Meraki

Chapter 3: Umbrage

To see her sitting in the very front of any class is a wonder, no matter her skill or knowledge on the subject. Nevertheless, Avior has never looked forward to a Defense Against the Dark Arts class this much. She has always loved the subject, but to be taught by her father at school takes the cake.

“What’s your favourite cake?” She twists in her chair to look at Theodore. “Red velvet,” he says, knowing that it’s her favourite.

“Mine too,” she smiles, as if the coincidence is another sign that they were destined to be the best of friends. As if Theodore isn’t fighting a smile because she forgot yet again about a fact that she has told him before. Her eyes catch those of darkness, staring at her past Theodore’s head. Everett Rosier, also a Slytherin and related to a follower of Lord Voldemort. He shamelessly keeps eye contact with her for several seconds before he averts his gaze when Remus moves to stand before the class of fourth years. Avior stares a moment longer.

“What?” Theodore whispers as Remus begins his introduction to the class. “Rosier was looking,” she mutters in response, “again.” He is also on the Slytherin Quidditch team with her, though they barely speak if not needed outside of class and training. It isn’t the first time she has caught him staring. She sometimes isn’t sure whether he’s judging her or simply… looking.

“Maybe he has a crush,” Theodore suggests dryly. He is friends with Everett. “I’ll ask him.”

“And ya think he’d tell you? My closest friend?” Avior feels her face growing warmer. In response, Theodore scowls.

“No need to remind me,” he snaps and she frowns at his tone. “What has gotten your broom in a twist?”

“Your father is speaking. You should be paying attention,” Theodore avoids answering altogether, so Avior rolls her eyes but she remains silent anyway.

“… shall start on the topic of the Erkling.” With a wave of his wand, the chalk starts to write the title of today’s class on the board. Avior glances at Theodore again, but he stubbornly keeps his attention focused on Remus.

The Erkling
Classification XXXX

“They are larger than gnomes,” Remus starts, his gaze wandering across the faces of his students, lingering on his daughter for a split second longer. He knows of how much she reads —he can’t help but feel the pride of his child taking after him somewhat— and he definitely knows that she has enough knowledge on the Erkling to be able to skip this class.
As he continues to explain how Erklings are three feet tall on average and that they have an affinity for the taste of children, he is reminded of a certain person that his child looks a lot like —and behaves like— and who would most definitely have skipped a class he knew everything about already. Judging by the letters he’s previously gotten, Avior does skip a class or two every now and then, and she somehow always has a somewhat valid reason when he has asked her about it. He can’t help but smile a little when their eyes meet again and he pictures her skipping his own class.

“… and they lure children by entrancing them with a song. Not only do they use a song to lure children, they also enjoy shooting darts at unsuspecting victims.”
His seriousness —no pun intended— returns once he is rudely awakened by the memory of that someone with identical hair and sense of mischief, and the worry of him going to search out his daughter. Whichever reason there might be, Remus assumes the bad one. Sirius betrayed their friends, got three of them killed, but he also betrayed him, his partner, and their baby at the time.

“Erklings originate from the Black Forest in Germany and they speak the human language.”
Avior nudges Theodore’s arm, who is taking notes along with what Remus is telling them.

“I can give ya some notes later,” she whispers softly when he glares at her from being forced to look away from his parchment. Though she can be a distraction at times, she has never failed that promise. “Will you actually ask Rosier?” She then continues once Theodore puts his quill down — the sign that he has given in; he is listening and will expect notes later.

“Does it matter that much?” Theodore crosses his arms over his chest, his eyes glued to her father. “Fine,” he says as she opens her mouth to respond — which she quickly clamps shut. “I will ask. Now pay attention to Professor Lupin.”
Avior decides against reminding him that she doesn’t need to listen; she has told Remus about the Erkling herself almost exactly three years ago, though he merely pretended he didn’t remember anything about the creatures at the time. At the time, she wondered if they might be lurking in the woods behind their house. Remus assured her that they aren’t.
But Avior got what she wanted, so she leans back in her chair with a grin that has her father wondering what it is that she has up her sleeve. For a worryingly long second, he anticipates a practical joke of some sort — a warm welcome to his being a teacher, to his own daughter no less. But Avior remains silent the remainder of the class, besides the few times she raises her hand to answer a question. After the more-than-a-few letters Remus has received throughout the past three years about how much she chats during classes, he is surprised. Yet it warms something inside his chest all the same.

