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Chapter Text

Mrs. Edith Wilkins was proud to say that she was perfectly normal, thank you very much. She was the very last person you’d ever expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious. Ordinaryness seemed to run in her family, and her husband’s family too. She and Ben had met at university; him studying economics, she studying classical literature. They’d gotten a flat in London for a while, with a gaggle of their uni friends, he’d proposed after a few years, and they’d settled down in a nice house in a nice neighborhood in a nice town. 

Their house was red brick, with a lovely garden that Mrs. Wilkins tended to with loving care, while Mr. Wilkins was off at work and their girls were off at nursery school. Otherwise, she was off at the shops or teaching her literature class at the community center. Their days were routine and happy, content in their simplicity. Nothing was out of the ordinary, everything was perfectly normal. 

But there was only one thing in Mrs. Wilkins’ life that was not-so-normal. And that thing happened to be her next-door neighbors, the Scamanders. 

Mr. and Mrs. Scamander were a young couple with two small daughters, little girls who were around the same age as Mrs. Wilkins’ own two girls. She sometimes had them round for tea: the girls would play together in her lovely garden and she and Mrs. Scamander would make small talk about the weather or the price of eggs. They were nice enough people, but there was something about them that Mrs. Wilkins couldn’t ever seem to put her finger on. 

The Scamanders’ garden was much wilder than anyone else’s on their street; the hedges grew higher and higher every year, ivy engulfed their red brick house, and their yard was filled to bursting with a riot of multi-colored flowers, some of which Mrs. Wilkins had never seen before. Exotic breeds, she had once decided, and at first she had thought the Scamanders to be a pair of eccentric botanists. 

But that didn’t explain the strange weather vanes on the roof that seemed to move even without wind, or the shoots of sparks out their chimney, or flashes of light through their windows, or the strange animal noises. Once, Mrs. Wilkins could’ve sworn she’d seen some sort of fluffy platypus plopped on their garden wall with its paws stuffed full of gold coins. But then she’d blinked and it was gone. 

“Perhaps they work in films, darling,” Ben had said one night. “You know, special effects and that sort of thing. It would explain all those strange things.”

“I suppose, dear,” she’d mumbled, not really paying attention. 

She was thinking back to something that Lilith Scamander had said the other day while playing with her oldest, Daisy. Both girls were four going on five now, and becoming very opinionated about all sorts of things. Little Lilith had been going on and on about broomsticks and something called “Quidditch”. 

“Daddy’s taking me to the Cup,” she’d said. “To see Carina Moonshot. She’s a Seeker. She put this charm on her broom to–”

“Lilith!” Mrs. Scamander had said rather hurriedly. “Didn’t Daisy want to show you her new unicorn doll?”

“Oh yeah! I love unicorns too. My Grandpa Newt says they’re the kindest, out of all the animals!”

Mrs. Wilkins had smiled. “My, what an imagination on that one!”

“Oh yes. Sometimes she’s just in her own little world.”

See, that sounded perfectly plausible to Mrs. Wilkins. But even baby Avery Scamander, who was just two, was throwing around these strange words along with the normal baby babblings, words like “niffler” and “floo” and “owl” and “accio”. Normally, Mrs. Wilkins wouldn’t be so worried about the ramblings of a toddler, but her own Debbie had started copying Avery. Just the other day, in the supermarket, she’d yelled out: “Widditch!” in the middle of the produce aisle. 

The Scamanders were odd, she decided. Very odd. But they weren’t hurting her in any way, so she had to just let them be odd.

But one evening, things got out of hand. 

It was a perfectly normal Tuesday. Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins had both had perfectly ordinary days. At the moment, Mr. Wilkins was inside, entertaining Daisy and Debbie, and Mrs. Wilkins was out in the yard, getting tomatoes from her garden for dinner. 

The sun was starting to set, staining the clouds a nice cotton candy pink. Birds were chirping pleasantly and some of the yard sprinklers were running, misting the air. 

Mrs. Wilkins knelt in the dirt, prising a rather juicy tomato off the vine with her garden shears. It joined four other plump heirlooms in her basket, and she sat back on her heels, taking in the night air and relishing a rare moment of peace and quiet, before she’d have to go back inside and make dinner. She could hear her girls laughing like fiends inside the house and she smiled.

But then her smile faded.

The birds weren’t singing anymore. 

And the air seemed colder. 

Mrs. Wilkins frowned and rose to her feet. She looked to her left, over into the Hensons’ yard. Nothing, as usual. Then, with a little dread worming in her stomach, she looked to her right, over into the Scamanders’ yard. 

It was quiet over there. Too quiet. Usually there was all manner of laughter, strange animal noises, and small explosions that never seemed to trigger the fire alarms. But tonight it was silent as a graveyard, eerie and still. 

Mrs. Wilkins stood on tiptoe, trying to peer through the Scamanders’ hedges, when suddenly the branches right next to her rustled violently. She jumped and had to stifle a loud gasp, forcing herself to hold absolutely still as a tall, dark shadow slunk along right next to her, entering the Scamanders’ yard. 

It was a burglar, she told herself. Had to be. 

Her mind was racing, but somehow she decided that she must hurry back to the house and lock the doors. Then she and Ben would phone the police. But she seemed to be frozen in that one spot.

The shadow on the other side of the hedge howled and Mrs. Wilkins' spine stood on edge. It was innately human, but something about it was so unnatural, animal, and guttural—she’d never been so afraid in her life. She didn’t know why she wasn’t screaming or running away—she was just frozen, sweat gathering in the palms of her hands. 

The shadow growled again and Mrs. Wilkins heard the Scamanders’ front door slam open. 

“Reuven, no!”

It was Mrs. Scamander and there was terror in her voice.

“I’ll handle him, Myr,” Mr. Scamander said. “Just get the girls upstairs and—”

“Lestrange!”

This was a third voice and it belonged to the howling shadow. It seemed like more an animal growl than a human voice, like the man was speaking through a maw of bloodied fangs. 

“Lestrange!” the shadow roared again. “Come out here and face me like a man!”

“I don’t answer to that name anymore, Greyback!” Mr. Scamander said. It sounded like he was trying to be brave. 

“Your father don’t think so.” The shadow laughed maliciously. “Ooohhh, he’s angry at you, boy. You defied him, you did. Brought shame on your family.”

“I know what I did. Don’t need to remind me. Now get the hell out of here or I’ll make good on my promise from the last time we met.”

“Blood traitor! Filth! That’s what you are!” 

The shadow’s roar thundered in Mrs. Wilkins’ ears, raw and so filled with hate that it was red-hot. 

“Did my father send you here to kill me?” Mr. Scamander roared back. 

The shadow laughed again. “No. He won’t waste one drop of your blood, even though you’ve stained it. He sent me to make you hurt. And that, Lestrange, is something I’m very, very good at.”

“You can try.”

“Stupid boy. You can’t stop me. Not when I’ve caught the scent of young flesh. So sweet and lovely.”

He was practically salivating.

Mr. Scamander let out a furious yell of anguish, and there was a deafening crack and flash of white light. 

“Stay away from my girls, you bastard!”

Then they were screaming at each other and the flashes of light hurtled back and forth.

“Edith!”

Mrs. Wilkins nearly jumped out of her skin as her husband came running up behind her.

“Ben!”

“Edith, what the hell is going on?”

“Ben, get back inside, the girls, we have to—”

“Crucio!”

There was an incredibly loud bang and flash of red on the other side of the hedge. Mr. Scamander screamed out in agony. It was more horrible than anything that Mrs. Wilkins had ever heard before and without even having confirmation, she knew that he was being tortured. Her ears wanted to bleed just listening to him scream.

“Edith…” Mr. Wilkins said helplessly.

“Call the police,” she whispered faintly, but somehow they both knew the police would be no good. 

There was another crack, the sound of an impact, and Mr. Scamander stopped screaming. It sounded like he’d collided with a wall or something, hard and painful. 

“Reuven!”

“‘Ello, Mrs. Scamander. Lovely night, innit?”

There was a furious crack.

“You stay away from my husband, you beast!”

Another crack. 

“Nice try, birdie.”

Mrs. Scamander’s voice shook. “The Aurors are already on their way. You can’t escape this time, Greyback.” 

“Daddy!”

“Lilith, get back inside!”

“Stay away from my Daddy!”

The shadow almost purred. “Sweet, young flesh.”

“No!” 

There was a horrible growl and suddenly little Lilith Scamander was screaming, high-pitched and piercing into Mrs. Wilkins’ ears. There was something about the screams of children that wormed its way into her heart, and she was filled with a desperate, maternal need to clamber over the wall and drag Lilith out of harm’s way. 

Lilith’s screams ruptured through the night, enough to easily curdle blood. That wasn’t even the worst of it; her screams were accompanied by a horrible cacophony of animal growling and tearing flesh. 

Mrs. Scamander shrieked out a slew of strange words so fast that their corresponding flashes of light were like a set of fireworks that had all gone off at once. Mrs. Wilkins had no way to explain what on earth they were; she only knew that it was terrifying and exciting all at once. 

“Edith, what do we—”

The shadow growled something intelligible and there was the loudest explosion yet. The hedges were suddenly blasted away in a column of green fire and Mrs. Scamander came flying through into their yard, crumpling into the grass. 

“Holy–”

“Myrleen!” Mrs. Wilkins cried. 

Mrs. Scamander was feebly struggling to sit up, despite the smoldering burn marks up one of her arms. There was a long, thin stick of wood locked in her white-knuckled grip and a wild panic in her eyes, even as Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins rushed to help her up.

“Edith, Ben,” she gasped. “You have to run, it’s not safe—”

“Mummy!”

Lilith was screaming again, choking on her own sobs. Through the charred hole in the hedges, the Scamanders’ yard seemed to have been transformed into some sort of hellscape. The grass was scorched and smoldering with embers, many of the exotic flowers seemed trampled, and the lawn furniture had been smashed to smithereens. Mr. Scamander lay in a heap in the broken remains of an adirondack chair. 

But the singular point of dread and horror lay in the center of their lawn, where the shadow was bent over the feebly stirring form of Lilith Scamander. 

It was a man, Mrs. Wilkins realized, but he hardly seemed to be human. His black hair was matted and wild, like a feral, mangy animal. His black overcoat was caked in mud and grime, and his fingers seemed blackened and elongated, like claws. Crouched on his haunches, his back was bent like a snarling, starving canine, as he ravaged the child beneath him. And when he looked up, twisting around to look at them through the burnt hedges, his toothy maw was dripping with dark blood. 

Mrs. Wilkins felt her blood run cold, too petrified to even scream, and she reached out blindly, grasping her husband’s arm. 

“Myrleen,” she whispered. “What— who is that?”

“Greyback,” Mrs. Scamander choked out. She winced and tried to force herself to her feet, reaching desperately for her daughter. “Werewolf.”

“Werewolf?” Mr. Wilkins sputtered. 

The shadow—Greyback—whatever he was, finally stood up, tossing Lilith aside like a rag doll. She looked even smaller than usual, crumpled in a heap and utterly soaked in her own blood, drowning in a sickly crimson pool. Mrs. Scamander let out a strangled cry at this and Greyback laughed harshly, baring his bloodied teeth. He began to stalk forward towards them with an evil leer. 

Mrs. Scamander pushed herself upward determinedly, brandishing the stick in her hand at Greyback.

“Confringo!”

Mrs. Wilkins gasped as a blast of fire shot out of the end of the stick, hurtling towards Greyback, but he simply waved his own stick and deflected the explosion. 

They were magic wands, Mrs. Wilkins’ brain told her. They had to be, straight out of the pages of a children’s book, only there was nothing whimsical about any of this. It was raw and messy and terrifying; suddenly Mrs. Wilkins’ head was swimming with the ensuing possibilities. 

“Stupefy!” Mrs. Scamander yelled, sending a white-blue flash of light at Greyback and he was blown off his feet. 

But he didn’t stay down. The monstrous man had rolled over in a heartbeat, growling at them. Then he started towards them again, like a beast on his hands and knees, hurtling through the grass towards them—

Crack!

A person appeared right in front of them, appearing out of thin air, with no warning at all, and Mrs. Wilkins finally screamed because this was getting absurd. The person—a tall man dressed in a dark billowing cloak—raised his own magic wand at Greyback and silver ropes appeared in the blink of an eye, wrapping themselves tightly around him with invisible hands. 

Crack! Crack! Crack!

More people started appearing around them, wands all pointed at the struggling monster on the ground. He howled, a dreadful sound of fury and pain that ripped through the air, but he had been subdued and surrounded; the sheer panic hanging around them began to fade. 

One of the people in cloaks, a young woman with spikey orange hair, hurried over to them, kneeling down in front of Mrs. Scamander. 

“Myr! Are you okay?”

“Lilith…” Mrs. Scamander said desperately. “Help Lilith… and Reuven… help them.”

“Don’t you worry about them, love; we’ve got healers with us. Let me take care of you first.” The woman ran her magic wand up and down Mrs. Scamander’s burn marks, and they faded instantly. “You’ll want them to take a look at that at St. Mungo’s, but you should be fine.”

“Lilith,” Mrs. Scamander insisted. 

“I can go look after her, Myrleen,” Mrs. Wilkins offered. 

The orange-haired woman looked up at her, seeming to notice her and Ben for the first time. 

“Who…?”

“My neighbors,” Mrs. Scamander said. “Muggles.” 

“Oh,” the woman said, looking uncomfortable. “Er… Don’t worry about it, ma’am. We’ll sort everything out.” She turned back to Mrs. Scamander. “You want to try standing up, Myr?”

The woman helped Mrs. Scamander to her feet, and Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins stepped back, clutching each other. The chaos in the yard had ebbed. A large group of men and women in the dark cloaks were still surrounding the captive Greyback, while another cluster of people in light green cloaks was tending to Lilith Scamander, who seemed to be very seriously injured. Mrs. Scamander limped over to her husband, who by now was back on his feet, and they embraced fiercely before hurrying to their daughter’s side. 

“What just happened? Who are these people?” Ben finally asked, his face ashy and pale.

“I don’t even know,” Mrs. Wilkins said. “It was like magic.”

“There’s no such thing,” Ben said, but he didn’t seem sure at all. 

“We should go check on the girls.”

“I’ll go. You stay, make sure everyone’s okay.”

He went back into the house, leaving Mrs. Wilkins alone to helplessly watch the people in cloaks mop up the mess in the Scamanders’ yard. She didn’t quite know what to do. Night had fallen, without her even realizing it, and everything felt colder and emptier. 

“Over here, Moody.”

The orange-haired woman was back, and she had one of the men in dark cloaks with her. He was about the strangest man that Mrs. Wilkins had ever seen, burly and grizzled, with a face so scarred you couldn’t even decide what he must have looked like beforehand. He stumped along on a silver leg, while one of his eyes bulged out of his head, impossibly blue and dancing. 

But at this point Mrs. Wilkins didn’t think that anything would surprise her. 

“She’s the Muggle.”

Muggle? They kept using that word. 

The man—Moody—frowned. “Alright. Thanks, Gillwend.”

The woman nodded tersely. Both of them were regarding her warily.  

“Are they going to be alright?” Mrs. Wilkins asked Moody.

“They’ll be just fine, ma’am. Just let us—” 

“Oi! Mad-Eye!”

It was one of the men standing guard over by the trussed-up Greyback, waving Moody over.

“Look, I’ve gotta go see to that trolltoe. Can you take care of this lot?”

“Sure, Moody.” 

He nodded approvingly and stumped off, leaving Mrs. Wilkins alone with Gillwend.

“Who are you people?”

“Er… Aurors,” she mumbled, like she wasn’t supposed to say. “We catch the bad guys.”

“Like him?” Mrs. Wilkins pointed at Greyback.

“Exactly.”

“You’re all magic, aren’t you?”

Gillwend’s face went white and she twisted her fingers around the wand in her hands.

“I…”

“Is it some big secret?” 

“Well… yeah.” She looked intensely uncomfortable. “Listen, where did your husband go?”

“In the house. He went to check on our daughters.” 

“Merlin’s saggy— alright. Oi, Dwalish!”

“Yeah?”

“Muggles, in the house. Can you see to them?”

“On it.”

“There’s kids, so be careful.”

The tall man nodded and headed off towards the Wilkins’ front door. 

“Wait, where is he going?” Mrs. Wilkins asked. “What are you going to do?”

“Just relax, ma’am, everything will be fine.”

“Fine?” Mrs. Wilkins asked incredulously. Suddenly, she felt all of her logic come flooding back; she wanted to run away from this strange woman and go back inside to her family.

“Please, just trust me.”

“How the hell am I supposed to trust you?”

Gillwend didn’t even respond; she raised her magic wand, pointing it straight at Mrs. Wilkins. 

“You keep that thing away from me,” Mrs. Wilkins warned, her heart thundering in her chest.

“I’m sorry,” Gillwend said, and it seemed sincere.

“Sorry for—”

“Obliviate.”

…….

Mrs. Edith Wilkins was proud to say that she was perfectly normal, thank you very much. She was the very last person you’d ever expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious. 

Chapter Text

Remus Lupin really hated St. Mungo’s. 

It was a dismal place, even on a good day, but being honest, good day and St. Mungo’s didn’t belong in the same sentence. He supposed that medical miracles and life-saving cures made for bits of happiness, and he knew that the healers all did their best.

But for him, it was bloody miserable. 

At least he wasn’t in the padded cell anymore, where they kept him for the transformation. It was small and stifling, with no windows and a door that magicked away on the inside. The healers put silver manacles around his limbs, theoretically to keep him from getting loose or hurting himself, but the restraints just made it worse. The wolf hated being confined and tied down, and he made sure Remus knew it. 

This last full moon had been particularly bad, bad enough for them to keep him a second night. Not only had he screamed himself hoarse and ravaged his flesh bloody, but he’d managed to dislocate both of his shoulders as well. 

The chains really just made it worse. 

Remus shifted in his hospital bed, which seemed like a warm, fluffy cloud compared to the cold floor he’d slept on last night. The healers told him to get as much sleep as possible, which wasn’t hard; he’d been out like a light the second his head hit the pillow. He kept gulping down water, for his raw throat, and tried not to think too much about the Skelo-Gro rearranging his shoulder bones. 

It was worse than it had ever been. For seven years, the full moons had ceased to be the terrors that they used to be when he was a child. He’d always had James, Sirius, and Peter with him, and he could run free, without having to hurt anyone or himself, giddy and drunk on the feelings of mischief and wildness and pure insanity. He hadn’t been alone or forgotten or abandoned, as long as he had the three of them. 

But now he was alone, caged and trapped, with only himself to harm.

James was dead.

And Peter was dead. 

And Sirius was locked away, rotting in Azkaban, a traitor to the Order, to his friends, to the marauders, to—

No. He wasn’t allowed to think about that. Because if he thought about it, his mind would start looping back and forth over the same old things that had long since happened and all the choices he didn’t make and everything that he couldn’t change. And then he’d be trapped in that vicious spiral, eating away at his psyche. 

He wasn’t allowed to think about that. 

Remus closed his eyes with a sigh, trying to drift off and imagine something warm and happy instead, clutching to the pleasant tendrils of the past like a lifeline. 

“Mr. Black, Mr. Potter, Mr. Pettigrew, if you don’t vacate my hospital wing—”

“Pleeeease?” Sirius wheedled. “We just want to check on him, ma’am.”

“Honest,” Peter added.

“We brought his homework,” James supplied helpfully.

Madam Pomfrey sighed in annoyance. “Very well. But only fifteen minutes, do you hear? Mr. Lupin needs his rest.”

Ignoring the fierce aching in his ribs, Remus pushed himself up from his pillows as Sirius, James, and Peter came barrelling through the curtains around his bed, swarming him. 

“Lupin, you’re alive!” James said triumphantly. 

Remus raised an eyebrow. “Well, what did you expect? Madam P’s motto is ‘No Dead Students on My Watch’.” 

“You keep getting sick,” Peter mused. “Like, every month.”

It was getting harder to lie to them. He wasn’t even done with his first year at Hogwarts and his friends were already far too suspicious. So far, they’d seemed to accept his lame excuses, but they weren’t stupid. Sooner or later, they were going to notice the patterns of his strange illnesses, and Remus wasn’t sure what he was going to do then.

