Unforgiveable
"Expecto Patronum."
Softly whispering the incantation, Steph reached deep within herself and pulled at the fuzzy warmth that glowed softly within her chest, clinging to the happiness, and trying to flush her mind of all else. Her fingers felt as if they were twitching, her arm trembling, and she screwed her eyes shut, trying to control her minds almost instinctive drift. Lowering her occlumency had been a good idea, but when she was practicing something as demanding as the Patronus charm, it felt like an utter fallacy.
Why did it have to be that a skill that sharpened focus, instead undermined the core of the magic?
The spell seemed to slip through her fingers once again, and Steph ripped her eyes open, a flare of rage briefly surging and manifesting as a noise of frustration - but only for a moment, as her will wrestled the frustration back into its box, and returned her to a clear mind. Calm was central to the spell - one had to be in absolute control.
In and out, breathe.
"Easy Steph, just take your time." Penny's voice was placating, almost soothing - as if she recognised the importance of not antagonising her in that moment. Penny had been helping immensely with Steph's progress, far more than Lupin had been - namely down to the fact that Penny hadn't felt the need to infect her advice with her own views like the Werewolf had. "It's not easy."
A frustrated sigh left her, nevertheless. "I should have this down by now, though! I started in September - it’s now May. It's been nine months since I first tried this!"
"And how long were you occluding for?" A rush of heat came to her face, and the tips of her ears felt uncomfortably warm - Penny did have a point, it had been for more than half that time that Steph had been choking her emotions with occlumency.
A soft, embarrassed grumble left her. "Shut up."
Despite the rude response, Penny gave her a small smile. "It's still fine if you don't get it down pat, you're trying a spell incredibly advanced for someone your age. Even though you're a prodigy, you're still immature magically, you've got a lot of room to grow. Given time, you'll get it just fine."
There was a new moniker - prodigy. Ravenclaw's rabid academic competitiveness meant that student's grades were publicly pinned to the notice board in the Common Room. Steph had managed to overtake Daphne in Runes, leaving her as the leading student in Charms, Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, and coming a close third in Transfiguration.
Care didn't count - she could have skived off basically every class and still ended up as first on the metaphorical pole, so long as attendance didn't count.
Apparently, the Care of Magical Creatures course also allowed students to bring annotated copies of Fantastic Beasts into the exams - and according to Hagrid, the Scamander family personal copy counted.
She had checked with Professor Flitwick beforehand, though.
It had been to her housemates equal parts personal dismay and house pride that one of their own had managed to wrangle the top spot, especially given that those below her in those courses were Daphne and Granger. Harry was still number one in Defence, but Steph had come to the somewhat disappointing realisation that - so far - her instruction in that course had been frankly shite.
Lupin was a fine enough teacher - best they had had, depressingly enough - but the man was ill-suited to the job, and it felt like just about anyone could tell. The man clearly got some satisfaction out of helping them learn, but there was just a part of him that felt as if this were little more than a paycheck to him. There was a part of himself that was just never invested - and she wagered if she bothered to learn more about the man, she might find out why. But she had no desire to understand Remus Lupin - leave that for those more socially inclined.
All that meant that, as far as her scoring in Defence went, it was decidedly mediocre. Whilst sitting at eighth in the course, she was very aware that her success was down more to raw skill and occlumency enhanced memory, than actual diligent study or passion for the subject. Perhaps if she had the right teacher, she could truly excel at the subject, but as it was, she was merely coasting by.
"Feels like I've already given it too much time..." With a grumble, Steph glanced around the Come and Go room, absently looking for something to shift her focus away from her increasingly frustrated efforts to get the Patronus charm down pat. The library that it had become initially, was in the duelling configuration - or at least, the form that the library took when she had been practicing on the dummies, which she had come to refer to as such.
But there was something strikingly different - above the fireplace was a new painting, one of a young woman with tanned skin, probably still in her teens, dressed in a conservative blouse and a skirt that were very much not in the school uniform. Indeed - if it hadn't been for the Ravenclaw house scarf, Steph would have suggested the girl would have looked more at home at a teacher's meeting.
A brief blink - a memory from two years ago rocketing to the forefront of her mind. "Penny, is this the painting you mentioned in my first year?"
