Even Stranger Things

Sirianna kept up a brave face all day, she didn’t let Harry see her scream or act scared. It probably wouldn’t have mattered, Harry had been in a foggy haze all day, making Sirianna feel guilty on top of miserable.

Going to Hawkins High School was a mistake. All Sirianna did was make mistakes. Over and over and over again.

It wouldn’t matter, it wouldn’t matter if Sirianna was the stupidest person in the world if her mistakes didn’t hurt Harry.

All day long Sirianna had to hear the worst kind of gossip about herself. Sirianna was used to gossip, Hogwarts students had made up stories about her since before she even stepped foot in the castle.

It was the vile, disgusting, cruel things that the Hawkins students said that had Sirianna burning the entire drive back to Benny’s diner. The students would say things - imply things - about Sirianna and Harry both while they laughed right in her face.

There had been one person who had been kind to Sirianna at that - that cesspool. Well, and Jonathan. Jonathan was quite kind, if painfully shy and unwilling to explain the ‘jokes’ Sirianna didn’t understand to her. He had at least still offered to drive Sirianna and Harry back to Benny’s, even after a great many of the cruel words had been aimed at him as well.

“You don’t have to pick us up tomorrow,” Sirianna told him when he pulled in the diner lot. It wasn’t far, they could walk if Sirianna could force herself to return for another day of misery.

Harry was already climbing out of the backseat where he had been sitting beside Jonathan’s younger brother, an equally shy boy named Will.

“I don’t mind,” Jonathan said, his fingers thrumming nervously on the steering wheel. “I mean - unless you’d rather not ride with me.”

“If - do you - I think people don’t like us,” Sirianna said, lowering her voice so Harry wouldn’t hear her. It made her throat swell to paint the picture for Jonathan, she didn’t want to take away Harry’s friend from him. “They won’t like you if you - if you let us ride with you.”

That was how children worked. They decided that someone was weird, a freak, and then disliked anyone who spent time with them. It didn’t matter, kids just decided to hate someone and then hated everyone around them.

Sirianna was used to her brother's reputation influencing her, but neither of them did anything to deserve the way they were treated all day. They had no famous backstory, there was no sensational story shadowing two kids who had only wanted friends and acceptance.

It made the children at Hawkins that much worse, they were judgemental and cruel because they felt like it.

Jonathan had been kind, he showed them a place in the library where they could all eat lunch together away from the comments - and at least at Hogwarts people had whispered their gossip at meals. Merlin, the students at Hawkins didn’t even try to hide their dislike and their cruelty.

It might have been a blessing that Harry didn’t seem to notice or care, Sirianna thought she might have used her fingernail to slice someone’s throat open if they hurt Harry.

“Sirianna,” Jonathan grinned crookedly at Sirianna through his window; sad, sweet. “They already don’t like me. I’ll see you at dinner and you can ride with us tomorrow.”

Sirianna swallowed her gratitude and raised a hand in farewell to Jonathan and Will as Jonathan carefully turned his car around and left the diner to drop Will off before returning for work.

Harry inched up beside Sirianna and Sirianna could feel his fingers ghosting beside hers, not grabbing though Sirianna knew he wanted to.

“I’ll try harder,” Harry said quietly, breaking Sirianna’s heart when she didn’t think it could ache any more. “I’m sorry. They - it was me, not you. It was loud, Siri.”

It had been loud. It had been almost too loud for Siri and Harry hated the noise. Harry hated the noise, he was safe when it was quiet.

Sirianna still closed her eyes and felt an angry and heartbroken tear make its way down her cheek when she thought about Harry shouldering the blame for other people's cruelty.

“You did great, Bubby,” Sirianna said calmly, all of her screaming trapped on the inside where it couldn’t hurt Harry. “You did really great.”

It wasn’t Harry’s fault that people were horrid, it never had been.

Benny seemed to take one look at Sirianna and told Garth to man the register until Jonathan returned for work so that they could ‘walk’. Sirianna wouldn’t have left Harry, not twice in one day, but he curled up in his booth in the corner and buried his face in his knees, probably not even realizing that Sirianna was going to leave.

She told him though, promised she wouldn’t go far and that she would be back. Harry hummed, which was enough.

“Rough day?” Benny asked, walking the familiar path between the diner and his house with her.

Sirianna didn’t want to complain to Benny, who had done so much for her and Harry. Sirianna didn’t want to whine and complain about school when she shouldn’t care.

“It was fine,” Sirianna said, looking away so she didn’t lie to Benny’s face.

Benny snorted, which made Sirianna feel like she shouldn’t have bothered lying in the first place.

“You wanna try again, kid?” Benny asked, perfectly calmly.

Sirianna would try again, she would lie better.

“It was horrible,” Sirianna said, the wrong word. Once it was out though, the rest started spilling. Sirianna told Benny about the horrid ‘jokes’ right from her arrival, the cruel taunts that Sirianna only half understood. Then her own frustration with not even understanding the insults! Sirianna explained how she had felt like an idiot all day, having no idea what a single thing in almost any of her classes meant.

When they reached the house and Benny didn’t tell Sirianna to shut up, she just kept going. It was like screaming in a mirror, she could say anything. Sirianna told Benny that it wasn’t fair that Harry was called names for something as innocent as holding her hand and that it wasn’t fair to make Sirianna attend a gym class away from her brother because she was a girl.

“There was one girl.” Sirianna wiped her face off from where she had slumped against the side of the house. She didn’t mean to cry, didn’t want Benny to think she was ungrateful for everything he had done for her.

“Yeah? Nice girl?” Benny asked. He had smoked probably three cigarettes since Sirianna started ranting and he lit another one then while he waited for her to answer.

“Er…” Sirianna considered the question. Had she been nice? Yeah, she had. Sirianna had been sort of sobbing in the loo, hiding in a stall when she was meant to be in gym without her brother. When someone knocked, Sirianna shouted for them to go away.

“Do you need a tampon?” a soft voice had asked. It had been a pretty voice, one that Sirianna would have thought sounded kind if she had any illusions left that anyone in Hawkins High was ‘kind’. Even the boy who said Sirianna had pretty eyes had also been laughing at her, at Harry, that very morning.

“No,” Sirianna said, hiccuping and bracing her foot against the stall door. It couldn’t keep out laughter and horrible comments, but it could keep one girl at least a leg’s length away from Sirianna.

