cxl. suspicion
"—trashed the entire common room—."
"—attacked McGonagall, left her there in her office—!"
"—was searching for Longbottom—."
"—they barely escaped a serial killer—!"
"—could have murdered them!"
The gossip rippled throughout the Great Hall, hopping from student to student, House to House, and Elara could feel their eyes burning against the nape of her neck, heavy with condemnation. She tried to ignore it, but Harriet kept hissing and sneering at anyone who lingered too long in their presence.
"Bugger off, Wattle," the bespectacled witch spat at the seventh year Gryffindor who'd come to stand by their table. He scowled as he bent forward, resting his hand on the table's edge, and Elara's eye twitched as the heat of him came too close to her side. His cologne stank.
"I don't think so, Potter," Walter Wattle retorted. "Black here needs to answer for the solid crystal chess set her daddy smashed on my bloody floor!"
Elara refused to rise to his bait or respond to his tone, concentrating instead on her cold lunch. She'd picked the pudding to shreds.
"Are you listening to me, Black?"
"Not really, no."
He made as if to grab her arm, to bully her into looking up at him as the oldest, meanest residents of St. Giles' used to do—but Harriet had her wand out and pointed at him, hidden from the High Table by a carafe of pumpkin juice. Wattle stopped.
"Put that away before you get hurt."
"Leave her alone. She has nothing to do with Sirius Black and no one gives a shite about anything of yours that was broken."
"You're a right little thug, Potter. I'm not talking to you."
"Doesn't matter. I'm talking to you, and I'm saying go away."
The staff might not be able to hear what was being said, but they were by no means blind to the situation; Elara was only surprised it was Slytherin himself and not Professor Snape who disembarked from his table and came upon them.
"Find your seat, Mr. Wattle," he said, shooing the taller young man away from them. He narrowed his red eyes across the table at Harriet. "Put that away, Potter."
Elara almost laughed, given the irony of Professor Slytherin repeating what Wattle had snapped—but the cold disdain dripping from his voice did not lend itself to any kind of humor, and Harriet quickly tucked her wand away. Elara caught the flash of Kevin's scales tightly wrapped around her covered wrist.
"Idle threats are for Muggles, Potter. If you mean to use your wand, you'd best do so, lest I take it from you next time."
Their Defense instructor left then, returning the dais and the High Table set upon it, curious Slytherins glancing between his back and the trio of grim-faced third years. Elara wished she could bring herself to curse.
"You need to leave it alone, Harriet."
Harriet scowled. "I won't, not if they keep harassing you like this." Her green eyes flicked toward the Gryffindors at Elara's back, then toward the staff, an empty seat at Dumbledore's side where McGonagall usually sat. The Headmaster had reported she was fine, that she'd only been Stunned and bumped her head, but the Transfiguration Mistress had spent the last two days in the care of Madam Pomfrey and Professor Snape to make certain she hadn't been cursed with anything Dark while unconscious.
Elara's stomach twisted, bile burning the back of her throat. She wrote letters to McGonagall every week, talking about school or Transfiguration or—at the professor's insistence—her feelings and time at the orphanage. Sometimes, if she couldn't confess an emotion to Hermione or Harriet, she wrote it down and put it in the post, and though it sometimes didn't solve things, Elara begrudgingly admitted unburdening herself to someone older, wiser, and more knowledgeable had an ameliorative effect. McGonagall couldn't always fix a problem and didn't always give perfect advice, but she listened and didn't judge.
That Sirius Black, her father, had attacked the witch she'd come to view as a mentor, rankled Elara's heart.
What did he mean by wrecking Gryffindor Tower? she pondered. Most everyone had asked themselves the same question, but no one had a proper answer and Elara thought it might be best to assume Black had gone round the twist. He was clever enough to figure out the password to get by the portrait, but what for? To trash the rooms and toss a few trunks? Elara was only a third year, and yet even she knew a few curses off the top of her head that could be applied to a bed or possession to harm someone. He hadn't waited for the Boy Who Lived; Black sought to escape as soon as the Gryffindors returned.
What is the point of that? Elara stared down at her congealing lunch, ignoring the whispers. Why cause all this panic and go through so much effort? Why risk getting caught? He didn't even steal anything.
The sound of suspicious, caustic voices kept needling, and Elara finally set her fork aside, unable to eat anything else. "I'm going to History."
