The Lady of (New) Avalon

Aster woke painfully, pulling at her stitches as she flailed back to her human form and further bruising the hip Moony had tried to bite through her armour as she fell off the bed she'd been sharing with him, before she even got her eyes open.

"Ow."

She squinted through the haze of ambient magic and too-bright morning sun to see Evans, her hair a bright copper halo, lit by the glow of the window behind her. She was wearing a plain, black, muggle dress, and a concerned frown.

Right. Mister Snape's funeral. She'd forgotten. It seemed Snape's interview with the DLE had gone well enough. They hadn't kept him in holding, at least, and he hadn't seemed overly concerned at dinner last night. Quiet, but that wasn't terribly unusual for him. The funeral was apparently going ahead as scheduled. Evans was, of course, invited, and she was dragging Aster along...because reasons? Reasons that had seemed a lot more reasonable yesterday, before she'd been up half the night dealing with Moony.

"Aster? Are you okay?"

"Do I look okay?" She hadn't bothered trying to put clothes on again after Bella finished dressing her wounds (in both human and dog form — so many sutures, she'd lost count), so she knew for a fact every cut and bruise and bite-mark was on display. "How did you get in here?"

"Cissa let me in."

Of course she had. Aster would ask how Evans had known to ask Cissy where she was, and why Cissy had brought her here, but the answer to both questions was clearly because the gods wanted to watch Aster try to deal with muggles on three hours of sleep, and laugh as she cocked it up.

"Sir– Aster, Lily... What's going on? Where are we?" Aster rolled gingerly to her feet to find Remus huddled almost comically in the corner, holding a sheet over himself as though Evans had startled him almost as much as she had Aster. "What happened last night?" he asked more urgently, fear growing in his tone. "I– I think I remember..."

"Biting someone? Yeah, you did." The little colour remaining in his face in the wake of his transformation back to human form (a horribly painful process by all accounts), drained from it as she tore the metaphorical bandage from his eyes "Remember that ward gate Pete and the Royal Toerag put in at the Shack? Turns out they were even stupider about it than I thought. What else do you remember?"

"I– I— What?"

"What else do you remember?" she repeated, looking for her wand. Right. On top of her clothes. Which Bella had left neatly folded on a chair...after making no effort whatsoever to get the bloodstains out, probably because she thought she was funny. Bitch. She dragged her trousers on anyway, after throwing a couple of cleaning charms at them. Not perfect, but good enough.

"Er... We fought?"

"Obviously." She gestured at her injured self.

"Did you...punch me in the face?"

Aster giggled at his confused, affronted tone, entirely in spite of herself, and instantly regretted it. Ow. "No, that was Bella."

"Oh... That makes more sense," he muttered. Then, after a moment, his own words seemed to sink through his shock. "Wait, no, it doesn't. Aster. What happened last night?" he repeated.

"Our so-called friends let you out of the Shack, proceeded to panic. Potter was trapped there since he couldn't exactly go back to human form and follow you out through the tunnel without Moony maybe turning right back around and biting him. He sent Pete to get help, i.e. me, because I'm apparently just the person who fixes shite, now, which is kind of fucking absurd, but okay. I tracked you down, managed to get to Aunt Fanny's just after the nick of time. Sorry, mate. But I did manage to keep human casualties down to one. Two, if it turns out Dumbles is right and animagi aren't immune to the Curse in animal form, and telling the Dark to piss off over the summer made my luck as bad as yours."

Remus scrabbled to the edge of the bed, retching. Evans conjured a bowl for him, though there was nothing in him to bring up. "I– I— God, Sirius, I'm so sorry, I—"

"Don't worry about it, you didn't manage to turn me back in May, and I'm pretty sure I'm still immune. And if I'm not..." She shrugged. She didn't exactly want to make out like she didn't think being a werewolf was a big fucking deal, because Remus clearly suffered from his condition, but she was pretty fucking sure she'd do better as a werewolf than he ever had. Plus, she was betting it hurt a lot less to transform into a wolf if one was already dog-shaped. "I'll deal. Don't worry about it, I'm not," she assured him, wondering how she was going to get her shirt back on without tearing her stitches. Bending over had been difficult enough, she didn't think raising her arms above her shoulders was happening.

"I am," Evans interjected, glaring at her, presumably for her blatant lack of concern for herself.

Aster raised an eyebrow at her. "Going soft, Evans? Worrying won't change a damn thing, you know. Either I caught it, or I didn't."

"Not that, you self-absorbed twit. Remus! What's going to happen to him, now?" she asked, sitting to lay a comforting hand on his back. He flinched away from her touch, head hanging in shame.

"Oh, well, his life is pretty much over."

Remus whimpered, shoulders shaking.

"Be more of an arse, why don't you, Aster!"

"I've been explicitly told that pitying Remy for his furry little problem just makes everything worse," she defended herself. Well, Pete had been told that his pity wasn't wanted, right in front of Aster. She assumed it applied to her, too. She limped over to the wardrobe. She wasn't sure who'd been the last person to stay here for any extended period of time, but clothing tended to just sort of...migrate to these ancillary properties, elves moving around pieces no longer favoured by the members of the House who had commissioned them. Remus was a tall bugger, but there was probably something he could cover his naked arse with long enough to get to Ancient House, if not anything he ought to be seen wearing in public. "And drawing bad news out just makes it harder to get through, everyone knows that."

"Is the concept of nuance completely lost on you? Show some fucking compassion, Black!"

"I'd rather focus on mitigating the consequences of Potter's idiocy, if that's okay with you," Aster snapped, comprehensively distracted from her mission. "Remus, I'm sorry. You can't go back to the school, and you can't go home. Your life as an honest, upstanding citizen is over. It's not your fault, no one in their right mind would say that it is, but our country is run by a horde of congenital imbeciles, so you're a fugitive now."

"I– I have to turn myself in," Remus stuttered, his eyes growing wet.

"Don't be dense, Remus."

"No, I– I ruined some poor person's life, unless— I didn't...didn't kill them, did I?" he sounded, Aster thought, as though he couldn't decide whether that would be better or worse.

"Nah, she was still alive when her date apparated her away, I'm sure she's fine."

"She's not fine, Siri– Aster! I turned her into a bloody werewolf! I might've turned you! I– I never should have come to Hogwarts, I— What's going to happen to Dumbledore? He— I– I have to turn myself in," he repeated, somewhat hysterically.

