Unpredictable Fantail of Sparks

Ursa had expected the common room to be dark and dank, or shadowed and grand. What she received, instead, lay somewhere between; the high-hanging curtains cast shadows over every chair, the high-hung chandelier sent shards of sparse light over the walls, speckled like precious gems in a thousand different colours, the walls were painted a deep moss, their adornments all silver twine and sparse gold, alight an emerald hue as the fireplaces crackled and spat at every passer-by. The ground was a rich, dark wood and so their footsteps clacked simultaneously, a marching band of young soldiers, as the prefects shuffled them into a half-moon and began to speak.

The two prefects were a pair of entirely forgettable fifth-years; the girl introduced herself as Jasmine Travers, a pale-haired, lanky girl who was the direct contrast to her shorter, dark-featured male counterpart, Edmund Bletchley. Both of them had their quirks, she might admit, but she’d seen fiercer than Bletchley and prouder than Travers. Only their words, not even owned, interested her.

“This staircase,” and, she noticed, unlike its Gryffindor counter-part, it led downwards; a dozen scones of silver fire marked the way, but she knew from stories that they had a tendency to flicker and fade when night fell, fading back into stones from whence they’d come, “to the right is the girls' dormitories. To the left is the boys. Each of you will share with another, but no more than four will be permitted in a room for longer than a single night, and if you wish to live as a three, you must petition either our Head Girl or Professor Slughorn.”

As soon as her partner was finished, Travers wasted no time reciting her own spiel, the words curt and stilted as she recited as though from a speech. “The password will change every month and will be available on the noticeboard we passed. By tomorrow evening, there will also be the monthly club activities, the list of prefects, copies of timetables and the rules regarding the common room. It’s also recommended that you read them, but it’s up to you. Be warned, though, that even if you break them unknowingly, you will be issued a punishment.”

“Hopefully you memorised the way back and from the Great Hall.” Bletchley smiled, unkind and entertained as several fidgeted, already full of nervous energy. “Breakfast lasts from seven to quarter-past nine, timetables handed out at quarter-to, and classes will commence at nine thirty-five. Be warned, that any who do not uphold our standards will be watched; frankly, it’s a fool’s game to refuse to allow us a charter that lets us keep those ill-fitted to this great house in line, but the Headmaster wants to let you be…” and his lip curled, “‘free of imposition’, or something like that.”

“Essentially,” and Travers gave her companion a sharp, warning look, the boy shuffling off with false surrender. “While you aren’t forced to beholden yourself to certain standards, it’s greatly recommended.”

“Traver has a way with words, doesn’t she?” Bletchley grinned, all teeth, but Travers must have had a way of dealing with his nature, and the prefect only started to let out a long, heaving sigh and continue. “Any questions?”

But there was no sound. Those who knew had the sense knew not to ask; those who didn’t would find out, in time, what the answers to their questions were, if perhaps not through any good kindness. Already, horror stories had been traded over the dinner table of the cruellest of her sisters laying verbal traps for the ignorant to fall into, and then from those who shared a likeness with her It had been meant as a lesson, and as a warning.

Travers, plainly ignoring that they were brimming with questions, clasped her hands together. “Good! Off to bed, now. All the junior years are housed on the first floor, so it is only a matter of finding your room. Don’t bother trying to swap this year, though. Professor Slughorn won’t want to hear it.”

And only slightly appeased, they trudged off to bed. Faintly, she was glad that she had roused as early as her mother demanded. It had not, in the end, caused her immense embarrassment or humiliation, nor had it become more than a vague afterthought as the excitement of the feast overrode her body’s natural want. But that had ended now, and the tide came washing in, bringing a lethargy that allowed only pleasant formalities. She struggled to fight a yawn as she bid her cousin's goodnight; each of them, she knew, hoped to be roomed together.

Lucky, she groused. Her gender was rarely an issue, as even in dressing, men were just as scrutinised as women, but she found herself regretful she did not have even one female cousin to bully to share a room.