“A smoke then?”

Sirianna looked down when a slim and pale hand snuck under the door, a cigarette and lighter held on her palm.

“I…” Sirianna had to pause to blow her nose, she was so stuffy she didn’t think anyone could even understand her. Once she was able to breathe properly, Sirianna checked to be sure there was only one girl out in the bathroom.

Sirianna opened the stall door slowly and saw that the girl making the offer was the pretty one, the girl with the red hair and blueish-greenish eyes. They had quite a few classes together and Sirianna had admired her outfit during their home economics class.

“I don’t smoke,” Sirianna said, embarrassed to be caught doing something so pathetic and childish by someone who seemed so cool and pretty.

It made her feel like a girl she used to go to school with, Hermione Granger, to be caught crying in the loo. Sirianna thought Hermione was a bit of a baby when she had been the one to catch her, she shouldn’t have.

“If anyone asks…” The girl… Sirianna thought maybe her name was Christina? Christy? Something like that. Whatever her name was, she grinned at Sirianna and there was something mischievous about it. “I don’t either.”

The girl lit the cigarette and offered it to Sirianna, who decided that trying cigarettes was a better option than returning to the gym where she was expected to listen to mean girls mock her skinny legs, her plain face, her awkward gait when she used to be the best tree climber in Gryffindor.

“Thanks,” Sirianna told the girl after a few minutes of not horrible silence. Sirianna’s coughs kept it from being too quiet and the girl didn’t even laugh about them.

“No problem,” she said. She stubbed the cigarette out in the sink and smiled at Sirianna, the first genuine smile Sirianna had seen all day. “I’m Chrissy, by the way. Rad hair, I wish mine was that long.”

Sirianna should have been kind, offered a tampon and then a cigarette to Hermione, back at Hogwarts. It could have made such a difference, if only for a short time.

“Yeah,” Sirianna told Benny. “She was nice.”

“Good.” Benny’s eyes crinkled when he smiled at Sirianna. “You only need one good one, you know? And you’ll win the other ones over too, Sirianna, I know you will. Hell, I only had one good buddy in school. Kids used to pick on me too, you know.”

“They did?” Sirianna asked, unable to imagine it. Benny was so kind, so seemingly good. He was tall, not too skinny or too pale or ‘bug-eyed’. Sirianna couldn’t imagine someone not liking Benny.

“Oh yeah,” Benny nodded. He patted his stomach with one hand and grimaced. “They used to call me Big Ben, Whale-Boy, I heard it all.”

“That’s horrible!” Sirianna cried, her eyes watering up again. Sirianna knew that she had certainly cried more in one day than she had that day before, but it didn’t mean that she was thrilled by the endless tears she seemed to be drowning herself in.

“Eh.” Benny waved a hand, his eyes twinkling. “I got mad one day, socked out this real prick, Jacob Wood. Wham, bam,” Benny swung the same hand like he was throwing a punch before he grinned again. “Thought I’d get expelled, my ma would have wailed me out. Instead, the football coach put me on the football team and nobody called me fat again.”

Sirianna blinked at Benny while she considered a similar enough story that they shared.

Wasn’t that sort of how Sirianna had been appointed to Gryffindor’s quidditch team? Draco Malfoy had been making fun of a quiet boy, Neville Longbottom. Sirianna lost her temper when Malfoy stole Neville’s gift from his grandmother and they had a sort of fight…

Ron told her she was a right Gryffindor, Professor McGonagall told Sirianna that she was as great of a flier as her father had been.

Somehow, Sirianna had forgotten about that girl, that Gryffindor. Sirianna let the White Coats torture that girl and that girl was the one who hid in a loo… but that girl might be who Sirianna needed, if only to never hear her brother apologize to her ever again.

Sirianna gave herself a stern pep-talk while she showered the next morning. Sirianna did not let catty girls hurt her brother's feelings. Sirianna had looked in the face of monsters, she had defied death itself. Sirianna couldn’t be killed when she was a baby and she wouldn’t hide in a loo again like a coward.

Sirianna survived over three years of torture at the hands of witches and wizards who disguised their cruelty as experiments. What did a few mean kids mean to Sirianna? To Harry?

Nothing. They were nothing.

Sirianna stared at herself in the mirror as she brushed her hair and tried to pull it up in the high ponytail that she had seen other girls wearing. Sirianna wasn’t pretty, she wasn’t smart, she wasn’t anything really. But she had never been a coward before and Sirianna wouldn’t let some children make her into one.

As satisfied as she would be, Sirianna nodded to herself once more in the mirror, feeling a little like she was headed to war, then collected Harry and his book bag for the short walk to the diner. Harry yawned while they walked, he hadn’t slept well the night before. Harry dreamed, a lot, and even if he didn’t cry out in his sleep, he did thrash and kick.

Sirianna thought she might have a bruise on her leg from his heel, but she certainly wouldn’t complain. Harry wasn’t complaining about having to return to Hawkins High, even though Sirianna saw his deep disappointment when she woke him up to get ready.

“Today’s going to be better,” Sirianna swore to Harry while they walked to meet Jonathan. “We’re going to hold our heads high, remember who we are, and things will get better. They already are, right? Things are better? Benny’s nice and we have food and clothes and freedom. So everything will keep getting better, Har, okay?”

“Okay,” Harry said. He seemed to be dragging his feet through the leaves, kicking them up as he forced himself to follow Sirianna.

Sirianna didn’t know if Harry believed her or not, but he might have. Harry usually trusted her, Sirianna had to deserve it at some point.

Benny was already up and in the kitchen of the diner when Sirianna and Harry entered to wait inside for Jonathan. Sirianna left her bag by Harry, who stood by the door and stared at the parking lot as if it were his job to watch for any possible threat arriving, and went to tell Benny they were leaving.

Sirianna paused by the register, a glossy bag catching her attention for a moment. It was a gift bag, a sparkly green one. Sirianna didn’t know who it belonged to, only that it hadn’t been there the night before when Sirianna, Harry, Benny, and Jonathan had closed the diner.

“Benny?” Sirianna thought she heard the crunch of tires on gravel and she hastily stuck her head through the kitchen door to find Benny. Sirianna couldn’t be late, not when she had a plan.

“You leavin’?” Benny asked, looking up from where he fried eggs for Langley and the others who would arrive shortly.

