Meraki

Chapter 6: Crestfallen

The burn of eyes digging into her flesh, trying to pull back every layer and uncover her very essence, lay it all out for the world to see, follows Avior wherever she goes. Not one step goes by without being watched.
Many —if not all— students have started to theorise and speculate about Sirius Black’s break-in, and how he did it. A rather large portion of those students have mentioned Avior in their theories. A smaller group of those students have started to follow her. Almost every time she glances over her shoulder in the corridors, there is a small set of students whispering and keeping a watchful eye on her.

Thursday evening of the same week, she has finally had enough. Avior has locked the bathroom door once her roommates have gone to sleep, a knife in her hand. Studying her reflection in the mirror, she is reminded of the memory Remus sometimes reminisces about; she had only been seven, managed to magically lock the bathroom door to cut her own hair, when the young father finally came in, she was holding one out of two braids.
Avior pretends to be seven years old again and that the sole reason for cutting her hair is a childish one, not the amount of comparisons she gets between herself and a murderer. She is holding scissors and not a knife. Her long black locks are hanging down her back, the ends of them curling more than the top and reaching her hip bones.

One slide of the blade and a chunk of them fall to the lighter tiles of the floor. A blob of black, so out of place. She cuts again, and again, and again. Until suddenly, the ends of her jet black hair don’t even reach her chin anymore.
Avior stares at the sea of dusk at her feet. Her head feels much lighter. She raises her eyes back to the mirror, and down to her cut-off locks drops her heart. The beating stills, it feels like. Distaste rises in her throat like bile. She looks ugly. This isn’t her. Avior equals long hair, black and curly, and down to her hips, if not longer. This is anything but her.
Her gaze drops and she pulls her wand out of her pyjamas pockets to disappear the hair around her, unable to take it a second longer to know that it isn’t connected to her person anymore.
To her own surprise, tears well up in her eyes; Avior rarely cries. She leaves the knife as if it was the one to use her hand and not her hand it, and rushes out of the bathroom. The relief and lack of weight she had felt only seconds ago has diminished and she is throwing her wand onto her bed to then hurriedly leave the dormitory, without a single sound to wake her roommates.

In the exact same dormitory, only those of the boys, she stops by a familiar bed she has sat in many times before. Whether to read or simply speak, she has never been here to wake up Theodore because she impulsively cut her hair off.

Avior whispers, “Teddy.” Her throat feels thick, a single teardrop falls from her eye and lands on his arm. She shakes him gently, growing more upset with every moment he doesn’t wake up. “Ted, s’il te plaît.”

“Wha’?” He grumbles sleepily and attempts to shake her off when she nudges him again and he finally wakes.

“Ava? What is it?”

She has never come to wake him up, so he startles fully awake and sits up in an instant. “What? What happened?” He mutters, his voice not as quick to awaken.

“I did something bad,” she breathes. More tears follow her words. “Something awful.”
Avior tugs on his sleeve to get him out of bed and he slowly follows, not quite sure what to make of the situation in his concerned and still tired state. He doesn’t seem to realise that her silhouette in the dark is missing something pivotal. Avior urges him forward, to leave the dormitory before her.

“Ava, what did you do?” Theodore turns around when they reach the common room and its lighting, and his jaw falls slack. At this, his physical reaction, Avior bursts into tears. A hiccuping noise escapes her and she clamps her hands over her mouth to muffle herself as she starts to cry dramatically.

He scrambles to stop her crying immediately, now wide awake and pulling her into his arms. “Wait— It’s not— Ava, it’s not bad! Why is this bad?”

“My hair! It’s ugly,” she sobs, muffled.

“Did someone do this to you?” Theodore asks with horrified eyes. He can barely make out the ‘I did’ from under her hands and with her face buried in his chest, tears starting to taint his shirt.

“What?” He blurts out breathlessly, staring at her short hair in sharp surprise. Theodore has known from the start of their friendship just how much she loves her own hair and even more the length of it. “Why?”
His question only fuels her tears even as she tries harder to keep them from escaping.

“I look like him.”
Though vague, Theodore does not need her to elaborate to understand what she is referring to — or rather who.

“Avior,” his voice cuts through her crying so severely, she can’t help but go quiet at once. He steps back minimally and rests his hands on her shoulders to look into her tear stained face. Skin so pale it could be porcelain, apart from the reddened spots around her eyes, which only makes the green in her right one stand out more.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” says Theodore, stern yet tender. “You are your own person. No matter if you have the hair of your family, or the eyes of another. All of it combined is you. No one has your heart and soul, Ava.”
The silence that follows allows his words to sink into her mind and then her being wholly. Her tears have come to a stop, the last one dropping from her jaw and never to be seen again. Theodore’s thumbs move to wipe their proof of having existed and gone are their traces.

