Disclaimer: Obvi I'm not JK Rowling so clearly I don't own this.
A/N: It's here! The chapter you've all been waiting for! I hope it lives up to the anticipation. (NOTE: I also tried my hardest to not repeat unnecessary PoA canon events because 'hello... we all know that already, we're here for Ascella! Right?' :D I also tried to do as much of this from memory before checking the usual sites and the book to make sure it was accurate enough for this AU but let me know if anything is glaringly out of place)
Also a big thank you especially to Raven that flies at night and Infernalbooks who have been here since the beginning for coming back even after so long and for the kind words! I didn't even realize I still needed those words so thank you!
Warning: some strong language in this chappie (Ascella meets Sirius soo... yeah to be expected). So sorry if that's not your thing! But it is Ascella's. (yes, she does get her potty mouth from me... what can I say nothing like some creative swearing to bring your day up)
June 1994 - part 1
June finally arrived and with it came exam season. Ascella breezed through her exams -except for Herbology. To hear her tell it the Leaping Toadstools attacked her not the other way around, and no, she hadn't just been surprised by the "leaping" behavior that she of course hadn't forgotten as being something they did. Regardless Sprout was not happy at having her Leaping Toadstools all burned down - Ascella would be serving detention even next year she was sure. And then exams were over but the last day, instead of being met with a warm fuzzy feeling of relief and relaxation, was met with crushing anxiety and unpleasantness - Hagrid and Buckbeak had lost the appeal and Buckbeak was to be executed at sunset.
Ascella had more than a few choice words for all those involved in the sentencing of the Hippogriff - more than a few of which made even Ron look at her startled at having heard. Apparently (somehow) there were still a few combinations of swear words that all of his older brothers had yet to teach him. Hermione, surprisingly, wasn't concerned at all by Ascella's language but was more concerned with how all four of them would sneak down to his hut to be there for Hagrid before the execution.
"The cloak simply won't fit all four of us - it barely worked even in first year let alone now - " Hermione mused, a pondering finger at her lips, from their location in the Gryffindor Common Room near the fire.
"Not to mention it's still in the passage beneath the one-eyed witch - I haven't gotten the chance to go get it after getting caught by Snape..." Harry added, slumped low in the couch a hand massaging his temples.
"No problem. It'll still help," Hermione said, before rising and leaving the Gryffindor common room.
"Has she really gone to go get it?" Ron asked the other three. Ascella and Harry exchanged looks, shrugged and sat back to wait. Turned out she had indeed gone back to get the cloak.
"What's gotten into you, 'Mione?" Ascella asked her, awed, fingering the cloak from where she sat on the couch nearest the fireplace, reaching out as if to make sure it really was the right cloak Hermione had gone to fetch.
Ron too was struck dumb at Hermione's fierceness and blatant disregard for the rules she usually so respected. Hermione for her part simply flushed a flattering shade of pink, looking pleased and proud of herself.
"It still doesn't help us all to get down there," Hermione stated by way of response. It was Ascella that offered a solution.
"Look, we all know I'm not as close with Hagrid as you lot. How about I just hang back in the darkness of the grounds and keep a look out for you? We may not have the map but I have other ways of knowing where you are," she said to them.
What Ascella wanted them to think was that she could already do homo revelus spells and at distance but really she couldn't. She was just going to gage based on the amount of time that had gone by - but more than anything she just didn't want to be anywhere near the surely emotional wreck that would be Hagrid. That was just not something she would be able to do and she felt no shame in acknowledging that - albeit to herself only.
The other three didn't catch on though and nodded like this was completely logical - like 'of course brilliant (clearly) Ascella would be able to know where they were.
And so it was decided - Harry would smuggle the cloak down to dinner that night under his robes and the four of them would hang about after until the Gryffindor trio slipped under the cloak and headed down to Hagrid's. Ascella would then sneak onto the grounds around the same time to wait for them.
