Life had begun to bore Eglantine. It was an itchy sort of boredom, where your brain feels like it's going to somehow crawl out of your skull just for want of employment. She moved through her days like an automaton: ignoring Sirius, being standoffish to Lily and Claire, glaring at James and Peter, sleep and repeat.
Only three major events happened before Christmas holidays: one, she received a letter from her parents, which was so rare that she assumed something must have happened, but no, they were just "keeping in touch," as they put it; two, she received a letter from Cam, announcing her engagement to the bloke she'd just met, Amos Diggory; and three, she and Severus started reading each other's minds.
The first happened in late October. Jack o' lanterns crowded the space above the tables in the Great Hall, that revolting pumpkin juice was out again, and visits to Hogsmeade recommenced. The letter appeared one morning, landing on a stack of cinnamon pancakes.
Dear Eglantine, it read, in her mother's overly flourished handwriting,
We are finally back in England, and we brought you back a serape from Argentina. The Quidditch matches in South America are to die for, especially near Macchu Picchu, and of course plenty of juicy secrets to be had!
We really didn't get a chance to chat, what with the funeral and all, and you seemed rather busier than normal this summer! I do hope that that Black boy has found a nice place to stay. I assume he'll be with the Potters in Godric's Hollow; I know Mrs. Potter rather well—friend of my mum's. They're nice people, if a little reserved and staid.
Wild about Cam and that Diggory, isn't it? She brought him round the day we came back, all smiles, showing off her ring. Very handsome fellow, not a whiff of scandal about the Diggorys at all. Very happy for her.
Carlisle shall be back at Christmas, with Linda and the children. Asked Marlene to come round; she says she won't as usual, but I asked, as usual. Molly may bring Bill and Charlie and Percy, said Arthur's got work, her brothers will be visiting C and they'll likely resume Quidditch practice, though they're all so old now—I'm so old now!
Let me know if you need anything, darling.
Love Mum and Dad xxxooo
There was a photo of her parents standing at Macchu Picchu with an entire Peruvian Quidditch team flying about behind them. Her mother was wearing bright purple, her hair teased, her earrings the size of the Sunbeam's hubcaps. Her father was still in mourning for Uncle Crevan, evidently, though he was also wearing gray. He was smiling without showing his teeth—he hated his crooked eyeteeth, which Carlisle had inherited.
She sighed. That was the trouble with her mother. Sirius had said she was so kind, but her kindness seemed flat. Maybe he hadn't noticed, because to hear him tell it, he wouldn't have been accustomed to kindness. But to anybody who had met with a person who made you feel that they cared, that they were sympathetic, merely knowing that a person was sympathetic ceased to be enough. She always told you what everybody was doing, so that you would know she cared, but she was never actually there to tell you, which made one wonder how she truly could. And who even knew what she was feeling? It was all action, no introspection.
Isn't that what you strive for? said a nasty little voice at the back of Eglantine's head. She knew it was right. She ignored it all the more, primarily because it bothered her that she couldn't actually live like that.
Well, she could damn well try. Which is why, during that first Hogsmeade visit, she barely registered that everybody was whispering gleefully that Sirius Black had been seen snogging Theresa Oldenkirk behind the pub. Barely even noticed. Eglantine just sat there, drinking butterbeer with Esmeralda Fanshaw and her alarmingly brain-dead sister Juliette, who kept smiling at her with megawatt teeth and a vacant look in her eyes. Eglantine was really concentrating on how much she wasn't noticing. She was really enjoying not noticing.
"Eep! Oh, no, you've got crumbs all over my new shoes, Eglantine!" whined Juliette, leaping up. Apparently Eglantine had accidentally crumbled a sugar cookie when she'd by chance happened to clench her fists beneath the table. Sometimes they just…balled up. It was a sort of tic, wasn't it? Didn't everybody do that when they were just sitting there, coolly not noticing things?
She really didn't notice when Sirius came into the pub with Remus and Peter. Even the fact that James was absent scarcely registered, not that she'd feel relieved at such a thing, or anything. It was just that a feeling occurred within her that resembled relief the way a milk snake resembles a coral snake. Almost.
"Ooh, I wonder where Theresa is?" said Juliette. "You'd think they'd come in together, wouldn't you?"
"Why? They snogged. They're not Siamese twins," said Eglantine.
"Well, no, but it's nice. It's romantic. There's a chill in the air, and leaves on the ground, and…" Juliette sighed. "I always wanted to fall in love during autumn."
"They're not in love!" snapped Eglantine. "They bloody snogged! Do you know how many people I've snogged? A lot. Am I in love with any of them? No!"
