Chapter One
It was going to be her first year of Hogwarts, and though she knew her brother seemed to enjoy his first year at the school, she didn’t have much high hopes for herself. Mia still had yet to utter a word since the attack, and didn’t have much luck interacting with others that weren’t her brother.
Plus, she was still a monster.
“You needn’t worry, hon,” her mother sighs from the doorframe, watching her daughter pack with shaky hands, “Albus has everything set up for you and Rem, it’ll be good. Plus, it’s time you went outside the house.”
Mia quits at her packing, looking up to scowl at her mother.
The woman holds her hands up in surrender.
“I’ll be outside,” Hope mutters. Mia knew that really meant she was going to go smoke.
Mia frowns for a moment, chewing on the nail attached to her thumb, looking at the mess she made on her floor. A familiar bundle of nerves get stuck inside her stomach, and the girl takes a deep breath to try and calm down. With shaky hands, she begins to organize her clothes, letting her brain sink into that task. It was nice, making sure every item had a place in her trunk, that every sweater was smooth without wrinkles, and that there was no mess to get lost in.
She found that when she had a neat room, her mind couldn’t spiral so much. It helped to ground her.
“You good?” Remus asks. Mia jumps at his voice, not having noticed him at all. Over the course of the year he’d been absent, her brother had seemed to gain an air of superiority he had not had previously. Mia guessed that’s what happens when you stop being friends with only your sister.
She was such a hermit.
“Remember what I said? You can’t sit with me on the train, you have to find your own friends,” Remus continues to mumble, pulling on the sleeves of his sweater, “it’ll be good for you.”
Mia thinks it has more to do with the fact her brother just didn’t want to be a babysitter and less about it being ‘good for her.’ Or, he just didn’t want to be around someone like her. For that, she couldn’t blame him.
She nods in understanding. Remus gives her one last look then exits the room he never really completely entered. They’d been distant the whole summer. Mia tries not to feel sad about it, pulling a piece of lemon candy from her pocket and chewing on it gently.
Looking around, her room was empty. The house was empty. And Mia couldn’t help but feel a little empty herself.
As Remus promised, he ditched her the moment they stepped on the Hogwarts Express together with a mission to go find his friends. Mia stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jeans, letting out an exasperated sigh as she shoves through the countless students littering the halls, having yet to find a compartment. All she wanted to find was one single empty one she could hide in, but that seemed more impossible as she made her way down the train’s narrow hallway.
Eventually, Mia came across a compartment occupied by only a silver haired girl, who seemed engrossed with a book and not paying attention at all. She figured that was good enough as any, and sat down in the corner opposite of the stranger, trying to fold in on herself.
“I’m Pandora,” the silver haired girl says nicely, putting down her book with a hand outstretched. Mia blinks, a little disappointed that the silence had rippled away. She had a killer headache.
Despite that, though, Mia shakes her hand anyway, mustering up a smile that seemed to downturn rather than upturn.
The girl, Pandora, didn’t seem to notice her discomfort, analyzing Mia up and down with a thoughtful look, “What’s your name?”
Mia purses her lips, feeling the words lodge once more. Her face heats up in shame, and suddenly, the girl wants to curl in on herself.
“Do you not have one?” Pandora asks, quite seriously.
Mia shakes her head.
“Are you a ghost?” She questions once more, a single eyebrow quirked up.
Mia shakes her head again, blushing furiously.
“You just don’t talk?”
Mia nods, wishing it were that simple. She’d been to countless shrinks, and no one could figure out why Mia just wouldn’t talk. She couldn’t explain it. All she knew was that somewhere deep in the woods, Fenrir Greyback had her voice, and she was not brave enough yet to take it back.
“Well, that’s quite alright. I’m deeply fond of silence and nice company,” Pandora smiles, and this time Mia lets herself smile back genuinely.
She nods in thanks.
Pandora nods back, going back to her book.
Halfway through the train ride, a boy comes barreling into their compartment, shutting the door with a certain fierceness that only comes from fear.
