Chapter 8: Cracks in the Mirror
Mr Potter fixes his suit in the mirror in the hallway leading to the front of the house, while Mrs Potter darts about the house after James who is searching wildly for something.
"We are going to be late," Fleamont calls out to his family. Cressida pays little heed to him, twirling a wand around in her fingers as she lazes on the couch. They are about to go visit Fleamont's sister, Liza who is throwing a lunch tea party, and Cressida and Sirius have been given a pass. Though she's sure no one in the Potter family truly wants to go, they are of course feeling much obliged to.
"Tell that to your son!" Euphemia calls back from another room.
"Your son is looking for his wand!" James cries.
Cressida snorts. Then pauses and looks at the wand in her hand. "Oh," she mutters. She'd stolen it early that morning to muck around with and had honestly forgotten that it wasn't even her own.
"You can't even use it, James!" Fleamont shouts back.
Snapping up straight, Cressida spies her surroundings over the edge of the couch's back. With no one around, nor the sound of any footsteps nearby, she leaps over the back, barely stopping herself from collapsing onto the soft carpet. Swiftly tip-toeing to the nearest room which is the kitchen, she lays it gently on the bench where he usually sits with his morning tea. Running back to the other room, she yells down the hallway, "Have you tried the kitchen?"
"Yes," James drawls back just as loudly. Nevertheless, his stomping feet come thundering back down just as Cressida jumps back onto the lounge. There is a three-second pause in the sound before it comes again in much closer proximity to her position. She tucks herself close to the cushioning, her childish smile broadening as James' face peeks over the back. He doesn't even say anything, only reaching down to her with clawed hands and squeezes her side. Cressida erupts into laughter, squirming away from the ticklish feeling. "Rascal," he hisses, then leaves at his father's final call.
The manor becomes silent once more after a quick 'swoosh' as they apparate altogether. They hadn't told her how long they would be gone, only to make themselves at home if they're hungry. Deciding that she's hungry now, Cressida saunters towards the kitchen, plucking an apple out of the basket on the bench away from the sun.
Her only choice of companion for the day has locked himself up in his room, which she knows better than to try and weasel her way into – though she will check in on him around lunchtime at least. She expects it to be the most mundane type of day. Maybe she'll find a book, or try and play something on the piano. Perhaps write a letter to Marlene.
The letter sounds likes a good idea.
Tossing the chewed apple core into the compost bin that Euphemia keeps for her gardening, Cressida saunters back upstairs to her room, pulling out some ink and parchment. At first, the quill tip hovers as no words come to mind. She hasn't exactly written to Marlene before. But soon enough, they flow out of her smoothly. There are quite a few things she does have to censor or omit completely so instead she uses that space to ask Marlen how her Summer is going. She, Lily, and Mary had talked about travelling down to London together.
Just as she begins to sign off her name in her neatest cursive writing, there is a deafening sound of glass shattering and a scream. In an instant, her letter is forgotten and the scene of her bedroom disappears without even recalling herself first moving. "Sirius?!" An invisible hand clenches at her intestines when there is no response. It wasn't a scream of fright or terror; it was of pain.
Cressida nearly rams herself into his door, half expecting it to be locked but it clicks open easily even under her clammy grip. Sirius' room is a mess; his bedsheets scrunched up near the end, his things strewn about and his wand lays on the floor near his dresser. Sirius' himself isn't in the room, but there is no need to guess as she can hear his laboured breaths coming from his small ensuite. The door is cracked open, but she can't see him yet.
"Sirius?" she calls again, quieter this time. Marching to the door, she slides into the bathroom, petrified of what she will find.
She finds Sirius, standing over the sink. His shoulders are hunched over and his head hangs between them while he grips either side of the basin with white clenched fists. On each of the knuckles on his right hand are splatters of blood from both deep and shallow cuts to the skin. In the sink is the glass, or rather, shards of the mirror that she heard shattering which have come from the mirror on the wall which is now cracked enough that you couldn't identify anything in the reflection.
His pants are hard and desperate, fusing with wails, ignoring her presence altogether. It's not hard to piece together what has happened, or why.
"Hey, hey," she calls in a soft tone, striding close to his side. Her fingers wind softly around his arm, but not hard enough to even put indents in the skin. "You need to breathe." He doesn't answer her, but she can hear him try to listen as he takes a longer, but still shaken draw of air. His cheeks are glossy and his eyes a stark red. "Sirius, you're okay. You're safe."
"I can still hear them." His voice is raw and deep like a strong storm current at night. Cressida doesn't dare ask who, but she has an idea. He rocks backwards and forward over the sink. "I can't block them out."