“I must say,” he continues, a small grin tugging at his lips, it almost makes her smile, “you can’t ever look ugly. Your hair is pretty like this, too, but if it makes you feel better, we can search for a potion or a spell to make it grow back faster. Together.”

At that, she nods eagerly. “Please,” she breathes out, “I don’t like it like this. It’s not me.”

———

It is only hours after she cried to Theodore about her obsidian hair so dear to her, its length gone and all her own doing. Yet it is not. The looks, the comments, the taunting, they all pushed her hand to move, they all made her act.
It is the following morning since she cut it and then proceeded to weep about it to Theodore who had firstly stood speechless at the sight of her hair as well as gone from one moment to the next. It is now that she sports a seemingly permanent scowl on her face as she enters the common room from her dorm, not having yet faced the reactions of her dormmates to her hair. While her goal was to look less like Sirius, less like a Black, she has never looked the part this much.

From the corner of the room, by the glass window, Everett Rosier is busy finishing up the next line of his essay. Working on the paper for Transfiguration class leaves his hand cramping and his eyes tired. The Great Lake takes hold of his interest. He is trying to find a certain creature when he sees a shadow of a reflection in the glass. Avior. His brows furrow, soft frown plasters on his face. Her hair. It’s gone. And despite the shock, despite losing all the familiarity, despite seeing her with such a great part of herself gone; Everett still has never seen anything more beautiful. She is still Avior. Fierce, strong, and blunt just like the cut. The curls might be gone but she is still the same girl, and he cannot help staring. He wants to make a comment but she looks like she is ready to spew fire, yet that almost makes it more enticing. At the end of the day, he is still looking at the eyes of the girl his mind longs to. Those will never change. 

That thought alone makes him speak up against his mind.

“New tie? No, wait — I got it. New shoes, huh?”

Avior stops in her tracks upon hearing a voice so familiar and once realising that that voice is speaking to her. Her scowl deepens although it does not seem possible for it to.

There is a sharp silence between them, the chatter of the rest of the common room going silent from the angry buzzing in her ears.

“Are ya mocking me?”

With a few quick steps, she is standing in front of him, her hand itching to grab her wand and burn his hair off. “You disgust me,” she spits out, desperate to get rid of at least a fraction of the wildfire inside her. She wants to hurt.

“I will make sure you need a new pair of shoes if you keep that up,” she adds, staring down at him in the chair with such contempt, he might as well have insulted her father to her face.

“Mocking? No. Never. I couldn’t mock you about this if I even tried or wanted to.” His head tilts to the side, not bothering to conceal anything as he blatantly stares. She has done a good job covering the fact that she’s upset. A good job done hiding the tears shed.

Everett wants to make a slick comment about what colour shoes he should get after, but he bites his tongue. Something she has taught him unknowingly. Patience and awareness are not traits the young boy has practice in. He wasn’t taught to be kind, proper but not friendly. 

“Why did you do it?” Everett shoves his hands in his pockets. He fears that if he is not sitting on them he will do something stupid; make her turn around so he can see better or stand up and reach out and grasp a strand. Everett wouldn’t mind what hex comes out of her mouth then, it would somewhat appease the fire within him he feels.

“And that is your business how exactly?” She snaps. Avior has been nothing but on edge these past few days since Sirius Black broke into the castle. Less because of how close he had been, more because of the chain reaction it caused. The staring at her has increased, but that is not the problem. Some students have resorted to following her in the corridors. She takes note of every face and name every day, listing those that she will need to get back at one day.

“Besides, why do you care? You do nothing but stare at me every day. You’re no better than the rest of them.”

“It’s not my business, I’m just curious.” Although the second set of words tumbling from her mouth extinguish everything inside of Everett quickly. No better than the rest of them. It stings. It does its job. He is not sure why it bothers him but it does.
He can feel the ugly thoughts appearing back in his mind, ready to use every single one on her. He is nothing like the rest. He is better. He knows it. He is a lot nicer to her than what he has to be. Everett Rosier is not like anyone else in the world, especially when it comes to how he treats her.

“I am much better than anyone else. I treat you,” his finger jabs at the air, harsh and towards her. He is annoyed and his voice gives that much away. “… as well as some of your closest friends. I don’t stare in pity or disgust. Do not group me with them.”

The back of his neck is warm. Everett is lucky he doesn’t turn so red so easily, but that doesn’t take away from the disappointment. And what is even worse is that he is upset with himself for even being disappointed in the first place. This has nothing to do with him. The boy isn’t the victim here. He is not even suffering. She is, she is on the receiving end of everything cruel right now. And he is just a miserable boy complaining.

Yet, her dissimilar eyes glitter at his reaction. This is just what she needs. The urge to push his buttons further is great, to make him angry, to make him say things that she is sure will hurt, anything to distract herself.

