Ravenclaw
Aurora watched the thin wheel as it cut and splattered through the mud. The rhythm was oddly soothing. It was stained a nasty brown, and the rain did its best to wash it clean, but with every crick-cracking turn, it was filthy again. The carriage hopped on a rock with a heavy crash and Aurora groaned as her bony butt slammed down onto the seat. She pulled some wet hair from her face and went back to studying the ground. She refused to turn around. She refused to look at the other occupant of the carriage. She was seething.
"He won't recognize you, Aurora!" Dumbledore had tried to calm her down a few hours earlier.
"You can't be sure of that!" She swiftly snapped in return.
It had taken Dumbledore a while to convince Aurora to at least sit down. But then he confessed the fact that dementors would be stationed at the school, the fact that Alastor Moody owned a magical eye, and the fact that Dumbledore was the one who recommended Moody as her babysitter in the first pale, and she immediately shot back up with an enraged roar. Accompanied with her talon-like hands and frizzy curls, the sound made her seem uniquely inhuman for a moment.
Aurora felt like she could have slugged the old man if she didn't care for him so much.
Dementors were infamous in the wizarding world as the vilest creatures and were the guards of Azkaban: a prison for the worst wizarding offenders. A match made in heaven, Aurora thought. Their decaying, corpse-like faces were cloaked with black ethereal cloth, and only five skeletal fingers could be seen from beneath their withered cloaks when they glide through the darkest and foulest of places. When you are finally able to glimpse a dementor's face, there wouldn't be a moment to panic before every ounce of joy and peace is ripped from your very soul. They leave the air itself feeling soulless and empty. By a dementor's kiss, people are rendered a mere shell of their former self - evil and hollow.
Aurora knew dementors well - too well.
"Alastor agreed to maintain personal boundaries," Aurora remembers Dumbledore saying, and for the first time in a long time, seeing the mischievous shine in his eyes had made her blood boil, "Alastor won't see anything he shouldn't."
"Not to mock the man, but you haven't gone mad, have you, Albus?" She hissed through gritted teeth.
And so, Aurora sneered down the side of the carriage, and she willfully dismissed Dumbledore's existence. She might as well start acting like a child now if she'll be living as a fifth year soon. She heard him chuckling next to her at some point, but she ignored it. It became more and more difficult with time, as the silence begged for her to speak; she felt words bubble and press against the back of her throat. Only when the carriage finally passed the dark forest and the familiar castle came into view, did the urge vanish.
Aurora blinked some raindrops from her lashes to gape up at Hogwarts School For Witchcraft And Wizardry. The skies were pitch black and the castle's windows looked like stars atop the mountain. Its magnificent size seemed particularly ginormous, silhouetted by the moonlight. The moon is almost full, Aurora realized. Forgetting her determination to pretend he wasn't there, Aurora turned towards Dumbledore to watch the lake on the other side of him. The water shimmered under the blue moonlight, and each ripple looked like its own dazzling crystal. Each time that Aurora had gazed onto Portree Loch, she had seen Black Lake. The water's beauty was truly unmatched, and the light which refracting from it made Hogwarts glow. Aurora knew Hogwarts well - she has studied every corridor, spoken to every portrait she could, solemnly stared through every window - but after being away for so long, it was like reliving her first time. The castle's jumble of battlements and towers were still structured with gorgeous grey bricks and were weaved with long vines. It was truly breathtaking.
Aurora didn't notice Dumbledore smile when he saw the fond look on her otherwise tired and sunken face. It was hard to remember a time when her face was still full and rosy, but her ice-blue eyes have never lost their fire, and it warmed the old wizard's heart. Whether she knowingly or unconsciously ignored them, Dumbledore didn't see Aurora acknowledge the dementors who haloed Hogwarts, and he was glad she didn't.
