Burn Marks
The new year came with little events. Remus and Eryn had developed some sort of routine of meeting in the library. Eryn would talk most of the time and Remus listened. A few days after Sirius had gotten back, Remus started reading while Eryn spoke.
“Who’s that first year Gryffindor you keep hanging out with?” Pandora asked during potions one afternoon.
“One of Sirius’s friends”, Eryn said while measuring some moonstone.
“What’s the deal with him?”
“Er…”
“You don’t fancy him, do you?”
“No, I just…”
Remus had asked Eryn not to tell anyone that he was a werewolf. That also meant Pandora, as much as Eryn trusted her.
“We’re just friends, that’s all”.
It was at that moment that their class was interrupted.
Lucius Malfoy had walked into the classroom. He handed a roll of parchment to Professor Slughorn.
“Do you need anything else, Professor?”
“No…well, actually would you mind keeping an eye on the class while I go attend to some business real quick?”
“Not at all, sir”.
Slughorn left the room, and Lucius made his way to Eryn.
“Afternoon, beautiful”, he said, leaning forward on Eryn and Pandora’s table.
“Don’t call me that. What do you want?”
“Well, you’re the only person I know here, so I might as well bother you”, he looked over at Pandora. “Who’s this again?”
“Pandora Rosier”, she said, taking the moonstone from Eryn and pouring it into their cauldron. “Nice to meet you”.
“Pleasure’s all mine”. Lucius sat up a little and looked around the classroom.
A few minutes later Slughorn came back.
“Time for you to go, Malfoy”, said Eryn. Instead of walking away, Lucius carefully ran his fingers through a front strand of Eryn’s curled hair.
Eryn felt his heart climbing up his throat. Why was that happening? This was just a normal interaction between friends, wasn’t it? Besides, if it meant anything, Lucius was likely just messing with Eryn because he thought it was funny.
“You had a bug in your hair”, Lucius said before exiting the classroom, smiling at Eryn before he left.
“What the hell was that?!” Pandora snapped at Eryn the moment he left.
“I don’t know”, Eryn shrugged. He was still blushing.
“God, and I thought you were obvious about your crushes!” Pandora laughed and turned her attention back to their potion.
“I doubt that Malfoy fancies me”.
“Eryn, he showed up in the middle of our class, called you beautiful, and left”.
Eryn sighed.
“I know, but it’d make more sense if he was part of, you know, our crowd. He’s probably just messing with me, that seems like the kind of thing Lestrange would find funny. I find it hard to believe Malfoy’s queer”.
That was the truth. Eryn knew this was all just a sick joke. It’d blow over in a few months and then Lucius would leave him alone.
He didn’t have to worry about it.
***
The rest of the day went on with a drag. Professors were starting to become insistent on revising for their exams, even though they were months away, and Eryn didn’t see much of a point of vigorous review. Information either stuck with him or slipped his mind, there was no point in trying to force it. Pandora shared a similar view. She didn’t worry about much, especially when it came to school. Evan, however, was the complete opposite. He was taking more subjects than Pandora and Eryn, so they understood his feelings for the most part. That didn’t stop them from laughing at him while he studied in the common room that evening.
“Alright, if you two won’t keep quiet I’m going upstairs”, he proclaimed, slamming his book shut and adding it to the stack on the table in front of him.
“Oh, come on, Evan. You know we love you, no matter how much of a swot you can be”.
“I’m tired, anyway. Good night”.
He picked up his books and headed to the stairs to the boys’ dormitories.
“We could study, you know”, Pandora pointed out.
“Ah, where’s the fun in that?” Eryn said, lying across the spot on the sofa where Evan had been sitting.
“The fun part is supposed to be passing to the next year, I think”.
“God, you’re starting to sound like Evan”.
They laughed. Moments after, Evan reappeared in the stairway.
“Eryn, you might want to come upstairs”.
“What’s wrong?”
“Er…someone lit a match”.
Eryn stood up and followed Evan, Pandora close behind him.
In their dormitory, on the wall above Eryn’s bed, were burn marks. Once he moved closer, he saw they spelled out words.
Tranny. Fag. Blood-Sucking Freak.
“Oh dear”, said Pandora, putting a hand to her mouth. “This isn’t good at all”.
“Yeah, no shit”, said Evan.
“Are you okay, Eryn?”
He hadn’t spoken. He reread the words over and over, traced them with his hand.
“I’m fine”.
“We can go to Slughorn if—“
“No. Leave it alone”.
“Are you sure—?”
“Leave it be. Forget about it”.
He took his wand and quickly removed the marks. They were gone. He didn’t have to think about them anymore.
Eryn looked back to the spot where the marks had been.
“Please just leave me alone for a minute”.
The twins filed out of the room, shutting the door behind them. Eryn flopped down onto his bed and stared at the ceiling.
He thought about Snape, who had said some of the same words weeks prior, both to Eryn and other students. He’d never been bothered by it, they were just spoken words; they only carried meaning if Eryn let them. But this was real. Someone had gone out of their way to do this. Their intention was probably to scare Eryn. But he wasn’t scared, he told himself. If this was done by Snape and his lot then this was probably as far as they would go, anything else would get them into way more trouble than Eryn was worth.
He couldn’t let this bother him, he settled on. Getting Slughorn or any other teacher involved would only make things more complicated. Besides, there was no way of finding out who had written it, so there wasn’t much of a point.
He’d let them have this, it was only burn marks on the wall. How could that possibly hurt him?