22
Fawkes cooed softly on his perch and the sound lulled Fabian in a relaxing trance. He rarely found inner peace. Thoughts constantly roaming and senses tingling, he hadn’t expected himself to calm down in Dumbledore’s office, of all places.
They were patiently waiting for a sixth year student, one which he knew nothing about despite seemingly having gone to school with her for three years. Of course, he hadn’t known the whole student body when he was a student, but the fact she was a Gryffindor, and the fact she was a pureblood, should’ve made her more tangible in his memory. Alas, all he could picture was dark hair and surprised eyes when the hat had announced her house, nothing more.
Truth be told, Fabian had not expected to set foot in Hogwarts after graduation. He and his brother had wanted to become magical watchmakers and open a little shop in Hogsmead. They had put the project on hold when Gideon had instead started Auror training and he had reluctantly followed suit, only to give up a few weeks later.
Dumbledore had been disappointed by his lack of fervour and resilience, but Fabian had simply shrugged at the man’s criticism. He had always been shameless, it wasn’t anything new.
He lied, and hid, and lacked respect for authority. There was nothing he wouldn’t steep so low as to do, and surely he would’ve been sorted in Slytherin had it not been for their inability to let go of their pride in order to achieve their ambitions.
Fabian gazed upon the watch on his left wrist. It was nearly 8:30. Dumbledore had mentioned their appointment was not scheduled for a specific time, simply before the classes started, but the uncertainty of the girl’s arrival made his leg bounce.
“Fabian,” Dumbledore’s calm voice sounded, a tinge of familiarity imbued in his words.
He exhaled. “Excuse my restlessness, Professor.”
The man chuckled amicably, “There is no reason to call me so, anymore.” The man’s eyes twinkled as they looked at him. “You may call me Albus.”
“Thank you,” he replied, before adding, “Albus.”
The man smiled before fixing his gaze upon the closed mahogany door leading to his office, as if peering through it. Fabian could hear feet shuffling behind it, and after going silent for a moment, the sound of knocking filtered through the room.
“You may enter,” Albus’ voice sounded.
The door opened uncertainly—but did not squeak—and revealed the sight of a girl. Her appearance nagged at him with familiarity, but still, he did not quite recognize her.
When her gaze fell upon him, the girl tensed, stopping her stride.
“Is this not a good time, Professor?” she questioned, eyes still riveted upon him.
“It is quite alright,” the Headmaster replied simply, motioning her over to the seat next to his. She quickly did so and Albus continued, “This is Professor Prewett. He will teach DADA for the rest of the year, perhaps the next one as well if we are lucky enough to be graced with his presence.”
Fabian scoffed mentally. They both knew he hadn’t been first choice for the job. Had there been another free Order member, or had he already been occupied by Auror training like he had been tasked to, Fabian wouldn’t be in Hogwarts at all. It was a loss on both their parts: for him, it was torturously uncomfortable until the seventh years graduated, and for Dumbledore, it meant keeping a skilled scout out and off the field.
Alas, sacrifices had to be made. For the greater good, Dumbledore would utter.
“Perhaps,” he instead answered with a small chuckle. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The girl flinched when he offered his hand to shake, but he paid it no mind, replying with what he hoped was a welcoming smile to her sheepish one.
“I was told by Professor Dumbledore that you have a gift for painting,” he spoke trying to ease the tension. It did not help, and instead, the girl’s shoulder nearly reached her ears as she looked over at Albus with worry. Fabian couldn’t help the unbidden curiosity from leaking out of his eyes, both at her reaction and at the prospect of seeing a painter. They were scarce, and despite magical painting being a Hogwarts elective, very few students wanted to learn it in the first place.
“If it is alright with you, dear,” Albus spoke, gazing at her fixedly, “I would like for Professor Prewett to be present whenever you bring me a new painting.”
They had discussed it briefly before, the need for a second set of eyes. Dumbledore seemed afraid to miss minute details etched in paint. When Fabian had asked why the man couldn’t simply ask the girl to explain the painting herself, he had replied that he believed her to be a seer although unable to express her visions without an external medium—hence, the need for paintings in the first place.
***
It took her by surprise, but Amita didn’t react, any remark quickly dying on her tongue. She instinctively knew what that entailed. The man sitting next to her was more than simply a new addition to the teaching staff: he was someone Dumbledore trusted completely, someone completely loyal to the older man.
She didn’t answer immediately and instead placed her canvas unto the desk in front of them, hands shaking as she went to remove the cloth.
She hesitated and bit her lip anxiously. Her eyes distractedly trailed the figure sitting next to her. Truth be told, the new teacher didn’t seem quite old, perhaps only a few years older than her. He might even have graduated from Hogwarts a few years ago. Still, the girl couldn’t quite place him. The familiarity of the boy’s charming smile and curly auburn hair, nagged at her and while she was overwhelmed by a sense of deja vu, she couldn’t quite remember where she had last seen him.
“I did not enchant the painting.“
There was a beat of silence, a moment of growing unease, and Amita felt her resolve crumple, hoping for James to whisk her away and be done with it all.
“Amita, you know it’s—“ Dumbledore started, before being quickly interrupted.
