Love Hurts
Some fools think of happiness,
Blissfulness, togetherness
Some fools fool themselves, I guess
They’re not fooling me
28th January 1976
A soft clicking grounded Ara in the dream as she felt her seat rumbling beneath her.
This time, she was on the train to Hogwarts. In a random carriage, not the usual one by the back that the Marauders frequented. Sat opposite a boy nearly the spitting image of Frank Longbottom. Blond hair and identical features, but on a rounded face and softer body. A chubby eleven year old, with a look of utter panic in his eyes.
“Are you sure we’ll find him?” He fretted, twisting his hands as he hunched into himself. Neville, she thought. Sweet Neville, Hermione’s first friend at Hogwarts. “Gran will kill me if I’ve already lost Trevor. She told me I ought to get a carrier for the journey, but he likes exploring.”
“I’m sure he’s alright.” Ara spoke, voice higher and childish in its certainty. “If he’s so prone to adventure, he’s likely just taking in the train. I’m sure one of the older students is looking after him.”
“I hope so.” The boy sighed.
“I’ve already searched the train and asked around.” Ara spoke, a little more tersely. “They know where we are, I’m certain someone will find us before the end of the train ride.”
The boy nodded at that, eyes a little wet.
And then, as his mouth opened to speak, a soft trickle of music filled the air. Gentle piano trickling as though from behind her ears, muting Neville’s speech. The memory grew hazy, flickering as though trying to stay present, overwhelmed by a stronger force that finally snuffed the memory into whips of smoke.
And another dream took it’s place.
Not a memory. A story.
Piecing itself together with threads like scratches of ink. Animating the story as though ripped from a children’s book. One Ara had never been read but Hermione knew all too well.
There once was a young warlock. Still in school, and utterly unturned by the changing tides of social interaction. Rich, talented, handsome, and so very intelligent; he watched as he lost classmate after classmate in foolishness in love.
Oh, how they would preen like peacocks. Lost appetites and dignity under withering poetry and kept favours. As such, the young warlock resolved to never fly prey to such a weakness. He turned to the Dark Arts to ensure such immunity.
Unaware of his secret, the warlock’s classmates and allies laughed to see him so aloof and cold.
Their talented classmate, unmatched in his beauty of dark hair and pale skin - chiseled and unyielding - simply had to be be swayed at some point. He was too beautiful, too intelligent to not find a woman he could tolerate enough to learn to love.
“All this will change,” they prophesied, “when a pretty girl catches his fancy.”
Yet he stayed untouched. Though many girls in school tried to approach his haughty indifference, employing the most subtle arts to appease him, none succeeded in touching his heart. The warlock glorified his indifference, ever proud of the feat it took to attempt such a thing.
As the warlock and his classmates graduated, many wed quickly; popping out heirs and spares and daughters alike.
Meetings with his advisors dwindled as their mewling offspring demanded their attention.
“Their hearts musk be husks,” he sneered inwardly, as he watched those young parents around him, “shrivelled by the demands of pitiful offspring.” And once again, he congratulated himself upon the wisdom of his early choice.
In due time, after travels and days behind shop counters, the warlock found himself offered a manor by a former lackey. The man faced his true heir’s absence, and offered one of their promised properties to the warlock in hopes that he might ensnare this child home. The warlock did not help this man, rather he considered himself blessed by his family’s splintering. Now he reigned alone in their manor. Having shuttered away his deepest treasure in the deepest crook of the dungeons, he gave himself over to a life of ease and plenty.
He warned the man that he ought not to give in to such sentimentality, and refused to find the child.
The warlock was certain he must be an object of immense envy to all those who beheld his splendid and untroubled solitude. Strong in magic, he felt he was surely the ideal for those in his employ.
It was to his chagrin that he overheard two of his lackeys discussing their master one day. Two cousins, both blessed by three children and shrieking wives.
The first servant expressed pity for the warlock, as despite as his wealth and power, he was not loved by anybody.
But his companion jeered a reply, asking why a man with such intent on magical society continuing with purity hadn’t been able to secure his own line.
He resolved at once to take a wife. One superior to all others, with astounding beauty and intelligence; the great envy and desire of every man that beheld her on his arm. She would be as magical as he, with wealth of her own and a lineage to stand tall upon.
The warlock bided his time. Secured the first lackey’s eldest child as his soldier; enforced loyalty to the grave from their very House.
With great amusement, he watched the second servant’s family splinter under violence and incompetence. Watched as the children fled the home and the man came to his door to beg help in retrieving them.
And thus, he stumbled upon a girl answering his every wish.
