'Most days I am a museum of things I want to forget.'
E. E. Scott
"Wake up."
Darcy groans and rubs her eyes, the bright sunlight streaming through her window and directly onto her face. Emily is already dressed, gathering her books into her bag, and making her bed. Darcy watches her for a moment and then looks around, noticing they're the last two in their dormitory. Somehow, Emily has always been immune to hangovers, and it has always made Darcy envious.
Closing her eyes again and pulling the blankets up over her head, Darcy feels Emily throwing clothes at her, and her shoes hit her in the chin. Darcy uncovers herself and sits up, her head still spinning and cold sweat soaking her face. "What time is it?" she asks, throat and mouth dry.
"Eight," Emily replies. "Breakfast has already started. Put your robes on already, would you? Go brush your teeth. And comb your hair."
"You sure you don't just want to skip the first few classes today? If not all of them?"
"Why? Hungover?"
"Just a little bit." Darcy holds her face in her hands and pushes her hair out of her face. It's tangled and knotted from falling asleep with it soaking wet.
"I've been up for an hour already," Emily grins, reaching down into her trunk. She pulls something out of it and holds it up to show Darcy—it's silvery and shimmering in the sunlight. This makes Darcy sit up straighter in bed. "I went back and grabbed this when I woke up. Now, wake up—I'm hungry and I want something greasy."
The thought of any food makes Darcy's stomach churn, but she slinks out of bed all the same, making sure to brush her teeth for twice as long and asking Emily to help comb the knots out of her hair. Emily has Darcy sit at the foot of the bed, between her legs, in order to get a better position.
At breakfast, owls are already fluttering over the heads of students and dropping mail into breakfast platters, scattering food all over tables. While walking towards the Gryffindor table, Darcy takes a quick look around and notices that everyone she had seen at her party last night either looks like her—ill, tired, and slightly green in the face—or like Emily, bright, alert, and ready for classes to start. Darcy and Emily sit at the table, nearer to the end towards the teachers' table.
Max, who has been sitting perched on an open window, seems to have been waiting for Darcy to arrive. He gracefully flutters down to her and drops today's copy of the Daily Prophet in her lap before allowing himself to land on her shoulder. He nuzzles Darcy's head affectionately and she strokes his feathers with one hand, unrolling the paper with her other. Max eyes Emily as she cuts up a piece of sausage and she looks over, staring him down.
"You're not getting my sausage," Emily growls at him. Max opens his beak and hoots loudly. "Fine, you stupid bird. Just this one." Max eats it right off the fork, making Emily groan in disgust.
"Give him some water, would you?" Darcy asks Emily absentmindedly.
"He's not my owl." But Emily allows Max to drink some water from an extra goblet as Darcy continues to read.
But she hasn't opened the paper at all. Darcy's eyes are fixed on the moving picture of Sirius Black on the front page, right above an article about him. She hasn't read it, but the picture of Sirius Black stares up at her, calmer than usual, a grim smile on his face, eyes black and deadened, hair lank and greasy.
"Darcy!" Emily shouts in her ear and makes Darcy jump near out of her seat. Max, frightened after this sudden movement, hoots loudly again and flies off, back out of the window and towards the Owlery.
"What?" Darcy replies, eyebrows furrowed, looking at her friend. Her eyes are wide and her chest is heaving, and the picture of Sirius Black is the only thing she's able to see in her mind's eye.
Emily gives Darcy a quick, nervous once over and takes the paper from Darcy's hands, completely ignoring the picture and reading the article underneath. She reads it quickly, lips tight. "He's been sighted close by," she mutters. "By a Muggle south of here." Emily gives Darcy her paper back. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," Darcy says, pushing her plate of food away and standing up. "I'm fine. I forgot something back in the dormitory—I'll meet you in class."
After throwing up a few times in a deserted bathroom and splashing ice cold water over her face, Darcy starts to feel a little better. She looks at herself in the dirty, cracked mirror. Bags under her eyes from lack of sleep, face paler than normal, eyes a bright green. It isn't often that she takes long looks at her reflection—that's more Emily's thing—but each time she does, it seems like she's aged years since the last time.