The blonde girl made a briefly surprised start, as if caught off guard - which was entirely fair all things considered - before she twisted herself to look over her left shoulder, and visibly recoiled a little. "Goodness, it is. Hello again - I don't suppose you have any help for Stephanie here?"
The painting was still for a moment, before it seemed to burst into life, giving a small smile as the brunette girl tilted her head somewhat before nodding. "Well, you've found the right person. I was Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher after Dinah Hecat retired, a post I held for thirty-two years all up."
".. But surely that was after this portrait was made?" Penny's face pulled into a slight frown, and Steph's matched it as the painting spoke again.
"No, actually. This portrait was made in 1948. I was seventy-four when this was made." Steph felt herself baulk a little - the girl couldn't have been much older than Penny visually. The blonde girl stared for a few seconds, before clearing her throat and continuing in a slightly distrusting tone.
"Why do you look so young then?"
The girl gave a small grimace. "I used a form of Ancient Magic repeatedly in my life - it had the unintended consequence of essentially freezing any further physical development, leaving me stuck in this form until the day I died. I'll admit, it did make teaching quite an interesting prospect."
"I could imagine." Penny's tone was wry, but she tilted her head, her tone shifting and carrying audible intrigue. "What was this Ancient Magic you were talking about?"
Clearly pleased that someone had taken at least some interest in her comment, the painting straightened up a little. "It was a form of surviving Druidic magic in its raw state, from what I could tell. Back from before we used wands to focus magic more efficiently, when you needed far more raw energy to cast spells. Hogwarts used to hold a large amount of it, but unfortunately that was expended in Ranrok's Rebellion."
"When was this?" The portrait turned to glance at Steph as the girl interrupted the conversation.
"The 1890-91 school year. Ranrok's Rebellion was never taken truly seriously by the Ministry, and little record of it remains, I'd wager. It was scarcely reported by the Prophet in my day - only a small DMLE force was assigned to it. You can probably find the award I received for it in the Trophy Room, but precious little else." The painting was quiet for a little, before the girl cleared her throat and looked at Steph again. "Back to the topic, I might suggest being more... Imaginative, with your thoughts. If need be, dream up a memory to use - imagine yourself the happiest you ever could be, but do not dream the impossible. Dementors will reach into your mind, and use your logic against you. They would leave you hopeless, drowning in despair."
Imaginative with my thoughts...
Momentarily caught in thought, Steph shook her head to clear the fog away, and took in the sight of the girl as she gave a wry smile. "If there's something that us Ravenclaws sometimes struggle with, its thinking outside the letter of the instructions."
Taking a breath, Steph summoned her occlumency for a second and, with it, swept clear the thoughts that polluted her mind. On that blank plane, she allowed her mind to flow, summoning the thoughts of Christmas past, of spending time with her grandparents, laughing and relaxing by the fire, sharing stories of times gone past. Of reading books in the cabin at the foot of Mount Rainier whilst Milly the Kneazle snuggled up to her side and purred away happily.
She pulled forth the happy times with her friends, of laughing and hanging them all - teasing Daphne with Tracey, and laughing at Tracey's playful jibes at how close Daphne and Harry were. Of the usually unflappable blonde girl's sudden and unexpected embarrassment that sent the tips of her ears bright pink.
And then her imagination took flight, calling forth a world where her parents and grandparents got along well - for she was not so blind as to be ignorant to their mutual animosity - of where they enjoyed Christmas as one big family. Of a world where it felt like mother loved her.
"Expecto Patronum." Annunciating her words deliberately and separately - and opening the eyes that she barely realised she had closed - Steph swung her wand around her head in an exaggerated spiral, for that simply felt most natural in that moment. Even before she could finish casting, she knew the result - it swelled in her chest, felt like it was bursting forth from within. From the tip of her wand flowed a silvery mist, surging forth gently and coalescing not into a silvery shield like Harry had managed, but instead a creature.
It stood tall, taller than her - that was to be expected given the creatures very clearly equine shape. For a moment, she had thought it to be a pony, but as the size grew, she amended it to a horse. But even then, that proved to be wrong, for a heartbeat later it sprouted wings, momentarily causing her to think it an Abraxan - but the wings lacked feathers, instead seeming leathery, and Steph was momentarily thrown for thought.
And then it came to her - this creature, batlike in appearance yet clearly equine, was a Thestral.