"You didn't turn her on purpose, and like I said, I'm pretty sure I'm fine, and if I'm not, it's my own stupid fault for going and picking a fight with a fucking werewolf. Dumbledore will also be fine, he's going to blame the Death Eaters for sabotaging your wards as a favour to Greyback, or something. And even if none of that were true, turning yourself in would be just as pointless as worrying. You think your mum wants to see you executed?"

The tears which had been threatening to fall spilled over. "I— No, of course not, but—"

"Aster's right," Evans said firmly. "Even Sev doesn't hold you responsible for your actions on the full moon. Turning yourself in wouldn't solve anything."

"I— He told you?" Remus said (as though she couldn't have easily put together that he was a werewolf, at least, from their conversation over the past five minutes anyway), looking at her askance, as though just noticing that she wasn't shunning him for being Cursed, but still sitting calmly on the bed beside him. "But Dumbledore said he promised not to!"

Evans shrugged. "Sev's very clever. I'm sure he didn't break whatever vow he actually made. That's not the point. Aster, what happened after you found Remus?"

"Oh, well, I held him up until Bella got there to knock him about a bit. I swear, she makes everything look easy, it's absurd. But anyway, she had a good time playing with Moony until Cissy showed up to Imperius you, Remy, and force you to sleep."

"I— Is that what that was?"

"What what was?"

"I don't know, I just... It was like the Wolf was suddenly...satisfied. Content. Er...maybe kind of...floaty? That's the last thing I remember, but it was really weird."

Aster nodded. "Yeah, that's the Imperius. Very pleasant. Very evil. Just as effective against werewolves as it is against anything else with a brain, apparently. After Cissy laid you out, Bella and I dragged your sorry arse here — we're at the Cottage, just on Buttercup Court — and I went back to school to talk to Dumbles. He's going to blame Greyback, so he'll be fine, like I said, we just need to get you somewhere safe. Which means, unfortunately, that you're going to have to actually put up with Greyback for a couple of months—"

That provoked another hysterical outburst. "WHAT?! I'm not— No! I— He's the sick freak who turned me in the first place, I can't—"

"Just for a month or two, so the D.R.C.C. has time to work out you're not hiding with Starlight. Then you can actually go hide with Starlight. Their leader is this little old werewolf granny called Morgen. She's great, takes no shite from anyone. She'll love you. Come on, get dressed," she said, throwing a robe at him. It was going to be very short, but beggars and choosers and all. It would at least keep him from scorching anything important if he stumbled in the floo. "I want to get the threatening the alpha werewolf part of my day over with before he recovers from the Change."

"Threatening the alpha werewolf?" Evans repeated.

"Um, yes? The Pack probably isn't going to like Remus much. Generally speaking, they're not the sort of blokes who'd be shedding tears over accidentally turning someone—"

"Sorry we can't all be so bloody casual about completely ruining our lives, Sirius! Not to mention someone else's!"

"Er...he has a point. Most people don't...move on, as quickly as you do."

"I'm aware of that, Evans, thanks very much. That doesn't change the fact that the Pack are overwhelmingly macho arseholes who are going to peg Remy for a square Tim in about two seconds flat. I'm going to make sure they know this is just temporary, and if anyone gives him shite over being a wet fucking sop who hasn't quite come to terms with his new reality yet, I'll stab them in the eye."

Evans snorted. "Er...somehow I don't think they'll believe you."

"Bella would do it," Aster pointed out, giving her a slightly demented grin. "And even if they don't, macho arseholes, remember? Even if they think I'm just precious thinking I could actually pull it off, like Madam Puddifoot's yappy little terrier threatening Padfoot, they'll appreciate that I'd try. Sure it'll completely undermine Remus's reputation with them, but they wouldn't find him terribly impressive anyway. Macho, you are not, my friend," she informed him, putting on an overly-conciliatory tone.

He flipped her off, which as far as she was concerned, was progress, though he had to pause in his attempt to struggle into the robes without dropping the sheet and allowing Evans to see his skinny, scarred chest...had she been looking in his direction, which she wasn't.

"Besides, if we head to Ancient House, I can steal something from Bella to wear to the funeral. And there's no chocolate here." Probably no food at all. Again, no idea when someone actually stayed here last.

"You're still planning on coming?"

"I did say that I would." Oh! She used her knife to slice straight down the midline of her shirt, pulled it on like a waistcoat and spelled it back together. Perfect!

"But...what about Remus?"

Aster raised an eyebrow at the despondent werewolf. "Want to come to a muggle funeral, Remy? It'll be a — what do you call it? — a cultural experience."

"Piss off, Sirius. Aster, damn it!"

"Eh, it's fine. I don't mind when you call me Sirius. I know you're trying, and you've had a difficult shock. Exceptions must be made," she added in her poshest tone, giving him a patronising smile, which split into an actual grin as he scowled at her.

"Lily, will you hit her for me?"

"What, biting me half a dozen times wasn't enough for you? Why are all my friends such cruel bastards?"

Remus winced. "Too soon, Aster."

"Sorry." She shrugged. "It's pretty widely recognised that I make a shite addition to a self-pitying sulk," she explained to Evans. "I'm bad at sympathy, you see. Comes of not having been hugged enough as a child, probably. Clarence will look after him." She was pretty sure she'd seen Evans talking to Clarence at one point, shortly after the Death Eater trainees started showing up for practice and joining her in her quest to score a second point on Bella. Which hadn't actually helped much, but at least meant she wasn't the only person on the field being made to look completely incompetent. "You'll like Clarence," she told Remus. "He's the nicest werewolf I know. Including your ever-so-charming self. Will you hit her for me, honestly!" She clicked her tongue, shaking her head in a parody of disapproval, but dropped the act after a second or two. She wasn't really feeling the performative energy today. "Come on, floo's downstairs."

Breakfast went pretty much as she'd expected. She led Evans and the very sorry-looking Remus to the dining room the Pack was occupying, stalked over to Greyback at the head of the table, and snagged a sausage off his plate to waggle in his face (between bites) as she laid out what was what, like shaking a finger at him but deliberately more offensive, because one simply didn't touch a bloke's sausage without permission and get away with it. Greyback just let it happen with an exhausted, bemused expression, while Bella, at the other end of the table — still dressed in white, covered in mud, with a leaf in her hair — grinned proudly at her baby cousin, all grown up and threatening werewolves.

The only thing he seemed to have to say for himself was, "I do not think I like having two of you around," directed at Bella. "It is...disconcerting."

Which did, at least, argue that he would take her threat of potential eye-stabbing seriously. A woman Aster didn't recognise, probably because she was too old to be a warrior, rose to lead Remus to an empty seat and ply him with chocolate and bacon, and Aster grabbed an orange to dissect while she raided Bella's closet.

