Frosty
“He’s in Gryffindor, right?”
“I wonder where he came from?”
“Look, over there-”
“Did you see his face?”
“Did you see his scars?”
I had been tuning out gossip like that for the last two minutes, still trying to get to my damn potions class. After this was lunch, so I could (hopefully) escape from this annoyance for a while afterwards.
I stopped tuning it out when I heard someone laugh.
The Marauders - including me - all whipped to the sound, and found Harry, standing right next to us, wiping his eyes.
He glanced up, and blinked at us.
And shrugged.
“Sorry. Inside joke.” He offered quietly, already walking off.
Sirius wasn’t letting it go at that, though - and, really, I could hardly blame him.
“Wait! One mo’-”
Sirius made the mistake of trying to grab Harry by the shoulder.
Of course, none of us knew at the time that it was a mistake. That it was honestly, a generally terrible idea to touch Harry without his permission. It was just a simple, easy gesture - one made almost purely out of instinct. Sirius had always been a touchy-feely kinda guy, anyway.
Unlike me.
But it was a mistake, of course. And a bad one at that.
A flash. A smell like flint being struck.
And Sirius had a wand pressed to his throat.
For a horrible moment, everything seemed silent. The bustling crowd around us, not even really noticing the commotion, seemed like static noise in the background of a storm.
And I got a good look at him.
His eyes - I almost couldn’t look away, they had taken my focus every time, I could hardly see the rest of him, because Christ and Merlin those eyes.
But I could almost pay attention to the rest of him, now - with the thick scent of struck flint and ash swirling around me.
His hair was washed thoroughly, now. No blood matted in it, dried or otherwise. No dirt collecting in clumps, no grease shining against the rising sunlight that dusted the hall like cobwebs. His skin was clean, too - and, in the spots where it was clear of scars, I could see that it was a lightly tanned golden kind of colour.
But his scars stood out like wounds in the light, close enough now that I could see them all. And I was sure Sirius could see them, too - that was probably what was keeping him silent.
His neck and wrists had some odd, almost surely magical pattern - like golden brands, in links like chains. Around his eyes were light, barely-there white lines, spreading out like spiderwebs. He had a thin nick on his cheek, and his ear had a chunk taken out of it.
His hair covered his forehead, though - which almost surely had an extra scar or two, I thought.
And then, suddenly, Harry pulled away.
Sirius didn’t even have a moment to rub at the spot on his neck before he was staring - because Harry was gripping at his forehead so tight his knuckles turned white, and he was slightly curled up in what looked like pain. His hair covered his lowered face - all but one piercing eye, staring out from between his fingers and obscured by thin filaments of blackish-brown.
“I-I’m sorry.” He muttered through grit teeth - and his voice was thick with something I couldn’t put my finger on.
The air was still choked with the smell of ash - panic, I knew panic well - but now there was something else. Something almost citrusy, sour and sweet and rotten.
Pain.
And then, he was running away like his life depended on it - limping slightly, I couldn’t help but notice, he hadn’t been limping earlier.
We all stared after him.
There was a moment of quiet.
“...Uh - mates?” Sirius murmured, finally - and pulled his hand away from his neck.
His neck - which had thin patterns of what looked like frost embedded into it.
“This really hurts.”
They took Sirius to the hospital wing.
“Ah - it’s the famed little group of tricksters.” Pomfrey said, bustling forward and already inspecting each of them in turn - and quickly zeroed in on Sirius, holding his neck and wincing slightly. “Didn’t even last a whole school day, hm? Alright - let’s see it, Mr. Black, what have you done this time?”
Sirius peeled back his hand - the thin patterns of ice on his neck had spread slightly, and the skin around them was turning an alarming shade of off-white.
Pomfrey huffed, already leading Sirius to a bed and making slightly chiding noises.
“Playing around with ice magic again? And something dangerous this time, too - don’t try to deny it, Mr. Black, I can tell combat magic when I see it.”
“How many times must I ask you to call me Sirius, dearest Pomfrey?” Sirius said, with his best attempt at a dashing grin - though it was wavering with pain at the corners.
“How many times must I tell you to be quiet and still while I’m working, Black?”
I hovered awkwardly while Pomfrey did her scans - trading glances with James and Peter.
None of us were going to tell on Harry, of course - it was hardly his fault, and we certainly weren’t tattle-tails - but none of us were really sure what to do about this startling new development. Harry might very well have pissed Sirius off - we couldn’t really tell. He had been eerily silent the whole way here, holding his neck and looking off into nothing with what could only be described as a completely blank expression.
“You can leave, boys.” Pomfrey said suddenly, running her wand over Sirius for what was probably far from the last time. “He should be fixed up pretty quickly - he’ll likely make it for lunch. This isn’t anything life-threatening.”
We all traded another look - and sent one to Sirius.
Sirius, who didn’t look back at us.
We left.
Peter didn’t have potions with us. He hadn’t quite made the E required to get in - I had no idea how I had managed that E. It was almost certainly the written part of my OWL that had managed to slip me by - and I had gotten a lucky draw, potions-wise, on the practical side.
So, it was just James and I today.
Class started pretty regularly. Slughorn welcomed us back with his usual joviality, asking us about our respective Summers. Well, our - mostly just the ‘worthy’ students. He couldn’t gush over Snape anymore - we had this class with the Ravenclaws - but he certainly spent plenty of time on Lily Evans.
He finally took role call after a solid five minutes of lollygagging - and stopped, quite suddenly, after Mary Macdonald. How she had gotten into this class was beyond even my skills of deduction.
“Ah, yes! Children, I nearly forgot - we have a new Gryffindor student! Everyone, would you - Harry, why don’t you come up here, hm?”
A pause
The screech of a chair being pulled back.
James and I glanced behind us - and then traded a look.
Harry shuffled to the front of the class - and the muttering started.
“Why don’t you introduce yourself, my boy?” Slughorn said happily - Harry came up to stand next to him.
Harry straightened.
“Hello.” He offered, raking his eyes over the class - for a moment, I almost thought he paused on me. “I’m Harry Maeyres.”
“Why don’t you tell the class something about yourself, hm? You didn’t get to participate in the class getting-to-know-you exercises, after all!”
Slughorn chuckled at his own joke. Harry sent him a veiled glance, that I couldn’t help but read as repulsed.
Harry considered for a moment.
“I rode a dragon out of Gringotts after stealing a dark artifact from the Lestrange vault.” He said finally - with a tiny, conspiratorial smile.
There were a few snickers at his joke.
Slughorn chuckled lowly, gesturing him back to his seat.
“We have another jokester, I see! Why, we already have - wait a moment, where is Mr. Black?”
This was met with resounding silence.
“...Must be sick, then. Someone get his work to him, wouldn’t you?”
And, with that - the subject was dropped.
The lesson began - mostly just safety tips and review from last year. James and I ended up trading doodles on the margins of our notes just to pass the time.
Nobody looked at Harry for the rest of the lesson.
Muttering about him never stopped, though.