6
James Potter was the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. A 6th year taking on such a role was unheard of, but still, everyone acknowledged his leadership and no one contested McGonagall’s decision. He was the best after all.
He had attended a meeting with McGonagall about this year’s try-outs and she had given him free rein, trusting his judgment. He felt ecstatic and particularly touched, but he had trouble coming up with plays, his mind constantly roaming, like smoke.
James eyed the Gryffindor Common room fireplace after dark once again, a small part of him wishing to see Amita cautiously make her way down the stairs and sit next to him.
He felt like shit.
Truly.
He had lashed out—impeded on her boundaries—and now she wouldn’t so much as look his way.
She was so much like Sirius.
So hurt and broken by her worthless family,
So twitchy when it comes to physical contact, so self-deprecating.
James remembered that night like it was yesterday. Sirius hadn't even entered by Floo, his magic had been too depleted, trying to keep him alive. He was littered with cuts and blood, nerves shaking from whatever atrocious curse they had thrown his way. Still, his eyes were dry, not a sight of tears to behold.
His face was hard—stern—but his body was weak—had crumbled on his door step.
Amita had passed out on her way to the common room. She had flinched when Carrow came just a bit too close to her in the train. She had recoiled and hit her head on the wall behind her, but never seemed to register the impact. Instead, she had curled in on herself, shoulders trying to protect her heart. Her eyes were wide, trembling, pleading, and James felt compelled to take responsibility for her; needed to protect her like he hadn’t managed to protect his best friend.
James sighed and removed his glasses to rub as his temple.
***
This year seems more complicated than the last, Lady Cardania.
I’m not quite sure where it all went wrong,
Maybe it started when James Potter managed to grab my hand in the Express, or maybe it was when Sirius Black started gaining rabid interest in my cursed life, I don’t know.
What I do know, however, is that I can’t fall asleep without seeing the image of my dorm mate’s eyes turn a dull olive colour over and over again. I know you told me once that my existence wasn’t cursed, but I just can’t seem to shake the feeling that I am paying for my ancestors’ sins. That all this is an elaborate ploy by Lady Magic to make sure to end the Rowle line once and for all, to make the only heir turn mad.
Actually, scratch that, I’m not an heir at all anymore.
Wow, what a great life.
I just wish I could stay at the shop all year long, Merlin knows we’ve got enough books for me to study for my NEWTs independently, anyways.
I can’t even go paint anymore, how am I going to survive this year?
I miss you,
Amita
***
Dear ward,
Instead of wallowing in self-pity, why don’t you start studying? We both know you’d never pass your NEWTs with only books to teach you.
Lady Magic has better things to do than single-handedly punish a Sacred 28 family. Trust me, I tried convincing her once.
Besides, it’s only the first week of school, things can change a lot quicker than you’d think—both in good and in bad.
Cardania
***
Lady Cardania had never been a nice woman. She was shrewd and conniving, and had very few friends. Though that could also be explained by the fact that the Lady was actually a squib, Amita reasoned. No matter how much “bloodtraitors” valued the lives of muggleborns and muggles in general, they all seemed to draw the line at squibs.
Amita pocketed the rude letter in her robes and ate a few bites from the eggs Lily had placed on her plate.
She hadn’t talked to the Marauders for at least a week—except for a particularly stubborn Sirius—and didn’t plan to either. Whenever Sirius wasn’t actively talking to her in potions or in the Great Hall, she kept seeing him around nonetheless—seeing his back as he turned around a corner, him entering the common room after her and passing her to his dorm. He was omnipresent in her life. But James? She hadn’t even had a glimpse of him since their little spar outside the common room. It made her feel particularly empty.
It wasn’t that they were mad at her, per se, no, it’s that they had better things to do—like those Quidditch try-outs. Three seekers had been reluctantly chosen out of a few dozen delusional participants.
The first two James had chosen as relief seekers and for next year’s prospects, but the last one—3rd year McKinnon—might be a great help in winning the cup after a bit of tutelage from the Captain’s part. He had boasted about their odds of winning the next Cup with her in their midst and when he wasn’t training with her on the field, he was barrelling her with their team’s tactics and strategies. It was a miracle she had enough time to do any other class assigned work during her free time, but Amita suspected James helped her through it as well.
“Prongs will run us all through the dirt, I swear,” Sirius whined as he slumped on the bench near Amita. He placed a piece of toast on his plate with a shaking hand and he sighed.
“Couldn’t you sit anywhere else, Sirius?” Lily groaned as she angrily munched her cereals.
He dibbed his knife is raspberry jam under her scrutinizing gaze. “I really don’t have the energy to spar this morning, Evans. I can barely feel my legs.”
“Quidditch’s a flying sport,” she deadpanned.
“Exactly!” He threw his arms in the air weakly. “Only Merlin knows why Prongs would make us run laps, he’s gone absolutely mad. It’s barely the second week of class.”
“By the way, Amita, have you done the Potion homework?” He asked not looking at her at all. “I really feel bad, but I haven’t read on polyjuice at all. I know Slughorn asked us to do preliminary readings.”
“It’s alright, Sirius,” Amita dismissed quickly, “You know I did a lot of reading about Polyjuice being a soul bonding substance. Besides, we’re only Wednesday.”
He groaned. “Are we really only Wednesday? I feel like I’ll go mad.”
