Fourteen Years Later - A (kind of) Sirius Black Imagine - Chapter One
Hello! I know I haven’t been posting in a while, let’s say I’m working a lot.
This is something I started to write back in June. I continue to write it when I have seconds to myself.
Pairing : Stella, which is Sirius Black’s unknown daughter, seeking for the truth about her roots and identity.
If you haven’t, you can read “tell me about the one who loved him” here, before.
I know this won’t be very popular but I thought I had to share, mostly because I’ve been so not active lately and this is a very personal work.
Love.
Masterlist
Fourteen Years Later - Chapter One
I guess you could say that being born a witch is great. It has a lot of good sides, I admit. I mean, I was born into a wizard and witches family, it was not really a surprise the first time I felt magic in me. But it has a lot of dark sides too. First, witches and wizards like their secrets. Initially, there is this world of magic that only wizards and witches know about and it has to be kept this way. This is an inviolable decree. To keep at peace both worlds, the magic one and the normal one, we have to be discreet about our magic. It would scare so much normal people to know about what we can do with our powers… But we also like to keep secrets from each other. I’d say my whole life, I’ve been lied to. This is probably the thing I hate the most about being a witch. Lies.
My name is Stella Gatti, but I’d rather you only call me by my first name. I am fourteen years old, though people think I look a little bit older. Some people think I’m odd. See, I have these very long and black hair, I take it from my mum. She has the darkest hair I’ve ever saw and for some time she kept it long too, almost down to her waist, which made her look quite young. I have to say, she had me pretty young too. She was twenty-two when she gave birth to me. When we moved in London, she decided to cut her hair shorter, to her breast, to make her look a little bit more mature. It didn’t work out that well, she still has that young face. My mum is really beautiful, but there’s something in her eyes, you’d say, that makes her look quite unhappy. For some time, I always thought it was just the way she was, that she tended for melancholy in an unhelpful way. Later I figured why, but that’s a story I’ll tell in the future.
I always was inspired by my mother for the length of my hair : I like to wear it long, but not too much though. Try to go to the restroom and always have to tie your hair in a bun so you can do your business without being scared to wet it. It can be messy, it happened to me once. The colour of it is a little bit less dark than hers, it goes more of a darkish brown than a true jet-black. And they wave a little bit. Nonna, my grandmother, used to call me a mermaid when I was younger. She’d like to brush it and tell me great stories about the mere people. She’d say they lived in all sort of waters. They were dangerous and pretty clever, but I was probably never going to meet one anyway. I grew up with my mother, her sister and my grandparents. I was born in a small village in Ancona, Italia. That’s where my mother was born before my grandfather moved the family to America. They come from a long lineage of an old family of wizards and witches. They’re aristocrats and very proud of where they come from. I never really felt proud like them, maybe because I’ve missed half of where I came from since I was born. See, I never knew my dad, it was taboo and secret to talk about him. The first time I asked about him, I was probably five. My mother was talking with her dad and suddenly it came to me : who was my father? Where was he? My mum looked at me on the verge of tears as Nonno, my granddad, answered to me that my father was dead. I sort of believed him, but deep inside, I knew he was lying.
I only looked at my mother and asked :
‘Did you love him?’
She smiled weakly and replied :
‘ Very much. I really loved him, Stella, with all my heart.’
That’s all I needed to know at that time. There was something in the air, something heavy that made everybody pretty uncomfortable. I never asked again. I knew that if I wanted the truth someday, I’d have to be silent about it. Somehow, I knew that the more questions I’d ask, the more lies I’d get, so I never asked again. When I was about nine, my mother got an offer she couldn’t refuse at the Ministry of Magic in London. I remember, she didn’t look like she was glad. She looked very worried. One night, she was discussing it with her family. I heard Nonno telling her that nobody would care about her past, that it had been long enough. That she couldn’t miss such an opportunity. Nonno is very strict about work, he had worked all of his life in different ministry of magic. He’s a very important fellow, he is what you would call a liaison agent, and his job is to keep every magic ministry in the world in contact and in harmony. He’s sort of a diplomat, but you know, in the magic world.
