Emma was pacing around the small living room and she was certain that the taupe carpet would slowly show signs of wear by her intense moving to and fro, her body's anxious response to the news she was carrying all these days. She was clasping and unclasping her hands, feeling her sore knuckles and exhaling heavily. It was her day off today, so she was wearing a simple yellow dress instead of the typical scrubs of St. Mungo's, and her feet were bare, feeling the indentations she was making on the soft fabric of the carpet.
The letter the shabby owl brought a week ago said that Pia would be arriving from Glasgow today, at any moment in fact, and that she hoped to stay for a prolonged time. It sounded indefinite, abstract, and something inside Emma splashed a bitter feeling of resentment for being a younger sister. For not being able to say no.
She was not sure if she had done well to tell Pia about what she had learned from her supervisor, Eulalia Shacklebolt, at St. Mungo's.
Emma's ears were still ringing with Eulalia's raspy voice. Her supervisor of three years, this broody, bossy, short-statured woman with an intense gaze and those large protruding eyes, had a connection to the Order through her brother Kingsley, the Auror.
The Order. The Order of the Phoenix.
Of course, something inside her knew already before Eula told her.
Emma would remember very vividly the mysterious patients Eula would handle from time to time, the fact that she would become snappish if someone would offer help or if she felt many pairs of eyes on her back, following her actions.
She trusted Emma enough to often ask for her help and her discretion, over the last year especially. And Emma complied, performing various phoney tasks for Eulalia without asking questions. She would vanish files, or alter a name, or perhaps she would give extra attention to certain mysterious patients–or sometimes Emma's role was simply to not ask any questions, but to cover Eula's tracks. It was an unspoken agreement between mentor and mentee. She did not want to disappoint Eulalia, who had helped her all those years ago to stay in the Healing programme.
It had definitely happened more than once, but those mysterious cases did not come often. The Order members probably knew how to hide their tracks, or could have even employed Eulalia in secret to offer Healing services to their vigilantes, breaking her oath to wizarding standards of professional conduct.
Last year, just before Christmas, Eula had asked Emma to keep an eye on a middle-aged man who had sustained a strange injury, some kind of bite wound, and who was under the supervision of Healer Smethwyck, a Muggle-born known for his unorthodox ideas. Emma remembered how she thought that Eula was really gutsy to send her mentee to spy on Healer Smethwyck, a cordial but utterly dedicated man. He was also Eulalia's colleague of the same rank, and noticing how his colleague's junior Healer would make unnecessary trips to his patients would definitely draw attention to them.
Eulalia, for whatever she lacked in stature, though, had in courage. And Emma wanted to please her, as she was fond of the woman.
Despite knowing it was wrong, and for a lack of better description, Emma knew that she was good at this game. Exceptional, actually. Whether it was the fact that she was, to many, good looking, with her dimpled high cheekbones, blue eyes, and light brown hair with golden hues, or whether it was the pleasantness she exuded, especially capturing the attention of the opposite sex, she was good at whatever that was: spying and gossiping about other supervisors' patients. Ignoring protocol. Altering information. She knew that whatever she was doing was clearly and irrevocably unethical. But she did it anyway.
What Emma called spying, however, Eulalia would call intelligence–and she was very pleased with Emma, which gave the younger woman a warm feeling inside her chest, that of approval.
She suddenly felt a gush of guilt filling her body, but tried to swat it away. Maybe she was stirring this old story again, the bitter wound she would have to lick on her own in isolation in the aftermath.
Waiting for Pia exacerbated this feeling of unease, the unmovable pit in her stomach. She was still unsure as to whether this was a good idea to tell her, but no it was done. She knew it was probably terrible and that she would regret it deeply, but Emma, for some reason, could not control the words that came out of her—it has always been like that with Pia. She wanted to have a semblance of control, she was so good at building the confidence she grew up lacking, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, all will disintegrate. She could not deny Pia, and she hated herself for it.
