Bertie Bott's
4 September 1974
“How was your first day of classes?” Asked Professor Dumbledore.
Violette sat in the same chair that her mother had sat in months prior, across from the bearded man in his office. Her hands were together in her lap, and she nodded with a smug mouth.
“Good sir, thank you, sir.”
Dumbledore nodded, leaning back in his grand chair, lined with gold and royal blue cushions.
“I’m sure you are curious as to why I have called you into my office this afternoon. Now, you may not like it, but it is necessary that we have these meetings every so often to keep an eye on your condition.”
The girl looked up, and she swallowed in a dry throat.
“I beg your pardon, sir?” She asked, and her voice was a dried leaf in the wind.
“You have no reason to worry, Ms. Laurent. I know of this thanks to your mother. When she had come to inquire about your’s and your brother’s admission to Hogwarts,”
Mother was here? Violette thought to herself.
“She informed me of the blood curse that runs through your father’s family line, and that curiously, it developed in you.”
The man watched as the girl shrunk in her seat. Uncomfort overtook her, crawling over her skin like a thousand spiders.
“Violette.” He said, softening his tone, “I want to help you learn to control this power of yours. Concealing it will only lead to another outburst, and I’m told as you get older it will only grow stronger.”
“How can you help me?” She questioned, staring up at him sharply. “Unless you can find a way to get rid of it, then how can you possibly help me, sir?”
The old man raised his brow, slightly, and leaned forward. He did not take offense to her bold tone. If anything, he’d expected it.
“What if we could find a way to utilize it?”
Violette leaned back, turning her face and looking up at the Headmaster out of the corner of her eye.
“You could reclaim this curse that has reigned so much terror over your life. If you could control it… you could be unstoppable, but for the right reasons.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Every other week, Violette, I’d like you to report to my office. As per your mother’s request, I will have you educated on the topic, and you will learn to control it. She warned me that you may be closed off to the idea for the first few meetings, and that I understand, but for your safety, and the rest of your family’s, you must learn.”
She was here.
The old man opened one of the drawers at his desk, and pulled out a small and colorful box. He gave it a shake, and poured the contents out into his hand. Jelly beans. He popped one into his mouth and started to chew with a curious face. Violette watched with a wrinkled brow, then he gestured for her to hold out her hand.
“Do you like jelly beans?” He asked.
Violette shrugged, “I suppose.”
“These were your mother’s favorites. Here.” He plopped one out onto Violette’s hand. “Try one. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans.”
The more he chewed, he made a more peculiar face. “Hm.” He nodded, “Sausage.”
“Sausage?” Violette tilted her head, “But, that’s an awful flavor for a jelly bean.”
“Go ahead,” He nodded, “Give yours a try.”
Hesitantly, she ate the jelly bean, and luckily, the pleasant taste of sweet cherry danced over her tongue.
“Mine’s only cherry.”
Dumbledore chuckled, putting a hand to his belly, “That’s lucky, then.”
The room felt warmer, then, and Violette felt more comfortable. She was reminded of her grandfather on her father’s side. She’d never known her mother’s father.
“Do all old men keep sweets in their desk drawers?” She asked, tilting her head.
“All of the ones that I’ve ever met do.” He sighed, then he glanced at the grandfather clock on the wall, “Well, Violette, it’s been nice to have a chat with you this morning. You’d better be off to class, now. I’ll be looking forward to meeting with you in a few days from now.”
Violette found herself smiling, small but surely. She swung her bag over her shoulder and left the office, the tartness of the jelly bean warming her cheeks and leaving them tingly.
* * *
The potions classroom was far from Dumbledore’s office, all the way down in the dungeons. Violette made it just in time, and everyone was already in their seats. The teacher was just about to start the class when she walked in. He’d already taken attendance. Upon her arrival, the class went silent, and everyone turned around and looked toward the door. Violette’s eyes slowly scanned the classroom, and with all eyes on her, she felt her heart began to beat harder and faster, but she maintained a cool exterior. When she scanned the silent and full classroom, her gaze was caught on a boy toward the middle of the class like fabric to a sharp needle. The boy from dinner. Sirius Black. A familiar face in a sea full of strangers.
