wand every so often to switch songs as they enjoyed the night the best they could.
But shedding skin and reveling in the last pulls of childhood recklessness were far from being a reality. They could gossip and chitchat; they could call each other names; they could laugh but the elephant in the room would loom, gawking at them from the shadowed corner.
"We need to talk," Moira eventually said as she took a seat on one of the long-abandoned chairs.
"Haven't we been?" Alex laughed, bouncing up and down, screaming the lyrics of the song as droplets of sweat dripped down from his hairline.
"No, it's serious." She reached to leave the bottle of champagne on the floor.
"How serious?"
"I spoke with Fletcher."
"Oh?" He stopped moving, lowering the music with a simple hand gesture.
"Yeah, him and Dumbledore think there might be, you know, at Hogwarts," she repeated his words casually, waving her hand this way and that way. The words elongated and smeared as the alcohol stained her brain. To Moira, the elephant had become nothing more than a mouse. "And he wants us to find out who, I suppose. "
"What?" The wizard laughed again, albeit a bit forced. "That'd be mad?"
"Maybe," Moira muttered, shrugging. "Probably why he wants us to look."
"Us?"
"Yes, us." Her index finger pointed to her chest and then to his own. "You and me."
"But," Alex tilted his head slightly as his chin jutted inwards, a near incredulous look falling upon him. "Moira, they're a whole team—"
"Of oldies. A whole team of old people. Of mummies and daddies," the witch finished for him. "Mummies and daddies too busy roaming around London, Holyhead, looking for who, and what, and blah blah blah."
"And," the wizard's eyes dropped to the floor, searching the threads in the stained and musty carpet. His upper lip flickered and he dropped on his knees to the floor, sitting on his calves as his ankles pushed into the ground. "And how…But I just thought we had to go to meetings? Like, weren't we supposed to wait until after we, you know, finished?" Alex looked back up to Moira whose eyes hadn't left his face for a single second. "Wasn't that the whole idea? That they got to us first?" He flailed his hands in the air as if everyone he spoke of was in the room with them. "Wasn't this supposed to be preventative? I didn't think we'd actually have to do anything?"
"Maybe it's a test?" Alex paused, his arms coming down to his sides as the witch's suggestion sunk it.
"Bloody hell, you're probably right," he admitted, a finger tapping on his right thigh. "Fuck. Fuck me. They're going to actually make us do something."
"Yep."
"And how the fuck are we supposed to do that exactly?"
"I don't know…" Moira began, reaching for the bottle on the floor and bringing it to her lips for another taste. "They've got some— what did that redhead say?"
"Which one?"
"They're inked, remember? Something like that. Or some sort of emblem, here," she said while sticking out the pinky finger from the hand holding the champagne bottle's neck to her forearm. "It's like an initiation thing."
"And…" Alex faltered, his eyes thinning on Moira's forearm. "So… We're supposed to find out if…?" He stopped when they both met one another's inebriated gaze. "How? Like— oh, Mulciber, been by the ink parlor lately?"
"Well, I don't know— I figured…" Moira tilted her head from side to side as if weighing a scale. "Don't… Well, you all live together? Aren't you ever… naked? Like… well, when you change or something? Or do they…" She paused, observing Alex's sudden change in expression. "Do they not change? Or—"
"I can't do that," Alex said quietly.
"What?"
"I don't do that— change in front of them," he admitted. "I reckon they don't either, but I don't know for sure."
"What?" Moira asked, her head leaning forward. "Ever? How? Why?"
"I just don't."
"Sykes— seriously?"
"Moira, I'm not…" He began but couldn't find the words. This was foreign territory for him, unexplored grounds, and so the terms were lost on him. "I'm not like them. I'm not—"
"You mean because you're…?" Alex kept his eyes fixated on his shoes as the silence spoke for him. A finger twirled and played with the ends of his laces as his cheeks burned in a way that they had never before.
"Is it that obvious?" She let out a laugh in response, throwing her head back. "Not funny."
"No… But, Sykes, what about me? What do I have to say, then? Look at me." He did, her already round eyes widening as she stuck her arm out in full display of what made her stand out from the rest of them.
"Right." Moira sat forward in her seat and bent her head to hear his words. "It's… I know— but it's, I don't know, you… You're strong and shit, I don't know. Stronger than me, at least. More sure. No one would mess with you, you know? Like sure, it's not been easy but… But, fuck, Moira, they'll let you live." Before he had even finished, she stood up to walk over to him, leaning down to throw her arms around his shoulders. Alex smiled weakly as she planted red-stained kisses all over the side of his face.
"Fuck it, then," Moira said, allowing some distance between them. Her hand lifted up to brush one of his curls behind his ear. "Fuck it, we'll find another way. Okay? Or fuck Fletcher— honestly. Santa Claus—"
"—Santa Claus?—"
"—motherfucker. And fuck Dumbledore. Fuck it all."
"It's just…" Alex took a deep breath, pursing his lips. "It's not that… like, ugh, I don't want you to think that— It's not that I'm going to get a… you know?" The burn that had creeped across his face now spread to his ears. "It's not… It's not like that—"
"Sykes, it's okay," she reassured him. "You don't need—" But Alexander Sykes was high, he was high, so high, and he wanted to talk: an appetite to say what had never been said before. The sudden lack of composure took a quick spin, becoming firmer as the words flew out of him.
"No, you don't understand— they don't know, nobody knows. Except… ugh, Fletcher? I think he knows, and you— obviously… But— and there's one other person that knows, and he knows— he knows and I don't, I don't want to do something that would make him… I don't know how he would react if he thought I was looking at him when he was… you know? Especially…especially in front of the others." Moira's mouth opened but then closed, her brows slightly furrowed. Alex took a deep breath, his eyes suddenly alight with alert and a jaw set with steadiness. Despite having buried the memories, often with the help of whatever he could get his hands on, the sudden retrieval had launched into him at such a speed that forced him to run through it all again and again.
