12) Albus's Request

Selected Listening: How to disappear- Lana Del Rey

Authors Note: Hello, readers! My school term is starting again, so I will probably not be updating as frequently as I did over the summer. I will still try to maintain a biweekly chapter schedule, though. Thanks for reading, and remember to follow and favorite!

"I'm not falling in love with him, and I never will!" Anastasia whisper-shouted at Hermione as they walked back to the common room.

"I'm sure there's a book in the library about it—"

"I don't care if there's a book, Hermione. I won't read it! It's my life, and I can do what I want," Anastasia said as they ascended the staircase.

Hermione finally gave up.

"What are we going to do about Professor Lupin?" she asked.

They agreed to do nothing, to say nothing to anyone. It was obvious that Professor Snape was trying to have Lupin fired, maybe simply out of spite for having to sub for him on his sick days. The boys hadn't seemed to notice, and Anastasia convinced Hermione it was best to keep them in the dark on this one. Especially, Ron with his loudmouth. If he hadn't been okay with Anastasia's now nonexistent obscurus, he certainly wouldn't be okay with an active werewolf on campus.

That night, Anastasia went to the headmaster's suite for dinner. She found her father staring listlessly out the window over the dementor-ornamented grounds.

"Grandad," she began. "is it true that—"

"Is it true, what?"

"Is it true that everyone with a lifeline spell falls in love with the person they're tied to?"

Albus looked at his daughter solemnly.

"Are you worried about it?" he asked.

"That wasn't a no…" she observed.

"Really…it's up to you, my dear. Don't let magic decide for you. Scholars have been obsessed with lifelines for decades because of that tendency…they don't understand how dangerous they are…" he continued staring at the dementors outside. She stared with him. They moved eerily, floating like jellyfish beside the forest.

"Why weren't you with your house last night?" Albus asked quite despairingly. "And don't blame the sweets this time, Minerva saw you return in a huff."

"I um…" she didn't want to offload all her personal problems onto him.

"If Sirius Black had decided to, he could have held you hostage. He could have used you against me to get to Harry."

Anastasia hadn't thought of this.

"It's this kind of thing they will use against me in the trial," he said straightforwardly, "every time you've ever been in the slightest amount of danger…"

"How will the Cambridges even know what happened?" Anastasia asked.

Albus simply pushed a newspaper towards her. Special Edition.

SIRIUS BLACK BREAKS PAST SCHOOL WALLS; DUMBLEDORE'S BRUSH WITH DEATH

"How? How did they know this?" Anastasia asked, shaking the paper. "It's my own damn business if I go to my room on a weekend."

"They must have a contact inside the school," Albus replied. "Someone who doesn't want me to have custody of you…and watch your mouth please, we use our manners in this family."

"Right…" Anastasia said, "because when I'm worried about strangers ripping me away from you, I should be concerned about manners!"

"Always concern yourself with manners, dear. You never know when it will pay off," he replied, nonplussed.

"You know what I should be concerned with? Why I had an obscurus in the first place! They only arise in situations of abuse, why is that, grandad?"

Albus looked up at her sadly.

"We sealed away the memories for a purpose."

"Then let me see them!" she asked. "I have the right to know."

Albus rose and placed his hands on her shoulders.

"And what happens if you cannot handle what you see? Do you think I want you to go through that a third time?"

"No…" Anastasia drifted off. Albus stepped back.

"I've asked a friend…a historian…to come and interview you…to set things right."

"No," Anastasia said resolutely, "no more interviews. It's not going to help. They'll twist my words around again—"

"Bathilda is a good, old friend of mine. Nothing like Rita Skeeter. It will be fine."

"How will I set things right if I can't even remember what happened?"

Albus stared at her without an answer.

"Let's eat…"

They ate in relative silence. At one point, Albus asked her how the teachers were treating her. She told him at the beginning of the year about Snape and Flitwick's behavior towards her, and he reported to have talked to them about it. Instead of calling her by her alibi or her real name, Snape was now choosing to ignore her entirely. Flitwick had ceased keeping her from performing incantations, but now ducked under the table or jumped whenever she cast a spell. At least he was now grading her on her actual work.

"They're fine," she said, not wanting to make more trouble.

