A Black Flower

Part I

III

-o-

Due to the tendency towards practising the dark arts, those formally diagnosed with magic addiction were monitored closely by the Ministry of Magic. Their wands were monitored with a spell similar to the trace, there were many jobs they were banned from holding, and they were restricted from practising certain fields of magic including, but not limited to, the dark arts in and form, alchemy, advanced healing spells, and most wards.

As such, it was imperative that I hid my condition. According to Auntie, that meant concealing from others the extent of my wandless abilities and controlling my emotions whenever I cast magic, among other things.

Though it was too late to be of use to her brother, Auntie learned everything she could about magic addiction, probably as a coping mechanism. I reaped the benefits of her efforts as she shared it all with me.

A lot of dealing with it was a matter of self-control and not giving in to the desire to use magic for the purpose of getting high. When learning magic, it was best to start with spells that didn't require much power, and then work up to more powerful spells incrementally.

To compare it to a more typical substance addiction, consider it like this: Suppose you were used to taking thirty milligrams of a substance. If you increased the dose to thirty-one milligrams you wouldn't notice much different in the effects. However, if you jumped from thirty to eighty milligrams, the effects would be noticeable.

The point was to avoid intense highs, as those were what drives people to use dangerous magic chasing after them.

Many addicts turned to the dark arts because dark magic was usually very powerful but relatively easy to cast. Other branches of magic like wards, alchemy, and healing had many powerful spells, but they were much harder to learn. Those fields typically required learning more theory. Most addicts went for a quick fix, i.e. the dark arts, because they didn't want to put in any practice or a lot of effort to learn all the required theory when, essentially, all they wanted to do was get high.

I didn't want to end up like those people.

So I practised using a specific amount of magic until I no longer got the buzz I once did, and then slowly started using more. It took ages to get to the point where using my magic no longer gave me a rush. I was over at the Snapes' as much as possible, almost constantly using my magic, but never too much at once.

It was hard. It was like a little voice in my head was encouraging me to use more powerful magic, because didn't I want to feel good like that again? No one had to know.

But I ignored it. I told myself that if I did give in, then eventually someone would know, and the consequences were not something that I wanted to live with for the rest of my life.

-x-

"Wait," I blinked to clear my mind and held up both my index fingers. "You have a sister?"

"Yes, Pansy. I have a sister." Lizzie confirmed in an exasperated tone. "Her name is Theresa."

"Why is this the first time I've heard of her?" I titled my head and scrunched my nose.

Lizzie sighed. "If you had been around more, you would know the answer to that."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I snapped at her.

"Don't take that tone with me, young lady!" Lizzie scolded. "And what I mean is that you haven't heard about this because you've been spending all your time at Eileen's with Severus. Your father barely sees you, and outside of your lessons, the same goes for me."

That was true. While I spent plenty of time with Severus and Auntie before she told me about magic addiction, I spent even more time there now. The time I spent at home was almost entirely spent in lessons and studying or alone in my room.

From her reprimanding tone, I knew Lizzie wanted me to apologize or feel guilty or something, but neither of those options were happening. I had a good reason to spend so much time with Severus and Auntie, and I didn't owe Lizzie or Richard anything, even if they were my parents in this life.

Though, upon thinking about it for a moment, I was pretty sure I had seen that Lizzie had a sister when I looked into our family history.

"So... your sister?" I prompted after an awkward stretch of silence.

"We had a falling out over our mother's death shortly after Petunia was born. Last year she contacted me to try and fix things." she explained. The way she looked at me seemed to say that I would know that if I was around more.

I ignored the look and asked another question. "What was the fall out about? Like, specifically?"

Lizzie ran her hand through her hair. "Theresa was the one in charge of what to do with our mum's body. Mum wanted to be cremated, but Theresa refused to abide by her wishes for her own reasons."

"Oh. So if we're going to visit her next week, where does she live?"

"London."

"How long will we be there?"

"We'll be staying with her until the end of July."

"But that's a week and a half!" I protested.

"Well, it's about time you spent some time with your family, so I think you can deal with it."