"Did something happen—"
"Don't ask, please," he almost croaked. Alexander Sykes was already walking a thin line as it was, and he would not need more than a push to go over it.
"Right… Can you at least tell me who?" They shared a look and he knew. He knew that whatever he said would never leave those walls. But some things just needed time.
And space.
"No."
"Okay," Moira finished, but she was not too far off from where he was, and people changed when they were drunk, when they were under the influence. It's why, she supposed, it was called being under the influence. So when Alex willingly intoxicated himself, it was either to forget what should have never happened or to scream every thought that passed in his coil-riddled hair to the first person that would listen; but, for Moira, the alcohol made her blood boil. It coursed through her veins, pumping adrenaline straight into her heart. She could feel her muscles tightening under the fabric covering her, her shoulders pushing back as she placed a finger under his chin to lift it up.
"Fuck whoever that is, then. Fuck all of them. Fuck every last single one of them. Fuck this place. Fuck Hogwarts." He couldn't help but smile at her vitality. "Fuck the war. Fuck the Order. Fuck Dumbledore, Fletcher. Fuck England. We're going to get out… It's just a couple more months— that's it. Then— out. It's over. All of it— done, for good. Then we can be whoever we want, however we want, whenever we want."
"Yeah," he said in a breath, pulling out a cigarette from his breast pocket. He lit it with a snap of his fingers— a trick the witch had yet to pick up. Alex had told her that it was like whistling, but it was nothing of the sort. No, she could whistle, she could sing songs, she could control the pitch, the tone— but she could not grasp the wandless and speechless quirks and tricks that Alexander Sykes so easily moved through. She took the moment to admire it and the smoke that stemmed from the end of the cigarette as it filled the air, shrouding them in the enclosed, draft-less space. But he raised his hand to cut through the veil, watching it destroy the divide that it had wanted to envelope them.
"We'll move far away. We'll find something better than this, we'll live together. In a house, apartment, castle— a huge one with so many windows, high high up," Moira continued, reaching out to take the cigarette from him, bringing it to her lips as he had taught her to do not too long ago. "We'll adopt cats or birds or whatever… We'll drink wine and eat figs or cheese or whatever we want."
"But first we need to get out of here," Alex repeated, closing his eyes and holding his temple with his fingers. They sat in silence as Moira's enthusiastic prose dwindled into the darkness. "Do we actually have to do this?"
"No."
"But what if they are here?"
"We're getting out," Moira repeated firmly.
"No," Alex shook his head. "No, we're not— not if they're actually here, not if they're sleeping in the same bloody room as me, as us. Not if they find out whose side we're on. Or at least, whose side we're pretending to be on."
"Well, we won't lose sleep over it. Okay?" She looked him straight in the eyes. "We'll do what we can and what we have to in order to protect ourselves—but we're going to get out of this. I'll find a way, Sykes, I swear. I don't know how to lose."
26 October 1977
"Wake up, WAKE UP!" bellowed Sirius as he swung open the door, peeking into the room when no response came. His toothy grin dropped into a dramatic pout when he realized his so well thought out plan had been for nothing. He walked over to Remus' bed and snatched open the curtains only to be met with a tilted Remus, completely knocked out, snoring lightly, with his Transfiguration book on his lap and scone crumbs on his chest.
"Is he alive?" James asked as he followed Sirius into the room, throwing his stuff onto the bed and looking over at his friend.
"He woke up to eat but I reckon the Transfiguration reading put him back to sleep," Sirius responded, eyeing Remus the entire time.
"Yeah, can't blame him— did that to me, too," James snorted as he kicked off his shoes, sitting down on his bed, and taking off his glasses to pinch the corners of his eyes.
"Should I poke him?" Sirius turned to face a nearly blind James with a mischievous glimmer, but James didn't need to see to know it was there— the mischief had been thick on his tongue.
"No, don't poke him, Padfoot. Bloody hell."
"I'm going to poke him." Sirius turned back around and took out his wand from his pocket, sticking it into Remus' legs. The sleeping wizard grumbled and flipped on his side, back now towards Sirius, curling his body and pulling his legs into his chest. The book slid off his hip and landed with a thud on the wooden floor.
"He's not waking up."
"Padfoot, I don't bloody care if he isn't waking up." Sirius raised his eyebrows, nearly rolling his eyes and leaning against Remus' bedpost as he stared down at James.
"I know you're upset because Evans thinks you have a stupendously enormous arsehole, and despite your efforts to persuade her otherwise, I also understand that you weren't successful to convince her otherwise. That is why, as your best mate, I will ignore whatever this passive aggression is."
"You really need to stop bursting out of places, Prongs," interrupted Peter, heaving as he grabbed the edge of their doorframe. The other two turned to look at him.
"Where've you bloody been?"
"I didn't burst out of anywhere," scowled James over Sirius' inquiry.
"But you did," Peter said.
"I did not."
"No, I'm quite certain you did."
"I do not burst," James reiterated, looking towards where Peter's blurry figure stood.
"Jolted?" Peter offered, forcing Sirius to bite down on his bottom lip to hold back a laugh.
"Oh, sod off," James muttered, looking back down to the ground.
"Can you three shut the fuck up?" All three turned to where the voice had come from, but Remus had pulled a blanket over his head to shield himself from the racket that had intruded his slumber.
"We brought you dinner, ungrateful twat," Sirius told him. As if on cue, Peter approached his friend's bed, carrying whatever he had managed to swipe under the table and onto a plate. Remus pulled the blankets back, peering up at Sirius with one eye.
"Oh…? What, exactly?"
"Get up, you lazy git," Sirius responded. Remus frowned but slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes to rid himself of the second or third sleep— he couldn't recall.
"Okay, I'm awake," Remus croaked. Without asking, Sirius swung his wand and the rest of the closed curtains swished fully open around Remus, letting in a bout of light that he had not expected. His head flinched backwards, squinting at the sudden brightness. "Bloody hell, was that necessary?"
