CHAPTER TWO: THE BEGINNING TO AN END
You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.
Hogwarts was a magical place; figuratively and literally. The old majestic castle was full of various, mainly happy, memories carried by multiple generations, full of surprises, like many hidden passages almost no one ever fully explored and it was surrounded by one of the most beautiful landscapes, from the dark and dangerous, yet somehow terrifyingly beautiful Forbidden Forest to the Great Lake, which was home to a giant squid and a village of somewhat shy but territorial Merpeople. People liked returning to Hogwarts, it was like their second home; delicious food and feasts in the Great Hall were certainly a bonus point to their stay, but parties in their common rooms and dorm rooms they shared with their housemates, who in most cases became their best friends, even families, were undeniably the best part.
As great as Hogwarts seemed, maybe even was to some, it had its issues; the main one being the rivalry among the houses, which usually turned people, mainly ones from Gryffindor and Slytherin, against each other, friend against friend, sibling against sibling.
Asterin scanned Sirius’s face when they exited the train, facing something like his less talkative younger self, Regulus Black; Sirius gave him a frown while Regulus looked right through him, as if he, or Asterin in that matter, wasn’t even there. It stung, her heart ached for Sirius; they loved each other once, they were best friends as children and with her, they made a trio, the Black brothers and the Knightley heir. They spoke very rarely and even those conversations were limited to judgement and insults, and occasionally, Regulus threw in a snarky comment, reminding Sirius who he was; not a Black, not anymore. And it hurt Sirius each and every time, not because he wanted to be a Black, but because it was his little brother who was saying it; he had never shown a sign of it, however, but Asterin had always known right as it left Regulus’s mouth, because it hurt her too, for Sirius and herself. Despite the bad relationship the brothers had, Asterin never gave up on either of them; it took Regulus some time to stop fussing about Sirius’s temper (and his reaction to Regulus’s Sorting Ceremony), but it eventually got better as he grew older and more mature, accepting Sirius for who he was – an immature prick, in his eyes. Nevertheless, he still couldn’t swallow his pride with Sirius and Sirius gave him the same treatment back, which was why, although being friends, Regulus didn’t give Asterin a single look.
Who gave Asterin a look, though, was Severus Snape. He gave one to all of them; a nasty one. And he got one back, from all of them. He scanned them all with his dark eyes, a disgusted grimace appearing on his face, as if he just smelled something horribly off, and turned around, walking off with his friends. Asterin couldn’t help herself but roll her eyes, immediately annoyed; if there was someone in Hogwarts whom she would ban from breathing the same air she and her friends were, it would be Severus Snape, not only incredibly annoying, but also nasty and prejudiced bully Slytherin. She couldn’t stand him, neither of them could; the only one who could stand him from their whole friend group was the kind-hearted Lily Evans, who had known him even before setting foot into Hogwarts for the first time, what a poor thing.
Asterin looked around, looking for the redhead who had just crossed her mind; although it was usually quite easy to spot her and the rest of Asterin’s dorm mates in a crowd, she couldn’t see them anywhere.
“Maybe they already got a carriage,” Sirius noted, almost as if he read her mind. She nodded.
Without another word, the five friends all started walking to the carriages, as a soft, a bit colder breeze ruffled their hair; Asterin remembered she had a sweater in her bag. She buried her hand in the bag that was hanging from her left shoulder, pushing away what seemed like an anti-muggle propaganda book from the top of a warm brown sweater when she almost stopped dead in her tracks. She frowned a little from surprise, but quickly gathered herself to prevent her friends from asking questions; she scanned the creatures hooked to the carriages, dark and skinny, winged, and for some reason ones she had never seen before. She looked at her friends who seemed indifferent. Did she just never notice them before? Impossible.
Her confusion didn’t leave her even once they got on one of the carriages. The creature puffed, which reminded her of a horse – it certainly wasn’t a horse.
“Rin?” Sirius asked quietly to not catch the attention of their friends and she turned to him. Noticing his look, she realized he must not see them; she must have looked crazy, staring at nothing. “Are you feeling well?”
She chuckled a little; she actually felt a little crazy.
“Fine,” she said, sitting straight. Sirius blinked a few times, checking the place she was so intensely staring at just a second ago; there was nothing there.
Asterin fished inside her bag again, finally pulling the brown sweater out and quickly putting it on. She noticed an approving nod from Remus.
“What?”
“Nice sweater,” he smiled and she smirked, maliciously.
“I know, it’s yours,” she said and he frowned, scanning the sweater again; it was, indeed, his. The other boys scanned it too, remembering all the times they had seen it on Remus and then, suddenly, not, sometime around halfway through last year’s winter; it made them all chuckle in unison. Remus opened his mouth, half-offended and half-amused; how come he didn’t notice?
