School
Don’t do this and don’t do that
What are they try do? (Make a good boy of you)
Do they know where it’s at?
Don’t criticise, they’re old and wise
Do as they tell you, don’t want the devil to
Come and put out your eyes
14th September 1974
“When did life get so bloody complicated?” Lily huffed from her bed in the dorm - hairbrush abandoned in her sudden existentialism.
It was just her and Ara that morning; Marlene already off with her friends, Alice at a training session for the Quidditch team. The latter avoiding the dorm, since Marlene and Lily’s contemptuous silence had grown too great for her to handle. She’d confessed as such to Ara, whispering that until they got along, Alice would be spending her time with her Hufflepuff friends.
The turntable they’d bought the twins - the event feeling so long ago - softly spilling out Muggle lyrics. This record by a band named ‘Supertramp’, one Lily had discovered over her Summer break.
Speaking of, that sentiment shared by the ginger witch was one that the Ara Black found oddly amusing.
When had life not been complicated?
Though, Ara supposed it did increase with each year.
True to his word, Remus had told the boys the news about his mother on that very first night. It had been a solemn evening; the boys all quietly enjoying each other’s company. Letting their best friend grieve in silence.
James had even written his parents, confirming that Remus had a bedroom in the Manor, whatever happened next.
Things with Ara’s mother were horrid. She had received a letter a week prior to demand her return for Easter. Enough time for everyone to calm down, Walburga had written. Her words so eerily unlike her. Another’s hand was clear on each page.
James was off, recently. His smiles a little forced - not to mention how Pete had come back from summer with another chip on his shoulder.
It felt like the ending to something was beginning. As though they were due some great shift.
“What do you mean?” Ara asked in reply, tugging her tie around her neck as she regarded her friend.
“Just… I wish it weren’t all changing so fast. I feel like we’re growing up too quickly.”
Ara was not the only one changed by the summer.
Lily Evans had returned to Hogwarts with a grit she had not possessed before, and a chip on her shoulder that she could not shake. She borrowed Ara’s liner to smudge around her eyes; finally dropping her false southern accent. It was odd to finally hear Lily in her true form, not only in private moments. Now she would hiss at anyone who disrupted or irritated her with a northern drawl. Remus and Mary were delighted; the Welsh boy and Irish girl happy to finally have another non-southerner in the mix.
She’d even brought a small black cat alongside herself - a sweet little kitten named Neptune. A gift from her aunt in the wake of some big family argument.
Now, it lay upon Ara’s pillows. Napping where her head had lay all night; enjoying the lingering warmth. Nuzzled into Crookshanks; Reg’s cat still invading her dorm most nights.
“I think I’ve always been waiting for adulthood.” Ara confessed with a shrug, reaching over to run a hand gently along the orange cat’s fur. “Or maybe not adulthood, but being grown up. I was never very good at being a child, anyways.”
“You weren’t given the chance to.” Lily frowned, eyes soft as she looked to Ara.
She’d learned a lot of her indigo-haired friend in their years sharing a dorm. Their years of spending time in each other’s company. And of all she knew, one fact was most prominent.
Ara had given up her childhood so that her brothers could have theirs.
Obviously, they were all still damaged. Still haunted by their house, far away from its walls. But Ara had bared the brunt of the darkness so that her brothers might know light. And it simply wasn’t fair.
“I suppose.” Ara replied with a sigh, eyes focused on the resting cats. Carefully, Lily stood and approached - sitting beside Ara on her mattress. “Sometimes I envy them. That all their scars are hidden.”
“Everyone is beautiful in their own way.”
“That’s such a line.” Ara laughed, shaking her head. “Who’d you get that from?”
“My mum always says people are beautiful in their own ways. But you’re right, it feels like such crap.” Lily shuddered, eyes welling as a burst of self-deprecation caught her. “She usually says it when I complain that I’m not pretty in the way I should be. I don’t fit what people want, not like my sister. Maybe if I’d been born in another time, back when odd-looking gingers were every painters’ delight.”
“Lily!” Ara gasped.
“It’s what I am. I’m the ugly Muggleborn that’s too swotty and too shouty to tolerate. I’m nothing.”
“Stop saying that!” Ara grabbed her shoulders, shaking her until she looked up. “Now I can’t blast how I see you into your mind like I do with Sirius when he’s having a strop, so I’m going to have to beat it into you with words, alright? Because, bloody hell, I spend half my time wishing I looked like you.”
“Don’t be mean.”
