Chapter 14: Home
Cressida wants to go home.
The Healers at St. Mungo's are dressed strangely. She has never been to the Wizarding Hospital that is hidden behind a department store, but she has been to a normal hospital. And St. Mungo's could almost look exactly like one if it weren't for the overly strange coloured robes that the Healers wear to identify themselves.
They look odd and out of place, even after six years of living in the wizarding world. Maybe it's just because she doesn't want to be here that it's getting on her nerves. They ask her questions that she doesn't want to answer. James ends up answering most of them for her.
Then the Aurors come. Cressida doesn't want to see them. She doesn't want to talk to them. Except one. Alice. Unlike the other two who carry hard composures, their tones saying that they are there on business and nothing else, Alice speaks softly. Like Euphemia.
Alice sits down next to her bed, the curtains pulled around them to isolate them from the rest of the ward. "And you saw the Dark Mark?" she questions with a smooth, warm voice. Her hair is short, hanging around her shoulders in a neatly cut bob. She can't see much of the clothing that Alice wears, only a thick grey trench coat over the top of it all.
Cressida nods. Her eyes sting but they're dry. "Exactly like it looks like in the Daily Prophet."
Alice nods, her notes being taken mentally rather than a quill and parchment. It feels more like a conversation than an interrogation. "And you're Muggle-born, aren't dear?" Cressida nods again. "I know this might be a hard question, but do you have any idea why they would target your family? Have you said something that's gained attention or did your parents?" Cressida blanches at the thought of this being her fault. Alice quickly reaches out to grasp her arm gently. "I'm not blaming you, dear. These Death Eaters sometimes don't even have motive other than blood status. But your family wasn't on our Protected List and there were no signs of them being in any danger. Has something happened at school?"
Cressida bites her tongue. Figuratively and literally. She threatened Snape. Maybe that was enough for her to gain attention within the younger ranks. Maybe he had a close relation act on his behalf. Cressida shakes her head, unable to verbally confess that it could have been her fault in any way. Alice nods again, rubbing her lips together as she thinks.
"You weren't in the house at the time? You were staying with the Potters?"
"Yes," Cressida whispers. "I always go to their house through the Summer."
"Then why were you there? Did you have a reason to go back, like someone telling you to?"
Cressida shakes her head again. "I… left my bracelet there. Just a silver one with a few charms. I asked James to come with me since I didn't have my wand."
Alice lifts her head ever so slightly. "You didn't have your wand?"
"No. My father broke it just before I left. I haven't gotten a new one yet."
"Why did your father break your wand?" Cressida doesn't answer. As nice as Alice is, it has nothing to do with her family's murder. "Alright," she sighs, placing on a comforting smile. "I think you're in safe hands with Mrs Potter. Considering you have no other family left, the Potters are more than happy to take over your guardianship until you turn eighteen. Just for legal matters to match with Muggle laws. It will also be placed under the Protected List, and we will be in contact with Mrs and Mr Potter at least once a week."
Cressida nods again. She's been doing a lot of that.
Alice leaves, giving her condolences that Cressida is sure the other two Aurors would have forgotten about. Euphemia is the first to slips back in through the closed curtain, a Healer just on her tail. James and Sirius had been sent home, much to their displeasure, but for once, she is glad that they are not around. They were bickering the entire time they were here. James, it sounded like, was just trying to defend himself. He just wanted to give Cressida what she wanted. But Sirius is throwing blame around.
"Healer Humphries says you should be fine to come back," Euphemia says with a wide, but small smile, glancing to the Healer for confirmation. Cressida looks too at the frumpy older lady.
"Yes," Healer Humphries agrees, not sounding particularly delighted at anything. "Take some draughts with you. One for sleep and one for pain. That should be enough. Anything else you need can be found at Florrigan's Potions down near Diagon Alley."
"I brought some change of clothes," Euphemia adds, pulling a sundress from her large bag. It isn't Cressida's, but she'll take it without complaint. Her right leg is covered in a bandage and the idea of pants makes her fingers tingle with phantom pain.
Xx
Euphemia doesn't bother scolding her sons. Or if she has, she doesn't do it in front of Cressida. They scold each other anyway. She wants to defend James, who she had forced to come with her, but there's just no energy in her body to spend speaking.
Cressida isn't sleeping, but her eyes are closed, rested against the side of James' neck as she lays half over him on the common room lounge. She knows that Sirius is also there, sitting on the coffee table. Is it her fault? Had her threat to Snape gone beyond schoolyard scuffling?
"I told you not to disapparate," James whispers. "It could have been so much worse."
"What was I supposed to do?" Sirius protests, his voice hardier than James. "Wait till she calmed down while surrounded by her dead parents?"
Images of her mother lying on the floor flash in front of her closed eyes. This time, morphed to have pools of blood surrounding her head. Her spine shivers, knowing that the blood wasn't actually there. "Nice work, Pads," James mutters.
"Don't you dare," Sirius hisses. "I told you that it wasn't safe for her there. I told you not to let her go back. I got her out of there, and you brought her right back. Fucking wandless. So don't you dare blame this on me."