The second servant’s daughter was a witch of raw and unyielding talent in magic, from a lineage as old as magic itself. Smart and lethal in equal measure, with a wand tied to his own. Vaults stuffed with gold and treasure beyond dream; beauty that tugged at the heart of every man that set eyes upon her. That is, save for one.
Though the warlock’s heart felt nothing, he returned to the lackey and an agreement was set.
“Make them stay. Prevent their leaving again, as my House needs heirs to continue the lineage.” The man pleaded to the warlock as the children fled anew.
One summer, the warlock extended an offer to the witch. All those who knew the warlock were amazed by his change in manners as he regarded her.
The witch was tired and worn; both afraid and fascinated by the warlock’s attentions. She sensed the coldness that lay beneath the warmth of his flattery, and had never met a man so strange and remote. Her kinsfolk, however, deemed theirs a most suitable match. As the warlock returned her to her parents, they accepted his offer for her hand and sent her with him to the Manor.
On the first night, the warlock threw a great dinner in her honour; laden with delicacies and wonderful treats. The table was set with gold and silver and the maiden sat upon a throne beside the warlock. He spoke low and sweetly, with words from poems and romantic lyrics.
Yet he did not understand them.
“You speak well, warlock,” the girl spoke softly, shaking her head at his attempt to sway her favour, “yet I cannot seem to find any heart to it. What shallow words.”
The warlock smiled and told her that she need not fear on that score.
Dragging her from the table, he paced down towards the locked dungeon where he kept his greatest treasure.
There, placed upon the pages of a blank diary, lay the warlock’s beating heart.
Long had it been since last he’d spied it. A lifetime that it had never fallen prey to beauty, or to a musical voice, or the feel of silken skin. The girl shuddered at the sight of it, for the heart was shrunken and covered in long black hair.
“Oh, what have you done? Put it back where it belongs, I beg you!” She cried out.
Seeing this was necessary to please her, the warlock withdrew his wand and sliced open his own chest to replace the hairy heart in the empty cavity it had once occupied.
He grabbed the girl, and the feel of her soft arms, the sound of her faint breath, and scent of her dark hair… it pierced his newly awakened heart like pinpricks. The heart had grown strange during its exile; perverse in its appetites from the blind and savage darkness to which it belonged for decades.
A crash at the front door led to spellfire and many an arrest as the girl’s brothers came to her rescue. They searched the castle with great trepidation, finding as the sun found down, the unlocked dungeon at the base of the manor.
There, an utterly horrific scene lay before them.
The girl lay dead upon the floor, her breast cut open, and beside her crouched the mad warlock. In one hand, bloodied and scarlet, lay the girl’s beating heart. In the other, he held his wand aloft, casting as his chest to wrangle the hairy heart from the cavity.
But the hairy heart was stronger than he was, and refused to relinquish its hold upon his senses. Not when it had been deprived for so long.
Before the terror-struck eyes of the brothers, the warlock cast his wand aside and seized a silver dagger. Vowing to never be mastered by his own heart, he hacked it from his chest.
For a moment, the warlock knelt triumphant, with a heart clutched in each hand. Then, with a laugh of premature victory, he fell across the girl’s body and died.
——
Sequestered on Ara’s balcony in the Gryffindor Common Room, stood Sirius and Remus. Respective cigarette’s clutched in cold hands, watching as the sun rose over the hills and trees.
In the distance, too far to spy, but clear on the map, were the other two Black siblings. Waltzing their way to the Black Lake for an early swim. Likely carrying Cornish pasties to throw to the Giant Squid.
“You wanna talk about it?” Sirius asked, exhaling smoke as he looked to his friend holding the map. Watching as the scarred boy glanced between Ara and the slowly moving steps of Tucker Clearwater with his teammates on the way to the pitch. Their path designed to cross by the Lake, to wave to Ara as she swam.
“Not particularly.” Remus spoke gruffly, whispering the words to seal the map as he stuffed it in his pocket. “I just… I don’t like Tucker.” Remus shrugged awkwardly.
“Yeah, must be brutal getting swapped in for the blonder, perkier model.” Sirius grinned wickedly.
“Piss off.” Remus knocked his shoulder, grumbling.
“I’m just disappointed that she’s into blonds.” Sirius sighed dramatically. “I thought she’d have better taste.”
“Weren’t you just caught in a broom closet with Elara Delphine, an infamous blonde?”
“She dyes it.” He waved a hand dismissively.
“Get my mind of this shit, won’t you?” Remus grit out, taking a sharp inhale of his fag.
“Wanna hear about Pete’s burnt arse?” Sirius grinned, waggling his brows against his friend’s roll of his eyes.
“What stage are you all on in your animagus transformations, anyways?” Remus huffed, taking a drag of his cigarette.