‘Remember when we moved to America, Eliana? How you and your sister weren’t happy about it? Then you made friends over there! And when we had to move in London and you were so angry about it! But some good came out of it, look at Stella… she is doing great!’ he said.
That night, I knew that the secrets of my past were probably hiding in this city, or near it, anyway. I had a lot of friends in Italy, but I never really missed any of them. I was seeking the truth and I was glad to move out where I knew my mum became pregnant with me. We finally moved to the United Kingdom. Maybe a year after, mum met her future husband at her work, William. He is really nice, I like him. He never asked that I call him dad, somehow he knows that he’s never going to be a father to me. But he takes care of us and he loves my mum a lot. He’s just a bit… monotonous, I guess. My mother was always the crazy one, we’d mess so much all the time. But William is serious and straight. He’s quite kind, that’s not the point. He just made us less funny. Now we’re just a typical family, predictable and boring.
Short before I became eleven, I received my Hogwarts acceptance letter. My mother told me all about this school, how it changed her life, how it made her a better witch than she was already. Not long before the term started, there were a lot of rumours. People were whispering about a certain dark wizard that was maybe on the edge of coming back. Most of the persons thought it was just rubbish and I was glad to believe it so. My mum came to me one night and sat on my bed. She thought long before opening her mouth :
‘You know, Stella, you are going to Hogwarts soon. Did I ever tell you about a certain young boy, he’s only a few years older than you?’
‘Are you talking about Harry Potter, mum?’ I answered.
I knew about that story because it was all you could hear nowadays. How he looked exactly like his late father and how he really had that scar on his forehead. The boy who lived, they’d call him. I was glad I’d go at the same school as him. I guess I thought he was this great child wizard, somehow extraordinaire and attending the same school as he was made me special too.
Not long before September 1st (that’s when the term starts), there was a big breaking, the one kind that made people panic and fear everything. Sirius Black, known for having killed a dozen of Muggles, another wizard and to have worked for the dark Lord that should not be named, had escaped the most guarded wizards and witches prison, Azkaban. They would all have some theories on how he did it : it was impossible, that prison was guarded by the most gloomy and dangerous creatures. When we learnt the news, I had a fight with my mum. She didn’t want me to go to school anymore and I thought it was bullocks. Why would she think that man was a danger to me? I had nothing to do with him!
Or did I?
Who was he anyway? I asked.
She told me he was no one. I guess I won the argument, but not because I was the wiser, only because she didn’t want to tell me the whole truth. We’d walk past the flyers where the prisoner’s face would hang in motion, very quickly. She didn’t want me to be scared of him, I thought. What she doesn’t know is that I’ve never really been afraid of anything.
I went to Hogwarts anyway and I was sorted in my mum’s house, Slytherin. I finally saw the famous Harry Potter. I was sort of disappointed on how normal he looked. He was just a boy among other boys. He had this scar that proved something very frightening and hurtful had happened to him. Beside that, when I’d cross him in the corridors, nothing unusual came out of our encounters. There was something in his gaze though, that made me think of my mum, like he was always thinking of something else in the back of his mind, like something bothered him or made him hurt. Anyway, he was older than I was and I never got the occasion to talk to him. Beside, what would I have said to him?
But something else triggered me a lot. There was this teacher at school, I learnt later that he was new. He looked really tired all the time, almost sick. He had big dark circles under his eyes, he’d miss some of the classes sometimes. He looked way older than he was in fact. The first time his eyes laid on me, he stared like I was some strange creature, or like I was someone he hadn’t seen in a long, long time. It gave me the shivers once, because I really thought there was something wrong with me. Did someone put a spell on me, did someone hex me? Each time I’d ask a question or I was demonstrating a spell we’ve learned, he would look straight me in the eyes all the time and I could notice melancholy or regret in his gaze. Would you laugh if I even thought once that maybe he was my father? How sad is to see every man you encounter like a possibility of being your dad, it gets tiring at the end. Someway, I knew he wasn’t, I just didn’t see him in me. I didn’t feel it. I believed he knew my mum, though, which would mean he probably knew my dad as well. But professor Lupin scared me a little, I never wanted to ask him questions about my past. He was very kind, that’s not it, he was just sort of too calm, too soothing, for the way he looked. He had scars in his face, some old ones, most people wouldn’t question it, and we knew there had been a war just before some of us were born. His clothes were ragged and ripped apart, he looked like he came from another world, another era.