“So why do you stare?” Her curiosity gets the best of her. “If not to pick apart all the ways in which I look like an escapee. If not because you are once more realising how much I look like a mass murderer, then why?” Being able to look down at him only fuels her, finally towering over him the way most older students do when they have something to say yet again.

“You merely stare. Incomparable to my friends who actually care about me.”

Why? So many reasons but they were all impractical. Stupid. No meaning. Just because he wants to. Because he can. “I stare because I know you’re more than capable of doing well. You’re more than the daughter of Sirius Black. You’re more than the daughter of a murderer. You’re a great witch and the product of growth from Professor Lupin.”

Everett matches her stare. He stays in his seated position. He is not trying to intimidate her or get in her face. He doesn’t need to or want to, he has no reason. Everett doesn’t want to make her feel small and in no universe would she feel small. 

“You have his hair, you have other features that look like his. But so what? Will you kill my mother if I piss you off? You have so much of Professor Lupin in you, not to mention your friends. I swear you have so many annoying habits you’ve picked up from stupid Theodore. It drives me mad.”
He crosses his arms defensively. He has so much more to say and go on about. Everett hates how easily she gets under his skin. It’s not fair.

His words of praise and admiration dissipate upon speaking his last sentence.

“Don’t call him stupid,” says Avior, spitting the words out like venom. “But pray tell which of his habits I’ve picked up, since you know me so well, since you stare so much that you see everything.”

Her arms cross over her chest and she starts to squeeze her arm as hard as she can, hard enough to make it hurt. What she did not need was to be told that she has his hair, or that she looks like him in other ways. Avior wishes she was a Metamorphmagus with the ability to change her appearance at will. She would never look like him and be compared to him again.

“I don’t know.” Everett lets out a breath. He didn’t think this through. A good part of him wishes to tell her to go away, but he wouldn’t mean it. “But I swear your head is going to grow twice as big as his.”

He pauses. She stares, unimpressed with his response and head much thicker than hers or Theodore’s.

“You have never cared about people and their obnoxious opinions and behaviours. I know this time it is different, I’m not saying you should act like it doesn’t exist. But what I’m saying is the real people in your life know who and what you are. You’re better than them. And it looks good, Avior. Your hair looks equally as good now as it did before.”

With a small smile, he picks up his quill and twirls it in his fingers. “I guess I’m officially the only one here with the best set of curls.”

“Not if I bury yours with mine,” she responds through gritted teeth. No matter what he says, no matter how pretty he smiles, she is only getting more frustrated, angrier. Even something as silly as a joke about his having the best curls has her on edge. Hers were better until the circumstances forced her to act, to cut them.

“And don’t you ever dare say something about Teddy again. I thought you two were supposed to be friends, but you’re mean. He isn’t.”
Not so shockingly, Everett’s comments about Theodore rile her up more than anything he has said regarding her looks or Sirius Black.

“You don’t deserve him.”

His eyes narrow at her words. A slap in the face because he knows he doesn’t deserve Theodore. Not in the way that she or his other friends do.

“He is my friend. I see him as a brother, though I doubt he would agree, but I don’t blame him. He has nicer people in his life to say the least,” he replies back bitterly. “He’s lucky to have you all.”

Avior almost wants to cut in, to say that she is the lucky one to have Theodore even consider their friendship.

“At least one of us deserves him. But that’s what makes our friendship different.” He plays it off. “He is my brother but your friend, we are thicker in ways you two aren’t.”

Though both students know that if she asks Theodore right now, he would always pick his Avior over Everett.

Still, her blood boils at the suggestion; that these supposed brothers are closer than her being his… friend.

“He is not just my friend,” she snaps, stepping even closer and leaning over him now. There is a hesitant pause between her previous and the next words she speaks, “He is my best friend. He is with me more than he is with you.”

Her hands urge to grab him, to shake him and make him see the truth. There is not a single universe in which it is possible that Theodore isn’t all hers, that he is better with anyone else than with her. Her Aunt Lorelei has told her before how much she is like a dragon in her possessive ways, and how Juliette agreed. Avior loves dragons, anyway.

“You don’t know him like I do.”
Everett could swear that he sees little flames in the grey and green of her eyes, overpowering each colour.

“He is mine, do ya hear me? You just said his habits are annoying, you don’t even love him, I do.”

A smug smile sits on his face. It angers her to no extent. 

“Your need for love and care from others is going to kill you one day. You can’t let people and their words get too close. Even your best friends.”
He takes a deep breath in. The words don’t sound quite right coming from him. They sound robotic, when in reality Everett wishes he was Theodore to someone. 

“I can’t possibly know him like you do, but I know he’s human. You put him on a pedestal so high and keep him all to yourself. It’s going to push a wedge in between you one day. There’s other people in his life. Not just you.”
Everett feels trapped, as if he’s behind bars. He might have made it seem that all of her friends are locked up but it is who Everett truly is. He wishes to be locked up with the rest of them, then maybe he wouldn’t be so miserable. So unkind and alone.

