The morning of September first arrived clear and bright. At dawn, it broke through the mist which clung to the fields and scattered it like ashes, the tendrils of fog burning up in the balmy sunbeams and disappearing into steaming vapors. Then, the sun poked its head up from behind the dark sleepy hills and began to reach through moss-covered columns of trees and splash across the frothing brooks that carved out its path between them. At the looming gray brick house, its crumbling face hidden behind thickets of ivy and tall, wild rose bushes, the first light of daybreak found the only window with its curtains drawn and splashed its rosy-warm hue over the length of nearly black wooden floors.
It was in that room that a girl sat quietly, ramrod straight, on the edge of her bed as she waited for the rest of the house to awaken. Her hands she had folded neatly, so poised and elegant as they propped on one crossed knee which poked out from beneath her freshly pressed, pleated black skirt. But every now and then, her impatience would show its true colors in the violent, intermittent bounce of her bottom leg and a vicious tapping of her sensible Mary Jane slippers. Those, too, had been polished to perfection so that the light refracting through her undressed window danced upon them like flashes of dry lightning reflecting in a deep summer twilight.
Sighing heavily, she stood from her restless position and the bed groaned in protest. Her pale hair – twisted neatly into one long plait that sloped down the valley of her back – sashayed with each staccato step she took, pacing around her trunks and the wire cage which held a snoozing owl within it. Everything seemed in order, just like it had been the first three times she'd passed inspection on the smaller, stocky chest which held her schoolbooks, cauldron, and a set of scales for weighing Potions ingredients, among other necessities for class. The larger trunk held her extra robes, cold-weather vest, scarf, gloves, various sets of undergarments, white collared shirts, two ties, a spare traveling cloak, and other bits and pieces of garment which would serve her through the different seasons she would encounter during her two terms at Hogwarts. Many pieces of clothing she would wear with pride as they made a display of her house colors – the cool silver and venomous emerald green of Slytherin.
The black barn owl hooted softly behind her and the girl swiveled around to find the great, lamp-like eyes fixated on her pleadingly. Some of the feathers were ruffled still from curling in on itself and hiding its face from the glare under its downy, black-and-brown speckled wing.
"No, Archimedes," she scolded it in a sharp whisper, and the owl blinked back at her, its head tilting in question. "You can't come out now. Mother and father should be coming any second to fetch us."
It was almost as though she were reassuring herself more than the cramped little barn owl whose feathers bristled at the promise that'd he'd be staying in his cage for the foreseeable future.
As if summoned by the mere mention of her names for them, the door to her room flew open and her father and mother appeared at the entrance. Her mother wafted in like a spring breeze, bringing the smell of fresh jasmine with her. She smiled and reached out for her daughter while her husband stooped to help the servants which crowded around her trunks. Archimedes gave a clipped squawk of protest as his cage was lifted into the air and into the arms of one of the maids.
"Viola, we're so proud of you," her mother's voice melted like warm honey in her ears. "Your sixth year at Hogwarts already! It seems like it was only yesterday that we got your acceptance letter…"
"Oh mum," Viola pulled back and smiled tenderly as her mother tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear for her. "Don't get all mushy on me now..."
The trunks were cleared and her room seemed strangely empty and quiet, especially after the pandemonium of the last few days as she rushed to pack for the year ahead. Her mother slipped an arm around her trim waist and led her out into the hall after her father and the rest of the servants with her school things. Viola couldn't help but cast one last look over her shoulder at her room, which she would not see again until Christmastime.
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King's Cross station was as busy as ever, bursting at the seams with muggles. Their small family of three wove in and out of clumps of gray-suited muggles with their briefcases and tumblers of lukewarm tea and coffee, Viola ignoring the dark glowers in their direction at noticing they were not at all like them. They were, after all, only muggles, and she had been taught growing up that they were of no consequence nor use to the magical world. Their opinion meant very little to her and therefore they might as well have not even existed in her mind.
Perhaps the world would be better for it if they did not, she mused privately to herself.
Viola and her mother stopped and huddled together between platforms nine and ten, waiting for her father to disappear into the secret gateway with the trolley full of her school things. They, too, sprinted toward what looked like a solid brick wall lined with mortar and cracks bearing the brunt of old age, but the boring façade melted away as they passed through to the other side. Opening her eyes once more, Viola could not help the joyful grin which spread across her flushing cheeks and sparkled in the shallows of her eyes. There it was – the Hogwarts Express, its sleek black and candy apple red body gleaming in the late morning sun. Its smokestack belched thick plumes of charcoal smoke which turned the pearly blue sky a rancid sort of brown as it was smothered behind the eclipsing haze.