“Please don’t break the door,” Pandora says for the both of them. Mia’s eyes are wide as she watches the boy take deep breaths of air, slumping down next to her with an apologetic look.
“Sorry, do you mind if I crash in here? My brother’s being a right prick- I forgot to pay him back from a bet I lost, and I’d rather not get hexed into having pink hair right now,” the black haired boy sighs, putting a hand against his chest. He looked older than both her and Pandora. Mia figured that he might’ve been in his third year by the looks of it.
“So, you two first years? I don’t recognize you.”
Pandora speaks up for them two, “Yes, we are. I am Pandora and this is…” she pauses for a moment, and Mia watches her think on what to say, “My friend.”
Mia blinks, trying to suppress the shock on her face. She’d never really had a friend before.
“Does she not have a name?” The boy asks, confused. Mia can’t help but scowl at him, crossing her arms against her chest.
Pandora shrugs, “She’ll reveal it when she’s ready. What is your name?”
“Oh!” The tan boy laughs, rubbing the back of his head, “I’m Frank- Gryffindor.”
“Your last name’s Gryffindor?” Pandora asks, confused but not judgemental. Mia suppresses her grin, covering it with the palm of her hand as she leaned her head against the wall next to her. It really wasn’t that funny, but it felt that way.
“What? No, I’m in Gryffindor,” he laughs it off, rubbing the back of his head once more. Mia figured it must be a nervous tick. She liked studying people like that, figuring out their tells and how they thought. She knew it was creepy. Whatever.
“Oh!” Pandora smiles, “How nice.”
The compartment is silent for a moment, and then Frank’s speaking again, turned to Mia this time. “Are you like hexed or something?”
Mia scowls, shaking her head. She wants to hex him even though she knows that’s over dramatic and curses her lack of magical talent. She didn’t like talking about her… well… not talking. Even if Mia wanted to, she couldn’t explain it. That’s just how it was.
“So you’re just… mute?”
She hits him in the shoulder, hard.
“Ow! Godric, I won’t interrogate further, sorry.” To the boy’s credit, he did look a little bit embarrassed.
Across the compartment, Pandora tuts, “That’s a Taurus for you.”
Mia scrunches up her nose, confused at her friend, as Frank scoffs, “That stuffs not real.”
Pandora gives the dark haired boy a look, completely shutting her book as she squares her shoulders, looking as though she were prepared to go to war, “Oh yeah? Mia, is your birthday in April?”
The brown haired girl blinks in shock, and then nods. She didn’t see how Pandora could possibly know that, and for a moment, felt like she was dealing with some higher being. Mia knew that was stupid, she was just easily impressed.
“Hmmm,” the girl begins to hum, pursing her lips a little, “April 23rd?”
Mia’s mouth drops, agape, and nods, almost excitedly. Pandora might be the coolest person she’s ever met, even though the girl hadn’t met a lot of people. She figured she could meet hundreds and Pandora would still be the coolest.
“See?” The silver haired girl grins in accomplishment, “Taurus.”
“There’s no way,” Frank shrugs, leaning back into the cushioned seat, trying (and failing) to not seem impressed.
Mia thought he looked pretty stupid. She wanted to tell him that too, but didn’t.
“Ignorance will only get you so far,” Pandora shrugs, an unbothered smile lacing her gentle complexion. Frank laughs at that; he seemed to laugh at everything. And it was the contagious kind too because then Pandora started laughing and when Pandora started laughing, Mia let herself giggle a little.
It was nice. She felt very… light. For a moment, it felt like she was harboring only her own soul in her body, and that she was just, well, her. But that feeling quickly went away, and Mia remembered she was in fact still a beast, and deflated once more.
She brought her feet up towards her chest, plopped her chin down on her knees and wrapped her arms around her calves, watching as Pandora and Frank started up a conversation on the latest album release from Nora Sparks, a famous witch singer.
Who was, in fact, Mia’s favorite singer in the whole world.
