He looked best in those moments, when he genuinely smiled. Emma was a craftsman skilled in the creation of smiles; she could detect the beautiful rarity that was true smile when she saw one. It transformed his entire face, made him almost unrecognizable as the boy who stalked the halls and fit in amongst dark allies. It was a smile that would shine out, incongruent in such a place, in such a face. Emma thought that made him look all the more attractive – his shadows, his shine. Being his friend above all else, she knew all kinds of Amycus Carrow, she thought she knew every facet to him that there was. Yet continuously, Emma was experiencing the pleasant surprise of being surprised by him.
And another thing that is marvellous – this occurs among his being over stressed. Amycus does not need to go into detail for that to whisper significance to Emma. It plants an idea in her head, suggests that maybe she does for him what she values in Amycus. There are so many different things that weigh down on their lives, too many things, yet here she was feeling light and happy. Solmn though the topic once was, Emma endeavoured to inject it with lightness and beamed up at him. “I think we could do something about that.” They seemed to need an escape equally desperately. She mulled it over for a moment, and then ideas poured from her lips. “Throw a party. Take me to Hogwarts. Or just to bed. I’m not that fussy.” A chuckle bubbled on her lips as Emma abandoned coyness, a fickle friend of hers.
Was he joking? Emma left compelled to laugh in that face of those words; it was preferred over some of the other natural reactions. However, when she checked his features, they held no trace of humour. Amycus was not teasing her, not even slighting her, he honestly believed that. How could he? In the world they were brought up in, the society they were a part of, how could she be anything but governed? Truthfully, Emma rarely just acted. She reacted, or even acted in anticipation of reaction. Her behaviour was not natural, on most occasions; it was planned and calculated, engineered. Some would have said that made her false, fake, Emma couldn’t disagree with the depiction.
Amycus had the wrong idea about her. He saw her as a gutsy, assertive, domineering opportunist and that was how Emma presented herself sometimes. But it was not, in truth, who she was. She was as repressed and controlled by the society that bred her as anyone else still in it. She was not James Potter or Sirius Black, no matter how much she admired them secretly. Emma knew that. What she didn’t know, or didn’t know before, was that hers and Amycus’s relationship was built on lies, just as much as her other alliances. She shook her frown, replacing it with a soft smile. She had just been complimented. “I’d like to think so too.” It sounded like an attempt at modesty, or a mild agreement that shouldn’t arouse too much suspicion. Emma picked the words carefully, so that she did not have to tell him the truth, but she didn’t have to lie again, either.