Forty-five minutes later Ascella was biding the trio good bye and good luck, before she slipped into the shadows cast by the castle to wait. She quickly became cold and bored. So bored in fact she started kicking a stone around with the toe of her shoe. In doing so she didn't realize she'd drifted further away from the castle than she'd intended to. Startled upon realizing it she looked at her watch to see it was about the time of Buckbeak's execution.
"Shouldn't be long now," she muttered to herself. "Best get back towards the oak front door - wait. What the bloody hell is that?"
Ascella stopped short in her rambling and in her movement back towards the castle. Squinting her eyes in the fading light she tried to make out what the large meandering shape that she saw across the lawn was. It looked like a giant four legged creature - very dog like in fact. Without thinking Ascella began to follow it. Hogwarts didn't normally see dogs on the grounds - and no student was allowed one as a pet - much to Ascella's annoyance ("They let cats in. And rats! Why not lovable doggo's!? This is animal/pet discrimination is what it is!") so she really wanted to figure out what was going on. Plus she couldn't help but feel like this dog looked familiar... not too mention it was moving very quickly.
Ascella was at a near full sprint in seconds trying to catch up to it. Luckily it was running down the lawn towards the area where the Whomping Willow was - not up the lawn - and lucky Ascella had taken to going for afternoon runs with Cho to keep in shape for Quidditch. As it was she was still panting when she finally got within shouting distance of the mut.
"Oy!" she huffed out. "Come 'ere pooch!"
Either the dog didn't hear her or was ignoring her. Either way she kept following. Only to run - quite literally into Harry and Hermione.
"Ooof!"
"Ow!"
"'Cella!?"
"Harry? What are you doing here?" she asked hastily trying to brush her hair out of her face, from her place on top of her friend.
"Could ask you the same - " But he was cut off by a blood curdling scream.
"RON!" Harry shouted, as he literally threw her off of him and made to run towards the sound of the screaming. But he was too late. Ron was being dragged down a hole at the base of the Whomping Willow - his leg bent at an old angle - being dragged by the very dog Ascella had been chasing.
"Bad dog!" she scolded, her pointer finger out. It was a testament to how serious Harry found the situation that he didn't even spare her a glance at her complete lack of comprehension of what was going on, instead turning to Hermione.
"We have to get to him!"
"I know!" Hermione replied, equally horrified. "Oh but how? Every time we get close the Whomping Willow - well it -"
"Whomps us?" Ascella supplied, trying not to let the grin tugging at her lips to surface.
Both Harry and Hermione gave Ascella looks.
"What?" she shrugged, a hand running through her long side fringe that was stuck to the sides of her sweaty face. "Of course I'm worried about Ron - you know I just can't say it. Anyway, there's gotta be a way to the base of the tree. What if we crawled so we were closer to the ground?"
Harry shook his head.
"Not unless you can still move at lightning speed."
"Oh help, helphelp," Hermione began muttered, as she twitched her weight from one foot to the other, chewing on the finger nails of her right hand.
"Um 'Mione? Not to change the subject or anything but is that your cat?" Ascella asked catching sight of the ugly brute, as it came prancing along down the lawn towards them, moving much more gracefully than it's ugliness and bowlegged body would imply was possible.
Harry and Hermione whipped around as one.
"Why yes - " Hermione breathed as the three of watched open mouthed as the cat came up to them, passed them, danced and darted it's way to the base of the Whomping Willow, looked back at them as if they were idiots all (okay maybe Ascella just assumed that's what the beast was thinking), placed a paw on a gnarled knob at the base of the trunk and disappeared down the hole Ron just had.
"Well cheeky bitc-" Ascella started to rant until she noticed what had happened when the cat had pressed the knob - the Whomping Willow had frozen in place. "Oh! Well that's nice. Your cat might be useful after all 'Mione."
"Come on!" Harry broke through their awe and darted forward to follow the cat, Hermione not far behind him.
"I really need new friends," Ascella sighed. But complain she might there was no way she wasn't going to follow the other two.