“I’m not enchanting this painting!” She bellowed, her voice reverberating inside the closed office. She looked around the room—anywhere but at the Headmaster—distractingly trying to figure out where her painting of Regulus was. She couldn’t see it anywhere.
“I’m not enchanting it,” she repeated, this time more subdued. “I believe it’ll be fine for another hour or so before I have to destroy it.”
Dumbledore peered into her eyes and she couldn’t sustain his gaze. She wiggled on her chair, uncomfortable.
“That is quite regrettable,” he spoke, voice carefully neutral. The tension between them was palpable and the silence only worsened its impact. She exhaled shakily. “But that will have to do for now.”
Relief seemed to seep into her every pore as her adrenaline ebbed away. Her still trembling fingers gripped at the fabric covering her painting and with a deep inhale, she removed it completely and curled into the chair, as far away from it as possible.
***
The man trapped inside the canvas in front of him was a stranger, Fabian was sure of it. He softly turned it away from a bemused and slightly scared-looking Albus, so he could get a better look.
The man was stunning. The kind of stunning that would make people fight for his attention all the while doing his bidding with no slight reluctance.
Fabian could not pinpoint exactly how old he was, a faint sort of mist seemed to cover his being, dulling his edges, giving him a softer appearance, bordering of ethereal. And yet, he paradoxically also seemed sharp with his tight jaw, high cheekbones, eyes peering into your soul and taunting smirk.
He shivered. What effect would he have on him had he been enchanted? Had his smirk not been static, but instead growing satisfactorily under Fabian’s scrutinizing gaze? He wondered what that man’s voice sounded like: was it as authoritarian as his clean appearance seemed to imply, or was it a softer sort of suave, more akin to the gentle waves of his raven hair?
He was about to question Dumbledore on whether or not he knew the man, when he stopped at the look on the eldest’s face. The blood seemed to have seeped out of his cheeks, his skin a deadly white.
He was looking straight at Amita, aghast, and the girl cowered under the Headmaster’s gaze, guilty. The man’s fingers trembled as he grasped the canvas and turned it back over to face him and closer to his eye level. Slowly, his trembles and surprise subsided, the colour swiftly returning to his face. Fabian applauded his ability to compose himself so quickly.
***
“Do you know who this is, Professor?” Professor Prewett asked, voice low, as if speaking any louder would break an unspoken rule between the trio.
“Yes, I do.”
Relief flooded Amita in waves. Dumbledore already knew whom she had painted. He wouldn’t need her to answer anything. She wouldn’t have to lie about how she knew him, what he was to her, why he was so important. He already knew.
“Yes, I do,” he repeated as he placed the painting in front of them. “And we’ll need to enchant it.”
No.
“We'll need to make copies for the Daily prophet.”
Absolutely not.
“Or at least hang the portrait in the Order’s headquarters.”
She wouldn’t.
“No,” she spoke, voice stern.
“I’m not giving you the choice, child.”
“But you said I wouldn’t have to charm it,” she whimpered pitifully, surprising even herself. “You promised,” she whispered, betrayed.
“That was before I knew what you had painted. Who you had painted.”
***
Fabian did not in fact know who Amita had painted. He was dying to know who could possibly garner such unbidden worry from Dumbledore of all people, who was scary enough to stop both of them from uttering his name aloud.
Of course, only one man came to mind. Someone that had only been a vague spectre, the head of the opposing faction. The man with no name, no face. A legend amidst the Order.
Fabian would believe him to be a myth had it not been for bribes of information they had managed to collect here and there from blood-purists and their sympathizers. Their Dark Lord.
“I can’t,” Amita’s feeble voice sounded. She was desperately peering at him, hoping he would say something, grant her aid. But he wouldn’t—couldn’t—not when Dumbledore wanted so desperately to know, not when it could inform the Order and save lives.
The girl rubbed at her wrist frantically and he smiled sadly at her. They were being too harsh on a child, he knew, but he couldn’t help his mind from wandering to other children, much younger than she was, who had succumbed to worst fates.
He tried to ignore the vision of the youngest Bones—eyes void—clinging to the back of his eyelids, in vain. He could never forget it. He had held that child—that baby—in his arms, had sung lullabies so he could sleep—he slept so well—, praised Edgar for such a brilliant offspring.
Nausea engulfed his senses.
***
“There is no other option, child, you know it,” Dumbledore admonished. “When and how did you meet Tom?”
The vow circling Amita’s palm and climbing along her forearm, warmed up threateningly.
“I can’t tell you, sir.”
The Headmaster’s eyes fell upon her right hand and slowly—agonizingly so—raised up to look at her. “I will not press as long as you enchant the painting.”
Amita’s stomach dropped. She was aware she hadn’t been inconspicuous. He must already know about her vows. How could he not? He was manipulating her, toying with her, and he expected her to keep bringing him paintings after today?
“Amita, dear…” The elderly wizard voice grew soft, tinged with slight desperation. “I need this information and I know you want to give it to me, or you wouldn’t have made this painting.”
The girl bit her lip.