“Welcome in, welcome in.” The professor said. He was an old man, and smiled big. Violette’s eyes flickered up at him, and she immediately took notice of his strange cap and dapper tan suit. “Wherever is free, have a seat!”
Violette nodded, flashing a quick smile, and she scanned the classroom again for a free seat. The professor skimmed his attendance list, then his eyes went wide. He looked up when he found her name, his mouth agape. The only name that hadn’t a check beside it.
“Merlin’s beard…” He huffed out a breathy chuckle like an old steam engine, “Ms. Laurent, is it?”
Politely, Violette nodded, and the eyes of her peers began to burn holes into her skin.
“Oh, what an honor it is. I had the utmost pleasure to meet your brother, just yesterday, a wonderful young gentleman. The very image of your father, oh yes indeed. A brilliant man, your father!”
Sirius studied Violette’s polite nods, and the way she stood very poised with her hands together. And, Remus was right. Green did suit her.
Any color might suit her, Sirius thought.
“Thank you, Professor…” Violette smiled, awkwardly nodding and glancing about the classroom, still.
“Slughorn, it is!” The old man wheezed, “Well, truly, I should offer you whichever seat you’d please, but you see, there are not many free to choose from. If you’ve found a seat that you would prefer, and it’s been taken, perhaps I could-”
“That’ll be alright, Professor Slughorn. I think I’ll just-”
“Perhaps, here!” Slughorn suggested she take the empty seat at Sirius’s table.
The boy in glasses sat up, puffing out his chest and nodding with a frown. Peter Pettigrew’s face went bone white, and his eyes flickered at the empty seat beside him, and back up at the beautiful girl who would take it. Sitting opposite the boys were two girls, one of them blonde, and the other, brown haired. The blonde girl lifted her eyebrows lamely.
Violette bit her bottom lip and started toward the table. She thought that it might not be so bad. She had already met Sirius, and she recognized the brown haired girl from History of Magic. All of them wore Gryffindor robes, which is something that her brother had talked to her about.
“No.” Potter said, and he shook his head.
Violette stopped, and he looked up at her, swallowing in a dry throat. Sirius turned to his friend, glancing at him and Violette both. Confusion pulled at Violette’s expression, and she put her hands together again as all awaited his reasoning.
“Oh?” Slughorn cocked an eyebrow.
“Sorry.” James shrugged, “That’s Remus’s seat. He’s with the nurse. Should be back starting Monday. We’ve saved that seat for him.”
Peter exhaled, and the blonde girl, Marlene, furrowed her brow. Sirius felt his face go cold as ice, as that familiar feeling of anticipation fizzled out like a dying fire.
Violette raised her brow weakly, and Potter shrugged again. She looked to Sirius, who could say nothing. He looked as if his lips might have been glued together, and his eyes were big like a waiting child. She huffed out a humorless chuckle, and went to scan the class again.
“She can sit here.” A voice from the back of the classroom rang out. Violette turned around, and she recognized him, slightly.
“How thoughtful of you, Mr. Rosier.” Said Slughorn, “Yes, yes. If you please, Ms. Laurent. Take your seat, and I will start the class.”
Sirius felt a sense of defeat nip at his ears and the back of his neck as he watched Violette take a seat at the table of Slytherin boys. Avery pulled the stool back for her to sit, and all of the boys looked well pleased to have her at their table.
Violette remembered the boys she sat with, then.
“You’re Regulus’s friends from the couch.” She said, and they chuckled.
“Regulus’s friends?” Avery questioned, putting his hand to his heart and faking offended, “Is that all we are to the Pureblood Princess of France?”
Violette grinned, opening up her notebook, “For now, I suppose.”
“But, we were so hospitable to open up our table to you, weren’t we?” Mulciber joined in, “Unlike those beggars over there. How rude of Potter to wave you away like that!”
Evan scoffed, scribbling into his notebook, “You’re far better off here with us than over there with them. I’d have pitied you if you had to put up with them.”