“I’m not. I swear it, I’d never be mean to you. I like you.” Ara promised, Lily’s gaze a little more hopeful. “I feel like a stack of bones and hair, half the time. And the other half, I feel like all I am is that ugly scar on my face. Even when people tell me I’m pretty, they always say ‘when you look past the burns’. Most of the people in our year don’t know my eye colour, since they’ve never been able to. And when I think too hard on that, I wish I was someone else.” Ara’s eyes darted down before she looked back to Lily - as though this were one of her darkest secrets. “It’s not something a Black should think. We’re meant to be the best. And yet…most of the time I wish I was you.”
They stayed, eyes locked for a moment, as Lily’s brain about combusted at this notion. Then, as she opened her mouth - to say what, she hardly knew - Ara spoke again.
“You’re so academic.” Ara continued, Lily blinking in shock at Ara’s complimentary assault. “Not just clever. You care about it all, perhaps a little too much but who am I to judge? I’d be the same if I could muster the strength to. And you have freckles. Not just random scatterings on half your face, cause the other half is scar tissue, but proper freckles. On your nose and all. And eyes that aren’t just grey. No, your eyes glow. Like bloody gemstones and I can’t sit and hear you talk bad about yourself when you’re entirely stunning.”
“I think that was the longest I’ve ever heard you speak for.” Lily blurted as Ara caught her breath. With that, their lips twitched and soon both girls burst into a fit of laughter.
“Are you alright now?” Ara finally asked, once the giggles turned to wheezes finally calmed to hiccups.
“Not really, but I appreciate you trying.” Lily admitted. “You view beauty in a way that no one else does, Ara. And I love you, both your unique lens isn’t enough to sate me. I’m sorry for making this all about me and my big fat insecurities.” She sniffled, wiping fallen tears.
“I should be apologising.” Ara shrugged, lips twitching as she tried to hide her grin. Lily’s eyes narrowed as she sensed mischief afoot. Always the way when friends with a Marauder. “Because entertaining your little spiral means we’re gonna be at least twenty minutes late for Herbology.”
“Oh, bloody bugger!” Lily exclaimed checking the time with her wand.
“Sometimes, I wish I had a time turner.” Ara lamented, grabbing her bag - hand extended towards her friend.
The ginger witch took it with a smile.
——
With each new year came new evidence of the curse against the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor position.
First year had been some forgettable former Auror with three wand holsters and a penchant for getting distracted telling old work stories in lessons. They’d learned basically nothing. She’d vanished in the June due to some old curse wound flaring up, right before exams. And never to teach them again.
Second year had been another Auror, one whose career specialised in eliminating threats by magical creatures. His lessons were part of how the Marauders figured out Remus’s furry little secret. Though, his opinions were greatly more severe than theirs, and they had spent half the year reassuring Remus that he wasn’t a monster. The man couldn’t really teach; merely waffling on about regulations for half the lesson.
In third year, they had been faced with Professor Zenith; an absurdly attractive teacher with decent enough lesson plans and few tests. He had been perfect. Naturally, he had suffered an accident while helping on some curse breaking endeavour that summer. Considering he no longer had his ears, he would not be returning to teach that September.
And so, they had been given the replacement of Professor Ananke. He was a British-Greek academic turned hit-wizard in his late twenties. Now fifty and retired; back to his beloved academics.
So far, at least, his lessons had been engaging.
Which was why the class did not bemoan at the pushed back desks that day - or the odd suitcase at the front of the room.
They shuffled into the back, dumping bags on desks as they crowded.
“Good afternoon, class.” Their Professor called from his desk. He was stood before it; donning his classic crisp robes as he smiled blandly at the masses.
“Good afternoon.” They repeated.
“Today, I’ve managed to get this little beauty from a friend who’s recently inherited a very old house.” His eyes sparkled. “Today we are facing a boggart.”
The students gasped in excited trepidation - whispers bounding between them.
“Now, five points to whoever tells me what a boggart does.” Professor Ananke paced the front of the classroom - eyes scanning the crowd of students. For a moment, Ara could have sworn his gaze landed on her and froze. But soon he was looking away and she shivered as she dismissed the very notion.
Often in his lessons, she got that feeling that she was being watched.
“It takes the form of whatever a person fears most.” Remus answered, having been picked by the professor. He and the boys stood nearer to the front, surrounded by Slytherins.
“I hate spiders,” Marlene shuddered, the Gryffindor girls huddled together in the opposite corner of the room. “I dunno if I can deal with a massive one.”