When Eula took Emma aside one night during rounds, and told her that she was connected to the Order and that they were desperate for Healers, Emma knew that her life had changed that moment, even by the knowledge of the Order being so close to her. There was no way to ignore this, to pretend it didn't happen, to stall the news from seeping deep into her consciousness.
Eulalia was asking Emma to join the Order of the Phoenix.
She should have seen it coming, really. Especially after the skirmish at the Ministry at the beginning of the summer, when apparently many of their group–of course unknown to the general public, or at least the kind of public Emma and Pia would consort with–took a great hit, losing many able-bodied wands, at least for some weeks.
Emma knew it was something to do with the Order of the Phoenix when Eulalia was exceptionally attentive to a young woman with bright purple hair, about two months ago. The woman, a few years younger than Emma herself, was injured badly and was rushed mysteriously to their unit, and would remain there for multiple days, recovering from a nasty concussion and some broken ribs.
It was only because she was very inquisitive and she was actually good at observing suspicious human behaviours that she eventually found out the young woman's real name: Nymphadora Tonks, junior Auror at the Ministry.
Of course this was suspicious. It was real, happening to her of all people, to the one woman in Britain who would prefer to stay away from this Order as much as possible, but also to someone who was inevitably connected to it.
No matter where she went, no matter who she wanted to become, there was no escape from the Phoenix. And it seemed that this time around, the Phoenix was calling on Emma.
She should have known it was coming, especially since his exoneration two months ago.
Pia entered the small London flat carefully, in a commanding way. She carefully glanced around the place and then directly at Emma and had a broad grin that revealed her short pearly teeth, stretching her curling lips even thinner.
"Well," Pia said curtly, still assessing the small living room. "Aren't you giving a hug to your older sister, chickie?" she said with a raised eyebrow while extending her short chubby arms. Emma complied, with a smile, but dread ran through her spine and she inhaled her sister's scent. She smelled of peaches.
Pia was plump and extremely petite, at least a head and a half shorter than her younger sister, but had a dominating presence. She had a long face with a permanent fluster, thin lips, and large amber coloured eyes, almost too large to be proportional. Her auburn hair was tied back and was thicker and curlier than Emma's, resembling their father's, while Emma seemed to be the odd one out, taking after their mother.
Her form-fitted purple dress and steel-toe boots added an air of command in Pia's visage. Moreover, Pia's work as a journalist for a Glasgow-based newspaper gave her an inquisitive expression, a look of a person who saw through another very easily, despite their unwillingness to reveal their secrets.
An hour and multiple cups of tea later, Emma's unease would not go away. She tried to distract herself in conversation, idle for the most part and dominated by Pia who would only ask very specific and idiosyncratic questions about Emma's life. Always about work, but not about her sister's aspirations, never about Emma's love life. That subject was out of bounds. Emma would focus on attending Pia's needs, glancing over her older sister who was now taking off her boots and resting her sore feet in the foot stool with a pained frown in her face, her long curly hair, hanging in two large strands that glistened against the pink contour of her cheeks.
"Alright, since you are tired, let me clean up, Pi," said Emma distractedly, but her body was buzzing with an unpleasant anticipation.
As she got up to grab the cups, Pia interrupted her.
"One moment," said Pia with a hoarse voice, and Emma sat down still holding the empty cup in her hands, touching its rim and feeling a chip in the old flowery porcelain.
Pia groaned as she positioned her legs back on the ground with a shift movement, her short hands standing on her hips as she gazed at her sister expectantly.
She laughed. "You think I forgot what you told me, chickie?" said the woman with a smirk.
"I–no, but I just don't think–" she started saying but was promptly interrupted.
Pia moved with urgency now, coming closer to Emma in a menacing way although she was smiling. Her large brown eyes were like saucers now, as she grabbed Emma's hands and put the cup back on the table. "Don't you see?" she said in a lavish tone. "Don't you see how wonderful this is for us–"
But Emma stopped her this time. "No, I don't see it, not really," she croaked, wanting to sound firmer but only a plea came out. Flustered, she looked up at Pia whose face had a wild expression.
