Meraki

Chapter 1: 9

“Ivy! When are ya leaving?” Remus Lupin’s voice calls from downstairs. “Tout de suite, Papa!” His daughter responds, taking one last look in the mirror. At fourteen, she decided a few weeks ago that she is independent enough to be going out into the world on her own. So today will be her first small trip to Diagon Alley alone, to meet up with her friend Theodore. Over the past four years, Remus has come to trust the boy, having been wary of him at first because of his father, who was a loyal supporter of Lord Voldemort. It is unfair to judge a child by their father’s decisions and his daughter is happy with the friendship, so he is as well.
Avior is dressed in short, loose overalls with a red top underneath because it is the third week of July and it’s sunny enough. Her unruly black hair drapes down her back, sometimes hiding the light eyes full of mischief. She grabs her wand and pushes it into her pocket. ‘Just in case’ like her father always tells her. Humming to herself as she steps out of her bedroom and walks down the stairs, Nyx runs up to her. 

“I’ll see ya in a few hours!” She bends down to pet the cat. “I will miss ya. Don’t give Papa a hard time, okay?”
The cat and her owner are like each other in many ways, aside from the black and green combination. Both mischievous and clumsy, clingy and playful.

“Your wand?” Remus asks once she walks into the living room with Nyx right on her heels. Avior nods, pointing at her pocket. Most of her overalls and trousers have charmed pockets to fit a lot more, so her wand is safe in there. “Good,” he smiles, “have fun, be safe and I’ll pick ya up for dinner.”

“Parfait,” she replies and gestures for him to bend down. She raises herself onto her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Remus presses as she moves towards the fireplace to put her red high-top Converse on and then picks up the bag of Floo powder next to it.

“Do I take that from Moony or Professor Lupin?”
Avior grins over her shoulder at him. If anyone is excited for Remus coming to teach at Hogwarts the upcoming year, it’s his daughter. He has been teaching her at home for years now. Even before getting her wand, she has been learning from him. But it will be nice to have him around when she’s actually at school. Another person that doesn’t look at her with eyes full of contempt — or rather, fear.

“Take that as ya will, darling.”
Her grin takes him years back, when he was still in Hogwarts himself and when he had a friend of Avior’s age, whom she is the spitting image of — if one doesn’t count the one green eye and a specific smile.
Despite those differences, memories of a dark haired boy swirl his mind. Days filled with hushed whispers in empty Hogwarts corridors and nights filled with stolen moments and laughter in the dormitory. Now, he has been creating a whole new set of memories with a mini version of that boy whom he calls his daughter. That grin is the last thing he sees before the green flames engulf her and transport her to the Leaky Cauldron.

Upon arrival, Avior nearly trips when stepping out of the fireplace and immediately takes a glance at the clock. She is six minutes early and knowing Theodore, he will be exactly on time. Taking another step and dropping her gaze from the clock, she looks right into two photographed eyes near-identical to her own, apart from the image being black and white. The rest of the poster registers once the slight shock has settled; it looks like she is looking into her own eyes, though darker. The large caption above it catches her attention first:

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WIZARD?

Underneath those words is an image of a prisoner who has escaped from Azkaban. One with long, black hair and eyes whose light is clearly absent even in the photograph and despite their shade.
Avior studies the image with her heart starting to race and the blush which is ever present slowly fading until she looks as pale as the man on the poster. The longer she looks, the more similarities between the man and herself she notices. She hasn’t seen many photos and those that she has seen were over a decade old, but she has always known that she looks like him. Yet seeing Sirius Black on that poster feels like it is being rubbed in her face. The slope of his jaw, the sharpness of his cheekbones, even his nose.

Avior turns away, but there is another image of him. Spinning around completely, she sees three more. The posters seem to be plastered across the entirety of the Leaky Cauldron. When she notices a wizard looking her way, she quickly bows her head down and finds an empty table to sit at while she waits for Theodore, already wanting to go home again. As she sits down, her eyes catch onto a Daily Prophet left on the table and there he is again, on the front page and impossible to miss. Her chest rises and falls heavily with each breath and her curiosity gets the best of her, so she grabs the paper and starts to read.