"Incredible - magical creatures as Patroni are incredibly rare.." Gently worded praise came from the girl in the portrait, whilst Penny's response contained praise and mild confusion in equal quantities.
"What.. Is it?"
"It’s a Thestral.. I think - I've never seen one..." Steph lowered her wand, watching as the Thestral Patronus trotted up to her and bowed its head. Carefully, Steph reached up and rested her hand upon it - it wasn't solid, but she was surprised to feel just a little bit of push back on her hand, the magic of the Patronus repelling her just enough as to provide the sensation of stroking its muzzle.
"It is - they can only be seen by those who have seen, and understood, death." Steph didn't ask anything about that of the girl in the painting, it would hardly be appropriate in that moment, but she had a good idea, given the stories of poachers and the goblin rebellion. In fact, it wouldn't surprise her if this Witch had caused her fair share, given she had lived through both Grindelwald's war and the aforementioned rebellion.
Moving quietly, as if a sudden motion would startle the Patronus Thestral or Steph herself, Penny gently reached out and placed her hand gently against the muzzle of the Thestral, just as Steph did, and in turn gave a soft gasp. "Oh - you can feel it!"
"It’s the ambient magic - it has a slight presence in the world, enough to give some push back. Won't give you more than the ghost of a sensation, but it’s still there." The painting on the wall tilted her head a little, and brushed a lock of her hair back over her left ear, before looking down at her wrist, which rose just above the bottom of the frame. "Curfew appears to be approaching, you should probably get back to the Tower."
"Thank you for your help." Dipping her head in thanks, Steph put her wand away and picked up her bag, slinging the satchel over her shoulder as Penny gave her own thanks to the painting. It was only once Steph had everything together, and Penny was distracted with gathering her own things - namely a stack of three books that had caught her fancy - that Steph turned to the painting and asked the question she should have before. "Sorry, what is your name?"
"Ella Kazan, a pleasure to meet you Stephanie Scamander and Penelope Clearwater." The painting tilted her head in polite greeting. "It would have been more apt for me to introduce myself first, however after so long of students not engaging me in conversation for much of any reason, one tends to get a little... Lazy, shall we say?"
"Understandable. A pleasure to make your acquaintance." Penny gave Ella a smile, and made for the door. "We'll be back sometime soon I'd wager."
"I wish you both luck on your education, if not." With a small wave over her shoulder that Ella mimicked, Steph followed Penelope from the room, giving a slight sigh of deflation as she did so - she had just performed a corporeal Patronus on her first successful summon, and she could feel the drain on her. As Penny had noted, she was magically immature, and she could feel the toll that it was taking on her - she was definitely going to call it an early night.
Stepping out of the Come and Go room, Steph absently watched as the door faded back into the limestone of the castle, before glancing to her right at Penny, who was carrying those three books in both of her hands. Her lips pulled into a line and her curiosity got the better of her. "What books did you grab Penny?"
"Oh, just a couple of books I can't find in the library. One’s a charms textbook for us Seventh Years that's got quite a few annotations in it, I might be able to gleam something from them." Giving a hum, Penny tilted the stack a little bit to show Steph the spines of the dustjackets, and the ravenette tilted her head to read the lettering on the side. One was the aforemention charms textbook, another was something about Ancient Runes, she couldn't entirely translate that one, and the final one was something about the Dark Arts that she tactfully decided not to comment on.
She had opened her mouth to comment on the selection being interesting, more as a general comment than anything in-depth, when there was a flash of movement in front of them, like a ball bouncing along the corridor. A moment of closer inspection revealed that it wasn't a ball, but was instead a rat jumping from one of the window frames onto the stone floor. A frown worked its way onto her face for the briefest fraction of a second - that wasn't normal behaviour for a rat, that one was bold being out in the open.
But then there was a noise that sounded almost like the cracking of bones as the rat's shape seemingly surged outwards, twisting and distorting larger and larger until it was almost the size of a human. Her stomach dropped out from within her - there was a good reason that rat was so bold, it was an Animagus, and there was only one person that could be.
Her mind worked faster than her body, and Steph was slow in going for her wand, and in that delay, Peter Pettigrew had shifted back into his human form, wand already looming out from within his still settling shape. Penny was comparatively faster on the draw, but she had a pile of books in her hands - by the time she had realised what was going on, and had managed to drop the books, Pettigrew had his wand pointed at them, and wasted no time in casting.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The first Unforgivable curse Steph had ever heard cast was practically barked out, accompanied by a jagged and sharp wand motion that summoned a green glow at the tip of the wand. From that glow was birthed a rush of green light, twisting, and arcing like lightning heading straight for her.
