Gimme something with Briar in the hospital wing around the full moon so Aria is with her but Remus and his friends are there after the moon so Aria is doing her best not to deck Sirius for Briar's sake then having to get held back because Sirius is a prick and Aria said fuck it
In Every World, I'm With You
@moonflower-moonstone
Briar Rosewood had gone quiet in a way that made the hospital wing feel too large around her.
It wasn’t the peaceful sort of quiet. Not the soft, sleepy hush that settled over someone after a long cry, or the dreamy silence that came when Madam Pomfrey finally forced a potion down someone’s throat and tucked a blanket up to their chin with brisk, terrifying gentleness.
It was a brittle quiet.
A held-breath quiet.
A quiet like glass left too close to the edge of a table.
Aria Parkinson hated it.
She hated the white sheets tucked too neatly around Briar’s legs. She hated the smell of Pepperup fumes and disinfectant, the watery grey light seeping through the tall windows, the screens half-pulled around the bed like thin little walls against a world that kept trying to get in. She hated the way Briar’s hands were folded over her stomach as though someone had arranged her there, as though she’d gone away from her own body and left it behind to be looked after by other people.
Mostly, though, Aria hated how still she was.
Briar was never properly still. Not really. Even when she was quiet, she was usually turning a page, worrying a cuff between her fingers, nudging her glasses up her nose, twisting a curl around one finger until it sprang loose. She was shy and sweet and soft-looking, yes, all wool and brown eyes and big curls and cardigans and careful smiles, but she was alive in a hundred tiny ways.
Now she was just lying there.
Aria sat curled beside her on the narrow hospital bed, wedged half against the pillows and half against Briar’s side, one arm wrapped around Briar’s waist and the other hand tucked gently over Briar’s knuckles. She had shoved her shoes off beneath the bed, and her long hair fell in uneven curtains around her face. Her eyeliner was smudged from the night before. Her uniform was a mess in the usual Aria way, baggy and modded and sitting wrong on purpose, but everything about her had been turned down.
Her voice. Her movements. Her breathing.
For once in her life, Aria Parkinson was not ricocheting off the walls.
She was tucked close to Briar like a guard dog pretending to be a lap cat.
“Do you want water?” she asked softly.
Briar blinked.
It took her a second to answer. Her lashes fluttered, and her fingers twitched under Aria’s palm.
“No.”
“Juice?”
Another pause.
“No.”
“Toast?”
“No.”
“Chocolate?”
Briar’s mouth wobbled faintly.
Aria’s eyes sharpened at once, like she had seen a candle flicker in a storm.
“That nearly got something,” she murmured. “I saw that. Don’t lie to me, Rosewood. Your face did the thing.”
“My face didn’t do anything.”
“Your face betrayed you. Traitor face.”
“It’s my face.”
“Exactly. Terrible loyalty. No standards.”
Briar swallowed, and for a moment, the tiny tremor of humour vanished. Her gaze drifted past Aria, past the privacy screen, past the hospital wing entirely. Her grip tightened suddenly, painfully, on Aria’s fingers.
Aria didn’t flinch.
She shifted closer, pressing her cheek against Briar’s shoulder.
“Hey,” she whispered. “Still here.”
Briar’s breathing snagged.
“I know.”
“No, like. Really here. Annoyingly here. Physically here. Unfortunately for literally everyone else in this castle, I have not evaporated.”
Briar shut her eyes.
“I don’t want to think.”
“I know.”
“I keep trying not to, and then it gets worse, and then I’m thinking about not thinking, and then I’m thinking about what if I—” Briar cut herself off hard, teeth clicking together. Her whole face pinched. “I can’t say it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“What if saying it makes it real?”
“It doesn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know loads of things.”
“You once tried to dry your socks over a candle and set fire to your own ankle.”
“That was a controlled experiment.”
“It was not.”
“It was controlled by fate,” Aria said solemnly. “And fate was a bastard.”
Briar made a tiny sound. Not quite a laugh. Barely even a breath. But Aria felt it move through her side and held on to it like treasure.
Madam Pomfrey appeared from behind the screen with a tray in one hand and the expression of a woman who had slept less than everyone else in the room and intended to make it their problem.