"Your face is awfully red," observed Esmeralda. Esmeralda was really nothing like her sister, who was blond and sparkly and as stupid as a day-old hare. Esmeralda was sensible. No less attractive, but with something resembling a brain between her ears. Eglantine usually avoided her for this reason: She reminded her of Cam, and Cam was too observant for her liking. Like their mother, she told people everything she was thinking; only Ethelinda Bertrand said what she thought about what people were doing; Cam said what she thought about what people were feeling. Furthermore, she knew what people were feeling, which was creepy and unnecessary.
"It's hot in here."
"I'm rather cold, actually," said Juliette, shivering exaggeratedly. "Someone's left the door open."
It was such a non-event to Eglantine that, when Theresa was crying in the common room the next day because Sirius hadn't asked her out after the supposedly-momentous snog, she was able to resist the urge to laugh at her. She barely even wanted to. And when Theresa was crying in there again the following week because Sirius had then turned around and snogged Lisa Grubacher, who didn't even like him (sobbed Theresa) because Lisa was dating Lewis Tyrell and they'd only had a brief tiff, Eglantine did not tell Theresa that it was probably because her nose was so enormous.
The letter from Cam, now that had truly upset her. Cam wanted her to be a bridesmaid during her wedding to this shady Diggory bloke, and she'd never even met him. All she knew was that he was blond, rumor (e.g. her mum) had it that he was rather hunky, and that Mel had set them up. The Mel part bothered her. How did the Bertrand family know that this Diggory wasn't some Death Eater plant meant to dismantle their family from the inside, leaving a trail of mysterious deaths in his wake like somebody out of Agatha Christie? He could be a spy.
She wrote that back to Cam, who replied, Don't be a twat, Eglantine. I'm your sister. Be happy for me. Of course he's not a spy. He's gorgeous.
She ripped it up and tossed it into the fire. Why wasn't Cam being careful? She was being careful. She was learning all this ridiculous Legilimency business for the family—well, sort of—and that entailed hanging around Severus, which was torture. They all had no idea about anything, did they? They just skipped along, travelling the world, getting engaged, la de dah. She was trying, if rather obliquely, to solve her uncle's murder.
That sensible portion of her brain that had reminded Eglantine that she was just like her mother would occasionally chime in. It would say, Oh, like you are going to solve anybody's murder, and If you were going to solve a murder, Legilimency is no use. You're just awfully nosy, aren't you?
She was not nosy. It was only a coincidence that sometimes she would notice Remus reappearing in the classroom after a couple days' absence, and think, Hmm, I wish I could just use Legilimency and figure out where he's always going. That wasn't nosiness. That was concern. And it was just one of those funny things about life that sometimes Sirius would be sitting there laughing with James and Eglantine would happen to wonder, I wonder if he's kissed anyone recently. I wonder if I'm a better kisser than Lisa.
She never had really wondered about the inner workings of Severus Snape, so of course, that was who she was fated to practice with.
It'd started when they both found themselves in the library late on a Saturday. Everybody else was off enjoying themselves, and they were the only two fuddy-duddies in there: Eglantine, because of Legilimency, and Severus, because of…well, she'd never actually asked, had she? He was the only person in there, and she'd just gone up to him and asked him if she could read his mind. He'd withdrawn his head slowly from the giant book he'd had his giant conker buried in, looking as if he wondered if he was hallucinating.
He rolled his eyes. "If you're talking about Legilimency, it isn't mind reading. It's—"
"I know, it's subtle and special and fancy, blah blah. Can I, or what? If you let me do it to you, you can do it to me."
He snorted. "I hope no one heard that out of context. Sure. Go ahead."
He had a very placid, smug sort of smirk, for which she soon found the cause. She tried to see into his mind, and she bounced right back like a rubber band.
"What the fuck was that?" she said. He at least had the decency to help her up from the ground. "Did you block me?"
"Only to see if I could." He smiled. He really did have rather funny-looking teeth. "Occlumency. Highly recommended if you don't fancy having people see into your mind."
"A little warning would've been nice."
"I won't do it this time," he said. "Carry on."
"Promise?"
He nodded. She pointed her wand at him.
His mind was more complex than Peter's. The thoughts seemed denser. It was harder to move through the space: she figured he was more able to control where she could go.
She was able to see a memory of some sort of octopus. That must be what it was, right, with all the flailing limbs? She'd thought octopi had only eight arms, though, and this thing had more, almost like branches. Like that stupid Whomping Willow tree, but she was almost positive that Severus had too much common sense to approach the thing. She saw then the space beneath the tree, which had ceased to flail, and a long, dark tunnel. (It was the tree, after all.) There were strange noises in the tunnel, ghost or animal noises. She was being pushed out of the memory, but she wanted to see how the dream ended.