The platform itself was riddled with students in various stages of goodbye – some wiggling out of the suffocating arms of weeping mothers (those, Viola noted with a sympathetic, knowing smirk, were mostly first years), others shouting over the din of hissing engines and raised voices that they promised to write this time as they hopped aboard the train with a spring of excitement and a sense of adventure in their step. There were quite a few more hanging out of windows, smiling down at relatives and parents who had come to see them off and couldn't bring themselves to leave just yet. Beside her, a young boy with a round, pale face sporting an adorable dusting of freckles looked up at the elderly witch stooping over him, his downy grey eyes watering with trepidation as she seemed to be in the middle of chastising him.
"Now Felix," the witch spoke louder to be heard over a pack of squealing first years, and now Viola could hear every word she said. "I want only good letters and marks this year. And don't go misplacing your knickers again or I'll be sending a howler straight away!"
The boy hung his head as he pocketed what looked to be a cellophane-wrapped sandwich and turned to board the train.
"Well, my dear girl, looks like everything is in order," her father's voice floated airily, effortlessly, over her head. "Your trunks are loaded and the train leaves in three minutes. Here's Archimedes..."
Her father handed over the wire cage which contained her disheveled, nervous looking black barn owl. They knitted themselves together, the three of them, into a warm knot as their arms tightened around one another. Her father kissed her on the top of her head and she felt the sharp crest of her mother's exquisite cheekbone nestled into her temple. This was always the worst part, the goodbyes. It was not that she didn't want to leave, to embark on another adventure to the place she loved only second to home itself. Rather, it was always in that last moment before she boarded the train to leave that she realized this would be the last time she'd see her beloved parents until Christmas. She always seemed to wait until the last minute to do much of anything, especially when it came to facing uncomfortable truths and emotions.
The whistle sounded its last warning; her mother and father pulled back and gave her smiles tinged with a sort of halfhearted sorrow.
"Take care of yourself, sweet girl," her mother said, cupping her daughter's chin with tender affection one last time. "And don't forget to write!"
Backing away from them, but still unable to turn to make the farewells final, Viola replied, "of course mum, I wouldn't dream of it!"
"Until Christmas, Viola dear," her father waved her off and then, with the same ease and self-possession that was typical of his carefree disposition, turned to leave.
Her mother, the more sentimental of her two parents, lingered a moment longer to watch her daughter disappear into the hull of the boxcar without another glance. Once the girl was out of sight, she gave a small, inaudible sigh of surrender before turning to follow her husband.
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Once the train had left the station, Viola searched the long line of compartments to find her friends. Many of them, she discovered, were filled with rambunctious first years whose pockets were bursting at the seams with chocolate frogs, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, pumpkin pasties, jelly slugs, and fizzing whizzbees. A few hundred yards ahead, she spotted the sweets trolley and the harried little witch with mismatched eyes who was trying to push it through a crowd of clamorous second and third years. They were making the task quite hard, shoving knuts and sickles in her face and demanding their spoils, so much so that Viola almost pitied the woman, her shoulders slumped in defeat like a windswept snowdrop.
She'd brave the trolley later once she found Octavia and Phaedra.
Viola passed many of her classmates on her slow journey through the boxcar. Some she knew only by appearance, never having actually spoken to them, while others she had even sat next to for years in Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Herbology. Those she spoke briefly with, inquiring after their summer holiday with the politeness and grace which suited her station, but many rushed through their answers as they, too, were looking for friends in the chaos which had not yet dispersed since they left the platform. An hour and a half or more had elapsed before Viola, by chance, peeked into an uncharacteristically quiet carriage to find Phaedra and Octavia whispering quietly amongst themselves.
"There you two are!" She beamed, and the girls' perfectly plaited heads snapped in her direction with the quick fluid grace of a viper. They glowered darkly at the intruder for but an instant before recognizing their friend and bounding to their feet to greet her.
"Oh, Vi, where have you been? We thought perhaps you'd missed the train…" Phaedra hummed pleasantly into her ear, her arms winding around the peaks of her shoulder blades in an affectionate embrace. Octavia, waiting her turn, had taken the wire cage from her grasp and settled Archimedes into the vacant spot next to her, offering a fond greeting to the owl who had just begun to unwind in the soothing quiet of the car.
"Or worse," Octavia brooded, by far the more melodramatic of the group. But she did not expound on her theories as to what dark forces could have been keeping Viola at bay. They seemed private secrets that she did not feel inclined to share even in such a the cramped, intimate setting.