Darcy's lost near all of her baby fat, her cheeks not full like Carla's, but hollow—and they'll remain that way until a few weeks into the school year after a few good meals. Her high cheekbones jut out, giving her face a triangular shape with her pointed chin and long, thin nose. She closes her eyes, gripping the sides of the sink tight, willing herself not to vomit again. When the bell rings signaling first classes, Darcy scoops up her bag and heads out the door, pale-faced and still sweating slightly.
She won't make it to the dungeons in time for class and she's sure Snape will have something to say about it, but she doesn't care. If she's lucky, he won't realize she's hungover. Darcy rounds the corner quickly and runs into someone, falling backwards on the floor and spilling books all over the ground. Mumbling to herself, she starts to pick them up, filling her bag again, feeling dizzy.
"Watch where the hell you're going next—" Darcy looks up and her face reddens.
"Are you going to finish that sentence?" Lupin replies, the corners of his lips turning upwards. He picks up the last of Darcy's books and hands them to her, rubbing his chest with his other hand. "You should slow down. You probably broke a few of my ribs."
"I'm sorry, Professor. But lucky for you, Madam Pomfrey is a sort of expert in repairing broken bones," Darcy says with a small smile. "Last year, Harry lost all the bones in his arm and she regrew them all."
Lupin pauses, his brow furrowing. "How—?"
"It's a long story, sir, but a very interesting one, I promise."
"Looks like I'm in luck again—you'll have plenty of time to tell me tonight," Lupin chuckles, holding his hands behind his back and rocking on his heels. "Bring your dinner up to my office tonight for your detention. I haven't been feeling all that well lately and could use some help grading papers. I'm currently drowning in paperwork."
"Tonight?" Darcy asks helplessly. She had planned on using that time after dinner to go immediately to sleep and catch up on rest. "And Emily?"
"I'm no fool, Darcy," he laughs. "I know better than to put you and Emily together for detention. She's serving her's tomorrow night."
The bell for class rings again and Darcy straightens up and looks up at Lupin with wide eyes. "Snape will kill me if I'm late—could you walk me to class?"
"I'd love to help you, Darcy, truly—but I'm afraid that if I show up with you to excuse you for being late, Snape will kill us both."
Darcy shows up exactly six minutes late to Potions class, without Lupin as her escort, and she slips in through the door while Snape's back is turned to find her seat with Emily and Gemma towards the back of class. Snape continues to write on the blackboard, even as Darcy's chair scrapes against the dungeon floor, and most heads turn towards her and start whispering.
"He knows you weren't here on time," Emily shrugs. "Don't think he didn't notice me walking in all by my lonesome."
"I was busy getting served my detention," Darcy snaps quietly.
"Yeah, he came looking for us both at breakfast. I asked if we could serve our detention together and Lupin shot that down pretty quick," Emily whispers. "But at least I tried."
Snape turns around and looks over the class, eyes falling first on Darcy. She quickly opens her book to a random page and pulls out her completed essay, handwriting sloppy towards the end and nearly illegible. Snape flicks his wand and her essay flies to the front of the class and lands on top of all the others, stacked neatly on his desk.
"Now that Miss Potter has graced us with her presence," Snape begins, sneering at her, "maybe we can begin."
"Sorry, Professor," Darcy mutters. "I ran into Professor Lupin in the corridor and—"
"You're not making things better for yourself," Snape continues, turning his back on her again. "Just be quiet."
Fifteen minutes later, Darcy and Emily are setting up their cauldrons and taking ingredients from their bags to brew love potions. Gemma chatters excitedly about the prospect, but Darcy isn't as enthusiastic. "You do realize that he's going to make people try these, right?" Darcy snaps at Gemma. Emily looks up from her cauldron at her. "And you do realize that by being late, Snape will volunteer me?"
"You know he'll give you an antidote," Gemma replies, rolling her eyes and smiling at Emily.
"You Slytherins have such trust in Snape, it sometimes baffles me," Emily chuckles, stirring the contents in her cauldron. "Being a Gryffindor myself—I don't have much confidence in him, to be honest."
