Getaway Car

IT HAD STARTED AS A CALM SATURDAY, and we were sitting in the Great Hall, having breakfast, when Cassius suddenly said, "I'm trying out for Keeper today."

     "Really?" I blurted out with excitement while Adrian coughed on his pumpkin juice. "That's great news! I'm sure you'll get in."

     "As long as you don't suddenly go for Chaser, I'm sure you'll do fine, mate," Adrian commented as he wiped his face. "But, seriously, stay away from the Chaser spot. That's mine."

     Cassius snorted at the blue-eyed boy's reaction, yet his back remained slouched and his lips a tight line. "'course, I know how much you love that place."

     My eyes drifted to the black-haired boy setting side chuckles to his lips, talking to the Slytherins who had heard him, offering early congratulations. Then, the breakfast was over, and Cassius had barely touched his plate. His arrogant posture was crumbling like pieces of rocks with each step to the Quidditch pitch.

     "Wish us luck, Daph," said Adrian as we were to part ways; I to the stands and them to pitch.

     "You don't need it." I gave them a thumbs-up, and we departed to our ways.

     I sat at the stands, and then the first years crowded around me, their inexperience blooming under the clouded sky of the Quidditch pitch. Then a few of the second years. And before the boys were up in the air, a few more Slytherin posed on the bleachers, waiting eagerly for their friends to paint the grey clouds to the House colours.

     The Slytherins stood in a perfect line, made of twelve boys, each looking stiff against Marcus Flint, the captain. He was looking for only two new players, Keeper and a Beater, yet he enjoyed continuing the tradition of putting all the spots on the line, an odd way of flexing muscles, to prove to the rest that they already had the best.

     Then Flint blew his whistle, and green and silver boys were up in the air, soaring around the pitch, creating emerald shapes of spheres.

     "There you are, Daphne."

     The sound of my name snatched my attention in a moment of a breath, and I saw the girls daubed in green and silver robes. The taller one carried her head high, black hair drooping down her cheekbones, and the raven of her eyes held a mirror to her heart, blinding and desperately cold.

     Yet, Phoebe Parkinson spoke sweetly, sourly, and her stare, dark and avid, held all the bitterness the blonde next to her did not. "And I was beginning to think you bailed on us."

     And, for once, Phoebe Parkinson was right. I had purposely ignored them on many occasions all through the years. They bore no thoughts of me, and I none of them. Anyone with enough wits could see that Phoebe Parkinson's only interest was my name and the influence it carried, like a curse drifting from one child to another. A sky filled with names, of children, the product of that once great dynasty, the Blacks, now trimmed down to one last heiress.

     And she was not the only one. Each glance from Marcus Flint was a cruel reminder of what I was to the outside: a pretty face loaded with a sickeningly grand dowry. And it had bothered me, and it had crushed whatever bits of confidence I held up to my delicate soul until the day I realised it did not. Fate had been cruel towards me since the very first breath I took, and I discovered that, in a sickening pattern, it repaid for the damage with the beauty it bestowed upon me, as it had done to the rest of my family.

     I had forged the girl with too many flaws into the one I was for the others; blonde hair glimmering under the candlelight, curls foamed down to reveal the eyes like storms, bearing no emotion, only the thundering of the actions.

     My eyes drifted to the slighter girl, hair wreathing her wind-battered face, and her eyes drifted off to mine. Crystal's stance carried a grace to it, a calmness that was the polar opposite of Phoebe Parkinson — and of mine. And she was an interesting case, a nobody who had carved a place within the reigning names of the purest bloods. Or perhaps she was forced to brand a seat within the surnames that webbed one another with fire and blood to fit in with the lot.

     I turned back at Phoebe, and a sneaky grin crawled up on my lips. "Don't get your wand in a knot, Phoebe. It sounds like you carry a reason for me to ignore you."

     Phoebe chuckled slyly, the sound of it marching around with the wind. Then came the cheers of the first years, and I knew that someone must have scored.

     The wind had begun wailing towards our thick cloaks by the time try-outs were coming to an end, but it did not prevent me nor anyone else from screaming out our lungs for our friends.

     I clapped the hardest each time Adrian stole the quaffle, Cassius deflected the coming shot, and Draco manoeuvred away from the other Seekers. But Phoebe appeared merely bored.

     Adrain scored against the other Keeper, and the stands roared with triumph as Flint called them down. Then he announced something to them, not loud enough for us in the stands to hear, and Adrian clapped Cassius' back, and I knew he made it into the team.