“I don’t put him on a pedestal,” Avior starts to splutter, grasping words as they attempt to escape her. She isn’t sure why, but his response hurts. And quite literally being told that she isn’t the only one to Theodore, she refuses to believe it even if Everett’s words dig deeply into her chest and seek out her heart.

“You’re just mean. And jealous. And you’re pathetic. You said you’re not like the rest of them, but you are just as awful.”
Tears threaten to fill her eyes, everything starting to build up from her father’s escape, to the constant comments and comparisons, to his break-in, to cutting her own hair and now this. She had actually wanted to be his friend before. The upcoming tears are gone just as quickly as they appeared, merely flickering in her eyes before they become hard once more. She wants to punch him, she wants to squeeze her own arm until it bleeds.

Now it is Everett’s turn to sit in a short moment of triumph. He hurt her the same way she did to him. It feels good, for a second, then another feeling crawls its way up. It makes Everett shiver slightly. He is being mean, he knows that. But Everett always will believe that he is right and truthful, not hiding behind any fairy tales.

“I’m being real. There is nothing to be jealous about. I’m not awful or pathetic. I have tried to be a decent person to you. I don’t believe you’re anything like Black nor do I blame you for anything that’s happened. But I’m not going to baby you or coddle you. I know you’re not an older woman, but you’re mature and old enough to understand these things, always have been. So for the love of Merlin, wake up and use your brain. Don’t play dumb.”

Normally he doesn’t mind being seen as a cruel monster. He actually likes that more. But letting Avior down; that hurts more than any sort of punishment to endure.

It happens in a fraction of a second. Finally, she snaps and she has the tip of her wand pressed into the underside of his chin, her other hand gripping his tie tightly as she leans over him, glowering at him with not a fire, no, but a raging storm in her eyes.

“I’m not playing dumb,” she hisses, her heart pounding inside her ribcage, furiously, feverishly. Where her hair would have curtained around them with the way she is hanging over him, it now only hides the sides of her face, but it does not stop their housemates from looking.

“I will turn you into a rat, I will, for even suggesting that I don’t understand.”
Her minty, cold breath fans his lips and she has half the mind to hex them shut. Being this close to her in her anger, Everett can tell the grey spots in her green eye. The Black inside her tainting the Wolf.

“You don’t know me, so don’t bother pretending that you do.”

“Do it. Prove to me whose daughter you truly are then. I might not know you, but I certainly know enough for myself.”
His eyes bounce around her face. A true Slytherin. It makes him smile. 

Her cheekbones are sharp and her eyes are ablaze. The hair does everything and more for her. There is no shadow from her curls but shadows from every line and every cut of her face. In this moment, he can’t help but see flickers of Sirius Black; and that is not a bad thing at all to him. Usually Everett doesn’t see anything behind peoples eyes when they threaten another, but there is a promise filling every millimetre of her eyes. No part of her body is left to give him a second chance or even think about forgiving him and his harsh words.

He is damned. He is in ruins. It makes his heart race knowing that he actually has some tinge of fear running in his blood. He is not afraid of her, but she’s doing one hell of a job. Everett doesn’t waste a second blinking, he can’t look away. Will she do it or not?

“I hope your transfiguration skills are up to par.”

“I am my father’s daughter,” she spits out, “nothing more, nothing less. I am his and only his.”

Remus would not approve of the way she is handling this, the way she is reacting. She has Sirius’s temper, he has always recognised it. Yet here she is claiming to be only his, she only belongs to Remus.

“But you’re just another rude Slytherin boy,” she adds, her eyes travelling down and up his face. Part of her wants to see how far she can go until he breaks. Everyone has a breaking point, it is just a matter of finding out how to reach it.

“Nothing more, nothing less,” Avior echoes her own words and she pushes her wand into his flesh a tad harder, while her grip on his tie tightens, pulling him forward slightly. Her knuckles have gone white from how hard she is squeezing the fabric that matches her own perfectly. But of course. She is a snake as well after all.

He lets out a tight laugh. “Then I fit right in. I fit into my house and my role. I actually am honest about who I am and don’t hide behind a façade. I am also my mother’s and father’s son. I’m proud to be a snake. Are you?”

He is not that scared of her, but he sees similarities amongst the people he fears. He lets out a sigh, acting unbothered. He hates how he is actually having fun. 

“Pull the trigger, Rory, we are all waiting.” His eyes challenge hers. “How would he feel if he saw this?” 

Everett knows which ‘he’ he mentions and is talking about. But he wants to leave it up to her, leave it for her interpretation.