It didn't take them long before they reached the foot of Hogwarts. The slush of filth went unnoticed beneath Aurora's shoes when she jumped down, and she instinctually helped Dumbledore do the same. Albeit shrunken anyway, Aurora didn't have much luggage. She only had a couple of books, her wand, and a few articles of clothing, and they easily fit into one suitcase. When they had left her cabin, she aptly shrunk the case down and put it in her pocket. So, instead of unloading the carriage, Aurora couldn't resist using the moment to thank the thestrals who pulled their carriage.
Thestrals were ugly things. When Aurora patted its head and massaged its neck, its skin felt rubbery and strangely eel-like. Even without the rain, the creatures would feel wet and oily. They looked even more malnourished than Aurora did; their hips were sharp, and their spines left a trail of spikes down their middle. They had no hair, only a bony stub where their tails should have been. Thestrals were nothing more than skeletal horses, wrapped in black eel skin, and they were invisible to those who have not seen death. "Good Thestral," Aurora cooed and it puffed its nose in response. She could see them just fine.
"Come." Dumbledore placed a hand on her back and started leading them up the steep, stone path.
It was funny seeing Dumbledore's long grey hair stick to his face and neck - him and her were completely soaked - and Aurora couldn't help but feel a tickle of amusement. She promptly denied it when he called it out on her face.
When they finally arrived inside, Dumbledore dried them off with a complicated wave of his wand. Aurora's skin stung from the sudden warmth, but she wasn't going to complain. She instead sighed with delight. The school's lanterns bathed her in a cozy orange glow, and she couldn't have felt more at home.
But as they continued and walked through the courtyard, pass the stairs to McGonagall's office, pass the Potions classroom, and entered the tunnel to the dungeons, Aurora slowly felt dread begin to hang heavy in her gut.
Despite her previous outburst, Aurora was usually well-composed. She didn't panic, she didn't stress; her past had required her to learn self-induced composure. Dumbledore would claim otherwise, but then, he had the unique ability to get on her nerves. But now, as they passed the Dueling Room and neared their destination, Aurora could feel her throat growing dry. Her palms were sweaty; her lips were thin and tight. She nibbled incessantly at her bottom lip and the sick taste of iron was starting to grow. When excluding the pale colour of her face, Aurora appeared surprisingly calm, but her insides were screeching worse than a banshee. When she finally spotted the familiar portrait, which signaled their destination, she felt one final shiver run down her spine and she stopped. "Wait," She gasped out, and Dumbledore's face washed with concern, "I don't think I can-"
"Albus," A gruff voice interrupted them, and Aurora felt her stomach drop in an instant. It's been thirteen years, but Aurora could recognize that voice anywhere. She couldn't turn around -- by gods, she couldn't move; she couldn't breathe.
It was too late to turn back now.
Alastor's limping footsteps could be heard thump-clunking closer, and each audible hobble hit deep in Aurora's gut. "Ah, Alastor," Dumbledore greeted before forcing his concerned gaze away from Aurora to feign a smile at his old friend, "Glad you could make it." He slipped pass Aurora and shook the other man's hand. "You insisted," Alastor grunted, and Dumbledore gave an unfitting chuckle in response, "So it must be important." Aurora felt oddly flattered at being classified "important," and it calmed her nerves for a moment, but she was quite sure that Moody didn't know the whole story. It must drive him mad not knowing, she realized suddenly, and chuckled softly at irony of worrying that he might be going mad. But the man must be curious. "So, this must be the lass?" Alastor's gravelly voice interrupted Aurora's humor, and she stiffened again.
"Oh, yes!" Dumbledore startled and moved over to gracefully turn Aurora around, who didn't fight it as much as she should have. She swallowed the stone in her throat and gauged any reaction from Alastor's gruesome appearance.