“I suppose it’s a good thing then, that they denied me a seat.” Violette sighed, “You all aren’t very friendly with each other, I take it?”
They all scoffed, “God, no.” Said Avery, “Miserable freaks, they are. All of them. Especially that Lupin, always covered in scars and filthy. You’d think people like that would take advantage of the showers here, and clean clothes.”
Violette looked up when the boys all giggled with each other. “What do you mean by ‘people like that’?”
Evan exhaled, setting his quill down. The class had quieted down, and so he looked up and scanned the room. He leaned in closer to Violette and whispered.
“Il vient d'un orphelinat.”
He comes from an orphanage.
“Son père travaille jour et nuit, mais il ne peut pas subvenir aux besoins de tous les deux, alors il l'a envoyé chez des religieuses.”
His father works day and night, but he can't support the both of them, so he sent him off to be raised by nuns.
Violette glanced up at Sirius, and she felt confused.
“Et les autres?”
What about the others?
Evan went on, all in French so that if they overheard him, they would not understand.
“That one, dark hair, that’s Mary Macdonald. Pureblood, but she was adopted by muggles, so it’s an odd situation there. Next to her’s Marlene. A right piece of work, she is. She’s been on the quidditch team since second year. Reckless and fierce, I’ll give her that, but a mudblood is a mudblood.”
Mudblood, Violette thought, and the word echoed in her mind. She was no stranger to the word. Her siblings said it all the time, Theo especially. Strangely, she hardly heard it out of her parents’ mouths, but she put no thought toward that. She knew of her mother’s stance on blood-purity. It was the same as the rest of the obsessed pureblood families. Of course, on the surface, Violette seemed like one of them, an obsessed blood purist, just because of who her family was. Really, she didn’t see the big deal about it. She liked muggle things, collecting books and cassette tapes from the muggle shops in Paris. She would never let her siblings or her mother know about it, though.
“But,” Violette whispered, “... if she’s one of them, then why does Sirius hang around with her?”
Evan chuckled, glancing up at the other boys at the table. All of their faces had lazy grins, or smirks.
“Does his mother know?” She asked, “She would never allow that.”
“Oh, she knows.” Avery hummed, “She knows good and well.”
“But, I don’t understand.”
“L'avorton de la portée.” Evan sighed, “The runt of the litter.”
Violette looked up at Sirius, who was sitting with his head propped up with an open palm. The pieces fell together, but not fully. All that she understood was that he did not care about blood-purity like the rest of his family, and knew that his mother and father were big believers in it.
“My aunt, Druella, says that his mother has been trying to whip him into shape since he was a child. I mean, he used to be pleasant. We were friends, even, until he got sorted into Gryffindor, then he really started to show off his true colors.”
“Yeah.” Mulciber leaned in, “Second year, at the Christmas feast, he and his friends lit off peppermint dung-bombs underneath the teachers’ table.”
“Then they enchanted the Slytherin table to turn into ice. The whole thing. The plates, the food, the goblets, even the benches.”
Mulciber burst out into a short fit of laughter, “Yeah! Severus’s robe froze to the ice bench, remember? Thought we’d have to rip it off to get him unstuck.”
The greasy haired boy, who hadn’t said a word, or even gave so much as a glance at Violette, finally looked up. He threw an eraser at Mulciber, who couldn’t stop laughing.
“Shut it, Mulciber!” He groaned.
Then Avery joined in on the laughter, and Evan too, and Violette couldn’t help but let out a light chuckle.
Sirius looked up at their table, and when their laughter hit his ears, he gritted his teeth. Violette’s sweet smile taunted him, and he pursed his lips, and a knot of envy tied in his stomach. He thought about the frown of her lips when James had said that she couldn’t sit there, and now she sat at a table surrounded by those terrible Slytherin boys, with a smile like fresh honeyed plums.
“What’dya think’s so funny over there?” Potter nodded, nudging Sirius’s elbow.
“Dunno.” Sirius shrugged. His glance skimmed over the empty seat where she would have sat, and he shook his head. “Who cares, anyway?”