"No, no!" I back peddled. "I uh... I just meant is it wise to, like, not have a shorter, trial visit beforehand? To make sure you won't... eh... have a disagreement right away and have to leave all of a sudden without any arrangements in place?"

"Pansy." she said sternly.

"Yeah, alright. Whatever." I huffed. "I'll call Severus and let him know we'll be going away for awhile, then go pack."

-x-

It was only a short drive to London and my aunt's house. That is, by my standards. Apparently Canadian standards are quite different from English ones. It took us just shy of three hours to drive from Cokeworth to London. Back in my last life, that was the distance between my hometown and the next town over. I grew up in a small, northern town, and because of that I had to get used to travelling. If you needed specialized medical care, the nearest city capable of providing it was over six hours away by car.

Thus, while Lily whined about the long drive and how bored she was, I simply stared out the window at the unfamiliar countryside and enjoyed the road trip.

In defence of my twin, this was maybe our third trip out of Cokeworth, and the last one was three years ago when the two of us were seven. If I recalled correctly, she slept through most of that trip.

By the time the car pulled up to my aunt's house, Petunia was almost annoyed enough to pummel Lily if she didn't stop asking the dreaded question—are we there yet?

Lily was out of the car as soon as Richard pulled the key from the ignition with Petunia not far behind her. I exited the vehicle at a more sedate pace, as did the adults. We all grabbed out luggage from the trunk—backpacks for me and my sisters, a small suitcase each for Lizzie and Richard.

Luggage in hand we walked up what remained of the drive to the front door. Lizzie took a deep breath and knocked. A dog started barking at the sudden noise and a feminine voice chastised it. A moment later the door swung upon to reveal a red haired man with large, rectangular glasses.

"Lizzie, Richard! Good to see you again. I take it these are your daughters?" he said.

"Yes, the oldest is Petunia," she gestured to my aforementioned sister. "And these are the twins, Lily and Pansy." Lily and I waved at him, though Lily did so with more enthusiasm than I could muster.

"Girls, this is my brother-in-law, Nathaniel—"

"—Aw, Lizzie, you know I hate my full name!" my uncle laughed. "You kids can just call me Uncle Nate. Nathaniel is such a mouthful."

Nate ushered us inside, explaining that Theresa would be just a few moments as she was watching the stove. He invited us to sit in the living room, and just as I took a seat on the carpet a woman in an apron walked in.

Her hair was black and slightly frizzy, her skin a medium ochre hue. She looked nothing like her sister.

"Dizzy!" she squealed and held her arms open for a hug. Lizzie smiled and embraced her.

"Treese!" she giggled. "I haven't been called that in ages."

While the two sisters greeted each other, I observed my own siblings. I was pleased to note they looked as confused as I felt. Good. I wasn't the only one baffled at the dissimilarity between the two.

"Mum, why does your sister look so different?" Lily asked, bless her soul. Children could get away with asking questions like that without getting told off for being rude.

"I guess it never really came up before, but Theresa and I were adopted." Lizzie explained. "It's not really something I think about, to be honest. Mum was my mum, dad was my dad, and even when we weren't on speaking terms, Theresa is my sister."

Adopted? I was not expecting that. I would gave guessed that they had different fathers.

Lizzie completed introductions, and then we were led down the hall to the guest room where we left our bags.

The adults made light conversation while Theresa finished cooking supper. Meanwhile, Lily, Petunia and I sat on the floor, taking turns petting our aunt's dog, Judy.

When the meal was ready we all sat down at the kitchen table and joined hands while Theresa said grace. Once she was done, we loaded our plates with mashed potatoes, green beans, and pork chops.

I didn't say much over dinner, speaking only when I was asked a question directly. Even then, I kept my answers simple, monosyllabic if possible. I didn't pay much attention to the conversation, but I caught the important things. Theresa was a social worker, Nate was an accountant, they had no children and no plans to have any, their last name was Prewett.

The moment I truly processed the information, I froze. An accountant named Prewett... In canon it was mentioned that Molly Weasley had a squib cousin (of some distance) who was an accountant.

It could be a coincidence, but it made me wonder. What were the chances I'd run into that Prewett accountant. Was that even the family name of Molly Weasley's cousin? He could have a different one, depending on whether the relation was through male or female relatives.