Over the next few days, Anastasia did her best not to talk to anyone. Pansy had spread vicious rumors about what she said to Slytherins in Hogsmead, and the other students had a mix of beliefs about whether Anastasia said it or not. When people asked, she either answered that it had been a sarcastic statement or that they shouldn't believe everything they hear, and for the most part they were satisfied. She was particularly enjoying how whenever Pansy asked Draco to back her story he would grumble and walk away.

It wasn't until Charity Burbage pulled her aside one afternoon that she had to consider it any further.

"Anastasia, I've been meaning to catch you," she said with a gentle smile. Her blonde, ruffled hair fell around her face softly over her dusky plaid robes. Her pale green eyes sparkled welcomingly, "could you spare a minute?"

Anastasia nodded, smiling back, a knot forming in her stomach.

Charity led her into the empty classroom. It was her off period. The muggle studies room was filled with odds and ends, bike tires and yarn and radios and cameras, stacks of records, CDS, cassettes and an old-fashioned record player.

"I've heard from the students a bit about what's been going on with you—"

"Charity, I didn't mean it, I swear!" Anastasia immediately started rambling about what happened that day, only stopping when Charity let out a low hushing sound.

"I know you well enough to understand you must not have meant it. It's okay. I believe you," she said, one hand on the girl's shoulder. Charity always tended to smell comfortingly like honeycomb and cider.

"Then why did you?" Anastasia asked, pointing to the door.

"I'm sponsoring a new student organization this year, for muggleborn students. It's an advocacy group, and we're working on something that I think you could help us with," Charity smiled.

"Like what?" Anastasia asked hesitantly.

"I've encouraged the club president to reach out to you about it. I'd prefer it if the students take their own action in deciding what's best for the group…of course, if you don't think you could act as our ally, I'll warn them that it isn't a good idea—"

"Of course!" she replied with a grin. "Of course, I'll help. It's really no problem."

"Wonderful!" Charity beamed at her, "I thought you might feel that way."

She nodded and walked back to the door.

"Oh, and Anastasia—"

"Yes?"

"I know this year has been hard and people have been cruel to you…try not to let that dull your sense of morality. The things that comfort us at our worst are often not what serve us at our best."

That afternoon, Anastasia went to quidditch practice, which was now happening six days a week. Oliver was being particularly hard on the team to perfect their plays. The first game, against Hufflepuff, was only two weeks away, which according to him, would pass in a blink. He made them practice about twenty emergency drills to get Harry off the field and Anastasia in-play in case of an emergency. By the time they practiced their fifth bunt for the fortieth time, Anastasia and Harry fell onto the ground sore.

"Alright, let's go over drill number seventeen again," Wood said, hovering next to them.

"That's enough, Oliver" Anastasia complained, regaining her footing and offering a hand to Harry.

"Yeah, I'm wiped," Harry agreed, rubbing his back.

"Oh, come on. Three more times!" Oliver argued as they picked their brooms up from the ground.

Before he could insist, the twins flanked him on both sides and playfully pushed him back and forth.

"Or four or six!" said Fred.

"Or eight or ten!" echoed George.

"Really, you might as well practice until morning!" said Fred, pushing him back one more time. The sun had sunk quite far since they began practice, and the last bits of daylight were sinking over the horizon. Anastasia thought of the dementors lurking on the outskirts of the forest. After Halloween, Fudge forced Albus to give them permission to come onto school grounds after curfew to search for Black.

Oliver flew away from the twins and whipped around frustratedly.

"Yeah," Harry argued, "and what are the actual chances that our first game is interrupted a third time in three years?"

The twins laughed till they snorted. Anastasia smiled, and Oliver frowned disapprovingly.

At the beginning of the year, when Anastasia considered quitting the team due to people's perceptions of her, Oliver had this to say:

"I don't give a rats arse about what your last name is or what other people think about it. Fact is, you're good, Anastasia, and as good as Harry is, he's always in trouble one way or another. We're always going to need backup if we ever want a chance at the Quidditch Cup. McGonagall trained you herself, didn't she?"

Anastasia couldn't remember a lot from her childhood, but she could remember summers on the quidditch pitch. And the idea of having to tell Minerva that she quit quidditch because of some news articles was enough guilt to get her to put the idea to rest for the entire season.

The next day, Minerva approached her desk as she was packing up her things in Transfiguration.

"I need to see you for tutorials on Wednesday afternoon," Minerva said as Hermione and the other students flitted away.