“Miss Parkinson,” she said quietly.
Aria looked up at once.
“Yeah?”
“I need her to take three more sips.”
Briar’s eyes opened in instant alarm. “No.”
“Three,” Pomfrey said.
“No.”
“It will help with the shaking.”
“I’m not shaking.”
Aria sat up a little, keeping one arm around her. “Three sips and I’ll tell you what Barty did in first year with the enchanted inkpot.”
Briar stared at her.
Aria stared back.
Madam Pomfrey’s eyebrows rose.
Briar’s voice came out thin. “The one he blamed on Sirius?”
“The very one.”
Briar hesitated.
Aria picked up the cup from Pomfrey’s tray. “Come on. Three sips. Tiny pathetic ones. Little coward sips.”
“I’m not a coward.”
“No, the sips are. They’re very scared. Look at them.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Neither does anything in this school, yet here we are.”
Briar let Aria hold the cup to her lips.
One sip.
Her nose wrinkled.
“Vile,” she whispered.
“Brave,” Aria whispered back.
Second sip.
Briar grimaced.
“Awful.”
“Iconic.”
Third sip.
Briar pulled away and turned her face into Aria’s shoulder, disgusted and exhausted.
“Done.”
“Done,” Aria confirmed. “Madam Pomfrey, witness our glory.”
Pomfrey took the cup back, and something almost soft passed over her face. Almost. She was still Madam Pomfrey, and softness from her tended to arrive heavily disguised as irritation.
“Good,” she said. “Very good, Miss Rosewood.”
Briar didn’t answer.
Aria stroked her thumb over the back of Briar’s hand.
Pomfrey glanced towards the far end of the hospital wing, where curtains were drawn around another cluster of beds. Her mouth tightened.
The full moon always left the wing strange in the morning. Too bright and too dim at once. Too clean for all the damage it held. The kind of morning where Madam Pomfrey moved like a general after battle, brisk and white-aproned and sharp-eyed, carrying potions that smoked and bandages that smelled of herbs and iron.
Remus Lupin and his friends were down there.
Aria had known before she saw them. Everyone knew when Remus came in after the full moon, even if they pretended they didn’t. There was a rhythm to it. The drawn curtains. The low voices. The too-casual way his friends acted too loud around him, as if noise could fill the places pain had bitten out.
Usually, Aria didn’t care.
Usually, Aria found Sirius Black’s existence personally offensive on principle and enjoyed any opportunity to ruin his day.
But Briar was in the bed.
Briar, who had flinched at a footstep earlier.
Briar, whose intrusive thoughts had crawled under her skin until she’d ended up here, pale and trembling, with Pomfrey checking on her every half hour and Aria refusing to leave her side.
So Aria did not care about Sirius Black.
She did not care about James Potter’s too-loud laugh, or Peter Pettigrew’s nervous little comments, or Remus Lupin’s scratchy voice drifting out from behind the curtains, or the fact that the whole pack of them seemed physically incapable of understanding that the hospital wing was not their common room with better drugs.
She cared about Briar.
Only Briar.
“Do you want me to braid your hair?” Aria asked.
Briar’s face was still half-hidden against her shoulder.
“It’s a mess.”
“Your hair is always a mess.”
“Rude.”
“Beautiful mess.”
Briar was quiet.
Aria softened her voice further. “I can just brush it with my fingers. No pulling.”
A pause.
Then Briar nodded.
Aria shifted carefully until Briar was leaning against her chest, back to front, tucked between Aria’s legs like something precious rescued from a flood. She gathered Briar’s thick brown curls slowly, gently, separating the strands with careful fingers. Normally, Aria did everything like she was trying to win a race against an invisible enemy. Now she moved as though Briar were made of mist.
“Tell me the inkpot story,” Briar murmured.
“You have such a thirst for crime.”
“You promised.”
“I did. I’m very honourable.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m conditionally honourable when manipulating sick people into drinking poison.”
“It was medicine.”
“Madam Pomfrey calls it medicine because she’s allowed to.”
From the far end of the hospital wing, someone laughed loudly.
Too loudly.
James Potter.
The sound cracked across the quiet like a dropped plate.