"Yes, you were starting to look like a hermit."
"Do you even know what a hermit looks like?"
"No, but I reckon you'd look like one."
"Here, Moony, we brought you some bangers, toast," Peter butted in, approaching Remus' side and handing him the blanketed food.
"We or you, Peter?"
"Well, I did, the others kind of forgot—"
"We did not forget," James exclaimed.
"What? We totally did," Sirius said, snorting.
"No, we were distracted— that's different."
"Thank you, nonetheless, Peter." Remus took the plate from his friend's small hand. "And does this distraction have anything to do with why you lot aren't downstairs?" He asked as he put the napkin aside and lifted a minced pie to his mouth.
"What? It's not enough that we just wanted to see you?" Sirius pretended to be offended, lifting a hand over his heart as if Remus had dealt him the greatest dishonor. Remus snorted. "Right, well, Prongs got into a fight with the most luxurious red mop you've ever seen."
"First," James corrected, his face pinching. "It was not a fight. It was a—"
"—Lover's quarrel—"
"Disagreement, at most. And second, she is not luxurious." James paused, licking his lips as all three pairs of eyes were on him. "Nor is she a mop."
"Why?" Remus asked through a mouthful of beef and onion.
"Yes— James, why?" Sirius continued, gesturing to James to answer Remus' question. James huffed, kicking his feet up and falling back into his pillows. He would do anything but relive what had happened just a few minutes prior.
"Why can't you tell him?"
"I don't know if you want me to do that," Sirius responded with a smirk. "But I can, if you're certain that's what you want." James sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He was right, if he left it to Sirius, he would only recount the insults that they had slung back and forth at each other down the table. His face went wry at the thought.
"I don't even know where to begin, I don't even remember what happened," he exasperated. "I told her that I think it'd be best if we moved the Slytherin prefects out from the dungeons to a different section of the castle, and then she…" he paused and looked up at his friends, "exploded."
"No, that's cheating," Sirius said.
"She exploded? That's it?" Remus asked as he satisfied an itch on his neck, the corners of his lips threatening to pull up as he and Sirius shared a look.
"Yeah."
"Grand." Everyone except James burst out into a chuckle.
"What? Why are you lot laughing?" James flustered, looking back and forth between his friends.
"No, of course, if that's what happened," Remus reassured as he shook his head.
"That is what happened!"
"We believe you, mate— exploding red mops and all," Peter said while letting out another chuckle.
"Sod off, all of you," James resigned, laying down in his bed and drumming his fingers against his chest.
"Come off it, mate," Sirius told him, taking a seat on Remus' trunk.
"I am off it."
"Yeah, that's obvious," Peter jibed.
"Whatever, guess everyone wants a go at me today, eh?"
Remus looked up to Peter who had sat down on the window sill next to Remus' bed. "They had some disagreements on the prefect rounds. It wasn't really anything important, but of course they both made it into a big deal because neither one wanted to change what they had already planned," Peter explained in a quick, low whisper. "Lily told him he was always had to have it his way, always wanted the last word and what not— and then, well, yeah… You know how it goes."
"Wrong, she made it into a big deal," James firmly corrected him, having heard all of it. Peter rolled his eyes and lifted his legs into the window sill. "I have upheld my prefect duty—"
"You make the prefect schedules every fucking week, mate," Remus reminded him.
"With Evans!"
"I have seen you do it in bed the night before it's meant to be posted."
"Okay, and?" James huffed, turning his head to look at Remus.
"Well, that's not exactly giving Lily enough time to approve or look over anything, I reckon."
"I will tell you something— that girl sure has an extraordinary imagination to come up with all of those names. I was actually thinking of writing some down," Sirius interrupted, growing bored of Remus' pre-full moon jitters and James' constant need to defend his pride.
"Especially the one about James' broom," Peter added.
"Yes!" Sirius pointed at Peter. "Thank you for reminding me, Wormy, that one was gold."
"I don't want to talk about it anymore," James informed them.
"Thank fucking Merlin. I thought you and Moony were about to have a go at it, too."
"No, I would just leave," Remus said, shaking his head. "My thoughts don't reach to James' broom and where it should go." Both Sirius and Peter laughed as James let out a grand huff from his side of the room.
"Maybe you just need a good shag," Peter commented, a grin still on his face.
"Wormtail, not now," James groaned.
"I mean, when was the last time you've—"
"The sexual tension between those two is bloody mad," Sirius added.
"It is not sexual tension," James disagreed.
"Then what would you call it? Sexual angst?"
"Evans is a bitch who doesn't know how to admit she's wrong."
"Sounds an awful lot like you," Remus chimed in sternly and quickly. James lifted his head and threw him a reprimanding glance.
"I don't understand why we're having a row over this. The solution is very simple," Sirius began.
"Pray tell."
"Just shag some other bird," Sirius restated in an obvious and slightly bored tone.
"Yeah, you said it yourself on the train that you weren't interested in her anymore," Peter reminded him.
"I'm busy."
"With what?" Sirius asked
"You're having a laugh?" James responded almost immediately, sitting up in his bed. "Head Boy, Quidditch—
"Oh, shut up," Peter and Sirius said at the same time. Remus shook his head.
"What!? What?"
"Mate, look at yourself— who are you?" Sirius pointed a full hand towards him. "You remind me of my late father."
Your father isn't dead, Remus thought to himself as he swallowed the last bits of the pie.
"Who am I?" James now pointed to himself with a finger. "I'm James Potter."
"Exactly, James Potter who is in desperate need of a shag," Sirius finished for him.
"Okay, we should all have fun, who bloody cares? Not just Prongs. We're leaving in a couple of months. We should snog all the lasses we want, drink to our heart's desires, prank the Slytherins," Peter listed off.
Oh no, Remus thought to himself.