Harriet and Hermione quickly scrapped their own meals and grabbed their satchels, following Elara from the table and out of the Great Hall. They waited in the corridor outside the classroom for Professor Lupin and the rest of the students, Harriet muttering something sharp under her breath about Walter Wattle and Professor Slytherin that Elara didn't listen to. It was probably inflammatory. She held her bag close to her side and took a low, calming breath.
Class commenced soon enough. Elara did her best to take notes despite her anxious, wayward thoughts, watching Professor Lupin as he slowly paced before the blackboard. The wizard looked awful, and Elara theorized it wouldn't be long before he needed to miss another day of lessons and rest. No one knew what afflicted him, but the Wizarding world wasn't without its illnesses, auto-immune diseases and hereditary, blood-born weaknesses magic couldn't cure. What kind of life had Lupin lived before arriving at Hogwarts? Given his facial scarring, Elara wagered it'd been violent.
The period had almost come to an end when the Auror arrived. Elara should have taken Lupin's topic of witch-hunts as an ill-portent.
"'Scuse me, Professor," the dark-eyed wizard said as he stepped through the door without so much as a knock. Heads swiveled at the intrusion, Elara's chest tightening the moment she glimpsed his maroon robes. "I'm here to borrow Elara Black."
Professor Lupin straightened from where he'd bent by his desk, making a notation on his lecture notes. His hand flinched around the worn quill. "You're interrupting my class. What is this about?"
"Ministry business." The Auror bared his teeth in the rictus of a smile. "I'll be needing the girl now, not later."
Murmuring arose as eyes cut to Elara, and she had the mad wish of someone—anyone—standing up and taking credit for her name. No one did, of course, and so Elara gathered her things and slipped them into her bag. Setting his lecture aside, Professor Lupin followed Elara to the waiting Auror.
"Where are you taking her?"
"Never you mind." He opened the door wider—and when she spotted the second, taller Auror standing in the hall, Elara froze. The first Auror gripped her by the arm to propel her from the room.
"You can't just remove her from class!" Hermione cried. Elara twisted to look behind her, heart rate spiking, the Auror's hand heavy and implacable.
"Miss Granger, Miss Potter, please return to your seats. I will—."
Whatever Professor Lupin would or wouldn't do, Elara didn't hear, as the Auror escorted her into the corridor and the door banged shut behind them. The echo of it merged with the steady march of boots on the stone, and Elara's breath hitched.
Father Phillips had his hand tight on her arm, her tired questions going unasked, her bare feet scraping the floor.
Elara stumbled, dragging her heels.
"No need for that," the Auror said, fingers pinching. "We're just going to have a nice, friendly chat, Miss Black. Won't take more than a minute, if you cooperate. It's nice to get out of class early, isn't it?"
No, it isn't.
She didn't know the room they took her to, only that it was passably clean and empty aside from a single chair and the wash of sunlight coming through the bare window.
The iron key twisted in the thick wooden door's lock, the door Elara had never been inside before, revealing the stone bunker beyond, cracks liming the blocking, candles bracketed to the walls. It must have been there since the war. There sat a lone, narrow bed inside, one with no mattress or linens, only a thin mat and restraints trailing from the metal posts like snake tongues—.
Her chest ached as if she'd swallowed a balloon and it had expanded unbidden in her throat, choking off her airway. She jerked against the man's hand again, and he released her, though the firm gesture toward the single chair told her he wasn't above assisting her if she refused. Elara sank into it, clutching her satchel against her middle. Sweat built on the nape of her neck and dripped along her spine. The second Auror stood at the door, blocking escape.
"Who are you?" she demanded, voice thinner and weaker than she wanted. "What is this about?"
He refused her his name. "Surely you're aware of the recent situation here at the school, Miss Black?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it. "I—don't know what you're referring to."
The Aurors exchanged looks, the first sneering, running a hand along the scruff decorating his weak jaw. Both had the look of ragged, ill-bred men dressed in fine clothes; Elara couldn't stop her gaze from returning to the golden pin on his lapel, a simple eye encircled by the slithering coils of a gilded ouroboros.
"I'm talking about your father, girl. Sirius Black, and his repeated incursions into this fine establishment."
Elara clenched her teeth. "I don't know anything about that."
"No? Are you certain?"
"Yes."
"There's no need to lie, Elara. We know someone in the school has to be assisting Black. Circumstances being what they are, the Ministry is prepared to mitigate consequences in considering your sentence."
They spoke as if the decision had already been made, and that frightened Elara all the more. "I—I haven't done anything wrong!"
"Of course not," he soothed, smirking, as if speaking to a much younger child. "Not from your perspective, I imagine."