Briar tensed at once.
Aria’s fingers paused in her hair.
Her eyes flicked towards the screen.
Madam Pomfrey’s voice cut from the other end, low and warning. “Mr Potter.”
“Sorry,” James said, not sounding sorry enough. “Sorry, Madam Pomfrey.”
There was a muffled snort from Sirius.
Aria inhaled through her nose.
Briar felt it.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
Aria looked down.
Briar wasn’t looking at her. Her eyes were fixed on her own hands, fingers pressed together so tightly the knuckles had gone pale.
“Don’t what?” Aria asked, as if she didn’t know.
“Get into it.”
“I am the picture of peace.”
“You’re breathing like you’re about to bite someone.”
“That’s just how I breathe. Predatory asthma.”
Briar’s mouth twitched again, but her shoulders didn’t drop.
Aria resumed working through her curls.
“Anyway,” she said softly, deliberately drawing Briar back, “Barty Crouch Junior, age eleven, had acquired an inkpot from a fourth year who swore it was enchanted to correct spelling.”
Briar’s voice came out faint. “Was it?”
“No. It was enchanted to insult handwriting.”
Briar blinked.
“Violently,” Aria added.
Briar’s eyebrows pinched with the first real hint of interest she’d shown all morning.
Aria smiled, small and sly. “Every time anyone dipped a quill in, the ink wrote the meanest possible comment it could think of before they’d even started. It called Professor Binns a beige haunting.”
Briar made a soft sound.
“It called Evan’s essay ‘a cry for help with margins.’”
Briar’s shoulders moved with something almost like laughter.
“And then Barty tried to use it in Potions,” Aria continued, carefully twisting one curl around her finger, “because he wanted it to insult Slughorn’s handwriting in front of everyone. But Sirius borrowed his quill without asking.”
Briar shifted, just enough to glance up at her.
Aria’s grin appeared properly for half a second. “So Sirius dipped it, and before he could write anything, it splattered across his parchment and wrote, ‘This boy dots his i’s like he wants attention from his mother.’”
Briar gave a tiny, helpless laugh.
It broke quickly.
She covered her mouth as if ashamed of it.
Aria’s heart squeezed.
“No, no, that was good,” she whispered. “That was a good one. Very elegant. Ten points to the plant cryptid.”
Briar shook her head.
“Hey,” Aria said. “No apologising for laughing.”
“I’m not.”
“You were about to.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You had apology eyebrows.”
“I do not have apology eyebrows.”
“You do. Very tragic. Like a wet spaniel in a cardigan.”
Briar breathed out, shaky but warmer.
Then Sirius Black’s voice cut through from the other side of the wing.
“Honestly, I think if Pomfrey’s letting people camp in here for being gloomy, half the castle should get a bed.”
The air changed.
Aria went completely still.
Briar went colder against her.
Madam Pomfrey’s footsteps stopped.
There was a beat of silence.
Then James muttered, “Padfoot.”
“What?” Sirius said, with the grating brightness of someone who knew exactly what he’d done and wanted everyone to pretend he hadn’t. “I’m saying. Hospital wing’s getting crowded.”
Aria’s hand remained suspended in Briar’s hair.
Briar’s breathing had gone shallow.
Aria bent her head, her mouth close to Briar’s ear.
“Look at me,” she whispered.
Briar didn’t.
“Briar.”
Briar’s eyes flicked up.
Aria’s face was soft. Terrifyingly soft. The softness of a knife wrapped in velvet.
“He’s stupid,” she said quietly. “And loud. That’s all.”
Briar swallowed.
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“No,” Aria said. “He doesn’t.”
“He heard.”
“So?”
Briar’s eyes shone. “Everyone heard.”
“No, they didn’t.”
“They did.”
“Listen to me.” Aria slid both hands around Briar’s, holding them between her palms. “You’re here because you needed help. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. You needed help, and you got help, and I’m here, and Pomfrey’s here, and none of that is embarrassing.”
Briar’s lips trembled.
“I feel mad.”
“You’re not.”
“I feel disgusting.”
“You’re not.”
“I feel dangerous.”
“You’re not.”
Briar squeezed her eyes shut.