"Tutorials?" Anastasia asked.

"At your father's request. I finish class at four," she checked her watch. It was her morning break time then.

"But I'm caught up on everything from summer…" Anastasia protested.

The professor waited, glaring at students until they left the classroom completely, and then lowered her voice.

"It's not about last year's curriculum," Minerva sighed, "Although, that would have been a more reasonable request…"

Anastasia, baffled, grabbed her things and left.

That night, Anastasia wanted to talk to Hermione about the weird conversations she'd had with the professors. She wanted to ask her if she knew anything about the muggleborn student organization that Charity was sponsoring, or who this club president was, or what they were doing, or what Minerva might tutor her in, but over the past months, Hermione had become quite frazzled with studying in the evenings. In the common room, she had out her schedule and her muggle highlighters, pointing arrows here and moving things there. All at the same time she had textbooks open for five different subjects, and she started muttering about the difference between grindylows and sleeping potions.

Harry and Ron stared at Hermione worriedly. Anastasia reached across the table and touched Hermione's hand gently.

"Wah!" the girl jumped.

"Hermione, have you considered studying one subject at a time…it might be easier—" Anastasia suggested. Hermione shook her head aggressively.

"No time…no time…" she said and returned to her books.

In the morning, Anastasia found Hermione still asleep in bed, books scattered around her, when it was time to go to potions. She almost woke her but considering the state Hermione had been in the previous evening, Anastasia thought it better to let her sleep. She went down to class with Harry and Ron.

"Where's Granger?" Snape demanded. It was the first sentence he'd spoken to her in two months.

"Out sick," Anastasia replied. Lavender, Parvati, and Romilda didn't correct her. Although they had all seen Hermione sleeping, they had also seen Hermione slowly lose it over the course of the term and ratting her out to Snape for sleeping in would only make Gryffindor lose points.

The day's assignment was mixing wide-eye potions, concoctions that would keep you awake for a week if you wanted. Snape wrote the ingredients on the board and waved his wand to transform the long lecture desks into the usual lab tables.

"Psst, Stasia," Ron signaled.

"Why don't you work with us today?" Harry asked. Snape's towering figure appeared behind the boys. He smirked condescendingly.

"Not so fast, Potter. Unlike Weasley and yourself, I believe the great and powerful Miss Dumbledore can brew the potion herself…I won't have you mooching off her work while you two sit back and do nothing. Work on your own," he said and left to help the Slytherins.

Anastasia lined up with the other students at the supply closet and waited her turn to gather the ingredients. The potion called for snake fangs, billywig stings, and a standard potion base. She grabbed them and returned to her table, following the directions as closely as possible.

She let the potion simmer for the prescribed fifteen minutes and then reread the instructions on the board.

Add in the powdered aconite, stir three times counterclockwise, and simmer for fifteen more minutes.

Drat, she forgot the aconite. She checked her cauldron. The periwinkle potion looked stable. Anastasia ran back to the potions closet to grab the last vial, passing Pansy on the way and searched the ingredients shelf: lacewing flies, asphodel root, aconite…

Anastasia grabbed it and returned to her cauldron. The now bright-magenta potion had heated to a rolling boil. She looked around, uncertain of if this should be happening, but she couldn't see anyone else's potion from where she stood. Not knowing one way or the other, she turned down her flame slightly and poured in a measure of the powdered aconite.

The searing liquid singed the skin on Anastasia's face. She screamed as boils emerged from every angle of her complexion.

She heard Draco's shriek of terror and saw him sprint from the room, hands over his eyes. The class erupted into shouts and laughter at Anastasia's condition. Snape briefly stared after Draco, and then stormed over to Anastasia. She turned off her flame and fell back against the wall.

"Lacewing flies? Are you trying to blow up this classroom?" Snape asked. Anastasia held her hands in front of her face, fearing to touch it as the pressure had built up, an acid pus behind the boils.

"I followed the directions…" she mumbled through the pain, "I didn't add lacewing flies! It was going fine until—" she couldn't finish her sentence.

Snape looked at the cauldron, then back at Anastasia, and then across the room at Parkinson, who giggled alongside Millicent Bulstrode, and then at the door Draco left open.

The Professor took out his wand, waved it over her face, and all the pressure and pain vanished. Anastasia felt her cheek bones to find them back in the right spot. There were only a few benign pock marks on her nose and chin.