(After a quick stop at the nearest toilet to wash her hands, because all Bella had to say about any of this was, "If you get grease stains on my clothes, I'll stab you in the eye, Aster.")

She apparated to the clearing by the river in Cokeworth rather than go through Evans's awful adder stone again, and they managed to catch up with Snape and his mother with plenty of time to stand around awkwardly while Eileen (who was clearly embarrassed to be seen by a Black in her current circumstances, never mind that Aster wasn't really in a position to judge) grew progressively more drunk (obviously so before ten o'clock) and about half of the (very) few mourners who had nowhere better to be at midmorning on a Sunday (such as asleep) quickly paid their respects to the (faintly whiffy, very dead-looking) corpse and skulked off.

Evans's family came, probably because Evans had bullied them into it, or possibly just for the opportunity to sneer at the even less fortunate (Aster really didn't like Evans's sister). She and Evans sat with the three of them while a priest of some sort (presumably Christian of one stripe or another) droned on about God and redemption in such a way as to imply he had no faith whatsoever that Tobias Snape would be getting into the Kingdom of Heaven, but there was still a chance for the rest of the good-for-nothing layabouts sitting before him, and this was an excellent opportunity for them to contemplate the state of their own souls, if they'd rather not think about Tobias Snape. (And who could blame them if they didn't want to think about that lazy, abusive drunk? ...Not that the priest actually called him that in so many words, but.)

Snape and three other blokes who shared his nose, presumably somehow related to the deceased — though Aster had managed to avoid being introduced to them by spending the better part of the awkward pre-ceremony mingling examining the architecture and decorations of the muggle church — carried the casket out to the churchyard, and it was lowered into a hole in the ground with a few more ritual words and prayers and such. Aster squirmed watching it. She knew this was a thing people did, burying their dead. But it just seemed...disrespectful, leaving the body to rot. Yes, she'd heard all the justifications about giving back to the Earth and furthering the cycle of life by feeding worms and trees and shite, but it still made her cringe a bit. And they left before they even saw the body properly buried! How did they know someone didn't just come along and snatch it as soon as the mourners cleared off?

And then they'd been released to go on with their lives, have lunch, or get smashed, or whatever. Eileen was already three sheets to the wind, so Snape announced that he was going to take her home before taking Missus Evans up on her offer to have him over for the meal. (An offer which Mister Evans didn't look entirely supportive of, but it would be churlish to withdraw an offer of solace to a boy whose father had just been laid in the ground...even if that boy was Snape, and he was unquestionably better off with said father feeding the worms.)

Which meant that Aster was left alone with the Evanses, and this time, she didn't have the option of barging in and taking over the conversation without any opposition at all because everyone else was in shock. Even if she had still had the element of surprise on her side, she didn't have the energy to pull that sort of thing off today, anyway. The tears in her side weren't that bad, all things considered, as long as she didn't turn too quickly. But they'd been standing for what felt like hours, and after walking back to the Evanses' house from the little churchyard, her calf was killing her.

"So, what did you think of the ceremony, Asteria, dear?" Missus Evans asked, probably trying to be polite and include her in the conversation, where she'd really just like to sit down and concentrate on ignoring the existence of her left leg.

"What's that? Oh, the ceremony? Well..."

"Not quite what you're used to, I imagine?" she suggested.

"Ah, no, not really. We cremate our dead. And we always do it at night. We, my family, not we, mages in general. Other Houses have their own traditions."

"Really?" Evans asked. "I didn't know that. Is there any particular reason? I mean, Marley's family have normal burials. Amy's, too."

"The McKinnons bury their dead in consecrated ground and consign their remains to the Earth once and forever, but I'm pretty sure they stick around to actually see them buried, do some ritual afterward to get a fruit tree growing." She'd been to their family cemetery grove before, it was a very pretty little orchard of apples and pears and cherries, which grew larger and more ancient the further into it one walked. The space between the memorial trees was filled with grass and wildflowers and ivy, but no natural trees, giving it an unnaturally cultivated feel.

"Oh! That sounds nice, doesn't it, dear!" Missus Evans said. Her husband nodded politely.

Aster gave a noncommittal hum. She preferred the Potters' memorial grove, personally. They did something very similar, but using the wand of the deceased as the 'seed' so there were a lot more types of trees, and the whole place felt much more strongly magical. "And I'm pretty sure the Boneses exhume their dead and move the bones to an ossuary after a year or three." She hadn't been there — its location was a secret, to stop anyone desecrating it in any way — but she knew they had a serious ancestor cult going back probably millennia, it wasn't really a secret that was where their name came from. "Black cremations are part of that whole fire in the dark thing. You know, releasing the soul to take its place among the stars, one with the universe, everything and nothing. And also, you know, common sense. No one wants someone digging up their mum's corpse and reanimating it to kill them, do they?"

"What?" Mister Evans exclaimed. "That's just..."

"Disgusting?" Petunia suggested.

"Petunia," her mother chided her, though she looked almost as horrified as her husband and daughter. "Does that sort of thing happen...often?"

Aster snorted. "No, not often, but I'm pretty sure it really only has to happen once before it starts seeming like a good idea not to leave dead people lying around. My family are not nice people, Missus Evans. Evil, devil-worshipping crazy people, remember? And they have, or have had historically, loads of enemies who are nearly as mad and evil as they are. It's practically tradition, us picking fights with powerful, dangerous people. And there are all kinds of horrible things you can do with a corpse. Burning them is safer." That kind of killed the conversation, as no one else seemed to have anything to say in response, so after a few seconds of awkward silence, she offered, "I get the impression Mister Snape wasn't well liked."

"Well, I don't like to speak ill of the dead..." Missus Evans said, but her husband had no such compunctions.

"Toby Snape was a vile man. His wife and son will be better off without him, and no one else will mourn his loss, either. Hasn't done a decent day's work since Sixty-Three, living off his brothers' charity and the kindness of his neighbors. Much undeserved, if you ask me."

"Now, Fred, it wasn't his fault the mill shut down. There was hardly a job for him to take, thirteen years ago."

"The mill weren't the only work to be had around here, Mary. Not then and certainly not since. And even if it were, he and that fussy little shrew wasted everything they were ever given. Drank it all away when they could've at least tried to better their lot." He snorted. "Still can't believe the airs she used to give herself, d'you remember, Mare? Trying to sound all posh and looking down her nose at the rest of us?"

Aster winced at that, enough to catch Petunia's eye. "Oh, does that hit a bit close to home, Asteria?"