“I just keep coming down with something,” he said pathetically. “My mum says I have an irritable immune system.” 

He tugged down his pyjama sleeves self-consciously, trying to hide the old scars and fresh, tell-tale bandages, before he noticed Sirius watching him curiously. Without a word, Sirius arched one perfect eyebrow at him, so Remus stuck out his tongue in his direction. 

“Sooooo, that means what?” Sirius asked, pretending their little eye contact conversation hadn’t happened. “You should stay away from dairy, or something? Or should you be washing your hands more?”

“ Oi! I wash my hands plenty!”

“Technically,” James said pompously. “We should all be disinfecting our wands regularly.”

“You don’t do that?” Sirius shrieked. “You lot are disgusting.” 

“We aren’t disgusting,” Peter said, but he was clearly trying to scrub a particularly sticky spot off his wand. 

“Anyway,” Sirius said. “We brought you chocolate, as requested.”

He tipped a pile of Chocolate Frogs out of his robes onto Remus’ bed. 

“Excellent.” Remus seized a Frog, suddenly aware of his ravenously growling stomach. 

James grinned. “And I’ve brought—”

“No Gobstones,” Remus said through a mouthful of chocolate. “Pomfrey nearly threw a fit last time. Hey, you want my Frog card, Pete? It’s Morgana.”

Peter’s eyes lit up. “Morgana? Finally!”

“Relax mate, it’s not Gobstones. I’ve got Exploding Snap.”

“James, you muppet. Exploding Snap is just as destructive as Gobstones.”

“It doesn’t smell as bad.” 

“ ‘It doesn’t smell as bad’ he says. Merlin’s balls,” Sirius snickered. 

“Remus wants to play!”

It was true. He really did. He had been getting better at the violent card game and he was desperate to beat Sirius, who’d been playing since he could sit upright. 

But he would never admit it. 

“Let’s play,” he said carefully. “But when Pomfrey comes to chew you out for getting soot everywhere, you’re taking the blame.”

“Gladly!” James was already dealing out the cards on Remus’ bed. “Okay Sirius, eight sickles on the match?”

“Can’t. My mum keeps threatening to cut off my allowance and I want to save up in case disaster strikes.” 

“Damn.”

“That’s awful,” Peter said.

Sirius shrugged. “She’s a wicked old bat. Don’t want any of that tainted family money anyway.”

“You used that tainted family money to buy this chocolate,” Remus reminded him.

“Yeah well… this was a special occasion.” 

They had gone on to play Exploding Snap for much longer than the fifteen minutes Madam Pomfrey had given them, flinging cards every-which-way and filling the hospital wing with raucous laughter and the occasional explosion. Remus watched the memory from behind closed eyelids, smiling faintly at how young and stupid they all had been. 

“Mr. Lupin?”

Remus opened his eyes. One of the healers on duty, a young witch with long braids, poked her head into his room.

“Mr. Lupin, you’ve got a visitor.”

Before Remus could painfully try to sit up or speak, his visitor bustled into his hospital room with a familiar air about her, with her scarlet cloak and fluffy hair. 

“Madam Pomfrey!” he croaked out, but his voice was so hoarse it didn’t sound like words at all. 

“Oh please, Remus,” she said, smiling warmly. “You haven’t been my student for near eight years now. It’s more than alright for you to call me Poppy.”

“Okay… Poppy.” It felt weird to call her that. “What are you doing here?”

She sat down at his bedside. “Your mother asked me to come take you home. She’s a bit tied up over at that muggle hospital of hers.”

“I can get home by myself,” Remus said. “At least once all my bones are done rearranging.”

“I know,” Madam Pomfrey said. “But she’s worried about you. It’s been getting worse, hasn’t it?”

Remus toyed with his cuticles, not meeting her eyes. “It’s fine.”

“Remus, you’ve always been a terrible liar.”

He went pink. “I’m not lying!”

“I could tell that you were lying about Mr. Black playing that muggle electric guitar of his under your hospital bed when you were sixth-years, and I can tell that you’re lying now.”

“Godric, I forgot about that,” Remus laughed, ignoring the pain in his ribs as he remembered the time Sirius had insisted on blasting Bohemian Rhapsody for him after a full moon. 

Madam Pomfrey smiled, despite the seriousness on her face. “I want to help you. But I can’t do that unless you’re honest with me. Everyone’s been asking about you: the Weasleys, the Tonkses, Minerva, Dumbledore, the whole lot of them.”

Remus twisted his mouth. It was difficult to put what he was enduring into words. 

“It’s… it’s always bad around this time of year,” he said. 

“I see.”

Neither of them had to say it outright. It was late October, almost November, right around the time when James and Lily had died. And Peter had been killed. And Sirius had been shipped off to Azkaban in chains for—

No, don’t think about that. 

Remus had been lonely ever since that terrible night four years ago, when his entire world had come crashing down around him. The war had ended and You Know Who had been vanquished, but that made no difference to Remus. All of his friends had just been snatched away from him, leaving a gaping, empty space in him that he had no clue how to fill. 

“Emotional trauma can make it worse, Remus,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Even if you can’t remember it, you carry those emotions with you when you transform, but your wolf can’t understand those human emotions. So you… er… lash out more.”

“Great,” Remus said. “I’ll just stop being emotional.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

“Then what should I try?”

“You can talk to us. I want you to know that. You’re not alone, Remus.”

Remus considered that—for a split second. But he was alone, so very utterly alone. He needed someone who would understand all of it, and the only people who could were dead or gone. 

“It won’t make a difference, Madam—Poppy.”

She sighed dejectedly, but before she could say anything else, the healer on duty bustled into the room, mercifully puncturing the awkward space that Remus had no desire to fill. 

“How are you feeling, Mr. Lupin?” she asked, undoing his bandages and tapping up and down his shoulders and arms with her wand.

“Better.”

“Good. Those scratches are healing up nicely. Let’s try moving your arms now.”

Remus gingerly flexed his fingers and raised his arms; his shoulders stitched back together.  

“Good as new,” the healer said. “We’ll get you discharged right away.” 

She went off to get the paperwork and Madam Pomfrey helped him dress, gingerly stuffing his sore limps into his mauve jumper. He gathered the rest of his things and limped out into the hall, Madam Pomfrey fussing over his every move. 

“Honestly, these people,” she hissed while Remus was filling out his discharge paperwork at the front desk. “I’ve seen those cells they put you lot in. Absolutely barbaric.”

“They’re doing their best, Poppy,” Remus said tiredly.

“That’s no excuse. They’ve got no—”

She was cut off by a great commotion down the hall. A crowd of healers came barreling into the lycanthropy wing, accompanying a gurney. 

“What is it?” one of the healers on duty yelled out.

“Victim of a werewolf mauling!”

“She’s small—lost a lot of blood already!”

Remus and Madam Pomfrey flattened against the wall and out of the way as the healers went past, and he caught sight of her, a little girl, maybe four or five, lying in a pool of her own blood. Remus was surprised that she wasn’t dead already; her flesh was torn and bloodied, a nightmarish patchwork of teeth marks. With a horrible shiver he realized exactly who they belonged to and his own scars burned beneath his shirt. 

“Oh my,” Madam Pomfrey whispered, hand clasped over her mouth in horror. “That poor little thing. Who could have—”

“It was Greyback,” Remus said instantly. He could practically smell Greyback’s nauseating musk radiating off of her. 

“How can you tell?”

“I can smell it.”

One of the senior healers seemed to recognize Madam Pomfrey and came over, wringing his hands.

“Poppy!”

“Wurgus!”

“Sorry you had to see all this, you two. Dreadful stuff.”

“When did it happen? Not during the moon?”

“No, it was just now, thank Merlin. Otherwise… I can’t even…” He shuddered. “It’s the worst one I’ve ever seen. Greyback’s always been viscous, of course, but this is a new low. He practically tore her apart, Poppy.”

“Who is it? I didn’t catch her face.”

“Lilith Scamander,” Wurgus said gravely. “You know, Myrleen and Reuven’s little girl.” 

Remus knew them. Myrleen Scamander and Reuven Lestrange had been at school with them, a few years ahead, and they’d all been in the Order together. Reuven was another pure-blood defect, like Sirius, who’d offended his family by being sorted into Gryffindor and throwing in with an "impure lot”. 

“It was old Lestrange who sent Greyback, wasn’t it?” Remus asked rather forwardly. “Reuven’s father?”

“We’re not sure,” Wurgus said. 

“He ought to be locked away,” Madam Pomfrey said severely. “Everyone knows he’s one of the biggest supporters of You-Know-Who out there, and he’s sadistic besides. Oh look, here they come now, the poor dears.”

Reuven and Myrleen Scamander were being ushered in by an admin witch. They both looked like they’d been through the wringer, but Remus was pleased to see that they’d put up a fight. Their younger daughter—the baby, Remus couldn't remember her name—was wailing in her mother’s arms. 

Suddenly, he was reminded strongly of Lily and James with baby Harry; exhausted and desperate, but steeped in the deepest, purest kind of love. He watched Reuven and Myrleen follow their daughter sadly, almost wishing there was something he could do.

“Come on, Remus,” Madam Pomfrey said, taking his arm gently. “There’s not much we can do for them right now.”

Reluctantly, Remus let Madam Pomfrey lead him out of the wing and downstairs. He couldn’t get the sight of poor little Lilith Scamander out of his head, though. It was heartbreaking to watch any child suffer like that, doubly so since he could remember what it was like, how painful and scary and horrible it had been. He wished that he could help her, change what had happened. 

But that just reminded him of all the things he couldn’t change, and he tumbled down the spiral again. 

Chapter Text

The wind howled incessantly around the rugged stone of Azkaban prison, a dreadful keening sound that pierced into ears and brains and stayed there in torment. 

Sirius Black couldn’t stand it anymore. At first he’d tried blocking out the howling wind, but there were only so many hours that he could spend with his hands clamped over his ears. Then he’d tried singing to distract himself, belting out every Bowie, Queen, Led Zeppelin, and Elton John song he knew. The dementors hated it when he did that. 

But there was only so much that singing could do. Even David Bowie couldn’t shine a light in the persistent darkness that was Azkaban. 

It was so dark and so cold all the time. Sirius had actually liked the dark and cold before all this, as a general rule. It accentuated his dark and broody personality. 

But now he felt like he was drowning, suffocating in the dark and dank air, surrounded by the howling wind and the screams of despair from his fellow inmates. He was drowning, drowning, drowning, and he didn’t think he’d ever get out again. There was a heavy weight settling in his heart, in his bones, dragging him further and further downwards. 

The wind was howling again, and his neighbor was wailing, crying out for his mother or something. 

Sirius was banging his head against the wall in his cell, over and over and over again. It had stopped hurting, which probably wasn’t a good thing, but it distracted him from the sounds of misery around him.  

After a while the blood from his forehead began trickling down into his eyes and he finally stopped, sliding down to his knees against the cold stone. It was cold, everything was cold, leeching the life out of him. His insides were like ice, all the time, eating away at him. 

Sirius could barely remember what warmth felt like. 

Warmth was home. Not his family home, not the Blacks or Grimmauld Place, but with the Marauders, with James and Remus. 

Remus. He missed Remus like the sun, which he never saw either. 

He missed his smile, dimpled and lopsided. He missed the warmth of his hands, the curl of his hair, the low hum of his voice. He missed the way his eyes would twinkle, dancing between seriousness and scheming mischief. 

“Moooonyyyy.”

“Leave off, Sirius.”

“You’ve been at this all afternoooooon.”

Sirius was sitting on the edge of Remus’s bed, watching him study with a joint loose between his fingers, Bowie warbling softly from their record player. There was a mess of scrolls and open books surrounding Remus, as he bent his head over a particularly annoying-looking Arithmancy essay. 

“Professor Ashbourne wanted four rolls of parchment, so that’s what I’m gonna give her.”

“ Four? That’s criminal!”

Remus looked up briefly, shooting a reproachful look at Sirius. “NEWTs are right around the corner, Pads.”

“Bullshit. They’re not till next year.”

“And when they sneak up on us, who’s gonna be ready?”

Sirius smiled impishly. “You. Because you’re the studious saint of the group.”

“Ooooh, don’t call me a saint, Pads.”

Sirius took a long drag from his joint and looked across at Remus before exhaling right in his direction, a streamlined plume of smoke that curled around his face. He was trying to seem very sexy and irresistible on purpose, and it worked. Finally dragging his nose out of his books, Remus inhaled greedily, his eyebrows knitted together like the devil. 

“Positively saint-like,” Sirius said.

“Gimme that.” 

Remus reached out for the joint and Sirius passed it over, their fingertips brushing. He watched as Remus took a long drag and threw his head back as he exhaled, the joint held carelessly in his long fingers.

“You’re gonna get ash all over your bed.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

He was so nonchalant about it, tapping the embers off the end of the joint. There was something so seductive about his slow, languid movements. Sirius watched him almost greedily and Remus caught his eyes.

He laughed. “Like what you see, do you?”

“Always. Turn up the Bowie, will you?”

Remus leaned over, hanging precariously off the side of his bed to turn up the volume on Sirius’ beat-up, old record player. David Bowie’s voice sang to them like a siren.

“Cold fire, you’ve got everything but cold fire,

You will be my rest and peace, child,

I moved up to take a place,

Near you.”

“This one’s my favorite,” Sirius said.

“Is it really?” Remus asked. “I had no idea—hang on, I think you might have mentioned it—”

“Very funny.”

“Once, twice, five times, twenty-seven times—” 

“It’s fitting! The song’s called The Prettiest Star, and I’m Sirius—that’s a star, and I’m obviously the prettiest—”

“Obviously got the biggest ego—”

“My ego’s just fine, thanks.”

“You prat.”

“Shut up! Here comes the good part!”

Sirius threw his head back and crooned along with Bowie, absolutely grooving.

“How you moved is all it takes,

To sing a song of when I loved,

The prettiest star.”

He looked back at Remus petulantly, who was smiling ear to ear, shaking his head slightly, but grinning nonetheless, his features all golden in the afternoon sunlight.

“You’re mental.”

“You love it when I’m mental.”

“I do.”

“How much?”

Remus looked across at him, slyly, hungrily, his eyes burning with want as bright as the moon. Sirius loved that look. He felt his cheeks and ears redden; Remus noticed this and reached over to snuff out the joint.

“I could show you how much.”

He licked his lips ever so slightly, and it was all over.

Sirius actually shuddered. “Good Godric, you’re maddening.”

He prowled forward across the bed, and Remus met him halfway, scattering his books and parchment with reckless abandon. He pulled Sirius into his lap like he weighed nothing at all, wrapping his arms around his waist and pressing their bodies together, warm and flush. 

Nerves blazing, Sirius wrapped his legs around Remus’ torso, pulling him in closer, his fingers tangling up into his hair, tugging him into a kiss. It was warm and tender at first, before unravelling into something hot and messy. Their lips danced around each other hungrily; Sirius licked his way into Remus’ mouth, savoring his steadiness, savoring the taste of him, savoring the groan that he was unable to stifle, humming between the two of them. 

After a long stint of nothing but lips crashing together around gasps for air, Remus pulled away. 

“Mooooonyyy,” Sirius whined, as Remus traced the outline of his jaw and neck with open mouthed kisses, softly, teasingly. There was heat building deep in his stomach, and Remus only fanned the flames.

“You’re so pretty like this,” Remus breathed, his lips ghosting a smile across the sensitive hollow of Sirius’ throat.

“What about your Arithmancy essay?”

“Fuck my Arithmancy essay.”

“And me instead?”

Remus laughed, but stayed latched onto Sirius like a lifeline. 

“My pretty star,” he whispered, his breath warm against Sirius’ neck. 

Sirius couldn’t deny the blush that blossomed from the point where Remus’ lips brushed against his skin, and he pulled his face back upwards, locking their lips again. One of Remus’ hands slipped up from his waist to cup his jaw, his large, warm, soft hands—

There was a cold, clammy, scabby hand clamped around Sirius’ throat and Remus, the dormitory, the afternoon sun vanished before his eyes. Suddenly everything was cold and dark and terrible again. 

Sirius gagged as the dementor dragged him up by the neck, pinning him against the bars to the point where he couldn’t breathe. His insides went cold and within seconds he was shivering uncontrollably. The dementor didn’t seem to care, latching onto him with a grip that could strangle. They didn’t have faces, just a gaping, toothless maw in the place of a mouth, like a dark pit. Sirius was dragged into it, feeling all of the happiness being quite literally sucked out of him. Every good feeling that his recollection of the moment with Remus had brought him, all the warmth and comfort and safety, clawed its way out of his body, up his throat, and away, gone, gone, gone. Only a horrible, empty feeling was left behind, a deep hollow that ripped straight through his soul. 

The dementor drained Sirius down to the last drop. He could feel it leech out of his mouth and then the scabby hands released him. His knees hit the floor painfully and he retched, choking on air itself. As he weakly gasped for breath, the dementor glided away, taking some of the cold  with it, but at this point the cold was inside Sirius, cementing his soul with hopelessness. 

It hurt so much, not just in a painful way. True, the pain lanced through his body with violent intensity, but it was the hollowness that made his knees buckle and his teeth chatter together. It was a crippling sort of emptiness. He could remember everything, but in the presence of the dementors, his happy memories were just pale imprints of what had once been. 

But his worst memories burned brighter than ever; the dementors relished in these terrible memories and they rang in his ears. The ghosts of his past thundered inside his head, screaming, crying, pleading, yelling, steeping him with shame and guilt and anger and fear. It made Sirius want to claw his brains out through his ears, just so he wouldn’t have to listen anymore. 

Sirius didn’t know how long he spent huddled on the floor, curled in on himself like a dying roach. He wanted desperately to transform. His thoughts and emotions were so much simpler as Padfoot. They didn’t sting as much or cut as deeply. But there was so little strength in him, just the effort of breathing was too much. 

He felt a tidal wave of cold again. 

The dementors were returning.

Sirius began shivering uncontrollably again. 

Please, please, please, don’t come back.  

He whispered it like a prayer. He didn’t want them to take anything else. He barely had anything left. 

But the dementors swept right by him. In fact, they seemed to be heralding a bit of commotion, not paying any attention to their prisoners for once. Sirius lifted his head briefly, peering through the bars.

Azkaban had a new inmate. It was one that Sirius recognized, from his childhood, from the endless barrage of Black family parties and banquets, from cousin Bellatrix’s wedding.

Reinhard Lestrange made his presence known. He had always been a stately, prideful sort of man, but not many could claim to carry traits like that through Azkaban’s gates. He didn’t struggle against the dementors dragging him to his cell—everyone knew that was pointless—but he protested loudly nonetheless.

“Scum! Traitorous wraiths! Don’t you know who I am! I served the Dark Lord, same as you! Traitor scum, you dare to touch me! I’m the Lord and Master of the Noble House of Lestrange!”

Nobody cares, Sirius thought drily. 

The dementors dragged Lestrange out of Sirius’ line of sight and he was just about to collapse again when he heard other voices. Human ones, sane human ones. A warm glow bled down the corridor, soft and silvery. Entranced, Sirius pulled himself up, hungrily trying to reach the warm light just beyond his cell.

Two patronuses sailed down the corridor, a silvery honey badger and a faint sheep-like shape, preceding their owners. Mad-Eye Moody, the Auror, and Cornelius Fudge, Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic. They were bathed in the light from their patronuses, unaffected by the cold and despair, and speaking in hushed voices. 

“....And I’ve been wanting to get this one for ages now, Fudge,” Moody said. “Everyone with eyes could tell he was in it with the Dark Lord, but now we’ve finally got something to pin on him, the murderous swill—”

“He didn’t murder anyone, Alastor,” Fudge said timidly.

“He bloody might as well have,” Moody growled. “Setting Greyback loose like that—it’s a miracle that the beast didn’t slaughter the whole family.”

Sirius perked up. He knew that name.

“...True. Any news about the little girl?” 

“Last I heard she was a touch-and-go at St. Mungo’s.” 

“Dreadful stuff,” Fudge shuddered. “That poor child. I expect the minister will send his formal condolences to Mr. and Mrs. Scamander soon.”