     The scene had a familiar touch, like the summer nights we would spend in the starry sky. Back when it was just the three of us in the grand, abandoned mansions, trying to teach one another how to fly a broom with our heights barely reaching up to doors.

     Back then, we would fly up to the roofs, and I would point the constellations above — one by one introducing my family. That there is Leo, and in there lived my uncle, Regulus. And that is Orion, the hunter, my grandfather, now dead. And see the brightest star hanging near the skyline? That is my father, Sirius. He lives and shines the most brilliant in the night sky. Even locked up, he was the best of us.

     No, I would say, when they pointed to different stars, I'm not there. I was not named after a star, a constellation, or anything from the sky. I am just Daphne, plain and simple, the glamour of the brightest star in our lot.

     Then Phoebe grabbed our wrists, and dragged us all the way back to the grand castle, not a glance left to spare for the boys.

     And we walked in the corridors, Phoebe speaking of something I did not give a care in the world until I did.

     "Ah, how delightful, the Mudblood and her chivalrous Mudblood-lover," Phoebe tutted at the sight of the bushy-haired girl carrying enough books to hide her face, accompanied by a tall, redhead boy, the youngest Weasley brother. "They should be grateful to walk the same corridors with us."

     The innocent tone to her taunting remarks was startling, and before I could think of them, words had slipped passed my lips, perhaps merely to aggravate the elder Parkinson sister, perhaps not.

     "Weasleys are pure-blood, nonetheless."

     "The pureness to their blood means nothing. They are downright traitors, those Weasleys. A bunch of Muggle-loving traitors that breed like rabbits." Phoebe breathed out, her jaw tight. "Don't you dare tell me you feel even an ounce of bloody sympathy for them!"

     "I don't."

     Phoebe tilted her chin up, eyes cold like the passing nights of October. And I stared back at her, brows raised, and the clash of grey and ebony was regarded silently by the silver-haired girl.

     "Good."

     I watched Phoebe draw her wand out to mutter the words that plunged the books over Hermione Granger's head. The girl met the floor with a loud thud, and the redhead boy instantly rushed to her aid, collecting her heavy books as she rubbed her head, ivory tears glinting under her caramel eyes. Phoebe chuckled lowly, and all I could do was resist the pity gnawing upon my belly that should have never emerged for a girl like her. But I could not help myself, as I had fallen victim many times to the tumbles of books at home, in the hidden library of the Grimmauld Place, and knew just how horrible it ached.

     Ron Weasley's head snapped at our green and silver ties and the cloaks that bore the emerald snake. "Watch it, Parkinson."

     "Or what, Weasley?" Phoebe taunted the boy, and I felt his hatred burning from the torches near us, spinning us under a tide of a sizzling huff.

     Ron Weasley pulled out his wand, and so did Phoebe Parkinson.

     "Walk it off, Phoebe." I grabbed her by the shoulder, and she did not spare a side glance at my tone. The feral shine in her eye made a liar of her smile, her wand held lazily towards the boy's freckled face.

     "Put down your wands, both of you."

     Crystal's voice spanned through the corridor like honey, and it was coated with sugar as it suppressed the flames of the torches rallying us. Her shadow stood the tallest, and her cloak revealed the jade-tinted prefect badge igniting the walls.

     "Daphne's right, Phoebe. Walk it off!" Crystal pressed her lips tightly to one another, and urged us with a nod of her head to leave.

     Phoebe's stare was ice cold, but so was mine, and I grabbed her wrist in a similar fashion to what she had done earlier, and yanked her down to the dungeons. Her mouth was sealed shut with the shock of hearing a fellow Slytherin, our dormmate, the girl who shared a chamber and all of our dirty secrets wadding beneath our names for the past five years, back up a Mudblood and her equally traitorous friend! But Crystal's were not, and I thought, for a split second, that I might have heard her talking to the young Gryffindors.

THE WATER OF THE GREAT LAKE WAS DARK — a dark so complete it seemed to swallow what little light could cling from the last warm rays of the October sunlight. The lamps shone through the large windows of the dungeons, and the laughter of the students tackled the green tinge of the room; like a silver thread weaved by golden trims of the great Salazar Slytherin.

     I watched as Slytherins left to Hogsmeade, all burning with a new kind of thrill. I yearned to be like them, to be with them, walk through the stony path of the Hogsmeade, sip warm butterbeer with friends, wander through the high shelves of Honeydukes, and get lost within the maze of those sweets.