“And?” Avior places her black school bag carefully on the floor once the last student has filed out of the door. Her carelessness and clumsiness does not extend to her books.

Remus perks up. “And?” He repeats after her as she pushes a raven strand behind her ear like Sirius Black used to all the time.

“How is life as a teacher ?”
Theodore stands by the door, keeping his distance and the attention away from himself despite the slight stinging sensation he feels when he sees the father-daughter duo smiling and conversing in the softest of ways, which makes him want to turn the whole classroom upside down in a rage.

———

Life is unfair. The two best friends have learned it the hard way. Each missing a parent; a dead mother and a murderer father. Though they find solace in their friendship, even if that friendship is bordering something new and unknown, terrifying and exciting all the same.
He can’t help but notice for the first time how radiant her smile truly is while they have lunch in the Great Hall after Divination which followed their Defense class.

“Teddy?” She chuckles, pausing her story about the day she learned how to heal small cuts from Pomfrey when she realises that he isn’t listening. It is a story he has heard of before, twice. “What are ya daydreaming about?”

“Nothing,” he answers airily, “must be you rubbing off on me.”
Avior gets ready to defend herself when she is interrupted by a hand dropping a piece of paper on top of her sandwich in front of her. It is the familiar wanted poster image of Sirius Black. Next to it there are letters written in deep black ink, saying:

Like father like daughter

Theodore reads it a beat later than her and by the time it sinks in, Avior has already gotten up to follow the older student. He is walking away, sniggering to his friends on either side of him. When he glances over his shoulder, his eyebrows raise in surprise at the sight of Avior walking after them with rage written across her features.

“Connard,” she hisses under her breath. “Ava!” Theodore rushes to catch up to her before she does something that might get her in trouble.

“Too scared to face me?” She calls out to the boy, who looks like he is probably in his fifth year. Her cheeks heat up with anger, her hands already balling into fists with her right itching to grab her wand. She can’t seem to decide if she wants to use it or hit him physically.

The dark haired boy turns around, his friends following even though they look rather unsure if they should. “Why would I be scared of you?” The fifth year responds condescendingly. “Do you expect me to be afraid you might do what your filthy murderer of a f—”

Theodore’s hand grasps nothing but air when he tries to pull her back right as she lashes out against the boy once she has decided on the latter option. Her fist impacts his jaw with a loud crack, making him yell out in shock and fall back a couple paces.

“Avior Lupin-Black!” A stern voice booms behind her, but she doesn’t hear it — or refuses to. She steps forward the distance the boy withdrew when Theodore finally grabs her, keeping her from jumping the boy. His own hand flew up to his jaw, cradling it with an embarrassed flush of red tinting his face, near identical to the colour on hers, yet entirely different.

“Psycho just like your father!” The boy screams once he knows that she is being held back, finding his voice again.

Avior snarls. “You want me to—?”

Professor McGonagall suddenly obstructs her view of the older student, staring down at her with a clear warning in her eyes, effectively shutting her down.
Avior’s hand throbs from the hit, her chest heaves with deep breaths. She looks up at the professor defiantly, until her father steps up next to her and she deflates at the sight of his disappointment.
The Great Hall has gone deathly silent, but she doesn’t hear it above the angry white noise in her ears, asking her to release the adrenaline rushing her being. It only manifests in the trembling of her hands.

“As your Head of House is approaching,” McGonagall glances at someone behind Avior and Theodore, “I suggest you follow him.”

“Striking another pupil on the first day of class?” Severus Snape drawls as he leads the young girl to the dungeons. Avior mutters a few colourful French words under her breath, to which Snape glances down at her with contempt.

