You’re my Candle

The Slytherin Common Room was buzzing for the rest of the weekend, as expected, thanks to Gryffindor's recent defeat. Draco had finally taken off his bandages, which he didn't really need anyway, and was immediately flaunting the fact that he could use both his arms again by imitating dementors every time he saw Harry Potter.

They could be walking down a corridor, or sitting in the Great Hall–even being in class didn't stop the insufferable boy from smirking at Harry, who was probably wishing Pomfrey had never let him out of the Hospital Wing.

Potions rolled around on Monday morning and Kayda tried her best to ignore Draco, rather speaking with Pansy about the Calming Drought that they were making and sending Harry an apologetic look when the brunette caught her eye.

It was rare for Snape to allow chatter in class, but today he seemed to be in a good mood–perhaps he'd drunk the potion he made to demonstrate.

Theo coughed loudly to get the table's attention, "it seems someone else might need one of these in a minute." He stared at Ron Weasley–who was glowering so harshly at Draco that Kayda was convinced his eyes were going to pop out of his skull.

Freya giggled loudly and grinned across the room at the ginger boy, "awe, poor little lion is upset they lost the game." She mocked as she leant over the table.

Further chaos erupted as a slippery crocodile heart came hurtling through the air across the dungeon–launched from Ron's hand and aimed directly at Draco's smug face. Before most could react, Kayda's rushed voice silenced the room.

"Immobulus." She commanded, freezing the heart in mid-air, only inches from Draco's nose. She'd not meant to have spoken as loudly as she did–everyone's eyes were on the heart, suspended where Kayda's gaze held it.

The only eyes not on the heart, were Daphne's. Her gaze was locked on Kayda herself.

Snape wasted no time in inquiring about who'd thrown it, but before he could utter a second word, Freya had grabbed the heart and lobbed it back at Ron–however, it hit Hermione, who was unfortunately standing beside him.

"You're certainly not going to become a Quidditch Captain with that aim. Are you, Miss Malfoy?" Snape remarked dryly, summoning the heart to his hand and placing it back into a jar as he took fifty points off Gryffindor.

After class, they made their way to the Great Hall for lunch. Freya wasted no time once they were out of earshot to voice her annoyance at Snape–as she often did.

"He doesn't know that I wasn't aiming for her!" She choked, her frustration not only evident in her voice, but also her flailing arms. "I could've been."

"C'mon, Frey," Kayda chuckled reassuringly, shooting the blonde girl a warm smile and draping her arm over Freya's shoulders as they walked, "we've got my Uncle next, and he'll let you throw a croc heart at whoever you like."

"Hm," she intertwined her fingers with Kayda's where they hung around her, "and you're sure?"

Kayda responded with a subtle wink, her smile never faltering. "Positive."

Poor Professor Lupin was bombarded by a classroom full of worried and stressed students who had a lot to say to him the second he stepped foot through the door. He made his way up to the front of the room through the noise and tried to ignore all of their anxious eyes watching each step.

He reached his desk and raised his hand to quiet them all. "Thank you. Alright now," he coughed, "one at a time, I beg."

That seemed to be a difficult instruction to understand–the classroom rose again into unintelligible complaints.

"It's not fair. He was only filling in; why should he set us homework?"

"We don't know anything about werewolves."

"–two rolls of parchment!"

Remus again, tried to silence them by coughing and lifting his hand–but it seemed his students were too pent up. So instead, he hit his walking stick against the floor and the sound echoed through the room.

"That was not one at a time." He remarked, with a weary sigh, looking around the room at all of their faces. "I have already been vaguely told what occurred in my absence," he glanced at Kayda, who'd been ranting to him about Snape's homework just the evening before, "so, don't worry. You don't have to do the essay."

Kayda could feel the weight lift off everyone's shoulders and watched as her Uncle moved to the side of the classroom and began gathering the materials for the day's lesson, while Hermione muttered something about having already completed the assignment.

"Have we told you how much we love your Uncle?" Draco muttered to Kayda, leaning back in his chair.

She smiled and used her forearms against the table to elevate herself off her own chair and whisper back to the boy. "Weird. I thought you hated all Gryffindors."

Draco scoffed. "Two exceptions. Him and your dad."

When the bell rang to signify the end of the lesson, Kayda exchanged knowing glances with those sitting around her. They already knew that she'd be staying behind for a little while to speak with her Uncle. Freya gave her hand a squeeze before linking arms with Daphne as everyone moved to leave the classroom.