     But, as I saw the brutal sneer on Flint's face, darting over my figure and revolting over the many books spiralled at the table, I discovered a fondness for not being in Hogsmeade.

     "Been looking for you this entire morning," Marcus Flint crossed his arms over his chest as my hands wandered over my books, pilling them up in a hurry to leave. "Where have you been?"

     "Hiding from you," I said. "in the common room."

     "Ouch." Flint scowled. "Not a day goes that you don't display your hostility, eh? I'm starting to think this is personal."

     The corner of my lip tucked up, a decoy to the cold stone of my face. "It is."

     And I jumped to my feet, padding towards the girls' dormitories, but Flint did not simply know when to give up.

     "It suits you well, y'know," Flint spoke through his gritted teeth. "Your title. The heartless bitch of Slytherin."

     I faltered on my steps at the long lost epithet I had earned in my second year for hexing Anne Clearwater. Yes, she was a housemate, and yes, she was merely teasing me, but the words she had uttered of my name, of my relation to Sirius Black, were enough reasons to make her a permanent resident of the Hospital Wing for a month. Besides, I was having a horrendous week; Warrington had jinxed Daisy's fur, Professor Snape had suddenly decided to be particularly nasty towards me, and the Weasley twins had hexed a number of water balloons to fall over my head in the middle of the evening — and Anne had been the last one to tick off the clocked bomb known as my temper. A trait, so I have heard, passed down to me by my father, whose eyes, I reckon, must have sparkled like the stary night sky.

     I gave a short curtesy at him as a smirk broadened over my face. "Thank you. I carry it like a crown."

     Flint shook his head, unsatisfied. "Fine, why are you not ready yet?"

     "For what?" I asked with feigned curiosity, brows drawn nearer, but I knew what he was implying all too well.

     "To Hogsmeade, obviously. We have a date."

     It had been days since he brought up the matter, but it still made me sick to think.

     "Nuh, uh," I said with a shake of my head. "Our deal was that I would go on a date with you if you — I mean the Slytherin team, of course, were to win the match against Gryffindor."

     "I never accepted your proposal, Black."

     "Neither did I yours."

     Something manic flashed before his eyes, cruel and vicious, a vile notion that had never neared close to my harbour of thoughts, and it frightened me. For once, I was terrified of Marcus Flint.

     "Fine. I'll smash those Gryffindors to the ground and pull off each of their crimson feathers. Their lanky heads will rest as a trophy in the common room, Black. I'll make sure of it. Just for you."

     "Careful with your words, Flint. There are kids around." The mockery on my tone had dropped like a stone, gesturing to the younger students sitting in the common room.

     "And?" He asked flatly. "The sooner they learn our ways, the better. Don't tell me you're growing soft for the lion heads."

     Then he stormed off, and I was left at the doorframe, petrified, words plugged behind my lips with his flight. It took a few dreadful minutes to recollect myself, Professor Lupin and Grandmother's words of wisdom rumbling within my head for the forthcoming O.W.L.s., jolting me back to my senses.

     I rushed up to my dorm, and buried my head into the books like I had done before Flint's disturbance to my peace, quill dancing over parchments, and the clock ticked away one by one like pine cones falling off of their trees.

     Once I dropped my quill, was an hour left for students to return? Or two? I did not know. All I knew was that I needed air.

     I walked to the castle's ground, now empty of students, green morphing to brown, the lawn dry beneath my feet.

     The Great Lake came to view; dark water bubbling in the harsh wind, splashing into small ripples. I could smell it, the lake. It was everywhere, in the wind, in my hair, in my robes and in the pinkened shades of my cheeks dampened with the breeze. It was vicious to the outside but gentler to Slytherins resting in the dungeons, surrounded by its current. The lake felt familiar, and it felt like home.

     I leaned against the scabbed trunk of a tree, carved letters 'RL' and 'SB' darkened with age. The wind dashed down on me, cold and harsh, as if it begged to drive me back to the castle.

     I watched as the lake splashed into its final soothing waves, calming the circus of thoughts playing within my head. I tried not to think of Sirius Black, but I failed, his matted hair hanging down to his elbow like the many drops of blood dangling within his fingertips. It had been a good six years since his truth was revealed to me, and yet I could not find the right reasons, the right motivation as to why a man would do this. No matter how badly I tried, it was a choking reality to wrap my head around — that my father was a monster, unlike the ones my friends had that kept a courteous nod at the sight of my name. Yet he was gone, forever, never to return to my life.

