February 3, 1978

A week and a half later, Dorcas passes me the cream for my coffee while laughing at Lily's joke about Slughorn. When I returned from the hospital wing, I found all those seventh-year Gryffindors sitting near us at every meal, giving the illusion of space as they watched. Eventually, with the tables crowded during certain meals, they began to sit with us, including us in conversations as if we belonged. And then we did belong. They do not bring up that night, but sometimes I catch Sirius looking at me as if I might break. I remember my words in the water — I would have given up if I knew — and I pray the only things he is thinking of are my paled face, bloody head, and uneven breaths.

Dorcas said Cara, Emmeline, Connor, and some of Connor's friends tried to sit with her at first but were sent back to their respective tables quickly. The thought of Connor wanting to protect Dorcas brings warmth and stillness to my aching and racing heart.

I spend some nights before bed, definitely more than before, curled up with Connor in the library doing homework. I'm usually there before him on the days he has practice, but when he doesn't, we spend time wrapped around each other behind tapestries and knights made of armour.

Mulciber and the others are going through some kind of trial with the professors. The professors might decide to expel the lot of them. Dorcas and the others think Mulciber will be expelled considering his past offenses, but they also say the others might get to stay, much to everyone's chagrin. I think of the girl who kicked me in the head and shudder.

Marlene says one day, "If they don't expel all of them, we'll protest." The boys, Lily, and even Dorcas agree. Mary and I stay silent, but then again, Mary and I usually stay quiet.

Today, at breakfast, Lily tells us she's asked that she and James get a vote in the determination, and the Headmaster has said maybe.

Sirius snorts next to me. He always sits next to me.

Connor has noticed.

"It's better than no," James offers.

"Way to look on the bright side, mate." Peter claps him on the shoulder.

They drop the subject, but I can see Sirius roll his eyes dramatically in my peripheral, wanting everyone to see. As I said, nobody brings up that night, but we dance around the topic, waiting for it to be alright.

Dorcas is afraid, I think. Or, at the very least, she was. We slept in the same bed the first two nights after, but Dorcas's company is now scattered. When I am alone, the darkness is enveloping, crushing, blinding. I am terrified in a way I have never been before, and I wonder how long it will take for me to be alright this time.

I push my thoughts away and focus on James feeding Lily fruit with a fork. I try to keep my face neutral and kind but feel judgmental of the display.

"Lily thinks breakfast is the most romantic meal of the day," Sirius says, leaning in so slightly, I don't know if he notices.

"It is," Lily and I say.

Lily gestures for me to explain. I'm assuming she's surprised I've spoken at all.

"I'm the most myself at breakfast," I shrug. "There's no time for glamour or pretenses, and I'm still too tired for a facade. Romance isn't about fancy dresses and candlelight. It's about honesty and intimacy. What's more honest and intimate than my matted hair as I shamelessly chug coffee?"

"Sometimes dresses and candlelight can be nice, though," Lily adds.

"Sometimes," I concede. Or, I lie. Connor and I have never been on a nice date. I don't know if we've ever been on a date at all. We grew up together, and then we fell together. Into a relationship. Into love. Into bed. Though not necessarily in that order.

"Are you telling me all these breakfasts together have been romantic, Ruiz?" Sirius mumbles his words so only I can hear.

I turn to him just enough so he can see me roll my eyes.

.

I skive off potions and curl up in the library. Arnold and Shirley bought me a book of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings, and I'm thumbing through it when someone sits next to me. Usually, it might have been a moment before I noticed, me lost in a world of art, him with hushed breaths and cautious limbs. But this is not usually. Nothing is usually anymore.

Remus places a large book in front of himself, opening it too quickly for me to read the title, and I notice the small font and narrow spacing. He's getting through it, despite the atrocious print, hands smoothing out pages towards the middle as he prepares himself to read.

"You don't have class?" I ask.

"No, I usually tutor about now." He hums, moving his bookmark to the side. "It looks like my student is following in your footsteps."

"Don't want to face Slughorn," I mumble.

"Ah," he breathes. "Makes sense."

Then, silence. It's one that I quite enjoy. He reads and I thumb and it's lovely. Remus, alone, is enjoyably mundane. With the boys, though, he is just as raucous, as histrionic, as out-of-control. It's as if they fuel him.