Instead of joining the conversation, though, Mia just listened contentedly to the quiet chatter, and let herself lean back and close her eyes. When the cart of sweets came around to their compartment, Mia bought her and her friend and Frank a dozen chocolate frogs with the rest of her allowance.
“Wow, thanks!” Frank grins, shoving a frog into his mouth and chewing quite disgustingly. Pandora nods in appreciation, but instead of eating her chocolate frog, she lets it bounce around the compartment in every which way.
Mia and Frank give the girl a confused look.
Pandora shrugs, “I just like to watch them be free.”
Mia shrugs, and when she opens her chocolate frog, she decides to let it bounce around too. Together, all three of them watch the chocolate frogs ribbit and jump and befriend each other.
Somewhere during that time, Mia must’ve dozed off because when she’s shaken awake, they were almost to Hogwarts and the girl still had to get her robes on.
“Be quick,” Pandora reminds, “I want to go on the boat with you.”
The brown haired girl sends a thumbs up, throwing her robes over her shoulder as she makes her way to the girl’s washrooms, which was all the way at the end of the velvet rugged hall. It seemed she was the last one that needed to change, because when she opened the door to the washroom, no one appeared to be inside.
Mia couldn’t complain. She liked her privacy.
Switching from her mossy green sweater and jeans, the girl got into her pitch black robes that felt like silk. When she ran her hand against the fabric, it felt like her fingers were running through river water. It might’ve been the nicest thing she owned. Dumbledore had supplied her and Remus all of their school needs because their family didn’t exactly have all that much in their Gringotts’ vault and the old man seemed to have taken the opportunity to buy the nicest stuff around.
In the mirror, Mia made sure her bangs didn’t look too messy, but also made sure to not look too hard at her reflection. She didn’t like what was staring back. At least her robes looked nice.
And with that, she made her way back to the compartment, just as the train was beginning to slow.
“Oh good,” Pandora says when she enters back inside, “I thought one of the naragles in the washroom had kept you.”
Mia blinks.
Getting off the Hogwarts Express, Mia makes sure to keep close to Pandora. She feels sort of childish doing it, but now that she had a friend, she couldn’t bear to let go of her. Even if Pandora did eventually get tired of her, right now she wasn’t. And that was good. Frank had left them to go find his friends, but he’d said he would find them in the Great Hall.
Things were going better than Mia had initially thought.
Pandora and her followed the first years that were being led by a rather large man with a heavy west country lilt in his voice. Mia figured he was probably half-giant by the way he stood six heads taller than everyone else.
“Four ter a boat now!” The man yelled into the dark night, while he himself practically stomped onto a rather flimsy looking wooden entrapsure that wobbled in the water. “Four ter a boat!”
“Come,” Pandora beckoned, grabbing onto the brown haired girl’s hand, “let’s go find an empty one.”
Eventually, the two girls stumble upon a boat that was occupied by two boys that didn’t look very talkative. Mia and Pandora sat next to one another, and while the brown eyed girl desperately tried not to look the two boys in front of them in the eyes, Pandora had no problem striking up a conversation as the boats began to move.
“Regulus, Evan, it’s a pleasure,” Pandora says kindly with a nod of her head. It was like her voice had changed from when they were in the compartment. The silver haired girl sounded much more… proper.
The dark haired one Mia figured to be Regulus, nodded like a fifty year old, “Pandora.”
The blonde beside him didn’t even give the girl the time of day. He had a smug look that Mia didn't like. An expression that clearly conveyed he thought he was better than everyone else.
“Well then,” Pandora smiles, seemingly unaffected by the bad mood that was beginning to fester in the air. “Keep your eyes peeled for the Black Squid, I heard he likes to topple first year’s boats.”
Neither boy picked up the conversation. Evan gave Pandora a weird look. Mia scowled at him. Evan noticed this, and scowled right back.
“Rude,” Pandora whispered into Mia’s ear when she noticed the stand off. The girl let out a small giggle.