The sweat had begun to stick her blouse to her back. "You can't—you can't just pull me out of class and question me like this! I don't have anything to do with Sirius Black!"
"Usually, you'd be correct, Elara—."
"Stop calling me that!"
"Elara," the Auror repeated, mouth lingering on the last syllable. "But you're an emancipated minor, which in the eyes of the Ministry means you can be questioned and interrogated without the presence of a guardian." He smiled. "Not that this is an interrogation."
"Isn't it?" she snapped.
"Not yet."
Elara's breath came shorter still, her nails bending under the force she exerted in gripping her canvas satchel.
"Now, Elara, let's be friends. Things are looking a bit grim for you at the moment—."
"I don't know anything about Sirius Black!"
"But you do, don't you? You're his daughter, and any good pure-blood girl always listens to her father, convict or no."
Elara was going to be sick. She tried to remain calm, but visions of enclosed rooms and handcuffs and burning metal prickled along her thoughts and made her eyes burn. The Auror leaned forward, and Elara realized how far she'd slumped back in the chair to get away from him.
"We'll have to return you to the Aurory for proper questioning," he said, his tone disappointed. "Unless…there's another student with connections to Black you think we should interview instead?"
Elara stared, and the Auror leaned in as if telling her a secret. His tongue flicked out over his lower lip, and he had the air of a predator about to go for the kill.
"His goddaughter, maybe? Miss Potter. Tell us, Elara, have you seen Miss Potter acting oddly? Do you believe she's in collusion with Black? If you did, we'd have to take her to the Aurory in your stead…."
Brow furrowing, Elara puzzled over the wizard's reasoning—and then jolted in her seat, eyes widening. The pin on the man's lapel stirred a memory in the back of her mind—a similar pin on the black, bespoke robes of a red-eyed monster standing at the foot of Luna Lovegood's infirmary bed. The Minister. The Minister wants Harriet. He had for some time, hadn't he? Since the end of their first year—since he sent out wizards to find her in the summer, when she'd be most vulnerable and unaware, and Elara remembered how he'd stared when they crossed paths in the hospital wing.
Hermione had told them the Minister approached her at the Malfoys' over Yule break, and he'd been most interested in their presumed friendship. The Minister—and the Aurors—had no legal recourse to question or possibly remove Harriet as they could Elara, whose emancipation had come around to bite her squarely on the backside. However, if they had judicial cause or due evidence, perhaps provided by a guilty student wanting to escape her own persecution, the Aurors could take Harriet from Hogwarts before alerting her hypothetical guardians.
Elara weighed the pros and cons of spitting in the nameless wizard's face and decided against it. Her answer came out hard and cold despite the fear souring her stomach. "My apologies, sir. I don't know what you're talking about," she said.
Whether or not the Aurors intended to make good on their threats to remove her from the school, she never found out, as the door came open—slamming into the second, silent Auror's back—and Headmaster Dumbledore stood at the threshold. Behind him, Professor Lupin lingered, panting as if he'd run the whole breadth of the castle.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Professor Dumbledore said, his tone polite but sharp and unfriendly. "Do forgive my intrusion, but I must ask for this interview to come to an end."
"Now, see here, Headmaster—."
"As an Auror, you have full authority to interrogate an emancipated student without legal counsel or their guardian present, but as Headmaster, I am well within my rights to cut said interrogation short and to deny any forthcoming attempts to remove Miss Black from my institution. You can find all this information in the school's bylaws, if you care to look—and in those same bylaws, you might be curious to find it is illegal to enter Hogwarts without first acquiring my permission or acknowledgment. I'm certain that slipped your mind. Miss Black—."
Headmaster Dumbledore gestured her forward, his blue eyes intent, and Elara bolted from the chair, narrowly avoiding a collision with the second Auror as she squeezed out of the room.
"Come with me, Ela—Miss Black," Professor Lupin told her, and Elara was shaken enough by the confrontation that she didn't protest and didn't look at the Headmaster again as he proceeded to argue with the Aurors. She just wanted to be away from that place, away from those men, as quickly as she could, and so she fell into step behind her History of Magic instructor, concentrating on the frayed threading of his collar as if her life depended on it.
His classroom was empty when they reached it. "Did—is lecture over?"
"I dismissed everyone early," Professor Lupin explained, shutting the door. "Come through to my office and have a cup of tea. You're shaking. Do you need Madam Pomfrey?"
"No," Elara rejected, her response immediate. She squeezed her hands together with enough force to make her knuckles pop, the sound ghoulish in the otherwise quiet lecture hall. "No."