Moody snorted. “Load of good that’ll do them.” 

“It might, er… might make them feel better.”

Moody’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Their daughter’s just been attacked by a werewolf. I’m sure a kitschy boilerplate get-well card will fix everything right up.”

“How could Lestrange do it? Setting Greyback out for his own granddaughter?”

“He’s a raving lunatic, that’s how. Greyback too.”

“I hate to think of him on the loose,” Fudge said. “Especially after all this bloodshed. Hopefully your Aurors will snatch him up quickly.”

“Can’t believe he slipped through our fingers.” Moody was practically snarling. “Damn embarrassing. We had him! We had him and then he got away!”

“But you’ve got people out looking for him, right?” Fudge asked nervously. 

“Got my top men on the case. We’ll have him in one of these cells soon enough.”

“I’ll be thankful for that day. Merlin’s beard! I’ve got to go read Lestrange his sentence!”

Clutching his hat, Fudge bounded down the corridor to wherever the dementors were locking up Reinhard Lestrange. Moody watched him go and was about to follow, when his autonomous blue eye swivelled backwards in his skull; he turned to face Sirius.

Sirius stared up at him through the bars of his cell. He suddenly realized how long it had been since he’d looked into the face of another person, and he drank in the eye contact hungrily, even though Moody was looking at him like he was some kind of disease. Vaguely, Sirius was aware of how terrible he looked: emaciated and unwashed, gaunt cheekbones and hollow, sunken eyes. He could almost see his reflection in Moody’s big, shiny eye, and a corpse of a person that he didn’t recognize stared back at him.

Moody didn’t say anything at first. Sirius knew him to have a strong stomach and unbreakable nerves, but the grizzled man almost looked like he was about to be sick. Perhaps he was trying and failing to connect the corpseish Sirius Black with the energetic, bright-eyed boy that he used to know. 

“Black,” he finally said.

“Mad-Eye,” Sirius replied automatically. He was surprised by himself, by how normal he sounded. You’d never have guessed that he’d spent the last three nights screaming his throat raw while images from his worst nightmares had affixed themselves in his head. 

It was unnerving. 

Moody didn’t say anything else. His shiny eye displayed no emotions whatsoever, but his original one was ghosted with horror. After several awkward seconds of him all but gaping like a fish, he nodded tersely in Sirius’ direction and stumped down the corridor after Fudge.

Sirius slumped back down again like a marionette on cut strings, as if the presence of other people had been all that was holding him up. Leaning back against the stone wall, he pulled his knees up to his chest, hugging them tightly. He did that often, to try and conserve any warmth left in his body. 

His mind was swimming with all the new information. The prisoners were never told anything; the dementors certainly didn’t update them about the world outside. The only news they got were bits and pieces from the mad ramblings of their fellow prisoners: facts, fears, regrets, and deep, dark secrets. Sirius was sure he’d spilled some deep stuff of his own, but he could barely remember what he’d screamed out during his fits of insanity. 

So Reinhard Lestrange was in prison. Good , Sirius thought. He’d always been a sadistic prick anyway, even before throwing in with Voldemort. And he was in prison for sending Fenrir Greyback after… who was it? Moody had said a little girl had been attacked, and Fudge had said something about the Scamanders and Reinhard’s granddaughter… he supposed it was Reuven’s kid then, because Rabastan and Rodolphus were locked up too, and anyway, they didn’t even have children. 

Sirius remembered his cousin Reuven Lestrange faintly. A bit older, but still a fellow Gryffindor and a fellow pureblood outcast. He’d always been friendly and good-natured, even during the darkest bits of the war. And to be betrayed like that, by his own father? Sirius couldn’t even imagine it—actually he could. He could imagine it quite well; if Walburga had been willing to use the Cruciatus Curse on him, he didn’t see what was stopping her from setting a murderous, bloodthirsty werewolf on him too.

He felt bad for the little girl. It must have been terrifying. Nobody deserved to be attacked by Fenrir Greyback. Remus had barely talked about it, but what little he’d shared with Sirius about his own attack sounded so dreadful it was a miracle he didn’t wake up screaming every morning. 

And then he was thinking about Remus again. Warm, steady Remus, whose arms he always felt safe in, the person who he looked for first when entering a room, who smelled of chocolate and parchment and safety. He yearned for his presence, yearned to feel loved again, yearned to love back. 

He would never see him again, Sirius realized. It was a realization that hit him over and over again, but he couldn’t bring himself to accept it, existing in the numb shock of that fact. Part of him wanted to escape, pointless fantasy that it was, and tear across the world to find Remus, throw himself at his feet, and explain everything, make him understand, beg for forgiveness, if only to drink in the sight of him again. 

But the other part of Sirius was guiltier and it was winning, the worming, self-destructive side of him being fed by the despair of Azkaban. This part of him knew, deep down, that everything had been his fault, it had been because of his mistakes that James and Lily were dead, that he’d caused Peter’s death, that he’d led Voldemort straight to the Potters, unintentionally or not. It didn’t matter. It was his fault that they were dead, his fault that the Marauders were fractured and splintered beyond repair. 

This part of him hoped that Remus would forget him, because that was what he deserved. Sirius hoped that he would forget all about his traitor friend and lover, and find someone else, someone that was truly worthy of him. He hoped this, and every time he did, he hated himself for it.

But it didn’t matter.

Being forgotten was what he deserved. 

Sirius started banging his head against the wall again, trying to dull his senses. 

I’m so sorry, Moony. I’m so sorry for all of it. 

Chapter Text

The Hogwarts Express was the most wonderful thing Lilith Scamander had ever seen.

It was also the most terrifying thing she’d ever seen. 

Well, almost. But it was up there.

It was just so daunting . The train itself was beautiful, in all its gold and scarlet glory, steam billowing up around it. But it was also a behemoth that was about to carry her away from her family for the first time ever. 

There were so many people too. It was overwhelming. All the other students, flocking to catch up with friends, sporting bright house colors, dipping and weaving amongst owls and cats, chattering loudly with each other—they all seemed so comfortable. And they all seemed so much older too. Lilith felt very, very small, like a tiny sapling underneath a towering forest.

“You doing alright, Lil?” her mum asked. 

“Mmhmm. Just excited.” It was true. She was quivering with a mixture of pure excitement and pure nervousness that made speaking difficult. 

Avery, the little sister, pouted. “It isn’t fair.”

“How?” Lilith asked. “You’re not even old enough.”

“But I want to go too!”

“You can’t. That’s stupid.”

“Mum! Lilith called me stupid!”

“Enough, you stinkers. Look, here comes Dad.”

Their dad returned, from where he’d been loading Lilith’s massive trunk onto the train. He grinned down at Avery and thumped her on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, kiddo. It’ll be your turn to go to Hogwarts before you know it.” 

Lilith twisted her lips. She wasn’t looking forward to that too much. Having a little sister was all well and good, but she did tend to get annoying at the best of times. Just the other night they’d gotten into a massive row about who had been singing the Weird Sisters louder. Privately, Lilith had thought the entire thing to be incredibly stupid, but she couldn’t back down when she and Avery argued. Their mum always said that she should “take the high road”, because she was older and should know better. 

Lilith never seemed to be able to do that, though. Toying with Avery was just so tempting.

It would be nice to get some time to herself. To spread her wings and find her place. That’s what her mum kept saying. But there was also the fact that she was leaving home, leaving what she knew, leaving what was safe and familiar. It was an exposed feeling that she didn’t like at all. 

“Lilith?”

“Hmm?”

Her mum was squeezing her shoulder, trying to bring her back down to earth from where her thoughts had gotten her lost in the stratosphere. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m sure, Mum.”

“Should we go find Cordelia?”

“No. She said she’d find me.”

Her dad checked his watch. “Five minutes to eleven, girls.”

This was it. Before her parents could say anything, Lilith engulfed them in a bone-crushing hug, even Avery, trying to soak up every possible bit of them. The warm, scratchy wool of her dad’s sweater and the minty, fresh smell of his aftershave. The warmth of her mum’s hands in her hair, the steadiness of her breath, and the way she smelled of cinnamon and apples. Even Avery, hugging her so tightly that she thought she might pop. She hadn’t hugged Lilith like this in years, not since when they were small and Avery had been scared of thunder and lightning. Lilith wanted to memorize all of them, even if she’d see them again by the holidays. Just a few months seemed like a lifetime. 

“We’re so proud of you, Lil.”

“We love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

Avery suddenly burst into tears.

“What’s wrong?” Lilith asked, startled.

“I’m gonna miss you!” she wailed loudly. “Who am I gonna talk to? What am I gonna do all day long by myself?”

Lilith hugged her little sister awkwardly. “Don’t worry, Avie. I’ll write all the time. Every week!”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Avery wiped her eyes, snuffling a little bit, and then shook Lilith off, embarrassed to be associated with her even for a second. 

“Lilith! Lilith Scamander!”

Cordelia Ipswich barrelled towards them with the ferocity of a comet, miraculously managing to not violently collide into anyone around her. She had on a bright blue cloak that complimented her blond hair, but gave her a slightly unfortunate resemblance to an overexcited peacock. 

“Cordelia! There you are!”

“It’s so good to see you!” Cordelia squealed. “It’s been ages.”

“I saw you last week,” Lilith pointed out. “In Diagon Alley.”

“Still felt like ages. You like my new cloak?”

“It’s great. House colors already?”

Cordelia grinned. “I have to sport the Ravenclaw pride!”

Lilith was about to remind her that they hadn’t even been sorted yet, when the train’s whistle sang out to them.

It was time. 

“Are you ready, girls?” Lilith’s mum asked. “Cordelia, where are your parents?”

“I already said goodbye to them, Mrs. Scamander. I’m ready to go when Lil is.”

She said it so confidently. Lilith was envious of how easily her friend had been able to rip off the bandage; she herself was peeling it off slowly, trying to make it last but ending up making it hurt even more. 

Her mum and dad hugged her again, whispering things into her ear that she didn’t really hear. Lilith hugged them back, not even wanting to let go, but her parents did that for her.

“Write to us when you get there,” her mum said. “We’ll want to hear all about the feast and what house you’re in!” 

“Okay,” Lilith said. “Um… goodbye, Mum. Goodbye, Dad.”

“Goodbye, my darling.”

“Goodbye, Lilith.” 

Lilith hoisted her rucksack and the cage containing Franconia, her new tawny owl, who hooted noisily from all the excitement. Cordelia was tugging on her wrist impatiently, but Lilith had to cast one last look at her family, her little group of people. 

“Bye.”

That was all she was able to say before she found herself waving and her feet moving away, almost of their own accord. Cordelia steered her through the crowd that blurred like watercolors and then it was just them, clambering onto the Hogwarts Express. 

The narrow corridors were crowded and buzzing with activity, bursting at the seams with students jostling past each other, seeking out friends, and choosing seats. Lilith was glad for Cordelia’s confident grip on her hand; she felt so very small among all the older students who all seemed to know each other, confident in their skin, surroundings, and company. Their snippets of conversation floated around above her head like noisy pixies.

“ —Flint keeps going on about having the new Nimbus.”

“That’s a big fat lie.”

“George, c’mon!”

“Keep your hair on, Fred. Lee’s not gonna chuck the tarantula out the window before we get there.”

“I know, but—”

“And Winnie, did you see her? Her—”

“Her hair, I know! Merlin, what the hell was she thinking?”

“Looks like a bloody parrot.”

“What did she do to it?”

“Jinxed it into next week, if you ask me.”

“—and did you hear?”

“About who’s here?”

“Who? Who’s here?”

“Harry Potter!”

“Harry Potter? You’re having me on.”

“I’m not! Saw his scar.”

“Seriously?”

“Dead serious.”

“Harry Potter! Blimey!”

“Cordelia, did you hear that!” 

Lilith was still being steadily dragged by her best friend, as they wove through the crowded corridors.

“Huh?”

“Harry Potter! They’re saying Harry Potter’s on the train!”

“What? Really?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Holy cricket, I— Oh, look! In here!”

She’d finally found an empty compartment and the two of them darted inside before a group of scary-looking fourth-years could steal it. They fell back into the plush seats, slightly out of breath.

Lilith slid the door closed with her foot, not bothering to get up, and deposited Franconia in the seat next to her. Cordelia sank into the seat opposite her, cheeks flushed and a big grin on her face. 

“Glad we found an empty one,” she said, sounding immensely proud of herself. “Wait—what were you saying about Harry Potter?”

“He’s on the train,” Lilith said. “Those Hufflepuff sixth-years we passed, they were going on about seeing him.”

“How do they know it was him?”

“Dunno. Saw his scar, I guess.”

“Wow.” Cordelia’s eyes went wide. “Then he must be in our year!”

“Do you think he’ll be in our house?”

“No idea.”

The train gave a shudder and lurched forward, beginning to chug out of the station. Lilith and Cordelia looked out the window wordlessly as Platform Nine and Three Quarters began to peel away from them. Soon, London was flying by and the houses and buildings were thinning out, and the countryside began to rise up around them, in rolling droves of mossy green. 

They were going to Hogwarts.

It was a mad thought. Lilith felt incredibly untethered—a bit sad about leaving home, yes—but free and unrestrained nonetheless. She felt light as a feather, and wild, like she could do anything she pleased. It made her giddy on the inside, tickling her stomach like a thousand fuzzy caterpillars in a frenzy.

Lilith let out a maniacal giggle.

Cordelia stared. 

“What’s with you?”

Lilith giggled again, unable to contain herself. “It’s just— we’re going to Hogwarts.”

Cordelia smirked. “Finally caught on, have you?”

Lilith couldn’t even respond; she was laughing too hard, drowning in giddiness so infectious that Cordelia was soon laughing as well. They cackled like the pair of witches that they were, almost beside themselves with excitement. 

Abruptly, the door to their compartment slid open and a boy hurriedly poked his head in, interrupting their cackling session. 

“Erm… do you mind if I sit here?” he asked nervously. “Everywhere else is full.”

“Come on in!” Cordelia said brightly.

“Thanks.” 

Franconia twittered excitedly from her cage as the boy came and sat down with them. He had tousled, mousy sort of hair and round, wide-side eyes. His jeans and hoodie were obviously muggle-made; even muggleish wizarding clothing had a noticeable, magical wonkiness to it. Lilith’s jumper, for example, tended to shift its knitting pattern based on how her day was going, and the button-down Cordelia had on under her cloak had odd pockets and sharp, fluttery cuffs. 

 “I’ve been trying to dodge this older guy in yellow,” the boy said, explaining even though they hadn’t asked. “I think that he thinks I’m lost and confused.”

“Must be a prefect,” Cordelia mused. “Probably in Hufflepuff. I reckon they’re supposed to patrol the corridors and make sure no ickle first-years are by themselves.”

“What’s Hufflepuff?”

Cordelia looked beside herself. “You don’t know?”

“Muggleborns exist, Cordelia,” Lilith said reproachfully.

The boy groaned. “Is it that obvious?”

Lilith chose her words carefully. “A bit.”

“Excellent. That’s exactly what I was hoping for—to stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Don’t worry,” Lilith said. “There’s loads of muggleborns—and most of us from wizarding families won’t know much either. Cordelia here only knows everything ‘cause she’s been memorizing every fun fact about Hogwarts she could find since age two.”

The boy laughed. “Good to know.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Oliver, by the way. Oliver Atwood.”

“Lilith Scamander,” she said, shaking his hand.

“I’m Cordelia Ipswich.”

“Nice to—wait! Scamander! I know that name; didn’t he write—”

“Yes, yes, yes, my Grandpa Newt wrote one of the coursebooks!” Lilith said hurriedly. “No need to make a point of it.”

“She’s just pretending to be modest,” Cordelia said. “She secretly loves the attention.”

Lilith didn’t even try to deny it this time. It was true; she did secretly relish in getting recognized for her famous great-grandfather and her family’s affinity with magical creatures. She was proud to be part of such a family; it made her feel important. She didn’t exactly go around parading it in people’s faces, but the way she saw it, a little recognition never hurt anyone. 

“So back to Hufflepuff,” Oliver said. “What’s that?”

“It’s one of the school houses,” Lilith explained. “There’s four: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin.”

“Lilith and I are going to be in Ravenclaw,” Cordelia said confidently, just like she’d been saying all day, every day, for the entire summer, and the last five years. “Maybe you’ll be too! That’d be fun!”

“Do we choose?”

“No,” Cordelia replied. “We get sorted, but… I’m not sure how, actually.”

“With magic?” Oliver asked. “Is it some sort of test?”

“I suppose,” Lilith said. “Seems a bit unfair though, if they expect us to know anything.” 

Oliver paled a little bit. “We’re supposed to know magic already? I’ve barely skimmed over the coursebooks!”

“I reckon we’ll be okay,” Cordelia said slowly, but sounding unsure all the same. 

The three of them lapsed into silence, all suddenly a bit worried. Endless hills rolled by outside the train’s windows like waves of green, only a blur to them. 

Their uncomfortable silence was punctured by a great clattering out in the corridor. A plump little witch appeared, pushing a rickety trolley stacked to the brim with a riot of sweets in a dizzying rainbow of colors. She slid the door to their compartment open and smiled down at them. 

“Anything from the trolley, dears?”

“Yes, please,” Cordelia said, starting up and counting out coins from her pocket. “Lil, I’ll get the pumpkin juice and Cauldron Cakes, can you—”

“Yeah. Erm… three Pumpkin Pasties and three Chocolate Frogs, please,” she said to the witch, handing over a few Sickles. “Here, Oliver.”

“You don’t have to…”

“It’s okay!”

Oliver went beet red. “At least let me pitch in. Mum and Dad had some of my pocket money switched at that wizard bank.” He awkwardly pulled some Galleons out of his pocket and looked at the different sweets like their labels were written in ancient hieroglyphics. “Er… what should I get?”

“Get some Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans,” Lilith suggested. “We can share; it’ll be a laugh.”

The witch handed a box of beans to Oliver with his change, smiled in a grandmotherly sort of way at all of them, and went clattering off down the corridor. 

Lilith had always been a sucker for chocolate, for as long as she could remember; she beelined for a Frog while Cordelia introduced Oliver to pumpkin juice.

“Looks like orange juice,” he said, sniffing his bottle warily. “But it smells like pumpkin pie. How is that possible? How do you even juice a pumpkin?”

“It’s good!” Cordelia promised. “Just try it.”

Oliver looked at the both of them like they were insane and then at the pumpkin juice like it was poison. He swallowed hard and took a sip.

“Whoa.”

“Told you so!”

Oliver was grinning. “Okay, that was good. What about the Bertie Botts? Do they really mean every flavor?”

“Oh yeah,” Lilith said, biting the head off her Chocolate Frog. “My cousin Eddie swears that he got an earwax flavored one once.” 

“You’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

They were just about to break into the Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, when their compartment was slid open rather rudely. 

Three girls stood on the threshold, looking down at them haughtily. They had a particular look on their faces that Lilith had seen before in stuffy pureblood wizards and witches, those from the old families who believed that they were better than everyone else. 

“Hello,” Cordelia said cautiously, when the three didn’t introduce themselves. 

But Lilith was a bit more defensive. “Can we help you?”

“Are you Lilith Lestrange?” one of the girls asked her. She had a short, impeccably neat bob and a bit of a pug nose; she gave the appearance that she had spent her entire life looking down on people from some lofty pedestal. 

“It’s Lilith Scamander, actually,” she said icily. “But yes. Who’s asking?”

“I’m Pansy Parkinson,” the pug-nosed girl replied. “This is Millicent Bulstrode and Daphne Greengrass.”

She gestured in turn to a tall girl with a sharp nose and a mane of dark hair, and a pale, blonde girl with bright green eyes. 

“Anyway,” Pansy continued. “We’ve got a compartment to ourselves a few cars up. Why don’t you join us? Then you won’t have to sit with them. ”

She pointedly looked at Oliver and Cordelia, as though they were belonging to some lower class of humans, like they were barely more than grubs worming through the dirt, like they were an unpleasant smear of slime that she was going to have to wash off her expensive leather shoes. 

Lilith disliked that immediately and raised her eyebrows. “For your information, I’d rather sit with this lot than you and your snooty pureblood friends.”