“You are like your father in many ways indeed.”
A wave of heat flows through her body from head to toe. She has to fight the urge to hit him, too. Hitting a member of staff might expel her, she thinks, but at this moment it seems well worth it.

“Oh yes,” she answers through gritted teeth, “we both take an interest in Defense Against the Dark Arts after all.”

She then smiles sweetly and sarcastically when he looks sideways at her again. “Perhaps I will take up the position of teaching it once I’m older and he’s sick of being your—”

“Detention for a month,” Snape interrupts her harshly as he comes to a stop, though he keeps as calm as he always seems to be, “every Tuesday and Thursday evening, with me.”

“But that is when I have extra Potions with you anyways,” she retorts, a little too triumphant at the realisation. Then her relief shrinks at the sight of his mocking smile that does not reach his eyes.

“Precisely.”
With that, Snape turns away from her and walks off swiftly, his black cloak and hair billowing after him. Avior glares at the back of him until he is out of her sight, wishing idly that her eyes are enough to curse the man, before she decides to spin around and return to the Great Hall.

“He could’ve just told me here that he was giving me detention,” she complains to Theodore the second she reunites with him at the entrance of the Hall. “What a waste of time and energy, that man.”

He chuckles at her irritation and it has her scowling at him next. They start to walk back to the Slytherin table, many eyes follow. Her right hand aches at her side, she shifts her focus to it as a means of distraction.

“If it counts for anything,” he says, shrugging in surrender, “I loved it.”

“Loved it?”

“The way you hit him,” Theodore clarifies with a sigh for the fact that he even had to explain it. “Not that you deserve to be treated the way you are, I like seeing you angry as long as it isn’t directed at me.”

“Teddy, you’re not making any sense,” she scoffs. Then his cheeks glow red and she averts her gaze when the sight of that makes her stomach turn, in a pleasant way. In the way that she often chases.
They reclaim their seats at the table and she grabs the piece of paper still laying on her sandwich to fold it and push it into her bag.

“Your hand,” he pipes up and he gently lifts it back onto the table. Her skin warms up in a way that has nothing to do with how hard she had hit the boy and the ache it caused.

“What? Will ya kiss it better?” Avior replies hastily with sarcasm, embarrassment rising in her stomach. It makes her feel sick. She pulls her hand out of his grasp and his gaze flashes back up to her face.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, concern lacing his tongue and wrapping around his words.

“Nothing,” she snaps.

“Dare,” she snaps, after he taunts her for not choosing Dare three times in a row. “Kiss me. Just a peck.”

There is a short silence, then Avior leans forward to kiss his cheek, but he leans back. “No,” he says, “here.” He points at his lips and she laughs. But he seems to actually be waiting.

“You’re serious?”

“A dare is a dare,” he shrugs. Then, before he has even processed her getting closer, she is already leaning back again after a simple, short peck on his lips. They are both blushing, a look so unusual on Theodore she can’t help but grin. “Truth or Dare, Teddy?”

He notices her taking a single short glance at his mouth, which wouldn’t be the first time, but he suddenly feels very conscious of it.

“Attitude,” he comments, but she ignores it, being far too focused on the sickening feeling inside of her.

———

Later that day, after classes have ended, Juliette finds her in the library, prepared to scold her for hitting another student earlier and getting detention on the first day of class, even in the library’s silence. Avior sees it coming by the look on her face; one that speaks of her title as Prefect and honorary older sister.

“Detention, Lune? Already?” Juliette whispers, taking the empty chair next to the raven haired girl.

She mumbles under her breath, “Didn’t invite you to this reading session.”

“Avior,” Juliette responds sternly, “you and I were both taught that violence is not the solution to any—”

“Non, we were taught wrong,” she interrupts, taking the rule of whispering in the library to her advantage by raising her voice just a bit, knowing that Juliette won’t break that rule.
Juliette raises her eyebrows. There has been a change in her little sister ever since the summer, and Juliette knows her like the back of her hand, she knows why. “I don’t simply hit people for the sake of it. He deserved it.”