For the rest of the visit the question weighed on my mind, but I didn't dare ask him. It was simply not a good idea. Other than memories of the Harry Potter books, I had no reason to suspect he was a squib, and no reason to ask other than to satisfy my own curiosity. If he truly was a squib he might be a bit sore about not having magic. I was a lot of things, but I liked to think I wasn't tactless enough to throw that in his face for no reason. It was also possible he didn't even remember magic, if he'd been given up young enough or had his memory modified. Not to mention, if he really was just a muggle then dropping hits about magic was flirting with violating the Statute of Secrecy.

After what felt like months despite being only ten days, the visit drew to a close. By the time we finally left I was itching to get back home and have my own space again. Sleeping in the living room with my sisters was okay for a night or two, but it got old very fast.

-x-

After finding out Lizzie was adopted I grew curious about her family tree again. I knew Richard's side up to four generations back, excluding my generation and his, and I thought I knew Lizzie's three generations back, but that was useless since I wasn't actually related to them.

Whether it was canon or fanon escaped me, but there was the hypothesis that muggleborns were decedents of squibs. Because of that, a few years ago I decided to look for names I recognized as potentially magical in my family tree. To my dismay I discovered that if there were any, neither side of my family kept records that went back far enough.

But perhaps there actually was something on Lizzie's side that I didn't uncover because I was looking at her adoptive parent's relations. Luck wasn't on my side however, because Lizzie didn't even know the names of her birth parents and never cared to look.

"It's not important to me," she said. "I don't care who they are. Mum and dad are my parents, not a couple of strangers."

It frustrated me. Maybe she didn't care about her heritage, but had she never considered that someday her own children may want to know where they come from?

Since she knew nothing about them, I decided to ask Auntie if there was a magical way to produce an unknown family tree or something. Most fanfics had something like that, though I don't think anything like it was mentioned in canon. Usually it was some ritual, or potion, or a blood test at Gringott's.

My hopes if investigating Lizzie's side of the family tree through magical means were dashed as soon as I asked Auntie. All things considered, it actually made a lot of sense that there wasn't some way to do it. If there was a simple way of tracing one's ancestry, I imagine Voldemort would have done that rather than waste searching for clues to his heritage in old Hogwarts records or whatever.

It was painful to admit to myself, but perhaps reading so much fanfiction last time around wasn't such a good idea. It was hard to remember just what was fanon and what was canon. Some of it I remembered pretty clearly, like the whole magical core thing was firmly in the fanon category. On the other hand, there were plenty of concepts that started out as fanon but made it into canon later on. Additionally, some fanon concepts were so widely accepted in fanfiction that that they may as well have been canon because you couldn't find a work without it. It was dreadfully confusing without being able to look it all up on the internet.

Of course, my dreams of looking it up online were pointless. Even if technology was able to do so at this point in time, the internet would not have the answers to my questions. You know, because magic was real and that would be a huge violation of the whole world wide hidding from muggles thing.

-x-

In the year leading up to the September of 1971, Auntie made me a list of common first and second year spells, organized by how much magic each spell used. Unfortunately, it was unlikely to be the order in which we would be learning those spells, so she suggested that I start practising in advanced under her supervision using her grandmother's old wand. Severus, of course, also participated in the lessons, though he didn't know the true reasoning behind them. He just thought his mother was teaching us magic early so we would be ahead.

It was difficult. It was evident the wand didn't suit me at all. Just holding it felt unnatural, but it was better than nothing. Apparently the problem with having a wand that didn't suit you was that your magic couldn't flow through it properly, and thus your own magic couldn't help you manipulate the ambient magic around you very well, if at all.

Fortunately, it wouldn't be long before I received a wand of my own.

-x-

It was a dreadfully hot afternoon in early July. Lily, Petunia and I had retreated to the basement in an effort to escape the worst of the heat. We were too hot to do anything that required movement, so the three of us sprawled on the cool tile where Petunia and I usually practised ballet playing Scrabble. We started out playing Monopoly, but Lily dominated the board, much to my own irritation and that of our eldest sister.

