4
While most of the 6th years scurried to their Charms NEWT class, Amita lied on a patch of long grass in a corner of the courtyard. The September Sun shined softly from above but didn’t give much warmth and, as such, Amita had cast a few warming charms on her clothes and the ground, making her surroundings as cozy as possible.
She reached for her bag and took out a book she had found in the library on Soul-bonds. It was a pathetically superficial overview—she hadn't broken into the restricted section yet—but she supposed it was enough to refresh her memory on what she had learned as a child about them.
Soul-bonds were various and many considered such magic to border on Dark. The Ministry quite believed so as it had been removed from all school curriculums when Grindelwald started gaining power.
Soul-bonds were sometimes mutual, sometimes not, and in either case, would lead to the demise of the one wishing to break it. Amita rubbed her right wrist absentmindedly and started reading.
She knew all about Unbreakable Vows—of course—but surprisingly little about binding magical contracts in general. What was the most confusing, however, was why such practices were not as illegal as the Unforgivables were when, more often than not, they held the same coercive purpose and same punitive methods.
A blood pack that burns you from within when you so much as think about betraying your oath; a vow that forces you to act a certain way while fearing for your life. They were both so much worse than the Cruciatus and Imperious.
Not only were continuously conscious of your actions, but you were at fault for the pain inflicted upon you, you were at fault for making such a vow in the first place.
But Amita supposed that—if what Sprout said was right—she could add Polyjuice Potions to the Soul-bond list, even if it was a temporary act. And it was, while still a bit dubious, much less problematic than other oaths or vows.
Amita closed her book and sighed.
Would Lily ask her about Soul-bonds again?
Most likely not, she reasoned, the smart witch would simply borrow a library book if ever she was intrigued.
***
Amita sat next to James at the Gryffindor table again. She hadn’t tried to, Remus had nodded her way when she entered the Great Hall and the girl had thought it would be acceptable to sit next to him. They had had a class together already and he didn’t seem to hate her.
But James had arrived late with Sirius, hair dishevelled from their Quidditch practice, and had flopped dramatically next to her, his thigh grazing Amita’s unknowingly. The girl had flinched at the contact before settling into the touch and went back to reading an obscure Herbology book she had found on Knotgrass and Polyjuice.
“If we don’t find a good seeker—“ James whined before planting his head in his arms.
“Mate,” Sirius sighed before filling his plate with food, “the try-out is next week, there’s no point stressing about it. We never know, maybe a second year’ll surprise you or something.”
“It’s my first year as Captain, Pads! We absolutely need to win the Cup this year. My reputation is on the line!”
“You’re being overdramatic again,” Remus scolded lightly, before whispering over at Amita, “He’s been pestering us all summer about it…”
Amita smiled at Remus in acknowledgment and went back to read.
“It’s fascinating, isn’t it?”
The girl looked at him inquiringly.
“The whole philosophical dilemma surrounding polyjuice,” Remus clarified.
Amita nodded fervently. “Do you think we stop existing when we take the form of someone else?”
“That’s bollocks,” James input, mouth full.
“But where do you go?” Remus asked, adding on to Amita’s curiosity.
Sirius scoffed, playing with his food.
“It’s transfiguration of matter,” the bespectacled boy replied. “You’re you, but in another shape.”
“But it’s not wand work, only potion making?” Amita tilted her head.
“You use the magic of the ingredients, not your own, but it’s still transfiguration.”
“How do you not know that?” Sirius spat out, more harshly than Amita was expecting from a friendly conversation. Her mood turned sour at the look in the boy’s eyes.
James threw his arm around Amita. “Calm down, mate, not everyone is as brilliant as us,” he laughed, trying to defuse the tension.
Amita knew he could feel how rigid her shoulder had turned under Sirius’ accusing glare and tried to relax in his hold. She exhaled deeply and James’ rubbed her shoulder in comfort before letting go.
“Sprout told us some wizards speculate that your existence merges with that of another when you take polyjuice potion,” the girl tried to explain, holding her ground.