At best, she’d be roomed with the female Carrow, whom, of her current version, she had nothing against. At worst, she was the typical sullen girl who’d prefer to play in the corner with her brother and at best, she was calm, if somewhat introverted, hanging in the back of every group and gathering. The worst was any other of the girls, who with Ursa would have only the power she exerted and any loyalty to ignorance that they kept.

So, as it was, the two of them set out to find their new rooms together. Perhaps in an attempt to somehow be roomed together; but alas, ‘twas not to be. Her forehead narrowly missed the girl’s shoulder when Alecto came to a complete halt, and only when righted, did she peer at the pretty, bronze nameplate: C. ALECTO && T. MAIA.

“Oh,” Alecto gasped and reached for the doorknob; but she did not touch and she did not enter and rather, turned to face Ursa. “I suppose we ought to find yours.”

The door was firmly shut, and as far as she knew, none had ventured down this corridor yet. “Go on in,” Ursa offered. “If you go now, you can choose your bed.”

“Are you certain?” Alecto asked, and before she could register the girl’s conflicted look, Ursa knew what she was thinking. Both twins had been strictly ordered to be close to them, in the hope of attaining what, she did not know nor cared to, for the only feasible option was near impossible. Abandoning her now would not be the smartest move.

“Yes. I’m likely somewhere near here, anyway.” She reassured the girl, and Alecto was taken aback as she was all but herded into the room., but was resoundingly hesitant. Ursa sighed inwardly, and offered further; “If I’m not ready first tomorrow, remember to listen to me.”

Agreeing to the terms, she slipped into her dorm room, and at once, the situation rebounded back on Ursa. It wasn’t panic, nor excitement, but it lay somewhere between the two extreme similarities. Her chest tightened as she ventured further down the hall, the bronze plates glimmering and near-gilded as the scones burnt like silver gashes. It did not quite feel real, or rather, she did not quite feel real, as she traced that which belonged to her.

B. URSA && G. RHEA, she did not murmur but traced the words with her lips. They tasted much the same either way.

The room itself was blessedly empty and just shy of the size of her own bedroom at the Manor. Split down the middle, each side was the mirror of the other. Rivers of dampened silver ran along the bottom, a faint imprint of white made in the shape of snakes and laurel leaves dipping in and out of the waves. The sky, for it must have been, was a stretch of chartreuse embroidered with bouquets of poppy and plumeria, sunflower and hollyhock, all of them like emerald constellations in the night sky. It seemed rimmed in a dark, overbearing wood; where diamond rugs failed to stretch peaked the rich panels, and looped like handwriting, archways made their way across the room, leaving behind a silver streaking column of paint. Only their furniture was absent of this, given, rather, the appearance similar to pale bone: the chest of drawers beside their bedside, the high cupboards to hang their cloaks, the opposing desks and included chairs and even the low-set chest at the bottom of both beds; and in every corner, there was a soft slant, and in every wide stretch, there were two curling heads of the snake, gently opposing.

And so, the nature of the room set both of them on equal ground. A clever forethought; and with no difference in choosing beds, as she’d despaired, she plunked down on the left with none of the grace and dignity that had been forced upon her.

Her trunk popped into existence beside her bed. Within it were what she’d need to unpack, but she found herself lacking and simply pulled the needed materials out. A brush, a mineral cleanser and the tin of pins, she counted out, as though she might forget what had been hammered into her.

Again, she faltered; but it was not from self-caused hesitation or family woes. Rather, it was wondering if she might wait for G. Rhea to appear; she was sure that, if she racked her impeccable memory for long enough, she might find her surname. But that was unfun, and she’d rather find the measure of the girl herself.

But another minute passed, then the next, and she decided against waiting as a woeful housewife did, instead slipping into their shared bathroom to begin unravelling the pins and knots in her hair. The ordeal was a rather fast one, made easier by the simplicity demanded by Hogwart’s scrutiny, though time would secure alterations that she would rather go against. With her hair undone, she shrugged off all but her undergarments, replacing them with a cotton sleeping robe that she’d found in her closet.

