Amelia Clare Bones is exceptionally fair (_feathers) wrote in linia, @ 2011-10-29 02:11:00
Who: Susan and Peter What: meeting, healing, crying, talking, comforting Where: Come and Go Room When: quarter past 11
Susan's mouth hurt like hell, but not nearly as much as it had hurt Wednesday night and Thursday night. After Umbridge had given her double detention, she'd stayed off the journals except under the heaviest of wards to Order or the DADA. Both lips were cracked and swollen, Umbridge's quill having been directed not to her hand, as she'd expected, but to her lips. Wednesday the word had been 'disloyal' on her top lip and last night her word was 'bound' on the bottom lip. Eating hurt, as did drinking, and she was sure if she wound up yelling at Peter, she'd split the cuts wide open again. Civil discussion then.
Speaking of Peter, it was nearly half-past 11, and she was pacing in her Come and Go Room, a room very much like the one she'd created for her and Luna, with big fluffly pillows and handkerchiefs, only this one was stocked with plants that were very likely healing plants. The only one she recognized was the aloe, and she knew you could smear it on your skin, but you weren't supposed to ingest it. She had been thinking of the pain in her lips as she made the room, that was likely why.
There was a little rat hole where the door was, and Susan hoped from the outside it just looked like wall until Peter approached, but then, it was Neville who was better at figuring out how to phrase things when he wanted no-one to find them. She paced, watching her journal. She hadn't brought the map out, she was still slightly hesitant. When a rat poked its head through the hole, Susan was quick to hold her wand on it.
It didn't hurt to be cautious.
It was the strangest sort of experience to be roaming the halls of Hogwarts again. Even as Wormtail, where it was harder to see, Peter couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. And nerves. Nerves came with the territory. As Wormtail, Peter was aware of every vibration around him. It was good, it kept him sharp. The rodent brain was wired as was most prey animals - to be easily frightened and to scurry at threats. So far, the going had been good and there had been no obstacles in Peter's way. He still felt fearful that something was waiting around the bend, but at the same time, he felt more than a little elated at doing something daring all on his own.
The Come and Go Room wasn't very hard to find. Peter zoomed silently down peaceful halls and willed it to show. And then, after having made a random choice to go left, he thought he spotted it.
He slowed and sniffed the air, catching a fresh breeze from the little mouse hole left in the door. Wormtail wiggled his way in, feeling a little fat when his middle caught between stones for a half second. When he was through, he noticed the red headed girl and the wand in her hand. Awkwardly, Peter raised himself up on his hind legs and raised his front as if in surrender. It looked quite silly on a rat.
He waited a moment and then transformed quickly before Susan's eyes. His tail slurped up into his backside, the ears flattened and then moved to the side of his face, and the fur quickly grew back into skin. It wasn't something Peter did in front of others, but how else could he prove himself to be who he was. "Hello," said the rather unintimidating man who had been a rat moments before.
Susan lowered her wand, but she kept it out. "Hi," she said, somewhat shyly. The little rat surrender had been cute, not nearly as awkward as Peter thought it had. She'd seen Black's transformation, but Peter's was more interesting as his shape was much much smaller. He didn't look like what she expected, but then, she wasn't sure what exactly she'd expected him to look like.
She regarded him for a moment, then tucked her wand back in her robes, as a peace offering. She didn't want him to think she was total hostile to him, and while she trusted him, she still knew to be a little cautious.
"Hi," she said again, holding out her hand.
He knew she was cautious, even liked that about her. So when he approached, Peter was slow. Not that he really could appear sinister. Short and with a head of messy sandy looking hair, he didn't exactly seem like anything special. In a few steps, he was at close enough to take her hand. He did, shaking it gently. "You look a lot like your aunt," Peter said with a smile. The resemblance was more than a little uncanny, really. His smile disappeared quickly, though, when he noticed the red words written into her lips.
"What's," hands free, he gestured to her lips, "What's going on there, eh?"