Aria pressed her forehead to Briar’s temple.
“You’re Briar,” she said. “You’re my Briar. You’re having a bad day. That’s not a crime.”
From the other end, Peter said something too low to catch.
Sirius laughed.
It was not a kind laugh.
Aria’s jaw flexed.
Briar’s fingers tightened again.
Madam Pomfrey swept past the edge of the screen, expression thunderous. “Mr Black.”
“What?” Sirius said. “I didn’t say anything.”
“That,” Pomfrey said, “has never once been your problem.”
James made a strangled noise that might have been a laugh badly disguised as a cough.
Remus said, quieter, “Sirius, stop.”
“Oh, don’t start,” Sirius said. “You’re the one actually injured.”
The curtain shifted.
Aria could see him now, at least part of him: black hair loose and messy around his face, one cheek marked faintly from whatever chaos the night had dragged him through, grey eyes too bright with that particular Black-family cruelty that always looked best right before someone deserved to lose teeth. He was sitting on the edge of Remus’s bed like he owned the hospital wing and every sound inside it.
James was beside him, taller and broader and sheepish in a way that did not stop him from being annoying. Peter hovered near the foot of the bed, wringing his hands. Remus was propped up against the pillows, pale and scratched and exhausted, looking like he wanted to disappear into the mattress but not quite enough to make his friends shut up.
Sirius looked over.
His eyes landed on Aria first.
His mouth curled.
Then they landed on Briar.
Aria felt the exact moment Briar shrank.
A hot, clean line of anger opened in Aria’s chest.
Not yet, she told herself.
Not for you.
For Briar.
“Don’t look at them,” Aria said softly.
Briar’s voice was barely there. “I can feel him looking.”
“I know.”
“I hate it.”
“I know.”
“Can you close the screen more?”
“Yeah. Course.”
Aria climbed carefully off the bed, slow enough not to jostle her. She pulled the privacy screen farther around the bed until it blocked most of the view from the far end. It was not much. A thin folding screen, cream-coloured and flimsy, ridiculous against the sharpness of people.
But Briar’s shoulders dropped by half an inch.
Aria would take half an inch.
“There,” she said, climbing back in. “Fortress.”
Briar glanced around.
“It’s a screen.”
“It’s a fortress if you believe in it.”
“That’s not how fortresses work.”
“Spoken like someone who’s never committed treason with furniture.”
Briar breathed out again, faintly amused.
Aria sat behind her and pulled the blanket higher over both of them.
For a while, it almost worked.
Pomfrey moved between beds. Bottles clinked. Somewhere outside, the castle went about its day with all the monstrous indifference of old stone and moving staircases. Briar’s breathing slowly evened beneath Aria’s palm. Aria kept talking in a low murmur, nonsense mostly, letting the words run gentle and constant like warm water.
She told Briar about the inkpot. About Barty’s face when it called him “emotionally flammable.” About Evan laughing so hard he got hiccups. About Sirius throwing the quill across the room and hitting James in the ear. About how Barty had somehow still blamed Sirius in the end because “technically, he activated it.”
Briar listened.
Not well. Not fully.
But enough.
Enough that her hands loosened. Enough that the blank distance left her eyes for a few breaths at a time. Enough that when Aria asked whether she wanted one of the blankets warmed, she whispered, “Only if you don’t leave.”
“I won’t.”
“You’ll have to.”
“I’ll make Pomfrey do it.”
“She’s busy.”
“I’ll stare at her pathetically.”
“You don’t do pathetic.”
“I can. Watch.”
Aria widened her eyes and dropped her lower lip.
Briar stared.
“You look like you’re planning a murder.”
“Pathetic murder.”
“No.”
“Tiny murder.”
“No.”
“Just a little one.”
Briar’s lips pressed together.
Aria considered that a victory.
Then, from the other side of the hospital wing, Sirius said loudly, “Is Parkinson whispering bedtime stories over there? Merlin, what next? Lullabies for hysterics?”
Briar flinched so hard her shoulder knocked into Aria’s chin.
Aria’s teeth clicked.
For a second, the hospital wing seemed to narrow into one clean path between Aria and Sirius Black.
Pomfrey turned sharply. “That is enough.”