“It’ll probably be Prewett telling you you’re off the team or summat.” Lily tried to joke, freezing as Marlene bristled.
“Better than yours being McGonagall telling you that you flunked the year.” She sneered back, spinning to chat to Alice instead.
Lily tensed, frowning to herself as she tried to shrug off Marlene’s dismissal. Ara offered her best consoling smile; the gesture disrupted by the great bruise forming on her cheek.
The darker haired witch was sporting a green eye - the growing discolouration a remnant of a fight with Barty Crouch Junior. For some reason, at the start of the term, the two had gotten into a rather brutal scrap after Potions. He’d come out looking far worse, at least. His face was streaked by scratch marks; a rather impressive bruise across his shoulder and back. Neither had confessed the reason to a professor, even under threat of detention.
In fact, the next day, they nodded at each other in the corridor.
It was odd. Neither of their friend groups could piece it together. Especially considering how they’d bump into each other in corridors - grinning as they parted with a snarl.
Today, they’d gotten into a bout after Herbology; as the Gryffs left and the Slytherins entered.
She was deliberately keeping her face hidden from the boys - not wanting another lecture.
“Five points to Gryffindor, Mr Lupin.” The Professor nodded. “Form a line, please students. You’ll have to face the boggart, one at a time.” Professor Ananke called. “And five points to whoever can tell me why that is.”
Naturally, Lily’s hand shot up. With the Professor’s nod, she grinned and spoke.
“Too many people at once will confuse the boggart, and it won’t change properly. One at a time lets it figure out our fears, individually.”
“Well done, Miss Evans, ten points to Gryffindor.”
“Excuse me, Professor.” Rosemary Avery interrupted in that awful squeaky voice. “I believe you said five points.”
“You are correct, Miss Avery. However, for such a wonderfully done explanation, I figured it ought to be doubled. Now can I continue teaching, or do you wish to go first?”
The girl flushed red against already pink skin, shaking her head and retreating behind her brother.
As the line shook out, most of the Slytherins ended up at the back. Gryffindors pushed forwards, ever the braver set. All, save for Ara. She lingered at the back, praying for some accident to befall the boggart before her turn.
“Now the spell to use is riddiculus. Can you all repeat?” He displayed the wand motion, watching as the class copied with their own.
“Riddiculus!” The class chanted.
With a nod, the Professor opened the suitcase and stepped backwards.
Peter was first in the cue, to his regret. Black mist poured from the suitcase, transforming into a giant dog - snarling and rabid as it growled his way. It took the boy three attempts to cast correctly, finally succeeding and turning the dog into a small black puppy.
“What an excellent example, Mr Pettigrew!” Ananke nodded to the boy. “Ten points to Gryffindor.”
Pete nodded shakily, retreating to the back of the line beside Ara.
“How was it?” She whispered, turning her head slightly to look him over.
“Next time, I’m shoving James to the front and letting him go first.” He replied with a shudder.
Marlene was next in line, Lily snorting as she rolled her shoulders and stepped forwards. The mirage that erupted from the suitcase was not a massive spider, nor was it Prewett yelling at her to take her broom and go. Instead, the suitcase popped open and two young boys poured out. Stood, watching her through eyes that matched her own with a disinterest that made Ara and Sirius flinch. Though they didn’t not speak, Marlene looked to them with great horror - her hand shaking as she cast the charm.
“Riddiculus!”
The boys immediately stopped their staring; jumping around in a circle as they laughed merrily - looking to her as they extended arms for her to join.
The Professor hurried her along, moving to the next in the queue. Alice faced a very large rodent, shrieking as she turned it into a teddy bear. Lily ended up facing exactly as predicted; McGonagall telling her that she was banned from Hogwarts and to never use magic again. She had sniffled - avoiding the gaze of a certain Slytherin - as she made her way to the back of the classroom.
Remus came next; the Marauders freezing as the boggart twisted and coiled into a silver ball.
A full moon.
Whispers in the classroom sounded, questions and laughs at how Lupin was terrified of divination. And, at once, all of them could move again.
Sirius hastily stood closer to Remus - forcing the boggart to blur and shift away from it’s orbed form.
Instead, it grew arms and legs, wild dark curls and caved in cheeks.
“I killed Sirius Black!” It sang, twiddling a fake wand as it danced around. “I killed Sirius Black!” A perfect replica of his eldest cousin from one of Ara’s worst dreams; Bellatrix Lestrange in the wake of his murder. A representation of so much more than simply his death. He could feel Ara’s touch in his mind, breaking him from his panicked daze despite her flinch.
