brother
The first time Arabella meets Sirius Black is eventful to say the least.
Winter, Regulus, and Arabella walk back from the library on the fourth day at Hogwarts, Friday, at a brisk pace to avoid missing curfew when a loud, booming laugh echoes through the corridors.
“Sirius, wait up,” a different voice giggles. Beside Arabella she can feel Regulus stiffen and stop walking. Arabella recognizes the name and stops next to Regulus. Four boys turn the corner and stop in front of the trio.
Arabella assumes the boy leading them is Sirius, he has the same curly hair, sharp features, and gray eyes as Regulus only he holds himself significantly more confidently and his hair is quite a bit longer.
The next boy has messy black hair and crooked glasses with a grin stretching across his face. Two other boys follow, one shorter and the other taller with a mess of sandy blonde hair.
“Oh-“ Sirius says, “hello Regulus.”
Regulus fumbles with the sleeve of his robe, “you haven’t been responding to mum’s letters.”
“Don’t need to,” Sirius responds simply. Everything about Sirius and his friends practically screams confidence. Sirius has his arms crossed, one eyebrow slightly raised and the dark haired boy still has a cocky grin across his face. The tall boy stands next to Sirius looking slightly more awkward than the others but still certainly much more confident than Arabella feels looking at the four.
“She’s upset…” Regulus whispers.
“I’m sorry Reg but I just really don’t care what she thinks.” Sirius states, his smile has faded though and his eyebrows are scrunched together causing his face to wrinkle.
Regulus swallows looking particularly nervous, “you said… you said that you’d talk to me. You said it would be better once- once I was out of the house.”
Sirius flinches as if he was punched, “Reg… I just- it will… stop responding to her letters! I promise it- it gets better.” At this point the tension in the air is hard to ignore. The two Black’s are face to face, almost close enough to touch. The boy with glasses has placed a hand on Sirius’ arm, almost as if he’s warning him. Or grounding him. Arabella and Winter exchange a concerned glance. Arabella feels she does not really have any place to interfere with only knowing Regulus for a few days and all but is concerned with the frown plastered across his face and the way his lip is quivering.
Regulus stands up a little straighter and a blank expression crosses his face, “Bella wants me to have tea with her tomorrow, you should come.”
“Regulus-“
“Mum would like it.”
“I don’t really care what mum thinks,” Sirius matches Regulus’ black expression, all cockiness gone from his face.
“You should,” Regulus rebuttals.
“She doesn’t scare me, Reg.”
“She should.” Regulus says the last sentence with next to no emotion and Sirius takes a step back.
The boy with glasses looks at the pair, eyes flickering back and forth between the pair and before Arabella can wonder if she should say something the boy steps forwards, “Sirius we should go. Curfew and all.”
One smallest boy pipes in, “when do we care about curfew?” The other two boys glare at him, he obviously can’t take a hint. Sirius keeps his gaze trained on Regulus who still holds a blank expression. Sirius nods as glasses grabs his arm and tugs him along.
Arabella narrows her eyes at them and grabs Regulus’ arm. The four boys brush past the trio as the two groups go their separate ways.
The trio walks in silence until Arabella drops Reguls’ hand and turns to him, “are you-“
He cuts her off, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Winter glares at him “we’re your friends Regulus! You can talk to us about stuff…”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Regulus repeats. His mask is still up, his expression is stony and his face a shade paler than normal. He starts walking ahead and Arabella shoots a concerned glance at Winter who shrugs.
***
On October Twelfth her parents send her another letter containing many treats for Mindy and telling her how they are planning on buying a smaller house in London just so they can be a bit closer to Arabella.
Arabella is of course overjoyed at this news as maybe now she can maybe see them once or twice before Christmas break. She also knows her mother has always wanted a house in the city.
On the walk to History of Magic Arabella chatters with Lucy about the best places to shop in London, Lucy gushes about her favorite shops and cafes and tells Arabella how even though they’re owned by muggles she and her sister always sneak out to go.
History of Magic is most certainly, without any debate, the most boring class. Arabella finds Hogwarts ten times more entertaining than the muggle primary school she went to but she simply fails to find History of Magic fun. I mean last class Barty and Winter both fell asleep, Winter was snoring. Snoring.