Sirius lifted both hands. “I’m only joking.”
“No,” Remus said, voice tired and rough. “You’re being cruel.”
Sirius’s head snapped towards him. “I’m being cruel?”
James rubbed a hand over his face. “Pads, just leave it.”
“Why is everyone acting like I hexed someone?”
“Because you’re being a prick,” Remus said.
Aria heard Briar’s breath shaking.
Her own hands trembled once, not with fear.
She curled them slowly into fists and then forced them open.
Briar whispered, “Aria.”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m here.”
“Please.”
Aria shut her eyes.
For Briar.
She breathed in.
For Briar.
She breathed out.
For Briar.
Madam Pomfrey came around the screen, face tight.
“How is she?” she asked.
“I’m right here,” Briar murmured.
Pomfrey’s sternness softened by one careful degree. “Yes, Miss Rosewood, you are. And you’re doing very well.”
Briar’s eyes filled.
Aria looked at Pomfrey. “Can she have the warmed blanket?”
Pomfrey nodded. “Of course.”
“I’ll get it,” Aria said automatically, already starting to move.
Briar’s hand caught her sleeve.
Aria stopped.
Pomfrey saw it.
“I’ll get it,” Pomfrey said.
Aria sank back down beside Briar.
“See?” she said softly. “Pathetic staring works.”
“You didn’t stare.”
“I did spiritually.”
Briar huffed a small breath.
Pomfrey vanished and returned with a blanket charmed warm enough that steam almost seemed to sigh from the folds. She tucked it over Briar with efficient hands, then paused when Briar’s fingers caught the edge.
“Too warm?” she asked.
Briar shook her head.
“No. It’s good.”
“Good.”
“Thank you,” Briar whispered.
Pomfrey’s expression became briefly unbearable, the way adults sometimes looked when they were trying not to show that something had hurt them.
“You’re very welcome.”
Behind her, Sirius made a noise.
Not a word.
Just a little derisive sound, quiet enough that perhaps he thought he could deny it.
Aria heard it.
Pomfrey heard it.
Briar heard it.
The warmed blanket did not stop Briar from shaking.
Aria’s head lifted slowly.
Pomfrey said, “Miss Parkinson.”
Aria smiled.
It was not a nice smile.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you are not.”
“I’m so fine.”
“Aria,” Briar whispered.
That stopped her more effectively than Pomfrey’s warning.
Aria looked down.
Briar’s face was pale and frightened, not of Aria, never of Aria, but of the noise, the conflict, the sudden bright flare of attention.
Aria softened at once.
“All right,” she whispered. “All right. I’m not moving.”
Briar’s grip stayed tight around her sleeve.
Across the wing, James muttered, “Mate, seriously. Shut up.”
“I didn’t even say anything,” Sirius snapped.
“You made a sound,” Peter said weakly.
“Oh, brilliant, thank you, Wormtail. Five points for observation.”
Peter went quiet.
Remus shifted in his bed. “Sirius.”
“What?”
“Stop.”
Sirius laughed once, sharp and ugly. “Fine. Fine. Everyone’s very delicate today.”
Aria’s fingers dug into the blanket.
Briar went very still.
Madam Pomfrey’s voice turned dangerous. “Mr Black, I would advise you to consider your next words with exceptional care.”
Sirius, being Sirius Black, did not.
He leaned back on his hands and looked straight at the screen.
“Honestly, Parkinson, didn’t know you did nursemaid. Thought you mostly did biting.”
Aria stared at the thin cream fabric between them.
Briar whispered, “Don’t answer.”
Aria didn’t.
Her silence seemed to annoy Sirius more than any insult could have.
“What, nothing?” he called. “No charming little death threat? No dramatic lunge? Careful, Rosewood, she must be really worried about you if she’s pretending to have manners.”
Briar’s breathing broke.
A tiny sound slipped out of her.
Too small. Too wounded.
Aria felt it pass through her like a blade.
She slipped Briar’s hand gently off her sleeve.
Briar’s eyes snapped to her. “Aria, no—”
“I’m just standing up.”
“You’re not.”
“I am.”
“You’re lying.”
“Only a little.”