Somehow, Alastor was more intimidating than Aurora remembered. Maybe that was because she hadn't paid attention to him back then, or maybe she was reforming her memories into reasonable standards. Because whatever he is, it isn't reasonable. Alastor stood a few inches shorter than Dumbledore, but his heavy frame looked twice as wide. His build reminded Aurora of a half-giant or troll. After years of war, his posture has become slightly hunched and surly, and his shoulders struggled to carry their own strength. But he still carried his posture tall, and he towered over Aurora's tiny body. It felt like his shadow could swallow her whole. His growling voice perfectly matched his patched, scarred face, and was framed by his grizzled hair. Alastor Moody only graduated from Hogwarts a decade before the First Wizarding War, but dozens of grey hairs already litter his dark orange mane. Like many others, the war has served to rough Moody's edges, and his edges were rougher than most. Alastor was infamous for his paranoia, and he left the Ministry because of it. Which made it doubly odd that he was here, now, as Aurora's babysitter.
But despite the man's unruly size and appearance, it was his face that Aurora couldn't stop watching. Right above his nostrils, a deep chunk of Alastor's nose was gone and replaced with a vile purple dip - was it like that before? - and even more jarring, were his eyes.
His right eye was still as small and dark as Aurora remembered - she couldn't tell if they were blue, brown, green, or black - but his left was an intense, electric blue. The eye was wide, round, and frantic. Alastor was watching her, but his magical eye was whirring from side to side. At one point, it studied Dumbledore, then it studied the portrait beside Aurora, and then it swiveled around Aurora and kept searching for something else to inspect. Aurora couldn't help but smile softly; he really was honoring Dumbledore's request to respect her privacy. Though, more than that, she felt the tension leave her body when she saw no flicker of recognition in either of his eyes.
"Alastor Moody." His growling voice interrupted the tense silence, and his magical eye involuntarily found her gaze when he moved to shake her hand. The resounding thunk in his step finally drew Aurora's eyes down towards his legs, where one shoe and a wooden, clawed foot remained. That was something Aurora recognized: Alastor lost his leg before she ever knew he existed. Suddenly, Aurora noted that, despite still looking as powerful as ever, his flesh leg seemed a bit wider, and his belly looked a bit puffier. "Your name, Lass." Alastor spoke again, this time sounding a bit impatient, and Aurora jolted upright.
"A-Aurora." She rushed out and hastily took his hand -- it was surprisingly warm. Unsurprisingly, however, her long fingers were still shorter than his, and they looked extra scrawny next to his. Aurora decided she was going to grab an extra plate of food at breakfast tomorrow -- not that it would help. "Wait," She interrupted her own mulling when she remembered something, and her brows furrowed to watch the man skeptically, "Surely Dumbledore told you my name?"
"Had to be sure you knew it." He said and let go of her hand - a chill ran up her spine at the loss of warmth and she slipped her hand into her pocket.
"Ah, I see." She humored him, though he raised a brow at her flat response, and she turned to the portrait. Finally acknowledged, the painted wizard straightened his spine and smiled. He was an old man, who looked eerily like Dumbledore, but his hat was pointier, his hair was darker, and his glasses-less eyes sparkled with a dark green instead of Dumbledore's ocean blue. His robes also didn't sparkle, and he was abnormally short, not abnormally tall. "Aye, iz t'e lass!" He chattered and his face gleamed with joy, "Been enjoyin' yer trip, have ya?"
Aurora faked a fond smile. The wizard, who refused to give her his name, was always talkative, and he was especially talkative whenever she was trying to sleep or enjoy the silence. She didn't particularly dislike him, which is why she tries to be friendly, but she's never been much of a small talker. It felt like too much of a waste of time; or maybe, she's never found the right talking partner. Dumbledore was the one who proposed the latter.
"Yeah, it was fun." She replied honestly and nodded to the fireplace in the background behind him, "If you don't mind, I would like to settle in. I'm exhausted." She wasn't, but she knew he would talk more if she didn't say as much.
"O' c'urse, Lass." He nodded cheerily and straightened himself up again, as if trying to seem more professional. "It takes a skull to breathe blood," He started.