“I don’t hide, never have. I’m proud of who I am.”
The tip of her wand starts to burn and tingle against his skin, flowing from her anger and through her hand wrapped around the wood and into its core of dragon heartstring.
She ignores his last question; Remus would not be proud, but if she then explained, he would understand. The issue is that she never explains. Refusing to worry him with anything that bothers her to this extent, she doesn’t like to tell him. At least not until he pushes it out of her, if he does.

“You are far too judgmental for someone that claims to be better than those that have an opinion of me without knowing me either,” says Avior fiercely, pulling on his tie harder. “What do you care, Rosier? Why are you always staring? Why do you pretend that you know me in any way at all?”

“I don’t. But if you want me to care, I can? I’ll make it my very mission. Be the only person who cares for you and shows interest. But you’d hate that, you’d beg to differ that it will never amount to what everyone else gives you. So I don’t care, and no need to pretend to know you. I know exactly who you are from what you put on. How you carry yourself and everything.”
His light curls brush against her forehead as he leans in.

The hatred in her eyes is strong. The warmth underneath his chin increases. He will get her back if he does turn into a rat. Something worse. Maybe her hair, or stupid eyes. Definitely those stupid eyes and freckles. He needs them gone. 

“You hid behind that hair of yours, so why don’t you own the short hair? You can’t hide now.”

“I never hid behind it,” she replies, only getting angrier with the second. She loved her long hair, it was her. Remus loved it. It belonged to her, it was the image of her. “I don’t hide. You have got me all wrong if ya think that’s what I do. You can’t even pretend to know me.”

If there is something Avior doesn’t do, it’s running away. That is one thing Remus has taught her; to face everything that comes her way head-on; to never be afraid.
His audacity to declare that he knows her, in any way at all, makes her blood boil.

“You don’t know how I carry myself and don’t know who I am, Rosier. So quit pretending. Quit trying. You will never know me.”

Whispers have risen from around them, but it is less than what she is used to either way. They catch vague hints of their names being said, and mentions of her hair.

Part of him wants to beg to get to know her. Beg her to tell him everything, nothing will bore him or have him scared. But that isn’t Everett. He wouldn’t beg for that, especially to be somewhere he isn’t wanted.

“I’ll quit whenever I want to. You’re not the boss of me. So many people have the wrong idea of you.”
This time his hand twitches in his pocket. Her hair looks so soft, it’s unfair. 

“I might be wrong. I might not be Theodore, Greengrass, or Tristan, but I’m not scared of you. And I won’t ever fear you.” 

His quill is long gone. Fallen between his legs somewhere and he cannot see his parchment paper. She might tower over him but he can still see past her shoulder. The curious and nosy eyes fall onto them. Where are her friends now?

Her fist that is holding onto his tie is pushing against his chest, harsher with her growing frustrations. “Quit because you don’t know me and you won’t. Quit because you have got it all wrong. I’m not some weakling, I don’t hide, nor do I run from anything. You don’t know me, Rosier, no matter how badly you wish that you do.”

Her tone has lowered to a hiss, a whisper so like the snake she represents.

“They might have the wrong idea of me, but so do you.”

She wishes he would be scared of her, like some of the students that turn away quickly upon realising that she is looking their way, or those that go as far as creating a large distance between them and her when her presence is known.

“I don’t think you’re weak. Far from it. I might be wrong but I don’t think there’s an ounce of weakness in you. Even with all your love and care, I don’t think you’re weak. It might make you weak in the long run but it’s not intentional. There’s a difference.”

The smell will haunt him for the rest of his life as if it already hasn’t. But at this moment it’s so strong, her scent; something flowery and yet sweet. Stronger than usual. And he is mad that he likes it.

“Why don’t you entertain me and give me the right idea then? Or am I not good enough for your little group? Think I’m too mean? Too cruel? Too Slytherin like?” Her lips curl into a snarl at his words and it makes Everett’s eyes fall for a second. “I thought you loved snakes and all things animals, no?”

He has never seen how drastically her eyes change colours. But he remembers that that is exactly why he noticed them in the first place. That was the first thing his eyes fell onto after hearing her voice. He wonders where they come from.

“I don’t go around telling people who I am. That’s for them to figure out if they are worthy enough to get close.”

Avior doesn’t seem to realise just how much of a Black she is, and especially in this moment; her arrogance, her anger, her reaction altogether.

“And for your information,” she suddenly pulls back, yet she does not let go of his tie, pulling him forward with her, “I love snakes.”
Her digits unwrap from the fabric and now reach into his pocket for his wand. Before he can even think of moving to grab it from her, she pushes it down the waistband of her skirt with a grin a little too close to malice. She points her own wand at his shoes and glues them to the floor with a simple hex.
The onlookers have lessened the moment she takes a minor step back, clearly losing their interest.

“Can’t reach up my skirt to get it back, now, can you?”

Everett’s dark eyes narrow at hers. He is caught off guard, something that never happens. It makes his blood boil and his ears ring. Everett is still learning enough, but one thing he despises is not having his wand.

