B is for Betrayal
NADIA
Two beautiful days in a row was a very bad omen to Nadia. This might be an unpopular opinion. However, Nadia knew better. Sunny days get your expectations high. Usually, this only sets you up for disappointment. At least cloudy and rainy days don't get your hopes up; you know from the start what you signed up for. Weather at Hogwarts seemed to be persistent in disagreeing with Nadia.
The perks of having a common room in the dungeons was total isolation. The entrance behind a stone wall led to a dark room lit by torches and fireplaces. All the furniture looked like antiques and there were green and silver on every surface. Nadia learned that the room was located partially under the lake. There were windows that opened straight to the dark waters. This gave the room a green tinge that danced on the faces of Slytherins in the room.
Even at the small hours of the night, the common room wasn’t empty. Insomnia seemed to be a common word in the house of Slytherin. Thankfully, no one bothered each other. The Slytherins were not keen to socialize without gain. The students preferred solitude. This suited Nadia who spent most of her first night sitting alone on a dark green, leather sofa near a window opening to the lake. There was something mesmerising about staring at the dark water. Every now and then, she could have sworn she saw a creature with a beautiful fishtail passing by.
Nadia thought she might regret staying up the next morning. Turns out spending almost every night half-up back home finally paid off. She surprised herself by feeling oddly cheerful and buzzing with excitement the next day. The prefect girl from last night was already waiting at the Great Hall. Nadia realised it was Narcissa Black who no longer had dark hair Nadia remembered from their childhood. Narcissa handed her the lesson schedule the minute she arrived at the Great Hall for breakfast. She glanced at the parchment. The good news was they only had charms and potions today. The bad news was both of them were with Gryffindors.
She sat down at the end of the table and poured herself a cup of tea. Someone sat next to her and began talking before Nadia could even lookup.
“Nadia! No sight of you yesterday at the dorms. Don’t tell me you were up to something on the first night?”, the Parkinson girl questioned her with a sly smile.
“Had trouble sleeping, that’s all”, Nadia sipped her tea.
“Well, did you see the schedule? The whole day with Gryffindors, ugh!” Prudentia complained, resting her head on Nadia’s shoulder like they were already best friends. She was one of those people who sugarcoated their malice in friendliness so you never knew what their true intentions were. She was also one of those people Nadia wanted nothing to do with.
The morning owls granted her an excuse to move away. Persefone, who had disappeared the minute Nadia had let it out of her cage last night, was now flying back to her with a letter. The few next minutes were chaotic as everyone was trying to spot their own owl and prevent them from landing in any cereal bowls or coffee cups. Nadia managed to untie the letter before anyone could pay too close attention to her. Nadia knew she needed privacy for this. She knew where it was from. It’s not like she had that many possible pen pals. The dark green envelope opened to reveal a parchment with neat, calligraphic handwriting.
You did well. Good.
It felt like a terrible waste of parchment. The quiet rage she had harboured inside for years started boiling again. Had she known that putting on an old hat was what got your praises in the Rosier household, she could have stopped the rest of her pathetic attempts to please long ago. She had to remind herself she was far away from their reach now. If she let them ruin her day, that would be fully on her now. Nadia folded the parchment carefully and put it in her robe pocket for safekeeping. She wanted to keep it safe until she could toss it to fire and watch it burn.
Nadia wasn’t the only person who received unpleasant mail that morning. At the Gryffindor table, a giant eagle-owl was heading towards the unsuspecting Black heir. Sirius was busy laughing at Peter who looked alarmingly pale after Nearly-Headless Nick had floated right through him to greet Frank Longbottom. His laugh was caught short as he saw the family owl land on the table in front of him. It was carrying a bright red envelope.
“SIRIUS ORION BLACK! I should not even call you a Black anymore. The B in your name stands for betrayal! A total betrayal, do you hear me? How dare you associate yourself with that house? You can forget about your inheritance. You are no longer our son” a voice cried.
Nadia bit her lip to control her smile. All the stars must have aligned the day Sirius Black was born. How else, would he be stuck with such fitting initials as S.O.B. And Walburga Black seemed to still have her edge. Back when they were young, Mrs Black used to disown Sirius at least once a week.
The whole school was now staring at the unfortunate boy at the Gryffindor table. Sirius' jaw clenched slightly. On the other side of the hall, Nadia was fascinated to see what Black would do next. Anyone else might have stormed out blushing but Nadia doubted Sirius was the easily embarrassing kind. He proved her right.
When his mother finally ended her fiery speech in a big explosion, a grin had already returned to Sirius’ face. He got up to his feet, climbed up to the table and bowed to his crowd. The Great Hall was now filled with applauds, cheering and a couple of whistles from the Prewetts. From her side of the hall, Nadia could tell that Slytherins were laughing, too. Although, the green and silver table was laughing more at Sirius than with him. Betrayal of the family name might only be material for comedy at the other tables. Slytherin took loyalty seriously, no matter how misplaced it was.
There was less laughing involved in the Charms class. Professor Flitwick, a short man standing on a book pile, spent the entire lesson lecturing the importance of his class and how all the magical education culminated in Charms. It was only the last quarter of the lesson when the class was allowed to draw out their wands. They followed Professor Flitwick’s demonstration and traced the pattern of the levitation spell in the air. Flitwick promised the class they would get to try the spell next time. Nadia would have skipped lunch to try the spell by herself if allowed. She wasn’t the only one feeling the competitive need to succeed. There was an unspoken contest between Slytherins and Gryffindors to win more house points than the other. Being the first one to manage a spell would surely be worth a good amount of them.
“Rosier, what do you say, 10 galleons I get wingardium leviosa correct before you?” Sirius sat down on a chair next to Nadia.
“You shouldn’t throw your money around. Not the Black heir anymore, remember?” Nadia side-eyed him while packing her quills and books away.