"One hundred and one percent with you," agreed Sirius. "What happened to us?"
"You've already been doing that," Remus pointed out to them. "And we've been doing that for years now."
"You're right but now I get company," Peter responded.
"I'm not shagging anyone with you in the same room, Wormtail," James warned him.
"Aw," Peter joked, pouting. "Why not?" Sirius chuckled, Remus watching his shoulders shake as the sound sputtered out into the room. "Huh, what'd you think, Moony?" All three of them looked over to Remus who sat there silently, half a sausage dangling out his mouth and a piece of toast held in his hand.
"Wha'?"
"Aren't you going to answer the call to arms?" Sirius asked, twisting to look at him.
"Uh," Remus put down his dinner, scratching his eyebrow. "Honestly, my goals for the year were… uh to, you know, to finish the year without killing someone, and to… finish the year."
"It's been six bloody years, and you haven't killed a fly."
"There was that bunny rabbit last year," Peter mentioned.
"Bunny?" Remus repeated, his face scrunching up.
"That was my fault, actually," Sirius told him.
"Wait— what bunny?" James blurted out before Remus could.
"Back to the point," Sirius announced, turning to look at Remus again.
"No, wait a second, not bloody Fitzgerald's bunny that went missing—"
"THE POINT IS," Sirius repeated, holding both his hands up as he looked between the two of them, "is that Moony hasn't hurt a fly."
"There's a first time for everything," Remus murmured. It had always only been luck— and that was something they couldn't get.
"Oh, shut up, will ya? You're the most pathetic excuse for a werewolf I've ever seen."
"And I take it that you've seen a lot, have you?" Remus raised his brows. "And could you not say it out loud."
"Why? Who else is here?" Sirius looked around the room as if someone was supposed to jump out from the wardrobe.
"I don't— you never know!"
"You're paranoid, mate."
But their banter was disrupted by an alarm that had gone off by James' bedside. Remus leaned back from the source of the sound, his eyes dropping down to the food he hadn't finished.
"Come on, we've got to go," James announced, taking the glasses from his nightstand and slipping them on. He sat up, tossing his legs over the edge of his bed and stretching his hands upward.
"How long does the full moon last tonight?" Peter asked as he jumped up from the window, walking over to his own bed to stuff a spare cloak into his bag.
"A little more than five hours," James replied. Remus didn't move, an ache in the back of his throat as he prepared himself for the onslaught that would soon come to pass.
"Eat faster, Moony. Dinner ends in a quarter of an hour," Sirius warned him. Remus dragged his palm down his leg.
"I don't have to finish everything."
"Mate, you know you're calmer when you've eaten," James reminded him. Remus sighed and began to swallow larger bites. Despite the roll in his stomach, and the sudden sourness in his mouth, he knew James was right.
"Wormtail and I are going to head down," Sirius said, pulling a second sweater over his shoulders as he placed his wand into his bed-side drawer.
"I'll meet you by the Whomp," James told them.
Sirius and Peter snuck out from the dark room. They would transform themselves right in the hallway; a black dog and a rat were less likely to be noticed, but James would have to wait until he was out on the grounds to transform.
"All right, here we go," Remus resigned, swinging his legs out of the blankets, the cold icing him from head to toe. All he wanted was to stay in bed, how he wished he could just stay in fucking bed. But instead, he walked over to his trunk and grabbed the two warmest sweaters he owned.
He would give anything, do anything to not have to go. So many times he wished he could just skip out on a full moon, stay and curl up in his bed and not have to worry about the frigidness, or the wind, or the possibility of murdering somebody. Alas, that was not his life. His life was about numbing fingertips and toes, about migraines that spread from the tip of his spine to the top of his head, and the constant anxiety that came with the package. His life was about knowing that he would inevitably suffer but still wake up the next morning to live another day.
What a life, he gibed internally.
"Why don't you wear your trainers?" James inquired, scrunching his eyebrows together as he watched Remus fit himself into his maple colored leather loafers.
"Does it matter?"
"It rained this morning, there may be mud."
"I'd end up cleaning them the same," he said, shrugging his shoulders and pulling the scarf from around the bedpost to wrap around his neck.
"I suppose, yeah, we are wizards." James gave one last look at Remus. "Ready?" He lifted himself up from the edge of his bed as Remus nodded and shook on his wool cloak. "Come on," he told him. Remus made his way over to James, who had the invisibility cloak ready. Once under it, he turned to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror, but he saw nothing.
28 October 1977
"Transfiguration is really about picturing the result in your mind, especially that transition— how the object originated to how you want it to be. It needs to be quick, though, so you have to be ready before you actually enact it or else it won't work."
Her eyes rose up from behind her eyelashes, skimming over the length of the infamous apple that had become a permanent member of their secret excursions. Eve had her hand firmly wrapped around her wand, almost too firm, as if it were going to fly away from her. A familiar faint buzzing sound that had driven her all-too-many times to insanity surrounded her but, this time, it was actually her own heart at fault.
She took a deep breath, hooking it into her lungs, fingers clutching the wand in her hand. Her eyes shut, scrunched tight together— tight enough that she could surpass the darkness and move straight into the light. Eve was sweating, cold on the back of her neck, and heat in her palms. The hand holding her wand dug into the underside of the wood, the other rubbing down the length of her thigh. A desperate need for a shower, a sudden urge to scrub away her skin and leave herself pink and raw.
How was she supposed to picture anything in her mind— when her mind wasn't even her own? She could barely focus on her own voice, she could barely make out Remus Lupin's instructions, much less picture a whole sequence in her mind. All she could think about was the thoughts racing in her own head— and this time her actual thoughts, this time the thought that she was about to positively fall flat onto the floor and split her head open.