Straight for her.
The idea of drawing her wand was abandoned as the girl practically threw herself aside, landing on her side with a hiss of pain, sending her bag sliding across the floor as she sprawled out. Desperate feet scrambled, skidding on the stone floor once, then twice, before the rubber soles finally found purchase and hauled her upright, hiding behind a solid block of limestone and leaning against the wall as she wheeled her gaze around-
A mop of blonde hair caught her eye, and Steph found herself staring at Penelope Clearwater laying face down on the ground, unmoving. Around her lay the books she had been carrying, and just in front of her head lay her wand.
Occlumency screamed into place before the emotions could flood her mind - rationale blocking out the horrified response to seeing the girl dead before her. She could hear her emotions wailing in grief, in rage and fury, and in disgust - she probably would have thrown up if she hadn't been occluding.
She was alive, and Penny wasn't. Pettigrew hadn't been aiming for her.
She had her wand in her grasp now, the length of dark wood caught in a firm grip with her right hand. But what good was her wand when she only had a handful of offensive spells at her disposal - the Blasting hex would probably be the best spell she had to actually hurt Pettigrew. She could stun him, but that spell would do nothing if it was shielded or avoided.
But it would sap her energy. Her attack would have to be fast and intense - and to that extent, she swiped her wand in the motion she would need to cast repeatedly.
No more delays.
She couldn't afford to delay; she couldn't afford to lose her nerve. She had to fight now, before Pettigrew closed the distance, before her occlumency failed on her and her resolve crumbled into tears, or indeed her body collapsed due to exhaustion. She would have to shut everything out.
And from the darkness in her mind came a whisper.
Kill him. Make him pay for Penny. Make him Suffer.
In that moment - that sounded pretty good to her.
Tilting herself left, Steph peeked around the corner, and in a second, caught sight of Peter Pettigrew approaching, wand raised in a cautious stance, but the rest of his posture clearly lacking such conviction. He probably thought her a non-threat, or at least, not much of one. She was a third year.
But she was a third year who was acing her courses. She was a master of the Patronus charm. She had fought a Dementor (and lost admittedly).
She was a Pureblood Witch, not a stupid muggle.
Shrugging herself out of her school robes, she took a breath, then threw them out into the open, watching as a bolt of red light crackled straight through them, accompanied by a shout of surprise. Hastily darting right, out of cover, the throw had clearly caught Pettigrew off guard, and it gave her the chance to jab her wand at him give a shout. "Confringo!"
Her spell had caught him off guard, and Pettigrew recoiled, jabbing his wand forwards, and biting out his next spell, only to turn the first cast into his next offensive spell. "Protegro. Stupefy!"
"Protegro!" The shield charm came easily to her, but hers was decidedly less solid than the man opposite her, which certainly made sense given the context of the conflict. Barely had Steph shielded before Pettigrew had barked out his next spell, and a flash of realisation caught her - Pettigrew wasn't waiting to see the effects of his spells.
"Stupefy!" The second stunning spell splashed against her shield before she could get her next spell off, but the aim had been off, the shield had been unnecessary for it. She would waste energy shielding spells that did not require it, energy she didn't have in that moment.
"Confringo!" Another cry of the spell saw Pettigrew do what Steph had just realised, sidestepping the Blasting hex, and allowing it to sail down the hallway and explode against the floor behind him with a resounding thoom that shook dust from the ceiling. But Steph hadn't waited this time, and had turned the tail end of the Confringo cast into the start of the cast for the stunner, and the red flash of the spell forced the man to shield and backpedal. "Stupefy!"
She could hear a cry of alarm wafting up to her from outside, and it brought another fact to mind - she would have the advantage in that this was Hogwarts, and a duel was loud. If even one of the teachers appeared, Pettigrew would doubtless lose the fight. Or at the very least, her chances of survival would skyrocket.
"Confringo!""Reducto!"
The crackling orange spell slammed straight into the off white-blue spell that looked like it was a Patronus with a coiling darkness trapped within it. There was a second of silence, before the corridor erupted in a spectral wind that threw Steph backwards as the crack of a concussive explosion washed over her, momentarily knocking her loopy even as she managed to land in a stumbled crouch. Her mind felt as if it had just been backhanded, and she struggled to keep a hold on any thoughts for a handful of seconds.