Madam Pomfrey stepped in front of the screen as Aria rose.
“Miss Parkinson,” she said, low. “Sit down.”
Aria’s gaze did not leave the screen.
“He’s upsetting her.”
“I am aware.”
“He keeps doing it.”
“I am aware.”
“Then make him stop.”
“I am handling it.”
“No,” Aria said, very softly. “You’re being polite because he’s hurt.”
Pomfrey’s face hardened.
Aria’s voice stayed quiet.
“I don’t care that he’s hurt.”
“Aria,” Briar said, more scared now.
That should have stopped her.
It almost did.
Then Sirius called, “Is she crying again?”
The world went white at the edges.
Aria moved.
Pomfrey caught her by the arm before she made it past the screen.
“Miss Parkinson!”
Aria twisted, fast and furious. “Let go.”
“No.”
“Let go of me.”
“You will not start a fight in my hospital wing.”
“He started it.”
“And I will finish it.”
“No, you won’t.” Aria’s voice shook now, all the softness burned away. “You’ll scold him and he’ll keep going because he’s Sirius fucking Black and everyone lets him keep going.”
Pomfrey’s fingers tightened on her arm.
Behind them, Briar was sitting upright, blanket clutched to her chest, eyes wide behind her glasses.
“Aria,” she said again, pleading this time.
Aria looked at her.
For half a breath, she came back to herself.
Briar was trembling.
Briar needed quiet.
Briar needed her.
Aria swallowed hard.
“Fine,” she said.
Pomfrey did not let go.
Aria’s jaw clenched. “I said fine.”
Pomfrey studied her face.
Slowly, she released her.
Aria turned back towards the bed.
Sirius laughed.
“Merlin,” he said. “She’s actually trained.”
Aria stopped.
Pomfrey said, “Mr Black.”
But it was too late.
Aria turned again.
This time Pomfrey caught only the back of her sleeve, and Aria slipped out of it like smoke.
She crossed the hospital wing barefoot, fast and silent and terrible.
James saw her coming first.
His eyes widened. “Sirius—”
Sirius barely had time to turn his head.
Aria punched him across the face.
The crack of knuckles against cheekbone snapped through the wing.
Sirius’s head whipped to the side. He staggered off the edge of Remus’s bed and hit the floor in a tangle of limbs and outrage, one hand flying to his face.
For one perfect second, no one spoke.
Then Peter squeaked, “Oh.”
James stood halfway up, froze, then sat back down again with the abrupt wisdom of a man who had looked at Aria Parkinson’s face and decided he loved living.
Remus stared at Sirius on the floor, then at Aria, then at Sirius again.
Sirius looked up, eyes blazing, cheek already flushing red under his hand.
“You—”
Aria pointed at him.
“Say one more thing about her.”
Sirius’s mouth opened.
Aria took one step closer.
“I mean it,” she said. “One more thing.”
James grabbed Sirius by the back of his shirt before he could lunge up. “Don’t.”
“She hit me!”
“I noticed.”
“She fucking hit me!”
“You did sort of earn it,” Peter said before he could stop himself.
Sirius twisted to glare at him.
Peter went pale. “I mean—sorry.”
Remus’s voice came out flat. “No, he’s right.”
Sirius stared at him. “You too?”
Remus looked exhausted. More than exhausted. Hollowed out and furious in a quiet, disappointed way that did not suit his pale face.
“You were cruel,” Remus said. “She’s ill. She’s scared. You knew that.”
Sirius’s expression flickered.
Only for a second.
Aria did not care.
Madam Pomfrey came storming down the aisle between the beds, her apron snapping around her legs like a flag.
“Aria Parkinson!”
Aria turned towards her.
Her fist hurt.
Good.
Pomfrey stopped in front of her, face white with anger.
“Do you have any idea where you are?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea what I said?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea how badly this could have gone?”
Aria’s chin lifted.
“Yes.”
Pomfrey glared.
Aria stared back.
Then, from behind the screen at the far end, Briar made a sound. Not a word. A thin, broken little inhale.
Aria’s face changed instantly.
All the fire dropped out of it.
She turned away from Sirius at once.
“I need to go back.”
Pomfrey’s anger faltered.