“What did you say?” Millicent Bulstrode said shrilly. 

“You heard me. Or have you just heard so much pureblood mania over the years that you can’t hear anything else?”

“How dare you?” she shrieked. “ How dare you? ”

Millicent stalked forward and Lilith immediately plunged her hand into her pocket for her wand. Not that she would be able to do anything with it; she didn’t know any spells yet. But she felt her anger boiling over all the same, white hot and animalistic inside her head. Maybe she’d be able to send some hot sparks right into Millicent Bulstrode’s smug face—

“Lil, stop!”

Cordelia was standing up now and had a firm grip on her arm, pulling Lilith out of her blind anger. Across from them, the blonde girl—Daphne Greengrass—had pulled Millicent back as well.

“Just leave it,” she hissed. “It’s not worth it.”

Millicent threw them a horribly dirty look and retreated slightly, while Pansy glowered at Lilith, who glowered right back. Pansy’s eyes roamed over to Oliver and Cordelia, and then back to Lilith; she spotted a certain something on Lilith’s neck, peeping out from under her collar. A wicked grin stretched across her face. 

“Nevermind, Lestrange,” she said. “We wouldn’t want someone like you sitting with us anyway. And it’d be such a shame to break up your new little pack .”

Pansy lingered just a tad too long on the word ‘pack’ and Lilith felt her jaw crash open. She was surprised that it didn’t shatter on the floor. Her mind was reeling, trying to come up with a clever comeback, but her thoughts kept derailing on their way to real words. 

They knew.

“Get out, you gargoyles!” Cordelia yelled. “Get out and leave us alone!”

Pansy and Millicent seemed all too happy to oblige and they trooped out of the compartment, giggling in a sickeningly sinister way. 

Daphne lingered for just a moment. She looked slightly uncomfortable, opening her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but Pansy’s voice drifted over from down the corridor, shrill and insistent.

“Daphne, come on!”

Shooting them a sympathetic look that almost seemed to be an apology, Daphne disappeared down the swaying corridor, leaving them alone. 

Lilith sank back into her seat, feeling numb and panicked at the same time. Her stomach was twisting itself into knots with worry.

How did she know? 

“What just happened?” Oliver demanded. 

Cordelia ignored him momentarily, staring straight at Lilith. “Are you okay?” 

“I…I…I guess so,” Lilith stammered. “I just wasn’t expecting her to go… there.”

“Don’t think about it,” Cordelia said firmly. “She doesn’t even know you. She doesn’t know anything.”

Lilith nodded shakily, trying to will herself into pushing Pansy Parkinson as far out of her mind as possible. 

Oliver cleared his throat awkwardly. “Does someone fancy clueing me in? Who were they and why do we hate them?”

“They’re from those old pureblood families,” Cordelia explained. “The ones who think that they’re better than everyone else just because they never married muggles.”

“So they hate everyone who isn’t like them?” Oliver guessed.

Cordelia nodded. She would have said more, but the door to their compartment clattered open again. 

A girl their age with extremely bushy hair stood on the threshold. She had an air about her as though she was in a great hurry and in the midst of something very important.

“Has any of you seen a toad?” she asked. “A boy named Neville’s lost one.”

“No toads here,” Oliver said.

Her face fell slightly. “Well, if you see any, let me know.”

She was out again before any of them could reply, but none of them really knew what to say back to her anyway. 

“So these purebloods don’t like anyone with muggle parents?” Oliver asked. 

“Not all of them,” Cordelia said slowly. “But there’s a couple of families who are real fanatics.”

“It’s so stupid,” Lilith said bitterly. “People like that think they’re the only ones who deserve magic ‘cause they’ve all kept it in magical families and married their cousins or whatever. Honestly, it’s disgusting.”

“But they thought you were one of them,” Oliver pointed out. He was surprisingly shrewd. 

“My dad used to be a Lestrange.”

“Used to be?”

“Well he got disowned when he married my mum. My grandparents think they’re like wizarding royalty and they weren’t too chuffed about him joining a family of blood traitors.”

“That’s bonkers.”

“It really is,” Lilith affirmed. She didn’t usually like to talk about her father’s side of the family; it was too wrapped up in prejudice and grudges and expectations. But here and now, it was almost cathartic to explain all of this to Oliver, like she was getting a great load off her chest. 

Cordelia laughed nervously. “Well that was a bit depressing.”

She was trying to ease their way out of the uncomfortable conversation that they’d just sunken into, lest they ruin their first train ride to Hogwarts. But Oliver was still hunting for answers; his brow was furrowed like he was sifting through information. 

“Pansy noticed something about you, didn’t she, Lilith?” he asked. 

“Should we have the Every Flavor Beans now?” Lilith said, plowing right over his question. “Cordelia, you go first.”

She held out the open box of jelly beans to Cordelia, who took one and bit into it apprehensively. 

“Bleeaaarrghhhh, cold spaghetti!” She gagged and then gestured to Lilith. “You next, Lil.”

Lilith inspected the contents of the box of Bertie Bott’s, before gingerly selecting a dark brown bean. 

“Dangerous territory,” Cordelia warned.

Ones like these could be a gamble; it could be something like chocolate, or it could be something too gross to even consider. Lilith considered her odds, and with reckless abandon, popped it into her mouth.

Then she coughed a little. “Ah, black coffee!” 

Trying to get over the bitterness in her throat, she thrust the box over to Oliver. 

“Your turn.”

He eyed the beans warily. Lilith could tell that he was still burning with curiosity about what Pansy had said, but he didn’t seem to be interested in pressing the issue further. At least not at that moment.

“I’m not so sure about this,” he said about the beans. “What if I get something nasty?”

“That’s part of the fun!” Cordelia encouraged. “Go on!”

Oliver pulled out a pink bean and bit into it; then he smiled.

“Roses! That wasn’t bad at all!”

He was immediately proven wrong when he next sampled a light grey bean that turned out to be dustbunny-flavored. Lilith and Cordelia roared with laughter as he coughed on the dusty-tasting bean. Franconia hooted indignantly at all the commotion as the three ate their way through the rest of the sweets, very nearly forgetting all about Pansy Parkinson and her posse as they sped towards Hogwarts. 

Chapter Text

Dusk had fallen by the time the Hogwarts Express finally chugged to a stop in Hogsmeade Station. Lilith, Cordelia, and Oliver quickly changed into their school robes, and clambered out into the dark with everyone else.

The train seemed to erupt droves of students out onto the platform, just as, if not more, chaotic than they’d been back at Platform Nine and Three Quarters. The air buzzed with excitement and anticipation from underneath the golden lampposts lining the station. 

“Where are we supposed to go?” Oliver said. 

“I dunno,” Lilith replied. “Cordelia?”

“How should I know?”

“You’re supposed to be the expert!”

“Well this wasn’t exactly in Hogwarts: A History!”

Oliver tugged them both to the side. “We’re getting in the way!”

The older students flooded down the platform, all laughing and chattering with each other, all so sure of where they were headed. They disappeared down a path at the end of the station that wound between the trees and out of sight. 

Lilith, Cordelia, and Oliver found themselves in a clump of first-years left behind on the emptying platform. 

“Should we follow the others?” Cordelia asked, standing on tiptoe to see where they were going.

“I don’t think so…” Lilith said.

“Firs’ years! Firs’ years, this way!”

They turned and several people let out gasps. An impossibly enormous man was making his way over to them, holding a large lantern aloft. He was so tall he could have cleared layers of tree branches straight off with just a brush of his head; he parted through the students like they were water, towering over everyone’s heads. Most of his face was obscured by a busy beard, but twinkling eyes and plump, rosy cheeks were visible, giving the impression of a jolly, Father Christmas-sort-of-person. 

“Firs’ years over here!” he called out again. “Don’ be shy!”

The first years all flocked to him, eager to get going and to not be left behind. He was a little intimidating, but he smiled down at all of them in a way that instantly put one at ease.

“Right, then,” he said. “My name’s Hagrid, an’ I’m the Keeper o’ Keys an’ Grounds at Hogwarts. Everybody here? Nobody left behind?”

There was a general murmur of assent. 

Hagrid nodded approvingly and beckoned to all of them. “All right. Follow me! This way to the boats! Firs’ years with me!”

Hagrid led them all down a steep, winding path just beyond the station. Trees rose up, dark and thick around them. The forest was old; Lilith could smell it. Old and wise and full of magic, all ancient trees, moss, and strange creatures. 

For some reason, it didn’t frighten her.

The path took them downwards, and the air became damper and misty. Lilith could hear the soft burbling of water, like gentle waves. And lo and behold, the winding path let out onto a thin length of pebbled beach, where a small navy of little, wooden boats were assembled. Dark water stretched out beyond the beach and out of sight. 

Hagrid was walking up and down the beach. “Go on, don’ be shy! No more than four to a boat.” 

Lilith, Cordelia, and Oliver clambered into the boat nearest to them, joined by a girl with a long sheet of black hair. 

Cordelia squeezed Lilith’s hand so tight she almost broke bones. She was quivering with excitement on the seat next to her. 

“Calm down, Cordelia!” Lilith said. “You’re gonna tip the boat if you keep jumping up and down like that.”

“I can’t help it!” She had a crazed grin on her face. “We’re so close!”

“We have to cross a bloody lake!” Oliver blurted out. 

“But we’re almost there!”

“Everybody ready?” Hagrid asked, filling up a boat all by himself. “An’ forward!”

Simultaneously, all the boats lurched forward, casting off from the little beach. They sailed across the lake like it was black glass, barely casting more than streamlined ripples. No one spoke, but the air was alive in the darkness. Then the boats rounded a corner, and—

There it was.

Lilith let out a gasp when she saw it; she wasn’t the only one. Hogwarts Castle lay on the other side of the vast lake, perched atop rugged cliffs and spiraling into the sky. The grand towers and battlements seemed to be reaching for the heavens, trying to touch the moon, the stars. Golden light shone out from every window, crowning the castle in a glimmering halo of warmth and magnificence.

It was the stuff of dreams. 

The boats continued their journey across the lake, the castle growing in size as they neared it. No longer was it an enchanting miniature in the distance; it was a wondrous behemoth. Lilith craned her neck upwards as they approached the cliffs, watching the towers loom overhead. 

They sailed through a wide niche in the cliffs, and into a sort of underground harbor. The boats knew exactly where to go, carrying them to a long dock and coming to a simultaneous halt. 

“Everbody out!” Hagrid called out. “Follow me!”

They clambered out onto the slippery dock and up a dark, narrow passageway. This gradually became a steep staircase that seemed to go on forever; they were all panting and sweated before long.

“Not more stairs,” Lilith heard someone whisper behind them. “I didn’t eat breakfast, and some idiot bought all the food on the train.”

“That’s messed up! Who does that?” 

“No clue, mate.”

“There’d better be food up there, or I’m gonna pass out.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

Lilith snorted to herself, but personally agreed. The Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans seemed like a lifetime ago. Oliver seemed to agree with her too, because his stomach let out an audible rumble.

“Sorry,” he said blushingly. “I’m starving.”

“Same here,” Lilith replied. “Feel like I could eat a hippogriff.”

“A what?”

“A hippogriff. Half horse, half griffin. They’re really cool. My Grandpa Newt is friends with a massive herd of them in Finland.”

“He’s friends with—”

“Yup.”

Finally, the passage spit them out into the night. Hagrid and the first-years emerged onto a wide expanse of lawn that led up to the grand entrance gates; the grass was damp and dewy underfoot. Leading them across, Hagrid opened up the massive oaken doors.

“In ye go!” he said cheerfully. “Head straight upstairs!”

No one seemed to want to go first. They all shuffled from foot to foot until a few people in the front finally worked up the nerve to step over the threshold. The rest of them followed like a flood, and they entered the castle.

The air was warm and delicious inside, smelling like parchment and sweet woodsmoke. The hall was huge, all high, vaulted ceilings and ancient stone, their voices and footsteps echoing off of every surface. The first-years climbed the steps before them, where a tall witch in emerald green was waiting for them. 

Her face was stern, piercing eyes gazing down at them from behind delicate, square-shaped spectacles. Her hair was pulled back into a rather severe knot at the back of her head beneath her pointed witch’s hat. Just her mere presence commanded attention and respect; she held herself high and confident. 

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” she said, a Scottish lilt imbibing her words. “My name is Professor McGonagall. In a few moments you will join your classmates, but before you do, you must be sorted into your houses. They are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Now, while you are here, your house will be like your family. Throughout the year, the school competes for the house Cup; your triumphs will earn you points and any rule-breaking will lose you points. I trust that you will all uphold the honor and dignity of your respective houses.”

She swept her gaze over all of them again, as though she was trying to discern their mettle, their potential, their worth.

“The Sorting Ceremony will begin momentarily. Remain here and I will return to collect you.”

Professor McGonagall turned with a swish of her cape and disappeared through the ornate mahogany doors behind her. The moment she was gone, the first-years erupted into a buzz of whispers and conversation.

“But how do we get sorted?” Oliver asked urgently. “She didn’t say what happens during the ceremony!”

“I suppose we’ll just have to find out,” Lilith said.

Oliver looked aghast. “How can you be so calm?”

“I dunno. Maybe we shouldn’t worry—I mean, everyone else has done it and made it out fine.”

Lilith could tell that Oliver didn’t like that one bit. He kept compulsively scrunching his hair in his fist, a nervous tic. Cordelia didn’t look too good either; she was biting her lip so hard it looked as though it might bleed. 

“What if I don’t get into Ravenclaw?” she worried. “What if they put me in Hufflepuff? That would be so embarrassing!"

“Why? Is it bad?” Oliver demanded.

“No!” Lilith said. “I don’t think—”

“And Slytherin would be even worse!” Cordelia wailed. 

“Merlin! What’s the matter with Slytherin?”

But Cordelia looked deadly serious. “There’s not a witch or wizard who went bad that wasn’t in Slytherin.”

Oliver’s eyes went wide. “Is that true?”

“No, it isn’t! It’s just a saying.”

“But You Know Who and all those—”

“You’re being so dramatic, Cordelia!”

“But—”

“Personally ,” a haughty voice interrupted. “Slytherin’s the one for me.”

The three of them turned around to face a boy standing behind him. It looked as though all the color had been leeched out of him; his hair was so blonde it was very nearly white and his eyes were a pale, silvery color. He was tall and slim, with high cheekbones and a nose that looked rather pinched.

“My whole family’s been in Slytherin, going back seven generations,” he said, like he was announcing it to the group. “It has the most noble and prestigious history by far.”

Lilith raised an eyebrow. “Really? Good for you, I guess.”

The blonde boy sized her up. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.”

There was a bit of hushed muttering from the people around them. The Malfoys were a prominent family in the wizarding community, as wealthy and pureblood as they came. 

They were probably only outmatched by Lilith’s crazy grandparents. 

“Lilith Scamander,” she said, ignoring the whispers that accompanied her surname. “Now, I was talking to my friends before you—”

“Oooooh, she’s the one I told you about, Draco.” Pansy Parkinson had sidled up besides Malfoy, practically entwining herself up his side like a snake. “She doesn’t even call herself Lestrange, isn’t that absurd?”

Oliver stepped forward boldly. “Didn’t we tell you to leave us alone?”

Pansy smirked. “I don’t remember saying a word to you , you common—”

Someone shrieked. Lilith jumped, along with several others, and then she saw them. Around a dozen pale, cloudy people, simply drifting through the stone walls, mere imprints upon the air. Everyone gazed up at them at once, wearing expressions that ranged from awe to curiosity to horror, pulling attention blissfully away from Pansy Parkinson and whatever awful thing she was about to say to Oliver. 

“What are those?” Oliver gasped. He was one of the ones wearing a horrified expression on his face. 

“The Hogwarts ghosts,” Cordelia supplied. “There’s quite a large community in residence here.”

One of the ghosts smiled down at them. He wore an elaborate velvet doublet, with a massive ruff around his neck. 

“New students,” he said merrily. “About to be sorted, I presume?”

Several people mumbled and nodded assent. 

“Splendid! Hope to see you in Gryffindor; my old house, you know! Ah, Lady Helena, good evening!”

The ghost with ruff drifted off to sweep a courtly bow to the ghost of a young woman with long, flowing hair. 

“G–g–ghosts,” Oliver stammered. He looked completely in over his head. “That’s it. I’d like to go home now.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry, dearie.” The ghost of a plump little witch had materialized right next to them. She had a warm, kindly face, but that didn’t stop Oliver from jumping halfway out of his skin. “We wouldn’t dream of getting into any of that dreadful haunting mischief that your Muggle folks told you stories about.”

“My Muggle folks—how did you know my parents are Muggles?”

“Dearie, after three hundred and seventy-six years of seeing students come and go, I’ve gotten pretty good at telling the difference.” The ghost chuckled. “I’m Marilotte Morgan, at your service.”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Morgan,” Oliver replied, trying to be polite, but clearly still shell-shocked. 

“Call me Lottie, my darlings. And if you have—”

A loud, rude noise like a violently deflating balloon ripped through the chamber. Bobbing above their heads was a very short, squat ghost with a hooked nose and pointed shoes. He wore a suit of gaudy, pinstriped robes and his smile appeared stretched, like he had too many teeth in his mouth. 

“Oh, dear,” the ghost beside them said. “We told him not to do this.”

“Who’s that?” Cordelia asked. 

“Peeves the Poltergeist,” Lottie sighed. 

Peeves the Poltergeist was bouncing up and down in midair, leering down at them. You could tell that he was working up mischief in his head. 

“Ickle firsties!” he cried. “What fun!”

He divebombed them, swooping low enough to scrape through a couple of heads. Several people screamed as Peeves cackled with laughter. 

“PEEVES!” 

The ghost with the ruff was back, glaring furiously at Peeves.

“Leave them alone at once!” he thundered. “We’ve been telling you for centuries, it’s cruel to—”

“Just having a bit of fun, Nick,” Peeves replied sweetly. “Such easy pickings—”

“ No , Peeves. If you continue, I’ll have to go to Professor Dumbledore.”

Peeves only grinned and started doing cartwheels around Nick’s head. 

“Ooooh, I’m sooooo scared. Whatever will I doooooo?”

The doors opened behind them and Peeves stopped at once. Professor McGonagall had returned. The whispers and mumblings of the first-years died away instantly as she commanded their attention once again. She had the incredible ability to silence a large group with a single look. 

“We are ready for you now. Follow me, please.”

They all fell into line behind her. The doors swung open heavily and Lilith let out an audible gasp.

The Great Hall was huge, torchlight casting a golden sheen over the long wooden tables, which had silken banners of green, blue, red, and yellow hanging over them. The ornately carved walls, columns, and vaulted ceiling seemed to disappear into an inky sea of stars, twinkling and glowing down at them. Lit candles floated in midair beneath the stars, bobbing gently up and down, throwing flickering shadows and beams of light down upon tables and faces. 

It was, to put it simply, magical. 

The first-years followed Professor McGonagall down the center of the hall, up to the teachers’ table. Hundreds of pairs of eyes followed them carefully as they went along, all of the older students examining them curiously. 

Professor McGonagall turned to face them once they reached the front, right in front of where all the teachers were assembled. Before them was a tall stool, and atop it, a leathery wizard’s hat. It looked as though it had been around for ages, patchworked and mended time and time again, with a layer of dust coated over its brim. 

“Now,” Professor McGonagall said. “When I call your name, you will come forward, I will place the Sorting Hat on your head, and you will be sorted into your houses.”

She unrolled a scroll of parchment and read aloud. 

“Abbott, Hannah!”

A girl with pigtails shakily stepped forward, looking mortified at having to go first. She sat down and Professor McGonagall placed the Sorting Hat upon her head, where its brim dropped down below her eyes. 

For a moment nothing happened. Then the hat’s brim split wide open, like a mouth, and it shouted out:

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

The table underneath the yellow hangings burst into applause and Hannah ran off to join them, grinning happily. 

Gideon Aberdeen became a Hufflepuff too, and then Professor McGonagall called out:

“Atwood, Oliver!”

Oliver’s mouth was set in a tight line. He scrunched his hair once before stepping forward. The hat sat on his head for a long moment, like it was deciding something and then—

“SLYTHERIN!”