But then that voice whispered in her ear - loudly, unimpeded. It was free, the darkness within, as were all of her emotions. Yet instead of allowing them to flood over her, the darkness held them back and chose to do as it always did, pass on sickeningly pleasurable whispers of promised agony and suffering, temping her to give in to the very emotions it held back. You know the spell Niobe Spawn - Use it!
In that moment, briefly dazed, not thinking straight - emotional and fed by the darkness in her mind, Steph snapped her wand up and barked the same spell that had opened the duel. "Avada-"
But the Killing curse was seven syllables. Pettigrew's response was three.
"Crucio!"
Pain.
Pain beyond words - unimaginable pain ripping through her body like a tidal wave. Her occlumency held in the face of every single muscle in her body, every tendon, every gland, and every nerve - every single fibre of her being screaming in a symphony of agony that ripped through her with total abandon. It spread like a plague, infecting every minute pore, every nerve, every scrap of skin and flesh.
And then it found her occlumency shields, and ripped through them.
She could feel her blood boiling beneath her skin, her blood that belonged to another, blood that was foreign, impure. Her bones, reorganised incorrectly, as if someone had not bothered to ensure they fit properly, like they had been replaced at random and without care. Her ribs felt like they were flexing, and her head snapped as far back as it could bend, and her spine followed it.
Her muscles refused to obey her, twitching as the energy of the Cruciatus curse tore through her and flexed them at random, as if it were searching for what it truly wanted. It found it readily enough, as a particular spasm opened her mouth, and her screams, previously contained within her body as the agony tore through her, now broke the peaceful chatter of the twilight sky.
Neville Longbottom was many things.
He was good at Herbology, a decent friend (so he liked to think), and he was a wizard of middling capability. Professor Lupin had said that he would be a strong and capable one in short order, but he had yet to see much in the way of the aforementioned capability making its presence known.
In fact, he had managed to get genuinely nowhere with the Patronus charm, which was why he was practicing it with Professor Lupin so late in the evening.
Despite them being in the middle of some decent progress - as far as the metric for their progress went - Professor Lupin had put a stop to their session quite abruptly, holding his hand up and listening intently. A handful of moments later, the man had crossed over to the door, and pulled it open, poking his head into the hallway and listening for a brief second.
Despite himself, Neville lowered his wand and, too, listened to the silence in the air - the soft noise of the wind whistling along the outside of the castle, the gentle noise of the breeze blowing leaves around and the soft murmur of chatter that leaked in barely underneath the wind.
And then that calm was gone, as the most terrible scream crashed through the air.
It wasn't simply pain, nor was it sadness. It was genuine, gut wrenching and inexplicably agonised pain - and it immediately wrenched forwards memories that the Dementor had ripped to the front. Of his mother and father screaming, of the insane cackling of Bellatrix as his mother’s screams reached new peaks as they drifted into the bedroom where he had laid.
Lupin had barely heard them for a fraction of a second before he immediately surged out of the classroom, leaving Neville momentarily caught flat footed. He could have stayed where he was, none would blame him, but he could only curse the Gryffindor in him as he followed the Werewolf Professor out of the classroom.
It was immediately apparent that Lupin was much faster than Neville, as the boy had trouble keeping up with the Professor as he took the stairs at the end of the hall two or even three at a time. Neville had to settle for just about managing two when the chance presented itself, even as the tightness in his chest built with his exertion.
The was a sudden reprieve in the screaming, but that seemed to only last for just enough time to allow the victim to breathe, before the agonised cries reached new peaks, and Neville watched as Lupin's body seemed to tense just a little, before he launched himself forwards with a new wind of energy. Up and up, they went, past the fifth and sixth floors, before finally spilling onto the seventh, and in turn were greeted with a frankly horrific sight.
In the middle of the corridor was a man, short and with wiry, unkempt hair of no real colour loosely arrayed around a bald spot atop his head. He had an almost emaciated appearance, as if he had been wasting away for years - which he almost certainly had been - and was clad in a suit that looked like it had recently been new, but had since gone unwashed and uncared for.
But even from behind, Neville knew who this was - this was Peter Pettigrew.