"I suppose you think that was subtle, Petunia," Aster said sweetly. "But then I suppose you also think the cut of that blouse is subtle, so I can't honestly say I'm surprised." Petunia gasped as though Aster had slapped her, drawing her mother's attention to the neckline beneath her black shawl, which was awfully risque for a funeral. Even a muggle funeral. "Pity your mind isn't as quick as your tongue. It does hit a bit close to home, however. Not for the reasons you suppose, but Eileen was, in another life, rather well off. Not one of my set, you understand, but her younger brother is a close companion to several of my elder cousins. The family was devastated when she refused the marriage her father arranged for her and ran off to make her way alone. I can only imagine how much more they would suffer, knowing that this is the state to which she's been reduced over the past two decades."

Petunia's eyes narrowed as she tried to decide whether that had been a dig at the Evans's circumstances, or just the Snapes'. (The former. If it were the latter, Aster would have said that.) Before she could work it out, however, a bell chimed loudly. "I'll get it," she volunteered, hurrying to reach the front door before her mother could do so.

She opened it to reveal a large man in a poorly tailored suit. Not truly fat, there was obviously quite a lot of muscle there, too, but not what Aster would consider athletic. He was armed with a bouquet, which he offered to Petunia with a jerky little bow. Someone had at least seen a proper gentleman greet a lady before, even if he was obviously uncomfortable attempting to play that role himself. "Morning, Pet."

"Vernon! What a lovely surprise!" she exclaimed, explaining the blouse and fooling no one as to the expectedness of this visit as she seized his arm to lead him a bit further into the room. "Mummy, Daddy, look who decided to drop by!"

"Hello, Mister Evans. Missus Evans. Lily," he said dutifully, giving Aster a doubtful look, probably wondering whether he was supposed to greet her, and if so, how, since he had no idea who she was.

Petunia clearly didn't mind if he ignored her entirely, as she eschewed an introduction in favour of asking, "What brings you here, today, Vernon, love?"

Apparently that was his cue. "Er... Yes. I...happened to be in the neighborhood, and thought you...might like to join me for lunch. Darling." Aster didn't think she'd ever heard a more stilted invitation. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

"Oh, well, I suppose it's rather last minute, but you don't mind, do you, Mum? I mean, I've already offered my condolences, so..."

Missus Evans's eyes tipped up to the ceiling for a moment, almost but not quite rolling them at her elder daughter's clear ploy to escape this awkwardness. Honestly, Aster almost had to admire her foresight in arranging an excuse to leave. "I suppose not, dear."

"Oh, Sev will be just shattered to find we won't be graced with the pleasure of your company this afternoon, Petunia," Evans said drily. "But I'm sure he'll soldier on. Keep a stiff upper lip in the face of tragedy, and all that."

Aster snorted. Snape disliked Petunia even more than Aster did. She, at least, could have fun making digs at the older girl's pretentions. Snape didn't really have the status to do the same. "Aster Black," she introduced herself, since no one else seemed inclined to do so.

"Er...Dursley," he offered, awkwardly, after looking to his fiancee for permission, which that glare most certainly wasn't granting, but what was he supposed to do? Snub this random stranger right in front of his future parents-in-law? "Vernon Dursley."

"Lovely to meet you, Mister Dursley. Petunia talks about you all the time. I understand you work for a company that produces drills?"

Dursley's chest puffed with pride, even as Petunia scowled at her. "Come on, Vernon, we have a reservation, don't we?" she asked rhetorically, giving the lie to her earlier "surprise" (as though anyone had believed it to begin with).

She couldn't actually be physically pulling him out of the room, he was at least twice her size, but he let her lead him toward the door anyway, despite his obvious reluctance to leave. Aster was fairly certain she heard him say, "But, Pet, we wouldn't want to be rude," but she couldn't be sure, because Petunia was also speaking, blathering farewells to her parents (and notably not to Lily or Aster). And a few seconds later, the door slammed behind them.

"Well," Aster said, in the embarrassed silence which followed. "I must say, your future son-in-law does seem quite charming. And he clearly dotes upon Petunia. I'm sure she'll be very happy with him."

Evans, who clearly understood that she wasn't saying that Petunia was charming, or that Dursley would be happy with her, giggled. "You can stop now."

"Stop? Why, I'm sure I couldn't possibly say what you might mean to suggest of me, Asphodel."

"Asphodel?" Mister Evans repeated, seizing on the chance to change the subject away from his elder daughter's embarrassing behaviour.

Oops. "No offence intended, sir, but Lily is almost always a diminutive in our world. Short for Lilian and Lilith, or other flowers like Amaryllis and Asphodel, which sounds far more like a proper given name to magical ears. I was just having a bit of fun at your absent daughter's expense, which was every bit as unsubtle as I accused her of being earlier. For that, I apologise."

"But not for mocking Petunia in the first place," Evans added firmly, stomping on that particular conversational subtlety as well. "You can't deny she was being rude first."

Missus Evans sighed. "I wouldn't dream of it, Lily. No point denying the blatantly obvious, after all."

Mister Evans, though, refused to be deterred from his ploy to change the subject. "No offence taken, Asteria. I was just wondering if that was Lily's proper name. The one Matilde gave her, I mean."

Evans's eyes flicked between her parents. "You told them," she said flatly.

Her mother nodded. "Not Petunia, but yes, I did tell your father. It... It was time. And no, Fred, Matilde called her Irene."

There was a brief, considering pause, and then— "Thom and Bella call me Asphodel," Evans volunteered.

Aster's head snapped around, pulling painfully at a cut on her shoulder (shite, I hope that doesn't start bleeding on me...), her eyes growing wide. What the hell are you thinking, Evans?!

"Thom and Bella?" her mother asked, blissfully oblivious.

"Ev— Lily!" Aster hissed. "Are you sure you want to—"

A light knock on the door cut her off. Snape, probably. "Would you mind getting the door, Aster?" Evans suggested.

Aster glared at her. She wasn't about to be distracted that easily. SNAPE, GET YOUR ARSE IN HERE TWO SECONDS AGO, EVANS IS TALKING CRAZY, she thought, as loudly as possible. Evans raised an eyebrow over Aster's complete lack of response to her request, even as he let himself in. He sounded genuinely concerned as he said, "Sorry, Mister and Missus Evans, I hope you don't mind, I know you were expecting me, so—"

"No, no, it's fine, Severus. Come in. Lily was just telling us about Thom and Bella?"

Snape's eyes narrowed at Evans, even as he said levelly, "Oh. Um. Why?"