"Then listen to something else instead," she tries. "Something so loud you won't even hear them if they screamed." She pries his hand away from the sink, wanting him to look anywhere but his broken reflection from the shards in the sink. "Scream, sing. Think of Quidditch or… or-or James getting his antlers stuck in the doorway at the shack. Or that time Remus ate a scrambled egg, threw it back up into the bowl and ran off then Peter came and nearly took a bit of it."
Cressida manages to pull him to face her, taking both his wrists to keep him centred and focused on her. And he does focus on her; still breathing unevenly but his previously glazed eyes now have a surreal sharpness to them.
He's listening.
"Or the time James made your shoes vanish completely. Our yearly snowball fights that we always win, even when it's only us two against the others. That time we ran from Filch and managed to hide in that tiny broomstick cupboard, but we had to wait two hours because Mrs Norris sat just outside the door." She watches the titbits of joy from each memory that she knows he recalls fondly. "Those are so much fucking louder than whatever you can hear."
His eyes point upwards towards the roof, his lips parting in a slow breath. Sirius' jaw quivers as he closes it again. Cressida lets herself feel the slightest bit of relief as the height of his panic attack calms. But he still has a while to go until he's mentally safe.
"Come on," she murmurs, tugging on his hands gently in the direction of the door. He trails after her without resistance all the way into the upper-level corridor then into the main guest bathroom that Cressida uses. She lets his hands go to turn the tap onto a soft flow before taking his hand again and guiding it under the water. The water at the bottom of the sink turns a faded pink as the blood washes away from his knuckles, leaving open, but clean wounds. "I'm going to find the dittany," Cressida says, turning the tap off.
Sirius doesn't move as she leaves the bathroom in search of the medical cabinet downstairs. She searches high and low, but the bottle of brown liquid is nowhere to be found. Surrendering to a gauze instead, she quickly makes her way back to his side.
Sirius sits on the edge of the bathtub, silently watching her wrap his knuckles up. He would probably say he doesn't need it, if he had the voice, but for once in his life he lets her actions go without complaint. "I couldn't find any dittany," she explains. "Probably forgot to buy more after we used the rest to patch up Remus' head when James swung that stick around and sliced him up."
"Remus said that's his favourite scar."
Cressida peeks upwards to meet his gaze, smiling at the sound of his voice. "I'd prefer if James didn't go slicing people open, but I'm glad Remus doesn't have all bad memories about it." Securing the bandage, she joins him on the side of the tub, rubbing his knee more to reassure herself that he's there than anything else. "Do you want something to eat? Or drink?"
Sirius nods. "Can I have a drink? Please." Cressida nods with a mild smile, making her way to the kitchen and returning with a glass full of water. Sirius huffs as he sees it. "I was thinking more like firewhiskey."
"I'm not giving you firewhiskey," she snips lightly, shoving the glass into his hand. Sirius perks a single brow momentarily, sighs, then drowns the water in one go. "Thank you." He places the glass on the side of the sink then goes back to leaning forward, fiddling with his fingers between his knees.
Cressida falls to her knees in front of him, pushing his hands apart. "Stop thinking," she berates.
He breathes sharply through his nose. "What else am I supposed to do?" he snaps.
"Scream," she breathes. He rolls his eyes, keeping his gaze pointed to the side. "I'm serious."
"No," he drawls. "I am." Cressida purses her lips tightly in an effort to not giggle. Sirius' lips tweak up – visibly restraining himself. "That was pathetic, wasn't it?"
"Not as pathetic as James' attempts to use deer puns," she offers. "But I'm serio- not kidding about screaming. Elias told me that whenever he was stressed about his NEWTs, he and the twins would find the most abandoned part of the castle grounds and just scream everything on their mind. I joined them once and it felt so good," she says, ending in a gentle laugh to encourage him. "There's the field out back. Nobody here is home. It'll just be you and me and we can say whatever the fuck we want and nobody will hear us."
"What do I scream?"
"Anything. Scream about how you hate potions, or that you think leather is better than denim – which it's not by the way." They've had that argument before. "Or…scream about your mother, Snape, Slytherins in general. Just anything that's been sitting in that big head of yours."
Sirius stares at her neck for a few moments, debating the idea. "What about you? What are you going to say?"
Cressida sighs, licking her lips. "I'm not sure yet," she says. "But I'm sure it'll come to me." Knowing she's hooked him in, she stands once more bringing him with her. "James is going to be wondering why we have sore throats by the time he gets back."
"I'm going to have to explain this all to his parents. I can't fix the mirror without magic."
Cressida shakes her head. "No, you don't. I'll think of something."
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