The next thing he noticed was the body.
It was clearly female, if the length of the blonde hair that lay in a loose mop upon the floor was any indication, and it was laying face down, arms limp and surrounded by books. There was little mistake given the context - the girl had been struck with a curse that had killed her, and killed her fast, given that her wand lay on the ground in front of her, likely not having been drawn properly.
But the worst of it was the source of the screaming.
Writhing, for there was little better phrase, upon the floor was Stephanie Scamander, her body twitching and spasming as she seemed to be attempting to fold herself in two. Neville couldn't make much of the detail out, but there was blood on the floor and the lower half of the girls face was covered in red stains coming from her nose that was probably broken.
Pettigrew was quick on the draw - by the time Lupin had swung his wand, Pettigrew had raised his wand away from Steph, and the girl had stopped screaming quite so loudly - instead hyperventilation and keening. As she did so, Peter had already flung a stormy ball of energy in their direction with an almost bark. "Reducto!"
"PETER!" Lupin's roar of rage was accompanied by the otherwise tired appearing Professor flinging himself to the side sharply, sidestepping the curse and allowing it to slam into the wall behind them with a deafening thoom, all the while moving his wand with a pointed jab. "Expelliarmus!"
The spell was quite unlike anything that Neville had seen before - he had seen the Disarming charm in action, but Lupin's didn't even register in his vision, so quick was it. Peter Pettigrew, to his credit, was nimble enough to flick a shield up and send a ball of fire right at them. "Confringo! Remus! I would never have expected Dumbledore to hire a filthy mutt like yourself! A Werewolf in a school?"
Peter's small eyes glanced right at Neville as he spoke, and Neville rather got the impression he was meant to be taken aback by the revelation - but he had known since day one thanks to the girl laying upon the floor. With a motion he was admittedly quite proud of, Neville levelled his wand at Pettigrew and joined the fray. "Expelliarmus!"
His disarming charm, by comparison, was almost laughable, forming a visible bolt of light that rocketed down the hall and slammed into Pettigrew's shield, but scarcely a second later a second spell slammed into the rat Animagus' shield, ringing it like a gong, and visibly knocking the man back. Stumbling, Peter's lips pulled into an ugly curl, and he took a few cautious steps back, before spinning on his heel and leaping into one of the alcoves to his left. Lupin barely had time to roar the man’s name again, before he took off after him.
Neville instead found himself next to the curled shape of Stephanie Scamander, twitching and drawing stuttered breaths, intercut with pained noises that pulled at his heart strings. The girl was crying, tears mixing with her own blood to form a stream of pink that flowed down her chin. She was almost in the foetal position, but Neville noticed something - she wasn't touching herself.
Where she could, she wasn't making contact with herself - and it took him a second to realise why, and when he did, his heart dropped. The Cruciatus curse made every nerve scream in pain - she had instinctively tried to adopt the primordial safety position, but the sensation of touching herself had been too much.
Neville found him staring at his hands impotently, caught entirely unprepared and unknowing of what to do. The Professor had done what he had said was the kindest thing in that moment, and had stunned her, before she could experience the pain of being carried to the hospital wing.
"In the middle of fucking HOGWARTS, Albus!"
Albus Dumbledore sat behind the desk, his forehead resting against his steepled hands, one folded over the other, as Head Auror Sirius Black restlessly paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. On the other side of the desk sat Amelia Bones, the stern Director staring at the Headmaster with cold displeasure resting upon her face.
Albus had watched over them, as he had several generations of students in his school, but that was evidently not dissuading them from their jobs in that moment.
Poppy Pomfrey was quite proud of just how far the once shy and nervous Amelia Bones had come in that moment. She was hardly the little girl worried that she was not good enough to attend Hogwarts.
"How is she, Poppy?" Speaking of, the Director's gaze was fixed on her old Head of House, and the Matron of the Hospital wing gave a deep sigh.
"The Medi-Witches from St Mungo's are attending to her; it hasn't been since the war that someone was exposed to the Cruciatus curse this severely. They had to call a Medi-Witch out of retirement to oversee the case." She couldn't help the grimace that crossed her expression in that moment as she stared down at her hands. She had once helped patients suffering from the Cruciatus curse almost daily, but she hadn't been able to stomach seeing the effects on someone so young after such a long absence. She had lost her touch.