"Well, they are my parents, Sev. They have a right to know I'm being adopted."

"Woah, now, hold the phone!" Mister Evans exclaimed, in a tone which suggested he would much have preferred to use stronger explicatives. "Adopted? Who are these people, poppet?"

"My biological father and his lady," Evans said calmly, as though she couldn't imagine that this would be in any way problematic. Indeed, she went on to explain, "They're not actually married, but cohabitation isn't regarded quite the same in Magical Britain, and they've been together for years," as though the Dark Lord's fucking marital status was more important than the fact that he and Bella had raped her biological mother, and then tortured her until her brain melted a couple of years later.

"Your biological— How on earth did you find him? Is he a doctor? A healer, I mean?" Oh, wait, Missus Evans was still holding out for the incredibly unlikely hospital romance option, wasn't she. Aster had forgotten she hadn't been entirely convinced by the Death Eater Rape Baby Theory.

"Not exactly," she volunteered, trying desperately to avoid the catastrophe she could see looming in Evans's utter lack of concern. "He's a mind mage. They sometimes help people who have traumatic memory loss and such remember who they are. There's actually a bit of a family resemblance between them, I can't believe I didn't see it before. The Bella Lily mentioned is my cousin Bella, the activist? So de Mort's been around longer than I can remember."

"That's quite a coincidence, isn't it," Mister Evans said, sounding rather suspicious about the whole thing.

Evans shrugged. "Not so much as you might think. Magical Britain's kind of tiny, and Aster's kind of related to everyone. Though you have to remind me to tell Bella you described her as a performance artist and non-human rights advocate with a straight face. I keep forgetting..."

"Lily..." Snape said warily, "I thought we agreed, about...smoothing over awkward conversations."

"We did, yes. I'm not expecting you to," she said, still far too calmly. Almost eerily so.

...Right, they were here for a bloody funeral ritual, Aster probably should have spotted that as a potential problem. Probably would have, if she weren't distracted by the pain of her wounds and kind of exhausted from fighting Moony and then getting about half a night's sleep. And that was a generous estimate. Well, maybe not, it'd been kind of a sorry excuse for a ritual, even by muggle standards. She certainly hadn't felt any magic in the air, but— "Evans, if you don't get ahold of yourself, I swear on the Styx, I will actually break your finger this time."

Evans snorted, but scooted a bit down the sofa, anyway, far enough Aster wouldn't be able to grab her hand without moving too quickly and hurting herself, and close enough to Snape that he had to lift his left arm to rest on the back of the sofa to avoid knocking elbows with her. "I'm fine, Aster," she said, over her parents' objections to Aster's threat. "And I appreciate you trying to cover for me, here, but I'm so sick of pretending to be normal. And now I know who I really am, I don't have to, any more than I have to keep being Prefect Evans. And maybe I think you had it right, earlier, with Remus. It's better to just...end it quickly."

"Lily, what are you talking about?" Missus Evans asked, sounding slightly anxious. Understandably so, her daughter was talking like a crazy person.

"Mind healers do exist. And Thom is a mind mage. But he's not a healer. He's the Dark Lord. The one Aunt Matilde was trying to expose. And, well, I'm sure Bella would claim that torture and murder are art-forms—" Aster had been thinking more of watching her fight, when she'd said performance artist, but she wasn't wrong. "—and she does support non-human rights, but warrior queen is more accurate. Like a modern-day Boudica." That...actually wasn't a bad comparison. Though the muggles, of course, looked horrified. "Aster was right about Matilde being sexually assaulted, Thom used her as a ritual sacrifice. Bella was supposed to kill her after, but her goddess told her not to, apparently because Death wanted me to exist so that I can kill Thom if he doesn't stop telling people he's immortal. Which seems like extreme lengths to go to when Persephone could have just told him to knock it off herself, but." She shrugged. "Eternity's probably kind of boring when you're everything. I imagine she does this sort of thing a lot just to entertain herself."

Yes, put that in the most disturbing way possible, why don't you...

Mister Evans just kind of blinked at his daughter, too shocked by...all of that to say anything. Missus Evans, knowing more about magic, and everything they'd talked about last time Aster had visited — religion and stuff — had enough context she wasn't too overwhelmed to take in the important point here, which was, "You're telling me you want to be adopted by the man who raped your biological mother — my sister — because— Why? because you don't want to have to pretend to be normal anymore?! Do you want so badly to pretend you never had anything to do with our world?!"

"Well, no, I'm being adopted by Bella, actually."

"That doesn't make it better, Lily!"

Evans just shrugged. "I didn't say it does. And I'd never try to pretend I was raised magical." Though she would (and did) act like it, and let people draw their own assumptions. "I'm not ashamed of you, or whatever lies Petunia's been telling you to make herself feel better about not being a witch. I'm just tired of having to pretend that I'm the kind of person who actually cares that Thom raped Matilde. It was seventeen years ago, I never knew her, and if he hadn't, I wouldn't exist. Obviously I don't condone that sort of behaviour, but given the circumstances, I can't really complain, can I?"

For a long moment, both of Evans's parents just stared at her aghast. Snape glared at her, in a way that made Aster suspect, Hey, are you two having secret mindreading conversations without me?

But he didn't answer. And Mister Evans broke the moment before she could ask again, more loudly and annoyingly. "No," he said, all absent and shocked.

Evans blinked at him, obviously surprised. "I'm glad you agree?" Clearly she hadn't expected him to.

"What? Not— No, you are not being adopted by this man! I'm putting my foot down, young lady! My answer is no, it's out of the question!"

"Oh. Well, this is awkward..." (Aster snorted — had she really thought it wouldn't be?) "I wasn't really asking..."

"You don't want to pretend to be the sort of person who cares that– that vile man, a violent, evil maniac, by your own admission—" That had been Aster's description of Lord Sparklebum, actually, last time they visited, but Evans hadn't contested the characterisation.

"That was before I actually met him," she inserted, a comment her mother quite reasonably ignored.

"—raped my sister! Your mother! And this– this woman, she helped? She tried to murder her?!"

"She was about nine years old, at the time," Aster volunteered. "And she didn't actually try to murder Matilde, she decided not to do it. So I think the blame for that one lies firmly on de Mort."

"You can just– just bite your lying tongue, young lady!" Missus Evans snapped. Which was...fair. Aster had told her quite a few untruthful things in the few short hours they'd spoken, and even more which were laughably misleading.