BLACK STILL AT LARGE

Sirius Black, possibly the most infamous prisoner ever to be held in Azkaban fortress, is still eluding capture, the Ministry of Magic confirmed today.

“We are doing all we can to recapture Black,” said the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, this morning, “and we beg the magical community to remain calm.”

Fudge has been criticised by some members of the International Confederation of Wizards for informing the Muggle Prime Minister of the crisis.

“Well, really, I had to, don’t you know,” said an irritable Fudge. “Black is mad. He’s a danger to anyone who crosses him, magic or Muggle. I have the Prime Minister’s assurance that he will not breathe a word of Black’s true identity to anyone. And let’s face it — who’d believe him if he did?”

While Muggles have been told that Black is carrying a gun (a kind of metal wand that Muggles use to kill each other), the magical community lives in fear of a massacre like that of twelve years ago, when Black murdered thirteen people with a single curse.

Her hands are shaking as she puts the paper down and a single glance is enough to see that two more witches are now staring her way. During the past three years at Hogwarts, she’s been told enough how much she looks like the mass murderer Sirius Black. So now, with probably about a dozen posters of him spread throughout the Leaky Cauldron, it is hard for even complete strangers to miss the resemblance.
She tells herself that it is fine, that they know better than the students at Hogwarts in not blaming her for her father’s actions, that even if they don’t, that is not her problem. Avior knows who she is and that she does not belong to the family that she has half her name from.

As much as she wants to glare back at these strangers, she shifts her focus back to waiting on Theodore, glancing at the fireplace every few seconds in hopes of being wrong in her knowing him for once, and that he will arrive sooner rather than perfectly on time.

Until finally, it lights up brightly and Theodore steps out a moment later. His dark eyes find her quickly and it only takes a second more to notice the subtle scowl on her face, which is nothing too out of place for her. But there should be no reason for it during this moment.

“Ava,” he says as he walks towards her hastily. He has already read the Daily Prophet, this morning when it arrived, and has been dying these past few hours to know how she’s been doing. “Hey.” Theodore nudges the Prophet in front of her away when he sits down next to her and wraps his arm around her.

“Don’t look at it,” he says sternly, when her hand reaches for the paper again. “Everyone is looking, Teddy,” she responds with an annoyed roll of her eyes. “Je ne savais pas. I only just saw all the posters and the Prophet.” Theodore lifts his head up to see that, indeed, a handful of witches and wizards are staring at his best friend.

“It’s okay,” he tries, “let them look, remember? Like in school. Ignore it, just look at me.”
Theodore can see the lack of panic or in her eyes that he had quietly expected to be there while she does as he says, instead a hardness that looks so familiar mixed into the grey and green.

“I’m not bothered,” she retorts, all the while she can feel multiple gazes remaining glued to her appearance. “They can look as long as their measly hearts desire. I am not one like him.”

“Ava, it’s okay to be upset,” Theodore tries, but she cuts him off harshly. “I’m not upset, Teddy, so do not treat me like I am made of glass.”

There is a slight pause, in which he studies the firmness in her eyes, the subtle crease between her brows that makes her look angrier, in which she stares back resolutely.

“How is Nyx?” He asks, taking the usual routine of simply changing the subject at hand.

“Bien,” Avior answers, “clingy as usual.” Theodore smiles, used to the French responses here and there, and her gaze drops for a single second. “Nothing’s changed then, good. Tell her I miss her, okay? Don’t forget.”

“My papa is going to teach Defence from the upcoming term,” Avior suddenly remembers when he speaks those last two words. He can feel her starting to relax against him slightly.

“C’est pas vrai!” She perks up and her eyes widen. “You’re much taller now!”
All frustrations seem to dissolve in her mind for a moment as realisation settles that Theodore is now quite a bit taller than her. She has to tilt her head back to look at him now.

“Did ya grow that much this past month?”

“I did,” he grins proudly, “and I have yet to stop growing so I’ll be towering over you before you know it.”