In a way it was a good thing - it meant fewer were suffering.
But on the other hand, she hadn't been of much help to someone who was.
"Will she recover?" Head Auror Black's comment came from the fireplace, where the man was standing, one arm resting on the mantle piece as he stared into the hearth, his head hung. Doubtless, he blamed himself in that moment. With a sigh, Poppy gave what she could.
"They expect so. The exposure was only brief, as far as exposure to the Cruciatus goes. It shouldn't cause any lasting damage, but the scars on her psyche may require... Specialist care." Sirius was still, staring into the fireplace with what had to be a dark expression, if she could read the man's body language correctly. He remained like that for a minute, then reached to his left for a moment, before aborting the gesture, lowering his left arm back to his side. When he spoke, his tone was firm, but carried a hint of danger.
"I'm going to check on her. I'll pay a visit to the Scamanders after." With the gravitas more at home on Severus than Sirius, the Head Auror marched out of the Headmasters Office, leaving a number of expressions behind him. Amelia's was firm, almost darkly concerned, whilst Poppy followed the Head Auror with a worried gaze - all whilst Albus Dumbledore stared at his desk silently.
What Poppy couldn't have known was that, beneath that silent, almost mournful expression on Albus Dumbledore's face, was a mind furiously at work.
"I spoke with the Medi-Witches, they say Steph's expected to make a full recovery. They'll refer her to a Mind Healer once she's cleared from the Hospital wing."
"Mmh." The soft hum that left the woman opposite him drew Sirius Black's eyes up from the mug of tea in front of him, bringing him to stare at the blonde woman that was Freya Scamander. Behind silver blonde hair sat ice cold eyes, almost entirely devoid of emotion - utterly cold and frankly uncaring, something her hum had done little to dissuade him of. "Thank you for bringing the news, Sirius."
"I figured you'd want to know about your daughter." Stressing the phrase, Sirius watched as Freya's eyes flashed with something dangerous, before disappearing in a heartbeat. The woman barely reacted at all - but Sirius could tell by that hint of danger in her eyes that she wasn't occluding her emotion. She was just like Walburga; she didn't care about what happened to her daughter.
So, he went for the metaphorical gut punch - the shot in the dark. "So, what do I owe you then?"
A hint of confusion broke through, a brief stutter in her eyebrow and a momentary parting of thin lips. "I'm afraid you'll have to elaborate, Sirius."
"Stephanie is most certainly not Theseus' daughter, Freya. Black hair on the child of a blonde and a brunette? Given our past and how much she looks like me, it was a safe enough bet." His word's brought back that dangerous glint in Freya's eyes - one that told him that the woman wasn't about to draw her wand, but was instead beginning to grow unsettled. Good.
"Sirius, I dislike your implications. Stephanie is as much Theseus' daughter as she is mine-" At that he openly scoffed, pushing his tea away and fixing her with a firm look.
"I am Lord Black, Freya, I can feel the Black blood in her veins. It's weak, but it’s there, and neither you nor Theseus are Blacks in any way. So don't lie to me, and let's get this straight. She's not my daughter?" Freya stared at him - the look in her eyes had shifted, no longer unsettled. Instead, it was closer to mounting alarm and controlled panic.
"She is not." With a slight dip of his head, Sirius made a noise of agreement.
"Alright, not me. Reggie, then?" Freya's eyes darkened, her expression tightened into a displeased frown.
"I don't like where this is going, Sirius-" A bark was his response.
"Tough. Was she Reggies?" Freya scowled darkly and her tone gained venom, her words clipped.
"No, she isn't yours, nor is she Regulus'. I'm frankly insulted you'd insinuate such." Sirius gave a dark laugh, utterly humourless. They were well beyond what was acceptable by any metric - especially when he'd accused her Heiress of being a bastard.
"Whose, then? Orion?" Freya's expression grew into a sneer as the woman rose to her feet, her chair scraping on the floor behind her - a motion Sirius matched as the tension in the room grew higher and higher.
"Sirius! Control yourself-" Ignoring the woman's indignant outburst, Sirius spoke over her, pressing her harder and harder - he knew Freya, she was on the verge of breaking.
"Cyngus then? I know Andi is older than you, so I suppose he was a bit of a freak-"
"Sirius!" Her cry was horrified now, and her hands met the table, causing the cups to bounce on the tabletop. But it was what was on her face, and within those ice blue orbs that told him everything he needed to - Freya was panicking. She was on the verge of breaking, years of interrogation experience had told him that.