“Waiting on the storm, now.” The other boy grinned, waggling his brows. “Pete and Ara have been making sure we do the meditation every night.”
“Cheers for… I mean, you all didn’t have to do this for me.”
“Of course we did.” Sirius shrugged. “You’re a Marauder.”
For the first time since their little vow and naming of their group, Remus truly felt it. Sequestered with cigarettes; the intensity of their bond finally hit.
He was a Marauder.
Even grumpy, even as the ex-sort-of-boyfriend of one of them, and the guy that had shagged the sister of another, he was a Marauder. Even when complaining about his friend’s sister’s boyfriend, he was still part of the pack.
He had a pack.
It was quite nice, really.
——
Most of Ara’s solitary time was spent thinking through how to break things off with Tucker Clearwater. Plotting ways to keep her twin out of her conflicted mind; refusing to share her heartbreak with anyone.
It was self imposed, after all.
It would be dealt with solitary.
At least Crouch provided a happy distraction - often throwing a stinging jinx her way when they crossed paths. She was more than happy to demonstrate her own capabilities in return.
Even if she’d promised Lily that she’d quit the violence that year.
She really had. For a few months at the start of the year, as Tucker Clearwater took her attention, she’d really tried to stop it all.
But, maybe, she wasn’t that kind of person. Just maybe, she needed the violence to keep her in check.
Besides, Barty was her cousin. And as the Prewett twins watched over her, she too watched over the wayward members of the Black family. Made sure Evan Rosier had drinks and snacks as he holed himself in the library. Kept watch over Killian as his role as Head Boy wore him down more and more; snuck calming droughts in his tea before bedtime.
She still exchanged letters with Andromeda, tales of Hogwarts met with silly stories of Nymphadora’s growing achievements.
Wrote Bella, even though she’d stopped replying after that article last year. Sent flowers to Narcissa for her anniversaries, even though she never sent anything back.
And on days when she felt like breaking, sometimes, she tried to find places her Marauders had missed on their map. Those days when that bloody constant migraine felt inescapable, every thought shadowed by pain.
Ara would roam the corridors, traipsing the stairs and letting them lead her wherever they desired. Through passages out to Hogsmeade; sneaking chocolates from Honeydukes and whiskey in the Hogs Head.
That day, the map had led her to the seventh floor of the castle - between the Astronomy tower and Professor Manto’s classroom. To the blank slot of wall, bare of any classroom or passageway.
There had to be something there, she thought. Something her boys had missed in that stretch of grey stone, clear of tapestry or standing decoration.
Her mind repeated the same thought as she paced the empty corridor.
I wish I was back at the Potters.
Over and over again; her silent secret desire as her world fell tumultuous anew. If she could, she’d stay there forever.
As she spun to pace the walk again, something began to form out of the corner of her eye. She twisted in time to watch the magic finish flourishing. Stone twisting into familiar pale wood and gold trims. There, somehow, on what had once been a clear wall; against the stone as though it had always been there was a door.
Not just any door. A door from the Potter Manor.
Carefully, Ara’s hand slid against the golden handle. The metal was cool, but not cold. Easily twisting under her grip as the door clicked undone and swung open.
It didn’t make sense.
There, behind this suddenly-appearing door, was the music room of Dorea and Charlus’s wing of the Potter Manor. The same pale wallpaper and large grand piano, viola and violin in the corner.
How was it here? How could Hogwarts replicate such detail?
She wandered in, hearing the door click shut behind her as she stepped towards the piano. Sitting on the stool, noticing the lack of wear to the velvet cushion. An almost perfect replication, she thought, fingers pressing against the piano keys.
It sounded the same. Tuned perfectly.
Her fingers moved along the keys, playing a melody she practiced often with her brother. Trying to not feel the absence of his part of the melody.
So she switched to a tune just her own. One she had inadvertently played for Charlus, the tune that bled through her memory and turned it to a peculiar dream.
And for a moment, eyes shut and breath soft, she was finally alone.
She wasn’t Angry Ara, or a Mad Heiress to a Dark House. She was just sat at a magic piano, playing a little tune.
The migraine dimmed to a steady thrum, overtaken by the jingle of the keys.
Bit by bit, she let the memories bleed through. For the first time since the dreams had started, she felt them in the day. Let her subconscious bleed through memories of practicing spells against odd mannequins and escaping fire on bloody broomsticks.
By the time she opened her eyes again, it was dark in the Room.
Her wand slid from her sleeve into her palm. Red wood glinting in the dimness, a soft coolness against her skin. She looked up; raising her arm slightly as she whispered to the darkness. Mind full of fond dreams, memories of a life not her own. A boy that looked like her friend but felt like a brother. Of laughing as they packed up parchments and textbooks, promises of sugar quills for her help on essays.