"But a face to draw it." Aurora finished, and to her relief, the portrait swung open without another word from the man. "Come on in," She waved Alastor and Dumbledore to follow her and stepped inside the small tunnel that led to her quarters. She could feel Alastor hesitate and study the walkway for a moment, but he eventually readied his walking stick and hobbled after Dumbledore. If he wanted to say it was careless to reveal her password to a stranger, he must have decided against it.
The room wasn't anything particularly impressive. In fact, despite its high ceiling, its cold fireplace, its two ratty couches, and its desk in the corner, the area was impressively small. When Dumbledore entered, his height made the room look awkwardly stretched upward and crooked. Moody had a similar affect. The only one who revealed its normalcy was Aurora, who could sit on top of her own shoulders and still not touch the ceiling; it looked like a long rectangular box was tipped onto its square side and turned into a home.
The tall room was made from a similar grayish brick as the rest of the school, but the earthy tint was missing. The chimney, too, was dulled to an unsettling orange, instead of its signature crimson-y brown. Only the couches, which looked overused and worn, revealed the fact that they were covered in a thick layer of dust, in patches of suffocating grey. Aurora heard Moody cough, though he tried to hide it with a rough clear of his throat. "Right then," She croaked, too, and sputtered a cough of her own, "Forgot I told the house elves to leave my room be." The dust looked particularly comfortable on her empty desk and the pile of books she left standing on the floor beside the fireplace - dangerous spot for it, Aurora knew. There were two doors in the corners opposite them, and Aurora knew the two rooms must also look abandoned. She would have to properly clean the duvet in one room and go shovel the dust from her bath in the other. The school really needed to be better insulated; she hasn't been gone that long.
But before she could consider where she should start cleaning, Dumbledore already pulled his wand from his sleeve and waved.
In an instant, a grey cloud puffed from the walls, the couches, the desk, the floor, the ceiling, and the books. Aurora prepared to block her face from the powdery onslaught, but she didn't feel so much as a tickle at her nose. The cloud trembled and begun speeding to the middle of the room; cloaks, coats, and blouses flapped violently in the gush of wind. Aurora ignored the gaze that linger on her lower back and its scars when her blouse flapped a bit too high. The dust whirled and swirled, and enlarged when more came from the restroom and bedroom. With one final twirl, the cloud weaved into a single line and disappeared into the trashcan below Aurora's desk. She'll have to remember to empty it later.
Aurora sent Dumbledore a pointed look, but he just smiled in return; so much for her being on a magic diet.
The room was hardly recognizable. There were four lit lanterns on the wall, which painted the room in yellow comfort. The chimney was crackling with a cozy fire and its light made the old couches glisten with new life. The holes and loose threads in the black fabric went unseen.
The pile of books, which were revealed to be cookbooks, were back to being brightly colored and overstuffed with sticky notes and bookmarks. But most striking of all, was the bright green bag that stood atop one couch, which was no longer obscured by their conundrum.
"What's this?" Aurora hummed and went to look, forgetting she brought Dumbledore and Alastor into her quarters to finish introductions. But what she saw made her go perfectly still. In the bag, which smelled like shopping malls and new books, was a familiar streak of blue. It was comfortably folded atop a similarly colored cloak, a sweater vest, and trousers. Silently, she reached in, grabbed the tie, and held it up to watch Dumbledore questioningly.
"Ravenclaw," he answered.
"I haven't been sorted." She threw back matter-of-factly.
For the first time in a while, Dumbledore looked hesitant. He studied Aurora, then studied Alastor, who's magic eye promptly met his own, and then went back to studying Aurora. He didn't vocalize his question, but Aurora knew what he wanted to ask, "Are you sure you want to discuss this here?" She nodded but didn't give him time to reply before she sighed softly, placed the tie in the bag, and handed the bag to Dumbledore.