The door opened with a near-silent click as she was finishing the end of her braid. If she hadn’t caught it, she would never guess that the room was occupied; but she had, and she thanked the years of living with people such as Bellatrix.

“Oh! Oh, sorry, I thought that- well, it doesn’t matter what I thought, does it?” And Ursa, who was still rapidly attempting to tie off her braid, lest her work fell unbidden around her shoulders, did not stir. There was the shuffling of clunky shoes on silk-soft carpet, the underlying nervousness of being entirely new orchestrating the abandonment of her previous stealth. “I’m Rhea. You must be Ursa, otherwise, I think we’ve had a big mix-up.”

“Do you know,” Ursa began, carefully, slowly. “It’s been a long time since a stranger’s addressed by my birth name.”

And a pitched, sharp gasp. “Oh, yes, I forgot all about that. It’s very strange, that wizards do such things, but my brother insists upon it - d’you think there’s a reason, or do you know? If you’ve been raised a witch, then you must.”

A muggle-born, she wondered faintly; but no, Ursa corrected, a muggle-born wouldn’t have a brother educated on the fine details of their society. A bastard child, then, found upon the day of her Hogwarts’ letter and then her nearest magical kin summarily informed.

Her suspicions of the family were swiftly confirmed when she turned. A mousey, brown-haired girl shifted foot to foot, hands writhing like snakes in front of her plaid skirt. There was a kindness in her that must have been from her mother, all soft, broad features and wide brown eyes, but in the same way that all Blacks were fine-boned and dark and Malfoys were pinched and pale and Rosier’s were deceptively soft, she had the tall, bony structure of a Goyle yet to grow into herself.

Ursa nodded, standing to lean on the doorframe between the two rooms. “It’s an old tradition, from when the art of magic was a written one rather than a spoken one. You can narrow a curse to a man with his first name, but nearly not at all with his last.”

The Goyle had gone rather pale. “Oh. How… interesting. Everyday, this world seems to surprise me.”

She grinned, a sharp, sly thing she’d learnt from her mother, and wandered closer. “It has it’s peculiarities.”

“Do you think there might be reading you could recommend to me? On little details such as that.” Goyle seemed abashed, ashamed to have to ask, as though a few months could equal the years of being submerged in the culture. “It’s not… I’m not, you know, a reader and my brother didn’t really care if I knew or not, but I’d like to. Know, I mean.”

Was there? Ursa doubted it; she’d have them all swallowed and firmly digested by now. Perhaps not by will, but certainly by that of her mother, who despaired every time one social nicety went into one ear and then out the other.

“You could look, ‘sppose.” She smiled; after all, had she not been as this girl, eleven years prior, unsure and unsteady? “You’ll learn, don’t worry. Everyone does.”

The gathering around the northernmost fireplace came to be much the same by the eve of their third week. It had begun, as most things did, as a private affair between cousins; but unlike the Blacks, who were content to remain as a trio, Evan had been more of the mind to expand and expedite their social circle, and when they had not protested overmuch, they’d found themselves surrounded by half-strangers and childhood acquaintances.

Most of them, Regulus thought, were not out of the ordinary, for the children of a high-ranking house. Amycus and Alecto were a given, of course, as they’d been since they’d been first introduced. The more influential second-years made it their business to attend as well; Lestrange, who was Ursa’s brother by marriage, and then the Rowle twins, his dark, despairing shadows, shiny-haired Montague and mumbling Fawley. It was through them that they created a bridge between the third and second years that could never quite catch the eye of Narcissa, but who certainly could catch theirs.

If only Sirius were here, he’d almost begun to wonder, his mind stirring, unbidden, ironic what-if’s that would never be answered. If Sirius were here, it would be his court they would sit, rather than having to piece one together, he thought firmly, and that was that.

Then those who he cared less about; Peyrite, who had yet to understand when he was unwanted, but of significant social status that he was not entirely tossed aside, and then two boys of minor houses with a wildness that lingered from the youth of their blood, Avery and Mulciber. On occasion, Rhea Goyle would join them, but the sheepish slip of a girl preferred the strange Thomas and Hackland to them and was often only cajoled with the promise of a greater heritage, which wasn’t always the topic of conversation.