She rolls her eyes, but can’t hide her smile as she rests her head against his shoulder. Though her smile fades shortly after, making place for a concerned frown on her forehead.

“‘E’s bad,” she mutters. “What if…?” Avior straightens in her seat again and turns to face him more, dropping her tone to a whisper. “Teddy, what if he comes to my house? What if he hurts my papa? He knows where we live because it’s where he used to live, too.”
There is a fear in her eyes which he wishes to take away from her and he would in a heartbeat if only he could.

“He won’t,” Theodore says firmly, confidently. “You’re safe and so is your father, Ava. You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.” He taps her cheek once, trying to lighten her worries. “Who else will I unofficially share my dorm with?”

“I need to go home,” she says quietly, absently, his comment flying past her. Is Remus even aware of this? She needs to make sure he’s okay, she needs to know how he feels. Besides, there are still many eyes glued to her. Avior is growing more annoyed with her every movement being watched with each second that their stares bore into her. Maybe if she does glare back, they will look away.

“No,” Theodore gently turns her head to look at him again, “no matter who has or had the same name, you’re Avior Lupin-Black and you do not run.”
He gives her a firm look, repeating the words she has so often said herself back to her.

She wants to roll her eyes again. “This isn’t a matter of running, Teddy,” says Avior, pulling his hand away from her face to hold onto it instead, as if to communicate to him nonverbally that she does not need to be held for such reasons. “I should make sure my papa is okay, that he is safe and to know how he feels.”
Avior faces everything that’s thrown her way, she simply tells herself that this is one of those things. It is just another challenge that she will love defeating.

Theodore looks ready to give in. Her father will forever be her priority and sometimes he thinks that he is starting to feel like that about this small family, too.
Though he knows Remus is fine and will be fine, that Avior might need this day of fun before returning to reality.

“Come on,” she nudges his side for him to get up as she takes note of the dilemma in his eyes, giving in so he doesn’t need to decide for them — for her, “I want to go to Quality Quidditch.”
Sirius Black’s eyes seem to follow her from every angle, although she tells herself that’s simply her mind playing tricks on her. She grabs her best friend’s hand to pull him along. They are something different than just best friends now, it is more ever since they kissed for the first time the previous year. Avior glances over her shoulder at him while she pulls him along behind her, a small grin playing on her lips.

“We should get you a cheerleading outfit.”
Theodore looks away from the large assortment of Quidditch gloves she is frowning at.

“Sure,” he chuckles, playing along as he adds, “I would look good in a very short skirt and a barely-there top with your name painted on my forehead.”
The image he paints in her head is more than approved. Avior opens her mouth to agree, but her cheeks flush red instead.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t ya?” She gives him a playful shove before she spins around to continue her search for Quidditch gear that she does not need. Although that maroon pair seems like it was made for her and her only.

“Yeah,” she hears him say behind her as he follows. “Do you think girls like that?”
Her heart stutters and she wants to tell him off for even thinking about what other girls like. Avior stops herself before the words actually leave her tongue. Ever since they kissed for that stupid Dare of his, things have been different. They share looks that last longer than what is considered strictly friendly, the line between platonic and romantic has been blurred.

“Sure they do, Nott,” she responds with a shrug, a tone of indifference to her answer. “Allez.”
She doesn’t allow him a chance to reply and turns around to swiftly walk past him. The bell above the door sounds as she leaves when Theodore hasn’t even set two steps forward yet.
More posters of an escaped Azkaban prisoner meet her outside. Every window of every shop has at least three of the same poster plastered across them, obscuring one’s sight of brooms, pets, potion ingredients and books.
A young wizard happens to look at Avior and she scowls when his eyes flit to a poster and back to her. He turns and runs away, returning to what she assumes is his mother.
Theodore catches up to her. She leads the way to Flourish & Blotts, another one of her favourite shops.
The whole of Diagon Alley is overflowing with students shopping for school along with their parents, each shop is no different. Avior already has all of her school supplies, so there is no reason for her to be here, considering they have a large library in their manor, yet there is.
She blindly walks to a specific shelf she has visited many times now during each visit; housing books on magical creatures. Instead of stopping by the shelf, this time she walks just past it, to a different shelf full of old Prophets. Newspapers on newspapers stacked on each other, sorted by date.
Theodore watches as she grabs a paper each of a specific time period. He frowns, wondering what might have her so interested in the sixties, seventies, and even the eighties.