"We both know where I will be sorted." Aurora started, feeling oddly relieved when Dumbledore accepted the bag. Despite her previous confirmation, however, she couldn't help but send an uncertain glance up at Moody, who didn't react. She gave another resigned sigh. "Yes, I don't want to be sorted into the same house as my father, but you brought me here to attend Hogwarts like a normal student," she begun to explain and pointed a sharp finger at the green bag, "And this? This isn't normal."
There was a contemplative silence before Dumbledore offered kindly, "I think Ravenclaw will suit you."
Aurora chuckled - her usual, tired chuckle - and shook her head.
"People put too much stock into Hogwarts houses," a growl interrupted the two and Aurora sent Moody a skeptical frown. The previous sullen tension was suddenly gone, and Aurora felt grateful. "Right, then," she threw back, turning to look up at the man, "What is your house?" Aurora's question seemed to have the effect she hoped for, because he went quiet and his surly face watched her. His magical eye focused back on her, and she thought again that it really is a vivid blue.
"A Hogwarts one." He answered eventually.
"Thought so," she huffed softly, "Your house reveals more about you-" she stopped, and her wide eyes examined him. She couldn't see any sign of mirth, but his statement tickled an unexpected bone in her body. She was dumbfounded. "Wait..." she mumbled after a while, "Was that meant to be funny?"
"No." He replied.
"It was definitely meant to be funny." She insisted.
"Possibly sly," Moody said lowly.
"Humorously sly." She countered.
"No."
"A Ravenclaw?"
"Yes, that is a Hogwarts house."
"Definitely humorous; definitely Ravenclaw."
"You don't need me, do you, Albus?" Alastor reverted his attention back to the headmaster who sported a deeply amused smile. Dumbledore knew that Alastor was being perfectly serious, and that Aurora was enjoying herself a little too much with it. But then, he knew them both quite well. "No," Dumbledore replied, ignoring the annoyed crease between Aurora's brows for having been ignored mid-banter, "Do you need to be somewhere?"
"Fudge wants me to meet him, to discuss my employment outside the Ministry." He nodded with a distasteful rumble laced to his words. He didn't bother hiding his dislike for being summoned like some Ministry pup, and Aurora couldn't help but appreciate it. "He asked me to properly reinstate my position as Auror if I am going to act on an Auror assignment." He grunted annoyedly, "Suppose he didn't like that my answer was no."
"So, you're coming out of retirement just for me," Aurora commented flatly, "Should I be flattered?" He ignored her, but strangely enough, it made Aurora lower her head with a fond smile. Whatever their exchange was earlier, Aurora found that it erased every ounce of trepidation or fear she still felt for meeting Moody. It officially confirmed that he didn't recognize her, and the pressure rolled from her nerves. In fact, she unexpectedly thought this might be fun; many years ago, she had wondered what the strange man's story was, and now she might get to find out. For one, she already confirmed that he was, indeed, a very strange man.
"Very well," Dumbledore agreed reluctantly. Much to Aurora's surprised flattery, Moody took a moment to send her a goodbye nod before he hobbled away. She patiently watched him leave until he fully disappeared around the corner.
"Are you sure about this?" Dumbledore asked, but Aurora didn't listen. "He really didn't recognize me," She observed aloud, watching the closed painting door. Her previous fear seemed silly now; after all, it has been thirteen years and she has changed in more ways than age - of course he wouldn't recognize her. Her trial was a fleeting moment for Moody when you compare it to the hundreds of others he must have sat through. She wasn't sure if she confusedly assumed she left a bigger impression on him than she actually did, or if she thought he would betray Dumbledore and unveil her past, present, and future with his magic eye. But she was sure that she felt a strange itch on her spine at the fact that there was zero recognition from him - not even the slightest suspicion.
"Aurora," Dumbledore called more carefully and watched her jolt from her thoughts before turning towards him. She seemed just as startled by her momentary daze as Dumbledore was. He held up the bag to reintroduce the subject of her Hogwarts house, "Are you certain?"
Aurora's hesitation was apparent, but she agreed anyway.