Sirius rolled his eyes. “She’s a Herbology teacher, not a Potioneer. Besides, I doubt she believes such rubbish.”
Amita looked in Sirius’ eyes, the two unflinching.
“You know you’re annoying, right?”
“Yeah.” He smiled, the expression not reaching his eyes as they stared at James’ arm touching hers. “So are you.”
***
With what Amita was convinced would become her routine, the girl pried herself out of bed and fetched the uniform she had folded and placed on her bedside table the evening prior. She closed the curtains around her and got dressed. The tie was discarded once again—this time in favour of a Gryffindor cardigan—and she brushed her fingers through her hair as best she could.
She didn’t have time to spell her dark circles away when a commotion sounded from the Common Room. Prying her curtains open, Amita noticed Marlene still sleeping and could hear Lily in their shared shower.
Amita sighed and cast a Silencing charm she had heard from the Hogwarts’ rumour mill around Marlene—she had tested in beforehand, okay?—and decided to go investigate.
The common room was jammed back. Younger students were passing along a paper notice while older students, still half asleep, implored the over-dynamic ones to settle down.
“Individual practice with James for whoever gets the Seeker position!”
“No way!”
“When’s the try-out?”
“Next week!”
“Already?!”
The brouhaha was entering Amita’s ears and heading straight to her temple. She could feel a growing headache forming. It was only Quidditch, for Merlin’s sake.
A grumpy Lily opened the door behind her, before brushing past her shoulder as she went down the stairs. She was livid.
But, Amita couldn’t even hear her fiery scolding as her mind fogged. Images of the house in Godric’s Hollow rushed to her mind.
“Lily, it’s him! Take Harry and go.”
“James!”
“Now!”
Lily frantically ran up the stairs and tried to connect the Floo.
The fire wouldn’t ignite.
She was panicking.
She ran into Harry’s room.
She needed to put up a wall. She needed to protect her love.
She reached into her pocket.
Her wand wasn’t there.
With blurry eyes, she sat Harry down and ran over to the biggest piece of furniture. She gripped it as hard as she could and dragged it in front of the door.
She pulled and pulled, her skin tearing open.
She didn’t feel the pain, wouldn’t feel it.
She needed to save Harry.
She wouldn’t let him get Harry.
Harry would live.
Emerald green encompassed her falling body.
“-ita! Amita!” She heard someone yell in her ear.
Finally regaining her senses, she turned her emotionless eyes to the ground she currently laid on.
Huh? Seems like she had fell.
“Amita, are you okay?”
Her eyes finally met James’. He was holding her head up, her body unresponsive.
“Peachy, mate.”
“Are you serious?! You almost fell down the stairs!”
“Think I woke up too fast, my body got a bit queasy. It’s fine.”
“I swear to Merlin-“ he snapped, the concern in his eyes bleeding into a scolding anger. His eyes reminded her of her boss’ down at Knockturn Alley. The way she would care so fiercely for her and would get mad when she didn’t take care of her body.
“Nightmares,” she answered, trying to ease his concern.
“Severed bodies again?” He tried to joke as he hoisted her body up, but Amita could still see the furrow of his brow. The fact that he remembered she had used the same excuse as 3 years ago in the library made her heart swell.
“Nah, worse. You don’t want to know.”
He looked at her, trying to discern her real feelings. She looked everywhere, but at him.
“Go on. It might make you feel better.”
Finally, she cautioned her eyes over at him. She had seen him die thrice in her life already. Sure, two of those times it was mostly implied, but still, to see him so lively made her feel both warm and nauseous at the prospect of what was to come.
She smiled at him and ruffled his gelled hair, snapping herself out of her morose thinking.
“You-“ Amita stood up in a flash, running over to her dorm room. “Amita, don’t you dare run away! You’ll pay for that!”
She laughed and closed the door behind her.
As she turned around, about to grab her bag, she came face to face with a still sleepy Marlene.
