Friends with Fireworks.
December 31st 1951.
Madam Doufant had finally released Minerva from the hospital wing on Boxing Day and not a moment too soon.
She had always hated hospitals.
A great deal of her earliest memories were of sitting on hard benches in a musty hallway, scuffing the toes of her shoes on the faded green paint of the floor boards. In these foggy recollections Robert was usually patiently sat beside her. The both of them strangely impassive as their brother's cries echoed down the halls.
Since before he could walk Malcolm had been in possession of the ability to wreck more havoc than a runaway train. He had lit his first fire by the time he was six months old and spent his first birthday in the emergency room after breaking his arm after falling out of a tree that no one had seen him climb.
As they grew older Minerva and Robert would stay home with their father and mend the considerable damage that Malcolm had wrought. She found it far more preferable to the smell of chloroform and that ugly, filtered yellow light that made it feel as if the walls were closing in around her. By the time she was nine she could have the house back in order in under and hour; provided that her father was not watching.
But the hours spent in their little house waiting, quietly eating their reheated supper in the kitchen that her father just could not manage to light as brightly as her mother, only served to impress on her that their family was not like other families. This weighed heavy on her father's mind too, she knew, though he tried valiantly to conceal it from her. He would smile as the sun went down and mother had still not come home. He would brush her hair gently and put them to bed with a kiss to the forehead and a wish for sweet dreams. And she would lie awake and listen.
Minerva could count his footsteps on the creaking landing and the gentle click of her parent's bedroom door. The sliver of orange light under her own door would fade next as the hall light was turned out but she knew her father had not gone to bed. She would hear his tip toe footfalls on the stairs and caught the faint flick of a light switch down stairs. Then came the faint chink of glass and just the hint of a groan she had never been sure belonged to father or the tired old armchair.
She would stay there, staring into the dark until she heard the sound of the ambulance engine rumble up the laneway and keys being dropped on a countertop. The stairs would groan and the hall would creak as Malcolm was put to bed and then hushed voices would hiss and grumble as her mother and father argued softly in the room below hers.
Hospitals only served to remind her that her mother was a witch and her father was a muggle, even now, miles away in the hospital of a school for magic. So she had accepted Madam Doufant's conditions of her release with little complaint and packed up her things as quickly as she was able.
She had been glad to leave and sleep in the comfort of her own bed again but soon enough the joys of this familiar comfort began to wear thin. As per Madam Doufant's instructions, Minerva was not allowed to leave Gryffindor Tower except for meals and as a result she was beginning to feel distinctly claustrophobic.
She woke early on New Year's Eve to clear, white sunshine filtering through her curtains. She pulled her blankets up under her chin and allowed herself to bask in the cold light for a few moments before she sat up and touched her feet to the cold floor. She dragged a pair of trousers and a jumper out from her trunk, dressed quickly and sat down again to brush out her hair. As she unravelled her braid she knew it had been a mistake to leave her hair to its own devices for two days and she eased out the worst of the tangles with her fingers before gingerly taking to it with a brush. She had always wondered who she'd gotten her hair from. Her mother was beautiful and blonde with hair that fell in a sleek sheet to her waist and always said that Minerva must have inherited it from her grandmother. This meant that most days she would have liked to jinx her great-grandmother, and her hair, but Isobel had only ever spoken fondly of this old woman who shared her daughter's name and Minerva thought it would be unsporting indeed to jinx a dead woman with her own wand.
Minerva looked over at the pale ash wand beside her water jug. She had been so excited to have a wand of her very own but when she had received her Hogwart's letter instead of the fabled journey to Diagon Alley she had been given a dusty old box with a dusty old wand inside. She had never really liked the unicorn wand, and she suspected it did not particularly like her either, every ounce of magic it produced felt forced. It was like trying to control a cursed broomstick. It objected to every instruction. But it had served her well enough in her six years at school and she knew that, as well as for sentiments sake, wands were expensive and Isobel had given it to her because she could not have especially afforded a new wand from Ollivander's.