Eventually, through the clearing of the dark, towering trees over the Black Lake, the Hogwarts castle came into view, and Mia let her eyes go wide. Everything about it was unreal. The girl felt like she was staring right into the past, and that perhaps she was a princess coming back to her home in the medieval times. It was such a stupid and childish thought that Mia blushed. But looking at the castle’s stained glass, glowing windows and large expanse, Mia couldn’t help but feel a little important herself.
She brought her hand up to touch her crescent moon scar and immediately quietened her thoughts.
“It’s beautiful,” Pandora whispered, her blue eyes widened in awe. Mia smiles at the girl, nodding in agreement.
“My father made it sound like it would be greater,” Evan huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. Mia shoots daggers at him. How could anyone not see the beauty in this?!
“I think it’s nice,” Regulus mumbles from beside him, eyes slightly widened, “My brother tried describing it to me, but I don't think he did it much justice. He's never been good at...”
"Intelligence?" Evan offers drily.
"I wasn't going to say that," Regulus says sharply, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. Mia thought he looked quite uncomfortable. "I just meant it'd be difficult for anyone too describe this."
“You’re too easily impressed, Regulus,” his friend quips back, and the dark haired boy goes quiet at that.
Mia and Pandora look at each other, both seeming to share the same thoughts.
After a long hike up to the castle that left Mia feeling exhilarated and her friend gasping for air, the first years were forced to gather in a small corridor some ways off from the Great Hall, where floating lanterns lit the room and tall pillars held up the roof. Everything about Hogwarts was grand, and Mia couldn’t stop herself from staring at the architecture. She wanted to memorize it. Wanted to rebuild it in her mind.
“It’s quite impressive, isn’t it?” Pandora sighs, dropping her head back down from where she’d been ogling the ceiling. Mia nods, pointing over to a series of moving portraits. She’d never seen one in person before, and looking at them felt strange. The brown haired girl didn’t want to think of the morals of trapping a soul (or fake soul) into a painting. She figured she was thinking too hard about it.
“Oh, yes,” Pandora nods in agreement, like she could read Mia’s thoughts, “I also think those moving portraits are quite unsettling.”
“Alright, gather around, students. Please form some semblance of a line,” an older woman sighs, voice stern and loud without having to shout. Mia immediately followed instructions, looking straight at the woman with eagerness.
“Soon, you will follow me into the Great Hall, where we will place you into a house of your belonging,” the woman explains, “there is Gryffindor, where I, Professor McGonagall, am Head of House, then Slytherin with Professor Slughorn, Ravenclaw with Professor Flitwick and, finally, Hufflepuff with Professor Sprout. I am sure each one of you will find a place to belong in either of the four, and I wish you luck on your journey throughout Hogwarts.”
With that, and a flick of her wand, the doors to the Great Hall open with a shudder, and for a second, Mia fears that the whole castle was going to collapse in on itself with how loud the doors seemed to creak.
And then, the rest of the student body’s eyes are on them, and Mia kinda sorta wants to die.
“Oh! Look at the ceiling, you can see the sky,” Pandora sighs dreamily, looking up once more as Mia follows suite, trying to act as calm as the silver haired girl felt. She wondered how they would figure out which house they belonged to and tried not to feel so nervous about it. Mia didn’t like uncertainty.
To distract herself, Mia followed suite of Pandora, and looked up towards the ceiling where a thousand stars met her eyes. It was quite beautiful. But Mia couldn’t help but look down and search for something or someone else. She couldn’t help but search for her brother’s eyes, whom she knew resided at the Gryffindor table.
Sure enough, she found him. And when she did, she saw he was already staring at her. A boy was talking in his ear, but Remus was still staring at her. He gave her a soft smile. Mia attempted to muster one back towards him.
The Sorting Ceremony proved to not be such a serious affair. All it entailed was putting on some old, shabby hat that shouted out a house after a couple of moments. Pandora went before her and got into Ravenclaw. Cheering seemed to happen every five minutes. The brown eyed girl's headache came back full force and her ears felt clogged.
Mia wondered if anyone would cheer for her. It would be pretty embarrassing if they didn’t.