She had told herself no more dawdle draught— she had, she really had. But the whispers, messages, voices every single second of the day— her fingers had all too easily itched for the homemade vials sitting in her nightstand. But she had found a loop hole or, rather, she had been given one. The little gray-blue rock that she would chip away at. The little gray-blue rock that she would let sit under her tongue and melt away— it turned out it, too, would melt away the voices just like the dawdle draught did, but it made her feel as if she were seconds away from dying. It made her feel as if she battled for every last breath. It made her stomach ache and her heart race.
The loophole was this: both numbed her— the dawdle draught put her to ease, and the ice chip would wake her up to the point where she had surpassed reality, yet again, into something surreal and hyper saturated. It was two sides of the same coin. But now it had become a matter of flipping the coin and seeing what it would be.
This was the fourth time they were meeting. It would be the fourth time that she showed up as less than herself. She looked back down to her hand— purple fingers and veiny like her house elf's legs. It disgusted her. Never in her life had she felt so repulsed: heat in her cheeks, burning her up from the inside out until she turned into nothing more than a heap of ash. She straightened her back, pulling herself up and, as she did, she could feel the perspiration accumulated underneath her breasts and arms.
A shower, a bloody shower.
All she could think about was how much in need of a fucking shower she was, not whatever the fuck it was that Remus John Lupin wanted that apple to be.
"Kavanagh," Remus said from her side. "Just say the words."
"I can't," she would admit for what seemed like the hundredth time.
"Why not?"
"I can't," Eve repeated, crossing the hand that held her wand over her stomach. As Remus watched her, he could see the fright in her eyes. He could make out the dark circles underneath them, the unwashed hair, the overall sagging of her facial features. As if she had come back from fighting a war that she had lost.
She had— he didn't know that, though.
"What's wrong this time?"
What a question, she thought. She wanted to cry, honestly. She wanted to thrash her hands around, kick the tables, kick the walls. She wanted to break down to the most animalistic part of herself, let her inner child out to have a go at him, at herself, at the chairs— at the windows, too. She wanted to take her nails and run them down her face over and over again.
"You can't help me. It's hopeless. How can you not see that?"
"I can't help you because you won't tell me what's wrong," he pointed out. "In the past, you've said you can't focus, why can't you focus?"
"Why does it matter? Why do you care?" The same words from their first session, the same words that she spat out every time she wasn't able to do something. It was one of her favorite questions— he had managed to learn that about her, at least.
"We've been over this," he reminded her. "The answer is still the same, your options are still the same. Either you're going to let me help you or we're going to have the same problem every week."
"You wouldn't—"
"Understand?" He finished for her, throwing himself back into his seat and dragging a hand through his hair. It was two days after the full moon, and though he had regained most of his strength, he could still feel the fatigue in his muscles. And maybe, if it wasn't for the full moon, maybe he wouldn't have been biting down so hard on the witch. Maybe he would simply have let it go as he had every time before— but she was pushing an envelope and it hadn't stopped. It hadn't stopped the second time, the third time, and it wasn't stopping now. Nearly a month of sessions and he felt like they were going in circles. "Try me. Maybe, yeah, maybe you're right. I won't have a clue what to do— but give me a bloody chance, yeah?"
She felt bad for him— this time, in her state of hyperawareness, she did. She could hear the strain in his voice, she could see that she was giving him little room to breathe— that she was taking up all the space. Eve turned to look at him from the corner of her eye. She held her breath as if it would invade in her observation— as if it would stop her from being able to see. He, too, had bags under his eyes, his face a bit paler than usual, and the impatience of her inabilities beginning to drive him to a similar edge that she was already sitting on.
Despite the acknowledgment, the truth reigned over her head: she could not tell anyone— she could not tell him anything, and any lie she could conjure would be met with a solution based on a false confession. A waste of time.
Her thoughts were interrupted as she felt her hands tingling, her heart pounding too hard for her to be able to sit still without burning the whole room down.
Eve hastily picked up her bag from where it hung on the chair.
"Wait, are you leaving?" Remus asked, taken aback— watching her as she stood up. But she refused to meet his gaze. "Kavanagh, what the fuck?" He scrambled to his own feet, grabbing his bag from the floor and rushing after her as she ran out of the classroom.
"Leave me alone," she told him as he came to her side— they were sprinting down the corridor. Remus' heart beating fast at the sudden, unexpected outburst. He tried to search the image in front of him for answers— but found nothing, too focused on keeping up. "Please. Just go!"
"Kavanagh, Kavanagh!" He grabbed her by the shoulder but she flinched, twisting around, taking two steps back to put distance between them. Her eyes were plastered to the ground, his on her face. "Kavanagh— what the fuck's going on?"
They stood there— and he could see that she was nearly gasping for air. She was suffocating, and even though she had been first to run, it wasn't enough to merit that sort of reaction. Her face had paled, her fingers clenched into fists.
Unfortunately, Remus couldn't say it was an unfamiliar sight.
"Kavanagh," he began, trying to keep his words steady. "Kavanagh, listen." But she wasn't listening, the air exhaling from her lungs, the pulse that beat in her ears too loud for her to hear him. "Eve?" This time, she looked up, and there was nothing on her face that told him he had made a mistake. No, there was something else painted on her face— and it didn't look good. "Okay," he put his two palms together and brought them to his face as he dove into his own thoughts. "Breathe, yeah? It's okay, it's going to be okay."
Was it, though? She wanted to ask him— how could he know that it was going to be okay? How could he possibly know when he didn't know anything?
"I want you to leave," she said, pulling her eyes from his. He pursed his lips. "I want to be alone. I really need to be alone."
"Why?" Remus had to give this one to Sirius— she was definitely not making this easy for him. "Why don't you just say what's going on? Do you realize how much—"
"I can't, I can't, I can't," she said three times what she had been saying for nearly a month— but this time it hit him that she really couldn't. It wasn't that she didn't want to tell him, it was that she truly couldn't tell him.