But Aster wasn't really in the mood for this shite today. "With all possible respect, Missus Evans, no. Evans, what the fuck are you playing at? Please tell me you didn't drag me out of bed after spending half the bloody night fighting a fucking werewolf, just to make Eileen Snape more uncomfortable at her husband's funeral and witness you burning your relationship with your parents to the ground. Please."

Evans's eyes narrowed. "I did tell you you didn't have to come. And Eileen's almost as bad as Tobias was. Making her feel a bit ashamed about her life choices because you happen to know how they turned out isn't quite the same as making her realise that she's made her son's life a living hell, and no, I didn't actually realise that was a potential consequence until I was introducing you, but I'm not going to apologise for taking advantage of it when I did realise it."

Ha! Aster had known that Evans had introduced her as Bellatrix Asteria for a reason!

"Lily!" her mother exclaimed. "I did not raise you to kick a poor woman who's already down!"

"You did raise me to stand up for my friends, though!"

Snape rolled his eyes at Evans behind her back. "Don't worry about it, Missus Evans. I doubt my mother will remember any part of today very clearly after she sleeps it off."

"Can we please focus on my daughter being adopted by the leaders of some– some death cult mumbo jumbo?!" Mister Evans asked, glowering at the lot of them.

Evans gave him an exasperated sigh. "They're not a death cult. They don't call themselves the Death Eaters." They did, actually, the younger ones at least. But Evans was right that the press had originally coined the name, based on the skull-and-snake symbol that was de Mort's sigil. (Technically de Mort and Bella's sigil, but he'd started using it when she was still a kid, and most people didn't know that Viper was his pet name for her.) "They're more like...oh, I don't know, a more militant I.R.A.. Thom likes to say there are 'irreconcilable philosophical differences' between the Knights of Walpurgis and the British governing bodies."

"Yes, such as, the Ministry takes a dim view of getting your rocks off by torturing people," Aster snarked. "De Mort's a charming fucking bastard," she informed the Evanses, "and disarmingly sparkly. But he's definitely still an evil git."

"Whose side are you on, Aster?" Evans asked, glaring at her.

"Not de Mort's! And, well, I might've made it a bit too clear last night that I'm not about to just blindly follow Dumbles, either, so I may have to start my own side. Or go full class-traitor and join the populists, or something."

"She meant in this conversation, Black," Snape clarified.

"Oh, well then, no one's. You did stomp all over the lovely facsimile of upstanding citizenship and sanity and social acceptability I so neatly constructed for you, and wrangled me into playing stupid Society games where I quite reasonably expected not to encounter any political dragonshite at all, on three hours of sleep, while literally being held together by conjured thread—" Aster couldn't conjure anything and expect it to last more than a week, but Bella insisted that she knew what she was doing, and this way, she wouldn't have to worry about taking the sutures out, the conjuration would just unravel on its own around the time she ought to take them out. "—because fighting werewolves is the worst, so yes, Evans, I am a bit put out with you at the moment, but you were the one who decided that we were going to be honest now, so fuck it! De Mort is an evil git, which fact I have no compunction about sharing with literally anyone — he's well aware of my opinion of him — but especially with people who are likely never going to meet him, and whose opinions are completely irrelevant to you, him, and literally anyone who matters, because we all know you're only telling them you're being adopted as a courtesy, and maybe so you don't have to faff about with glamour charms if you ever come to visit them again!"

She had to stop there to catch her breath, which gave her ample opportunity to notice that there were now tears in Missus Evans's eyes, and Mister Evans looked very much like he'd like to punch Aster in the face, which she might actually deserve for saying he and his wife were completely irrelevant, but which she wasn't going to let him do even if he had the nerve to try, due to the aforementioned literal stitches. No, she had zero patience left for this nonsense.

"Maybe a little less honest, Black," Snape suggested.

All or nothing, Snape, she thought back. She's the one who said she wanted to pull the plaster off quickly.

"Is— Is that true?" Missus Evans asked, her voice shaking as she tried not to cry. (Damn it. Aster didn't like making people cry, and this was twice in one day, now...) "That we don't matter to you?"

Evans shot a venomous glare at Aster, who met it with a level, challenging stare. Snape, if you're listening in, be a dear and tell Evans she's being a twat for me? She's the one who chose the course, I'm just keeping it.

She didn't know if he did — unlike de Mort, Snape didn't actually eavesdrop inside people's minds, and she couldn't really tell if he was paying attention to the thoughts she projected out or not — but after a brief, tense staring contest, Evans said, "No." Coldly. Grudgingly. As though she resented being forced into this position she'd absolutely chosen for herself, fucking bitch.

If it weren't for her tone, Aster might've thought she was going to back off, but as it was, she wasn't surprised that she continued after a beat, (intentionally) haltingly, as though trying to give the impression that this was just as difficult for her to say as it must be for them to hear.

"You matter. Of course you matter. You...you raised me. I don't... I don't want to hurt you. Of course I don't. But...there's literally nothing I can tell you about my life, anymore, that...wouldn't shatter the illusion. I've... I've never been the girl you raised me to be. Not really. I didn't— I don't feel it. Her. Whatever I'm supposed to, right now. Fuck, I'm not making sense." She paused for a moment. Aster genuinely wasn't sure whether this one was for effect, or if Evans was actually making up this little speech on the fly.

"No, you're not," her father agreed. "Are you feeling alright, Lily?" he asked, as though she might be acting mad because she had a fever or something.

"What? No— I mean, yes, Dad, I'm fine. I just don't know how to— Okay. You taught me to be honest, when I was little, right? Taught me right and wrong. And then you taught me how to act like a good person, showed me a hundred little ways that I was wrong. Or not I was wrong, but I was doing it wrong. Things I knew or felt or didn't feel, if I was honest about them...they were things I just shouldn't say. Because they hurt people. Or scared people."

Or manipulated people into feeling sorry for her, Aster thought, as Missus Evans's face crumpled into a self-recriminating frown. "Lily, honey, we never meant..."

"Mum, please. I'm not saying it was bad, or I blame you, or something. If anything, I'm grateful. Really. I needed to learn what was and wasn't socially acceptable, just like any little kid. How to at least act right, and all the things I shouldn't tell you, or anyone. And I did, and you thought I grew out of it. Because you also taught me that I shouldn't hurt people. And I don't enjoy hurting people, most of the time. I don't care if they do get hurt, not really. But you taught me that I should treat others like I'd want to be treated, and that everyone else thinks they're just as special and important as I think I am, so there's no reason what I want is inherently more important than what anyone else wants. That my happiness is no more inherently important than anyone else's."