They found themselves in a dank underground tunnel, that didn't provide as much headroom as the one to Honeyduke's. The trio pulled out their wands each murmuring "lumos", letting the light fill the tunnel, and throwing light sharply onto Harry's face. Ascella reached a hand out but stopped herself, she knew now wasn't the time but the cuts on his face didn't look good.
"Ready?" Harry asked a feverish look of determination in his eyes. The girls nodded. "Alright come on!" he beckoned and they made their way bent backed along the tunnel as fast as they could.
"Say, why were you lot near the Whomping Willow?" Ascella asked Hermione's back.
"Oh," she huffed out, breathing heavily at the pace Harry had set.
"We found Scabbers - "
"Wha- ow!" Ascella said rubbing the back of her head. In her surprise at hearing the news about Scabbers being alive she had stood up too high and smacked her head on the low ceiling. The other two turned back alarmed but she waved them to keep going - she'd had worse, besides Ron's condition was no doubt the worst at the moment, thus he was their priority.
"So the rat is alive? Where did you find him?"
"In Hagrid's hut."
"But then, how'd you end up near the Willow?"
"Scabbers started squirming and then bit Ron and ran off - we chased him down. He'd just gotten the rat again when the dog hit him in the chest, knocking him over - then we ran into you."
"Oh. Well shit. So the dog was after Ron? Bit weird. I would pick smaller prey but I suppose Ron is well fed..."
"Ascella!"
"Sorry sorry!"
They were silent for the remainder of the journey, Harry driven forward with determination, Hermione focusing on breathing and Ascella making sure to keep extra distance between her head and the ceiling. Eventually the path began to curve upright, as well as give way to more overhead room, for which Ascella was very grateful.
It was then that a dim light came from up ahead. It seemed the tunnel was nearing an end.
"Is that - the interior of a house?" Ascella asked sticking her head around Harry from where he had stopped just shy of where the tunnel ended.
"You know - I think it's the Shrieking Shack," Hermione breathed a hand over her mouth to hush her voice.
"Noooo! Oh jolly good mates!" Ascella said far louder than was appropriate - she just found it highly entertaining to have found the inside of the Shrieking Shake.
"Ascella," Harry hissed at her, shooting her a warning glare to quiet down.
"Right - the dog - the dog dragging Ron," she whispered.
"Stop. Talking," Harry repeated with more emphasis. She opened her mouth to tell him she got it when she was met with his glare. She snapped her mouth shut and opted for a brisk nod instead, her eyes wide to show her comprehension of the seriousness of the situation.
Seemingly satisfied with this, Harry motioned them forward.
They soon found themselves in an old musty house - what little furniture was there was had bite marks and was chewed on. The place smelled thick with disuse and heavy with history - in other words it was dusty and stale. And on the worn floor was a clear path cut in the dust leading them across the room and up a haphazard, uneven height set of stairs. The path of Ron being dragged along.
"Ghosts didn't make that," Harry commented looking at the mangled furniture.
They might have kept speaking if not for the voices they heard upstairs. The trio looked at one another silent communication passing between them before, as one, they noxed their wand lights and headed as silently as they could up the rickety stairs, Harry leading the way, wand gripped fast in his hand.
In the first bedroom off the upstairs landing they found Ron - white faced and in pain clutching in one hand his stupid rat while trying to stay upright and conscience on the bed. Ron caught sight of them from the slightly open door.
"Harry - Cella! Get out of here!" he roared at them.
"What? Ron, are you crazy?" Ascella replied. "Hell no! I did not just spend a half hour hunched over in a dirt passageway trying to save your ass just so you can tell us to bugger off. No I did not!"
"'Cella! Shut up and get out!"
"And leave you to fend off that giant dog - nope," Ascella shook her head and pushed her way into the room ignoring the horrified look on Ron's face as he looked at something over her shoulder, instead striding over to where he was on the bed.
"Come on - up and at 'em - while the bloody dog is off," Ascella muttering while she made to put her arms around Ron and help him to his feet only to have him slap her hand away.
"Seriously 'Cells. You and Harry have to leave. It's not a dog. It's-it's -"
Ascella searched Ron's face starting to get more than a little exasperated with her friend.