“Ridiculus!” He cast, Bellatrix shifting from her long dark robes into a brighter day dress, her smile sincere not sinister. Her cheeks puffed and her hair grew less straggly. Though she did not speak, she smiled at him exactly as she always had when they were children.
He could feel Ara’s relief as much as his own.
“Very good, Mr Black!” The Professor nodded. “Though, it would have been prudent to let Mr Lupin have his turn first.” He looked at Sirius pointedly.
“Looked like fun.” Sirius shrugged, pulling Remus with him to the back of the queue.
“Thank you.” The blond boy whispered as they walked, his gratitude clear in his green gaze.
James approached his turn with his usual bravado. Strutting towards the front of the room; rolled up sleeves and wand in hand.
And then a boy tumbled from the suitcase.
Same eyes, same hair. Just a few years younger. Smaller.
It was him, and he was all alone.
It only took him one cast to expel the image - replaced by the same flowers from the Potter gardens. As though the boy turned to stem and leaf.
James seemed truly shaken by the boggart, retreating to the back of the line without his usual joking. Sirius’s knock to his shoulder did not drag him from his funk, not like usual. Instead, he offered a grimace and ducked his head down; letting the other boy wrap an arm around him. Just for a moment.
The Slytherins finally began their rotation.
Mulciber was first of their lot; facing a large moth that he transformed into a butterfly. His housemates tittered out insults as he walked to the back of the classroom. Whispers of his cowardice.
Hercules Avery faced a rather large bear - blood dripping from its muzzle before it became a teddy bear. His sister had to cast four times before the dozens of spiders that crawled out turned to gemstones scattered on the floor.
Then Barty had faced his screaming father, only to put him in a large chicken costume. And Dolohov had taken three attempts to change the screaming little boy into a happy version. And Snape had faced the back of Lily’s head - turning it into her smile.
Yasmin Gibbons and Ava Clearwater were the last of their few. Ara watched them step forwards - willing her heart to stop racing.
This would be fine, right? Whatever her fear would manifest as. She could handle half her year seeing Flint or her mother or something else to that degree, right? Her breath caught in her chest - too nerved to dare asking Sirius to go through with her.
In her numb panic, she missed as the girls took their turns. Soon she was looking at Ava’s back as her boggart turned to roses.
As Ara stepped forward, two things happened. First, Professor Ananke looked towards her with absolute panic, as though he had forgotten that she too would have to face a boggart. Second, the person before her (Ava Clearwater, a Slytherin that tended to stick to herself) tripped on a lose stone in the floor, tumbling closer to the boggart as she tried to catch her balance.
Without thinking, Ara jumped forwards and yanked the girl back. Just as their professor rushed their way and cast the boggart back into the suitcase. Locks clicking firmly shut with several more swishes of his wand.
Ava turned to face Ara - her arm still caught in her grip - and exhaled shakily.
“Thank you.” She squeaked, clearly reeling from the close encounter as she brushed off her robes. “I thought you and your twin hated Slytherins.”
“I just hate Rosemary Avery.” Ara shrugged, releasing Ava’s arm with a bashful smile. “You’ve never done anything to me. And I get along with Barty.”
“You and Crouch assault each other in corridors.” Ava corrected.
“Same thing.” Ara grinned, waggling her brows. The Slytherin let out a surprised laugh, quickly shuffling towards her friends when Rosemary let out a loud sigh.
“Class is over!” The Professor suddenly announced, waving his hands to dismiss the group. “Go on, you’ve had your fun. There’ll be a quiz on boggarts next lesson, so be sure to study!”
A groan sounded in the room at that news, as the students began to grab their bags and trudge out of the classroom. Having been at the front, it took Ara a little longer to collect her things.
She had only just swung her bag on her shoulder when the last student left; her twin swearing to wait outside.
“Miss Black, might I have a word?” She turned to face her Professor, a little taken aback.
“Yes, Professor?”
“I apologise that you did not get a chance with the boggart today. You showed quick reflexes, pulling your classmate back.” He stalked towards her
“We can practice boggarts another time.” He told her gently, placing a hand on her shoulder. “But I figure that kind of thing ought to be private, shouldn’t it?”
She wanted to point out that it hadn’t been for the rest of the class, but held her tongue.
“Thank you, Professor. May I go?”
“Of course.” He nodded, and well…
That was that.