A crash sounds from the front of the library, and I startle into an upright position, eyes searching. Remus, seemingly instinctively, reaches out and lays a hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off quickly and try to control my breathing.

"Do you want me to go see what that was?" he asks slowly.

I simply nod.

While he's gone, I keep my eyes trained on the shelves in front of me, unmoving. Remus returns moments later and explains that some bloke knocked over the cart of books waiting to be returned. I breathe out a sigh of relief and reach out to my book. Remus sits next to me and does the same, letting silence fall once more.

The smell of books surrounds us, and I try to let it subdue me like before the trauma. I think about Vincent van Gogh and his own trauma. I think about one of Shirley's favorite songs as I look through the paintings — Vincent by Don McLean.

And when no hope was left inside

On that starry, starry night

You took your life as lovers often do

But I could have told you, Vincent

This world was never meant for one

As beautiful as you

Again, I remember. I wouldn't have given up if I knew. I curl further into myself, and Remus doesn't seem to notice.

.

Before dinner, I meet Slughorn in the dungeons to talk about my rapidly decreasing class participation and overall attendance. There is pity in his eyes when he looks at me, so I lie and promise to do better, so he'll let me go. I shrink under his faux-wise gaze and proud Slytherin robes.

He knows what his students did to me.

"So tomorrow then, Ms. Ruiz?"

I nod once. "Tomorrow."

I grab my bag and leave his classroom without a proper goodbye, taking a narrow turn around the doorframe and into the corridor. I am nervous about being down here, and the anxiety slowly crawls its way up my spine until it sits at the nape of my neck. And just like that night, there is a moment caught between seconds when my heart drops and my chest aches.

Danger, Will Robinson!

I hear it in Azalea's voice, young and childish, whispered.

I find a small group of Slytherins loitering and chatting the night away as I round the corner. One girl shrugs her bag further up her shoulder while another curls her hair with a wand. One boy stands against the wall with his hands in his pockets while another throws his head back in laughter. They stop when they see me, eyes narrowing, mouths curling almost in sync. I stop, too, waiting for one of them to say something.

The first time a classmate assaulted me, I was seven. Amos Burke pushed me to the ground and kicked me in the stomach for answering a question correctly after he'd gotten it wrong. He said I'd made him look stupid and that fat, poor girls weren't allowed to make him look silly. The bruises didn't clear for weeks, and all the while, he and his mates would follow me around and call me a dirty pig. And eventually, inevitably, I started to believe it.

In the present, one of the Slytherins spits, "Do you enjoy being a rat, Ruiz?"

I almost tell them I wasn't even awake when the professors found out what had happened to Dorcas and me, but then their anger would only be on Dorcas. So I stay silent and fiddle with the ring in my nose, realizing they probably had no idea who I was before last week. Tears prick at the corners of my burning eyes, but I hold them back.

"She asked you a question," the laughing boy growls.

I purse my lips and feel my nostrils flare. "I heard her."

"Then answer, mudblood." I have been called the word many times, but rarely ever so flippantly. He places it at the end of his sentence as if it belongs there.

"No." Something flips in my stomach, and my focus turns toward trying not to puke.

"Answer me!"

"I don't want to."

The quiet boy with his hands in his pockets lets out a laugh of his own, short, loud, and through his nose. I almost laugh with him, but then I'm reminded of my maniacal cackling as Mulciber shouted his unforgivable at me over and over again. I shudder.

"Cormac," one of the girls growls.

"What? It's funny. She's funny."

"She's a mudblood, Cormac."

"Mudbloods can be funny, Poppy," he states, naming the girl with half-a-head of curls.

Poppy steps toward me, half-a-head of curls bouncing, and squares her shoulders. "If our friends get expelled, there's going to be a target on your back."

That night a week and a half ago, flashes in front of me, the screaming, the laughing, the kicking, the drowning. The fear echoes in my chest, my heart racing somehow faster than before, and I think I could faint in front of these four Slytherins if I weren't so scared of what they might do to my vulnerable body.

Loud footsteps sound from the direction I was previously headed in, interrupting my growing fear, and Sirius appears in the darkened corridor — is it always so dark down here? — shoving a large piece of parchment into his robes. One of the Slytherins huffs while the rest tense, including Poppy in front of me.