"It's - it's what Ron? A wolf? What? Gotta give me something here."
"It's - he's the dog! He's an animagus!
"A what?" Ascella snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. Must be the wound. You've lost too much blood so now you are talking crazy. Come on. Up and at 'em - where's your wand by the way?"
But it wasn't Ron who answered. Ron was too busy staring horrified over her shoulder. Nor was it Harry or Hermione, who had finally stopped looking at Ascella and Ron instead turning to face what had their friend so horrified.
"Ascella! Watch out - " Harry roared. Ascella spun at his words wand flying out at the ready. But it was too late. All three of their wands floated through the air and into the outstretched hand of one Sirius Black. Ascella's murderous, crazy, crackpot father.
Ascella would be ashamed to admit it but she froze in that moment - her wand arm still raised, her mouth open as if to say the words of the spell that would've blocked the disarmament. Instead she couldn't do anything but blink in horror at being once again in the same room as the man whose DNA she shared. He looked - if anything - worse than he had before when she'd last seen him, his skin stretched tight over his high cheekbones - cheekbones Ascella didn't like noticing they shared.
She didn't move even when he finally spoke, voice raspy with disuse. She read his lips more than heard what he said, a rushing sound seeming to have overtaken her sense of hearing.
"I thought you'd come and help your friend. Your father would have done the same for me. Brave of you, not to run for a teacher. I'm grateful... it will make everything so much easier..."
She doesn't comment as she might have on what an utterly ridiculous thing to say that was. She also doesn't stop Harry when moments later he launched himself at the man who betrayed his parents and abandoned his own flesh and blood. She didn't even break out of her revere when Black began to tussle further with Harry suddenly gaining the upper hand despite his skeletal frame a hand going round Harry's throat. She didn't even blink when Harry got his wand back, holding it to Black's throat and threatening to kill the man. All that happened then was tunnel vision, her eyes fixing onto Black's - though he was pleading with Harry. Saying something about hearing a story perhaps.
But it didn't matter because all she saw was herself reflected in those eyes and all she felt at this knowledge was disgust. She'd be glad if Harry killed him - the man deserved it. She opened her mouth to even say so, not noticing the wetness on her cheeks or the knot in her throat, when a noise came from below and Hermione hollered for help. Not ten seconds later did non other than Professor Lupin rush in, sweat dripping at his brow. His usually calm eyes, calculating and focused now - he took in the situation in one sweeping look and in the next moment Harry was once again wandless this time at his professor's hands and Lupin turned to address Black.
"Where is he?" he asked, breathless. Black stared at him long and hard - as if looking to trust him. How Ascella knew that she didn't dwell on but for some reason she was finding it easier reading Black than reading a book. He acted like she would in the situation. It was a thought which only made the stinging taste of bile rise in her throat.
Then Black pointed one long bony finger past Ascella, towards where Ron was sitting on the bed still struggling to contain Scabbers.
Something like realization seemed to dawn over Lupin's face. Then he was smiling and embracing Black like a brother, leaving the lot of them thoroughly shocked. And in the next moment Hermione was suddenly spitting mad, shouting at Lupin about how she knew he wasn't to be trusted and how she felt betrayed because she'd kept his secret, that he was a werewolf. Surprisingly, it was this statement more than anything that spurred Ascella to speak.
"Bloody hell, Hermione,"Ascella spat viciously, more viciously than her friend deserved but Ascella was far too gone emotionally to register where her anger should be directed. "You don't just mistrust someone because they are a ruddy werewolf!" And suddenly everyone's eyes were on her. If you asked her later why that was the moment that her frozen state broke she would have no idea. Maybe it was because it was so ridiculous to her, she who had known so long about Remus Lupin, or maybe because she had spent a vast amount of time that year trying to make the transition easier for Lupin or maybe it was just because it was the most normal thing she could grab onto in the moments of complete unreality that had happened up until then.
Either way she had cracked finally and he - he - was looking at her now. She froze, her pulse spiking and temperature rising.