After examining herself briefly in the mirror she took her great-grandmother's wand and her hair downstairs to breakfast.
The great hall was almost entirely deserted. The house tables had been replaced in anticipation of the returning students who were due to arrive tomorrow evening. Hufflepuff's table was all together empty as was Gryffindor's. The Head Girl sat alone at Ravenclaw table but a seat at Slytherin table was occupied by a familiar face. He had his face buried in the morning edition of the Daily Prophet and did not seem to notice her approach.
"Good morning, Lucan." She said pleasantly.
The dark haired boy looked up in surprise, finished chewing his toast purposefully and dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin before returning her greeting.
"It is indeed."
"May I join you?" she asked and Lucan nodded enthusiastically through his coffee.
"By all means." And he gestured for her to sit, folding up his paper and placing it on the seat beside him. "Tea? Coffee?" he offered, reaching for a clean cup and saucer from the tray on the table.
"Tea, if you don't mind." She said with a hint of a smile. Lucan was infamously proper in his etiquette in the most endearing fashion. Augusta liked to think that he was rather full of himself but Minerva found him to be unfailingly hospitable and polite.
"I've not seen you around, Minerva." He said rather seriously, "Not still stuck in the hospital wing I hope?"
"No. I… How do you know about that?" she asked sharply.
Lucan grinned and passed her over her cup.
"I'm sure the whole school knows by now." He said, still smiling. "Milk? The ghosts do enjoy a good gossip. Anyone would think they didn't have anything better to do."
Minerva scowled as she stirred milk into her tea.
"Apparently you blew yourself up?"
"Something to that effect." She conceded dryly in a tone that suggested she was not about to elaborate before filling her plate with toast and porridge.
Lucan watched her pensively for a moment while she spread marmalade on her toast.
"Are you doing anything tonight?" he asked quite suddenly. Minerva swallowed so quickly she choked a little and had to take a sip of tea.
"It's highly unlikely." She said with a slight croak and took another measured sip.
Lucan examined his fingernails rather critically.
"Some friends of mine have found themselves to be in possession of quite a large number of fireworks," he began, "apparently Zonko's had a yuletide sale. A few of us are going out to the lake later this evening to set them off and have a small to-do, you know," he waved airily, "with it being Hogmanay and all, and I was wondering if you'd like to join me?" he finished quite boldly though still unable to look her directly in the eye.
Minerva had several questions and a handful of scattered emotions run through her brain in quick succession but when she opened her mouth to reply she found herself asking,
"How on earth did you manage to smuggle fireworks into Hogwarts?"
Lucan sighed in mock despair and poured himself a goblet of pumpkin juice.
"One day, Minerva, you'll forget about rules and have some fun."
"I have fun!" She objected with a smile.
"Then come out with me tonight." He insisted.
Minerva looked at him suspiciously over her tea cup.
"Is this a date, Lucan?" she asked, seriously.
"A date?" he spluttered, apparently aghast but the smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth gave him away, "What are a few fireworks between friends?"
"What makes you think I'd go on a date with a Slytherin?" she teased lightly.
"For the same reason you'd have breakfast with one... And you do seem to have a certain affinity for green." He pointed out with a glance at her emerald jumper.
"I'm flattered, Lucan, really. And as much as I really would like to come out tonight I'm afraid I can't. I'm sorry." She apologised.
Lucan leant back and sighed with good natured disappointment.
"Oh well, you can't blame me for trying." He admitted with a slightly sheepish smile before they returned to their breakfast in perfectly amicable silence.
"Are you even trying?" Minerva asked scathingly as Sterling's king was decapitated for the fifth time that evening.
"You know I'm no good at chess." He huffed back, "Can't we play gobstones or something?" he asked, picking up the broken pieces from the table.
"Its ok." she rejected as gently as she could.
"I think Walter left a pack of exploding snap in the dorm-" he tried but Minerva had pushed the board away.
"Don't worry about it." She said moodily, watching her pieces clambered back into their box, "I'll go read or something."