“What are those for?” He asks curiously. Avior grabs one more and another, pushing herself past the amount of newspapers she can hold. He could help, but he finds it rather amusing to see how she forces herself to grab one more, now three past what should have been the absolute limit for her.

“Smart people work, you wouldn’t understand,” she jokes, giving him a sideways look.

“Hey!” He follows hastily as she starts to push past customers to leave the shop without paying for a single paper. There are enough people inside to make sure she isn’t seen, but she has always been good at slipping away and going unseen right under watchful eyes.

“Grab me a bag, will ya? My pockets can only hold so many things,” Avior demands once outside, and she starts to stuff Prophet after Prophet in her overalls’ pockets.
Of course, Theodore does as she says without argument. He is off in a second. While she waits she hums to herself, tries again to force another paper into her pocket, and scares off a child when he looks her way, snorting when he flinches and scrambles off. She could get used to this newfound reputation, it can be rather amusing. Unless she thinks about it too much and too deeply, which she starts to do when she slowly looks around to see dozens of posters more.
Her eyebrows are furrowed together at the sight of those sunken eyes, a barely present glitter in them which she can’t quite place. Malice, she guesses. There must be murder on his mind. Avior averts her gaze determinedly. That is no family of hers.

“Here.” She dumps the remaining Prophets in the bag that Theodore holds out for her and takes it from him with an overly sweet smile. “Merci, Teddy,” she adds and he rolls his eyes in response.

“I won’t forget that you implied my being not smart, Ava, no matter how pretty you smile.”

The two decided to cut their visit short when Avior had seen enough of the posters and had been pointed at more than once. She didn’t say that, but Theodore understood. Despite her insisting on him coming home with her, he couldn’t be gone for too long before his father would question where he had been. So Avior reappears in the living room in flames of brighter green than grass in the spring, not only to her father, but two other familiar faces as well.

“Julie! Auntie!” Avior exclaims and she rushes to greet Juliette and her mother, Lorelei, each with a hug. Her bag full of newspapers swings back and forth as she pulls back.

“What have you got there, Ivy?” Remus asks softly before she can question the worried looks on each of their faces.

“Just some reading to do,” she shrugs, her gaze studying them. “Toutva bien?”

“Ouais,” Juliette is quick to answer, “come.” She takes her sister’s hand to lead her to the love seat in the living room, often claimed by the two girls. Juliette usually drags her upstairs to her room, or her own when at their house. There is something going on, Avior knows that much, and as she takes a peek at their expressions again, that thought is confirmed.

“What?” She pushes once she has sat down, curious but starting to get worried now, too. Lorelei nods encouragingly when Remus glances her way. He crouches down before his daughter and takes both of her hands, the bag of papers still hanging at her wrist.

“It has nothing to do with you, Ivy, I want you to know that, but Sirius has escaped from Azkaban. They are—”
Avior cuts him off with a chuckle and Remus raises his eyebrows in his surprise.

“Is that what you guys are so worried about? I already know, there are dozens if not billions of posters hung across the entirety of Diagon Alley,” she explains, a hint of bitterness seeping from each word. Avior opens her mouth, but decides against telling them how much she was stared at. It would only upset Remus and he seems concerned enough as he sits in front of her, hands wrapped around her smaller ones tightly, but comfortingly.

“I am sorry, Avior,” he shatters the short silence. She pulls her hands out of his and places them on his shoulders to then place a kiss on his cheek. “It’s not your fault, Papa.”

With that, she raises herself out of her seat. “Come, Jules! I assume you guys are staying for dinner?” She raises herself on her tiptoes to kiss Lorelei on the cheek once she passes her, expecting Juliette to follow her to her room and leaving no room for the escapee to be discussed a second longer.
Avior drops the bag on the floor in her room and starts to pull out each Daily Prophet stashed in her pockets. By the time she drops the last two onto the floor as well, Juliette has come in.