“What ?” Cordelia hissed, as the Slytherin table cheered. 

Lilith could only gape as Oliver stumbled off the stool and took a seat with the Slytherins. He looked a little shell-shocked, but he held his head high with something that could have been pride. 

“I can’t believe it,” Cordelia went on. “He seemed like such a good egg!”

The list of names went on, and more people were sorted into their houses. Millicent Bulstrode and Daphne Greengrass from the train became Slytherins too. The girl with bushy hair, whose name turned out to be Hermione Granger, became a Gryffindor, and then Cordelia was called. 

“See you in a minute,” she whispered to Lilith. Giving her hand a squeeze, she stepped up to the stool.

Professor McGonagall placed the Sorting Hat on Cordelia’s head. It only sat there for a second before calling out:

“RAVENCLAW!”

Cordelia’s face broke into a brilliant smile; she’d gotten her dream come true. Lilith watched her run off to join the cheering Ravenclaws, and felt a pang in her stomach.

For as long as they’d been friends, which had been a very long time, Cordelia had talked about the two of them being in Ravenclaw together. That had always been the plan, them and their wit beyond measure against the world. But Lilith wasn’t so sure anymore. She tugged on a bit of dry skin on her chin, trying to do anything to distract herself. She couldn’t bring herself to look over at the Ravenclaw table, where Cordelia was sure to be waiting expectantly, saving a seat for her. 

“Malfoy, Draco!”

He sauntered up to the Sorting Hat, and Lilith watched him with detest in her eyes. He had been unpleasant back in the entrance hall, but as he smirked out at all of them like he owned the place, she decided she hated him even more. The pure confidence on his face as the hat was placed on his face was infuriating; it was everything she wasn’t. 

“SLYTHERIN!”

No surprises there. 

There were only a few of them left now. Pansy Parkinson was made a Slytherin too, as expected, and then—

“Potter, Harry!”

The Great Hall went absolutely silent. There was a moment of rustling as the entire school craned their necks to get a glimpse of the boy that everyone had been whispering about on the train. All of them had heard the story time and time again as children. 

The Boy Who Lived was legend by this point. 

Harry Potter turned out to be a small, skinny boy, all sharp elbows and knees. His hair was jet black and stood out every which-way; green eyes glinting out at all of them from behind broken glasses. He looked like he wanted to vanish on the spot, like he didn’t understand why they were all staring at him. 

The Sorting Hat sat on Harry Potter’s head for the longest time yet; he looked petrified underneath its wide brim. Lilith was starting to think that he would never be sorted at all when the hat yelled out: 

“GRYFFINDOR!” 

The Gryffindor table erupted into cheers, applause, and wild laughter, jumping up and down and clapping with glee. They had all gone feral with joy; two redheaded twins were chanting, “WE GOT POTTER, WE GOT POTTER!” and several of the prefects had leapt to their feet to welcome Harry Potter personally, who, in the deafening cacophony, had stumbled down from the front and joined the Gryffindors. He looked incredibly relieved. 

It took several minutes for the teachers to quiet everyone down. Once the chaos had settled, Alice Runcorn joined the Gryffindors as well, and then Professor McGonagall said:

“Scamander, Lilith!”

Lilith felt her feet move before her mind registered it, walking upward as though she was in a trance. There was sweat pooling her palms and the back of her neck felt clammy. Somehow, she took a seat on the stool, facing all the students in the hall, feeling all of their eyes burning into her. Then Professor McGonagall placed the Sorting Hat on her head and she was enveloped in darkness. It smelled vaguely like mothballs inside the hat and suddenly there was a little voice whispering into her ear.

Interesting, interesting. Aren’t you rather two-sided?

Two-sided? Lilith thought incredulously. 

Mmm, that’s what I said. So conflicted… I see plenty of wit and cleverness, yes… A good creative mind, there’s no doubt about that. Perhaps Ravenclaw… Ah, isn’t that curious?

What’s curious? she demanded.

I don’t think Ravenclaw’s the place for you… no, you’re far too cunning for it… and you don’t seem to want it.

I do want it!

Are you quite sure? You want to be something more, you crave to do great things, I can see that, right there in your head. Such ambition… and you crave belonging, you crave friends, real friends, it’s like a hunger isn't it? Ahhh, I think you know what I mean…

She did know. She knew exactly what the hat was telling her, even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it. It was a terrifying realization, but it made her feel lighter around the shoulders. Like she wasn’t pretending anymore. 

You’re a dreamer, you are. Stubborn, even if you won’t admit it. Most of your lot never do. You’ll fit right in, you’ll discover your true purpose, among your true friends, in—

“SLYTHERIN!” 

Chapter Text

“GRYFFINDOR!”

Sirius’ insides turned to ice. For a split second, he thought that he’d heard the Sorting Hat wrong. It couldn’t be possible that he was in Gryffindor. He was a Black, for Merlin’s sake. The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black had always been in Slytherin, every single one of them, since the very beginning of their family. For centuries, the children of the House of Black had been in Slytherin, rubbing elbows and forging alliances with all of the most illustrious and pureblood wizarding families. It wasn’t even an expectation anymore, it was just the assumed outcome. 

“Make us proud, Sirius,” Walburga Black had said stiffly, back at the platform. “Our family is depending on you to….”

He hadn’t really been paying attention. Platform Nine and Three Quarters was far more interesting than his mother’s lecture. Besides, he’d heard some iteration of it about a thousand times in his eleven years and he could probably recreate it in his sleep at this point. 

Everything around him was so alive and colorful, nothing at all like the subdued, somber formalities that he’d been surrounded by his entire life. Sirius had liked it immediately, relished in the energy, chaos, and excitement of hooting owls and laughing friends, set against the brilliant, scarlet train. It seemed like his savior, ready to carry him away and out of the reach of his parents. 

“Sirius!” Walburga had shrieked. “Pay attention! Did you even hear a word I said?”

“Listen to your mother, young man.” Orion Black slapped the back of his shoulder; Sirius winced, but didn’t cry out. Regulus was watching, his eyes wide. 

“I’m sorry, Mother. I’m sorry, Father.”

Walburga looked annoyed. “You would do well to remember that the fate of House Black rests on your shoulders. Honor and blood are everything. Do not disappoint us.”

Well, it was a little late for that.

Sirius had to keep reminding himself that his parents weren’t there, that they couldn’t touch him here, as Professor McGonagall pulled the Sorting Hat off his head. His legs felt like lead and he stumbled a little, heading for the Gryffindor table.

He didn’t really hear the Gryffindors cheering for him until he sat down, sinking into his seat like gravity had crushed him. All around him were smiling, friendly faces. One of the older students, a tall, black boy with a gold earring and a prefect badge, reached across the table to shake his hand. 

“Welcome to Gryffindor, mate!” he beamed. 

“Th–thanks!” Sirius managed to stutter out. 

He couldn’t bring himself to look over at the Slytherin table, where his cousins were sure to be glaring daggers at him for betraying the family. He wondered which of them would send the narcing owl to his parents. Probably not Andromeda. She had always been the mother hen of the group, but she’d been “going wild” recently, according to his mother. Bella would most likely yell at him and make his life a living hell, while Cissy would scold him and hold him in contempt for the rest of his life. 

He tried really hard not to think about that.

Professor McGonagall kept calling out more names, and as she did, more first-years were sorted into their houses. They all seemed so eager, so excited to Sirius’ eyes. He doubted that any of them had family honor to uphold, that any of them had parents that would call them blood traitors just for being sorted into the wrong house and lock them in the cupboard when they spoke out of turn. Recently, his mother had decided that the cupboard wasn’t cutting it anymore and had taken to using Diffindo on his ankles whenever he was particularly bad. She always healed the painfully precise slash marks straightaway, but the marks ached for days afterwards, burning with shame, disgustingly slimy in his skin. 

“Evans, Lily!”

“GRYFFINDOR!”

Eager for a distraction, Sirius watched as the redheaded girl that James had been fawning over on the train hurried over to the table, beaming from ear to ear. She sank into a seat opposite from him, looking besotted with happiness. 

“Hi!” she said. “I’m Lily! You’re Sirius, right? From the train?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” He couldn’t hide the misery in his voice. 

“Are you alright? You look worried?”

“I’m not worried!” he said hotly. “I’m just… I…. my parents aren’t gonna be pleased.”

“That’s silly! I’m sure they’ll be proud of you.”

She seemed blissfully unaware. 

“You’d change your mind if you met them.”

“Lupin, Remus!”

“GRYFFINDOR!”

“Oh, I met him!” Lily said, craning her neck to watch him. “He’s really nice. Shame he didn’t want to join me and Sev in our compartment.”

Personally, Sirius was glad that Remus hadn’t gone with Lily and this Sev person. He wouldn’t have met him otherwise. He was really nice, if a bit quiet. There was something else about him too, that Sirius couldn’t quite put his finger on. 

It was mysterious and he wanted to know what it was.

“Remus! Over here!” Lily called out.

He made his way over to them, looking dazed. Remus was a tall, gangly sort of boy, robes hanging loosely off his frame, his brown hair glinting gold under the candlelight. He looked like he’d gotten into some sort of accident as a child; he had a long, jagged scar running diagonally across his freckled face and neck, disappearing down his collar. 

“Hey,” he said, taking the seat directly across from Sirius. “Blimey, I wasn’t expecting that.”

“What do you mean?” 

“I dunno, my mum always said I’d end up like my dad. He was in Ravenclaw.”

Sirius wrinkled his nose. “You really wanted to be in Ravenclaw? All they do is study. It’s sad!”

“That can’t possibly be true.” 

“Isn’t it? They’re obsessed with learning and grades and—”

“Pettigrew, Peter!”

“GRYFFINDOR!”

“Potter, James!”

“GRYFFINDOR!”

That had been expected. James and Peter joined them in a heartbeat, both grinning from ear to ear.

“Hiya!” James said. “Fancy seeing you all here!”

He had such a warm, magnetic presence; he felt like home in a way that was hard to describe: fuzzy, safe, and a little rugged around the edges. Sirius basked in it as James plunked down next to him. 

“See Sirius?” he said. “I told you you’d get Gryffindor!”

“How did you know?”

“I predicted it.” James puffed out his chest. “Saw into the future, mate.”

Sirius snorted. “You’re full of troll worms.”

“Maybe that’s my secret weapon.”

“Gross!”

“Snape, Severus!” Professor McGonagall called out.

“Oh, shut up, it’s Sev’s turn!” Lily hissed.

“He’s a friend of yours?” Peter asked.

Lily nodded, watching as a sallow-faced boy with lanky black hair stepped up to be sorted. He looked rather greasy to Sirius, like he hadn’t ever learned how to bathe properly. And there was something about his hooked nose that made him look incredibly untrustworthy; Sirius had seen it before, in some of his more unpleasant relatives. 

“SLYTHERIN!”

Lily’s face fell. “Oh no!”

Good riddance , Sirius thought, as the unpleasant Snape joined the unpleasant Slytherins. 

“Why is he making that face?” James blurted out. 

“What face?” Remus asked.

“It looks like he’s got something foul under his nose,” James said. 

“No he doesn’t!” Lily said hotly. 

“He looks kind of… snivelly,” Sirius decided.

“That’s a very rude thing to say,” she said. “You don’t even know him.”

“He’s in Slytherin, that’s all I need to know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They’re all slimy gits. Trust me, my whole family’s like that.”

“It’s probably for the best,” James said wisely. “Let old Snivelly Snape have fun with his Slytherins. You can have fun with us.”

But Lily only glared at him, her brows knitted in a wicked scowl. Her brilliant hair made it look like her head was on fire. 

“You are the meanest boy I’ve ever met, James Potter,” she said fiercely. “And I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

She turned around haughtily and struck up a conversation with another new Gryffindor girl, Mary MacDonald. 

“Oh, come on Evans,” James wheedled, with the same stupid doe eyes that he’d worn on the train. “It was just a bit of fun.”

But Lily pointedly ignored him. 

Sirius chuckled. “Nice going, mate.”

James scowled. “Can it, Black.”

“Way to go, lover boy,” Remus added.

Peter laughed and James harumphed.

“Not you too!”

But he was laughing too, and within moments, lover boy James Potter had forgotten all about Lily Evans. 

At least for a few hours.

Before long, all the other first-years had been sorted. Professor Dumbledore, with his long, white beard, twinkling, half-moon spectacles, and robes of shocking purples, got up and welcomed them all, dispensing a few start-of-term reminders, like not using magic between classes and staying out of the Forbidden Forest (“But why is it forbidden?” James whispered.) Then he spread his arms wide and the feast began, filling the golden platters before them. Wonderful smells filled the air: roast chicken and potatoes, gravy, buttered bread, and a hundred other delicious things. Pumpkin juice sparkled like amber in the goblets, and soon, the sounds of clattering forks and knives mingled with the chatter of conversation. 

Sirius didn’t really register what the four of them were talking about. The conversation shifted from Quidditch to their families to what they had done over the summer to what they were most looking forward to. Apparently Remus wanted to learn all of the secrets of the castle, Peter wanted to make as many friends as possible, and James was determined to defy the school rules and join the Gryffindor Quidditch team as a first-year. 

“But that’s never going to happen!” Peter said. “My older sisters said that never happens.”

“Well, I’m gonna be the first!” James said confidently. “Just think—Potter: youngest Quidditch player in a century.”

“It has a nice ring to it,” Sirius mused.

“Keep dreaming,” Remus said. 

“It’ll happen!”

“Yeah right, and we’ll all have Orders of Merlin by the time we’re twenty.”

“That’d be bloody brilliant!”

Remus shook his head. “Don’t you know sarcasm when you hear it?”

“Nope! What about you Sirius?”

“Er… I dunno.”

He hadn’t actually thought about it. He’d been so worried about everything that had been leading up to this moment, to arriving at Hogwarts and being sorted, that he hadn’t even had time to consider what he was going to get up to for the next seven years. He’d be learning and going to classes, he supposed, but what else? What pursuits would get him out of bed in the morning? What would he hope and dream for?

Learning all the secrets of the castle sounded fun, and of course he wanted to make lots of friends, and he definitely would give the Quidditch team a shot, but what else? What was his thing? What would Sirius Black do at Hogwarts?

“What d’you mean, ‘I dunno’?” James asked.

“I dunno,” he said. “I guess… I want to make some trouble.”

“Trouble?” Peter asked. 

“Not like, breaking rules all the time,” Sirius said. “But I want to have some fun, make people laugh, make some mischief. That sort of thing.”

He was a little worried about how they’d react, especially since he’d sort of pulled that straight out of his arse. 

But three faces grinned at him, like it was the best idea they’d ever heard. 

“That,” James said. “Is a capital idea! The Four Troublemakers have arrived at Hogwarts!”

Remus groaned. “We are not calling ourselves that.”

He and James began to squabble over what the group would be called, but Sirius couldn’t care less. A heady, buzzy sort of feeling was radiating from his cheeks and ears. He didn't have a clue what it was, but it felt as though he’d just been inducted into a brotherhood. 

It felt like the greatest secret club in history. 

…….

The feast left them all full and sleepy. Sirius felt like there was a bag of wet cement where his stomach should be. His legs and eyelids felt just as heavy, wishing desperately for a good, long sleep. 

The prefect with the earring, whose name turned out to be Kingsley Shacklebolt, herded the first-years from the Great Hall, explaining various things to them as they went. He led them into the belly of the castle, where the stone walls were lined with hundreds of moving paintings and flickering torches. 

“You’ve got to remember to keep an eye on the staircases,” Kingsley told them, gesturing at the maze of stairs around them. “They like to change and they don’t care if they make you late for class or not.”

He then loaded all of them onto a wide staircase that promptly rotated ninety degrees to carry them to a landing before a large portrait of a voluptuous woman in a silk dress. 

“Password?” she asked. 

“ Pars temporis poetarum ,” Kingsley said to her.

The Fat Lady nodded approvingly and her portrait swung open as if on hinges. All the new Gryffindors clambered inside and through a short entryway.

“Welcome to the Gryffindor common room,” Kingsley said.

It was wonderful . Sirius had no other words to describe it. It was just that perfect. The stone walls and floors were covered in rich scarlet and gold tapestries and rugs; squashy armchairs and sofas populated the space. There were bookcases and low tables, and several fireplaces, where merry flames were roaring and crackling. Everything was curved and rounded; they must have been up in one of the towers; and everything felt just a little bit worn and a little bit shabby, but it was perfect and lived in. 

It felt like home in a way that Sirius had never felt before, warm and safe and wonderful.

He felt like he could finally breathe. 

Kingsley showed them the way up to their dormitories, and Sirius, Remus, James, and Peter found their room right away. It was small and round, with four four-poster beds hung with red velvet curtains. Their belongings were already unpacked into the closets and dressers, and the lamps had been turned down low, glowing softly golden. It was dark outside the diamond-shaped windows, but Sirius imagined that, by day, they would have stunning views of the grounds and forest. It made him feel like a bird, floating high among the clouds. 

They were all much too sleepy and full from the feast to say very much. Sluggishly, they changed into their nightclothes and got ready for bed. Remus, however, pulled the curtains around his bed before changing and came back out to brush his teeth in green and yellow striped pyjamas. If he hadn’t been so weighed down by roast chicken and pumpkin pie and sleepiness, Sirius would have thought it strange. 

Sirius all but dove into his bed, between James on his right and Remus on his left. It felt like a warm cloud, all soft pillows and heavy, weighted blankets that hugged him all over, like the feeling of being hugged by a mother that might have been a distant memory or just an invention of his own imagination. 

“Sleep tight, Troublemakers!” James said, sing-song from his bed. 

“James, I told you, we’re not calling ourselves that!” Remus said, voice muffled underneath the blankets. 

Sirius laughed. Peter was already snoring. 

“Whatever. We’ll think of something.”

James rolled over and didn’t say anything else. He was asleep before long, but Sirius and Remus stayed awake a little while longer.

“Hey, Remus?” Sirius whispered.

“Yeah?”

“We don’t have to be troublemakers if you don’t want to. I don’t want any of you to end up in hot water with the teachers.”

“That’s okay,” Remus said slowly. “I actually think it sounds like fun.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’d really like to make some trouble.”

Remus had rolled over in bed to face him, and there was a mischievous glint in his eyes that Sirius hadn’t seen before. It was bright and clever and utterly devious. 

“Good,” Sirius replied. “Cause I’m gonna need a partner-in-crime. Someone maybe a little more reliable than James.”

Remus grinned at him and Sirius felt himself grinning back.

“Happy to oblige.”

“We have to think of a better name.”

“Definitely. We will.”

Sirius rolled over fitfully on his thin mattress, his limbs drawn up to his chest, desperate for any bit of warmth he could muster. It was cold, so, so cold. The wind kept howling, pushing sleep farther and farther away from him. 

The dementors were prowling outside, feeding off of their prisoners’ dreams. Sirius whimpered when one of them drifted by outside his cell. He couldn’t help it. He just wanted them gone. Couldn’t he get one night of sleep? Just one? He was so, so tired, down to his bones. The tiredness was in his soul at this point, drowning him from the inside out. 

He rolled over again and hugged himself tighter. He tried to imagine that he was up in the Gryffindor Tower, in his comfortable four-poster bed, with his friends surrounding him. He tried to imagine being surrounded by warmth and softness and familiarity. He had always felt like he was floating among the clouds in the dormitory, drifting off to sleep high above the ground, where no one could touch him, not his parents, not the pureblood fanatics, no one. He had been safe up there, tucked up in the sky.

Sirius tried to imagine it. 

Chapter Text

The world seemed to blur around Lilith as Professor McGonagall lifted the Sorting Hat off her head, the colors melting before her eyes. She felt rather floaty as she stepped down, like her footsteps were lighter than air, or a string was pulling her up from the top of her head. 

She supposed it was relief, in that she didn’t have to lie to herself anymore.

The sea of green that was the Slytherin table was clapping for her as she made her way over to them. Just like before, when she’d first stepped up to the Sorting Hat, she felt countless pairs of eyes burning into her. But these eyes felt different; they were sharper, cleverer, more scrutinizing, like they were mapping every single detail around them. 

“Lilith! Over here!”