“I am.” Sirianna smiled, a true smile of gratitude. “I have a plan,” she told him. “I can’t be late.”

“Alright then.” Benny chuckled and flipped the eggs. “I’ll be waiting to hear all about it later.”

“Bye!”

“Hey, kid?”

Sirianna paused, turning back to Benny even when she could see Harry staring at her, Jonathan’s car in the lot outside the glass door.

“You’re gonna do fine, Sirianna,” Benny told her. “Tough times don’t last, but hearts like yours do.”

Sirianna could feel her heart swelling, soaring at the praise. It - it was probably the nicest thing that anyone had ever said to her in her entire life.

“Thank you,” Sirianna told him, waving her hand so she didn’t start her day by crying. “I - I’m so grateful Harry knocked on your door, Benny. I have to go now, thank you!”

Benny chuckled as Sirianna rushed away and she wanted to think that she heard him say he was grateful too, but it could have - must have - been her own imagination running wild.

Sirianna convinced herself that she could slay dragons, that didn’t make life a fairytale.

“Oh, where’s Will?” Sirianna had climbed in the passenger seat of Jonathan’s car and turned to check that Harry was nestled in the back safely when she realized that the younger Byers wasn’t in the car.

“I think he stayed with a friend last night,” Jonathan said, his eyes ticking up to the mirror as if to remind himself that Will wasn’t in the backseat. “He’ll ride his bike to school with Mike.”

“Oh, okay,” Sirianna said, hating that she felt jealous of a little boy who had a sleepover. Sirianna assumed that the rest of the car ride would be in silence, since neither Harry nor Jonathan tended to talk much.

Harry apparently had other plans.

“I know how to ride a bike.”

Sirianna turned in her seat, surprised, just as Jonathan quickly glanced up in the rearview mirror. It was Harry who said it, Sirianna couldn’t immediately fathom what compelled him to.

“I’ll try harder.”

Harry nodded his head for Sirianna, he must have felt her looking at him because he was staring out the window, and Sirianna once again thought she might start crying.

“Cool,” Jonathan said.

Sirianna beamed at her brother, sure he would see it.

“Very cool,” Sirianna assured Harry.

Harry was trying, Sirianna had a plan, and things had to keep getting better for them. Even if Sirianna didn’t deserve good things, Harry did, and they were quite the combined package.

The lot at the school was filled with students again, even more than the day before, Sirianna thought. It filled her stomach with fizzling nerves and she questioned if her plan was really a good one or not… there were so many people… staring… watching…

But Harry was trying and Sirianna had been chosen for Gryffindor - she had been brave - and Sirianna used to know how to deal with cruelty. When it was children, people her age, Sirianna used to be someone who stood up against it, never hid in a loo from it.

It felt like everyone was staring at her when Sirianna stepped out of Jonathan’s car, someone had even giggled at the sight of her, which made Sirianna worry briefly that she had done her hair the wrong way. It didn’t matter though, it didn’t. It was a high ponytail, Sirianna knew how to do a ponytail right.

“You guys coming?” Jonathan paused by the boot of his car when Sirianna held Harry back, just for a chance to make sure she wasn’t going to terrify her brother.

“We’ll catch up,” Sirianna told him. She added a smile for good measure, grateful that Jonathan was still Harry’s friend even though it certainly didn’t win him any points with his peers. As soon as Jonathan started to walk to the school, Sirianna tipped her head closer to Harry’s so she wouldn’t be overhead.

“Do you remember when Malfoy tried to get us in trouble? When we were playing catch with Fang?” she asked.

Harry shook his head after a moment, his eyebrows twitched down in thought.

Sirianna remembered, she remembered very well how Malfoy had tried to rile Harry into pulling his wand on him, then threatened to tell on him for ‘dueling on the lawns’. Malfoy didn’t know that Sirianna had heard him, she was only fetching the stick that Fang refused to get. And when Malfoy saw her, Sirianna made sure that he kept his stupid mouth shut around Harry for the next month.

Honestly, nothing could probably have kept Malfoy quiet for longer than a month. Sirianna longed for the days when she had considered him to be her worst problem.

“Well, I made him stop and I’ll do it again,” Sirianna promised Harry. “You - you don’t have to do anything, I’ll handle it, okay?”

“Okay,” Harry said.

When he went to take her hand so that they could follow Jonathan, get away from the watching eyes, Sirianna realized that her plan was going to have to be used first thing.

“Aww, Hammond and Hammond, sitting in a tree… F-U-C-K-I-N-G.”

Sirianna felt her face flame dark red and she dropped Harry’s hand immediately so that she could spin around and search for who had - had sang such a disgusting song. It didn’t take long for Sirianna to find who she was looking for, it was the girl who smirked at Sirianna while it felt like every other student in the lot laughed and laughed.

Harry shrank down and Sirianna told him to catch up to Jonathan while she stormed across the lot, forcing herself to remember that she had slayed dragons before, she had seen evil and no girl with ratty auburn hair and a butt chin was going to take something from her that the White Coats didn’t.

“You think that’s amusing?” Sirianna demanded, stomping directly through the crowd of students, pretending that she wasn’t feeling closed in by them, and getting directly in front of the girl. “Do you really think that you’re funny?”

“Oooh, you made her angry,” one of the stupid boys laughed, elbowing his friend, Steve, the one who said Sirianna had pretty eyes, beside him. Steve didn’t laugh, he didn’t look at Sirianna either though. He was a coward, they were all cowards just trying to pick on someone they thought wouldn’t fight back.

“I do, actually.” The girl popped a bubble right in Sirianna’s face and continued to smirk with her red painted lips. “Oh, you might not understand it. You see, F-U-C-K-I-N-G spells—”

“You’re such a freak,” Malfoy had spit at Harry, his fists clenched at his sides while Harry’s wand shook as it aimed at him. “Take a joke, Potter. It’s no wonder only Nott hangs out with you, who else would want to?”

“So that wasn’t you who tried to be Harry’s friend on the train?”

When Malfoy turned around, clearly unaware that Sirianna had heard every mean word he said to Harry, Sirianna pulled her fist back and then aimed it directly at Malfoy’s face.

“Dueling isn’t the same as fighting,” Sirianna sang cheerfully, walking around the wailing boy to return to Harry. “Make sure you mention that when you tattle to get me in trouble with Snape.”