“I know you love snakes. I know you love animals.”
He rolls his eyes slightly. He does know her. So many things he won’t admit. Avior caught his interest in their first year and she hasn’t left since.

Everett might have been raised to be a gentleman, but he feels very territorial over his things. The same way Avior feels with hers; her friends; how she sits on the things she adores and protects them like a maternal dragon does her egg. He would do anything to wipe that smug look off her face.

“I might be a gentleman, but I care about my wand too much. Undo this, now.”
He can feel the vein pop out from strain. He hates how much this is affecting him. He doesn’t like feeling inferior or being trapped. It is too much.

“It’s in your reach,” she shrugs, knowing that he won’t grab for it either way. “How does this feel, hm? Do you feel cornered yet? When someone pushes you and pushes you until you have nowhere to go? No other way to react than to get angry?”

Her eyes glitter with something odd, something different to the usual mischief that shines in it. Part of her recognises that he doesn’t deserve it, but it is pushed back by the other much more cruel side of her. That part only cares that she is finally getting back at someone.

“Funny for you to call yourself a gentleman. What have you ever done? And for me, especially?” She tucks her own wand away again and bends down, resting her hands above her knees, to lower to his height as he still sits in the chair. “Besides, that’s all you know about me, no? A simple fact that I love all animals and creatures alike as if that isn’t obvious for any eye to see?”

“Do you get cornered that easily then? Is that all it takes? I expected more from you, Avior.”
He knows he is being mean. It should disgust him but it doesn’t. Everett can’t tell if that is disappointing or not.

“I don’t live or breathe for you. I don’t do anything for you. But I have been decent; I ask questions; I talk to you. I don’t care about your background and I definitely am not the one sticking the target on your back.”
Everett sticks his tongue out to wet his lips. He wants to lean back away from her but his body won’t allow his mind to follow through. The heat right underneath his pulse is unbearable and he needs her to back up. It feels like his chest is contracting and he can’t think.

“You’re also mad with feelings for Theodore.”

“I’m not and even if I was, that has nothing to do with any of this,” she replies quickly, her tongue sharp. “Nor do I get cornered so easily. But you wouldn’t understand what it’s like to be stared at for years, ever since stepping foot in this castle for the first time. You wouldn’t know.”
Her eyes don’t smile like they normally do.

“You can stay here, see it as a timeout of sorts.”
She chuckles, although she is not amused in the slightest. It comes out sarcastic and cold. She will not be giving his wand back, not until he asks, not until he has to ask a passerby to undo the hex. Not until he sees that he can’t always get everything by demanding it.

“You consider mocking me being decent towards me, do ya?”

“I don’t understand, but I’m not going to pity you either. I know you’re strong and tough skinned. You can protect yourself.”
He leans back, not wanting to admit defeat but trying to act nonchalant. Unbothered.

He lets out a small yawn and shrugs.

“I don’t mind sitting here all day. I’m done with my work anyways. Don’t have anywhere to be really. Will you keep me company though? I’d love to sit and chat about how much Theo does fit into that. I do know you well enough. It’s written all over your face.”

Everett watches as her face contorts in anger. He is not going to succumb to her or let her know he’s bothered.

But it isn’t a matter of him being bothered. It is about him not experiencing what she is.

“What does he fit into?” She asks. “And nothing is written on my face for you to claim that you know me ‘well enough’.”
Avior straightens up and then promptly sits down on the arm of the chair he is in, taunting him with how close his wand is to him to undo the hex, yet so unreachable.

“Pray tell, Rosier. I am keeping you company now, see? So answer me, keep me entertained, or I’ll leave you to stay stuck here on your own.”

Her anger continues to simmer under the surface, ready to explode after one wrong move or word.

“I know you. Anyone would be able to tell you like Theo more than a friend. A little baby crush. I know your little rituals before you get onto the field. I know you hate that I’m a lefty and mess up notes in Potions, but love to purposefully knock your elbow into mine when I piss you off. I know you have to wear specific socks or can’t wear specific pieces of clothing because it bothers you by touch.” 

He reaches for the wand before he is met with a stern gaze and a smack to the back of the hand.

“I’m not that easily distracted. Those are also nothing specific or special. You still haven’t explained Teddy anyways. Always avoiding answers?”
Avior tuts at the boy, jabbing him harshly. She is satisfied when she manages to get a hiss out of him from that one.

He grits his teeth in defiance. Merlin knows that will bruise and grow bigger, but Everett is getting restless.

“For someone who acts all tough, why do you care about what other people think of you? Why they whisper in the halls when you walk by? Why they stare and point? It’s because deep down you want to be liked so badly. You thought you were untouchable until this year. Well guess what, you’re no different than the rest of us. At least my father wasn’t a traitor—”

He is cut off by the sudden grip she has on his hair, squeezing her first to harshen her grasp. Avior leans in, pulling his head back slightly as she sits above him.