     My hands had been chained to the ground as I watched time fly and dock at the moment for me to depart for a new life that was Hogwarts. The chains were to vanish as I took my seat within the green and silver House. That was the goal. That was my plan, and it was designed to operate smoothly. But, as I leaned against the scarred trunk of a tree, it felt like the chains had only tightened in the span of the years.

     Then something, a hustling voice, disturbed my peace, and I saw something large and dark taking careful steps to the trunk. And I shrieked, and it howled back, and there was a moment of stillness before it waggled its tail at me like an old friend.

     The black dog was all too familiar, like a distant memory engraved within my skull. Yet, didn't all the black dogs appear the same?

     "Oh, er," My face was beginning to flush to a warm scarlet, and I trembled at my words. "I'm not very good with dogs, and frankly, I'm terrified by the lot of you, so just —" The dog took another step, and I jolted up to my feet, pushing my arms to my front in a desperate attempt to prevent him from getting nearer.

     "Stay back!" I shrieked. "I said, stay back, or I'll — or I'll have to use my wand! And that counts as animal cruelty, so don't push me to do it!"

    The dog tilted his head to the side and sat down on the battered lawn, still wagging his tail, and it felt as if I was facing a ghost from my past.

     "O-okay," I muttered, and my arms fell to my side, the colour of my cheeks rivalling the red of the Weasleys. "Nice doggy, you are, right?"

     "Daphne!" A voice bellowed from above, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

     Hurried steps, and I was face to face with the boys that became a family of mine. The dog's attention shifted to the boys, and I hurriedly tiptoed behind Adrian, shielding myself from the dog with his height.

     "There you are, Mia! We thought Sirius Black had kidnapped you or something!" Cassius fussed, his cheeks burning a light shade of red like mine. "Or teennapped you. I'm not sure of the term."

     "We didn't think that," Adrian interjected. "It was just Cassius."

     "Whatever," Cassius grumbled. "How did you get out of the castle anyway, Mia?"

     "Through the front door?"

     Adrian snorted at my response. "Don't mind him, Daph. He's had too many Firewhiskys to think straight."

     "Didn't know he could do that even before the Firewhisky," I noted blandly and took another look at his flushed cheeks. Perhaps it had not been the work of the wind alone.

     "Occasionally, he surprises us," Adrian waved off, and his gaze slipped to the black, shabby dog watching us with interest. "But the real question is, what the hell is that thing?!"

     "A dog, genius," Cassius scoffed mockingly. "And he says I'm the one who can't think."

     "Too big to be a dog, don't you think?"

     "Have you ever seen a Great Dane?"

     "No."

     "Clearly."

     "Oi, stop bickering. It's giving me a headache," I groaned, but I could not help the grin blooming on my face. "And, Cassius?"

     "Hm?"

     "Stop calling me Mia."

     "Right, right, fine. As long as we go back to dungeons, Mia, I might consider it." Cassius brushed it off. "I can't feel my face anymore in this cold."

     "He's right, for once," Adrian nodded, and I noticed his pinkened face. I must have looked similar to him, if not worse. "But I think that third drink got to you as well."

     "Piss off, Adrian." Cassius retorted. "Well, are you waiting for an invitation from Dumbledore himself to the castle? Let's go! I need to get ready for the feast!"

     And I laughed with them until my encounter with Flint replayed in my mind. I thought about telling them. I really did. But, in the end, I decided not to. It was not big of a deal for me then, knowing Slytherins' love for swinging insults at Gryffindors when they could not curse them off.

     But Adrian had caught my face flinching. "Are you all right?"

     "Yeah," I brushed off his worry. "Just thinking of Flint's reaction when he hears that I don't have permission to Hogsmeade this year."

     "Now that is a sight I would pay to watch!" Cassius cackled and turned to the boy shielding me from the dog. "I bet on 30 Galleons that he'll storm off to hex some first-year Gryffindor."

     "I bet on 50 that he will be taking a forced trip to Madam Pomfrey long before the grand revelation for what Daphne would hurl on him if he tried to flung his arm around her again."

     "And I bet on a 100 that I'll be the one cursing off your heads if you don't quit betting on it."

     Adrian tossed me a boyish grin as we began to move. "Don't be like that, Daph. You know you love us."

     We followed the battered lawn of the ground, brown leaves crunched under our feet, and the dog did not flinch, watching us leave to the Slytherin dungeons. And I nodded, albeit silently, at Adrian's words.