I made some good friends in my first year, we really got along. Nobody really cared that I didn’t know my dad, some other kids didn’t knew theirs too, or they had lost them at war. There was one particular night, I wandered in the castle. I didn’t know what I was hoping for, I just tried to look for answers, really. I knew somewhere would be some hallow of my mother’s time spent in the castle and maybe along with that would be some sign of my father. But I got caught by Filch, the caretaker, and I was found into professor Snape’s office in the middle of the night. Let’s say, even as my head of house, he wasn’t glad to be woken up by a student. I always thought that he was distant with me. He didn’t like any kids, don’t get me wrong, he looked like he despised everybody, but me? Oh he really didn’t like me at all. He took some points off of Slytherin, but not too many, obviously, and he sent me in detention for a two whole week. He’d avoid my gaze every time he had to talk to me.
There was something about the way the professors would look at me, or would act towards me, especially in my first year. At first I thought it was because I was young and new. But I understood quickly that it was because I reminded them of someone. The way professor McGonagall would roll her eyes when I’d speak too loud in class (and secretly laugh afterwards), or the way they’d try to talk to me like they tried to speak the same way they’d speak to everybody else but it was noticeable, it looked like they were reprimanding or discussing with someone else, someone they knew a long time ago. I felt like a ghost each time an adult would walk past me. It was strange.
A certain night, they said Sirius Black was in the castle, at the end of the year. He had been caught. While they were waiting for the Dementors, he managed to escape, again. My mum went to take me as soon as she heard. She was crying uncontrollably all the way back home. She’d just tell me she was afraid, but she didn’t look very frightened. She just looked upset and sad. I knew that Sirius Black had something to do with me, otherwise she wouldn’t have reacted this way. My mother is a strong witch, she is very powerful. Furthermore, she is pretty clever and most of all, she is damn rational. Seeing her crying like that was a vision I wasn’t used to. My mum, when William’s not around, is always the one having a good laugh, always making grins and smirks. She’s a proud woman and she won’t ever show her weaknesses. But if you had seen her that day, you wouldn’t believe what I just told you. She was a complete mess. When we were finally home, she closed her bedroom door and stayed there all day. William finally came home from work and when he went to see her, all I could hear was whispers. I knew they were talking about Sirius Black.
Back in my room, I opened one of an old Daily Prophet copy I had kept in my journal and I stared at the picture of the prisoner. It hit me right in the chest. There was something in his eyes that made me feel like I was looking at my own reflection. See, my eyes are pretty distinctive. My mother’s eyes are green, probably the prettiest eye colour you’ve ever seen. It’s like she was born with shining emeralds instead of irises. I have pretty eyes too, but I do not take those after my mum. My eyes are silver, well, you’d say they’re grey, but they’re so distinctive and shiny, it really makes me stand out. And as I was looking at the man in the picture, I noted that he had the same stare as I did. Mysterious, yet very readable eyes, like we always know something you don’t. The man in the picture, he had a secret. I read about him, for the first time, I read the article underneath his image. He was convicted on Halloween night in 1981. I was born in early July 1982. Even if you’re not good at maths, you can do the counting. The thought of him being my father grew inside me. Everything fitted perfectly. They didn’t say a lot about him beside what he was convicted for and how a dangerous man he was. I wasn’t really afraid of having him as a father, I never knew him, plus, I wasn’t very sure if I was on the good lead. If he had really done those terrible things wouldn’t make me less good than anyone else.