“Give it back.”
“Never.”
“Asterin Knightley, take off my bloody sweater,” he ordered, the corners of his mouth twitching.
“Take it off me yourself then, coward,” she mused, batting her eyelashes innocently, earning a whistle from Sirius, while James and Peter laughed and clapped. Remus squinted his eyes.
“Might just.”
“Go on,” she raised her eyebrows with a smirk on her lips. He copied the look on her face and leaned closer to her, while she raised her hands in the air to help him obtain his stolen possession, the smirk never leaving her face. He gently tugged on the hem of his sweater, but then stopped halfway, looking into her eyes; his smirk got wider.
“You know what, keep it,” he said as he let go of the sweater and leaned back on his seat; the boys started cheering again, on him, this time. Asterin’s mouth fell open from surprise, yet the corners of her mouth started twitching upwards almost immediately.
“How absolutely dare you?” she pressed her hand on her chest with every ounce of dramaticness she had in her; she deserved a pleased smile from Remus. She looked at Sirius sitting next to her in play disbelief and he sighed, putting his hand on his forehead, matching, maybe even outshining, her performance. The whole carriage was swallowed by the burst of laughter from the five friends; it didn’t stop until they reached the castle and as annoying and obnoxious as the other carriages found them, they didn’t care, after all, they were finally together after such an unbearably long time.
Laughter is good for the soul. – Asterin proved the statement right without even realizing; who did realize, however, was the dark creature pulling their carriage, a beautiful, yet for some terrifying Thestral, that finally felt in its normal habitat, feeling no eyes on itself. Nevertheless, the smart soul did find a way to remember Asterin’s face, knowing she would be one of those, whom its kind, from then on, won’t be able to hide from, ever again.
°
As soon as Asterin stepped inside the Great Hall, nostalgia hit her right in the face; she couldn’t believe it had only been two months since she last stepped foot inside the massive dining hall, it felt like an eternity. So much had happened during the summer, so many things she would rather have forgotten, that it almost felt as if she aged about ten years; she felt a certain linger in her chest, she was glad, glad not everything changed, glad some things stayed as they were, as she remembered them.
For a split second, she looked back, noticing Professor McGonagall lead the new first years inside the castle; their faces were so impressed and full of sheer excitement, that it warmed her heart. Her head was pleasantly spinning from the sentimentality, remembering herself and Sirius in their first year, right before the Sorting Ceremony; small and frightened, knowing what was expected of them yet not feeling the part, holding each other’s hand and eyeing their new classmates. She remembered how her stomach dropped when the Sorting Hat sorted Sirius; he was shocked, sending her a terrified look and she sent him one back, thinking the encouraging whisper she gave him after his name was called was the last thing she would ever tell him. She remembered how her eyes fell on the Slytherin table, noticing the look on Sirius’s cousins’ faces, they were both shocked; Narcissa looked outraged, offended by the audacity of her little cousin who just betrayed their whole entire family, yet Andromeda looked somehow pleased, as if a part of her expected it to happen. It was then and there that Asterin wished she would end up in Gryffindor, more than ever before, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t care what defying her mother on such a level would do to her family or her; she was sure she would rather face Cornelia Knightley for giving in to the temptation of being nothing like her family than leaving Sirius all alone. And so when the Sorting Hat sorted her into Gryffindor, she didn’t care about the scolding or the curses she would get from her mother, because she was happy to stay with Sirius – some would say it was just an act of a little child who didn’t want to leave her best friend behind, or a frightened child who didn’t want to be left alone, and they would be right. However, it wasn’t the only right statement, as the act was one of bravery and loyalty, the qualities needed to become a part of the red and gold-coloured house. And Asterin was all of those things; a frightened child with a lot of love for her best friend and a Gryffindor through and through, no matter what she was once forced to believe she was.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a giggle right next to her.
“What’s so important over there?” she snapped her head to her right, seeing the ginger-haired Lily Evans grinning at her. Her smile got wider as the girl pulled her into a tight embrace. She could smell something similar to strawberries in her hair, it brought her a strange feeling of familiarity, safety, something home-like, yet nothing like her own house; it reminded her of the smell of their dorm room and their bathroom after Lily left with freshly washed hair. Only then did she realize how much she missed all of the little things too; it almost made her feel pathetic, missing the smell of shampoo, but it was the truth and it was just about to bring tears to her eyes once again, when she felt someone else hug them both from the left.
“No hugs without me, birdies,” the blonde spoke with her deeper, yet still feminine-sounding voice, tightening their hug with her strong, Quidditch-exercised arms, which only added a bit more to the attractiveness of Marlene McKinnon.