"Careful," Gemma warns her with a grin. "Just for that comment, he might not give you the antidote."
Just short of an hour later, nearly everyone's love potions are complete. The room smells of perfume for the most part, pungent and potent enough to make Darcy's eyes water. Gemma's bubbling, thick, pink concoction jumps out of her cauldron, splashing onto Emily's hands. She pulls them away quickly and gives her potion a few quick stirs as Snape wanders through the aisles, sniffing and stirring and examining each and every potion, taking a small sample of each person's to grade later.
When at last Snape reaches Darcy's table, he looks into Gemma's cauldron first and turns up his nose, handing her a phial to fill with her potion. She packs up as Snape moves to Emily's. She gives him a wide smile, which is not returned, but he doesn't look into her cauldron with the same look of disgust as he did with Gemma's. Emily shrugs, collects her sample, and throws her ingredients back into her back.
Finally, Snape reaches Darcy's. He looks into her cauldron for a long time—so long that it makes her nervous. "Miss Duncan?" he asks, looking up from the potion into Emily's face. Emily looks at him with raised eyebrows. From within his robes, he withdraws an extra phial, holding it out for Emily to take. "Why don't you have Darcy show the class how powerful a love potion can really be? Your potion doesn't look like it will kill her, or hurt her terribly."
Emily looks at Darcy apologetically and takes the phial from Snape's hand. She slowly lowers her hand into Darcy's cauldron and fills the phial. Emily holds it out in front of Darcy. "Sorry," she whispers. "I won't judge you, I promise."
Gemma snickers from over Emily's shoulder. "I might."
Grudgingly, Darcy takes the potion from Emily and drinks it all quickly, hoping it will make the embarrassment lessen. As she does so, the class breaks out into laughs and high pitched giggles. Darcy lowers the phial and licks her lips, the taste not half as bad she had imagined. She looks up at Snape, his mouth twisted into a forced grin, and then back at Emily, who's more beautiful than ever.
Emily seems to radiate beauty—her skin glows like a goddesses, her hair falls perfectly to her chest, in soft waves of honey blonde, she even seems to blink in slow motion for the sole purpose of fluttering her lashes. But Emily looks at Darcy with a horrified expression, as if she's only seeing Darcy for the first time. Darcy starts to move closer to Emily, who watches, tense and uncomfortable, but before Darcy can reach her, Snape clamps a hand on her shoulder and stops her.
"What are you doing—?" Darcy stammers, trying to break free of Snape's grasp while he fumbles in his cloak for the antidote. She looks at Emily and smiles, as if all worries are gone from the world, as if Emily is the only good thing in the world. "Wait—hey!"
Snape's hand touches her face and as Darcy protests, trying to jerk away from him, he dumps a small amount of the antidote into her mouth and she sputters, choking and coughing and gasping. Snape releases her as Darcy comes around, wiping her mouth and the spilled antidote off her face. Her face turns bright red, the back of her neck tingling with humiliation.
"Ten points to Gryffindor for your potion," Snape says to Emily, getting Darcy's attention as they smile at each other.
"All right!" Darcy beams.
"And fifteen points from Gryffindor for being late."
As Snape sweeps away, Darcy turns to her friends and sighs. "I should have known there'd be a catch."
"I'm telling you, you looked like you were in love with me," Emily says. "And I didn't like the look in your eyes."
"It was a love potion," Darcy sighs, a slight blush creeping up on her face. "What did you expect me to do? That was the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me, so would you quit talking about it to everyone?"
"Could've been worse…" Emily teases.
"No, it couldn't have. So shut up about it already."
"Snape could have given it to you," Emily jests. "And I'd still be laughing if I saw you look at Snape the same way you looked at me."
Gemma snorts with laughter. "You would never have lived that down, Darcy."
"Shut up," Darcy repeats and she rushes ahead of Emily and Gemma towards Gryffindor table, ruffling Harry's hair as she passes him to get a plate for dinner. She loads it up with food, making sure she'll have enough that she won't get hungry before bed, and curses herself for not being able to have any dessert. She wonders briefly, if she asks, if Lupin will allow her to dip back down for dessert. Likely not, but a hope to sustain her nonetheless. On her way out, she calls to Emily, "I'll see you tonight."