After I won a round of scrabble—which involved many arguments regarding the validity of certain words—my sisters decided it was the winner's duty to fetch us all an afternoon snack. Scowling at them, I nevertheless climbed up the stairs to the kitchen. The doorbell rang just as I was sneaking a handful of chocolate chip cookies from the jar. I hastily dropped them back inside and went to answer the door.

Upon opening it, I was faced with a man I hadn't seen before, though there was something about him that seemed slightly familiar. His hair was short and black, not particularly noteworthy. He had a jawline that was, frankly, unfair, and nice cheekbones to match. Overall, a very handsome face. He was tall, but had a narrow frame. He wore black pants, a black button up shirt and a dark red waistcoat. In his hand, he carried a plain black briefcase.

"Miss Evans, I presume?" he said with a small smile. His accent seemed different from any that I'd heard before, but I couldn't place just what about it was off. I nodded in response to his question, and he continued speaking. "My name is Artemis Rosier. Is your family home? Your entire family, that is?"

Rosier, huh? That name was familiar. "Yes, shall I fetch them?"

"If you wouldn't mind."

"MUM! DAD! SOMEONE'S HERE AND WANTS TO TALK TO US! YOU TOO, LILY, PETUNIA!" I hollered after turning away from the stranger.

Richard and Lizzie entered the foyer, their expressions betraying their curiostiy.

"Mrs. Evans, Mr. Evans," Rosier greeted over the clamour of my sisters rushing up the stairs. "I am Professor Artemis Rosier, and I am here to offer Lily and Pansy a place at the school I work for."

The familiarity of his family name clocked. It was one of the sacred twenty-eight. But why would one of them be here? They were blood purists, if I was remembering things accurately.

Even if he was working for Hogwarts, I wouldn't think he would be the one introducing muggleborns to the concept of magic...

He must have noticed my pensive expression, because he asked me if I was okay.

"You're from Hogwarts." I blurted, then slapped my hands over my traitorous mouth. I hadn't meant to actually reveal my knowledge.

My parents and sisters looked at me in confusion, and Rosier's eyebrows shot up, his gaze shifting towards me. "May I ask how you're familiar with that name?"

"Yes."

There was a beat of silence after I deliberately gave a mathematician's answer, and Lizzie took that moment to speak up.

"Excuse me, er—Professor, but..." she trailed off awkwardly. It was pretty clear she was trying to say what the fuck is Hogwarts and how the hell did you get information on my daughters to invite them to this school?

"Pardon me, Mrs. Evans," Rosier said. "I believe it's best that I start from the beginning," he glanced at me, "Even if—Pansy, was it?—seems to have an idea why I'm here.

"As I said, I am a professor. The school I teach at is called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." He opened his briefcase and pulled out two letters. He handed me and my twin our respective letters.

Everyone except me started at him incredulously.

"Is this some sort of joke?" Richard demanded.

"Not at all, sir." Rosier smiled, his wand dropping from his sleeve into his hand. "Observe—geminio."

The doubling spell hit one of the shoes by the door, creating a duplicate and prompting dumbfounded looks from all but me.

"It's real, guys. I can do magic too—and so can Lily, I guess." I pulled a coin from my pocket and levitated it a few centimetres above my palm. It was something simple enough that it shouldn't raise any red flags by itself. "Auntie and Severus can do magic, too."

"Your control is quite good for an untrained witch, Miss Evans." Rosier commented. Was he suspicious? Did he have the knowledge to be suspicious...?

"Thank you, sir." I demurred.

From there, Rosier explained the existence of magic, the Statute of Secrecy, and why it was important that Lily and I attend Hogwarts over tea in the living room. But only after he generously cast a charm to cool the temperature inside the house.

"A boarding school?" Lizzie fretted. "That sounds expensive..."

"A common concern, Mrs. Evans. However Hogwarts is funded by the Ministry of Magic. There is no charge for tuition, and room and board are provided without fees. The only cost to you will be their supplies, and even then we have a fund for students who are unable to afford them, such as orphans." he explained.

Richard looked over the supply list from Lily's letter, his eyebrows climbing higher up his forehead the further he read. "A magic wand? Cauldrons? Robes? Where on earth are we supposed to find this stuff?"