Of an otter and a stag, skipping side by side.
“Expecto Patronum.”
The words breathed from her with a smile. Magic tingled in her palm, like the feel of a hand in her own, and she watched as a silver mist slipped from the tip of her wand. It twirled and twisted until it pulled itself together, forming into the last thing she had suspected.
Instead of the otter she dreamt about, a bloody great thestral galloped across the air. Dancing in the darkness - made of spectral bones and bat-like wings, smoky at the edges. And utterly white. Utterly beautiful.
Pandora had always seen something in Ara that she hadn’t quite grasped. She had always seen the Hermione in Ara’s dreams, the middle name that lingered and lingered.
But Ara had lived a different life to Hermione. She had faced enough, far too young. And her mind, as whole as it was now, had been splintered far greater than Hermione’s.
She would not get an otter. Not as she was. Not as who she had become, these last awful years.
And yet, she could not understand the thestral. This great omen of Death that she could see before witnessing death in actuality… why was it attached to her so?
Ara’s patronus glittered out of existence as she stood in a rush, shouldering her bag and practically sprinting from the odd Room. She bounded down the corridors with a quick tempus to check the time, gulping as she spied that it was past curfew.
Have you got the map?, she whispered to her twin through the fog in their bond, his mind flashing into view. He was sat in the dorm, setting up an album on their record player - hiding his wince as he felt the shadows of her headache.
Think it’s in Petey’s drawer again, why?
Can you check the hallways for prefects? I got distracted searching for hidden passages and didn’t realise how late it’s gotten, Ara scanned the hallway before sneaking through with a quietly whispered disillusionment charm.
Of course you did, her twin laughed fondly, moving to grab the map to flash its secrets into her vision.
Brilliant. Cheers, Ara poked a spot of gratitude as she checked through the map - spying her safest route.
She made it back to the tower, just as her twin warned of some Slytherin prefects rounding the corner. Sneaking in with great success and bidding him goodnight as she arrived back at the Gryffindor dorms under the cloak of night, to a lack of candle light or chatter.
“Lumos.” She whispered, wand aloft and dimly shining her path through the room as she rested it on her bedside table. The floor was coated in scatters of parchment that made her snort. Of course Lily had tired out the girls with OWLs prepping. The ginger girl had likely fallen asleep over her papers and been dragged to bed, the rest following suit. As was par for the course in the Gryffindor girl’s dorms, as of late.
Except, as she pulled off her robes and shoes - shrugging on her loose flannel pyjamas (a gift from Charlus that Yule) - she heard a soft sniffling. From the shut curtains of the bunk opposite her own, Lily Evans was decidedly awake. And she was sobbing, so very gently.
“Lily?” Ara whispered into the darkness, clutching her wand as it lit the dorm.
There was a moment of silence - cries quietened as the ginger forced word through her throat.
“It’s awful.” The girl rasped out between hiccups.
“Can’t be worse than what I’m imagining.” Ara spoke softly, reaching to the curtains and tugging them undone with her free hand. “Oh, Lils.”
Lying under a thick dark quilt, lay Ara Black’s best friend. Her ginger hair in two braids beside her splotchy face. Tear-stained cheeks and red eyes, lit only by Ara’s wand.
“His dad died.” The girl whispered into the darkness as Ara crouched beside her.
“Who?”
“Sev.”
“Oh.” Ara breathed. No wonder Lily had been closer with him after the Christmas break. What had she learned, over those weeks away from the castle?
“He spent the last few months ignoring me, but now he needs me. I have to do it, don’t I?”
Wordlessly, Ara stood and silently broke the lumos spell, sending the room into utter darkness. She pulled the duvet back and climbed in beside her friend; barely able to make out the slope of her face in the dimness. Only then did Ara realise that Lily’s cat, Neptune, lay atop her chest - only visible as an outline, black fur blending into the darkness. He opened his eyes, blinking at the two before jumping onto the pillow by their heads.
“I hate him.” Lily sobbed, reaching for Ara. Clutching at her shoulders under the red sheets. “I hated his dad, and I hate him too.”
“I know.” Ara whispered, hands reaching up to stroke her friend’s hair.
“But I can’t leave him. He has no one. He always tells me that I’m the only good thing in his life. I’m the only one that’s there for him.”
“That’s too much pressure, Lils.” Ara spoke gently.
“He was there for me first. He showed me so much, and then he ruined it. I hate…” her words paused, hands still wrapped around Ara as she sighed and turned to lie on her back. “Can you stay?”
“Always.” Ara twisted to lay on her back, untangling Lily’s arms to reach and hold their hands between them.
They fell asleep, hands interlocked.