“Why do you need so many old Prophets?” Juliette bends down to pick one up. “All about the war?”

“Just an interest,” Avior answers lightly, pulling her wand out last.

At what point does an interest cross into unhealthy obsession, and at what point is it too far and does it start to become dangerous — for oneself, or their environment?

“Lune.” Juliette lets the paper fall to the floor and this time pulls the younger girl towards the bed. “You know you can tell me if it’s bothering you.”

“It’s not,” she responds, “I’m fine, really. He is nothing to me.”

“But he is still your father, ma Lune, even if he’s nothing. What if— What if he tries to see you?”
The idea of that alone sparks a sudden anger inside Avior that she has never felt in that way before. It is no anger over a lost toy or frustration over an escaped creature she was chasing when she was younger. The thought that Sirius Black would try to see not her, but her father pushes the girl right onto the edge of where one questions if nothing is too far.

“If he tries to get close, I’ll kill him,” she replies boldly. It wouldn’t be the first time Avior overestimates herself. He is a mass murderer. Yet the implication that he would try to see her and her father makes her feel like nothing is impossible.
Juliette is taken aback, almost as if she doesn’t recognise the girl in front of her for a second. The Avior she knows would never have such things on her mind. Especially not what Avior adds, “What if it was your father?”

Lennox Mulciber would have put his very soul into assuring the happiness of his wife and daughter. He was merely the product of his parents’ expectations.

“He never wanted to,” Lorelei had once explained to the two girls. “He was forced. Your father is a good man, Jules.”

“My papa isn’t like that. You know that, Lune,” says Juliette, glancing away and when she looks back into the familiar green and grey of Avior’s eyes, there is a sad hint in her own.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers as her anger slowly dissolves for the time being, until it raises its head again at the next opportunity. It is never truly gone, always waiting for another chance to bite.
They decide to drop the topic of prisoner and escapee fathers for the time being, though Juliette often glances at the pile of newspapers on her bedroom floor until they are called downstairs again.
They descend the stairs, at the bottom of which Avior grabs the post to spin herself around it towards the dining room. The smell of pasta wafts out from the open doors and the girls can already feel their mouths start to water.
Avior plops down on her unofficially assigned seat — she picked it and claimed it, feeling most comfortable in the spot where her back is facing the wall furthest away from the door and with the least possibility of someone walking behind her.

“Smells good!” She directs her compliment to Remus and Lorelei with a smile before she grabs her cutlery in both hands, ready to dig in when Remus interrupts her by clearing his throat. He gives her a pointed look and she lowers her fork, having forgotten to wait on the three of them to sit down first before she starts eating.

“Excusez-moi,” she says dramatically.

“She once again forgot about the rest of the world existing,” Juliette adds while taking the seat next to her.

“I never do,” Avior defends herself, “I could never possibly forget about my cat, duh.” She grants her father a smile that promises no good and all mischief. The smile he has so often seen, even before she was born.

“Remus,” Lorelei pipes up during their meal, placing her fork down, “how do you feel about returning to Hogwarts again after all those years?”

She would have done a lot to return to that time. Not the time of a war, but the time of friends and the start of her love for her husband, the lingering looks in class and the notes he would leave her to meet up at their usual spots. The time when her real brother was nothing to her, but she found herself a brother in a friend, whose niece now sits next to her own daughter, but a brother now as far away from her as her real one.

“Weird.” Juliette and Avior stare at Remus, in anticipation of the rest of his answer.

“In a good way,” he adds, “I will be there as a professor now, but also as a father.” He smiles at Avior, his scars crinkling in the way that she loves so. There have been countless nights of her tracing them, saying how they are like the constellations she has read about. In turn he has connected her freckles and beauty marks to create constellations of his own, like he used to do with another Black, so different yet the same.

“I won’t have to miss ya!” Avior’s smile makes today’s news disappear from their minds for the duration of dinner, until they finish and clean up, until they sit the girls down in the living room again and Remus finally tells her.