Seeming to understand her desire for silence, Professor Lupin brought her to his bare, rather utilitarian office, and settled her in the stiff visitor's chair. She barely heard him order tea from a house-elf, and when he pressed a cup into her fingers, Elara jolted and would have spilled it on herself if he hadn't held it steady. "Careful."
Distracted, Elara nodded, concentrating on forcing even breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth, the porcelain cup chattering against its saucer. The tea tasted of chamomile and stung on her lips.
She went to place the cup on the edge of the professor's desk, and the rising bruises formed by strong, unrelenting fingers on her arm throbbed in time with her pulse. Elara barely had time to drop the cup and saucer before she fell to her knees and vomited in the dustbin.
"I'm sorry," she gasped, snatching a handkerchief from her pocket as Professor Lupin knelt by her, one tentative hand resting on her shoulder. "I'm really sorry." Tears and snot and sick made a mess of her crimson face, and Elara held in a sob, feeling disgusting. Weak.
"It's okay, Miss Black."
"I expected it to happen eventually," she hiccuped, trying to breathe. "I don't understand what's wrong with me. I knew they'd want to question me one day about him, if I'd been in contact or knew anything, and I don't—!"
"Shh, just take a moment and collect yourself," the professor said, taking his hand from her person, though he remained crouched next to her. He Vanished the mess in the bin without comment. "Intellectually admitting to the likelihood of an event does not mean we are necessarily prepared for it to happen, nor does it make it less harrowing. They had no right to pull you from class or to suspect you of any wrongdoing."
"They wanted Harriet," she confessed before she could think better of it.
Professor Lupin frowned, confused. "Why?"
Elara shook her head and refused to say more.
A scrabbling noise at the second door adjoining the office startled them both, and Lupin swore aloud when it opened and admitted what Elara at first thought was a small bear. She yelped as the barreling ball of black fur collided with her—and a wet tongue struck her cheek.
Is—that's a dog.
"S—Pad—Stop!" Professor Lupin sputtered in bursts and starts, wrapping an arm around the dog's chest to haul him back. A plaintive whine came from the creature, its—his—gray eyes intent on Elara, pulling against Lupin's hold. "I'm terribly sorry about him, the monstrous beast. He's horridly behaved—!"
The dog lurched again, ducking the professor's grip, his wet nose snuffling Elara's tear-streaked cheek and neck and hands. He insisted on her petting him, and only when she had his head carefully cradled in her hands did the dog sit down. Elara returned to her chair, and he followed, muzzle balanced on her knees as his shaggy tail wagged back and forth.
"He's—friendly?" she commented, unsure, and the dog woofed in confirmation.
"Overly so," Professor Lupin said. He dropped into his padded chair behind the desk, though his attention didn't stray from his dog, hands tight on the armrests. "If he's bothering you, he can go back to his room."
Elara shook her head, passing her fingers gently over the dog's soft ears. "No, he's fine." She usually refrained from touching living creatures; her unnatural predilection for killing plants made her nervous it might happen if she was holding someone's pet or familiar. It was reaffirming, however, to have the warm, comforting weight leaning against her legs, and without her knowing it, Elara's breathing had evened, though she continued to sniffle and occasionally shake.
Several minutes passed, during which Elara did nothing more than pet Professor Lupin's dog and the wizard watched her do so. The dog brought one paw up to rest on her knee, and Elara didn't mind the dusty print left behind.
"Thank you for retrieving the Headmaster," she told the professor after a time. "I appreciate it."
Professor Lupin shook his head and sighed. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop them from taking you." In an undertone, he added, "I'm sorry about a lot of things."
The dog whimpered and licked the back of Elara's hand.
"Professor Dumbledore will have seen the Aurors off the premises by now. You'd best go find Miss Potter and Miss Granger; they were worried."
For the first time all day, Elara smiled, a slight upturning of her lips as she considered the witches she thought of as her family. "I know. Thank you again for your help."
"You're quite welcome."
Elara rose, gathered her satchel and her handkerchief, and departed. Had she thought to turn around, she would have seen a second wizard where there'd once been a dog, watching her leave with grief pouring from his gray eyes.
A/N: Hermione figured out Lupin was a werewolf in canon because he missed class around the full moon. Simple fix? Miss an additional day or two at other, random times in the month. Snape also wasn't around to assign that werewolf essay, and because he can't bring in a live one to terrify his students, Slytherin glossed over the lesson.
Elara: "I'm EMANCIP—."
Auror: "Uno-reverse."
Elara: *horrified gasp*