He lifted his chin as it dawned on him. Eve spun around so that he could no longer see her face, looking up to the portraits that stared down at her and then up to the ceiling. Her eyes had gone hot with the tears that would have run down her cheeks if the crystal Alex had given her hadn't numbed her to an icicle. She closed them and bit down hard on her gums, hard enough that the taste of metal flooded her senses, hard enough so that she wouldn't crumble into someone and something she could never come back from.
"Hey." Remus stepped forward, his hand reaching out for her shoulder but he stopped himself, dropping his hand back to the side, watching her back rise and fall with every breath she took. "You know what? Let's get outside, yeah? Some fresh air, a walk would do us both good, I reckon." Remus waited for a second but she didn't turn to him. "Come on, Kavanagh." He moved past her with small steps so that he was now standing in front of her. She watched him, looking up at him through the strands of hair that had fallen over her face during the haste. Her eyes were wide-open, a small scrunch jagged into her forehead. "Come, let's go." He took a few steps back but kept his eyes on her. She clasped her hand around the strap of her bag, hesitating. "I promise no one'll see us— no one'll know."
Eve began to walk towards him, not because she wanted to but because she didn't know what to do but she had to do something— and he was guiding her through the mess she had made. Her steps were slow now, and Remus waited for her to come to his side before matching her pace. They walked in silence, and it would remain that way as they made their way out of the castle and onto the grounds.
Remus' eyes flittered around, darting from the Whomping Willow to the foggy greenhouses, all the way down to the trees lining the edge of the forest. Eve had stopped walking, though, pausing as her eyes flickered over the herb patches they were walking through.
The truth was, the moment they had moved away from the castle's enclosure, the cool air managed to subside at least some of the crystal's effects. The lack of flickering candlelight, the wide horizon in the distance, gave her some sort of control.
"Where're we going?"
"Does it matter?"
It didn't, not really, so they faced the Forbidden Forest together, approaching its border.
"Come, this way," he told her, walking along the edges of the forest without entering, heading towards the lake. She followed him, the fallen branches crackling under their feet was the only sound telling him that she was still there. They came to a halt as they left the forest behind them and were met with the murky water. Remus took a seat on a fallen log that overlooked it, pretending not to be observing the witch taking the place next to him. She sat with her knees to her chest, her cloak covering her entire body as she huddled into it. They could smell the Scottish winter, the grey overcast reflected on the lake's surface. Eve remained quiet and all he could hear was the deep breaths flowing in and out of her.
"Sirius likes to come here when he's overwhelmed," Remus explained as she observed a small clump of moss sitting contently on the rock in front of them. Winter moss, she noted, watching the little sprouts dancing back and forth.
"And you think Black and I have much in common?"
"Well, don't you?"
"No." Remus realized that she didn't actually know Sirius in the same way that Sirius didn't know her. If only they did—much of what he had seen with Eve was similar to his own experiences with Sirius. Sure, Sirius was louder, more outspoken— but he would shut down when things got too close to home, when a soft spot had been touched. He would rip and run the moment the conversation turned to him, the moment his darkest parts had the spotlight. He had never once talked about what bothered him— but instead would force the others to piece it together through his often off-putting and random jibes and comments throughout the years.
But maybe she had a point because with her— he didn't even have that.
"But you come from similar places, I suppose."
"No, we don't," she responded tightly.
"Because he's a blood traitor?" It could have almost been a joke except he was picking and prodding where and when he could. Maybe it was wrong of him. But he couldn't help it, he had her there— didn't he? He had her sitting next to him on that abandoned wooden log with no one around, and she was talking or, at least, responding. It was now or never, he supposed. Whatever little he could get out of it, he would.
"Is he really, though?" A response that wasn't much a response at all. Eve leaned her cheek on the tops of her bent knees so that she was looking up at the Gryffindor. Remus's eyes slightly thinned while the corner of his lip lifted in the faintest of ways.
"What'd'you mean?"
"I don't want to talk about Black."
"Okay, fair enough," he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"And I'm Irish," she added.
"Yes."
"That's hardly the same place."
Remus' head tilted slightly as he looked out to the water. His thoughts were frozen, picking apart her last words. He couldn't help but be almost perplexed by it— had comparing her to Sirius because he was English offend her more than the fact that he was an outcast of the pureblood community? And what did she mean— did she not consider Sirius to be a blood traitor when everyone else around her had permanently labelled him as such?
The questions would pass with time, but the seed had been planted, and it would grow slow but it would grow larger than he could ever know in that moment.
"So, is there anything you would like to talk about?" Her eyes opened back up, both of them looking to one another.
"You look tired."
"So do you," he responded— this time, she smiled. She smiled, and it may have been the first time he had ever seen her smile. It wasn't a real smile— it didn't reach the corner of her eyes or lift her entire face or change the atmosphere between them, but it had been there. Even for the briefest of moments. He returned it.
"Trouble sleeping, is it?"
"I need to leave," Eve whispered, almost as if speaking to herself.
"You want to go back?" Remus glanced quickly at the castle. "You wanna go back in—"
"I need to leave this place." Hogwarts, he finished for himself.
"How come?"
"Over there," Eve lifted her head and pointed past him towards the base of a willow tree. A part of the wood had split from the tree, falling towards the pine needle and leaf-ridden forest ground. "That branch squashed the baneberries I had to get for Potions."
"What?"
She grimaced ever so slightly as she looked at the dismal scene. But Remus couldn't help it as he broke out into a small chuckle, rubbing his hand over his face. Eve, too, eventually joined with a lighter laugh, one that didn't quite fill the empty void sitting behind them. He looked down at her: the woolen cloak thrown over shoulders burdening her small bones. She looked foreign to him, like she didn't belong there: in their school, that far north in the middle of nowhere Scotland. Matter of fact, she never looked like she fit in anywhere. It was the same as weeks ago— he still could not place her.
Scotland.
That's when he realized what had been nagging at him for the last couple of minutes.
"You really are Irish, aren't you?" His laughter died down, watching the side of her face.