She is missing something, was a saying that Ursa impressed upon them, and Regulus, who observed keenly the lost lambs of their year, could not disagree.

Hackland and Thomas were not a name he knew, well or at all. Both were common names and muggle to boot; but Smith, too, was a common muggle name, or so he’d heard, and they were a house of decent renown. What little he could gather while they lingered under his eye was their inexperience, the clumsiness and excitability he’d quickly come to associate with muggle-borns and muggle-raised. But he dismissed that theory outright - for they were skilled magicals, in theory, and magic both, and so must have some distant heritage, however far back.

It was very strange, to witness and think such things. Stranger still was witnessing the certain muggle-borns wide-eyed and stunned at observing the common wonder of magic. More than some of their questions were inane, their thought process weak and their handwriting awful; in equal measure, they lacked grace and decorum, speaking bluntly and callously, disrupting years of social equilibrium with nary a thought.

Thankfully, the closest Regulus ever got to one was in the hallway and there, they were much too occupied to begin consorting with them. In every class, he’d made certain to keep at least a desk away from the nearest, lest he fell victim to their obnoxious ignorance.

He was proud to voice this, when Lestrange began to complain, at length and in detail, of the strange nature of one Janice Eyan in his charms class that day. “I’ve never even talked to one, before.” He announced.

“Truly?” Lestrange wondered. “That must be nice. I have and while it’s somewhat entertaining, I admit, it gets tedious. They’re very uncouth.”

Both Rowle twins nodded in rapid agreement, sharing a pained look, as though the memory was particularly difficult; but the opinion was a popular one, and even the third-year Flint was agreeable. “You probably have, you know,” Ursa said, and at the general befuddlement, she inclined her head towards Regulus. “Talked to one, I mean.”

It wasn’t that Regulus doubted his cousin’s impeccable memory, but only that he doubted he would have forgotten such an experience. To him, speaking to such an odd creature would be more than a forgotten memory jotted in the margin of his mind, but pages and pages of scrawling analysis, carefully kept and preserved for future reference. So he shook his head with a growing frown. “I’d think I’d remember, Ursa.”

“She has a point.” Evan agreed, and he resisted the urge to scowl. Evan seemed to read his displeasure of his carefully blank face, anyway, and quickly rectified. “Not that I’m saying you’re lying, only that it was probably in passing or such. The way we’d pass a portrait, ‘suppose. After all, you don’t record every painting you pass by, or it’d get rather boring.”

Another round of agreement chimed like bells. Montague made a quick joke about preferring the paintings, setting off a round of laughter, but Regulus couldn’t help but notice the rictus smile set on his cousin's face that didn’t fade until they moved on to greener pastures, instead talking about McGonagal’s unfair homework deadlines, compared to others, such as Flitwick and Slughorn.

As they disbanded, Regulus was quick to pull her aside. Very rarely did they disagree and even rarer did they voice it. He knew, logically, that she wouldn’t crack under something so silly as being narrowed under his less-than-life glare, but if it were a serious matter, he’d rest easy knowing he’d tried.

“Are you alright?” He asked, hushed as they slipped into an alcove. “When I mentioned those muggle-borns, you were strange. Did something happen with them?”

Her gaze flickered to somewhere behind him, but when he followed, there was nothing more than encroaching gloom. There was something almost soft there when they locked gazes again; pity, he realized, a sudden horror sending a chill down his bones, sympathy, compassion.

Andromeda had not been a large factor in his life. Compared to Ursa, she’d been a minor keynote, worthy of the margins, but his cousin had been with him from before he was born, a near-permanent company more alike to that of a sister. He knew what happened to sympathisers - and he tried to imagine that, as he’d tried to imagine Hogwarts, but it did not come. Must I experience that too?

“You aren’t a blood-traitor, are you?” He hissed, careful to keep low.