“We already know you’re mad, Black, no need to hide it,” Marlene teased.
“Marls! Don’t rile him up like that,” Lily scolded.
Sirius and Marlene bickered back and forth, and Amita simply watched as Sirius’ tired shoulders slowly loosened, or how his half-lidded eyes slowly opened further as he gained more and more energy. She knew he would need it.
Wednesdays’ schedule was particularly packed for most 6th year NEWT students. Amita had only two classes that day, but her classmates had up to 4. It would be a lie to say she didn’t pity them at all.
James entered the Great Hall, even more dishevelled than Sirius had. He had clearly just come out of the shower, his hair still dripping wet and his tie hung loosely over his shoulders. He sat down in front of Amita, next to Lily.
His eyes fell over to Amita and for a second, the girl believed he would finally talk to her after all this time. Instead, he seemed to shrink in on himself and grabbed the nearby plate of ham and eggs.
Amita opened her potions’ book and read absentmindedly, her eyes repeatedly straying from the black and white of the page to James’ colourful red robes.
She should talk to him.
“Potter, come on,” Lily nagged with a sigh. With a wave of her wand, his wet hair had turned fluffy and dry, and, with another, somewhat tame.
James’ unusual presence soon turned back jolly and confident, and he smiled down at Lily. “Thank you, Lily-pad.”
“Don’t call me that—“
***
Charms had been gruelling. Flitwick wasn’t lying when he said his NEWT class wouldn’t be breezy at all.
Sirius sighed as the students slowly started leaving the class.
He picked up a piece of old parchment from his pocket and murmured a few words. Slowly, ink bled into its fibres and Hogwarts materialized itself. He checked around the pages—Is that Alice and Frank in a cupboard?—before finally settling his eyes on the name he was looking for.
“Hey, Prongs,” he called his best friend, “what do you say we—uhm.” His mouth snapped back shut and he closed the map. “What do you say we head for Transfiguration, next, yeah?”
James looked him up and down with an inquisitive look. “Where else would we go?”
***
Amita had spent the morning in the library. Surrounded by books and no living being—except Madame Pince, but she’s always had negligible presence when you behave—she felt at peace. The blinds were halfway closed, bathing the room in soft darkness interrupted only by the flickering lights of magical lamps.
The Polyjuice potion was bothering her.
Slughorn had asked them to read up on it, but, except for the generic “you can turn into someone after drinking a vile potion with their hair in it” there was surprisingly little information in textbooks.
Amita knew she was fixated on the—most likely wrong—hypothesis that the potion would temporarily bond you to someone else, but how could she not? Soulbonds were usually definite and unalienable, but the Polyjuice—if it even is a Soulbond—was revocable and temporary.
Her textbook spoke about how the transformation to an animal or other creature specie was inadvisable—it would stay permanent and would create a weird hybrid between their two forms. Amita wondered if that was the case because animals didn’t have enough of a soul to form a bond, they were governed by instincts, and thus, less than human.
It also made sense, considering the potion itself took on the form of one’s “essence” when a piece of their hair was added in. Did animals have an essence? A moral for good and evil?
Amita had other questions, like whether or not your magic changed alongside your body; if the potion was temporary because it was simply unable to remain permanent or whether an ingredient willed it so; if someone’s sins would engrave themselves upon the soul of the one they had dressed up as or their own.
The girl scribbled around on her parchment with her pen, doodled in controlled frustration as her mind kept on questioning what it was about soulbonds that made them as such.
“Studying on the first week of school? How very light of you.”
“It’s the second week of school, Carrow,” Amita practically spat, no longer trembling in his presence. He had slowly gotten on her nerves and the fact that he was the cause of her argument with James riled her up. “But of course, you’d be too preoccupied with doing—whatever it is that you do—rather than study.”
“Quidditch, Rowle, Quidditch,” the boy replied with a victorious smile, seemingly noticing the anger he had elicited from her. He sat down in front of her and pushed away her books to the side with a glance in their direction.
Amita bit her lip to hold back from lashing at him.
“Soulbonds?” he mocked, cursed amusement dancing in his eyes. “Right, for someone like you, it must be the only way to keep your friends—or your lover.”
“If you’re only here to be a prat, then kindly leave.”
“Why is Potter ignoring you like that?” He inquired instead of leaving. “I thought you both were a thing.”
Amita tensed awkwardly. Was it that obvious they had fought that even an egocentric Slytherin would notice?
“We’re not a thing—we’ve never been a thing,” she clarified under gritted teeth, “and it’s none of your concern whether we’re talking or not.” She scurried to grab her books and she narrowly dodged his palm. It laid flat on her Potions’ textbook, but she managed to place all the other ones in her bag. “Could you move your hand? I need to head to Transfiguration.”
He simply laughed, “No.”
Amita looked up, her eyes caught in Carrow’s gaze. He was peering so hard—so deep—inside her. He was unsettling. There was something off about him. He liked toying with people—like a cat playing with its mice—much like his friends Dolohov or Lestrange, but he was so much more perceptive and discerning. So much more dangerous.
“Move my hand and take it.”
Amita stood still, her hands still grasping her bag firmly.
“You can’t,” he spoke matter-of-factly. “Why?”
The girl stood up, opting to leave her textbook behind.
She’d borrow Sirius’.