“Don’t,” she whispers firmly, her voice nothing but a razor-edged caress of the air.

“I don’t care whether they all like me or not,” Avior responds, her anger starting to burst at the seams. “Like I said, you don’t understand that it gets hard to ignore when it follows you everywhere. Especially when they even think to theorise that I might have helped him when he is no father of mine.”

Surely he can hear the rapid beating of her heart so closely, though she doesn’t mind if he does; it is only an indicator of how close she is to actually losing her patience with him.

“Helped him? Are people bloody idiots? You were—you were a baby. How would that work?” He winces as she pulls tighter. He then realises that she means now; theories about her helping his recent break into the school. “Oh…”

Something about her hands and nails make her grip more insufferable. 

“Clearly you’re showing enough now to be your father’s daughter. I think he’d be so proud.”
Everett lets out a hiss as Avior pulls tighter. A small laugh and a string of colourful curse words follow.

“You actually listen to theories? Do tell me which one’s your favourite? How would you have done it anyways? Help him in?”

“I don’t actually listen, you daft boy,” says Avior, jaw clenched. Guilt strikes her heart so sharply out of the blue at the sight of his reaction to her grip. She suddenly lets go and retreats her hand as if electrocuted. Remorse slowly wraps its digits around the beating muscle inside her that keeps her alive.

“I would have to know him to help him in,” she says, her voice devoid of the anger still present, “and I never have.”
Her already cold body goes icy, a sharpness like needles pulling through her entire body from head to toe. She feels awful and yet wants to do worse. He tried to hurt her with his words, so she should return the favour tenfold.

She hates the way her heart races with feelings of contempt, guilt, and hurt all the same. From scowling to an expression something entirely different, one of indifference, she says, “You make me sick.”

The last words from her wake him up like he has been struck with a slap to the face and he is pulled back into reality. It is almost as if he is everything he hates. He is his Death Eater father just like others think Avior is everything Sirius. For Everett though, the scenario should be different. If someone said he was like his father, he would be proud. But if she said it, it would be the same pain and guilt as if his mother had said it.

This isn’t a battle of who has it worse, but Everett will never amount to the suffering Avior goes through. Everett Rosier should be proud of his blood, not that this girl isn’t, but she has a bigger shadow following her around and drowning her.

“I don’t care what you think of me. Give me my wand so I can fix it or maybe have a sliver of respect to undo it yourself. I’m over whatever this is.”
The pain in his chest is back again. But this time it is so unbearable. She has a weird look in her eyes but her face and rigidness confuse him. 

Everett suddenly feels shame and embarrassment creeping up on him. And he is blaming the fact that he hasn’t been able to undo this jinx yet and not the fact that maybe he is sick. He is a cruel, harsh boy. His life is the way it is because he deserves it and he can’t ever form a bond like Avior does because he can never keep his mouth shut. He always has to win, but the unbearable pressure in his chest does not serve victory for him in anything he’s said. Part of him makes him want to get up and apologise. Ask her what he can do to help fix whatever she is in, but that is not Everett and that is definitely not his role in her life. Nor will it ever be.

“I don’t have enough respect for you in me right now after all you’ve just said.”

She feels like she could cry at any moment, even when she so rarely does. Her nails dig into her flesh above her knees where her skin is exposed below her skirt. With her other hand she pulls out his wand and drops it on his lap, not even wanting to speak another word, not even one to undo the hex. Her bottom lip trembles lightly and she hopes he can’t see it as she gets up to leave him and the suffocating air in the common room.

Where is Theodore?

He always waits for her in the mornings.

Her heart drops stepping through the entrance to the Slytherin common room, to then briskly make her way to the Great Hall. The vacant space beside her feels like a piece of her is missing; she never leaves without Theodore by her side on any ordinary morning.

It works initially. At first glance, students don’t recognise her. Unless they do a double take, a second look, but most of them aren’t interested enough to do so. Those that do pause their conversations with their friends to point her out.

“Her hair…” some whisper. “It’s so ugly.”

Avior lifts her chin a little higher, a surly look in her already gloomy eyes. Despite her not liking it, at least her hair gives them something new to talk about.
Passing the large doors of the Great Hall, the whispering increases and for once, it is not about a father that she has nothing to do with.

“Lune?” Juliette appears in her sight in a flash of light, rather close to apparating. Her hand reaches out and touches the bluntly cut off strands of her hair.

“You look beautiful.”
At this, Avior lightens up and her scowls clears to make place for a warm smile. Her encounter with Everett slowly dissipates from the front of her mind for the time being.

“Really?” She breathes, subconsciously desperate for the comfort her sister’s words and presence bring her.

“Really,” Juliette confirms with a nod of her head, “it suits you. Long hair does too, but this doesn’t look any less on you, Eve.”