Oliver was gesturing to a seat beside him and Lilith hurried over gratefully. She had absolutely no desire to get chummy with Draco Malfoy or Pansy Parkinson or any of their cronies. 

“Hi!” she said to him, rather breathlessly and in a higher octave than she would have liked. 

“Hi!” he said back cheerily. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

“Oh, you know,” she said, trying to make a joke. “Some hat just told me to join Slytherin.”

“Funny. The same thing happened to me a second ago.”

Oliver shook his head in disbelief. “I thought for sure that you’d be in Ravenclaw with Cordelia. You two seemed to be sharing brainwaves.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind.”

Lilith snuck a look over her shoulder at the Ravenclaw table, just beyond the heads of the Gryffindors. Cordelia had her back to her, deep in conversation with the newly sorted Lisa Turpin and the black-haired girl who’d shared their boat. She’d already joined a new group, sunken right into it like she’d always been there.

Lilith felt a pang in her stomach. It was like Cordelia had forgotten she existed. 

She hadn’t even glanced Lilith’s way, by the looks of it; she had ignored her altogether. It was as if there was a wall built between the Slytherin table and the rest of the school; nobody else seemed to be looking their way. 

The Slytherins didn’t seem to mind, though. As Lilith looked up and down the table, the older Slytherins had their heads held high, like they didn’t concern themselves with the rabble. She tried it, holding her chin up and looking around disdainfully. It didn’t really work, but it made her feel removed and detached, and that was better than nothing. 

The Sorting Ceremony quickly wound to a close. Ronald Weasley became a Gryffindor, Emerentia Whittle and Blaise Zabini became Slytherins, and then everyone had been sorted, neatly distributed to their respective tables. Professor Dumbledore stood, smiling merrily at all of them. 

“Welcome to another year at Hogwarts!” he said, with all of the eccentricities of a famous wizard and somebody’s crazy grandfather. “I know that you are eager to sink your teeth into a sumptuous feast, but first, there are a few start-of-term reminders I wish to announce. Firstly, our first-years should note that the Forbidden Forest is strictly off-limits. A few of our older students would do well to remember this also. Our caretaker, Mr. Filch, has asked me to remind you that magic is not to be used in the corridors between classes. And lastly, this year, the third-floor corridor is strictly forbidden to all those who do not wish to die a most painful death.”

That last comment hung awkwardly between all of them. None of them were too sure of what to make of it. A few people laughed nervously, while others exchanged puzzled looks with their friends. 

“Is he being serious?” Oliver whispered.

“No idea.”

Across from her, Draco Malfoy snorted disdainfully at Dumbledore’s words.

“What an old quack,” he said to the two boys flanking him, both of whom looked awfully like troll bodyguards. “He used to be great, of course, but Father says he’s getting rather batty in his age and—”

“Oh, come off it, Malfoy.” Emerentia Whittle, who had taken a seat on Lilith’s other side, was shaking her head. “He’s just as brilliant as he ever was.” She lifted her chin authoritatively. “My mum works with him on the Wizengamot and she says he’s not stopping anytime soon. Your father doesn’t know his cloak from his carpet.”

Malfoy could only gape at her, sputtering like a grindylow out of water. Lilith let out an unseemly snort at how ridiculous he looked. He glared daggers at her for laughing at him, before turning back to his little fanclub.

Dumbledore had finished his announcements, and with a twinkle in his eye, announced to the Great Hall:

“Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak! Thank you!”

And in the blink of an eye, the tables blossomed with food. The golden platters and tureens, which had sat empty and sparkling only moments ago, were suddenly laden with banquet foods of sumptuous proportions. Piping hot steam curled into the air, the scents of rosemary, garlic, apples, and butter wafting deliciously into every nose. 

“Wow!” 

Oliver’s eyes were as wide as saucers. Lilith laughed a little; it must be so mind-boggling to see magic like this for the first time, even if it was only something like a simple conjuring charm. She imagined it was like cracking open a book and finding a whole new world within its pages that you never could have imagined. 

They all began to load their plates. Lilith’s ravenous hunger, which she’d completely forgotten about in the panic of the Sorting Ceremony, had returned with a vengeance. 

“Could you pass the pumpkin juice, please?” Emerentia said from Lilith’s right hand side. 

“Sure.” She passed over the crystal decanter. “Nice—what you said to Malfoy, by the way.”

“He deserved it.”

“Absolutely.” 

They grinned at each other. Emerentia was a lot friendlier in her aura than most of the other Slytherins around them; her cloud of curly hair and wide brown eyes evoked an enveloping warmth and easiness. Lilith liked her at once.

“I’m Lilith Scamander,” she said.

“Hi! You can call me Em—everyone does, and besides, Emerentia’s my grandmother’s name; it’s rather old-fashioned.”

She said all of this very hurriedly, in one breath, like she had been introducing herself like this her entire life and wanted to get it out of the way as quickly as possible.

“Nice to meet you, Em,” Lilith replied. “Oh, this is Oliver. We met on the train.”

Oliver swallowed a mouthful of steak. “Hullo!” 

Em grinned heartily back at both of them. 

“I have to say, it’s nice to find people that will actually talk to me,” she said. “Seems like everyone’s already found their little groups.”

“What d’you mean?” Oliver asked.

“I mean—just look.” Em gestured around with her fork.

It was true. The Slytherin first-years around them had already splintered off into smaller cliques. Pansy had gathered up all the other girls, and they sat picking over the feast like dainty vultures and engaging in gossip of probably the most despicable proportions. Meanwhile, the boys had all flocked to Malfoy; he seemed pretty pleased about it, smirking out at them like he’d been declared king. 

“That’s odd,” Oliver said. “You’d think everyone would want to make new friends.”

“They probably all know each other already,” Lilith said. “These old families—they’ve all been friends for ages. Centuries, even.”

Oliver paled a little bit. “So… all of these kids come from pureblood families? Like the ones you were telling me about on the train?”

“Probably.”

“Or they’re pretending to be,” Em added.

“But are they all gonna hate me?” Oliver blurted out. “Lilith, you said that these people hate Muggleborns. Like me!”

Lilith sputtered a little bit, stirring her mashed potatoes around and around on her plate. “I did… they might… I dunno?”

“It might be a good idea to keep your family hush-hush,” Em suggested. “At least for a while, anyway.”  

“They’re gonna know anyway,” Oliver said forlornly. “I have a rucksack from ASDA. There’s a Manchester United poster in my trunk. I don’t know anything about wizards or Quidd-litch or—”

“It’s Quidditch!”

“Yeah, alright, Quidditch. Point is: Draco Malfoy’s gonna be able to tell that I’m a Muggleborn.”

Em chewed thoughtfully. “We can teach you things.”

Oliver wrinkled his nose doubtfully. “There’s no way that you’ll be able to teach me eleven years’ worth of magical knowledge.”

“No…” Lilith said. “But we can tell you about Quidditch and magical creatures and Diagon Alley and the Weird Sisters—”

“You like the Weird Sisters?” Em exclaimed. 

“Yes! I’ve been listening to a lot of Fairley Haven and the Bewitchers lately, but who doesn’t love the Weird Sisters?”

“What’s your favorite song?”

“Windy Whispers,” Lilith said automatically.

“Oh, from My Burning Broomstick! I love that album!”

“Erm, who are the Weird Sisters?” Oliver asked. 

“Only the best wizarding band of all time!” Em squealed. 

“They’re the greatest hex-rock sensation of the century!” Lilith added. 

The two of them launched into an intensive explanation of the most popular band in the wizarding community; telling Oliver all about the group’s history, members, and songs. By the time the puddings had appeared on their plates, he could tell you Donaghan Tremlett’s favorite color, Myron Wagtail’s poetry muse, the importance of bagpipes, and why Lovespelled Fool was really a secret break-up album. 

“You have to listen to them though,” Lilith said, spooning pie onto her plate. “I have the records at home, but my little sister wouldn’t let me take them.”

“I brought mine,” Em said. “We’ll get you up to speed in no time.”

“Excellent!” Lilith said. “We’ll have a Weird Sisters party.”

Oliver laughed. “You two are bonkers.”

“Are not!”

“Get bent!”

“Ok, ok, ok!” Oliver held up his hands in surrender, but not for long; his toffee pudding was evidently too delicious to leave alone. “So, we’ve been over wizarding music. Tell me about Quidditch.”

Lilith had always considered herself a Quidditch enthusiast, but Em blew her right out of the water. It was as if she’d memorized every game in the last fifty years, play-by-play, detail-by-detail. She could recite the legendary Ireland vs. Singapore Championship of ‘57 exactly as it happened, even the iconic, explosive argument between Seekers Agnes Galloway and Xiao Mei Tan over feinting penalties, word-for-word. It was incredible. 

Em was just taking Oliver through the logistical points of the game, like scoring rules and Chaster strategies, when Malfoy decided to poke his pointy nose into their business.

“And every time the Chasers pass the Quaffle—”

“Hoping to join the reserve team, Whittle?” Malfoy said. “You’d better—”

“Did we ask you, Malfoy?” Lilith said in annoyance. “Or are you not capable of letting other people finish conversations in peace?”

“You’ve got some nerve talking to me like that! Don’t you know who my father is?”

“I do, actually. He’s a pompous prick.”

Malfoy went pink with indignance, but before he could reply, Dumbledore stood again and a hush automatically fell over the hall. Lilith tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but his words seemed to be buzzing in one ear and right out of the other. She was just so annoyed; it was burning persistently in her nerves. 

She didn’t know why Malfoy was getting under her skin like this, especially when she had so many other things to worry about. Being in Slytherin, for instance, the possibility that Cordelia might never talk to her again, and everything that came with both of those two. 

After delivering his remarks, Dumbledore dismissed them all to bed. They got up from the tables with a great clattering and scraping of benches. Two of the Slytherin prefects, a tall boy and girl, made their way over to the cluster of first-years.

“First-years, over here!” the girl called out, her voice full of authority. “My name is Juliet Rookwood and this is Malakai Shafiq. We’ll show you the way to the Slytherin common room.”

Juliet led them out of the Great Hall at a quick pace, her heels clicking loud and sharp against the stone floors. She seemed to relish in the power that her position gave her; Malakai, on the other hand, was lazily ushering them along, barely seeming to care that he was a prefect. A few of his friends, older boys with equal lazy arrogance on their faces, trailed after him, grinning and joking. 

The crowds of students thinned out as they moved away from the Great Hall. The Gryffindors and Ravenclaws peeled away to climb staircases into towers, while the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins continued along a pillared stretch of corridor. Eventually, they came to a set of stairs leading downwards: the Hufflepuffs descended one way and the Slytherins another. 

“Where are we going?” Oliver asked.

“I’m not sure,” Em said. “The dungeons, maybe.”

They were going down very deep now; the air was becoming cold and clammy, and the stone was darker and mossier. Lilith could smell the dampness clinging to the walls and statues, cast in half-light from the flickering torches that seemed too few and far between. It was a bit frightening, but in a mysterious, almost exciting sort of way, like there were secrets hidden down there that were tantalizingly lying in wait. 

Juliet and Malakai led them up to a blank stretch of wall, oddly placed between two torches. The floor beneath their feet was mosaiced in an intricate design of glittering snakes, subtly weaving between each other. 

“Amok ambitfictor,” Juliet said confidently to the wall. She turned back to them, her long hair swishing over her shoulder. “That’s the password. Be sure to remember it.”

Several of them nodded assent, but most of them were too transfixed by what was happening behind her. A door materialized suddenly on what had been empty stone only moments ago, shining mahogany in an arched, stone frame. It swung open for them and they followed Juliet and Malakai through the threshold.

Once inside, they descended even further, down a spiraled staircase encircling a cascading waterfall that spilled into a pool dotted with lilypads and merfolk statues at the bottom. The air was damp down here, briny and minty. 

“Are we underwater?” Em asked in an awed whisper. 

She didn’t need an answer. The Slytherin common room opened up before them, a huge, vaulted room bathed in greenish light shining off of polished marble. The curved walls were set with impossibly tall windows, and beyond the stained glass, there was water, kelp, and rainbow schools of fish. 

They were beneath the Black Lake. 

Everything was big and grand. The walls were hung with rich tapestries in green, gold, and silver, luscious, leafy plants dangling from the ceiling,  the tables and bookcases were dark, shiny wood, the armchairs and sofas were plush green velvet, all with thick rugs underfoot. A huge, roaring fireplace and large, golden lamps seemed to chase away the chill of being so far underwater, casting a delicious, flickering warmth over the whole room. 

It was a palace, just for them. 

Juliet gathered all of the first-years in the center of the room. 

“Welcome to the Slytherin common room,” she said. “Girls: your dormitories are up the stairs and to the right, boys: the same on your right. Malakai will now review the common room rules.”

“Huh?” He jumped when she elbowed him in the ribs. 

“It’s your turn!” she hissed. “That’s only fair.”

Stumbling a little bit, Malakai outlined the rules, but most of the new Slytherins weren’t paying attention, too busy basking in the sight of their new home. 

Em was staring intently out the windows. 

“Do you reckon there are merfolk in the lake?”

“I think so,” Lilith replied. “I remember my Grandpa Newt saying something about a freshwater Mermish colony up here.”

“You mean there’s mermaids out there?” Oliver’s eyes were bursting out of his skull. 

“They’re not like the mermaids you’re thinking of, mate,” Lilith said. “Nothing like in Muggle fairy tales.”

They all began drifting off to bed. Lilith and Em started towards the girls’ dormitories, but Oliver stayed rooted to the spot, his face ashen with apprehension.

“I don’t want to go with them,” he said. “What if Malfoy—”

“He won’t,” Lilith said forcefully. “Just keep your head high and you’ll be fine. You’ve just as much right to be here as the rest of us.”

“Are you sure?”

“The Sorting Hat chose you,” Em reminded him. “Remind anyone of that if they say you don’t belong. Remind yourself of that too.”

Oliver looked a little nauseous, so Lilith reached out and squeezed his shoulder.

“You can do this, Oliver. I believe in you.”

She and Em were both nodding at him reassuringly. He took a deep breath, like he was steeling his nerves for battle. In an instant, he was like a new person, straightening out his posture, a determined look in his eyes. 

“Okay,” he said. “Night. See you in the morning.”

“Goodnight.”

“Sleep tight!” Em said, singsong.

Oliver actually laughed. Lilith watched him go, joining the other Slytherin boys, disappearing into a literal pit of snakes. She felt her gut twist at the pitiful sight. 

“He’ll be fine,” Em said, like she could hear Lilith’s thoughts. “As long as he doesn’t bring up being a Muggleborn, they should leave him alone.”

“But what if they find out? People like them can just be so… evil.”

“If they’re evil to him, we’ll make them suffer.”

Lilith grinned sideways at Em. “Suffering and revenge, then?”

“Most definitely.”

 It was like they were thinking along the exact same lines, laughing and sharing opinions so easily. It was almost like having Cordelia back, or at least a friend like that. When Lilith had stepped down after being sorted, she’d been so afraid that she would never find that same sense of ease and familiarity again, that she would be left alone and adrift in a vast sea of scheming, snooty Slytherins. But with Em and Oliver, she felt less afraid of being alone. 

The vast sea felt far less vast.

She and Em went up the stairs that led to the dormitories, and turned right, leading to a long, circular hallway that felt a bit like a drainpipe. Little circular windows let in undulating green light from the lake outside, illuminating their path along with flickering candles. 

They found the first-years’ dormitory easily enough, but Lilith wrinkled her nose distastefully when she remembered who they’d be rooming with. 

Pansy, Millicent, Tracey, and Daphne were already inside. The dormitory was circular, with a domed, stained glass ceiling in lieu of windows. Set against tapestries of woven forests, six four-poster beds were arranged around the perimeter, hung with luxurious green. They each had a wardrobe, dresser, table, and chair, all in the same dark, polished wood as in the common room, and their trunks and things appeared to have been sent up from the train. 

Millicent straightened up when they came in. “Oh,” she said, smirking. “Look what the giant dragged in.”

Pansy crossed her arms haughtily. “Fancy seeing you here, Lestrange.”

“Oh, for the love of Merlin,” Lilith sighed. “You saw me at supper, don’t act so surprised.”

“You’d better mind your tongue—”

“Or what?” Lilith interrupted. Pansy was getting on her nerves just like how Malfoy did, stoking the flames and urging her to fight back, almost like an unconscious impulse, biting and snapping at her temper. “You’ll invoke your pureblood name? By your logic, mine is worth more than yours.”

It was true, and from the look on their faces, they agreed. The Lestrange family had a lot more weight among the Sacred Twenty-Eight than the Parkinsons, Bulstrodes, Davises, and Greengrasses combined. Pansy looked especially livid, but she didn’t say anything. 

“Look,” Em cut in. “We’ve all got to live together, so how about we all leave each other alone?”

The four glared across at them. For a moment, they looked as though they might fight back, but Lilith only had to narrow her eyebrows and lift her chin like she was royalty, and they turned back to unpacking their things, haughty, but defeated. 

The Lestrange name certainly had its benefits. 

Flaunting it made her feel a little slimy, though. 

Before she could sink deeper into any self-destructive thoughts, Em tugged on her arm. 

“Come on, it’s late. Let’s get ready for bed, shall we?”

Their beds were next to each other, mercifully on the opposite side of Pansy and Millicent. The house elves had already unpacked their clothes and books, and so Lilith pulled out her more personal items: family pictures, posters, her glowglobe, and the potted myrtlevine plant that Grandma Tina had given her as a parting gift. It looked nice next to the lamp on her bedside table, fluttering gently of its own accord and giving off a lovely scent of tea and dewdrops. 

Em was busy tacking up her Quidditch posters on the wall, stepping back every so often to survey her handiwork with an artistic eye.

“That looks better, doesn’t it? Feels homey.”

“Mmhm,” Lilith replied. 

She was feeling very full and sleepy now, the weight of the rich feast hitting her like a ton of bricks. The others were changing into their nightclothes. Lilith hesitated. 

Her shoulder burned a little bit, tingling with shame. Pansy had already alluded to knowing too much back on the train; she couldn’t undress in front of them if she wanted to safeguard the last shreds of secrecy she had left. 

“Lilith?” Em asked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

She snatched her pyjamas out from her dresser and retreated behind the curtains of her bed, walling herself off. Only when she was out of sight of the others did she finally begin to undress.

The scars on her shoulder and torso seemed to glow annoyingly in the half light, pale and stretched across her skin. They painted an ugly picture, one of violent teeth marks and slashing claws. Whenever she looked at them, Lilith was reminded of her worst nightmares; they mocked her from within her very skin. 

She dressed quickly, relief sinking into her shoulders once the scars were once again out of sight. It was manageable when she didn’t have to see them, didn’t have to think about them.

Lilith thought the others might question her when she emerged, but everyone was much too sleepy to question anything, moving around with languid, weighted motions. 

She finished getting ready for bed quickly, not sure for how much longer she could keep her eyes open. Sinking into her four-poster felt like a dream. The dormitory was small enough that the single fireplace banished any dungeon clamminess and the blankets were soft and warm, enveloping Lilith like a mother’s hug. 

Suddenly she was thinking about her mum and dad and Avery, back home, in their own, familiar beds, in their familiar house. Saying goodbye to them on Platform Nine and Three Quarters seemed like ages ago, when she’d almost been a whole different person. She had to write to them, like she’d promised. What would they say, when they found out she was in Slytherin? How would they feel about her joining a house that—

“Goodnight, Lilith.”

“Goodnight, Em.” She didn’t bother saying goodnight to the others. They couldn’t care less, and neither did she. 

“By the way,” Em whispered. “I’m glad that we’re in this together.”

Those simple words banished Lilith’s worries, at least for the time being. Em seemed to be one of those people who knew exactly how to put people at ease. She smiled over at her new friend, a real, genuine smile that was unafraid. 

“Me too,” Lilith whispered back.

The dormitory lights dimmed and Lilith felt sleep tugging gently at her, ready to whisk her away into dreamland. She didn’t know what lay in store the next day, but whatever was waiting for her, she’d face it with Em and Oliver, their little friendship held together by patchwork and string. To blazes with Cordelia and Malfoy and Pansy and Millicent. 

Maybe the Sorting Hat had been right.