"I think I'm going to be sick."
And she promptly was. She learned two things in that moment: one, she really should learn to chew her food better and two, always have a hair band on hand when puking because without one - well, let's just say her hair didn't start sticking to her face and robes because of sweat.
Harry was the first one at her side, though she couldn't help but notice both Black and Lupin flinched forward as if to help as well. They were no doubt stopped by the death glare radiating from Ron - Ascella could practically feel the heat it threw off. Either way her sickness starts off a plethora of yelling on Harry and Ron's part demanding Lupin explain himself - but it only made Ascella feel worse. She just wished everyone would shut up.
Eventually, Lupin convinced them to quiet down as it looked like Ascella was going to be sick again. Harry, catching a look of her face, promptly stopped shouting too.
"You better have a damn good explanation for this," was all he said, glaring up at their professor, while rubbing soothing circles in Ascella's back.
"Trust me, Harry, you are going to want to hear this. I only just figured it out myself. Tonight in fact. When I saw someone who shouldn't be alive on the map. And the map never lies."
Harry's eyes narrowed in the same suspicion Ascella was feeling.
"Oh?" he asked, voice laced with sarcasm. "And who might that be?"
"The boy's rat," Black croaked, answering for Lupin.
"Yes," Lupin confirmed. "Or as he's better known in the wizarding world, Peter Pettigrew."
This fact was so utterly ridiculous that Ascella felt herself come back to herself. This was a fact - something she could grasp at, a thought unrelated to her father, who was not ten feet from her.
She didn't know exactly why it was this that got through her but Ascella's revere was now broken and she was definitely going to make up for it.
"Wait a bloody second," Ascella roared. It seemed that once she'd come out of her previous state of immobility she had come out of it with a vengeance. "You two are friends aren't you? That's how you fucking knew so much about my mother and Harry's dad. Good Godric. I can't believe this. I thought we could trust you."
"That's what I said!" Hermione supplied. She sputtered out when Ascella turned her glare on her.
"And now," Ascella continued, "you are trying to tell us that Ron's fucking rat is actually Peter Pettigrew? A man we all know to be dead?! Tell me - why the fuck would any of us trust you two?"
"Ascella," Lupin rushed to calmly explain. "Just think of the locket - it was Marly's, your mother loved Sirius - trust in that."
Ascella narrowed her eyes. "Just how well did you actually know my mother, professor?"
Lupin opened and closed his mouth many times as if unsure how to respond exactly. He looked to Black but Black looked frozen and very much like he couldn't speak at all.
"It's Marly's," Lupin repeated lamely instead. "Padfoot gave it to her."
"Padfoot? What the fuck is a Padfoot?"
"Watch your mouth," Black croaked, as if on reflex.
"Ooh ho! What do we have here? Someone thinks he can be a father now?" Ascella may have sassed the question out, her words layered with heavy sarcasm but she still couldn't bring herself to look at the man himself.
"Look Ascella, let us explain," Lupin continued. "I haven't been his friend this whole time. But yes. In school we were close. If you will just let us explain. Here - we will even give you your wands back. If you'll just listen," Lupin pleaded holding their wands out to them base end first, in a gesture of goodwill.
Ascella took hers and looked to Harry. Only if he was willing to listen would she be. Otherwise, this little reunion was over. Harry nodded.
"Damnit Harry," she mumbled. "Fine," she said louder, nodding permission to Lupin. And with that Lupin began the story.
Ascella listened to their story - one that began back when Lupin and their parents were but eleven years old, a story about how the whomping willow had been planted their first year, about how Black and Lupin had met, about the four of them becoming friends James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, about finding out about Lupin's 'Furry little problem' and becoming animagi, albeit unregistered ones which would explain why Scabber's could be who they claimed. But while the story seemed legit to the point even where Ascella could see her friends at the very least thoroughly listening and no longer intent on trying to get away, she just found herself with more questions then answers. And she really couldn't tell how she felt about any of it.