Kayda watched her friends leave, and gave them each a small wave when they glanced back at her. Draco mimed where they'd be waiting for her just before his head went around the door.

"Wait a moment, Harry," Remus said suddenly, his hurried voice suggesting he'd forgotten he wished to hold Harry back–he gave a quick nod to Kayda as Harry made his way back into the room with a confused look, "I'd just like a word, nothing bad."

Harry nodded, also giving a quick look to Kayda, who smiled. "Yes, Sir?"

"I heard about the match, and I'm sorry about your broomstick." He gave Harry a rather sympathetic look that Kayda recognised well. "Is there any chance it can be fixed?"

"No, Sir. The tree, uhm, smashed it to bits." Harry replied, his eyes falling to the floor. He was clearly upset about the loss.

"I could try." Kayda suddenly offered. "Fixing it, I mean, with the...y'know," she lifted her hand and a small spark flickered across each of her fingertips.

Harry only shrugged.

Kayda got the feeling quite quickly that Harry wished to speak to her Uncle alone.

"Oh." She uttered, feeling a bit lost as her eyes darted between Harry and Remus. She was silently begging her Uncle to tell her what to do.

He cleared his throat when he realised both of them were staring at him expectantly. "Kayda, sweetheart, just wait outside for me. Yeah?"

Kayda clicked her tongue in disappointment and nodded slowly. She made it obvious that his choice annoyed her when she walked out the room, pulling hard at the door after she'd walked through it, causing it to slam shut behind her.

She waited as patiently as possible as they talked. But, after a few moments, she started subconsciously straining to catch snippets of their conversation through the thick door. When that resulted in nothing, she couldn't resist eavesdropping completely and slumped down on the floor right beside where the wooden door met the wall, her back against it. Closing her eyes, she concentrated hard, trying to make out their voices and feel for their movements through the floor.

"I can hear..." Harry's voice slipped through the door, his words echoing faintly, "-mort murdering my Mum."

Kayda felt a jolt in her chest when Remus' heartbeat seemed to pause momentarily. She sensed him take a single step forward.

"They're getting hungry–" Remus' voice trailed off, becoming difficult to make out his exact words, "the Quidditch pitch," his voice kept going too quiet for her to hear, "it's their idea of a feast."

"Azkaban must be–" Harry was speaking too quietly, until he slowed his words down and Kayda could hear him so clearly it was like he was in her head. "–but Sirius Black escaped from them, he got away..."

Kayda winced and her hands slammed to cover her ears when something was loudly dropped on the floor. Pulled from her focus, her hearing returned to normal. Having it heightened made anything that wasn't deaf to the ear, very painful.

She didn't get to hear the rest of their conversation, deeming it a lost cause to try and use her abilities that didn't want to cooperate for her. Instead, she waited for Remus to pull open the door and bid his goodbyes to Harry, who gave a half-hearted smile to her as she sulked her way back into the classroom.

"I do appreciate you prioritising your Niece." Kayda mumbled spitefully, throwing herself onto one of the chairs and idly tracing the carvings in the wood with her nail.

Remus took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said, walking up behind her and squeezing her shoulder comfortingly, "Harry is going through a very hard time at the moment, I wanted to check in on him."

"Yeah, and talk about my dad." She retorted, rolling her shoulder away from him and stretching herself across the desk to rest her chin on her crossed arms. "My escaped Father who apparently killed three of our best friends."

"Alright, you're going through a hard time too. Is that what you're trying to not so subtly hint at?" His tone was clearly annoyed.

She shrugged.

Remus didn't say anything a minute, he propped himself against the desk in front of the one Kayda was sulking on and stared at her pouting face. "M'kay, so I know you were eavesdropping; how much did you hear?

"Jackshit." Kayda spat, still refusing to look at him. "My supposed enhanced hearing isn't very good at the moment."

"You're young. Remember you're growing." He reminded her gently.

She repeated his words in a mocking tone.

Remus chuckled and Kayda sat up abruptly.

"Uh," she stumbled over her words, looking him up and down disapprovingly, "no. You don't laugh. You're meant to feel bad, Uncle. You hurt my feelings."

He simply laughed harder. "You picked up far too many little habits from Sirius."