"There is a hidden, magical shopping district in London. It's called Diagon Alley and is inaccessible to non-magical people without an escort." Rosier gave Richard directions to the Leaky Cauldron, then went on to briefly explain the monetary system and what to expect. He offered to take us to the Alley in a week's time with the other muggleborn first years and their families, but I declined before anyone could agree, explaining that Auntie offered to take us.

"What are we supposed to tell people?" Lizzie asked.

"We have an arrangement with the muggle government. The school is listed as an independent school called Ogward's School for the Gifted. The cover story is that the school is highly exclusive and invitation only." the professor explained.

"Is their education transferable to, er, normal post-secondary institutions?" Lizzie asked.

"Not typically, however there are arrangements that can be made should a student pursue a muggle education independently."

And on it went. After answering even more questions from the family, Rosier told us he was looking forward to teaching me and my twin and departed.

As soon as he was out of the house, all attention was turned towards me.

-x-

It took me awhile to explain everything to my family. I omitted a few key details, such as my magic addiction, and sprinkled in a few white lies as necessary—"I had no idea Lily was a witch, too!"

They were upset I'd kept this secret for long, and I had to go over the finer details of the Statute of Secrecy with them. It was illegal to tell muggles about magic unless they are immediate family, and a permit from the ministry must be attained beforehand. A permit for the family of muggleborns is issued when a Hogwarts professor is scheduled to meet with them. Technically someone in my position could have applied for a permit to tell them earlier, but it was more work than it was worth, and it could take up to a year to actually sign off on it. I wisely kept that part to myself.

After everyone understood why I didn't say anything, Lizzie called Auntie to invite her and Severus over for supper to discuss this whole witchy thing.

The Snapes and I answered my family's enthusiastic questions about magic and the wizarding world over fish and chips. Lily practically bounced in excitement and hung on to every word said regarding magic.

"Oh! I can't believe this is happening!" my twin confided after the Snapes left. "I can't help but think that I'll wake up tomorrow morning to find this was all a dream!"

"Silly-Lily," I laughed. "It's one hundred percent real."

Lily pouted and crossed her arms. "You do realize that if this is a dream, dream-Pansy would say that, right?"

"I suppose you're right," I agreed. "But when you wake up tomorrow and ask if it was a dream, I'm going to say I told you so!"

"Yeah, yeah," she rolled her eyes. "That's hardly anything new. I'm gonna take a bath and go to bed. Goodnight, Pans."

"Goodnight, little sister" I called as she entered the bathroom.

"Ugh! Only by a few minutes, Pansy! Let it go, already!" she hollered back while I snickered.

I checked the time. It was just past nine, so I decided to get ready for bed, too.

I hurried down the stairs to my room in the basement. I closed my door behind me and grabbed a book from my shelf to read before going to sleep. I drifted off a quarter of the way through the novel, only to wake to the sound of music playing softly.

I rubbed my eyes and set the book aside. Yawning, I quietly left my room to investigate the noise. I was sure it was Petunia—when she had trouble sleeping she would dance or practice the flute to relax. Sometimes she just wasn't tired, but more often she was too upset to sleep, and considering what just happened earlier today, I was willing to bet on the latter.

I found her sitting in the corner of the main room which we used for dancing, her face buried in her arms, which rested on her knees. Her long blonde hair fell around her shaking shoulders in disarray. I bumped the table with the record player as I approached her and she jerked her head up in surprise.

"Petunia?"

"What do you want?" she hissed at me with a dark look.

"Well, I..." I hesitated, chewing my lip. "I want to know what's wrong."

Petunia choked out a laugh.

"What's wrong?" she said. "What's wrong?!

"What's wrong is that no matter what I do, I'm over shadowed by you and Lily!" She raged. "Mum and dad could care less about my achievements—dancing and music isn't going to get me anywhere, they say. But you're special, a bloody super genius, and they can't shut up about it. Doesn't matter that you're never around. It's still Pansy this, Pansy that!

"And then, well. I learned to deal with that. It's not your fault, and well, you are freakishly smart... And I started dancing and playing the flute and for awhile I felt special. I was talented... But mum and dad stopped caring about the things I'm good at. Saying they were getting in the way of my school work. 'If you didn't waste so much time dancing then maybe you'd be getting top marks like Lily' they say.