“No, I am making money off you. Easily, may I add.”
“I don’t think so”, she started walking towards the door. Unfortunately, Sirius followed her like a dog.
“C’mon. Think about it this way; You win, you are 10 galleons richer. I win, you get the satisfaction of donating money to the Young, Handsome and Unfortunate Former Black Heir Fund”
“Enticing. Charity has always been close to my heart”. They were now walking in the corridor together. It seemed to be impossible to get rid of Sirius. “Black, what do you really want?”, she stopped.
Sirius almost bumped into her. He rubbed his neck while looking for the right words. “I need you to write to Regulus”.
“Ah, yes. Since your brother and I have always been in regular correspondence.” Nadia nodded trying to keep a neutral expression.
“Trust me, he is the same annoying idiot you knew as a toddler.”, Sirius laughed before changing to a whisper. “I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t important. Mother doesn’t let him talk to me anymore. Says I will poison his young and impressionable mind or something. I only want to know he is okay”. Something in his eyes killed the annoyance in Nadia.
Nadia knew how it felt to be stuck between rock and family. She knew the desperation Sirius was feeling. How being under enormous pressure felt like when those applying the pressure were your loved ones. You either bend or you break. Despite putting on an act of tranquillity, Sirius Black was at a breaking point. “Fine”.
“Really?”, he looked surprised. “I had a whole speech prepared.”.
“As much as I would like to hear that I would prefer not to miss lunch”, they had now reached the entrance of the Great Hall. “Besides, I never had anything against Reg. It was always you who I couldn’t stand”, Nadia smiled over her shoulder heading to the Slytherin table. Sirius stood at the entrance with a grateful smile.
Unfortunately, the conversation was not over. Not to Sirius. In the afternoon they had Potions together. The class, located in dungeons, was cold and filled with echoes of whispering students, The walls were filled with miss-matched shelves. They were stocked with all kinds of jars full of mysterious liquids. As soon as Nadia stepped into the class, Sirius started tailing her again.
“What are you going to write to him?”
“Well, I was thinking something along the lines: Dear, Regulus. Your beloved pain in the arse brother would like to know if you are alright. Please, send back a note if you too think your brother is an annoying little prick who should mind his own business. Nadia. ”
“You sign your letters without love ?”, Sirius tilted his head.
“How do you sign your letters? S.O.B.?”
“Very clever. Just make sure you don’t mention me. Make it sound like it was your idea”. Cruel parents raised clever children. Being raised by tradition and honour teaches you to find the art of secrecy and loopholes.
“Yes, because every other day I suddenly get an idea to write to people I have last met when I was seven”, Nadia huffed but seeing the worry in Sirius’ face made her decide to end his misery. “Don’t worry, not mentioning you is the easy part”.
Sirius had no chance to respond to this even though he very much looked like he had something to say. The door at the front, leading to the professor’s office, opened. A middle-aged, bald man with a resemblance to a slouchy, velvet armchair walked in. Even the Slytherins had not met the potions professor, yet, despite him being the head of their house. The man stared at the class as if he had only now noticed he was not alone.
“Oh, hello. I am professor Horace Slughorn. Today we will study the functions of a bezoar". Slughorn sat down behind his desk. “Anybody can tell me what a bezoar is?”
A red-headed Gryffindor girl raised her hand immediately. She offered a textbook answer which seemed to please Slughorn. Nadia recognised her from the Sorting ceremony, the one who had stared intensely at Severus Snape. Now she was sitting in the front row next to him. Who would have thought, Snape had a little Gryffindor friend.
“Excellent. Five points to Gryffindor!”
Someone in the back cheered. Nadia turned to see the curly-haired boy sitting next to Sirius. He ran his fingers through his hair with his eyes fixed at the redhead.
Unfortunately, Slughorn did not appreciate distractions in his class. “I have a method proven quite successful so far. I reckon, most of you have kept socializing to only your housemates. I, however, believe it is important to work your nets in wider waters”.
This was followed by a roll call. When Slughorn read a student’s name from a scroll, silver initials floated over to the mentioned student. The process was disturbed several times by Slughorn stopping to ask about famous relatives of certain students. The boy in the back turned out to be, James Potter, the heir to the Sleakeazy fortune. Professor Slughorn was delighted to find this out. At the end, when the last initials were placed carefully in front of its owner, Slughorn flicked his wand. The initials started floating around and shuffled in the air until they were placed again randomly. This was followed by a groan from both students dressed in green and red.
It took five more minutes for everyone to settle in their new seats. Nadia had to go all the way to the front. Her new potions partner was the redhead Gryffindor. She offered Nadia a sincere smile and introduced herself as Lily Evans sounding genuinely pleased to meet Nadia. Well, that is new, she thought. Usually, people in her life were only polite if they had an agenda. The pair behind them were less harmonious. Snape was paired up with the Potter boy. Neither of them seemed satisfied. Nadia had to admire their determination; it was not an easy task to make enemies in just two days.
“Evans, if you want to borrow a quill, I have these new ones from Scrivenshaft’s. They correct your spelling”, the Potter boy poked Nadia’s partner.
Snape looked disgusted. “She doesn’t need anything from you, Potter.”
“It’s okay, Sev. Potter, do you imply I am not capable of doing my own spelling check?”, Lily said before turning her attention towards Slughorn.
Potter blushed slightly. Snape looked satisfied. It was an ugly look on his face. He happened to be the type of person whose only pleasure in life was other people’s misery. He seemed to dedicate his whole life to this. Severus Snape might seem harmless enough. The bitterness and hatred were usually no harm to anyone but himself. However, first impressions can betray us. Overlooked and underestimated, Snape’s type could be the most dangerous kind. Like a ticking timebomb, no one saw coming.