For a moment, she looked between Aria and Sirius. Sirius was still on the floor, cheek red, pride wounded far worse than his face. James had a hand planted on his shoulder. Peter hovered uselessly. Remus looked like he wanted to apologise and vanish at the same time.
Pomfrey inhaled sharply.
“Mr Black,” she said.
Sirius glared up at her. “She punched me.”
“And you are going to sit there and be grateful I witnessed what came before it.”
His mouth fell open.
James’s eyebrows shot up.
Peter’s eyes went huge.
Remus shut his eyes.
Pomfrey’s voice grew colder. “You have spent the better part of this morning antagonising a patient in my care and the person keeping that patient calm. You were warned. Repeatedly. You ignored me. Repeatedly.”
Sirius swallowed, still clutching his cheek.
“She still hit me.”
“Yes,” Pomfrey said. “And if you give me further cause to believe you cannot control your tongue, I will move you to the farthest bed in this wing, charm curtains around you, and silence you until dinner.”
James coughed into his fist.
Sirius looked betrayed by the universe.
Pomfrey turned to Aria.
Aria braced.
Pomfrey looked at her clenched fist, then her face.
“You,” she said, “I can check your hand.”
Aria blinked.
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
Sirius made an outraged noise.
Pomfrey did not look at him. “Do not test me, Mr Black.”
Aria nodded once.
Then she walked back to Briar.
The screen was half-open from where she’d shoved past it. Briar was sitting up in the bed, blanket pulled to her chin, curls mussed around her face, glasses slightly crooked. Her eyes were wet.
Aria stopped at the edge of the bed.
For the first time all morning, she looked unsure.
“Sorry,” she said quietly.
Briar stared at her.
Aria shifted her weight. “I know you told me not to.”
Briar’s mouth trembled.
“I know,” Aria said. “I was trying. I did try.”
“You punched him.”
“Yeah.”
“You actually punched him.”
“Yeah.”
“In the face.”
“I panicked and picked the obvious target.”
Briar gave a broken laugh that turned immediately into a sob.
Aria’s face crumpled.
“Oh, hey. No. No, come here.”
She climbed back onto the bed, careful again, gentle again, all the violence gone from her hands as she gathered Briar up against her. Briar pressed her face into Aria’s shoulder and cried, properly now, shoulders shaking, fists trapped between them.
Aria held her tight.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it worse.”
“You didn’t.”
“I scared you.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
Briar shook her head against her. “I was scared already.”
Aria shut her eyes.
Her hand moved slowly over Briar’s back, up and down, up and down.
“I hate him,” Briar whispered.
“I know.”
“I hate that he heard.”
“I know.”
“I hate that he looked at me like that.”
“I know.”
“I hate that I’m here.”
“I know.”
“I hate my head.”
Aria’s grip tightened.
“I don’t,” she said fiercely.
Briar cried harder.
“I don’t hate your head,” Aria said again, voice shaking now too. “I don’t. I don’t care how loud it gets in there. I don’t care how ugly it feels. It’s still yours. You’re still you.”
Briar’s fingers clutched at the front of Aria’s shirt.
“What if I’m not?”
“You are.”
“What if I’m bad?”
“You’re not.”
“What if I can’t—”
“You can.”
Briar pulled back just enough to look at her.
Aria’s eyes were bright and furious and wet.
“You can,” she said again. “Not because it’s easy. Not because it doesn’t hurt. Not because stupid people won’t say stupid things. You can because I’m going to sit here and annoy you through every minute until it passes.”
Briar’s lips parted.
Aria sniffed and wiped at Briar’s cheek with the sleeve of the arm she had not punched Sirius with.
“And Pomfrey’s going to bring you disgusting potions,” she continued. “And I’m going to blackmail you with Barty stories. And you’re going to complain about the blankets being tucked wrong. And I’m going to fix them wrong on purpose so you can correct me. And then you’re going to sleep. And then you’re going to wake up. And if it’s still awful, we’ll do it again.”
Briar stared at her.
“You make it sound simple.”
“It’s not simple.”
“No.”
“But it can be smaller,” Aria said. “Just for now. Just this bed. Just this blanket. Just my voice. Just Pomfrey being terrifying. Just Black getting punched in the face.”