From the look on Mister Evans's face, that wasn't the lesson she'd been meant to take away from whatever it was they'd actually told her, though Aster actually thought that was a pretty good fucking lesson. She should be taking notes on this shite, just in case she ever had the misfortune of having to raise a child. (She really hoped she didn't, she'd almost certainly fuck it up.)

"You taught me that hurting other people to get things I want isn't okay, so I try not to. I didn't tell Grandad Evans that I wasn't sad at Nana's funeral because I figured it would upset him more to know I didn't care than it would bother me to pretend that I did, and I didn't tell you that I don't miss you when I'm at school— Well, not after that first Christmas. I didn't realise how sad it would make you before that." She gave her mother a rueful grimace. "I think I did a little better with things that scare people. I didn't tell anyone that kitty-Nyx was dead when I found her, or that if someone was mean to me when I was little, I could hurt them just by wishing for it."

"Do I not count?" Snape interrupted. "Because I'm pretty sure I told you not to tell people those things."

"Yeah, well, you were magic too, so, no, you didn't count. I'm pretty sure I didn't tell you I tried to kill your father the summer after first year, wishing he'd get run over by a lorry."

"You tried to murder someone?! Lily!" Missus Evans exclaimed, clearly disapprovingly, kind of making the point about not telling people this shite, Aster thought. Also, she didn't just try, Missus Evans... (Snape might actually have caught that one, he gave a little cough on the other end of the sofa, as though trying to cover a laugh.)

"He was being mean to Sev, Mum!"

That time, Snape didn't manage to cover his laugh at all, just kind of snorted trying to stop it, and made an awkward, throat-clearing sort of non-apology when all eyes turned toward him.

"That is not—" Missus Evans began to object, but Snape had already started speaking. "I'm surprised you didn't try again when it didn't work the first time."

Evans grinned. "Yeah, well, I was absolutely furious he only broke his arm, but that did stop him taking the mickey out of you for the unforgivable offences of breathing wrong and looking at him funny, so I figured it was good enough. If he was meant to die then, he would've died. Since he didn't, he wasn't, and asking again would've just been annoying."

"Annoying?" Her mother repeated. "It would have been annoying? Annoying to who?"

Her father looked far more shaken. "Mare, honey? I think the more important point might be that she tried to kill someone for being mean to her little friend!"

"Death, Fate, Magic, whatever you want to call it. God, maybe? And this is Tobias Snape we're talking about, Daddy, he definitely deserved it. But I did know better than to tell anyone that, or oh, I don't know... That one of my proudest achievements is finding the perfect way to break Aster's relationship with her old best friend, for example." This she said with a slightly smug, wry smirk, which was just begging for a response.

"Oh, now you're just bragging," Aster accused her. "We both know you didn't have nearly enough control over that situation to go patting yourself on the back, even if it has worked out well for you. Doesn't count. And you're not as good at acting normal as you think you are, either. I had you pegged from the second week of classes as a soulless, manipulative bitch."

"You did not," Evans pouted.

Aster smirked at her. "Did so. You were far too comfortable, where everyone else was anxious and uncertain, everything new and unfamiliar, even to the purebloods." Actually, she was still kind of bad at that. Her shoulders and face and voice were properly tense at the moment, as though she was genuinely concerned about her parents' reactions to the idea that she was only ever pretending to care, but her hands were folded quietly in her lap, and she hadn't put on even one anxious, uncomfortable fidget. And she'd relaxed into bantering here far too easily. (Her parents were taking the opportunity to have a vaguely panicked-looking exchange of whispers and horrified looks on the other side of the coffee table.) "You tried to fake it, but you were always half a second behind. And you spent far too much time sitting in corners pretending to read while actually watching the rest of us. I bet you used to practise faces in the mirror, too."

"Oh, shut up, I was good enough for the rest of our class, it's not my fault you're such a Slytherin."

"I hope you realise the irony in you calling anyone else a Slytherin, Princess." She...did know that Parseltongue was a Slytherin thing, right?

"Black, do shut up," Snape drawled. "You're both far too impulsive for Slytherin. And too easily distracted. Were you going somewhere with your little speech, Lily?"

"Hell, probably," she answered automatically, before adding, somewhat sheepishly, "Er...that's just a thing people say at school," as though that were the thing here her parents were likely to be upset about. "But I was, yes." She took a moment, presumably to recall what exactly she'd been trying to say. "Mum...Dad... You've taught me everything I know about being a good person. I appreciate that and I kind of feel like I owe it to you to try to live up to your expectations for all the work you put into raising me. I respect you. And I don't want to hurt you. I really, really don't. I've spent the past nine years bending over backward trying not to hurt you, hiding all the things I knew you didn't want to know about me. And as long as I had to, as long as there wasn't another option, I could do it, because what else would I do? Where would I go? But now there is, and I can't anymore, I just— It's exhausting, pretending all the time, and I thought it'd be better, with Aster, but it's actually harder to fake it when I spend more time not faking it, and I'm tired."

"Ah, yes," Missus Evans said, her eyes narrowing as they came back to the heart of the problem. "You're tired. Tired of, what was it? Pretending to be the kind of person who cares that that man raped your mother? Of pretending not to be the kind of person who doesn't care, who wants to claim that man and his– his strumpet as her family?!" Aster snorted at the idea of Bella being referred to as a strumpet, earning her a furious, red-eyed glare. "How can you, Lily? How can you not care? Explain it to me, because I just don't get it!"

"Welcome to my entire bloody life," Evans grumbled under her breath. But then she gave a frustrated sigh and at least tried. (Aster didn't envy her the task — explain why you don't understand questions were the worst.) "I don't love you." Her mother flinched at the hard, emotionless words. "I respect you and I'm grateful to you and I don't want to hurt you, but I don't...feel for you, any more than I do for any random stranger on the street.

"Aunt Matilde...isn't really real to me. Not like Sev and Aster, or even like you. She's just a name. And the people Thom and Bella hurt...obviously they shouldn't, it's not a good thing, I wouldn't do it myself, if they just invited me along to murder people for fun, or whatever," she said dismissively, as though that wasn't exactly the sort of thing Bella would think was a good family bonding activity. "But they're not even names, they're just...abstract ideas. And I know Thom and Bella are bad people, but they understand me, and I don't have to pretend to be a good, normal person around them — I don't have to censor myself — and I'm so, so tired of...of pretending to be something I'm not. You're my family, you shouldn't have to lie to your family.