“You shouldn’t ever hit people,” Juliette argues softly.

“He deserved it,” Avior repeats herself empathically with a firm look in the colours of her eyes, emphasising the grey hint in the green one.

“Bref, I wanted to talk to ya about Teddy…” The air around them shifts and Juliette leans closer immediately, her planned lecture on violence as a means of solution and resolution entirely forgotten as curiosity comes in its place.
Avior closes the book in front of her that she plans on taking back to her dorm, to then toy with the corner of it in a rare yet usual display of nervousness.

“Yes?” She whispers, slightly impatient as Avior hesitates.

She shrugs. “Je ne sais pas. Just wanted to talk.” Her words come out strange, like she isn’t the one speaking them.

Then Juliette notices the blush darkening on her cheeks and she lets out a quiet gasp. “Do you like him?” She scoots her chair even closer until it hits hers, grabbing her hand, though she lets go when Avior winces at the sudden pressure on her lightly bruised knuckles.

“No!” Avior forgets to be quiet in her rush to answer, pulling her hand towards herself. The thought of liking her best friend alone is absurd. One can’t like like their best friend, right? It would make the world flip on its axis. Best friends are supposed to be just best friends. But do they kiss?

“I think you do,” Juliette grins. “Look at you, you’re getting all red. C’est adorable.”

“You’re insane and wrong. He is my best friend, that’s it. Boys and girls can be friends!” She hisses in defence. “You have boy friends, too. Doesn’t mean ya like them.”

A short silence in which Juliette continues to stare at her with that same grin. “Besides, that would be weird anyway,” Avior goes on, rambling out of jitteriness, “you would like multiple boys at once, many boys. That is insanity. I don’t like boys at all.”

“Sure,” Juliette interrupts her. “But Teddy doesn’t count, right?” Her voice sounds mocking in a way Avior would only ever take from her.

She scowls at her nonetheless. “Don’t call him that,” she whispers sharply.

“It’s your nickname for him,” her sister already answers before she can even open her mouth again to elaborate. “Forgot.” Though if the look on her face is anything to go by, she did not forget; a mischievous smile that only ever shows on Avior’s.

“I have to go do my homework,” Avior suddenly decides, pushing her chair back to get up. “Bonne nuit, Jules.”
She grabs the book on the table and her bag, then bends down to kiss Juliette’s cheek, who allows her to go without argument, knowing that she will win this eventually.

“Goodnight,” Juliette calls after her softly, watching the younger girl walk away with her curls bouncing slightly.

Avior brings the book on The Sacred Twenty-Eight up to Madam Pince at the entrance of the library, greeting her sweetly and checking it out. She takes her supposed homework back to her common room, immediately through to her dormitory. Irene Melrose looks up from her conversation with an older Slytherin, an irritated frown painting her face upon seeing her dorm mate who is related to a murderer. Although Avior wants to comment on it, she decides against it and simply moves to her bed to drop the book and her bag on it.
Out of her trunk she takes out one notebook and her pyjamas. But she doesn’t get in bed just yet, she pushes the notebook under her book bag on her bed and takes her pyjamas to the bathroom with her, trying to ignore the way Irene’s whispers start up behind her out of which she makes out the words ‘freak’ and ‘Azkaban’.
After having changed into her soft pyjamas and brushing her teeth, taking as long as possible, Avior returns to their dormitory. Irene’s friend is gone and she has left the room, so Avior deems it safe to have some peaceful time on her own.
She closes the drapes around her bed once she gets in it and takes out her favourite pen from her bag that she got from Remus, who introduced her to pens that Muggles use.
Despite moving them to lay down the notebook and book on The Sacred Twenty-Eight in front of her, her hands are very still and always have been. She flips open the book on a page she had already marked;

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
Family Tree

Her gaze catches onto a particular name first; her own. Avior Black, it says in cursive, connected and underneath the name Sirius Black. Next to him is Regulus.