“Lupin, Emilia!” Professor McGonagall shouted just as the girl took a deep breath, wincing a little. She hoped people didn’t start calling her by her full name after that. She’d have to figure out a way to tell Pandora before that stuck. She never liked the name Emilia.
Stepping up onto the stage like area, Mia hesitantly sat down on the wobbly stool, and before she could look for her brother, the hat was plopped onto her head and everything went dark.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Tried not to think of basements and days being a ghost. It was almost impossible.
'Much conflict in this one,' a voice whispered.
Mia couldn’t help but jolt a little. So the hat could talk? That was fine. Everything was fine. She only felt a little nauseous. The eleven year old hoped the hat couldn’t read all her thoughts.
'Don’t worry, child. I won’t look where I’m not wanted.'
Mia let out a sigh of relief, but didn't really feel that relieved.
'You’re a thoughtful one,' the hat began to mutter, 'an over thinker. But a nice heart too…'
Silence. Mia was beginning to grow self conscious at how long it was taking the hat to choose a house even though no time had really passed at all.
'Hmmm… Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff… knowledge or loyalty. Perhaps both?'
Mia squeezed her hands against the edge of the stool, feeling uncomfortable. She didn’t like this one bit.
'Ah, yes, I know exactly where Ms. Lupin belongs…'
And then;
“RAVENCLAW!”
The hat’s removed from her head, light emits back into her eyes, and Mia can breathe again. She was in the same house as Pandora, so that was a relief. Mia could hear loud cheering, and felt her face heat up from the attention. She looked over to where it was the loudest, and saw her brother’s friends standing up and clapping so hard it looked like it hurt. Remus was still sitting though, looking a little embarrassed.
Mia wasn’t sure how to feel, and hurried to the Ravenclaw table to sit right next to Pandora, who greeted her with a smile.
“So, Emilia is it?”
The girl shakes her head
Pandora scrunches her eyebrows, “You go by a nickname?” Mia nods, hoping she wasn’t too much. She felt that way right now. She was so stupid. Why couldn’t she just say what she wanted to say?
She parted her lips, a breath came out. Pandora looked at her expectantly, maybe a little excited but then immediately, Mia clamped her mouth shut. Her fingers went to her bitten up lips, and no words fell out.
That’s when Pandora began to guess.
“Is it Lia?”
She shook her head, but tried to give an expression that meant she was close.
“Milia…” Pandora began to mumble, clearly thinking hard, “Milli… Oh! Mia?”
The brown haired girl nearly jumped up in excitement, excessively nodding her head with a bright smile.
“That’s a pretty name,” the silver haired girl smiles, “rhymes easily, as well. That’s always a good sign.”
She wasn’t sure what to say to that. Pandora spent the rest of the sorting mumbling a bunch of rhymes for her, and Mia listened with a smile, feeling a little famished. Eventually, after quite a long, wacky lecture from Albus Dumbledore, thousands of plates of food appeared at their table for the feast, and Mia dug in happily as Pandora went straight for the pudding.
“You’ll be happy to be in Ravenclaw,” a boy was saying across from them, “we’ve got some wonderful dorms. You’ll be so pleased to see them.” Mia nods along, but isn’t really paying attention to what he was saying.
“I heard it looks just like the Astronomy Tower,” Pandora eagerly grins, continuing the conversation with the boy as she takes a hearty bite of some pudding.
“Oh, yes! Our roof, though it’s just a projection, follows the night sky too. Every year, we have the exact lunar calendar.”
Mia pauses her eating. She tries not to feel like that statement was directed at her. She knew it really wasn’t, but any mention of something like that made her feel a bit squeamish. The full moon wasn’t for a while, but now she felt it creeping up on her like the plague. It wouldn’t be nice to be reminded of it every day now. She made a mental note to not look up at the ceiling too much.
“How nice,” Pandora nods, “Mia, I’ll have to point out some constellations to you.”
The girl nods with a smile, hoping her discomfort doesn’t show on her face.