"I shouldn't have to hesitate to tell you anything, wondering whether it will scare you or disgust you. I shouldn't have to ask Sev to make you forget arguments we've had—" Snape and both of the elder Evanses stiffened at that, though Evans didn't seem to notice. "—and I really, really shouldn't have had to think as hard as I did about whether it would be better to make you forget that I ever existed than to tell you the truth." Her parents' matching expressions of horror deepened, her mother's taking on a slightly more ill cast than her father's. "Which is that Thom and Bella aren't part of a death cult, but I actually am. Well, I'm a priestess of Death, there's not actually a cult, as such. And I approve of Thom's goals, even if I don't approve of his methods — Magical Britain is completely backward in a lot of ways — and Bella might be the single most interesting person to talk to that I've ever met, and being adopted by the House of Black is kind of like being adopted by royalty, I'd have to be completely insane to turn down the offer.

"And there are only two people in the world whose opinions actually matter to me, so yes, Aster was right, I am just telling you as a courtesy, because I think you deserve to know, and maybe because I thought no matter how horrified you are, you might be a little happy that I found people who get me, and a place I fit in the world. Like I don't love you, but I don't want to hurt you, either. Because if this is the last time we ever talk to each other, I don't want you to worry about me. I guess I just wanted you to know that...that your baby girl never really existed, but if she did, she'd be safe. Happy.

"And I know that I'm hurting you telling you this, and I really, really don't want to, but I can't keep up the lie anymore, I just can't. But I thought this was better than erasing myself from your lives, or letting you think I died. Because you deserve better than that. Better than me deciding what you get to remember, and better than mourning a person who never existed." Aster wasn't at all certain they wouldn't still be mourning their little imaginary Lily, anyway, but. "I'm sorry I wasn't...that I didn't see that sooner. I shouldn't have asked Sev to mess with your heads because it was easier than dealing with the consequences of telling you the truth, and I shouldn't have convinced myself that it was kinder to let you believe my lies."

She stood, then, and circled the coffee table to stand beside her parents, their eyes following her, staring silently up at her from the chairs from which they hadn't moved, scared and horrified, but mostly overwhelmed. For a brief moment, Aster thought Evans was going to try to give them an awkward, seated farewell embrace. She wasn't sure whether what she did instead was more or less awkward, kissing them on their foreheads, like a blessing, a hot wave of light magic washing over Aster as she stepped back.

"I'm sorry. I know that's not enough, it will never be enough, especially since you know sorry's just a word to me. But I do regret it. All the things I lied about, that I hid from you. If I could go back and change those choices, I would. And I probably wouldn't be half as decent a person as I am if you hadn't raised me, which might not be saying a lot, but it does mean something, so thank you. For everything."

There was a long, heavy beat of silence, Evans's parents staring at her as though she'd just literally killed their daughter right in front of them, rather than just shattered their illusions about herself, Snape staring at them very intently, probably trying to work out exactly what that silent benediction had done — undoing whatever he'd done to make them forget those other arguments, Aster was guessing — and Aster herself trying to decide whether it was a very noble thing, Evans telling her parents the truth about herself, or needlessly cruel and self-indulgent. She, personally, was leaning toward thinking it might have been less unpleasant for the Evanses, at least, if she had asked de Mort to just make them forget about her. Not erase her, that would be impractical even for de Mort, but just...ease her out of their immediate consciousness, so they wouldn't be reminded of her all too often, or think her all too important when they were reminded that they had a second daughter.

(It was possible Evans didn't know that was a thing that could be done, but Aster was pretty sure that was how de Mort made people who'd known him as Tom Riddle forget that Riddle and de Mort were the same bloody person.)

At the end of that beat, Evans apparently decided that she'd said all she wanted to say, if no one else had anything, well...that was that, wasn't it. She offered them a very solemn, very formal farewell — "Go with grace, then, and may you always walk in the light." (really leaning into the whole priestess thing, there) — and proceeded out the front door — again, very solemnly and deliberately.

Snape, who'd simply stared along with the rest of them as she walked away, stood as the door closed softly behind her. "I think that's our cue, Black. Missus Evans, thank you. You've been more a mother to me than Eileen ever was. Mister Evans, it will be a pleasure never to darken your doorway again." He turned smartly on his heel, a gesture which would have looked much more impressive and dramatic with an ankle-length cape to swirl about himself, and marched over to the door, though he waited there, pointedly glaring at Aster to catch up, rather than just go.

She stayed exactly where she was, long enough to make sure that the Evanses at least started to recover, only standing when Missus Evans whispered, shocked and horrified (which had quickly become a theme for this conversation), "I just don't— Where did we go wrong?"

Oh, I don't know, probably right around the point where you brought Evans into your home and let her mum charm your husband into believing she was yours all along? (De Mort, Aster thought, couldn't be held solely responsible for any darkness in Evans's blood. That was fucking cold.) "You didn't," she offered. "Go wrong, I mean. Some people are just naturally dark. Honestly? I think you did shockingly well with her, considering what you had to work with."

"Get out!" Mister Evans demanded, rising to gather his now-freely-crying wife into his arms, rather red-eyed himself, and entirely furious. "Just— Just go!"

She went.

Evans was waiting for them at the end of the drive, leaning on her father's automobile with her head tilted up to the sky, watching the clouds. She heaved a great sigh as they approached, coming back to earth to fix them with a level stare. "That could have gone better."

"You don't say?" Snape said, his tone positively dripping sarcasm.

"Oh, piss off, Sev. You're the one who said I shouldn't lie to them if I didn't want to. And knowing how many things I've asked you to make them forget over the past few years, hopefully they'll think I'm enough of a monster they're better off without me."

Aster raised an eyebrow at her. "While also being aware that you're safe and happy and have a place to belong, in case that will help them come to terms with the fact that their precious baby girl is actually a heartless fucking sociopath who never wants to be obligated to speak to them again?"

"Yep, basically."

She shook her head in mock disbelief. "You're a piece of work, you know that, Evans?"

Evans just gave her a shameless shrug, as though to say, yes, and? you already knew that about me. "Can I bum a fag, Sev?"

Aster had no idea why that was so funny, but apparently she wasn't the only one who thought so — Snape started sniggering almost uncontrollably. "My father's dead, my mother's probably going to drink herself to death within a month, your parents are utterly horrified by us, and we never have to step foot in Cokeworth again. Sounds like a time to celebrate if I've ever heard one," he declared, offering her a packet of cheap smokes from the depths of a pocket.

Aster snagged one, too, lighting it with a snap and a cocky, teasing grin. "To freedom, then. May your attempts to escape your families go a hell of a lot better than mine."

"Amen to that, Black."