She liked that he approached cautiously, that they were sizing each other up, so to speak. Or down, since both of them were pretty short. "Yea," she said softly. "Mum says that a lot. She says I look like da, who looks just like Edgar and Amelia."
The question brought a wave of anger, but it wasn't directed at Peter at all, though she did raise a hand to her face gingerly. "I did something … stupid. Told Umbridge the price of freedom was never free." She shrugged, her eyes watery, "Did it under wards, which was the really stupid thing. But disloyal for my disloyalty, and bound because -" Because why? Because Umbridge thought it clever? "Remind me I'm not free, I guess. She was giddy about the whole thing."
She gestured to the plants, "I don't … I see the aloe, but is there something else that'll help?"
Peter's eyes went a little wide. These were the sort of punishments doled out at Hogwarts now and they were the sort of things that Peter couldn't ever imagine happening while he'd been in school. He stared at the words for just a moment longer than necessary and then peeled his eyes away toward to plants. "Oh. Well." He dashed off toward a few odd looking plants, pulling up leaves and, in some cases, a few roots. "That. Useful," he was murmuring quietly to himself. "How do you make it again?"
With a few ingredients collected, he looked around a bit for something useful. As if appearing at his whim, he noticed something dark in the corner of his eye. A cauldron. He threw a few different leaves into it and then crushed them together, a determined look on his face. "I'm a bit rubbish at potions, you know," he said, not looking up at Susan but speaking to her. He was glad to have something to do, though, he had to admit. Because finally meeting Susan made him a little nervous, as did a great many other things.
"Um..." After the ingredients were properly crushed, he pulled out his wand and pointed it at the cauldron. "Aguamenti." A bit of water flowed into it. Tapping the base of the cauldron, a flame started to lick the bottom of it. He twirled his wand in a counterclockwise circle an murmured something into the potion. And then, for good measure, tossed a bit of a root inside. The concoction bubbled for a moment and then a small blue puff of smoke was given off.
"I think..." he used his wand to test it, dipping it in and noticing that the texture of the potion was a bit thick. "You should put that on your lips. It's a little healing balm. Something I learned out of a book." He looked up at Susan. "It should help speed the healing process and take out the sting." A pause, where he grinned cheekily, "Or maybe make your lips fall off, who knows." He was teasing.
"It's not a whipping, at least," Susan said softly as Peter stared. It was only a matter of time before they whipped students, and if Susan had know what had happened in this room only earlier, she'd be telling Peter a very different sort of story. She'd still be relieved that she hadn't been whipped, but the tone of her voice to Peter was a broader relief - of a 'this is the worst it can be right now' than it was about how it could be for her. She was oblivious to Ginny's situation, and glad to be so.
Susan sat down on a heap of pillows as Peter tore off towards the plants. She knew a little potions, but she tended more towards the 'blow things up' side of things than she did the 'make things better' side of the spectrum. "I do okay, I just couldn't afford to keep taking NEWT-level. But I got in." she was silent a moment longer. "I'm sorry this is how our first meeting is happening. I wasn't - I mean - I nearly called it off," she said haltingly. "I wasn't sure … I don't know. I'm sorry at any rate."
When the potion was done, she walked over to the cauldron and stared at it, looking incredibly apprehensive. "Well," she said, shrugging at Peter, "guess we'll just have to see."
Without hesitation, she dipped her finger into the warm liquid and closed her eyes before touching it to her lips. The result was instant stinging pain from the moisture and she hissed in pain. After a moment, the pain subsided. "That … might work," she said softly, opening her eyes. It still stung a bit, but in the way that healing salve from the Hospital Ward did; it certainly hurt less to move her mouth than it had only moments before. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Peter was glad that it could help some, but wasn't entirely satisfied. The words were still there, glaring back at him. Part of him wanted to reach out and give Susan an awkward pat, but he did his best to contain that. He didn't know if she'd appreciate that very much. Susan was a very proud girl, after all, and cautious enough that she probably didn't really appreciate physical shows of affection.