“It’s good you know that,” the boy says approvingly, “we’ve got an astronomy class, it’ll be nice for you to be ahead of the curve.”
Pandora shrugs, “I suppose. I wasn’t really thinking of that aspect of it all.”
After that, the boy moves on to talk to someone else, and the two girls are left alone in their comfortable silence. Sometimes, Pandora would start detailing the things she did in the summer, and Mia would listen in interest, nodding and contorting her face into what she thought were the appropriate expressions in the right moments.
It was nice to have someone to listen to outside of her family circle, and it was also nice to not feel so judged. Mia felt a little nervous about it all though, because with everything going so well, she was sure that something bad would have to happen soon. Or maybe she just wasn’t very positive.
Soon, the feast started clearing up, and their prefects began guiding them up to their dormitories. Before Mia could join her cluster of Ravenclaws though, her brother was on her heels, and when she turned to face him, he had his gaggle of friends behind him.
“You’ll be alright?” Remus asks stiffly, clearly trying to sound cool in front of the boys. Mia nods, shrugging a little. She didn’t really like this side of her brother. It was much different then the calm, serene brother she was used to. But her mother had explained that Remus was just going through his growing pains, and that almost being thirteen meant he had to be an arse. Mia had given her mother an annoyed look at that and Hope had just shrugged.
Mia still thought it was stupid and wished she could say so.
“Hello!” A boy grins, poking his head out from behind Remus. He had incredibly messy hair and glasses that couldn't seem to straighten up on his nose. Her brother rolls his eyes.
“I’m James!” He introduces, throwing a hand out. The brown eyed girl takes it apprehensively, nodding slowly. James quirks an eyebrow, “and you are?”
Remus is quick to say, “She’s Mia. And not important, let’s get back to the dorm.”
“Hey now-!” James begins, putting a hand on Remus’ shoulder. Her brother shrugs it off.
“Come on,” he sighs, leading them away. Mia turns around to head back over to Pandora before she can see his apologetic face. She’s too exhausted to be angry at him right now. Eating made her sleepy.
“Are you alright?” Pandora immediately asks when she notices her (probably) rotten expression. Mia shrugs. She didn’t even know.
“I think we’ll be roommates,” the blue eyed girl quickly changes the subject, noticing her friend's discomfort on the previous topic as they walked up the many stairs to get to their common room. Mia smiles in relief. She didn’t want to think about having to make a new friend.
“Alright, listen up, firsties!” The Ravenclaw prefect, Mathilda Swann, shouts when they finally make it to the Ravenclaw landing, “The password is Alohomora, you’ll do well to remember if you don’t want to get locked out here during curfew.”
After that, the group of first years all bundled through the grand entrance that held a large bronze eagle embellished on its doors. Inside, Mia was met with a sphere shaped room and a glass ceiling, with the floor covered in velvet and towering bookshelves covering the expanse. In Mia’s opinion, it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She tried to memorize every aspect of it in her head, from the spiral staircases that led up to different dorms to the countless paintings covering the dim-lit walls. She opted to ignore the ceiling though, as she’d told herself to.
“Oh, yes,” Pandora grins, “I quite like this.”
Mia grins right back.
The two girls make their way up the stairs to the first year dorms, and sure enough, they’re paired together, the proof being a golden plaque glittering on the wall with their names. Inside, their beds are made of dark wooden frames and they have their own fireplace with a shared bathroom. It was so different from Mia’s home life, she almost felt a little whiplash. Everything was changing so fast, and she wasn’t sure if she should be excited about it or nervous.
That night, Pandora reads her a story she’d written about a fairy that fell into a bath. It was quite strange, but Mia thought she liked it quite well. She found that her friend viewed the world much differently than everyone else and it was nice to hear her thoughts on it.
The two of them fell asleep to the end, when the fairy learned how to swim despite the deep and all the ripples. Mia found herself dreaming of it, though she was the fairy and the bath seemed more like an ocean and she could barely swim. When she woke up, she didn't know if it was a nightmare or something much kinder,