Avior takes two sheets of parchment out of her school bag and lays them both on each page of the family tree, then grabs her wand. She mutters a spell to duplicate the images and text of the pages onto her parchment.
Opening the notebook to the next empty page, she adds the family tree, glueing them stuck with a simple charm to extend from the notebook. She grabs her pen and draws a tiny star in front of her own name before she adds Lupin underneath it with an arrow pointing upwards. A small smile plays on her lips at the sight of it.
No one else is a Lupin-Black but her, she owns the name in every way.
She starts humming softly as she underlines the names Sirius and Regulus, then moves onto their cousins; Bellatrix Black, born in 1951; Andromeda Black, born in 1953; Narcissa Black, born in 1955; Antares Black, born in 1964.
Avior scoffs upon reading the name of the eldest sister, knowing what has come of the infamous witch. Currently being locked up in Azkaban, the Wizarding World is safe from her reign of madness and terror. Most saw her as the Dark Lord’s right hand, being one of his worst and most loyal followers, but there was one Death Eater seen as his successor. Some even argued that he was and could be the heir to the throne. But he remains masked and faceless to this day.
Narcissa Black she apparently knows already, mother to Draco Malfoy, her own housemate. Though Andromeda she has never heard of, along with Antares. Those two names she underlines. However, she doesn’t bother adding anything to Bellatrix’s name. She is not worthy of her time since her only motive is either revenge or missing pieces.

She flips to the next page in her notebook, followed by finding the name Andromeda Black in the book. There is a large section on Bellatrix and one on Narcissa, but only a few lines about Andromeda, saying:

Andromeda Black is the second eldest daughter born to Cygnus and Druella on the nineteenth of the ninth month in 1953.
She was sorted into Slytherin House and got to be disowned once she married a Muggleborn, tampering with her family’s Pureblood line.

Avior perks up at the underwhelming amount of text. Not all of her family was bad after all. She happily scribbles down a few lines in her notebook.

Andromeda married a Muggleborn and got herself disowned. A good one.
Plus, she was a Slytherin too like me.

Then, she continues down to the paragraph about Antares, which is longer than Andromeda’s, but not as long as the eldest and third sister.

Antares Black is their only son and heir, born on the thirteenth of the first month in 1964. He was a Slytherin like his sisters, though they had long graduated once he was sorted. He showed exceptional skill and knowledge during his school years, impressing his peers and mentors, and achieving high marks. A trait he inherited from his parents, along with his two sisters.
Before his graduation he decided to follow in his eldest sister’s footsteps and became a Death Eater, but Bellatrix remained the most loyal and fanatic of the family. Despite this fact, he was well respected, though not as relevant as other names amongst the Dark Lord’s followers.

Her nose scrunches in disgust and she writes down his name on the top of a new page in her notebook, adding Death Eater under it. Then underneath that, ‘youngest’, ‘only son’, and ‘Slytherin’. It isn’t much, but judging by the paragraph, he was not as important as his sister anyway.
Avior moves onto the two closest Death Eaters to her in her family, flipping pages until she finds Sirius’s name, where she is met with a piece that takes her by surprise by mentioning her own name.

Sirius Black was born on the third of the eleventh month in 1959. He was the heir until he was disowned after he ran from his own, abandoning his title and family. He was a Gryffindor and blood-traitor.
A few days before his twenty-second birthday he was arrested for the mass murder of twelve Muggles and a wizard, for which he was arrested and remains in Azkaban to this day.
He is the father of Avior Black.

How could a Death Eater be a blood-traitor? Avior reads the third and fourth sentences again, and once more. Yet she still can’t make sense of it.
Her stomach turns at the sight of her name at the very bottom, putting it in black on white that she is his. She sighs softly before she takes another —this time smaller— piece of parchment to copy the entire short paragraph and pastes it into her notebook. Avior then continues to Regulus’s piece.