"Well, with that out of the way, may I just say how brilliant this is?" Peter tore his eyes away from Susan's wounds to glance around the room. "Haven't been in Hogwarts since I was a student," he explained. And now that he realized he'd gotten away with sneaking in, a really giddy sort of elation was settling into his chest. He told himself he couldn't make a habit of taking stupid risks, but this feeling... he remembered it from his boyhood. And it was enough that he was thinking of other bold things to do later on.
It took him a moment to come down from the high. When he did, he met Susan's eye. "So how are you?" He gestured to his own lips, "All of that aside, I mean."
It was interesting to watch Peter; she had tried to meet him with as little expectation as possible, she figured it was better that way, but it was stilll interesting to watch him all the same. "Did you know it was here?" she asked, looking around the room. "I figured with the map you might, but this doesn't even show up on the map. Not even if some one's inside of here."
Not particular concerned with what that was - she was more concerned if the map had been tampered with - so when he asked how she was, she took a deep breath. "Well, I don't know. I reckon I should start at the beginning of things, yeah? And …" And was concerning. She looked searchingly at Peter - "and I suppose you're not the sort of person who would risk coming all the way out here with the wrong people very interested in who you are just to lie to me."
The statement was said with a hint of coldness and defiance. It was a mark of trust that she told Peter that, that she'd asked him here at all, that anything had happened. She was scared of what he might tell her, but she wasn't scared of him. Even though he'd been the one to say to be cautious about trusting people.
"I didn't know where it was." Peter said. "I just kept hoping I'd bump into it." He looked at the map from the distance between them, feeling a small itch to take it and inspect it. There was an essence of four boys who no longer existed in that fabric and Peter really wanted to connect to them again, if just for a moment. "We never got to plotting this room. We didn't come across it enough, first. And even if we had, I'm not sure how we might have added a moving room onto it." A pause. "Well, we might have if we'd put our heads together, but it wasn't that important a room at that time."
Peter met her eyes at what she said about him lying. He liked Susan a lot and couldn't quite help the small smile that found its way to his lips. It wasn't a mocking gesture, he simply was amused and approved of how cautious she was. Susan Bones was a smart girl.
"I don't think I've ever lied to you." He considered for a moment. "Sometimes there are things I have to hold back. And if I have lied to you, it was to protect people. But," he thought for a moment, "I can't really remember lying outright." A pause. "I'm here to talk and to listen, Susan." He spoke honestly. "You can take what I say or not. Even if you don't trust me completely, I hope you can consider me a friend by this point."
"Okay," she said softly. Her hands starting shaking slightly, but she folded them into fists and sat down. "I'm … just going to talk. Put everything on the table, and then we can take it one step at a time." She shuddered slightly and started, using her journal to back her up, and showing Peter what she could, but telling what was warded and she could not. She didn't start entirely at the beginning, but with Animagus training, the conversations that had happened there - the reveal of his form, his subtle threat, telling Neville, telling the Order, Black knowing that 'trust' -ha! - had been violated - to the acquisition of the map and the sneaking out, the subsequent threat by Black and the stag. And then -
Here she faltered, but shook her head at anything Peter might try to interrupt. Here was Black being a dog, and James being a stag, and the two of them in the shed, and questions she wasn't allowed to ask, because Black had threatened her life, and she was smart enough to know that if it got out that James Potter was a stag in the Shack with Black, a lot of people were going to be harmed or killed, and most of them would likely be innocent. It didn't mean that she trusted Black - just that she understood the severity of the situation.
"So, I guess that brings us here," she said softly, concluding the story with Black's most recent detention for her and their most recent journal conversation. She didn't know how to coat around it, and she figured Peter by now could have seen this coming, but she asked, all the same, "So why are James Potter and Sirius Black friends?"