Sirianna received two detentions and lost twenty points from Gryffindor, but Malfoy looked over his shoulder every time before he said anything even mildly unpleasant to Harry.

Sirianna did the same thing to the girl, slamming her fist in her face before she could so much as finish her sentence. She had worried, when she made her plan, about not being able to fight as well as she did when she was eleven. Sirianna used to be tough, fast, strong. The White Coats took that, but they gave her a fire of hatred in her stomach that never seemed to extinguish itself.

And Sirianna didn’t need muscle when she had hatred, it seemed.

The one hit was enough to knock the girl backwards, making her hit her head on the maroon car that she had been leaning on. Sirianna bounced away from her when the girl shrieked and then stood tall, preparing for the girl to fight back.

“You BITCH!” The girl screamed at Sirianna with a small dot of blood beneath one nostril and watery eyes that were narrowed in hate. “I’ll kick your freaky ass!”

Sirianna heard people insulting her all day the day before. Even if she didn’t understand some of the insults, the things that felt like innuendos and made her burn with odd shame, Sirianna still picked up enough curse words to have for her own use.

“Try it then, cunt fucker,” Sirianna taunted her, letting all her anger out on one mean girl. “Unless you’re a coward.”

Coward didn’t seem to have the same bite as ‘cunt fucker’ (which Sirianna very much didn’t understand fully but knew it must have been an insult), but the girl shoved past the boy who tried to check on her nose so he could swing right back at Sirianna.

Sirianna wasn’t as fast as she used to be, but it wasn’t hard to duck and swing her leg out. The girl barely avoided being kicked, she lunged for Sirianna then, grabbing her by her hair.

“HEY! CAROL! Come on, cool it!” Steve yelled at the girl, Carol - Sirianna forgot - while Sirianna twisted and turned to get her to let go of her hair. When she wouldn’t, Sirianna clawed out wildly and tried to dig her nails in Carol’s skin so deep that she would have scars to remind her of their fight.

“I said —” Steve lunged for Carol, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her away from Sirianna. Carol’s sharp nails took Sirianna’s scrunchie, the one that Chrissy let her use for gym class, with her and Sirianna’s felt Carol’s skin cells beneath her fingernails. “— that’s ENOUGH!”

“Freak!” Carol spit at Sirianna, looking as deranged as Sirianna felt. “You fucking freak! You should be locked up!”

Sirianna flinched - did she know? Did someone tell her? Were the White Coats involved with Hawkins High School? - before she realized that Carol probably meant jail.

Jail would be a breeze, Sirianna was sure.

“Be sure to mention that when you tattle on me,” Sirianna said, sweeping a hard glare at all of the students who had been laughing. They weren’t laughing anymore, were they?

Nobody was laughing, not the entire time that Sirianna turned around to walk to the school with her head as high as she could keep it, and not when she stepped inside the door and was immediately confronted by the grim face of the principal.

“Miss Hammond, my office,” Principal Higgins said sternly.

Sirianna swallowed and nodded, hoping very much that Benny wasn’t going to be furious when he received a phone call soon.

Sirianna sat in the hallway outside of the principal’s office not twenty minutes later, her skin itching with the need to go find Harry.

Was he okay? Was he worried about her? Were people bothering him?

Sirianna didn’t know and she needed to know.

Higgins was unable to get ahold of Benny, Sirianna helpfully told him that Benny would be at the diner, in the middle of the breakfast rush. Higgins told her to wait in the hallway until he spoke with him, claiming that he wanted to inform Benny of what happened before he decided on an ‘appropriate punishment’.

It wasn’t ‘appropriate’ to make Sirianna wait in a corridor when she could wait just as easily with Harry. Sirianna’s leg was bouncing up and down, in time with the nerves frying from inside her stomach.

Sirianna really hoped Harry was alright. She hoped that she didn’t make anything worse for him, she hoped it was better at least a little.

Merlin, what was taking so long?!

Just when Sirianna started to stand up, deciding that she would go find Harry on her own, footsteps turned down the corridor she waited in. Sirianna paused, standing halfway up, and her breath caught in her throat at the figure who appeared.

It was a boy, though not boy at all, who moved with a sort of confident strut, like the space surrounding him belonged just to him. Sirianna’s gaze roamed slowly up his body, taking in every detail about him; his long legs, covered in tight and dark jeans, covering what Sirianna could tell were lean muscles. He had on a white top, stretched across his chest, with thick arms also hidden beneath a slick leather jacket.

There was a chain around his neck, a gold chain that Sirianna could see resting on his chest, almost covered by long and curly hair.

It was the boy’s face that made Sirianna feel rooted to the spot, the face that was giving her its sole attention. A strong jaw, slight stubble the same dark blonde color as his hair, and lips that were twisted in a smirk when he must have noticed that Sirianna was gawking.

Sirianna didn’t forget about the way her brain whispered at her to find Harry, check on Harry. What if he’s dead?! She merely continued ignoring the increasingly loud voice when the boy stopped right in front of Sirianna, close enough that she could smell tobacco and - and something that smelled sort of spicy, a boy’s smell… a man’s, really.

“Hey.” The boy had a husky voice, one that made Sirianna’s stomach do a dozen barrel rolls eighty feet in the sky. “Billy,” he said.

“Sure.”

The boy’s stormy blue eyes lit up with something and his smirk somehow deepened.

“My name,” he said slowly, “is Billy.”

This is a joke.

Sirianna mentally slapped herself, then did it once more for good reason. It was a boy, probably a stupid and cruel boy. A boy named Billy… which - which was a great name, really. Sirianna liked the name Billy, she thought it might have been a nickname actually. A wonderful nickname.

“Hi,” Sirianna said, sounding so horribly awkward. It was awful, how hard it was to fit in with the others.

“Mind if I sit?” Billy pointed at the bench Sirianna still stood in front of. “It’ll save Higgins time to call me down if I’m already here.”

“Yeah, yes, okay,” Sirianna agreed quickly, sitting down hard enough that it nearly hurt. “I’m Higgins, if you didn’t know. Why will Sirianna call you here?”

Oh. Oh Merlin.

Oh no.

Sirianna wasn’t just stupid and unable to socialize… she was a - a freak. Why did she say that? Why couldn’t she control her mouth?!

There seemed to be equal odds that Sirianna was either going to cry or start running - grab her brother, settle in a new town, never look back.