"I suggest you keep a closer eye on your cauldron," he turned towards the Slytherin girls and glared, "and I suggest everyone remember that potions lab is not a place to act on your petty grievances. Class dismissed!"

Snape strode from the room before everyone had finished tidying up. Anastasia picked herself up off the wall, cleared her lab area, and gathered her things.

"How unfortunate to be exposed for being so stupid and so ugly all at the same time. No wonder Draco ran out screaming," Pansy said with a malicious smile as she passed with a snickering Millicent.

Anastasia thought of a remark, what's unfortunate is that you have to sabotage other girls to get the boy you like to look at you, but remembered what Charity said about cruelty and what Albus said about manners and held her tongue.

Pansy didn't know that by hurting Anastasia, she had hurt Draco too.

Wednesday afternoon, Anastasia went directly to Minerva's classroom.

"Now what is it that granddad wants me to see you about?" Anastasia asked once the classroom had emptied out. She handed Minerva the first years' essays on switching spells. Minerva took them and gave a great sigh.

"Albus is worried about so many people going after you. The reporters. The dementors. Your mother's parents. Not to mention, a killer on the loose. He's told me it would be ideal if you had a disguise."

"A disguise? Like a glamour?" Anastasia asked.

"Like an animagus…" Minerva specified. "Glamours are difficult to summon at a second's notice. Animagi, while difficult to master the first time, are easy to slip in and out of after the initial transformation."

"Isn't that very advanced magic?" Anastasia asked hesitantly. Minerva adjusted her glasses.

"Yes, and illegal, but your father insisted that you master the skill and not register it with the ministry, in case one day they come after you too," she said shrewdly. Albus had requested permission for Minerva to perform the animagus ritual when she was a student, but Minerva legally registered her animagus form.

"What? Why would the ministry be after me?" Anastasia asked. "Honestly, Minnie, I think sometimes grandad is a bit of a conspiracy theorist. Even the paper's said he's out of hand with the number of times he blames Voldemort for things."

Minerva raised her hand to calm her.

"It's extreme. But there is one was we can convince him out of this before we even begin."

"How?" she asked. Minerva smiled condescendingly.

"Witches and wizards cannot choose their animagus. If your animal form is particularly useless at hiding or running…like an elephant…or a dung beetle…or a goldfish…then we can stop this madness before it starts."

Anastasia wasn't sure if she wanted to discover this. If her animagus really ended up being a dung beetle or a goldfish, what did that say about her as a person?

"Alright…well how do we know that before I go through the whole process?" Anastasia said.

"You must first cast a patronus charm. Patronus forms almost always match animagus forms, as it is another form of your soul's projection of the spirit," she said, hand over her heart.

Moments later, Anastasia attempted to focus on her happiest memory.

"Expecto patronum!" she yelled, recalling the feast of the previous year, as Albus called her name, her real name, and the Great Hall erupted into applause.

Her wand fizzled out. No light emanated from it as it had from Minerva's moments before.

"I thought for sure that would be my happiest moment," Anastasia said. "I saw it in the mirror of Erised and everything."

Minerva's eyebrows went up for a moment at her comment, and she muttered.

"What we desire is not always what makes us happiest."

Anastasia sighed.

"What do you imagine, Minnie? Do you think about your fiancé?"

Minerva had told her before of the muggle boy she fell in love with one summer and decided not to marry due to the secrecy laws.

"No. Although, I remember him fondly," she said wistfully. "My memory is a day I took a walk on the grounds. right after Albus hired me. I had narrowly escaped another marriage proposal with a wizard I did not love. Albus accepted my teaching application, and I was here the following week. I remember how proud I was of my accomplishments, and although I missed my first fiancé, I was happy to be here, independent and free of guilt or inconvenience. Even moreso, I was not repeating the same mistakes of my mother," Minerva said.

She often didn't speak so freely of her past or her personal life, but occasionally, Anastasia caught glimpses, and did her best to pry.

"What was that?" Anastasia asked. Minerva looked at her starkly, sadly.

"Marrying a muggle man, and never being able to tell him the truth."

For the next few weeks, Anastasia tried to think about what made her feel truly happy, more than any other time in her life, but every time she tried to remember, a shadow loomed where that memory should have been.