"Tell me how it goes!"
Darcy takes her plate and speed walks to the Defense Against the Dark Arts room. The corridors are quite deserted and Darcy's stomach growls loudly with the smell of her dinner wafting into her nostrils. Lunch had been a terrible ordeal after Potions and, despite Hermione telling her that she had nothing to be ashamed of, Darcy was still highly embarrassed and spent the remainder of lunch in her dormitory reading.
She enters Lupin's classroom and as she climbs the few steps to his office, the door opens and he's standing there, holding the door open for her. "I thought I heard footsteps," he says. "Good of you to join me, Darcy."
"I thought I didn't have a choice, sir," she replies warily, walking into his office.
"I was only being polite," he answers, closing the door behind her. "Here—" With a wave of his wand, a chair comes flying from the corner of his office and rests in front of his desk. "Sit."
Darcy walks quickly to the chair and Lupin moves the piles of papers around so she has room to set her plate down. She watches him sit down and, after a few seconds of staring at each other, Lupin laughs.
"Go ahead, eat. I'm sure you're hungry."
She nods and reaches for her corn on the cob, but hesitates. "What about you?"
"Me?"
"Aren't you hungry, Professor?" she asks. "You don't have any food, and you're going to miss the feast."
"I appreciate it, Darcy, but I'll be fine. Now, go on—eat! The sooner you finish, the sooner we get started, and the sooner you leave."
It takes Darcy only twenty minutes to eat her dinner, and by that time, she's feeling nauseous. She pushes her plate aside and sighs deeply and contently, leaning back in her seat. Lupin looks up from his work and smiles, something he seems to do a lot.
"These are easy enough," he says, pushing a stack of papers towards her and a quill. "First years, so you should know all of the answers."
Darcy nods and looks down at the first paper. Picking up a quill and sighing dramatically, she dips the tip into the shared inkwell, beginning her work. "I'm sorry about the other night in the carriage, sir," she says, wanting to fill the silence. Professor McGonagall always insists on silence during detentions, and Darcy wonders if Lupin will be the same way. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable with all my staring. I just thought you looked familiar, is all." She chances another glance at him and looks away quickly when they meet eyes.
"I don't think you know me, Darcy."
"I'm sure I've seen you somewhere."
Lupin chuckles. "You're an excellent student, you know," he says, not looking up from his papers. "You talk a bit more than I think necessary, but I can't deny you are a good student. Your last short essay was very well written. You have a way with words."
"Thank you," Darcy smiles weakly, blushing. "And I'm sorry, Professor. I'll try not to talk too much during lessons anymore."
She can feel Lupin's eyes on her again. "You're very much like your mother, you know." Darcy's ears perk, her attention caught, and when she slowly looks up into his face again, Lupin studies her face, tilting his head slightly. "You have her eyes."
Darcy smiles. "That's the first thing everyone says to me," she teases. "I didn't realize you knew my mother, Professor."
Lupin puts his quill down and holds his hands on the desk in front of him. Darcy stares at him, eyebrows furrowed. "Yes, I knew your mother," he says stiffly, sighing heavily. "I knew exactly who you were the moment I first saw you on the Hogwarts Express. You look very like Lily, and Harry like your father, James."
She can't help but smile. Hundreds of times she's heard that—you have her eyes, you have her hair, you look so like your mother. But coming from Lupin's lips, the sentiment seems genuine, a compliment instead of just an observance or something to say. Her mother was beautiful—everyone said so—and even seeing her in old photographs, Darcy has to agree with them.
"Your mother was kind above all—but humble and very fair," Lupin reminisces. "All of the things that James wasn't." They both share a quiet laugh together, and then Lupin pauses and leans in towards her, lowering his voice. "Do you remember anything about them?"