To Sirianna’s never-ending surprise, Billy sat down beside her, his legs stretched out comfortably with his right leg almost brushing her left, and he chuckled. He didn’t laugh in her face, didn’t point and snicker like so many others.

Billy chuckled like Sirianna was somehow funny instead of an absolute freak.

“Sirianna should absolutely call me anytime,” Billy said, his voice going low and a smolder in his eyes. It made Sirianna’s insides hot, like she would melt from the inside out. “Higgins though? He’ll call me once the fuckin’ kid whose nose I broke reports it.”

“You broke someone’s nose?” Sirianna asked, the unexpected helping her sound less mortifying. “Why?” she asked. Billy didn’t look like he had been in a fight, he looked perfect, peaceful.

Billy was beautiful; he seemed so strong, handsome, and confident. Sirianna couldn’t imagine anyone saying horrible things about him, why would they want to?

“Talk shit, get hit,” Billy said. He leaned back and stretched an arm out, placing it behind Sirianna - if she also leaned back, they would be touching and the idea filled her with a terrified sort of nausea.

“Oh,” Sirianna said, understanding that well enough. Wasn’t that almost precisely what she did to Carol?

“I saw your fight,” Billy said casually. “Don’t mind Carol, she’s a complete bitch.”

Sirianna stiffened up in her spot when Billy touched a lock of her loose hair that she had worked so hard to put in a cool ponytail that morning.

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, the heat inside her going cold. It was suddenly suffocating, sitting beside someone with such a strong presence. Sirianna stood up and crossed to the other side of the corridor, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Excuse me,” Billy said, somehow mocking Sirianna with his drawl even though he held his palms up innocently.

Sirianna scowled at him then at the floor then at the clock that must have been broken. It couldn’t have been only thirty minutes, it felt as if Sirianna had been away from Harry for hours.

Was he okay? Was Jonathan still sitting by him in their shared classes? Sirianna really hoped so.

“Hey.” Billy reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, different than the ones that Chrissy had the day before. There was amusement in Billy’s eyes, something of a challenge in his voice. “Since we’re both going to be suspended soon anyway, you want a smoke?”

Suspended?

“You - I’m going to be suspended?” Sirianna asked, her eyes widening. She couldn’t be suspended, she thought maybe - maybe a detention or two! What would Harry do all day without her? What would she do without him?

“Yeah, at least a day.” Billy shrugged again, nearly the perfect picture of nonchalance. “It’s my second time, so I’ll probably have two days.”

There was a tick to his jaw, a single jump of the muscle there that told Sirianna he might have actually cared a little more than he acted. That was only a small note in her mind, the rest of it was fully distracted by the idea of Harry being left alone because she really couldn’t do anything right.

“I didn’t know,” Sirianna groaned. She slammed her own head back against the wall and winced at the sharp pain. That was great, terrific really. What she really needed was a headache caused by even more wrong decisions.

“I can’t stand here all day,” Sirianna complained. She turned on her heel and began striding away, deciding that if they were going to suspend her that she would at least go check on Harry in the meantime.

Sirianna heard Billy rising to follow her, or to go outside, something. It didn’t matter, Sirianna was distracted by the whisper of concern in her head that had turned into a full scream — FIND HARRY, CHECK ON HARRY, WHAT IF HE’S DEAD?!

Sirianna thought that she would feel it if Harry were dead, surely she would stop breathing if he did, but the place in her chest that ached sometimes, the place that didn’t belong to her, was still, silent. Did that mean Harry was fine or that his body, his heart, was still, silent?

“Left.”

Sirianna had paused in the intersection of hallways, all of them looking exactly the same to her with as blind as she felt. She jumped when she realized Billy was still beside her and shook her head, trying to clear away the screaming.

“What?” she asked. Was the school spinning? Was it real? A trick by the White Coats?

Sirianna clutched her chest. Was she breathing? Or was that Harry in pain and she couldn’t find him?!

“Left,” Billy said, loudly and slowly. “You’re looking for your brother, right? Quiet as shit, weird fuckin kid? Turn left.”

Sirianna’s next breath came a little easier and she was able to scowl fiercely at Billy.

“My brother is not weird,” she said. “You - none of you - you’ve got no idea. None.”

It was so unfair. Everyone who saw Harry had no idea who he was, what he had been through. Sirianna would like to see any of them deal with a fraction of what Harry had! Harry was the strongest person Sirianna knew.

There was a scar in the middle of the eyebrow that Billy lifted, the movement making him look momentarily interested before it dropped and he was arrogant, cocky, smirking.

“Whatever you say, kitten,” Billy said, winking and causing Sirianna to feel even worse when heat flooded her cheeks. “Find your not weird brother on your own.”

Billy walked right past Sirianna, getting halfway down the corridor that looked too much like the others, before Sirianna called after him.

“Wait!” she said, grimacing at the necessity. “Will you - do you know where he is?”

Sirianna thought they had… English, first? It was definitely a class that talked about books, Sirianna remembered hoping that it would catch Harry’s interest first thing.

It hadn’t.

“I might.” Billy leaned against the lockers and he was so arrogant, so - so handsome. “I help you see that baby bird didn’t fly the nest, you come outside with me.”

That… that didn’t make any sense.

“You would blackmail me into sneaking outside to smoke with you instead of telling me where my brother is?” Sirianna asked. What a - a cunt fucker!

“I mean you could keep running around the hallways, looking like a spaz. It’s doing wonders for this reputation you’re building,” Billy wheedled her. “Unless you’re scared to be alone with me.”

Sirianna was not scared, certainly not of a boy named Billy. It was a stupid name.

“Fine,” she spat, letting her anger speak for her again.

The absolute nerve of him. He must be exceptionally lonely, Sirianna decided when Billy turned around to guide her to the classroom where Harry would be. There was no other explanation for why he would blackmail her into going outside with him.

“And there’s little baby bird,” Billy boldly stood outside one of the classroom doors and gestured through the glass window. “Safe and sound, tucked in Byers’ pocket.”

Sirianna edged up to the door, more subtle than Billy, and peeked up through the window after he moved to give her space.

Harry was in the classroom, in the back beside Jonathan. Sirianna’s desk was empty, all except for one foot of Harry’s, absently stretched out and wrapped around the desk leg. Sirianna watched him from the corner of the window and wished that she could see inside his head, know what he was thinking.

When Harry’s eyes went blank and Sirianna wasn’t around him… was it peaceful or was it so agonizing that he would scream if he dared open his mouth?