“M’rning,” she grumbled trying to flatten her hair. “Seen Lily?”
The situation she had just been in seemed to finally settle in Amita’s mind. “Common Room,” she managed to inform the Gryffindor girl.
Amita sat down on her bed, eyes falling over to her hands. She could almost see the red-hot lacelike magic wrap around her hand as she vowed to remain silent.
But it wasn’t burning.
It wasn’t burning like the time she had held that man’s hand, or like the few dozen other times after.
Why wasn’t it burning?
Amita scratched at her wrist that had turned numb.
Why couldn’t she feel it?
She tried holding her wand, but her trembling hand would let go when she tried casting a spell. She sobbed only once and grasped the stick in her left hand. McGonagall would surely reprimand her for not using her dominant hand but Amita willed herself to think nothing of it.
“Tempus.”
8:54
Gosh, for how long had she stayed sitting?
A sudden sobering wave of clarity washed over Amita and she reached for her bag.
Yesterday’s quill and ink pot were still intact.
She added in her necessary potion tomes and ran out of Gryffindor Tower.
When she entered the Dungeon’s Classroom, Slughorn was too busy chatting with a pureblooded Slytherin to notice her late arrival and she practically pounced on the first empty chair she found in the back of the room—the unspoken Gryffindor section.
“Oh,” she dumbly spoke to her seat mate.
“Oh, to you too,” Sirius Black smirked, eyes going back to Slughorn and his desperate attempt at recruiting his favourite students in his Slug Club. The man was walking towards Evans’ next. He chopped his ingredients without even looking at hem.
Amita’s eyes fell on the redheaded girl’s figure. Her tense smile at Slughorn’s request, her shifting green eyes always falling back towards the Slytherins in apprehension.
Green eyes.
Amita couldn’t stop thinking of her vision, of Lily’s selflessness, of her boundless love. She could practically see love radiating from Lily’s every pore. She was her polar opposite, her better half.
Lovable, passionate, compassionate.
Amita wished she could be half the person she was. Maybe then people would like her,
Maybe then she would like people.
There’s nothing much we can do about maybes, however. That, Amita knew.
Slughorn finally left poor Lily alone and beelined for a few promising purebloods—who still haven’t been disowned, I mean. Lily sighed deeply, clearly relieved to be done with whatever-that-was, and Amita stifled a giggle at the sight.
“Will you stop eyeing Prong’s girl and actually help with the stupid potion?” Her desk-mate snapped.
Amita, startled, looked over to Sirius before uttering a small ‘sorry’ and opening her potions’ book.
“Are you really that disappointed Slughorn doesn’t deem you important enough to invite you to his stupid club? Must hurt your pureblood ego,” he grumbled.
Amita looked over at him, incredulously. “Well, kinda, yeah. Don’t you?”
She flipped a few pages.
“Of course not!” He snapped, “I don’t care about a stupid club.”
Clearly, he did care. But Amita held her tongue.
Finally, Amita found the right page and grasped one of the laid out knives on their shared table.
“I don’t know,” she started, “It’s kinda humbling, you know, the way he doesn’t even look at me. My name was the only thing that made people like Slughorn interested in me. Now, that I’ve lost it, I’m quite literally, nobody.”
Sirius sat straighter. “What?”
“Yeah, disowned,” she informed him, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Aren’t you as well?”
He turned stiff beside her.
“I mean, it hurt like hell when it happened. Can’t say it wasn’t a good thing, though. Now I can actually live however I want.”
“Yeah.”
Amita started mincing the rabbit thigh, while Sirius stirred their brew.
“Still, it’s pretty sad when you think about how they never loved me, only who I could become.
And in the end, I didn’t,” she whispered under her breath, eyes falling back upon Lily’s figure next to Remus.
What would her childhood have looked like if her mother was more like Lily Evans?
Surely she never would’ve thrown her out, right?
Amita absentmindedly scratched her wrist where lied, layer upon layer, her unbreakable vows.