"Don't be silly, I was simply catching up with a few familiar faces…" Viola waved her off. "Did you know Jasper Crawley and his father hunted vampires in Romania over the summer? I could hardly believe it when he told me."
"Oh, how revolting!" Octavia wrinkled her nose in disgust. "But that is Jasper...always poking his nose into trouble, just like his father."
"Sounds like loads of fun to me," Phaedra crooned as she plopped herself back down beside the window, unfolding her copy of the Daily Prophet. "Much more fun than my summer. My parents had charity balls for the last two months and I was forced to talk to every ancient loon in England my mother thought rich enough to invite."
Viola raised one eyebrow at her friend's lament over a perfectly good waste of summer holiday. "That does sound awful, Phae…"
"And just what did you do all summer, Vi?" Octavia resumed her seat as well, crossing her legs as Viola took the empty spot next to Phaedra and balled her fists into the pleats of her skirt. "Practice your love potions some more so you can nab Lucian Soren?"
Viola rolled her eyes at the heavy handed introduction of their favorite joke. She pretended to ignore them as they did not even attempt to stifle the mischievous giggles that erupted first from behind the wall of newspaper which hid Phaedra from them and then from Octavia who simpered theatrically into the back of her knuckles.
Collecting herself as she felt her cheeks start to burn, Viola steeled herself with a calming breath and said, "of course not-"
"You're not still all moony-eyed over him, are you Vi?" Octavia shook her head, as if she did not envy the pitiful situation in which her poor friend found herself embroiled. "Oh, Vi...you know he's untouchable. Quidditch Captain, Head Boy, looks to die for...you just don't run in that circle, you poor girl."
"I really don't need your pity, Tavi." Viola gritted her teeth, her pride still stinging from the blow. She could still feel her cheeks tingling as they turned a dusty rose under their well-meaning scrutiny. What is it to them if I still fancy him? Like they said, I don't have a chance with him...The thought floated through the back of her head with dreamy wistfulness, like moonlight spilling through columns of midnight black trees.
"I heard he's with Gemma Lamonde this year," Phaedra chimed in from behind her wide open copy of the Daily Prophet. It acted as a sprawling black and white shield peppered with smiling faces, question marks, and huge black headlines emblazoned across the tops of moving photographs. Phaedra turned another page and the paper rustled irriatably. "Oh, she's so lovely...I wonder if her hair is naturally that silver white?"
"I heard she's half veela." Octavia whispered conspiratorially.
Having had her fill of the conversation at hand, Viola cleared her throat and attempted to keep the sharp edges of indignation mixed with hurt from cutting through her her voice. "Actually we had a nice quiet summer at home. Father was away too often for us to plan anything big."
"Sounds boring," Octavia yawned. "You had about as much fun as we did this summer."
"Actually it was nice to stay home for once," Viola glowered at her friend. "I enjoyed it very much. I'm even working out the kinks in a potion I've been playing with since fourth year..."
"Oh so you were brewing love potions all summer?" Phaedra lowered her defenses and crumpled the newspaper until it was crushed into the palm of her hand like a blanched, wilted rosebud. "We thought you might.."
"Would you be willing to spare a phial?" Octavia asked, her eyes turning glassy. "I spotted Terence Higgs on the train and he must've shot up three inches over the summer. He'slushas ever. I might have to slip a bit into his pumpkin juice…"
"You lot are a bunch of bullies." Viola replied crossly.
"We're only joking," Phaedra reassured her, fixing her friend with a look of mutinous disgust as they all situated themselves comfortably in their seats. Archimedes gave a small croon of alarm at his mistress, who was sitting much too far away from him than what he was comfortable with. "Oh, don't look at us like that, Vi...we're real sorry, aren't we Tavi?"
The girl in question nodded emphatically in response. "Of course, we just don't want to see you waste another year pining over some boy who doesn't even know any of us exist."
"It's our job to tell you the absolute truth!" Phaedra continued, not at all dissuaded by Viola's crossed arms and seething temper. "And sometimes it smarts a bit."
"Look at all the things you've got going for you...you're one of the top students in Potions!" Octavia seemed to discern her friend's argument and climbed aboard the same train of thought. "Professor Snape, that ruddy wanker, he actually seems to have taken a liking to you after all these years. And he only tolerates Phae and I."
"Oh that's just house loyalty," Viola dismissed them. "He only tolerates his Slytherin students. Hates anyone else, especially Gryffindor. Besides, you two show no interest whatsoever in Potions and he can't seem to get you to shut your traps during lessons either. Of course he doesn't like you."