Harry didn’t look bothered by Sirianna’s absence. She even got to see Jonathan lean toward Harry, his lips moving in some comment she couldn’t hear, and Harry - Harry replied.

“Okay,” Sirianna said, her voice as dull as Harry’s eyes. “He’s fine.”

If Harry could be fine… Sirianna could be fine.

It was chilly outside, not so bad that Sirianna was cold, but the wind was enough to ruffle the colorful posters pinned to a board by the front of the school. Sirianna paused when one caught her eye, a Halloween Party being held at another school in Hawkins.

Halloween…

Sirianna crumpled the flier in her hands and stuffed it deep in the pocket of the jumper she wore. Billy must have noticed the frown she wore because he teased her even while he walked so confidently toward a pretty blue car in the lot.

“Halloween not your thing, kitten?” he asked. “You don’t want to get all dressed up in matching costumes with baby bird?”

“Quit calling him baby bird,” Sirianna said, annoyed and unsure why she had followed Billy outside. Sirianna didn’t even enjoy smoking with Chrissy the day before, having someone be kind had been more calming than the smoke.

Billy managed to smirk at Sirianna even while he leaned against the hood of the blue car, Sirianna hoped it was his when he propped a boot against the gleaming front end, and lit a cigarette. He took a long draw off it, then blew the smoke directly at Sirianna’s face.

He was foul. Beautiful and foul.

“Go out with me tonight and I’ll never call him baby bird again,” Billy said.

Sirianna blinked. Blinked again.

“Go with you where?” she asked, sure that Billy didn’t mean ‘go out’ like how Fred Weasley had asked Angelina Johnson to go out with him. He meant ‘go out’ like how he had blackmailed Sirianna into going outside with him.

“I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go,” Billy said, his voice dripping with… with something. He dropped his head and looked at Sirianna through sharp eyes in a - a… well, it was a kind of coy expression, wasn’t it?

“I - er - I don’t want to go anywhere,” Sirianna stammered. Her embarrassment seemed to amuse Billy and in retaliation she leaned forward and snatched the cigarette from him. It didn’t seem to work, Billy only laughed at her when Sirianna tried smoking it the way Chrissy had shown her.

It was still disgusting tasting, but slightly less so than before.

“You’re really in a rush to get back to your place?” Billy leaned closer and took the cigarette back. Sirianna felt a thrill go through her when their fingers brushed and it was more of the same nauseating excited terror that she felt earlier.

Billy was… he was intense.

“Where else would I want to go?” Sirianna asked, tucking her hands in her jumper pocket and shaking her head when Billy offered the cigarette back.

“Back seat of my car.”

Sirianna looked at the car and it was pretty, but that didn’t mean she wanted to ride in the backseat of it? Sirianna barely enjoyed riding with Jonathan and she had a feeling that he was a much better driver than Billy would be.

“You think I’d rather be in the backseat of your car than at Benny’s diner?” Sirianna asked.

Billy tilted his head to the side and Sirianna could see his muscles tightening beneath the white shirt; he really had no business being so… that.

“I’d be in the backseat with you.”

“Then who would drive?”

Sirianna was mystified, all the more so when Billy threw his head back and barked out a laugh that was at least as exasperated as it was amused.

“God, you’re something else,” Billy said, his posture relaxing after the abrupt laughter. When Billy wasn’t smirking and doing the strange flexing thing with his arms, he was… he was just a boy.

“If you say so,” Sirianna said.

“So…” Billy inhaled again and blew his smoke to the side, away from Sirianna. “Where you from? Not this shit hole, I’m sure.”

“Albany,” Sirianna said, the lie automatic by then. “Do you not like it here?” she asked, saving ‘shit hole’ as another curse to use if she needed it.

“Me?” Billy flashed a mouthful of straight white teeth at her. “Nah, I just moved here from California.”

“Oh.” Sirianna took half a step closer to Billy when he offered her the cigarette again. Even if it tasted bad, it still warmed her and had helped quiet the voice in her head screaming for Harry. It wasn’t gone, it never was, but it was quieter.

It made sense why Billy might have wanted Sirianna to go outside with him too. He was new, she was new, they were both idiots being suspended. With Sirianna’s confusion over why he was talking to her gone, it was more comfortable standing outside, sharing a cigarette.

“How bad’s it going to be when you get home?” Billy asked Sirianna when he finished burning the very last of the cigarette.

Sirianna wasn’t sure what Billy meant. Was Benny going to be mad? It… probably? Sirianna hadn’t considered Benny being angry. He had been the one to tell Sirianna that story about hitting his bully…

“I don’t know,” Sirianna said, frowning. Benny being angry with her didn’t scare Sirianna, Harry being upset and shivering and kicking in her sleep did scare her.

Sirianna closed her eyes and hated that she knew Harry wouldn’t complain, wouldn’t whine. Harry would shoulder Sirianna’s stupidity and keep going.

“Bad,” Sirianna said tightly. Harry would pretend to be fine and it would be more effective of a punishment to Sirianna than any suspension or discipline on Benny’s part could be.

Billy said nothing until Sirianna sucked in a deep breath and let the cool air, the taste of fall and freedom, fill her lungs. When Sirianna opened her eyes back up, she found them locked in Billy’s blue-eyed gaze.

There was a storm of emotion in Billy’s eyes, more than she had seen from him so far. It made him seem soft, kind. The low voice he used made all of his intensity shift into something - something else.

“You know that playground just a few blocks from your diner?” Billy asked. “You probably drove past it for Byers to drop his brother off at the middle school?”

Sirianna knew what playground Billy meant and nodded.

“There’s a road between the trees by the playground, it leads down to a quarry. If shit gets bad, I’ll be there.”

“Oh.” Sirianna blinked in some bemusement at the offer. It would be awful when Sirianna had to tell Harry that she wouldn’t be at school with him the next day, she didn’t know how leaving him to go to a quarry would somehow help matters.

It was still kind though, kind of Billy to offer.

Sirianna didn’t get a chance to thank Billy before the front door of the school was thrown open with a bang that they both heard from the lot. Sirianna cringed at the principal who barked both of their names with his hands on his hips.

Billy straightened up and all of his cockiness, his easy arrogance, was back in place at once, leaving Sirianna to wonder who Billy really was when nobody was around.