Maybe, in Slytherin, she’d find her true friends. 

Chapter Text

The full moon was approaching. Remus could feel it under his skin, like an itch. It hadn’t gotten to the point of being feverish and painful yet, when he couldn’t escape the horrible sensation of being confined and trapped within his own body, when his insides boiled over inside him, when he wanted to tear his flesh from his bones in a mad delirium. 

No, it wasn’t like that yet. It hadn’t reached the point where he wanted to erupt out of his body yet. 

For now he was trembling and jittery, alternating from feeling too hot to too cold, back and forth and back and forth, sweat beading his neck. Remus felt the wolf prising at his seams, trying to break free from deep within his head. All of his senses felt dialed into overdrive, everything was too loud, too bright, too stifling, all at once. 

Somehow, he’d made it through work that day. That seemed like a miracle in itself, but he’d forced himself tooth and nail to get through it. Money had always been tight, but it seemed to be steadily growing worse as of late. The Ministry had been slowly making life miserable for werewolves, passing tiny, aggravating bits and bobs of legislation that made everything more difficult. His current employment wasn’t even permanent; he was doing some archival work for this wizened old warlock, Cewix Varius, who reminded Remus strongly of a disintegrating piece of parchment. What he was going to do after he finished cataloguing Varius’ entire collection of art, spellbooks, and magical artifacts, he didn’t know. 

Remus’ hands shook as he put the kettle on to boil. Currently, his body was running cold and it seemed that all the layers of socks and jumpers in the world couldn’t keep out the chill. 

He couldn’t afford to turn the heat on. Not for something like this. 

Remus shifted from foot to foot in front of the stove, trying to kick-start his blood circulation. His veins felt frozen over, even though he knew he’d probably be burning up in about fifteen minutes. 

He shouldn’t be watching the kettle. His mum always said that a watched pot never boils, but he had never listened to her. He had nothing better to do.

After what felt like an eternity, the kettle was singing. Remus fought to keep his hands steady as he poured the tea. If he broke the mug it might just be his last straw. 

Somehow, he stumbled over to the living room of his tiny flat, sinking into an armchair like a deflating balloon. It was a good thing that he made it in time, too, because his knees gave out simultaneously, buckling like someone had hit him with a Jelly-Legs jinx. And he knew exactly what that felt like; James had nailed him with a particularly good one, years and years and years ago. 

Completely on accident of course. 

Remus pulled a blanket up over his lap and clutched his mug between freezing fingers. The porcelain was just south of red-hot, smelted metal, but he didn’t care. Anything to distract him from the cold piercing into his very bones with frigid needles.

He slurped the scalding tea, trying to imagine the warmth of it slipping down his throat and permeating every part of his body. That helped a little bit, but before long Remus got hung up on the taste. It was a minty, chamomile blend that he hadn’t tried before, but it was addicting.

Somehow, it tasted like Sirius. 

Sirius had always been a little minty. It had been his shampoo, Remus remembered faintly, or his hair oil. It was probably the hair oil, he decided. Sirius had always been so vain about his self-proclaimed “long, luscious locks”. They’d spent countless hours wound around each other, with Remus’ hands in Sirius’ hair. It was soft and silky beyond belief, and always minty, mingling with his other scents of leather and starlight. 

Remus found himself missing Sirius more than usual on nights like this, when the full moon was close. The wolf seemed to miss him, keening loudly for Padfoot, his friend, his companion, his mate. It was an animalistic, primal kind of urge, to be close to him, to meld their flesh together, to drink up the scent and sight of him until there was no space between them at all. 

Bonded together forever. Unyielding. Infinite. 

Once upon a time, Remus had thought they’d had that. 

But then it had been snatched away. So cruelly, too, leaving an empty, gnawing void that had once been so full of life and love and laughter. A void that was bottomless, screaming out for—

Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t.

Remus shook his head like a spasm, forcing the prickling thoughts away. He’d downed his tea much faster than he’d meant to, and he had to put the mug down before he dropped it. Now his anchor was gone. He briefly considered going back for a second cup, but thought better of it. His legs wouldn’t have carried him all the way to the kitchen even if he tried. 

“Keep up, Remus!” 

“Sod off, Potter!”

“We are gonna be late for Transfiguration! I refuse to do that!”

“I can’t be late again!’ Peter wailed. “Four times this week already!”

“That’s your own fault!” Sirius shot back.

They were racing through the corridors at breakneck speed. At least, James and Sirius were racing at breakneck speed. Peter was huffing and puffing close behind, and Remus…

His lungs were burning. His joints were stiff and screaming in pain, his muscles felt taut and close to tearing, his skin was stretched, uncomfortable, and altogether too hot. Something was screaming inside him, trying to claw its way out. 

It was the day of the full moon.

Remus had always kept a meticulous watch over when the full moon would fall, every month, every year, for as long as he could remember. He had probably been doing it even before he’d learned to read, counting down the days between one moon and the next. He needed to know exactly when it was going to happen. It was compulsive, a craving for some semblance of control. 

But this month, he’d woken up and suddenly remembered. There had been no build-up or anticipation in the waxing days beforehand, no worming sense of dread in his stomach. He’d barely noticed his usual symptoms: the aches and pains, the fever chills, the way everything seemed to smell too strong and sound too loud. 

Remus had completely lost track of time.

James and Sirius were definitely to blame. 

They were so loud, the both of them. Always laughing, always throwing banter back and forth, always shouting out some insane new idea. Their joyous noise was infectious, overtaking Remus’ senses and thoughts. He didn’t mind being swept away by the two of them, except when he was trying to concentrate in class. 

Combine James and Sirius’ antics with the splendor of Hogwarts and the rush of learning magic for the first time, and it was the perfect storm for Remus to forget all about the upcoming moon. His head was just too full to let him think about anything else. 

But now it was all he could think about. 

His knees and ankles screamed in agony as he forced himself to hobble along after James and Sirius, both of whom were sprinting with ease. Even Peter, who wasn’t the most athletic of boys, was miles ahead of him. 

Remus skidded to a stop. He had to. He couldn’t breathe anymore. Clutching the stabbing stitches in his sides, he gasped for air. His knees felt like buckling, like the joints wanted to pop apart. 

Come on, Remus. Get up. Keep going. You have to. You have to. 

Up ahead, Sirius, James, and Peter had all stopped too.

“Come on, Remus!” James called. “What’s the hold-up?”

Remus tried to force his voice to remain steady. “Just—just catching my breath!”

“Well, get a move-on then!” James was impatient, bouncing up and down like there was too much energy running through his veins. 

“Please, please, please, Remus,” Peter pleaded. “We can’t be late, we really can’t.”

MOVE!

It took everything Remus had to stumble after them. It felt excruciating and it was only bound to get worse. 

Sirius eyed him critically. Over the last few weeks, Remus had noticed his annoying habit of surveying tiny details. Absolutely nothing escaped his notice. 

“What’re you looking at?” Remus asked defensively.

“Nothing, just—are you okay, mate?” 

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Leave off! I’m fine!”

He was trying really hard to hide his limping gait, but it was futile. There was no way that Sirius couldn’t see his legs wobbling like some wizened grandfather. 

“Okay, okay,” Sirius said. “But if you have to go to hospital, it’s no big deal.”

Remus hesitated. It was tempting. He thought of the safety of the hospital wing, the closed doors, a soft bed, something cold to drink. It was so very tempting. But—

“I’m not missing Transfiguration,” he said through gritted teeth. “C’mon. We’re gonna be late.”

He set off again, stubbornness overruling the screaming of his body. 

Professor McGonagall wasn’t pleased when the four of them burst through the classroom door just in the nick of time.

“Boys, another thirty seconds, and you’d all have been tardy. I’d hate to have to give you detention so soon in the term.”

She looked out at them rather severely from behind her square glasses. 

“Sorry, Professor,” James said. “Won’t happen again. We promise.”

McGonagall looked like she doubted that very much.

“Thank you for your sentiment, Mr. Potter,” she said drily. “Now, are you and your friends quite capable of finding your seats? I have a lesson to teach.”

Their classmates giggled, gawking at them as they found their way to available desks. A bit like Peter, Remus sank into his seat like he was trying to shrink and hide, but not so much out of embarrassment. He literally couldn’t stand up anymore. 

Sirius sprawled out in his seat, the nonchalant little bugger he was. His chin was always lifted high and proud, the very picture of suave arrogance. James was much of the same, lounging around with roguish charm, rocking his chair back and forth. Lily Evans had turned around to wrinkle her nose at him.

“Alright, Evans?” James grinned. “Good morning?”

“You think you’re all that, don’t you?” she retorted.

Lily turned around with a swish of her long, red hair, leaning close to whisper something to Marlene McKinnon. 

James looked mortally wounded, but he didn’t get a chance to say anything else to her. Professor McGonagall rapped her wand smartly against the blackboard, getting their attention instantly. 

“Now, I want you all to pass your homework forward,” she said. “That should be eleven inches of parchment, no more, no less. Yes, I am talking to you, Miss Flaherty.” 

There was a great rustling as they all passed forward their homework, a full page on Close-Quality Alteration Spells. Thus far, they’d been learning how to turn matches into needles, apples into tomatoes, and pots into pans. 

“You’ve all made decent work on these close-quality transfigurations,” McGonagall continued. “Although there are a few among you who still lack some adequate focus, you’ve made good progress. We will now begin with more advanced spellwork: transfiguring objects that do not resemble each other. Can anyone tell me why this is more difficult?”

A girl from Ravenclaw whose name Remus didn’t know raised her hand.

“Miss Stebbins?” 

“These spells are more difficult because it requires more concentration to transfigure each detail.” 

“Very good. Anyone else?”

Surprisingly, James raised his hand. 

“Mr. Potter?”

“There’s also more that can go wrong. When the two things look alike, the details align. If you don’t transfigure each detail perfectly, what you transfigured won’t come out how it’s supposed to.” 

“Well said, Mr. Potter.”

Sirius and Peter both elbowed him approvingly. Remus shot James a grin that felt more like a gag. 

“We will begin with a practical exercise,” McGonagall went on. “So that you may get a feel for the amount of focus required for these spells. Each of you will be given a teacup.”

She waved her wand and a number of teacups flew out from a cabinet, each of them landing neatly before each of them. 

“Your objective will be to turn your teacups into silver plates. Notice how the shape principle is much the same as between our exercises with pots and pans, but you will now be transfiguring material, color, and size. Kindly pay close attention to the incantation.” 

Remus’ brain was hanging on by a thread as Professor McGonagall explained the incantation to them. His attempts at turning a teacup into a plate were abysmal at best: it ended up looking like a shallow, silvery bowl with a handle. You could still see the distorted floral pattern that had been on the china. 

He tried very hard not to look at James’ flawless silver plate. 

He felt hot and feverish all over, sweating buckets beneath his robes. It was about to be lunch hour, but his stomach was churning far too much for him to be able to keep any food down at all, even though he was starving. All he wanted to do was make some excuse and disappear up to their dormitory for a little while, just to collapse into bed and let go of everything screaming from within his skin. 

“Mr. Lupin?” McGonagall called as they were all copying down the homework assignment and putting their things away. “A word, if you please.”

“What does she want?” Sirius asked.

“She can’t be giving you detention,” Peter said nervously. “That’s not fair.”

“We’ll wait for you outside,” James said.

“Don’t bother,” Remus replied. 

“You sure, mate? We don’t mind—”

“It’s fine. It probably won’t take long.”

“We’ll save a space for you down in the Great Hall,” Sirius suggested. 

Remus just nodded, trying to keep bile down. He watched them go, feeling a little pang in his stomach that had nothing to do with his moon pains. He wanted to go down to lunch with them, to laugh and talk like nothing was wrong, but he didn’t think he’d make it that far.

McGonagall was organizing the stacks of parchment on her desk as Remus approached her. He fiddled absently with a frayed bit on his school bag, trying to calm his frazzled nerves. 

“Mr. Lupin,” McGonagall said, taking off her spectacles. “How are you today?”

As Remus’ Head of House, she knew about his condition. At the start of term, she’d made it clear to him that she would be looking after him. 

He shrugged. “I’m fine.”

She raised a critical eyebrow. “You certainly don’t look fine.”

“It’s normal.”

McGonagall’s face was impassive like stone, but sympathy flashed through her eyes. 

“You seem to be in a great deal of pain.”

He shrugged again, pathetically. “It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

She looked like she wanted to say something, to offer consolation or pity. Remus hoped that she didn’t. It would just make everything awkward. She was supposed to be his teacher. How was he supposed to concentrate on Transfiguration if he knew she was pitying him like he was a stray pup with every glance? 

“Very well, Mr. Lupin. In all events, I’m sure you know what day it is. Later tonight, approximately half an hour before sundown, I want you to report to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey and I will meet you there, and we will accompany you to your accommodation for your… transformation.”

“Okay.”

“Do you have any questions for me?”

“No, Professor.” 

McGonagall smiled thinly at him. “Run along, then.”

…….

By the time sunset had begun streaking the clouds with orange and pink, Remus could feel the moonshadow following him. 

All of his bones and organs felt like they were trying to rearrange themselves within his skin, which prickled and blistered at the slightest touch. The wolf was roaring inside his head; Remus could almost see him in his mind’s eye, running around in his skull, kicking and pounding against the walls that held him within his subconscious. At any moment, the wolf was going to burst out and transform him into a bloodthirsty monster that only knew pain and starvation. 

Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey were waiting for him in the hospital wing. Remus had been wondering where they were going to keep him for the night. At home, his mother had to lock him in the cellar, with the special silver door that his father had enchanted, years ago. 

He’d been guessing that they would take him down to the dungeons. 

Instead, they led him outside, onto the grounds. They crossed the rolling lawns and down the hillside, to where a large tree stood at the edge of the forest.

It was a willow tree, its long, weeping branches flowing softly in the breeze. Or maybe they were moving of their own accord. After a moment, it was clear that the willow had a mind of its own: the branches started flailing violently as they approached, creating a viscous net of deadly whips around itself. 

“What is that?” Remus blurted out. 

“A Whomping Willow,” Madam Pomfrey said. “They’re frightfully dangerous; should never be allowed near a school.” She cracked a little smile. “But they’re rather good at guarding things.”

“Like me?”

“Exactly like you.”

Remus wondered if they were going to chain him to the violent tree—surely not, people might see him, when suddenly Professor McGonagall transformed before his very eyes. She shrunk down from a witch into a tabby cat, like she had effortlessly melted into a new body. The cat darted out, low along the ground where the flailing branches couldn’t touch her. A moment later, she must have done something, because the Whomping Willow’s branches froze instantly. 

McGonagall became a witch again, and she was standing at an opening in the base of the tree that Remus hadn’t noticed before.

“Come along. We haven’t much time.”

She didn’t need to tell Remus twice. Madam Pomfrey gently led him forward and they went down into a dark, claustrophobic passage. The two witches lit their wands, illuminating the tunnel until it spit them out into what looked like a dilapidated cellar. 

They climbed some rickety stairs up into an ancient-looking house, all creaking floorboards, cobwebs, and dust. Remus could feel the full moon reaching out to him with icy fingers through the grimy windows.

McGonagall held open a door. “In here, Mr. Lupin.”

A room had been prepared for him. It was a bit cleaner than the rest of the house, bare except for a small bed with simple, white linens. The windows were boarded up and reinforced. 

“Is it safe?” he asked. He was trembling by now.

“It’s perfectly safe,” McGonagall said. “We’ve placed heavy enchantments on the entire house. You won’t be able to hurt anyone, I promise.”

“Okay.” Something tugged violently inside him and he rolled his neck impulsively, nauseating shivers running up and down the length of his spine. “It’s… it’s alm… almost time.”

“I’ll be by to get you in the morning, Mr. Lupin,” Madam Pomfrey said. She looked nervous and sad at the same time, combining in a way that made Remus’ skin crawl with the feeling that he was a monster. “Do you need anything else?”

They were being so, so, so kind. Remus couldn’t begin to describe how much he appreciated it, but the need for blood and flesh and violence was rising in his throat, rushing to overtake his mind and will.

“No,” he managed to get out, even as words were failing him. “‘M fine. J…ju…just go, please.” 

They left him alone in the bare, little room, locking the door behind them with all manner of spells and enchantments. It was just in time too, because his blood was beginning to boil and his body began to spasm, his bones ready to snap and rearrange themselves, fur and fangs ready to sprout forth and distort his face. Remus barely had time to get his robes off before he doubled over in pain, knees hitting the floor as his whole body began to contort and disfigure itself.

The moon washed over him, his spine snapped, and Remus vanished, buried underneath the wolf who had broken free. 

Throat raw and desperate, he screamed all night long. Down in Hogsmeade, the villagers were woken from their slumber by the unholy shrieks of something that nobody could describe. Sometimes it sounded like a ravenous animal, roaring for flesh. 

Sometimes it sounded like a scared little boy, begging for it all to stop. 

Chapter Text

Hogwarts was a maze. A labyrinth of stone corridors, moving staircases, and shifting paintings that made it impossible for anyone to get their bearings unless you already knew which paths to take. It was maddening sometimes, knowing where your classroom was but being unable to get to it. 

Lilith, Em, and Oliver got lost four separate times in their first day alone. 

It would have been embarrassing, but they weren’t the only ones. Everywhere you went, you could find groups of first-years racing up and down the corridors, retracing their steps, and consulting little hand-drawn maps. 

“There has got to be a better way to do this,” Oliver panted. “Why did our common room have to be all the way at the bottom of the bloody castle?”

He was getting rather good at pointing out everything that was illogical in the magical world. 

They were trudging up the stairs to the Great Hall for breakfast, emerging from the bowels of the castle after climbing a ridiculous number of stairs. As much as Lilith loved the Slytherin common room, it was hard not to feel like they’d been buried and hidden away. 

The enchanted sky in the Great Hall was grey, spotted with clouds, looking like it was going to split open and douse them all with rain. Lilith knew it wouldn’t; it was only an illusion. The hundreds of candles floated just below the clouds, shielding them from any cold or gloom. 

“What do we have first?” Oliver asked, as they took their seats at the Slytherin table.

Em consulted her schedule. “Double Potions.” She made a face. “With the Gryffindors.”

Oliver almost spilled the syrup. “You mean we have to go all the way back down again? Bloody hell! I should have just stayed in bed!”

“We’ll meet Snape for the first time too,” Lilith said after a mouthful of french toast. “I wonder what he’ll be like.”

Professor Snape was the Head of Slytherin House, and the Potions master. They hadn’t met him yet, but he cast a foreboding shadow around Hogwarts, always striding down the corridors with his long black robes swishing dramatically. 

“He’s scary,” Oliver said. “I always hear people complaining about him between classes.”

Lilith nodded. “I think he actually hates all the students.”

“Not us, though,” Em pointed out. “He favors the Slytherins.”

“That’s not allowed!”

“Doesn’t stop him,” Em said. “He hates the Gryffindors, though. Did you see him dock Fred Weasley twenty points the other day just for sneezing on him?”

“That’s a loony thing to do,” Lilith said. “Sucks to be a Gryffindor.”

The inter-house rivalries were already making their entrance, in all their messily, dramatic glory. Slytherin and Gryffindor hated each other with a passion, supposedly because of some centuries-old feud between the founders, who couldn’t stand each other. This had passed down through generations of students, and the first-years had soon learned to follow the older students’ example. The Slytherins were all cold, judging eyes and sharp remarks; the Gryffindors were all far too loud, catcalling and provoking. For the most part, the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were unbothered, but they both sided with Gryffindor far too often.

Everyone, it seemed, disliked the Slytherins. 

They finished their breakfast and started on the trudge back downstairs again. The Potions classroom was even deeper underground than their common room, as impossible as it seemed. This part of the dungeons was significantly colder and damper, misery clung to the pores of the air. 

The classroom was buzzing quietly with nervous chatter when they entered, faces illuminated spookily from below by the little fires underneath their cauldrons. The air was thick with all kinds of… interesting smells: sickly sweet, sour, peppery, earthy, and just plain rotten.

Em led the way to a spot in the second row, close enough to appear studious and focused, but just out of the line of fire that was the first row. They sat elbow-to-elbow in the chilly classroom as the rest of their classmates filed in and took their seats. 