Phaedra held up her hand in defense of her argument. "Ah, ah, ah.. nevertheless! If Snape had a heart, you'd most definitely have a place in it."
"Why yes! Who needs devastatingly handsome Quidditch players with broad shoulders, long silky black hair, and eyes that melt your heart like chocolate when you've got Snape's affections?" Octavia giggled.
"Moody old bugger." Phaedra muttered darkly. "He nearly gave me failing marks in Potions last year!"
"You hardly did the homework, Phae. What did you expect?" Viola snorted, almost amused by the fact that Phaedra was surprised she'd nearly been held back a year for her lack of focus and effort in her studies. "That he'd overlook two terms worth of rambling essays on properties of moonstone and varieties of venom antidotes? Not to mention your absolutely abysmal Wit-Sharpening Potions... you barely passed your O.W.L's."
She raised an eyebrow and scowled to hide the grimace that had begun to twist her pretty, pointed features. "It's not my fault I've never been good at writing essays! And you have to admit how hard it was to get it to turn red…"
"It wasn't hard at all," Viola retorted self-importantly, feeling her chest swell with pride "You just weren't grinding the scarab beetles, you were mincing them. That's what your mortar and pestle are for! Grinding releases the oils which in turn makes it easier for the brew to digest, so to speak."
Octavia's hand lolled toward Viola in a show of languid gesticulation, her expression as insipid as the flat dullness in her voice as she intoned, "and that's why you're his teacher's pet. You're nothing but a sodding anorak."
The car slipped under a wave of uncomfortable silence and threatened to drown all warm feelings of camaraderie from the room; Octavia knew at once it was her own fault, regret carving deep parentheses of afterthought – if only I'd bitten my tongue before it was too late – into the lines around her slack mouth. Viola's eyes seemed to shift and glisten with tears, the stormy green-gray turning bright as sea glass as she fixed her gaze on an old stain in the carpet and tried to swallow her burgeoning emotions. It was not often that she felt the brambles of that cruel thorny truth resurface from the depths of her subconscious. Most often, it wafted into the shallows of everyday cognizance when it was dark in her room and she couldn't sleep, poisoning her thoughts as though her mind were water and a rotting corpse had been dropped into the midst of it. Gangrenous, putrid doubts oozed into the current and surged through her head, threatening to poison what little confidence she had developed in her years as a skilled pretender.
You don't belong...you're a fool, a fraud...you're not eve good at faking it...why even try?
But as quickly as the mood had dampened, Octavia conjured up her most charming smile and endeavored to laugh it off. She and Phaedra both were masters of evasive maneuvers, especially when it came to dodging awkward moments such as these. "You know what I mean, Viola." She waved her hand dismissively. "Take it as a compliment!"
Viola wondered if she would be able to so easily take as a compliment what was so plainly a careless insult. Knowing her place, she straightened her posture and blinked back the tears so that they disappeared behind a stoic, poised countenance. "Of course, Tavi," she attempted the same winning smile, but it faltered somewhat in weaker places, where she could not so easily mask the hurt that throbbed in her like an open wound.
"Did you want anything from the trolley?" Phaedra asked, clearly only looking at Octavia. Her tone was as desperate as Viola felt on the inside for a change in subject. "I think I hear it coming down the hall."
"Great idea," she replied just as quickly. "Want anything, Vi?"
Although she'd had quite the appetite for a couple of pumpkin pasties during her long search for her familiars, that craving had suddenly and violently subsided; her stomach felt swollen and claustrophobic and the last thing she wanted was to fill it even more with cloying sweets. Viola gave a perfunctory shake of her head and did not watch them as they left, giggling with another. Instead, she wrung her balled-up fists in her pleated skirt as she fought back a new, more savage breaker of tears. She knew exactly what Phaedra and Octavia thought of her, what they really thought, and how long years of intermingling family connections forced them together and formed bonds not forged from true companionship, but polite obligation and familiarity. They were the popular ones her mother and father wanted her to associate with during her time at school, knowing their daughter's wallflower tendencies. It was not that she wished to be alone, to remain in solitude, but that her interests and way of thinking often alienated her from the elite crowd.
Rain had begun to pelt against the clouded window, making her feel even more miserable than she did already. Scalding hot rivulets trickled into the corners of her trembling mouth. She turned to Archimedes who blinked slowly at her; perhaps it was only her imagination – or even her own desperation for sympathy in this vulnerable moment – but it appeared to her that he understood the pain written as plainly across her face as the headlines on the front of the Daily Prophet.