"I—" Darcy purses her lips, placing her quill on the desk and holding her hands in her lap. Lupin's kind face and soft smile give Darcy the impression of a trustworthy man, and after all—he'd been friends with Lily and James Potter, so why shouldn't she tell him? "Very little, truthfully. I was so young, and my aunt and uncle don't really allow us to speak of our parents, sir." But all she can think about is the night on the train—the dementors causing her to relive the most painful memory she can remember. She looks Lupin directly in the eyes—she can trust him, can't she? Inhaling deeply, she continues. "Professor Lupin, when the dementor came onto the train, I—remembered things…"
"I have a suspicion that Harry did, as well," Lupin tells her seriously. "What kind of memory do you think would cause Harry to collapse like that?"
Darcy shakes her head slowly. "I don't know. He didn't tell me," she says, unsure if she even wants to hear Harry recount the terrible memory. "It was awful, Professor."
"You don't have to tell me, Darcy." He opens one of the drawers in the desk and pulls out a box of tissues, offering them to her. Darcy touches her cheeks, unaware of the tears that had started to fall. Her cheeks burn with shame. "I cannot imagine the hurt the dementors must cause you. I'm so sorry."
"I'm sorry, sir," she scoffs, wiping her tears away quickly. Lupin pushes the tissues towards her, but Darcy refuses them politely, drying her eyes. "I just don't like them."
"The dementors? I don't blame you. No one does," Lupin sighs, giving her a reassuring smile, but it does little to ease her fears. "Strictly between you and me, Darcy, Dumbledore was furious that the dementors had been allowed on the train. I promise you, that will not happen to again, not after what he had to say to the Minister of Magic."
She's quiet for a moment. "I hate what they made me see. I wish they were gone."
"I know."
Darcy attempts to compose herself, trying hard not to think of the dementors. But it's hard not to see her mother's pale face floating before her in her mind's eye, hard not to remember the exact green of the light that lit Harry's bedroom. "Maybe we could talk about it sometime," she whispers to Lupin.
"If that's what you want, then of course," Lupin nods. He watches Darcy pick up her quill again and continue grading papers. He twirls his quill in his fingers, seemingly doing less work than Darcy. She continues to scribble, if only to busy her mind and hands. "Your mother and father were good to me. I see them both in you."
The words put a shy smile on her face. "I hope you mean only in the best ways, sir," Darcy says, a feeble attempt at humor.
Lupin laughs. "Please don't think I'd insult one of my students," he tells her. "Truly, I mean only in the best ways." He chews the inside of his cheek, clearly bursting to say something. Darcy raises her eyebrows and he takes that as a good sign. "I heard what Professor Snape did to you—with the love potion."
Darcy scowls, flushing. "That's your fault! If you'd walked me to class, he would have excused me and he probably would have chosen some other victim."
"I beg to differ. Had I walked you down there, you'd likely still be in love with Emily."
"Does Professor Snape hate you that much? What did you do to him?" Darcy asks, grinning at the sly look on his face. "Surely it wasn't just Neville's boggart that has him on edge?"
Lupin considers her, tapping his chin with his index finger. "Perhaps another time, Darcy."
"Yes, sir."
At 9 o'clock that night, Lupin bids Darcy goodnight and allows her to return to her common room (without even having dessert). Darcy takes a minute to organize her stack of graded papers—quite proud of all that she's done—and by that time, Lupin's paperwork is complete, as well. Lupin walks her to the door and holds it open for her.
"Goodnight, Darcy. Don't forget about your homework due tomorrow."
"Yes, sir," she chuckles. As she heads down the stairs into his classroom, she stops and turns around just before Lupin shuts the door. "Professor?"
Lupin sticks his head out from his office. "Yes?"
She clears her throat, suddenly nervous. "Maybe we could do this again? Have dinner sometime and—I don't know, talk about things."
"I hope not in the form of a detention." He grins, baring his teeth. Darcy smiles back. "Of course, Darcy. How about next week? We could have dinner brought up for the both of us."
"Yes," Darcy agrees. "Next week will be fine."
"Are you sure you won't be too busy to entertain and old man? I'm probably not as exciting company as your other friends."
"I'm sure," she smiles.
Lupin smiles at her for a few more moments before nodding his head and retreating into his office. "Off to bed with you, Darcy. Good night."