“I understand you might not be willing to give me the information I need verbally, but if there’s another way to learn more about him—about the war—I must know.”
Amita fought the urge to grasp her wand, imbue the canvas with her magic and let it all be over. But she couldn’t bear seeing that face move, alive. She couldn’t bear the thought that her magic would help him exist this way. Even after the man had died, even after his horcruxes were destroyed, the painting would remain and she’d forever regret it.
“Muggleborns have started going missing and muggles have started being tortured.”
The girl felt Professor Prewett tense beside her. Even with a quick glance, it was clear he disagreed with Dumbledore for revealing so much to an underage witch when most adult wizards remained in the dark about the brewing war.
“Pureblood families have started being branded as traitors and attacked when they least expect it. The Bones were the first, but they certainly won’t be the last family wiped out. Not if we do not stop this war.”
Amita wanted to hurl. A wave of nausea flooded her and goosebumps rose upon her skin. It was too much. She shouldn’t have sent the Professor a request to visit without being mentally ready. She shouldn’t have painted Him, without being mentally ready.
She stood up, too quickly to be deemed natural, and made her way to the door.
“I would recommend you destroy the painting,” she managed to croak out despite the room swaying around her. She felt warm palms steady her shoulders and she breathed out. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. “before it destroys something of yours again.”
She walked out, trying to concentrate only on the feeling of the hand on the small of her back. Not on Dumbledore’s exclaims as she left the room, not on Prewett’s concerned gaze, not on the hundreds of portraits looking down at her from their hanging frames, and certainly not on dark eyes with red undertones and skin as white as a corpse.
The door closed behind her by itself.
***
Although he removed his family cloak from his shoulders to quickly wrap the stolen painting, although he held Amita up as her legs failed her and brushed strands of sweat-covered hair away from her forehead, James did not speak.
When the pair finally reached the Gryffindor common room, the two second years that had remained in the common room were leaving while looking them over curiously. James didn’t pay them any mind, the only thing of importance being Amita’s unresponsive state.
He had to practically drag the girl up the stairs and to his dorm room, her breathing heavy by his ear as he brought her shoulder to his chest. She had been inattentive for the majority of the trip back, gaze lost and skin covered in goosebumps.
He knew it would’ve been better to escort her to the infirmary, but he dreaded the attention they’d garner passing in front of the Great Hall—full of students eating breakfast—to reach it.
Amita was too pale for his liking when he helped her sit on his bed and he tried not to regret his choice. They never should’ve tried to steal from Dumbledore in the first place.
Of course, his instincts had blared dangerously when the request had fallen from her lips. Of course, he had been wary of the reason she needed to get it back, of how easy it had been for her to request a visit with the Headmaster. But a part of him had bristled under the challenge— they had needed to plot and properly prepare in order to decrease the risks of failure—, the thrill of it reminding him of their attempts to join Moony for his transformation..
James looked over Amita’s ashy skin tone.
She looked dead.
A panic attack can’t kill you, James, his mother had whispered to him back then.
He wished his mother was next to him, telling what he had to do. As an ex-healer who had worked for St-Mungo’s for nearly two decades, she had always been calm, collected. She had known exactly what to do when Sirius had found his way home, and he was certain she’d know how to help Amita as well.
James exhaled slowly. He shouldn’t be getting overwhelmed.
Slowly he grabbed Amita’s left hand, guiding it to his chest. She didn’t flinch. He pressed it softly unto his lungs and inhaled slowly—exhaled steadily—easing Amita into a regular rhythm.
It took a while, but James was patient. He ran his fingers through her hair, rubbing gently at her scalp, trying to ground her. He had tried speaking to her, but the words wouldn’t come out, dying on his tongue at the sight of her. He quickly dismissed the idea to focus on physical grounding instead.
James didn’t notice when Amita regained awareness, nor when her eyes locked unto him. It was only when she hugged him fully—head in the crook of his neck, arms locked around his back—that he sighed in relief, tightening the embrace.
He wasn’t sure what had happened in the office, the meaning of their discussion evading him, just out of reach. Some information escaped him—why Amita painted for the Headmaster, why she’d need to enchant her painting or not, why the man she had drawn was so important—, some, however, had been painfully clear: a war was on its way.
He remembered the day his parents had sat him down to tell him the Bones had been murdered. He was still a child, the idea that one of his friends couldn’t visit him anymore—not because he was moving away or because he hated him, but because he had lost his life—had shaken him profoundly. Now he knew that it was because of the brewing war, the same one that had muggleborns constantly on edge, fearful that their muggle family would disappear in the dead of night.
His mind roamed to Lily—to the insults Snivellus had thrown her way—and he tightened his hold on Amita. The war had seemed like such a nebulous thing, like a vague omen looming over their heads. But now, James felt like it was everywhere, hidden behind wall bends and closed curtains, like it could jump out at him when he least expected it and kill him.
They stayed like this for a while, the both of them. James’ non-verbal Tempus charm had informed him he had five minutes before the start of Charms, he could barely make it if he ran and surely Flitwick wouldn’t mind one of his best students arriving a few minutes late, but still, the thought didn’t cross his mind. Instead, he fell into restless slumber.