“Or me,” Asterin heard the voice of another one of her dorm mates. She felt her hands wrap around them and gently stroke her hair, which made her smile; after all, it was Dorcas Meadowes and her dreadlocks who inspired her new look and Dorcas knew it too, as she was the one who was once trying to talk her into it.
“Don’t you dare forget me,” Asterin could smell Mary Macdonald’s signature perfume before she could feel her tight embrace and she laughed, feeling about to be squeezed to death, but not minding it at all.
They all slowly moved to the Gryffindor table and sat down a little further back from their places last year, just as everyone else, so it created seats for the first years in the front. It didn’t last long until the door to the Great Hall opened again, revealing Professor McGonagall and the first years. She scanned the Gryffindor table, her table, eyeing the new Prefects, Remus Lupin and Lily Evans, and giving them a small smile as Sirius whistled at her; the woman didn’t even react as it became his little tradition to confuse the newcomers about two years ago, and just as they all expected, the first years that heard it truly looked confused, giving him weirded out looks or giggling, much to Sirius’s amusement.
It didn’t mark long after that year’s Sorting Ceremony started when Asterin started feeling restless. As much as she enjoyed watching the ceremony all the years before, guessing where the children get sorted based plainly on their appearance and their name (mainly enjoying clapping louder than everyone else together with Sirius when those from strict Slytherin families got sorted anywhere but Slytherin, much to all the older students’ hilarity), she wasn’t particularly interested in being in one room with the whole school; something about it felt a bit too exposing, a bit too unsafe. Everything around her frustrated her; the chatter among her peers, how the Ravenclaw boy a table over bounced his leg nervously, probably awaiting his sibling’s sorting, even Mary’s breathing beside her. Everything around her, every rustle and every sudden move, was beyond bearable and she couldn’t wrap her mind around why; she didn’t feel like herself, her palms were sweaty and she felt like every breath she took wasn’t satisfactory enough. She didn’t know what to do; lay down, walk around, hug someone or perhaps stay completely alone – neither felt right and so she just exhaled the air in her lungs through her closed lips as she twisted a silver ring on her index finger for about the hundredth time that night.
As concentrated as Sirius was on the sorting of a boy named Travers, he looked at Asterin; after all, he had already known the little slug would end up in Slytherin. She didn’t look good, not to him at least; she seemed anxious, which was rather unusual for her and something in him reminded him about their little unspoken deal from the train – they needed to talk. She looked as if she was in a trance, her eyes fixed on one spot on the table in front of her, twisting a silver ring on her finger around. Sirius furrowed his eyebrows, scanning the ring; he had never seen it on her before, also, Asterin had never worn only one ring. It was strange, everything about her was strange. He fixed his eyes on her for long enough for her to notice; she looked up at him and he raised his eyebrows. Asterin felt her heart being squeezed in her chest; his grey eyes were so genuinely concerned it made her want to crawl up somewhere and perish – she didn’t want to worry him, that was the last thing she wanted to do. She bit the inside of her cheek, her eyebrows turning slightly upwards; he hugged her around the shoulders and pulled her closer to him, trying to offer her all the comfort he could in such a public setting.
“You wanna leave?” he asked, to which she quickly shook her head, curling up into his chest, and hugging him around his waist.
“People will talk,” she said, his face forming into a grimace; did she just subconsciously quote her own mother?
“Fuck them then,” he said and he felt her chuckle, or perhaps scoff, he couldn’t really tell, as her face was buried in his shirt, hidden away from the world. He gently stroked her hair, trying to calm her down as best as he could right at that time. Everything felt strange. Asterin, who was usually very confident and didn’t care about what anyone thought about her or her friends, was now curled up in Sirius’s chest, gripping onto him as if he was her only hope for the future, her only safe space. And it broke Sirius’s heart, because he had known her his whole life; he knew her before she found herself, when she was just a little girl who was scared of disappointing her family, he knew what it took for her, for the both of them, really, to start forming her own opinions and dissociating from everything she was taught her whole life, and he knew just how much it would take to destroy it all, to make her feel like this. And it scared him, the fact the whole two months of her silence were a secret for him scared him, but beyond everything, he was afraid no amount of comfort, hugs, pretty words or stupid jokes could help the situation his best friend found herself in.
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hiya loves, second chapter's out for you.
i don't see much activity on the first chapter, but i hope you liked it anyways (but y'all did like the ''front page'' of the whole thing, so thank you for that. links to all the chapters are always on the pinned post, aka the ''front page'').
first chapter: here
thank you and let me know how you like this one.
<3