"I suppose you're fucked up if you really went for Arcturus-" A frustrated cry of utter indignant rage was her response, a sweeping hand knocking both of their teacups and the pot onto the floor with a cacophony of noise, spilling tea all over the floor. A shout came from her.
"SHE'S NOT MINE!"
His heart skipped a beat, and Freya seemed to deflate - the woman sinking back into the chair and cradling her head in her hands, resting her elbows on the table. A weak, almost exhausted comment followed the outburst. "She never was. She's a Niobe. The Niobe. "
Oh fuck.
He found he couldn't expel the breath he had drawn, leaving Sirius to simply stare across the table at the woman seated opposite him. The once stern figure of Freya Scamander looked suddenly so frail and defeated, as if her kingdom had come crumbling down around her, which it had in a way. She had just admitted to what was most assuredly a crime against House Black, and what was also a crime in the eyes of the Ministry.
Stephanie Scamander was a Daughter of Niobe - the Goddess of Lost Children.
Children of Niobe was a moniker assigned by the Daily Prophet to describe a suggested program that would have taken the children of convicted Death Eaters sentenced to life in Azkaban, and placed them with suitable families. But in the wake of the Ministerial pardons and massive backlash, the idea had been hastily dropped, but the phrase still persisted whenever anti-Ministry sentiment needed to be roused. For the most part, they were a myth, a cruel prank whispered in the halls to children of low heritage.
Evidently, there was substance to this myth.
Stephanie was a child stolen from her real family.
"Fuck...." Finally managing to exhale his breath, a horrible thought came to the forefront, and Sirius stared at Freya with mounting horror. "Why in the name of Merlin did you do this.."
The woman was silent, staring at the table for several long moments, before Sirius repeated himself with greater emphasis and firmness. "Freya, who put you up to this?"
"... Albus. Albus asked it of us at the end of the war." The woman was quiet for a long while, before dipping her head even further, visibly deflating a little. "I lost the child I was carrying. I was told I was infertile. When Albus asked us to take her, we saw it as a chance to have the daughter we never would."
The blonde woman brushed a hand over her eyes, and Sirius Black stepped away from the table, staring into the crackling fireplace in the adjacent living room, the licking flames of the hearth helping him to ground his more destructive thoughts, as if casting them into the embers and allowing the instinctive rage to flood away. Stephanie was more than a friend of Harry's - she was a scioness of the House of Black. She was his flesh and blood.
But if she was a direct daughter of the House of Black, he should have been able to feel her more closely tied to the family tree, even if she was a bastard. Hell, she should have appeared on it regardless, which meant that something was barring her from appearing at the present moment - the Black family magic should have felt her, it would have been at her core. It would have taken a powerful spell to disrupt that connection - something Albus could have cast - but that would have reeked off her for years.
It would have had to have been something subtle, something that would disrupt the 'purity' of her blood in the eyes of the family tree. Something.. Dark, and powerful.
".. You blood adopted her.." His words were undercut with horror, and Freya's flinch told him all he needed to know - his lips pressing into a thin line as his brow furrowed. It wasn't a question, it was a statement of a fact, and it had been confirmed. With a single motion, Sirius stepped away from the table, to the fireplace, and took a handful of Floo powder from the small bowl, looking over his shoulder at the dejected shape of the woman hunched over the table.
"Who is she, Freya? Whose daughter is she." The woman raised her head to look at him, the exhausted expression on her face giving way to reluctant glance to her left. Her voice was soft, and was accompanied by a small shake of her head.
"I can't say. It's better like that." He didn't doubt the claim - an oath probably existed, and none of the loose ends of the family tree were particularly great to be born to, especially given when her birth had to have taken place - she was almost a year older than Harry, but was in his year, nonetheless. With a grim expression, Sirius turned his back on her as he spoke.
"You don't plan on telling her, do you?"
Several seconds of silence preceded a heavy sigh. "No, I don't."
"... Good. Let her lead a normal life as long as possible." With that, Sirius flicked his wrist, drawing his wand and quenching the flames for a moment, casting the Floo powder down and stepping into the fireplace. Clearly, he spoke. "Hogwarts Headmasters Office."
Albus and I need to have a word.