Cressida's eyes blink open. She doesn't know whether James picked up the small movement of he's on the end of one of Sirius' glares, but he shifts underneath her and his arms re-tighten. Sirius sounds… well, Cressida can't even pinpoint the emotion. "You knew." Her voice is sore and scratchy. It isn't a question, but an observation.
Sirius sits hunched, elbows braced on his knees. At her statement, his eyes point strictly at the lounge near her legs. Sirius knew. Sirius knew that her parents were going to be attacked. And he didn't tell her.
It hits her at once.
Cressida's hand flies to her mouth. That's why he was so set on her coming to James' early. He knew. He somehow knew that a Death Eater would come to her house. He let her parents die. He couldn't even warn her. Warn the Aurors. Get them on the Protected List.
Cressida doesn't need to say anything more. Sirius swallows, his fingers curling around the material of his pants. Then he pushes back to his feet, marching out of the room before James can even question what she meant.
"He knew," Cressida repeats. "He knew it was coming."
James' jaw is slack, staring at the archway that Sirius left through. "I… how? How would he know that?"
Her shrug is minimal. "I don't know," she whispers. He had confided in James, Remus and Peter of her home-life before they even left the platform from Hogwarts. But James has already told her that Sirius was just worried because he thought she was worried about going home. That she was going to hurt herself. But something changed.
"It would make sense," James murmurs. He presses the side of his cheek against the top of her head, a hand stroking the back of her hair. "He's been paranoid about something for the last month. All the…small things he was doing."
Cressida doesn't need pieces of evidence to support her finding. She knows that Sirius knew. His walking out was just a confirmation of his guilt. Guilt? Is that the right word to use? Responsibility. That seems more fitting.
"James? Cress?" Euphemia leans in through the archway. "Dinner is ready."
"Thanks, Mum." Euphemia nods with a gentle smile, disappearing to likely go find her second son. "At least she didn't try and yell it out from the dining room this time," James attempts to laugh. In any other situation, Cressida would have laughed. Euphemia, like other parents she has come to discover, would try and talk through the walls of the house, growing frustrated when she couldn't hear James' yell in return. Mothers always have loud voices but very small ears. But tonight she can't laugh.
Cressida follows behind James, fingers interlaced with his. The two male Aurors, that she had overheard talking behind her curtain said that her parents had only been dead for a few hours when she found them. Killed through the night before. It's early July. Sirius always said that July was too late. Now she knows why.
James pulls out a chair for her, a steak and salad already sitting on a plate in front of her. Her knee starts shaking no matter how hard she wills it to stop. James sits on her left, Fleamont at the head of the oak table and Euphemia opposite James. Sirius' seat remains empty and no plate lays in its spot. Nobody says anything about his absence, least of all Cressida.
Picking up her fork, she runs the prongs over the steak, the sight of the juices making her stomach churn so she moves onto the salad, piecing a single cherry tomato.
"We hardly expect you to eat all of it," Euphemia says over the table. "But we gave you a full serving so you could choose what you wanted to eat."
Cressida nods in thanks but realises that it might be rude so she says, "Thank you," and bites the tomato. It feels gross.
"They're already working on tracking down who it was."
"Flea," Euphemia hisses under her breath. "Not now."
Cressida ignores it, focusing on just chewing through her food one bite at a time. She manages to finish most of the salad so she cuts up a small slither of the steak. The moment it touches her lip she knows that there is no way she could eat it. "I'm sorry."
Tears flood her eyes from the simple act of not being able to eat what is given to her. "Hey, more for me," James whispers in her ear. "I'll put it away in the fridge. You can grab it if you get hungry later or I can make you something else."
Cressida nods, placing her knife and fork down, turning partially in her seat to lean her side against its back. She plays with the loose fabric of his sweater as he eats. She doesn't even realise that they all finish. James runs his hand down her arm, drawing her eyes back up. "I think I should just go to bed."
James nods. "Okay."
He spends some time with her in her room, sorting through her bags that she hadn't put away yet. He hangs the clothes up in her wardrobe, or folds them on the end of her bed and then tucks them away in the dresser. Cressida lies on her bed, eyes open as they won't stay closed even at her command. Eventually, he leaves her be, returning for less than a minute to give her a cup of tea she hadn't asked for before leaving again to let her sleep.
Her room is dark, save for one light that is left on, on her nightstand where her now cold tea and diary lay. Sirius had repaired his mirror and taken it back now that she has no need for it.
Speaking of-
Sirius knocks on her open door, the sound barely echoing into her room. She doesn't answer but he enters anyway, meandering towards her bed. He sits down on the edge near her hips. Cressida watches him but has nothing to say. He rubs his hands along his thighs before twisting them in the other. "Please don't hate me." Cressida blinks her eyes clear, turning her gaze to the floral design on the teacup. "I can live with you hating me if it means that you're alive, but I'd rather you didn't." She doesn't hate him. But she does feel something for him that her mind is just too exhausted to identify. "I love you, Bear."
She just can't answer.
He releases a long breath, the trickle of tension traversing down his back until it seeps out of his feet. Then his sock-clad feet are scuffing the wood as he goes to her window, shutting the glass and securing the lock. Sirius leaves a few seconds later, shutting her door completely and Cressida starts crying again, turning the small lamp off and tugging the blanket over her face.