You’d think Professor Binns would be able to take a hint!
And the homework they get in that class… Arabella is arguably the smartest in their class (bar Regulus maybe) and she gets good grades in it but she’s truly sick of Binns going on and on about some Goblin War.
All of the Slytherins let out a sigh of relief when Professor Binns lets them go and Otto starts making plans for Halloween.
“Lucius says Halloween is the best holiday at Hogwarts!” Winter grins.
Arabella smiles back, “I always go trick or treating with my muggle friends when I’m at home.”
Otto crinkles his nose, “muggle friends?”
Arabella frowns, “yes, so?”
He sweeps his hair out of his face, “it’s just… I mean, muggles?”
Winter steps forward, “hardly matters.” Regulus nods and grabs her hand pulling her away, the rest of the group follows and that's the end of that conversation.
Arabella has found a lot of these conversations occurring. Conversations that she simply doesn’t understand, why do they all think muggles are so bad? Winter and Regulus always brush it away but everyone else seems to agree, even Lucy and Penelope never say otherwise. It’s like they think there's some curse on muggles.
Or Arabella supposes that's the problem. People like Otto think that muggles are less than them because they don’t have magic or curses. And Arabella has nothing against Otto, he’s perfectly nice and sweet. And fairly attractive, she thinks to herself, a blush crawling across her cheeks. She shakes the thought away, she’s mostly just confused anyways. She never feels offended although Winter seems to feel plenty offended for her though.
This does confuse Arabella. The other day Winter and Arabella were walking down the corridor when they spotted a mess of blonde hair pushing a younger kid against the wall, wand to the kids throat. Two other boys and a girl Arabella recognizes as Regulus’ other cousin, Narcisa, stand by watching.
Winter pushes forward and shouts at the blonde boy who Arabella has been introduced to as Lucius Malfoy, Winter's brother. “Lucius stop,” she shouted.
Lucius turned and laughed, “oh go away, Winter.” Winter frowned, she doesn’t like being talked down to.
“Your being mean,” she pouted.
“Your being mean,” Lucius mocked, causing the two other boys to laugh.
Narcisa pursed her lips, a blank expression not unlike the one Regulus so frequently wears across his face. “Oh Lucius leave her alone, she is only eleven, come on,” Narcisa scolds. Lucius chuckled and shoved the younger kid away before following Narcisa away from the two girls. The other kid had scurried off in the opposite direction leaving Arabella and Winter standing silently in the now empty corridor.
Now Winter leans against Arabella as they lead the group back to the common room with Regulus, back to discussing Halloween plans.
“I think we should all dress up!” Penelope suggests.
“That’s childish,” Barty responds.
Arabella rolls her eyes, “I like the idea.”
“Me too!” Alastair chirps. Regulus and Otto nod while Lucy suggests being cats, Winter counters with the idea of dementors to which everyone nods excitedly.
Lucius was right. Halloween at Hogwarts is truly amazing. The Great Hall is lit only by groups of floating candles and haunting pumpkins are scattered around the hall. All of the ghosts have come out and float around the hall along scaring students, Peeves causes the classic amount of mischief with dropping the spider decorations on unsuspecting students causing chilling shrieks throughout the hall.
The feat is completely unique.
Alastair fills his plate with about a million mummy hotdogs and the elf’s have created a cake that looks an awful lot like a decapitated head which Lucy refuses to touch. The food is amazing and after the feast the big group of first-year Slytherins venture out to roam the spookily decorated corridors. If Arabella thought muggles went all out for Halloween it certainly does not compare even close to Hogwarts.
The whole castle is like a haunted house, Arabella thinks she’ll have nightmares for months if not years.
The four girls return to their dorm exhausted and giggling.
“Did you see that goblin statue?” Penelope asks staring up at the ceiling.
“It was terrifying! I thought it was real…” Winter murmurs. The other two girls nod. Arabella takes off her robe and shoes and crawls right into bed without changing into pajamas. It’s around one in the morning, the latest she’s ever stayed up, she’s extremely glad they don’t have classes the next day.