"What?" Eve turned to meet his stare.
"You just said it— proclaimed it, even. Do you hear yourself? I don't think— I mean, bloody hell, that's an accent if I've ever heard one."
"You have an accent, too," she pointed out.
"Yeah, fair enough— but I have the same one all the time," he returned. "Why don't you?" And it was true— what the fuck, Eve Kavanagh? The moment she got away from the castle, she was serving a full Irish breakfast? Remus racked his brain for an answer but failed to find one that contained anything logical.
"Because," she shrugged, looking out to the lake. "I don't know— everyone else spoke King's English."
"Yeah, but you're Irish. Everyone knows you're Irish. You just reminded me that you're Irish— you're clearly proud of it." He managed to lift another weak laugh from her, but he wouldn't know that the laugh had been bittersweet.
Proud, it rang in her head. Maybe once, she had been. But the curse of her homeland had passed to her— it had passed to her precisely because of where and who she came from.
She raised her head again to place her chin on her knee tops.
"It's a bit odd that you don't sound Irish."
"I don't know," she responded, shrugging again. "Evan didn't like it."
"Rosier?" Eve didn't respond. "He didn't like your accent?" A shadow began to cover her eyes, as if a light had been switched off— it had become, what he had thought, a trait of hers. But, in those few moments he had been granted, he realized it was not a trait at all but a response. "We don't have to—"
"Eve say this; Eve— no, that's wrong. Eve like this, Eve like that," she whispered. "I listened. I did what he said." Their eyes met. "What was I supposed to do?"
"Yeah, but," Remus paused, taking it in. He couldn't help but pull his gaze from hers and to the lake. "What do you mean? He forced you?"
"It was a game."
"That's completely fucked, yeah?" Eve continued to watch him. "You do understand how fucked that is? No normal person— what's the fucking point of that? What's his problem with— and who— why would he care? How, you're…" Remus lifted a hand to scratch his temple, his face scrunching up. "You're Irish— what did he fucking expect?"
"Evan isn't normal," she responded. "Evan is… Evan wants what Evan wants."
"What does he want, exactly?"
"Control."
"But… that's completely fucked, I'm sorry for," Remus paused, nearly shaking his head. "Sorry if I keep saying the same thing— but that's fucked. That's got to be one of the most… I'm sorry, Kavanagh, that's one of the most fucked up things I've ever heard. I mean, that's a really shit friend, no offense."
"We're not friends."
"You're not?"
"No, we haven't been friends for a long time."
"Well." Remus let out a deep breath. "I reckon… I doubt he was ever really a friend… you know, just based off of what you said. No offense, again."
"No, you're right," she assured him. And he could taste the beginnings of another silence approach, and while he had grown accustomed to it, he had gotten the ball rolling and he didn't want it to stop. He didn't want them to fall back to where they had been. He wanted her to keep talking— even if it was sporadic, even if it was random, even if it was dark. He didn't mind— he would take what little he could get.
"So, you two really aren't friends at all, then."
Something that not even Sirius had caught on to. Something they had all be convinced of. Something he had realized that they had so easily brushed over, made fun of. None of it had been true. And yet, despite the heaviness of the conversation, she didn't seem to mind talking about it— as if she had already closed the chapter, as if this was okay. "Why do you still talk— why not talk how you want, then?"
"By the time Evan stopped speaking to me, I had been at Hogwarts for what… three years? I spoke to people one way, it'd be odd if all of a sudden I spoke differently."
"Well, sure, I suppose, but I doubt anyone would think anything of it— besides, I mean…" His nose wrinkled as he tried to find the words. "With your other friends, what do you do?"
"I don't have friends." The answer came so plain that it sounded more like a legislative statement than it did anything else.
"I'm sure that's not— What about Flint?"
"She's nice, but," Eve finished with a small shrug.
"Well, don't you want friends?"
"No."
"What? Who doesn't want friends?" He lifted his brows and tilted his head to look at her. "Come on, why don't you want friends? Seriously, now."
"I don't need them."
And he supposed that's where the line was— that's what made her different from them, what made her different from Sirius, from himself. They — Eve and people like her — didn't mind the loneliness. The isolation. They could thrive in it, even. They could get up every morning and make it through the day without talking to a single person. Many would see it as a weakness, wouldn't they? The inability to get close to someone else because of suspicion, because of ego, because of perceived weakness. But as Remus sat there, he knew that it was something deep down inside he wished he could abide to. Sometimes, he secretly wished he could've been that person— he wished he could've kept quiet, he wished he could've been like Eve Kavanagh, Edmund Nott, Evan Rosier. They were, in essence, loners. They were trained to know how to socialize— but they didn't really know one another. Their secrets were theirs and no one else's— and Remus, sometimes, wished he could say the same for himself. They spoke only what they wanted to speak. They showed only what they would allow others to see. Those admissions would remain in the darkest of his vaults, they were so deep that he would continue to write them off as flaws and faults. "I'm sure that's not true. I'm sure someone thinks you're their friend, at least."
"No, I'm impossible." Remus bit back a laugh with little effort.
"Well, cheers, at least you're aware of it."
"Yeah," she said softly. "Thanks."
"For?"
"Trying to help."
"Because you're impossible?" Remus added. "You're not— I'm sure we'll figure something out."
Neither Eve nor Remus were sure if either one of them believed his words, but neither had the strength to fight them. Not then.
"It's getting dark," Eve noted, watching as the lights flickered on in the castle, appearing and reflecting against the lake. Remus looked up to the same sight.
"Yeah, would you want to go, then?"
"We have to, won't we?" A pregnant silence passed between them before Remus made a slight move forward. Though he would have stayed, why he did not know, he knew his friends would be itching for the map the second he failed to show up within the first ten minutes of dinner.
"Right, ready when you are, then" he said, and Eve stood up, brushing a hand over the back of her cloak to rub off any remnants of the wooden log. Remus followed, doing much the same before they began their walk back to the castle, the exact way they came.