"Enough of this, enough of hiding in this hidey-hole of yours playing the Healer! This is our chance, don't you see it? We can finally avenge our family, our parents, and–"
"No." Emma's voice was now cold. This would never go back to how it was.
"No?" asked Pia languidly, amused, in a way that made Emma uncomfortable. She knew her sister's anger was near, and it was volatile.
"I said, no. I want no part in this. I know what I told you and I realised that I shouldn't have. But I am done," she said, looking Pia straight in the eye now.
"You want no part in this?" Pia repeated mockingly, her long face flushing dangerously now. "You think we have a choice, that you have a choice? Or should I remind you where you would be if I hadn't stepped in for you, to take care of you, when our parents couldn't," she hissed, her breathing laboured, so different from the silky voice she had a minute ago.
Emma stood up as well, and pushed her wavy hair off her face, looking at Pia with astonishment. "Yes, I do remember all that you have done for me, as you will never let me forget, no matter how far I get in my own life," her voice ascended in a staccato tone.
"You dare you speak to me like this? Me, of all people? I am the one who stood by you when no one was there, when we lost everything. I fed you, I protected you, at the expense of my own personal life !" Pia ranted, looking aggressively at her younger sister.
"I know all that!" shouted Emma. "I know what you have done for me, and I will always be grateful, but this–this–obsession, this revenge quest–I don't want part in that" she said looking at Pia pleadingly.
"Obsession?" asked the shorter witch, now pacing menacingly around the small coffee table, rounding Emma. "We are talking about avenging our family! About what happened to our parents, should I remind you, girl? You were there of course, but it seems that you have forgotten what happened to our family!" spit was flying out of Pia's mouth violently.
"I was there, yes," hot tears streaming down Emma's face now. "I was the one who found mum like that!" she hissed, but her voice did not falter. "And you using that against me is really cheap" she spat, resting her aching back at the corner of the wall while still looking at her sister.
"Listen–Em, no, don't interrupt me," Pia said in a low voice. She was now coming near Emma who recoiled at the proximity.
"The Phoenix bears the blame for what happened to our family. It's their fault, theirs, and Black's–you must have seen the papers, of course. The exonerated hero, the prodigal Pureblood heir whose youth was wasted in that rotting cell–"
"I have, I have, and it bothers me, too" said Emma in a pleading voice, but it was as if Pia had swallowed all air from the room and there was no space for her.
"It's his fault and the Order's that our family is broken. He broke us, tore everything apart. Our father, at first lost his job, his standing at the Ministry, and our mother–oh you remember that. She wasted away. She wasted away until she was no more. Grief ate her up—" Pia inhaled heavily as she sat back on the sofa. "Unless of course, you do not care about that ... .or perhaps you believe the Wizengamot and these preposterous stories Black and the Order fed them to let him off like that!" Pia shouted.
Emma was now silently sobbing, wishing she could hide, wishing she had never told Pia. The hardest part has always been to resist the urge to please, to feel adequate, accepted.
Yet every time Pia would be near, every time she was around, Emma was rendered motionless, speechless. Like now.
When Pia made her way back toward her, she felt cold. She could not help a whimper when Pia's rough thumb grazed her tear-stricken face. Bitter, motherly, harsh, unpredictable.
"You will do this, girlie. You will get that Healer to hook you in with them, to get you near their most important members, and eventually, finally, we will get Black" she said in a slow voice barely a whisper, her rough hand never leaving Emma's face.
Emma had stopped crying and looked down at her sister with empty eyes. Not looking for confirmation, or not needing any, Pia's hand withdrew sharply.
She had her back at Emma now.
"If you don't collaborate willfully, of course, you know that there are other ways, other means–" she said.
Emma winced.
"I will do it," she said, looking at the void, after what seemed to be an eternity.
Pia rapidly turned around and grinned and hugged her sister. Her pink flustered face had the same insane triumph she had when she entered Emma's apartment hours ago.
"For our brother" she said with joy etched all over her long face.