Regulus Black was born on the twenty-fifth of the sixth month in 1961, and he became the heir once his brother was disowned. He was sorted into Slytherin House, like his parents, and was the only one of them to join the Dark Lord’s following. Though it ultimately ended in his death in 1979. His death still remains a mystery.

Avior does not hesitate in copying his piece into her notebook as well and adding a short sentence to remind herself to look into his activity as a Death Eater more. She flips to the next page to see if she isn’t missing anything until she shockingly realises that she is.
It isn’t much, but there is a single sentence about her; Avior Black, born on the fourth of the third month in 1979, is a Slytherin.

Before she closes the book, she draws another tiny star by her name in the actual book, making a one time exception.
As Avior slips out of bed through the drapes to put everything away, the door to the dormitory clicks and opens, letting in her roommates. She glances past them at the opening, remembering that she promised to find Theodore before she actually went to sleep.
So once her notebook, the book, and her bag are safely tucked away in her trunk, she quietly escapes the suffocating presence of her roommates that have never once liked her, out into the common room.
She is not the only one in her pyjamas, yet many students gawk at her as if she is doing something unusual. Ignoring the stares, Avior quickly finds her best friend sitting in his habitual spot by the fireplace. She quickly walks up to the armchair and heavily drops herself onto the arm.

“Hey—! Oh, it’s you,” Theodore says, having been startled by her sudden appearance.

“How lovely to see you as well,” she replies sarcastically and he rolls his eyes. “Could’ve announced your arrival instead of dropping in like that.”

“I liked to see the look of surprise, then annoyance, then love on your face because ya realised it’s me and love me so much,” she smiles unduly.

“Whatever,” he mumbles under his breath as she slides down the side of the chair to try and scoot in next to him, even if there is absolutely no space enough for that with the way he has grown over the summer.

“Move,” she complains. “I can’t!” He hisses.

She ends up sitting more on her left side once she gives up with a deep sigh, facing him. “How is your hand?” Theodore asks. She holds her right hand out with the palm down.

“It didn’t hurt that much in the first place, but it’s better now. I have my bruise paste with me that I can use on it,” Avior explains.

Right as she goes to drop her hand again, he takes it gently. “Let’s do that then,” he says, lifting himself off the armchair surprisingly easily with her squeezing them both in. He hasn’t let go of her hand yet, instead waiting for her to get up with him, then letting her lead the way to her dormitory.

“Hi, Theo!” Mia Sallow, another one of Avior’s roommates, greets the boy as they walk in. He ignores it, knowing how they all treat his best friend, while Avior glares at her.
She snickers and turns to Irene to whisper something in her ear, to which they both laugh quietly. They both glance at Theodore’s hand wrapped around her wrist and then go back to whispering again.
Avior pulls him towards her bed before she makes him let go of her to grab the pot of paste out of her trunk. Her cheeks grow warmer and warmer as she catches onto a snippet of Mia’s words; “I’ll ask him to go to Hogsmeade together.”

Avior starts to get an ache in her stomach with her frustration. “Teddy,” she says rather loudly once she sits down next to him on the edge of her bed with her back turned to the two girls, for all of her roommates to hear. Lydia Overcliff looks up, too. “I want to go to Zonko’s first when we go to Hogsmeade together.”
Theodore raises an eyebrow at the rather odd emphasis.

“I could have guessed that,” he responds a beat later, “we always go there first.”

Finally, Avior smiles triumphantly and hands him the paste. “You’re right.”

Mia doesn’t say another word about him, or at least not loud enough for other ears to pick it up, and Theodore stays for a while longer even once he has finished coating her knuckles with the paste.
He is there and stays for Avior only, he has not once looked or so much as glanced at any of the other girls around them.
Slowly, all of the drapes around the beds close and even Avior’s, yet their whispers carry on for an even longer while, as she insists on him staying just a few minutes more, thrice, turning it into another hour.
At last, Theodore sneaks away once she has fallen asleep and back to his own dorm, telling Everett all about the way she lights up when she smiles and how her eyes glitter like they have stars in them.