"Minerva." But she was already trudging up the stairs to her empty dormitory.
The house elves had obviously already been through the dorms. A fire was already blazing bright and the room was so warm that she took off her jumper and threw it into her neatly packed trunk before she flung herself onto her bed. She stared aimlessly at the canopy of her four poster quite contentedly for a while with a head full of nothing, trying not to think of all the places she'd rather be. She followed the bumps and turns in the grain of the wood. Trying to make stories out of the shapes and lines that had once been the rings of a living tree many years ago. She lost herself in wondering just how long her bed had been standing there is Gryffindor Tower, wondering how many girls had slept in her bed, and squinting until the innocent squiggles in the timber vaguely resembled… something. A dragon. A dragon breathing fire.
No.
She tilted her head a little to the side.
Not a dragon.
A phoenix. A phoenix in flight. Its brilliant tail feathers spread out on the breeze.
He eyes moved along the beams until she was chasing mice along the beam into the waiting mouth of a hungry cat. She smiled faintly to herself. It was almost like watching clouds.
The sky outside had darkened from indigo to inky black and the light of the fire lengthened the shadows of the dormitory until they hid the fiery bird and the patient cat in darkness.
Nothing quickly became boredom.
She rolled over onto her stomach and reached for the book on her nightstand. She found her page easily enough but it was like trying to read after someone had crossed the wires in her brain, trying to direct her to something else. The words seemed to wander across the page and before too long she had read the same sentence six or seven times and had not taken in a word of it. Outside she could see the faint orange glow of a bonfire somewhere in the distance.
She did not want to read.
She found that she did not even want to be out by the lake side with Lucan and his friends. She liked Lucan, she considered them to be good friends but thought maybe on occasion he thought of her the way that Sterling thought of Ivy. He was certainly handsome, easily one of the best looking boys in their year, incredibly clever and excellent company. However, she doubted that her kind of company would satisfy Lucan. She had always been much too focused on her school work to be interested in dating. It seemed like an unnecessary distraction and she privately believed that if Augusta had not spent so much time sneaking out with Walter she would have passed her charms OWL with next to no trouble.
She was curious though. What satisfaction could be found in another person that couldn't be found deep in a spell book? In weaving something that no one else had managed to achieve. What was so special about 'love' anyway? Everyone seemed to find it at one point or another. Vera seemed to find it every second day.
No one had become an animagus so young before but she would. So why on earth would she want to be anywhere else in the world when she could be nestled away in the half lit classroom in the deserted transfiguration corridor? With the sputtering candles washing the rough, stone walls in their pale light, growing fainter and fainter as she worked late into the night. Glinting off Albus' spectacles and sparkling somewhere deep in his eyes. She wanted to lay on the desktop and stare at the ceiling as if it were stars. Lost in thought. To spill ink on drafted spells and weave enchantments on parchment. She missed the pressing silence of the castle at night. The peaceful quiet broken only by the faint rattle of window panes in the whipping wind and the absentminded humming of the school ghosts.
Quiet was hard to come by in Gryffindor Tower, even now with only Sterling and a handful of fourth years for company. Years of shouting from the opposite end of the quidditch pitch had left Sterling quite unable to speak quietly or remain silent for any extended period of time. While she welcomed his company and appreciated his efforts to make her confinement in the common room at least endurable, she would gladly forfeit a win against… maybe not Slytherin but Ravenclaw, to escape from the warm, squashy fireside and its lingering smell of spilt butterbeer. To instead ease in the cool of the first floor and be warmed, not by a fire, but by the faint, lilting scent of old parchment. Of clean wool and lemon balm. To be told to look deep within herself while he seemed to search her soul with the ease of a glance. To be extraordinary.
But she could no more sneak down six flights of the grand staircase than she could be out in the snow of the grounds. So she sat in the dark of her dormitory and watched from her bed as a spectacular show of fireworks burst and glittered over the frozen lake. Wishing she was somewhere else.