"Is there a problem?" he asks as if it never occurred to him how cliche the words are.

"No problem here," Cormac replies. "Just joking around."

"Right." Sirius moves to stand next to me. I think if there were room, he would stand directly in front of me. "There's no problem then, Poppy?"

"You might be the only problem here, blood traitor."

Sirius lets out a snort. "See you around, then."

He puts a hand on the small of my back, guiding me around Poppy and away from the group. It feels like hours until we are far enough away that I can move his hand, stop in my tracks, and panic. I crouch forward, hands on my knees, and fail to control my breathing.

"There's going to be a target on my back," I mumble. "On Dorcas's back."

"Those guys?" Sirius asks rhetorically. "They're all bark and no bite."

"Tell that to my internal wounds, Sirius," I mutter.

"Right, sorry. Foot-in-mouth disorder," Sirius reaches up to scratch his neck.

We stand in uncomfortable silence, me fighting against rapid breaths and Sirius leaning casually against the wall. Every time I look up, there's a stupid, pitying look in his eyes as he watches me struggle in my trauma. I want to punch him in his stupid, long nose.

"What are you even doing here?" I ask, breaths evening but blood still rushing.

"You were late to dinner," he says as though I should have known. "Dorcas told me where you'd be. I was worried."

"Well," I huff, finally standing up straight, "don't worry."

"What's your problem, Aster? I was worried. I'm just trying to help!" Sirius pushes off the wall to stand in front of me, eyes wide.

"I don't need your help!" I yell back. "I didn't ask for your help! I didn't ask for you!"

"Well, Kent isn't going to do anything!" Sirius snaps. "He doesn't seem to care!"

"Connor is none of your business," I seethe, bewildered he'd even bring Connor into the conversation. "And I do not need a man to step in for me!"

"You need someone!" He opens his arms to the empty corridor as if to show me that there is nobody here for me, and even though I know the truth to be different, the darkness around us causes my chest to ache.

"No, I don't!" I shout back the short sentence with force, stubborn and young and without any words of substance with which to argue.

"Yes, you do!" He steps closer, eyes wild, arms still open, force beneath his words and his feet but also maybe desperation, too.

"No!" I stamp my foot.

"I heard you, Aster!" Sirius takes another step forward and lowers his voice. "I heard what you said in the water. What were you going to do?" His mouth curls downward. "Were you going to let yourself be pulled under and die?"

"Why does it have to be you?" I push him away with both hands ready to curl back into fists. "Why do you and your bloody friends keep sticking yourselves into my business?"

We stop, stand, stare. Nothing in me wants to freeze, but I do not know how to make the next move. I am caught between fight or flight, dancing upon the line, hands beginning to close, feet waiting to fly.

"Merlin, Aster," Sirius finally says with a sigh and a hand in his hair. "We care. You didn't choose to be muggleborn or a wizard and have people like Mulciber hunting you through the corridors or beating you in the woods. And you certainly don't deserve it."

His words sting.

I take a large breath, slow down my heart rate, and say, "No, I don't."

My hands begin to relax, and my feet dig firmly into the ground.

"Well, I think it's the responsibility of people like James and me —" Sirius begins.

"Purebloods?" I cross my arms over my chest.

"I think it's our responsibility to fight back with you instead of pretending it doesn't exist."

There is a second between his words and what happens next that I almost gasp for air. Weeks ago, Sirius was practically a stranger able to forget my name after lending me a cigarette. Now, he's… whatever he and the rest of them are. Friends? Comrades? And even if I'd rather people not fight for me unless I ask, it's still more than Connor will probably ever do in this regard.

I've known Connor since I was eleven.

I love Connor, and Connor loves me.

So why do I step forward and grab Sirius's face with my hot palms and press my lips against his?

.

AN/: slow and steady wins the race, I guess?

I just quit my teaching job to care for my mental health and am going on medication for the first time ever. Depression is a bitch, isn't it? I'm hoping by stepping backward in subbing I'll have more time to write and enough of a charged battery to think. Anyway, another chapter goes by in the story of Aster Ruiz, and another will come in time. Thanks for reading!

All my love