Again, they walked in silence but, this time, with Remus behind her, able to watch as she continued to peer every so often into the forest. She was scared of it, he could figure that bit out, at least.
He reached into his pocket to pull out what James had made him realize was a bad habit. But how could he be fucked about some dried leaves when it was surely the furthest of his worst qualities?
Eve eyed him this time as the path widened and they could walk next to one another. The crystal lingered but her thoughts had slowed down though she could still feel its effects as her heart pumped irregularly to their footsteps. But, at least, she could register the act and the smell. The chaos from before had lent itself to curiosity and so she inhaled, watching the small glow at the end brightening with every inhale he took.
"What is that?" He turned to look at her.
"A cigarette, tobacco."
"What does it do?"
"Not entirely sure… It's something to do, I guess."
He had started in the summer after his fifth year— he had started when Lily had pulled him out of the house, out of his bed, and had brought him to Brighton. They had met a group of kids there— muggle kids, on the beach one night when they had gone for a stroll. They were drinking, smoking all sorts of things, and Lily had taken to talking to one girl with stringy, blonde hair that was painted blue, purple, and pink. Remus remembered because he thought she looked like the cotton candy from the fair they had just been at. He remembered she had grabbed the cigarette out of her friend's hand, brought it to her bright pink painted lips, and giggled as she watched Remus looking at her. It wasn't that Remus hadn't known what they were— his mother smoked, but there was something about the ease of which she moved through the movements that made him look. She had held it out to him, the brown end now stained with her lipstick, and told him: here. Remus had— at first, it had burned his throat, but then he had liked the slight spin it had given him. A five second reprieve from reality. The high would eventually stop happening, but the habit had stuck ever since, and not for anything else except the ease of which he moved through the movements. And, at that moment, he caught Eve watching him the same way he had watched that girl with stringy blonde hair on the beach at Brighton.
"You can try it, if you want," he offered, when she didn't necessarily object— he held it out to her the same way the girl with stringy blonde hair on the beach at Brighton had. "Here."
She took it out of his fingers and held it the same way she had seen him hold it between his fingers. Her head tilted forward as she observed it, and then cautiously brought it to her lips and inhaled the same way she had seen him do it. She coughed, her steps coming to a halt as she sputtered the smoke attacking her throat. Her eyes watered and she handed it back to the laughing wizard. "Easy, you don't need to breathe that hard," he told her, taking the cigarette out of her hand. She nodded, coughing what was left into her arm.
"Merlin," she said, her voice strained as she came back to. They fell back into easy steps as they began to turn and distance themselves from the forest. "You enjoy that?"
"Yes, quite a bit," he admitted.
"And how often do you…?"
"Several times a day, whenever I get a chance," he responded, something like a satirical lament tainting his words.
"Okay, sure," she said, her eyes widening— feeling as if she had just taken a hit from something that looked completely harmless. Remus pressed his lips together as he held back more laughter, their whole afternoon being one for the history books. He had to admit, for someone who barely spoke, who barely said much of anything at all— he was thoroughly entertained.
Remus finished his cigarette, passing by Hagrid's Hut, smiling at the little light that flickered through the window and the smoke that rose from the minute chimney. They hiked up towards the castle, and in the distance, they could hear the voices of the students scurrying towards their last meal of the day.
He saw her pause as they got to the entrance, watching it carefully. At first, Remus had assumed it was because it would be best for them to part ways— to avoid whatever rumors may spread, but then he realized she wasn't exactly looking at him— she was looking at the school. She was watching the stone, she was looking at the steps leading up into the corridor.
"You don't want to go back in," he noted, looking down at the top of her head and then back to the castle.
"No."
"Why not? What's so bad about it?"
"There's nothing for me here, Lupin."
"Remus," he corrected her without thinking. "I mean, you can call me Remus, if you want."
"Remus," she said easily.
"You have nothing… Have you tried to have something?"
"No," she answered honestly.
"Eve, listen," Remus began, stopping her as she put one foot forward. She paused, turning around to look at him. "I can be your friend, you know? We can be friends, or something— I don't know, something like it, I suppose."
He could see something visibly shift inside her. This wasn't the same Eve that had sat next to him on the log, this wasn't the same Eve that had run out on him, who was about to fall to the ground in the hallway. Her posture was stiff, straight, she had pulled back her shoulders, her neck sat high on her shoulders, and her chin was up. This was the Eve he had imagined all those years, the one who had sat on the stool as if it was her calling, as if it was her throne— and, then, he realized it was a farce. It was all fake. It had always been, hadn't it? She could put on a mask, any mask, at any point and pretend to be someone she wasn't. She would speak in a different accent, she would dress in clothes that didn't quite fit, and she would act as if nothing else existed. And he supposed that's what Sirius had meant when he said that she was just like them, if not worse— except Sirius hadn't realized the full extent of his words when he had said it, he didn't actually know what the fuck he was referring to or to what.
The reason why Eve Kavanagh was worse than the others was because she was playing their game willingly— but that wasn't her. She was playing their game and she was winning. The rest couldn't play as well as her— he knew that now, he had seen it, heard it even. Evan Rosier, Edmund Nott, Melisende Gamp— they all thought this was real life, they were thoroughly convinced, so they weren't playing at anything. This wasn't a game for them, but it was still a competition. Moira Palancher, Alexander Sykes— they knew it was a game and they tried to play, but they were too transparent, it was too obvious that they couldn't and wouldn't win. Whether it was because they were deficient or different, they would not win, and so they were excluded, left on the outskirts trying to get in. Eve was good, she had been so good that they had all been convinced for years that she was in the same camp as the former group. And Remus couldn't know for sure why, but no matter what, whatever reasons she had for playing, they couldn't be good.
"I don't want friends," she stated. She stepped up the stairs and he stayed on the grass, watching her back. Eve turned one more time to look at him. "But thank you."