That, it seemed, snapped her ought of her reverie; but instead of becoming pale and sickened, as what would have calmed the squirming snakes in his stomach, she reared back, halfway to fury. “I’m not a revolutionary, Regulus. I’m not about to start storming about, crowing about every subject, as though nobody’s listening!” She snapped. “I’ve better things to do, dear Merlin.”

“I’m- I just…” I don’t want you to go the way of Andromeda, he wanted to say, but shock seemed to have stolen all good sense from him, and it came out incomprehensible.

It worked, in a way, of calming his cousin, and rather than storming off, as those of their family were wont to, she sighed, all fight draining down some invisible pipe. “Like I said: I have better things to do. We have better things to do. Let’s leave it to others, hm?”

The next night, as they partnered up to share telescopes, it seemed that they’d not quite recovered from their argument. Rather than sitting with him, she’d claimed the spot beside Evan; the boy himself seemed rather apologetic, but Regulus held no ill will against him. Ursa was a force to be reckoned with when she allowed it, and he was not his brother, as oft as he wished it false. There was a better chance of getting the sun to set east or the tides to turn silver.

Instead, he was left scrambling to find a suitable partner, most of which had already been chosen. Friends picked friends; family picked family, and where Ursa had been his, and Evan, one of his many friends, seemed to be none left for Regulus. As fast as he could, he discerned the free spaces; Hackland, whom he’d shared two curt words with, Trimp, a shy, muggle-born who’d spent half of Potions covered in various plant juices or Crouch, who’d never spoken out or to anyone in the wide-range of classes they shared.

Better the enemy you’d prefer, he thought, and sat next to Crouch, who seemed rather incensed at being picked as a partner.

“Regulus Black,” he greeted curtly, not entirely over being promptly replaced.

“Barty Crouch.” He responded, bemused, if not a bit wary. “I see you’ve been replaced.”

Evan and Ursa were both animatedly conversing. The two had bonded unnaturally fast, but then again, his relationship with his cousin - while strong - had been constantly stilted by the large month-long gaps they went without seeing each other. Evan’s schedule was controlled by her grandfather, who was ailing and likely happy to be given the day off looking over a young boy, especially knowing it would be in the capable hands of his daughter. Compared to that, sometimes Regulus could be lucky to even hear her voice through the Floo.

“Not forever,” he reassured Crouch, feeling rather as though he was reassuring himself.

“Is that for me to be comforted by, or you?”

And the urge to scowl overtook him again. “Has anybody ever told you you’re rather too clever?”

“All the time.” He brightened, and curls of amusement floated off him like smoke from a flame. “My father doesn’t believe me, but I say that it’s one of my greatest traits - after that, I believe, we have my utter handsomeness, my great charisma and my natural talent at transfiguration.”

And of all those that were true… well, he wasn’t bad looking. Rather, Regulus could see the appeal in him; a mop of fair hair, strewn just enough to look effortlessly messy, and pale hazel eyes constantly crinkled in a gleaming grin, not to mention the inherited looks that, it seemed, most purebloods received. It was all rather the opposite of himself; loud, bright and, apparently, better luck at turning mice into tea kettles than Regulus had.

“Well,” he drawled. “Some of that’s not entirely false.”

And he threw his head back, revealing the pale skin under the moonlight. The stars were especially clear tonight, and they made shine on his skin. “Oh, good. I was hoping you were more than a mope. Come on, look through this scope then, tell me what you see.”

Regulus had stared at the stars most of his life. What was he to tell this boy, his maybe-friend, that he would rather not?

“Shall I just tell you?”

“You could teach me.”

And they shared a look full of excitement, understanding that they were not perhaps as alone as they’d thought; that Barty was not as outlier as he’d perhaps perceived himself and that Regulus’ was not as doomed as he’d seemed. That he never returned to sit beside his cousin during Astronomy nights was perhaps another footnote in the margins, but it was hardly one that deserved much; after all, he had pages to write about his new experiences, chapters that had to be sketched out, a head to fill of nights spent lecturing on the small details between constellations to someone who’d yet to hear and still wanted to.