“Play your cards right and I’ll even show you that backseat, kitten,” Billy winked before he began swaggering to the school with his hands in his pockets.

Sirianna cast one more curious gaze at Billy’s car over her shoulder as she hustled to face the music.

What on earth was so special about that backseat??

Sirianna, as it turned out, was not suspended from school.

Principal Higgins said that he couldn’t get ahold of Benny and had decided to give Sirianna a warning and after-school detention rather than a suspension. Sirianna was lectured about violence not being tolerated and that it was only because the secretary heard ‘rumors’ that she was being given a more lenient punishment.

Billy sat outside the office and winked at Sirianna when she was sent to class and he was called in. Sirianna couldn’t exactly help her blush, though she was pleased that she didn’t stutter when she wished him luck.

Second hour had already began and Sirianna gave herself a moment to pause outside of the classroom she had been pointed to by the secretary.

Everyone was going to stare at her. They were going to stare and Carol’s friends were going to glare at Sirianna.

As long as they didn’t bother Harry, it would have been worth it.

Sirianna inhaled… the Hat chose her for Gryffindor… She exhaled… Sirianna had faced true monsters.

Then she knocked on the classroom door and found that maybe - maybe she wasn’t an idiot after all.

There were plenty of states when Sirianna entered the classroom and handed her note to the teacher. She was pointed toward her seat and… nothing.

No whispers, no laughter, no horrible jokes at Harry’s expense.

Sirianna didn’t like when it was quiet, but she liked it then.

The second day at Hawkins ended up going much better than the first. There were a lot of scowls and dirty looks thrown her way by Carol and her friends. Jonathan also had to leave before their second hour class ended, his mum needed him at the office.

“If I can come back after, I’ll still give you guys a ride,” Jonathan whispered as he quickly packed his belongings.

Harry looked at Sirianna before he looked at Jonathan and nodded, “Thank you.”

Nobody had anything nasty to say to Sirianna’s face, Harry was talking, Sirianna wasn’t suspended- she didn’t mind walking back to Benny’s.

Fourth hour, a fun class called ‘home economics’ wound up brightening Sirianna’s day even more. They were starting a unit on baking, everyone had to partner up and pick a ‘dessert recipe’ together from a recipe book to recreate.

“This is going to be easy!” Sirianna gushed to Harry while she let him flip through the recipe book. All of their other classes were so confusing, they were practically in a different language, but baking? Sirianna had learned to bake when she was a small girl!

Harry glanced up from the recipe book and smiled briefly at Sirianna before he went back to intently searching for the recipe they were going to make. Sirianna told him he should choose, though she laughed when he immediately flipped to the ‘T’s’.

“Have you thought of one yet?” Sirianna asked Harry. They had to choose a recipe, write down what they chose and why and any challenges they thought they would face. It was truly the first assignment that Sirianna understood in the school.

“Um…” Harry shook his head and flipped the page, then again and again until he finally pointed at one. “Do - can we do this?” Harry asked.

It was a ‘colossal caramel apple trifle’. There was a photo above the recipe and Sirianna looked at it and decided it looked delicious.

“Looks good.”

Someone leaned on the back of Sirianna’s chair and before Sirianna could scoot away, get away from the body leaning on her, Harry spoke up again.

“Get off my sister.”

It was quiet, stern, only Sirianna could hear the undercurrent of hot anger in Harry’s voice.

Whoever it was complied immediately.

“Sorry.” Steve, the boy with the jokes, walked around the desk that Sirianna and Harry were sharing with a sheepish grin. It wasn’t that Sirianna didn’t appreciate the apology, it was that Steve had been cruel in public and only apologized in private.

It didn’t count.

Harry didn’t respond, seemed to have lost interest all at once, and he carefully opened the spindle to pull the recipe page out for Sirianna.

“We’re doing a pineapple upside down cake,” Steve said. He propped a hip on their desk and jerked a thumb over where he should be sitting. Sirianna glanced in that direction, sure she would see one of the catty mean girls and was surprised when she saw Chrissy waving at her with a smile.

Then she frowned.

Then she stood up and walked directly toward Sirianna.

Sirianna had a wild thought that maybe Chrissy and Carol were friends; maybe Chrissy was about to hit Sirianna for her friend.

“Do you need another scrunchie? I’ve got like a million. Here.” Chrissy liked a scrunchie off her wrist, a cute pink one, and held it out to Sirianna.

“Carol has yours,” Sirianna said uncertainly. “I’m sorry, I - there wasn’t time to get it back.”

“No problem,” Chrissy said, still offering the scrunchie. “I’ve got soo many. Oh! I’ve got a green one that would look totally rad with your eyes!”

“Thank you,” Sirianna said, as genuinely as she could. She took the scrunchie and quickly pulled her hair back up, trying to get the ponytail exactly where Chrissy’s was.

“Rad,” Chrissy said, smiling sweetly once more before she returned to her desk.

Sirianna could feel the prickle on her skin that meant the other students were staring, but they didn’t have anything to say.

Steve did though, Sirianna wished he would take a hint and go away.

“I saw Byers leave earlier,” Steve said. Sirianna tensed, ready for a cruel comment about Jonathan to leave his mouth. “So you guys want a ride home or whatever?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Sirianna gawked at her brother, her brother who she never disagreed with, who never betrayed her.

Harry blinked at her.

That was not ‘trying harder’, a thing Harry didn’t need to do anyway, that - that was - it was - no.

“Jonathan said he would come back and get us,” Sirianna reminded Harry, silently trying to tell him that Steve was a shit hole. Sirianna did not want to ride home with a shit hole, she would rather walk in freezing rain.

“So if he doesn’t show up you can ride with me,” Steve said, entirely too cheerfully. “Cool.”

Not cool.

Sirianna spent the lunch period in the library with Harry, sharing the brown bag lunches that Benny had left in the house for them. It saved them from having to go in the cafeteria, which Sirianna was terribly grateful for.

“You do not need to accept rides from rude boys because some kids don’t like that you’re quiet,” Sirianna told Harry, keeping her voice soft so Harry didn’t feel like she was lecturing him. “He’s cruel, Harry. You didn’t need to do that.”

“Okay.” Harry bit in an orange slice and nodded.

“So you’ll tell Steve in gym that we will not ride with him?” Sirianna checked. If Harry didn’t want to, Sirianna would.

Harry blinked, “No.”