I was afraid to go and ask my mother about him because I was afraid she would lie again. So a certain night, I waited for my mum and William to go to work so I’d try to look for stuff into my mum’s belongings. She was good at hiding things, I mean, she knew the spells better than I did back then. I thought, if she wanted to hide things from me, they would be hidden in a place she thought I’d never look for. I went into every of her things, from the clothes in her closet to some drawers, I even looked in every book in her possession (and there is a lot of it, especially Muggles books). I finally came across a little box and it wasn’t even hidden. There was a piece of paper hidden in a box with souvenirs of when I was a baby, near her bed. Among my first shoes and the first piece of hair being cut off my head, beside a little package with some family jewellery and next to some old concerts tickets was this piece of paper, apparently blank and yellowed with time. I thought it was odd, why would my mum keep an old blank piece of parchment if it meant nothing? I couldn’t practice magic outside Hogwarts but we were allowed to cast some spells to train ourselves during the summer. So I took my wand out and thrown a spell to reveal it’s secret. I’d say it wasn’t really a shock to read what was written in that letter, but it was.
The letter was signed by Remus J. Lupin (whom, at the end of the year, we learned was a werewolf, but it didn’t really surprised me after all and didn’t bother me either). Then, I’d be lying again if there weren’t something inside me that made me believe, again, that he was my father. I couldn’t really believe it. I finally read the letter in its entirety. He said he was sorry that he had to tell my mum what happened this way. He wrote that he couldn’t believe that he did it, that he thought he knew his best friend, but in those dark days, you couldn’t trust anyone, not even the love of your life. He wrote that she didn’t have to move so far away, that she had nothing to do with what happened. He asked if she would come back, that she really belonged there, that he would go if it made her more comfortable.
That is the day I learnt that Sirius Black was really my dad.
I knew he was talking about him even if he wouldn’t mention his name. I think my mum never replied to the letter. I believe she moved away and never thought of looking back behind. She didn’t say goodbye to anyone. Maybe this is why he looked so shocked when he saw me for the first time. See, I’m my mother’s copycat and from what I noticed from the pictures, I have my father’s eyes and general expression. Professor Lupin probably never learnt that my mum was back in London. Maybe he didn’t even know she had a daughter. And from what I read in the letter, he was Sirius Black’s best friend, so he must have been pretty stunned when he saw a walking mix of them both in front of him. I spent all summer being really mad at my mother, I mean, you would be too if you learnt that your mother hid your father’s identity just because he had done some very bad things. Later I understood that she did all that to protect me, so people wouldn’t judge me because of who my parents are. So I could live a normal life without being worried of being mocked or rejected. But that summer, I almost didn’t talk to her. She worked a lot anyway so I guess she didn’t really notice it. Or maybe she just assumed that I was getting older and being a teenager. I heard Nonno once reminding her of how much she didn’t listen to him when she was my age. How rebel she was back then.
Finally, I went back to Hogwarts for my second year. There was the Triwizard tournament that year and Harry Potter had been chosen by the Goblet of fire (which we couldn’t figure out how since you had to be at least seventeen to enter the competition). There was so much action going on, I couldn’t continue my researches concerning Sirius Black. And a lot of bad things happened that year. We had a death at the end of the championship. I didn’t know him at all, Cedric Diggory was older than I was and he belonged into Hufflepuff house. But he was very loved by a lot of students and professors. And Harry Potter claimed that the Dark Lord was back, that he was the one responsible for his death. Some people believed him, most of the people didn’t. In the Daily Prophet, they would call him a liar. My mum would read the titles with a worried expression. She obviously thought something was going on. I spent the whole summer learning with William and her some spells against the dark arts. All of our attention was focused on that. I won’t lie, my focus wasn’t on Sirius Black anymore. Not that I didn’t care, but I felt helpless. There was something in the air more worrying than my seeking for the truth. At some point, I even thought about giving up.