"Oh, Archimedes," she murmured, opening the latch of his cage and allowing him to crawl out and into her lap. He tilted his head as he looked up at her adoringly, his eyes a pooling liquid amber, as if he were trying to comfort her. She brushed her knuckles over the silky feathers of his chest in slow, rhythmic ministrations. "Sometimes it feels like you're my only friend in the world. I'm so tired of pretending."
He made a hushed, throaty sound that sounded an awful lot like concurrence to her.
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The two girls did not return and Viola was glad for it.
It was nearing the end of the long journey from King's Cross to Hogwarts and though lonely and still bruised from her encounter with Octavia's snide remark earlier that day, she had rather enjoyed the peace that had come in its wake. It had been a fragile, patchwork sort of repose that felt more like a razor-edged ceasefire than actual invigorating rest, but she had put together the pieces with as much care and skill as she could muster.
Once she'd had her fill of crying, she'd pulled out her copy of Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger and studied the lists of ingredients and careful, precise instructions which decorated the pages; she much preferred Jigger to the overblown accomplishments of Libatius Borage who had penned Advanced Potion-Making, the book that had been listed as the official choice of textbook and course material for the Sixth years. Jigger's aplomb and dexterity in brewing the most complicated, even dangerous draughts and solutions contrasted starkly against the bombastic and over exaggerated hubris of Borage. His style was confident, unassuming, and self-reliant in its calculations, unlike Borage who needed the praise and celebrations of his peers to continually inflate his ego. And that, Viola decided, was what made him the superior potioneer.
She had also reached into her knapsack and pulled out the biography on Laverne de Montmorency that her father had given her for her seventeeth birthday. Though a Ravenclaw, not even house loyalty could keep Viola from singing her praises as she studied the life and accomplishments of the potioneer, her many inventions of love potions earning her a top slot in Viola's list of favorite brew-makers. The fact that she was a witch and was so highly lauded for her achievements was another reason, as it gave Viola hope that someday she could reach the same level of renown.
It had been her favorite birthday present of the lot. Her father had never been an outwardly affectionate man, but he found little ways of expressing his love and adoration in small gifts and acts of service. Years and years of careful study and observation had allowed Viola to see her father's clumsiness with words, compliments, and apologies, and often in the afternaths of disagreements he would send her gifts and her favorite chocolate cauldrons instead of the warm embraces she craved. In her younger years, she resented him for his inability to apologize, to seek forgiveness, but as she approached adulthood she began to understand the complexity of her father's temperament, and respect had begun to bloom in the ashes of that cold, vicious bitterness.
She traced the gold leaf embellishments which framed a winking portrait of Montmorency, feeling homesick already. Though she loved Hogwarts with all her heart and soul, it was yet another place where the glaring lack of her belonging reared its ugly head. Pieces of home staid her and grounded her in logic and reason, where she felt secure. This was one of her most treasured relics of her father's unspoken love, care, and devotion.
Outside the window it was dark and stormy, thick ribbons of torrential rain beating mercilessly against the glass. Viola rubbed the palm of her hand over the hazy windowpane and looked out into the gloom which had deepened under a churning black sky. But she knew, even without a glimpse of the scenery, that they were nearing the castle and would disembark soon.
She rose and took from her knapsack a folded black lump, which she unrolled to reveal her robes, tie, cloak, warm-weather simple gray vest and scarf. A master of charms, her mother had fixed the stylish black bag with an Undetectable Extension Charm so that she could easily carry all the components of her uniform without causing them to wrinkle. It had been another gift for her seventeenth birthday – this one a stylish and pretty, yet functional choice on behalf of her exceedingly clever mother.
No sooner did she secure the clasp of her cloak did the whistle sound and the train come to an easy, measured halt. Students began to file out into the hall, pushing and shoving one another in an attempt to reach the platform first. She watched the crowd thicken from behind the safety of her compartment, the door closed and the doors muffling the sound of chaos ensuing outside of it. Her hands busied themselves with wrapping her long, silvery-green scarf around her neck and tucking it into her cloak to keep it from slipping. Archimedes awoke with a start as someone shrieked out in the hall; looking rather annoyed, he craned his neck to try and get a better look around the empty car to see where the noise had come from.
The door swiveled on its hinges as it burst open. Archimedes gave a horrified shriek.
Octavia and Phaedra beamed at her, waving her into the midst of the commotion. "C'mon Vi!" Phaedra beckoned. "I don't know about you but I'm starved."
It was much easier this time to muster a warm and pleasant smile.
disclaimer - Severus Snape belongs to JK Rowling. All other characters are mine.