Impossible.

Harry was being impossible.

Sirianna would have been much more irritated by the sudden return of his stubborn personality if… well, if it wasn’t a glimmer of the old Harry.

It was one car ride and hopefully Jonathan would be there and they could forget the whole thing.

Jonathan was not there. Which was fine, really, he was already too kind for giving them rides. But Sirianna spent the last hour of school half-wondering what Harry was doing and half-imagining Carol being fed to Fluffy.

Carol had gone out of her way to trip, shove, and hit Sirianna with a white volleyball the entire gym hour. If it hadn’t been for her certainty that she would be suspended for a second fight in one day, Sirianna would have hit her again.

Chrissy had been a doll, as had a pretty girl named Nancy who had been on Sirianna’s volleyball team. Chrissy whispered for Sirianna to ignore Carol, let it go, don’t give her what she wanted. Nancy had told Sirianna after class when they were dismissed for the day that she had always wanted to hit Carol.

Sirianna was grateful and annoyed and angry and hated that she couldn’t be in the same gym class as Harry.

What if Harry was being treated the same way? What if he had been hit with a ball and tripped a dozen times?

Harry looked fine when he walked out the back doors of the gym with Steve, but Harry always looked fine. Sirianna had seen him bloodied, bruised, and once with his skin ripped open - Harry’s face always looked fine.

“Ready?” Steve beamed at Sirianna and he was… he was cute. Steve was very cute with a boyish grin and hair that was suspiciously in place despite what Sirianna assumed had been an hour of physical activity. It was the fact that Steve had been cruel, only apologized in private, then abruptly decided that he was a good enough person to drive Sirianna and Harry to Benny’s.

It wasn’t consistent. Things that were inconsistent were dangerous. And Steve didn’t look like a dangerous person really, but he did look like someone standing too close to Harry with hidden intentions and Sirianna had to actually grit her teeth together when Harry climbed in the backseat of Steve’s car.

“Why are you doing this?” Sirianna asked Steve before he could slide in the driver’s seat of the car where the only person in the entire world that Sirianna loved was waiting.

Steve seemed taken aback by Sirianna’s harsh tone, she realized he had mostly only heard her talk around Harry, when she was careful to stay soft. He rallied though, offering Sirianna a crooked grin.

“Because I’m a nice guy?” Steve said.

Sirianna raised an eyebrow. “You are a shit hole.”

“I’m a - what?” Maybe Sirianna didn’t say it right because Steve started laughing. He smacked the top of his car as he laughed stupidly at what Sirianna was confident had been an insult.

“I am not a shit hole,” Steve said, his eyes gleaming with the same smile he wore. “Come on, I’ll prove it.”

What was Sirianna meant to do? Harry was already inside the car.

It really was the first betrayal between Sirianna and Harry since she had let herself be sent to Gryffindor even after Harry was sorted Slytherin.

Unlike Jonathan, who kept his radio at a soft level when he drove, Steve seemed content to keep the radio off. It made Sirianna’s already fried nerves sting with the silence echoing in her head. It was almost a relief when Steve started talking, almost.

“Do you like the arcade?” Steve asked. Sirianna couldn’t be sure he was talking to her, but Harry had apparently exhausted his voice when he agreed to the ride in the first place.

“No,” Sirianna said. She didn’t know what an arcade was, but if Steve liked it then she wouldn’t.

“Have you been to the drive-in movie theater in Muncie?”

“No.”

Steve looked in his rearview mirror, as if expecting Harry to answer such a strange question.

Harry, who was full of surprises that day, shook his head without even looking at Steve.

“Do you two ever do anything that isn’t work?” Steve asked. “Like what do you do for fun or whatever?”

What did they do for fun?

… what did they do for fun?! When was the last time that Sirianna remembered herself or Harry having fun?

The day they were taken? The day that Sirianna had played over and over in her mind, yelling at herself a thousand times for everything that had happened?

“You’re so clumsy!” Sirianna rolled on the grass, giggling madly at her brother who had fallen on his bottom from a simple game.

“You do it then,” Harry huffed, still grinning with a streak of black charcoal on his cheek.

“I will.” Sirianna jumped to her feet so that she could have another go at the hopscotch board they drew with charcoal. It had been one little piece, nobody would notice it, and there was an unused alley not so far from home that they couldn’t run home before Uncle Vernon returned from work.

Sirianna, being the better twin at all things hopping, had no problem clearing their simple board and also had no problem bragging about it.

Later, when everything was different and Sirianna had screamed herself hoarse for her brother, she had wished that she hadn’t been so loud, so obnoxious. Maybe she should have been quieter, paid more attention to the area and the loud cracks that had been wizards in white robes.

Sirianna clenched her jaw and stared hard out the window, very much not wanting to be a bawling baby when she saw Benny again.

“Shut up, Steve,” she said as viciously as she could.

Steve shut up and Sirianna got to finish the ride in horrible silence that left too much room in her mind for too many memories.

Steve parked his car in the lot, directly in front of the dark diner. The diner that shouldn’t be dark, it was three fifteen, the diner shouldn’t be dark.

Why was the diner dark?

Before Sirianna could even process it, Harry was out of the car first, his bag forgotten as he moved quicker than Sirianna had seen in years. Sirianna struggled with her door, unease curling up in the pit of her stomach like a snake. The stupid thing was locked, stuck, wouldn’t open.

Sirianna’s hand slipped and Steve tried to open his door, mumbling something Sirianna didn’t care about, but his door was as stuck as Sirianna’s.

“HARRY!” Sirianna slapped the window hard as she screamed at Harry. “HARRY JAMES!”

Harry disappeared inside the building and the voice that never left her, the one that was a whisper at times and a scream other times, was positively bellowing:

GET HIM OUT OF THERE!

“COME ON, OPEN!” Sirianna yelled, slamming her body against the door. The door flew open with her body and Sirianna fell right out, landing on the gravel only to jump to her feet. Just as she began running to the door, unsure why everything felt wrong, Harry walked right back out of it.

Sirianna froze where she was, all of her concern freezing into an endless abyss of fear when she saw Harry’s face.

Harry’s closed off face, the stony face of the boy who didn’t scream, never cried.

“Harry?” Sirianna choked out, her chest on fire with his emotions.

Harry looked down and he shook his head.

Harry shook his head and Sirianna knew that she had been wrong - things weren’t getting better at all.