"Oh, did I, now?" She replied with a sly smile. Kayda knew that she needed to tell him soon about Sirius. The fact that he's stayed so close to Hogwarts, that she's been meeting up with him in the Shrieking Shack for a few months now–but she just didn't know when to drop that bomb.

─ « ⋅ » ─

It felt cruel to be awoken at a decent time when Kayda knew for a fact that she didn't have a morning class–on a Saturday.

Still, Freya took it upon herself to physically shake Kayda awake. Perhaps it was the bags beneath the blonde's own eyes and the evident lack of sleep she'd gotten that led her to believe that literally waking a sleeping dragon wasn't the brightest of ideas.

"C'mon, Black–" she yawned, "get up, girl."

Kayda let out a low groan and rolled over, turning her back to Freya.

"Oh, so you wanna be a bitch then." Freya chuckled, a yawn interrupting her laughter. "Well, we were planning on spending some quality time with your stupid Gryffindor boyfriend on the Hogsmead trip today–but I s'pose we can just...not."

Kayda was sat upright in a matter of seconds, her fingers digging into Freya's shoulders.

"You–what?"

Turns out, as a Christmas present of sorts, Kayda's friends had decided to make an effort with Oliver Wood. The very same Oliver Wood that captained the Gryffindor Quidditch team and had slaughtered them the previous two years, the literal competition. Kayda very much doubted that he'd be hanging around them regularly, but if it meant that he'd be able to say hello to her in the corridors without being stared down, it was worth a shot.

"It's 'cause they lost, isn't it?" She asked during breakfast, her brow furrowing as she attempted to guess what they were up to. This seemed to be a rather amusing sight to her friends. "You've lost all respect for him."

Blaise laughed, shaking his head. "No, Black."

"Another wrong guess," Theo added, a playful grin plastered on his face as he rested his arm around Freya, who clearly shared his amusement, "you're truly horrific at this."

Rolling her eyes at the boy, she retorted, "it'd go better if you lot helped me out."

"Never. This is too good." Draco replied, lifting his brows at her with a smirk.

"You're planning on jumping him so that we win the Quidditch match after Christmas." Kayda exclaimed, clicking her fingers, certain she got it.

"Merlin, we're not mercenaries." Pansy gasped, clutching at her chest in mock horror.

"Ugh," Kayda groaned, dropping head onto the table with a loud bang, "you guys are so up to something."

Daphne giggled and leaned against Kayda, "we're not always up to something, Black. We just wanted to do something nice for you."

"And we figured involving Wood would be the only way of getting you out of this damned castle." Freya added with a soft smile.

As if on cue, a pair of warm hands squeezed her shoulders–she knew it was Oliver.

"If you die today, I had no part in it." She said, leaning back against him and putting her cold hands atop his.

He laughed. "Ah, you're always sweet, love. But they cannae beat us in Quidditch, I'll be fine."

"Oh! Now, that is rich." Freya spat.

Theo was grinning, shaking his head. "Especially since only last week you lost to Hufflepuff!"

"We'll beat you though!" Oliver retaliated. "Just like last year...oh, and the year before."

Kayda rolled her eyes when Draco and Blaise joined in and said their creative insults that, up till this very moment, had all been said behind the Captain's back. She could feel Oliver laughing behind her and those in front of her had smiles plastered on their faces.

"This is gonna go brilliantly." Daphne said to Kayda, leaning closer to the girl.

"It's a sore subject–we'll just have to avoid it."

People gathered in the courtyard wearing warm cloaks and scarves, and each were handing their permission slips to McGonagall and waiting until she waved her hand to rush back to their friends smiling. Kayda avoided the woman's eyes when she turned the crumpled piece of paper in.

"It's a real pleasure to see that you're going, dear," she said, only glancing at the paper before passing it to Filch beside her, "I was beginning to worry about you."

Kayda met her eyes, "now, why would you ever waste time doing something like that?"

"You know exactly why." McGonagall said quietly, sighing slightly but her smile never faltered. Kayda returned to her friends, who'd already given theirs in and were practically bouncing up and down.

Daphne linked her arm around Kayda's and rested her head gently against the taller girl's shoulder. "McGonagall looks at you like you're going to break, y'know."

It wasn't something new–it was how they all looked at her these days. This fear that they have to be careful around her.

"Uncle says that."

"He, of all people, should know–he does it too."