She hadn't known that Legilimency could include dreams. It was fascinating to see what other people dreamed about: she wondered what would be made of it, what the tree signified. Nature had been cruel to him? That was definitely true.
She could see two dark heads in front, silhouetted in a dim light. The push was stronger now, and she pushed back with more assurance and strength than she'd had with Peter. (It helped that Remus wasn't there to interrupt.) Fuck you, Severus, I'm finishing this stupid dream whether you like it or not.
It's not a dream.
Surprise made her stop pushing for only a moment, and he was able to expel her with one final shove. He was pale and clammy-looking—more so than usual—and breathing heavily. She felt no small amount of pride: it hadn't been easy on him, getting her out of his head.
"If you didn't want me to see it—" with somewhat less pride, she realized that she, too, was panting "—then why did you let me see it in the first place?"
"I didn't. You found it."
"Yeah, but you didn't direct me away."
He shook his head. "That's not how it works. And I think you're stronger than you might imagine. You had a fairly good hold in there. I think the curiosity helps."
"I wasn't—"
"Don't argue. You were in my head, remember? I could hear what you were thinking."
"How? It's only supposed to work one way."
"You're not exactly quiet."
His dark eyes stared deep into hers. God, did he even have pupils? He was like a vampire or something. She could remember thinking that nature hadn't been kind to him. Which was only honesty, and not really a fact that he could be expected to be ignorant of at this juncture in his life.
"Er—sorry," she said. "Erm. My turn?"
She braced herself. She'd never been on the receiving end, and she couldn't even remember all her memories. Was there anything embarrassing? Would Severus—Merlin's beard—could he see her naked?
Stop it, stop it, stop it. Think of memories in which you were wearing clothes.
Which, of course, made her think of all the memories in which she was not wearing clothes.
She had only enough time to wonder what her hangup was with nudity, we were all just human beings, weren't we, when Severus raised his wand and pointed it at her.
"Legilimens!"
The second the light connected with her body, it was like suddenly being catapulted into a daydream so intense, you actually forget what you're doing. If she'd been on a broom, she'd have fallen off. She was no longer aware of her body, only her mind.
He was going through her memories like a person at the grocery store testing clementines, squeezing them for ripeness. She didn't think he was going for gossip material, because she felt him touch upon memories of snogging in discos, and he left them alone. None of them came fully to her mind.
Teenage wasteland, ooh yeah, it's only teenage wasteland. Warm night air on her face; hair in the wind; Cam beside her, scared witless. It was the night Crevan died.
They were by the side of the road. Eglantine noticed nature more in her flashbacks, even what the trees looked like (silvery, still, not stirred by one little gust). Cam was getting out with the Dark Mark glittering overhead.
No, not this one, thought Eglantine. She didn't know how to push. She tried to think of something else—Bertie dying might be strong enough of a memory, she thought, but the second Bertie's face appeared before her, it vanished. Just like real life.
They were approaching the house. Fucking Alya. Fucking Voldemort. What did Severus think he was accomplishing, exactly? Was she on trial?
She was breathing. She focused on her breathing. Do what you want. In. Out. In. Out. Look at what you want. I don't care. In. Out.
She felt him leave.
When she opened her eyes, he was standing in front of her, looking perturbed.
"I'm sorry, is it 'relive relatives' murder' day, because I've forgotten," she said grumpily.
He shrugged. "I was interested in the case."
"Sick freak."
"At least I didn't see you naked." He almost smiled.
"You could even hear that? Is there no such thing as privacy anymore?"
"We were practicing Legilimency. You tell me."
"Ugh. Fine. So you didn't see me naked. What's more to the point, I didn't see you naked, so I've still got eyes. So, what do you say, Severus? You evidently want to learn this shit just as badly as I do, for whatever reason. I'd much rather practice on somebody who's not either a dolt or just isn't interested. Besides, if I could Occlumency you out, without even really knowing what it is, then you definitely need practice." She smiled. "You know, when I'm through with you, I'm going to know you awfully well. It's kind of freaky."
"Same. I can't say I want to know about half the things you get up to with Muggles."
"Snogging, Severus. It's called snogging. You should try it sometime. It'd be a new experience for you."
He turned pink. She hadn't known pink was in his color spectrum. "Who says?"
"Whatever. So, you don't look at the Muggle memories, or the naked memories. And I won't look at anything…personal with you."
"What personal? There's nothing personal."
"Whatever you say, Severus. My lips are sealed."
"And your mind?"
"Padlocked, double locked, welded, and cursed."
"Same time next week, then, Eglantine."