“I never told you how Sirius ended up in Azkaban,” he starts with Lorelei next to him. The mother has been so much support for him for over a decade now, it almost felt like having a mother again himself.

“But I do know,” Avior can’t help but interrupt. “He murdered twelve Muggles and a wizard.”

“Not just any wizard, Ivy,” Remus continues with a sigh that speaks of tears of exhaustion and grief. “The wizard’s name was Peter Pettigrew, he was our friend…”
The presence of Juliette and Lorelei tunes out, only her father’s words remain clear as she listens to the story of what happened all those years ago that left her with one parent instead of both.

“James and Lily Potter, they were in danger along with their son. Voldemort was looking for him, Harry, so the Potters went into hiding. Sirius… he was extremely close to James and their Secret Keeper. We were all friends; Sirius, James, Peter, and I. From our very first year, we were all in Gryffindor.
None of us had expected Sirius to betray the Potters, but when he did… Peter went to find him. I don’t know why— perhaps he wanted to confront him. But Sirius killed him along with twelve Muggles. He was laughing when he was arrested, they say. He was not the man that I fell in love with.”

Remus always felt like he should have known, like he should have seen a sign — anything, anything that would have made Sirius’s intentions clear. Nothing ever did, nothing ever pointed at his true motives. He was a loyal friend, lover and godfather. Or so it seemed.

“James Potter was also your godfather, Ivy.”
She squints as if she is trying to see the words that leave his mouth better.

“Yes,” Remus nods, noticing the question marks in her eyes, “he was your godfather. You and Harry would have grown up together, but he was brought to his aunt and uncle, his only living relatives.”

“But does that not make us family in a way?” Avior asks while everything else slowly sinks in. Even if they were, Harry does not seem to want anything to do with her; a Slytherin, a Black— from a bad family, like the Malfoys, as Ron has told him before. She scowls.

“Not that I care,” she puts in, which is part-lie. Her and Harry could have grown up as god-siblings, they could have been a proper family. Avior would have had another aunt and two uncles.
The familiar flame is relit when she realises that Sirius Black caused all of this, he is behind it all. Their deaths, the lack of family. And when she looks at Remus, there is the glimmer of hurt in his eyes that he always hides. Sirius did that, he ruined his lover, killed his friends, left Harry an orphan and Avior to a reputation. It is all his fault.

By the time the mother and daughter have left, and Remus has gone to sleep after kissing Avior goodnight, she slips out of bed again to switch the light on again and gather all the newspapers she got earlier.
There is a journal under her bed that she only started a year prior which she pulls out. In the journal are news clippings and as much information as she has so far gathered about a certain werewolf. Avior grabs a new, empty journal out of a drawer, and she sits cross legged on the floor, placing both journals in front of herself.
She starts with putting the papers in chronological order. Date after date, year after year, decade after decade.
Then she sorts the newspapers and their pages, separating them from one another to make two piles. There is more to be found on Fenrir Greyback than Sirius Black in most of the Prophets that she got. Until she gets towards the end, there are multiple front pages all about Sirius and the hearing he actually did not get.
There is one particular Daily Prophet about a different Black, she puts that one aside in its own pile where it remains as the only paper.
Avior takes the first journal; it contains pages full of Greyback, what he is like, where he has been, what he looks like. He is still free to this day. It makes her blood boil that he has yet to be captured and imprisoned. On the other hand, Avior hopes she can train herself to be strong and then even stronger, and hopefully one day give him what he deserves.
Avior sets to cutting the images and pieces of information in the journal, adding them to old pages and filling new ones all the same. She has specific pages on his physical description. More pages on his attacks. Other ones about his background. When she is done with those, it is past midnight and she opens the clean journal, which isn’t empty anymore when she starts to go through the same routine of cutting and adding clippings about Sirius Black.
She saves the single article about his brother for last.

BLACK HEIR DEAD

There is a large image of Regulus Black underneath it. She doesn’t bother reading the article, but she does add the entire page to the journal on Sirius, folding it and leaving it in the very back of the journal.
He must have been a traitor and a Death Eater, too.