Briar’s laugh came out watery.
Aria’s mouth tilted.
“There she is.”
“I shouldn’t laugh.”
“You absolutely should. It was a very clean hit.”
“Aria.”
“What? It was.”
Briar lowered her face back to Aria’s shoulder.
“Does your hand hurt?”
“Not as much as his face.”
“Aria.”
“A little,” Aria admitted.
Briar sniffed. “Good.”
Aria froze.
Then she looked down slowly.
Briar’s eyes were closed, but there was the faintest, most delicate curve at one corner of her mouth.
Aria’s grin bloomed like trouble under moonlight.
“Briar Rosewood.”
“No.”
“That was bloodthirsty.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You said good.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did. My sweet little plant witch wants vengeance.”
“I want quiet.”
“You can want two things.”
Briar breathed out against her shoulder.
“I want quiet,” she repeated.
Aria’s grin faded into something softer.
“Okay.”
Across the hospital wing, Sirius had gone silent at last.
James spoke once in a low voice and was shushed instantly by Pomfrey. Peter whispered something and then apologised for whispering. Remus said nothing at all.
The hospital wing settled.
Not peaceful.
Not fixed.
But quieter.
Aria stayed curled around Briar in the narrow bed, her sore hand resting carefully on the blanket, her other arm firm around Briar’s waist. Madam Pomfrey came by once to check Briar’s pulse, then Aria’s knuckles, though she did it without comment beyond a clipped, “You’ll live,” which Aria accepted as high praise.
Briar’s eyelids grew heavy.
Every few minutes, her body jerked as though her own mind had startled her awake again.
Every time, Aria was there.
“Still here,” she whispered the first time.
“I know,” Briar breathed.
“Still here,” Aria whispered the second.
Briar nodded.
The third time, Briar didn’t open her eyes. She only reached blindly until Aria took her hand.
“Still here,” Aria said.
Briar’s fingers curled around hers.
“Don’t go.”
“I won’t.”
“You always say that.”
“Because I always mean it.”
Briar was quiet for a long time.
Then, so softly Aria barely heard it, she whispered, “Thank you.”
Aria pressed her cheek to the top of Briar’s hair.
“You’re welcome.”
“For staying.”
“Always.”
“For being quiet.”
Aria’s mouth twitched.
“That was deeply unnatural for me.”
“I know.”
“I suffered.”
“I know.”
“Heroically.”
Briar’s breath warmed Aria’s collar.
Then, after another fragile pause, she murmured, “For punching him.”
Aria looked towards the screen.
On the other side of the wing, Sirius Black was still silent.
Aria smiled into Briar’s hair.
“Any time.”
Madam Pomfrey’s voice cut through from her office doorway. “No.”
Aria sighed.
Briar made another tiny sound. A laugh this time. Real enough to count.
Pomfrey appeared at the end of the bed, arms folded. “Do not encourage her, Miss Rosewood.”
Briar opened one eye.
“She was helping.”
Pomfrey’s mouth pressed into a thin line.
“She was disruptive.”
“She was helping,” Briar said again, quieter but certain.
Pomfrey looked at her for a long moment.
Then her gaze flicked to Aria.
Aria tried to look innocent.
It was a hopeless effort. Her eyeliner was ruined, her shirt was wrinkled, her knuckles were red, and the satisfaction of having hit Sirius Black still clung to her like perfume.
Pomfrey sighed through her nose.
“Sleep,” she ordered Briar. “Both of you, if possible. And Miss Parkinson?”
Aria looked up.
“If you leave this bed to assault anyone else, I will bind you to it.”
Aria considered that.
Briar murmured, “Don’t say anything.”
Aria shut her mouth.
Pomfrey’s eyebrows rose.
“Astonishing,” she said. “She can learn.”
Briar smiled faintly against Aria’s shoulder.
Aria settled back against the pillows, tucking the warm blanket more securely around them both.
Outside, the morning after the full moon dragged itself on, pale and raw and unforgiving.
Inside, behind the thin little screen, Briar finally slept.
And Aria stayed awake, sore-knuckled and watchful, holding the quiet around her with both hands.