“Oh woah.” Before either of them need to recognise that voice, Graham steps up beside her; always somewhere Juliette is.

“Your hair,” he says, astounded.

“What a way to point out the obvious, Montague,” says Avior, raising her eyebrows unimpressed. She hooks her arm through Juliette’s and starts to pull her towards the Slytherin table.

“Have ya seen Teddy?” She asks in a whisper.

“Theo?” Graham replies instead, much louder than she had been. “He said something about going to the library when I saw him.”

“The library?” Avior looks at him past Juliette’s dark brown curls. “Are ya sure?”
Theodore Nott going to the library firsthand in the morning before he has even had his breakfast? It is unheard of. Graham nods and goes on about how he seemed to be in a hurry, as if he had plans in there. When he turns to Juliette in between them and asks about their Transfiguration homework, Avior unhooks from their conversation and glances along the table, but a disappointing lack of signs of her best friend.
Instead she catches the eye of Eliana Arian; another one of her roommates. She is quiet and doesn’t talk to the other girls at all, often disappearing into the background once they are all present in the dorm. Eliana moves like a ghost amongst them in their dormitory. It is a thing her and Avior have alike apart from their eerily similar looks; the dark hair and pale skin, eyes the opposite of their long locks and yet just as cold. But Eliana sees the length of her hair to be gone, not so much like hers anymore now. Just as quick as their moment of nonverbal interaction had come, it is gone. 

At the staff table at the head of the hall all seats are filled. From the right end of it, furthest away from the Slytherin table, Remus’s gaze travels in search of the wild curls and bright eyes of his daughter. It never takes him much more than three seconds to find her, yet he only finds one out of two things upon doing a double take; he had looked over her the first time. His jaw stops chewing and his heart stills for a split second when he realises the curls he loves so much to be gone.
She cut her own hair, he has no doubt about it. No one could ever get close enough to her hair so precious to her to do that; it was her own hand.
His heart aches, his hunger dissipating. Remus can only guess why she must have done it, and he is afraid that it is true. The outstretched curls that resemble the colourless family she descends from are only one factor of why she is so often compared to him. It makes him wonder how far she would take it, or what she would do if she knew that she has his brother’s eyes.

Avior gasps when the owls start to fly in and a single letter is dropped in front of her. Aunt Lorelei’s handwriting is one to recognise out of thousands. She rips the envelope open and pulls out a folded up letter and three sheets of moving dragon stickers.

Dear Eve,

Je vais bien, merci. J’espère que tu vas bien.
I shall try, if you could tell me which weekends you all visit Hogsmeade. I would love to see my two girls again, I miss you!
Charlie, my ‘dragon tamer friend’, told me that all of the dragons are doing amazing. He said he would love to meet you if possible one day, and you could ask him about his job and see for yourself if it is something you would like to be. A dragon pet wouldn’t be quite practical, perhaps a miniature one?
Regulus Black was not who everyone makes him out to be. He was a lovely boy. Though quiet and he mostly kept to himself and very few friends, he was smart and kind to those that he deemed worthy of it. I know that sounds awful, but you must understand the way he was raised. He was made to believe that certain people are bad and unworthy, that others are superior to those.
Sirius got away from that, he took off and left Regulus to endure it all on his own. But Sirius wasn’t a bad person either, not in school. I don’t know where and how it went wrong with either of them. Regulus was like a brother to me, Eve, more than my own blood was and is.
You need to know, the Black family has always been viewed as royalty amongst the Wizarding World. Their upbringing was strict, more than strict, and it formed them each to be the way they were in many ways.
Though I must say that Sirius made better friends for the most part, compared to Regulus. That played a big part in it as well, yet it does not explain what Sirius did. As for Regulus, it does, in a way. He got dragged into it, he wanted to make his parents proud, I believe.
I don’t know what happened to him, no one does. I regret not having been there for him more. Maybe I could have helped him not go down this path.
He would have loved you and you are so like him in many ways. You have his eyes, Eve. Instead of a green one, his was blue. But the grey is exactly alike. The shape, the way you look at others, whether they are loved ones or strangers you try to intimidate. Not to inflate your ego, but it works. The Black family’s reputation has never faltered, I doubt it ever will.
When you go quiet, you act just like him. Your silence is identical. When you don’t agree with something, you disagree in the way he would, too. When you protect your loved ones, you defend them in a way he used to as well.
I never told you any of this because I didn’t want to upset you, but not everything about them was bad. You have a lot of their goods in you, chérie. Regulus had the sweetest eyes for a certain someone, so do you for many someones.
You are a perfect mix of people that came before you.
Eve, you are what you want to be, not what everyone else is trying to make you to be.
You are a Black, be proud of it. Give it a new meaning. Something other than that pureblood supremacist rubbish.

Love,
Your Aunt Lorelei