She had spent so long thinking the absolute worst about her father - far longer than Harry or any of the others seeing as she'd grown up with the story of his evilness and now to hear them tell it - and very logically at that - there was no betrayal. It was all one big misunderstanding. And that left a sour taste in Ascella's mouth. Worse yet than when she'd vomited so profusely.
Why did you leave me, became the only question Ascella was repeating over and over in her head. Why did he drop her off with his cousin and go gallivanting around acting like he didn't have any responsibilities? Why was protecting this James person so much more important than staying at her side and raising her? Why why why? And where had her mother fit into all of this?
Ascella was about to open her mouth to ask these questions when the last person she expected to see, Snape, revealed himself from under Harry's invisibility cloak. Everyone was rightfully horrified at seeing the greasy man ("Ugh Harry you may never get the grease stains off the cloak now," Ascella hadn't been able to stop herself from saying her only excuse being that it had been a long night already. But she ended up being more than a little disturbed at the bark of laughter that came from her father at her words though and she fell silent right quick after.)
Nevertheless, when it became apparent that Snape had no intention of listening to the rest of Lupin and Black's story Harry, Ascella, Ron and Hermione used the wands they'd been given back to disarm Snape. Only with all four doing it they effectively knocked him out and his wand not quite knowing who to go to fell limply in the middle of them. Maybe it had been Crookshanks protecting Black or maybe the story was starting to make sense but for whatever reason it was they had just hexed a teacher and were still willing to listen to Lupin and Black.
"You shouldn't have done that," Black said in the silence that followed - though Ascella thought she could detect a hint of pride in his voice. Ascella turned her wand sharply towards him her face frozen to steely points.
"Don't think it was for you. You've still yet to give us valid proof or a very good explanation yourself," she said to him. And for the first time since they'd all been in the room did her father raise his eyes to meet hers. And how she wished she could look away. And not because she saw a crazed madman like she'd expected or because she saw reflected in him all that she hated about herself. No, she couldn't look away because it was pain she saw in his eyes. Pain, love and something deep within, something she couldn't put a name on but something that was distinctly human. And it was that more than anything that made her crack.
Lip trembling, a knot caught high in her throat, and with a burning behind her eyes Ascella asked what she was most concerned about in the story they'd been spinning.
"The night my mother was murdered you left me, a baby no one knew about I might add, with your cousin and her husband. If you weren't the traitor, then why did you leave me to Meda and Ted?"
"To protect you."
"From what!?"
"You couldn't possibly know, Ascella." Black visibly jolted at his use of her name - like it was a foreign thing on his tongue, which it probably was. The madman somehow composed himself and continued in his rough voice. "They were picking people off one by one. My bloody relatives were. And we knew there was a traitor. How else would Marl's family have been found? It was the whole reason we'd kept everything a secret in the first place. We didn't know who to trust. On either side. She was already being targeted for having been so closely associated with me I couldn't bare to know I was putting you in the same danger. 'Dromeda was the only one I knew who'd understand - she and Ted barely made it through themselves. Death Eaters didn't take kindly to having family members on the other side."
"That's dumb," she finally said.
"I - what?"
"How well did all these secrets work out, huh? You still lost everything!"
Black shut his mouth, his eyes lowering to look at his hands as he stroked Crookshanks' head.
"At least you are still alive," he rasped sounding as though words were hard for him to speak. Silence met it. She had no response to that. How could she when her mother so very clearly was not. When Harry's parents weren't. When so many countless others hadn't made it either.
"Hindsight is 20/20, Ascella," Lupin said gently. His tone more than anything is what broke Ascella, the held back tears now overflowing out of her eyes.
Harry made to move towards her but she shook her head. "Show us," she said instead her voice steady and strong contrasting how she looked and felt. "Make him reveal himself. I want to see the man you both claim is responsible for shattering so many lives."
A/n *long sigh* You - my loyal readers have no idea how hard this chapter was for me to write. I can't count how many times I opened this chapter over the last 7 months and tried to get past Ron getting dragged down the passage at the base of the whomping willow. I know not why I struggled... but alas.
Soo... What do you think?