Surprise, surprise: the Slytherins and Gryffindors were not speaking to each other. 

Professor Snape swept into the classroom like a cyclone. His brow was set in a grim, foreboding line and he glowered down at all of them from behind his hooked nose, like they were grubs.

Lilith thought he looked rather greasy.

Snape started the lesson by taking roll, barely needing to raise his voice. They had all been made so skittish by his menacing presence that merely a whisper was more than satisfactory. He read down the list of names without ceremony until he got to a certain someone.

“Harry Potter.”

All heads turned around to stare at the scrawny, bespectacled Harry Potter, who shifted uncomfortable in his seat next to a violently redheaded boy. 

“Here, sir.”

“Harry Potter,” Snape repeated. He was almost leering, his voice as greasy as his hair. “Our new celebrity.”

Lilith had to stifle a snort. The Slytherins were all snickering too, but as usual, none of the Gryffindors seemed to find it funny. 

Snape finished calling roll and set the scroll of parchment down on his desk, looking out at all of them. 

“Potion-making is a dangerous and precise art. I will not expect many of you to understand it or excel at it, save a certain, talented few. I can teach you how to bottle flame, brew glory, and even stopper death, if you’re not the usual batch of dunderheads that I have to teach.”

That felt a little insulting. Lilith had spent her entire childhood mixing up potions with her parents and grandparents; she couldn’t possibly be the only one. She sat up a little straighter. 

Snape didn’t seem to notice. For some reason, he was zeroed in on Potter. 

“Potter!” he barked. “Tell me, what would one get if they added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

Merlin, what a question for the first day. In the row in front of him, Hermione Granger’s head had shot straight into the air, but Potter could only stammer. 

“I–I… I don’t know, sir.”

Snape’s lip curled. “Well, where would one find a bezoar?"

“I don’t know, sir.”

“And what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Hermione seemed to be trying to touch the sky, but Snape paid her no mind; he was intent on embarrassing Potter. 

He tutted softly. “Clearly, fame isn’t everything.”

Potter looked down at his desk, mouth set in a controlled line. Having had enough of tormenting him, Snape had them all pair off and begin by brewing a simple potion to cure boils, the class simmering into the sound of boiling cauldrons and quiet chatter. 

Lilith recognized the recipe. It wasn’t too different from the one that she and Grandpa Newt would make to help with seasonal Erumpent boils. She adjusted the flame under the cauldron in front of her and had begun to pull out ingredients, when someone tugged on her sleeve. 

It was Daphne Greengrass. With her blonde hair, she seemed extra pale in the dim light of the dungeons. 

“Yes?” Lilith asked rather tartly. She hadn’t forgotten what had happened on the train.

“Erm, can I pair with you?” she asked nervously. “Tracey and Millicent are working together, and Pansy’s throwing herself at Malfoy, so…” 

Lilith looked across, to where Millicent and Tracey were gossiping furiously over their cauldron, while Pansy was seated close to Malfoy with a simpering look of plasticy innocence  on her face. And Em and Oliver had paired up too.

She sighed. “Fine.”

“Thank you,” Daphne mumbled. She set down her potion kit and stared into the cauldron helplessly. “Er… what should we do first?”

Lilith raised an eyebrow. “Well, first we have to steep the saltwater with turmeric and bluedrop leaves. Then we add scrambled boonwing eggs and let that stew for thirteen minutes before we can do anything else.” She gestured up to the blackboard. “It’s all up there.”

“Oh. Alright. What can I do?”

Lilith already had the measuring cups and turmeric in her hands. She felt almost like she was talking to a small child. “You can scramble the boonwing eggs.”

Daphne nodded and quickly grabbed the two eggs that the recipe called for, cracking them messily into a dish.

“Sorry,” she said, flustered. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Really? I mean, but you’re a pureblood aren’t you? Isn’t Greengrass one of the—”

“Oh, we are,” she replied. “If you even started asking my parents that question, they’d hex you into next week.”

“Merlin. But you must’ve grown up around this.”

Daphne shook her head. “Mother said brewing potions was work for the house-elves. She wouldn’t let me or my sister near the stuff. She always wanted us to be ladies of propriety before witches of magic.”

“That’s insane.”

“It was her favorite thing to say,” Daphne said drily. “Sometimes, I honestly think that she doesn’t even care if we’re good witches.”

Lilith looked up from grinding the turmeric and bluedrop leaves with her mouth hanging open.

“How can she even say that?”

Daphne shrugged. “It’s just always been her way.”

That was a little sad to hear. Lilith had always heard horror stories about how strict some pureblood families could be. Her dad had never said it directly, but she knew that his parents had treated him more like an object than a son, like he was a bargaining chip on their chessboard until he decided not to play by the rules. 

It had left scars deeper than her own.

She wondered how deep Daphne’s went. 

“Anyway,” Daphne said brightly. “You’re related to Newt Scamander, right?”

It seemed like she was trying to brush past the previous topic, but she was being friendly and open, and Lilith appreciated that. She hadn’t really been expecting it, but it was a definite improvement from before. 

“Yeah,” Lilith replied. “He’s my mum’s grandfather. Her parents died when she was little, so he and my Grandma Tina practically raised her.”

“What was it like?” Daphne asked eagerly. “With all those creatures?”

Lilith snorted. “Wild. They were always busting out and destroying the house.”

“That sounds terrible!”

“It honestly was kind of fun,” Lilith said, spooning out her ground-up concoction into a brew bag. “Grandpa Newt said it was good practice. We’d make a game of it: whoever wrangled the most creatures won.”

“What would you win?”

“Respect and prestige. Also Chocolate Frogs.” 

They put the ground turmeric and bluedrop leaves into the boiling cauldron to steep, pouring in the scrambled boonwing eggs a moment later, where they clung to the surface with a yellowy film. Next, they had to stew horned slugs into the mixture. Daphne looked horrified at the thought of butchering them, so Lilith suggested that she start weighing out the dried nettles to mix with the crushed black mamba fangs. 

Meanwhile, Snape had been stalking around the classroom, breathing down everyone’s necks while they worked on their potions. He seemed to only be able to offer criticism to everyone except Malfoy, who was well on his way to becoming the house poster boy. 

Having just scolded Em and Oliver for letting their eggs curdle, Snape swept up to Lilith and Daphne, all but sticking his hooked nose right into their bubbling cauldron. 

“Which of you sliced the horned slugs?”

“I did,” Lilith said. 

“That’s a very advanced technique. Well done, Miss Scamander.”

Lilith figured that was about the closest Snape would ever get to being nice, and made a mental note to thank Grandpa Newt for drilling three hundred different slicing methods into her brain since childhood.

“Thank you, sir.”

He left them to go torment some Gryffindors and Daphne blew out a big breath.

“He’s so creepy, isn’t he?”

Lilith nodded, measuring out crushed fangs into Daphne’s nettles. “We have to put up with him, I guess. Him being our Head, after all.”

“I almost wish he wasn’t.” She shivered a little and began mixing the fangs and nettles into the potion. “But tell me more about the creatures.”

So Lilith did. The skeptical, untrusting little part of her was whispering to be wary of Daphne, who’d thrown in with such a mean lot, but right there and then, she seemed genuinely curious. It was hard not to regale her with stories about her family’s fantastic beasts and Lilith loved storytelling, weaving her memories with her knowledge and a couple of white lies, into a tapestry of a story that was true in all the places where it mattered. 

She was just telling Daphne about the summer that they’d hatched a clutch of Occamys, when there was a loud bang and puff of smoke from across the classroom, piercing the stagnant, steam-thick air like a blasting curse. 

One of the Gryffindor boys, with a round face and large ears, had managed to melt his cauldron into a blob of twisted, molten metal. His abysmal potion seemed to have exploded all over him and his face and arms were rapidly breaking out in large, angry boils. 

“Idiot boy!” Snape barked. “Didn’t I clearly say to only add the porcupine quills after the nettles? Wasn’t it made clear to you that only three teaspoons of fangs would suffice? Or are you incapable of paying attention to simple instructions?”

The whole class stared, but the boy could only whimper, clutching his marred face.

Snape cleaned up the spilled potion with a flick of his wand and jerked his head in the direction of upstairs.

“Hospital wing, Longbottom. You go with him, Finnigan.” 

Once they had left, before anyone in the class could even draw a breath to puncture the tension, Snape rounded on Harry Potter.

“Potter! I suppose you didn’t tell him not to add the quills? Thought it would make you look good, did you, to see him fail? Five points from Gryffindor.”

Potter’s mouth fell open in indignation and shock, but his ginger friend grabbed his arm to stop him from talking back, shaking his head in warning. 

Their first potions class ended in barely contained chaos. They had to bottle up their potions to submit as their assignment and clean up their workstations. Nobody was directly talking about what had happened, but the Gryffindors and Slytherins found each other on the battlefield of fervent whispers all the same.

“So stupid, did you see his face?”

“How dare Snape treat Neville like that?”

“It was just an accident!”

“Potter had it coming.”

“It wasn’t Harry’s fault!”

“What a crybaby.”

“His big fat face! The way he was crying—it was so pathetic. Almost like his life!”

“Oh, will you shut up, Pansy?” Lilith snapped finally.

They were out in the corridors now, heading back up into the castle like fish doggedly swimming upstream. 

All week, Lilith had been trying to ignore Pansy.

Clearly, her efforts were getting her nowhere. 

“Got your lip back, did you, Lestrange?” Pansy smirked. “Are you standing up for pathetic—”

“Nobody cares,” Lilith interrupted. 

Pansy didn’t seem to hear her. 

“I didn’t know your family could stoop so low—to be standing up for half-Squibs like Longbottom.” 

“Shut up, Pansy,” Lilith repeated, climbing the stairs with furious footfalls. 

“Just ignore her,” Em said. “She’s not worth it, she really isn’t.”

Lilith took a deep breath and willed Em’s words to be true. It was impossible to block out Pansy’s ridiculous jabs and giggles of malice, but once she simply stopped responding, Pansy’s effect was broken. With her nose in the air, she went back to talking with Tracey and Millicent.

When they reached the Great Hall, Lilith paused for a moment.

“C’mon, I’m starving,” Oliver said.

“Hang on,” she said. “Daphne should sit with us.”

“Daphne Greengrass?” Em asked incredulously. “Isn’t she one of Pansy’s goons?”

“She was fine, honestly,” Lilith replied. “I think you’ll like her.”

“Fat chance.”

Lilith’s eyes swept eagerly across the entranceway to the Great Hall, but her heart sank as she spotted Daphne being snatched away by Pansy, who, arm-in-arm, all but dragged her off to their usual spot at the Slytherin table. At the very last moment, Pansy threw a satisfied smirk over her shoulder, directly at Lilith.

She felt her blood start to boil a little bit.

“Sorry, Lil,” Oliver said. “She seemed sort of nice.”

“I’m gonna kill her,” Lilith said through gritted teeth, sinking down into an empty seat.

“Who? Daphne?”

“No, not Daphne. Pansy Parkinson.”

“That’s called murder, Lilith.”

“You have to just let it go,” Em said soothingly, assembling a makeshift sandwich out of bread rolls, tomatoes, and baked chicken. “You won’t be happy if you keep letting her bother you.”

“I know that,” Lilith said. “I know I shouldn’t let her get under my skin, but she just does.” She groaned and reached out for a tureen of soup. “I could use a good Cheering Charm.”

“Me too,” Oliver said, chewing thoughtfully. “At least, if a Cheering Charm is what I think it is.”

“Oliver, why do you need a Cheering Charm? Nobody has any problems with you!”

He twisted his mouth a little. “That’s only ‘cause I don’t talk to anyone. I know that they might make fun of me for being a Muggleborn, and that the whole lot of them are foul, smarmy gits, but…”

“But what?” 

“It’d be nice to be friends.” he said in a small voice. “Why do people have to be evil?”

None of them had a good answer to that. 

“Maybe…” Lilith began slowly. “Maybe we just have to be the best that we can be, to try and make the world a better—no, that’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid!” Em said. “It’s just… a little… idealistic.”

“It’s what a Hufflepuff would say,” Oliver added. 

“I dunno.” Lilith shot a glance over at the Hufflepuff table, where everyone was looking perfectly peachy. “They always seem to be happier than the lot of us.”

“How can you say that?” Em said. “We’re Slytherins! We aren’t ashamed of who we are!”

“I feel like the whole school hates us,” Oliver said.

“Ignore them,” Em replied icily. “Just ignore them. We don’t need them. We've got each other.”

“Thank Merlin for that,” Lilith said weakly.

…….

After lessons that day, Oliver suggested that they go to the library to do their homework. That turned out to be a very good idea: Pansy couldn’t come bother them with the librarian, Madam Pince, prowling up and down the bookshelves corridors, hushing students aggressively. It was quiet and still in there, smelling of books and cobwebs, and sounding of turning pages and softly scratching quills. 

Their table was a mess of parchment and spellbooks. Em was bent feverishly over a spell-weakness diagram for Defense Against the Dark Arts, her tie hanging loose around her neck and her sleeves rolled up past her elbows to keep them out of ink smudges. Meanwhile, Lilith was helping Oliver identify the uses of a huge list of magical plants and fungi for Snape.

“I’ve never even heard of half of these before,” he complained. 

Lilith tried to console him. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t even know about magic, how could you possibly know about magical plants?” 

“Snape’s class isn’t even about plants. That’s what Herbology’s for!”

“Too loud,” Em warned, not even looking up. 

“C’mon,” Lilith said, pointing at the next plant on the list. “What is mandrake used for?”

Oliver screwed up his face in concentration. “It’s like nightshade isn’t it?”

Lilith nodded. “It’s the one with the roots, remember?”

“Yes! With the anthropomorphic roots and the deadly screaming. It’s used to treat people who’ve been petrified.”

They scribbled away at their list. They’d only had one lesson with Snape and Lilith could already guess that his workload was going to be exhausting. Not to mention all of the other homework for their other classes. It kept piling on, towering high and higher up. 

“How’s that diagram coming, Em?” Lilith asked. 

“It’s complete and utter rubbish,” she answered. “Of course, Quirrell didn’t bother to go over any of this in the lesson, so we have to do it all ourselves.”

All of them had been looking forward to Defense Against the Dark Arts and learning about dangerous curses and beasts, but Professor Quirrell had soon proven to be a loony bat. His lessons were mostly ramblings about his increasingly-boring world travels and not actual teaching. 

Em groaned and rubbed her eyes. “Everything’s blurring together.”

“You’re so close!” Oliver said. “Swap with me.”

“No! You need to learn your plants.”

“Bugger. Ok, Lilith. What’s this one?”

She bent over to look, but was distracted. A troop of Ravenclaw girls was filing into the library, right past their table, stacks of books clutched studiously under their arms. 

“Cordelia!” 

Lilith stood up immediately, waving. Cordelia and her new friends paused in their tracks, all of them turning to look back. Instantly, Lilith felt all of their eyes fix upon her, like they were holding her within the cold grasp of a spell-bind. 

“Hi,” Cordelia said shortly.

“You should come sit with us,” Lilith suggested. 

“Cordelia, do you know her?” a girl with a long, bejeweled plait asked. 

“Er…. yeah. Padma, Mandy, Ji-yoo, this is Lilith Scamander.”

The other three girls just started at her coldly, full of mistrust, as though at any moment she would explode. 

“Hi,” Lilith replied. “Erm, this is Em and Oliver.”

“Hullo!” Oliver said brightly, while Em waggled her fingers in greeting.

“We should go,” Mandy said. “Before they insult our blood status or something.”

“What?” Lilith asked. “Why in goblin-guts would we do that?”

“Come off it,” Padma said. “Everyone knows that all you Slytherins are nothing more than a gang of bigoted blood-purists. You’d have all of us thrown out of Hogwarts if you could.”

Lilith’s jaw fell open. “That’s mental!”

“Oliver is literally Muggleborn!” Em exploded.

Oliver seemed to have shrunken in on himself. “Em, you don’t have to—”

“No, I’m gonna! If we were really bigoted blood-purists, we wouldn’t be friends with a Muggleborn, would we? And for that matter, Slytherin’s motto isn’t—”

“Ladies!” Madam Pince had descended upon them like swooping evil. “I don’t care what your row is about, but it’s far too loud for the library!”

They all let out a chorus of “Sorry, ma’am”’s. The librarian glowered at all of them and swept off, probably to spy on them from between the bookshelves. 

Mandy tugged on Cordelia’s sleeve. “Come on. Let’s get away from them.”

“Cordelia, please.” Lilith stepped forward with an unconscious lurch, her eyes feeling so full of pleading that it was like they would glaze over.  

Cordelia bit her lip and looked at her friends. “I’ll be right behind you. Go find a table.”

“Do you want one of us to stay with you?” Ji-yoo asked. 

“We’re not gonna hex her or something,” Em said viscously.

Ji-yoo raised an eyebrow. “You might.” 

“I’ll be fine,” Cordelia said. “Go. I’ll catch up.”

Mandy, Padma, and Ji-yoo didn’t look at all convinced, but with three last, disdainful looks, they went off to find their own table.

Cordelia watched them go and then turned back to Lilith, clutching her books to her chest like a shield. 

“What is it, Lilith? I have studying to do.”

Lilith twisted her lips, trying to match words to the thoughts that had been worming around in her head all week. 

“I’m worried,” she said finally. “You never want to talk to me anymore. You don’t even look at me half the time. Are we even friends anymore?”

“Of course we are. You’ll always be my oldest friend. But…”

“But what?”

Cordelia glanced nervously at Oliver and Em. “Can we talk alone? Away from them?”

Lilith felt her eyebrows narrowing. She could tell what Cordelia was getting at. “Whatever you have to say, you can say it right here.”

Cordelia sighed. “You Slytherins have a certain… reputation. It’s not a good one, Lilith. I’m sure you know that.”

“I’m aware.”

“Well, it’s hard for the rest of us to associate with you,” Cordelia said defensibly. “People who are friends with Slytherins always end up in some sort of trouble. Our prefects told us all sorts of things.”

“And you believe them?”

“Of course I do!”

Lilith could only gape. She knew that there were some nasties in Slytherin: Pansy and Malfoy, to name a few off the very top of her head, but the majority of the people that she’d met within her house had been perfectly normal. 

“That’s mental. Anyone who thinks that is mental.”

“It’s the truth. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you: there’s not a witch or wizard that went bad that wasn’t in Slytherin, all the way back to your founder.”

That stung, piercing right through flesh and bone and into Lilith’s heart. “And what about me? Do you think I’m some evil witch?” 

“No! I would never think that, Lil—”

“But you do.”

Lilith saw it, lurking behind Cordelia’s eyes, in the way her fingers kept nervously tightening around her books, how she shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. Distrust and even fear lurked behind her best friend’s facade, dark and scheming little creepers that had been planted there by the rest of the school and popular rumors. It was hidden well, underneath a mask of shock and sympathy.

But Lilith was a Slytherin, with quick eyes and sharp perception.

She saw it.

“I don’t think that.”

“Don’t lie to me!” Lilith snapped.

Cordelia flinched, but Lilith couldn’t care. Her best friend in the whole world was slipping through her fingers like water. 

“Why are you doing this?” she asked helplessly. “You don’t have to think like everyone else. We can still be friends. I want us to be friends.”

“I… I think it’s best if I’m not seen with you anymore,” Cordelia replied, dodging the question completely. “It’s not good for either of us.”

“For Merlin’s sake! I’m not a disease!” 

“I have to go now.”

A lump was catching in Lilith’s throat. “Cordelia… please…”

But Cordelia only said, “Bye,” and turned on her heel, disappearing into the belly of the library, leaving Lilith standing all by herself. Stranded, floating, adrift in a void of utter loneliness and abandonment. 

She felt so dirty. Like she was some undesirable thing, unclean and untrustworthy, that no one wanted to be around. That everyone thought was dangerous. And to think that it wasn’t just Cordelia that thought that, but the entire school…

“Lilith? Oliver asked after a moment. “Are you okay?"

“I don’t know,” she replied. There was a horrible emptiness in her stomach. “I know that they hate us, I just… I just didn’t know that they hated us that much.”

They were nothing more than a bunch of evil, little snakes.