"They always ask me why I can't be more like Lily. Why can't I get top marks like her? Why am I not as friendly or outgoing as Lily? Why don't I help out around the house more like Lily, instead of wasting my time with frivolous hobbies? Why, why, why?!"

"Petunia..." I whispered, feeling like an idiot. How did I not see this? How did I not see that Lizzie and Richard were so critical of Petunia, and constantly compared her unfavourably to Lily? (I ignored the part of me that knew why I didn't see it—I wasn't looking. I was too focused of me, too self absorbed.)

"And now," she sobbed. "And now we find out that you and Lily are even more special than me. Plain, old, ordinary me. As far as everyone will be concerned, you and Lily are off at a school for the gifted—and me? No, I, obviously, am not good enough to go to a school for the gifted! It's quite clear that I'm the lesser Evans sister—"

I cut Petunia off there. "You are most certainly not lesser than either Lily or me!" I knelt down next to Petunia and wrapped an arm around her. "L-Mum and dad love you just as much as they love me and Lily. I can't really speak for them, but... They are proud of you and how far you've come as a dancer and musician. I'm not sure how to phrase this, exactly... But I think they think you're not thinking about your future, and that you should be focusing on getting good grades so you can succeed later in life. And that like, your grades aren't as good as they could be because you dedicate so much time to dancing, and they don't understand why." I paused to yawn and rub my eyes. "Sorry, I'm really tired, and not explaining it well. Does that make sense?"

I felt Petunia shrug, and sighed. "They just... to them artistic pursuits are hobbies, not something you really dedicate yourself to. I think they just really don't understand how important to you music and dance is, and... am I making sense?"

"I guess so." she said. "But... it's not a hobby. Dancing is what I want to do in the future, Pansy. My dream is dance with the Royal Ballet, and Madam Proulx thinks I could make it into the school if I apply. And since she went there as a girl herself..."

My eyes widened. "Are you serious? That's amazing! What do Li—er—mum and dad think?"

Fuck, I was exhausted, even more so than I thought. That was the second time I almost slipped up and said Lizzie in this conversation.

Petunia shrugged. "I haven't told them yet. I was going to, but..."

"But?" I prompted, and she stared at me like I was an idiot. "...Petunia?"

"Pansy... for a genius you sure can be stupid." My elder sister sighed and tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling. "I had the conversation with Madam Proulx after lessons yesterday. I was planning on telling everyone at dinner tonight."

"Oh. Oh. Well. Fuck." That made it so much worse. We completely stole her thunder. "Sorry..."

"It's not your fault, really." she admitted.

"Still... Ooooh! I have an idea!" I started bouncing in place in my excitement. "Right so, part of it is you feel like people will look down on you because Lily and me got into a school for the gifted, but you didn't right? Well, why don't we say you were offered a place too, but you declined, because you wouldn't be able to continue doing ballet and your and music lessons? And when you get it in to the Royal Ballet School—"

"—If, I get in, Pansy! I haven't even applied yet!" Petunia interrupted, but I dismissed her with a wave of my hand.

"Oh please, you're amazing, Petunia. You're better than the older girls who have been dancing since they could walk. You'll get in for sure. We just have to convince mum and dad."

"...Thanks Pansy."

-o-

Notes: "Ogward's" came about because I decided the cover name should be something similar enough that if someone slipped up they could explain it away easily, and I felt that there actually did need to be a cover name.

I don't recall if I mentioned it in earlier notes, but I know fuck all about Britain in the 60s and 70s. So forgive any inaccuracies. If you want to point them out and a way to fix them, feel free and I might edit them when I have time.

A pet peeve of mine: characters getting their first Hogwarts letters on their birthdays. This does not happen in canon. Harry ends up reading his first letter on his birthday, and I think that's the origin of this bit of fanon, but they'd been sending him letters for ages before that point. As far as we can tell, students receive their letters the summer before the school year starts.

Important Changes: I added in some small details that will be relevant later, and made more insignificant changes to other scenes.