Peter listened to Susan's story, eyes never leaving her face. It was a lot for one girl to carry around and he understood why she had been so upset. Had he been in her shoes, not knowing every detail, he would have been fairly confused and certainly upset. With his hands in his pocket, Peter digested everything she had to say. And then he considered how he might respond. He knew this had been coming, had sensed it from things he'd been able to read from Susan's scratch-outs. Really, there would be no satisfying answer for her unless he explained Sirius' part in things. And he simply couldn't.
"I..." Peter faltered. "I suppose I should start off saying that I trust James. Implicitly. Because the whole situation is dodgy and sounds... off. But I trust James and will always trust him." A pause. "You don't. I understand that. You have no reason to."
"James and Sirius have always been brothers. And it would not surprise me that they perhaps continue their friendship even across the lines in the sand." Peter was very careful in his wording, speaking slowly as though giving it all a lot of thought. "When we were boys, it was always James and Sirius. Remus and I were there, too, and we were important. But it was James and Sirius who were... their friendship was beyond that."
"I'm unsure if Sirius regrets his choice. But he's made it. And he has children, so it would be difficult for him to turn back to our side. And I know James is on our side, for many reasons, but not least of all because of Harry." A pause. "So I don't know why they met. But I do know that James' location hasn't been given up, I know Lily and Harry are alive. I also know that Sirius hasn't been murdered by his Dark Lord. They're friends because they've always been friends and because I doubt they'd know how to be otherwise. Perhaps they met just to talk, just to see each other." A pause. "It was stupid, though. James could have gotten himself killed." He shook his head like the mother he was.
"Are you still friends with him?" The question came fast and hard and Susan's eyes never left Peter's face as she asked it. "Why does he threaten to kill me and then give the map back after showing me that he knows exactly what it is and does. What does he want with me?" The last question wasn't directed at Peter at all, and suddenly the weight of everything came crashing to the surface. Black was playing a game, Neville was going to be disowned, corporal punishment was just around the corner, Umbridge was already allowed to torture her, her mum's home had been searched just for the fun of it …
The last thought tipped her over the edge, and she started to cry, angrily brushing back the tears. "They killed my whole family and I hate them. Why can't that be enough? Why … I don't even think I want to join the Order, but Neville's already in, and Ron's got some master chess game plan that I can't figure out, and Luna -"
This was anger now, red hot, and at James, and she had to struggle to keep from cracking her lips, so her voice wasn't as loud and angry as she wanted it to be. "We could have saved her," she spat bitterly."But someone had to come out on the journals and SupremeLordMasterGod made an appearance because of it, and we didn't have time to." Softly, more desperately, she added, "And now Ginny thinks … I don't know. I don't know Peter. I never asked for this. I know, self-wallowing. But what does Black honestly want from me that he doesn't from Neville? Or is it simply that I'm good at Transfiguration and Neville is absolute rubbish? And why-" now she was angry again. "Why my mum? I mean I get why, she's enough to go after, but - I don't understand how they're so blind as to think that someone who submits under duress actually supports them. How can they not know this and figure out that the Longbottoms are working against them?"
It was a lot to throw at Peter, a lot she'd said earlier too. It was a lot of questions with absolutely no good answers. But venting at least made her chest feel like it wasn't going to explode.
Peter was not very good in emotional situations. Honestly, he didn't think he was especially useful in most situations. But when he noticed how Susan's voice got and how her eyes were watering, he walked toward her. Awkwardly, he reached out for her hand and squeezed it in his own. He might have hugged her, but held back because there was just too much to discuss, so he held tight to her hand and looked down at her.
"I'm not friends with Sirius." A pause. "But I miss him. And I wish things were different. We still talk sometimes, but it's getting quieter and quieter between us because there's less and less to say. I think I pity him." It was all true, in a sense. "I don't know what he wants with you. I don't really think he wants anything from you." He sighed. "What you have to understand is that we're all confused and unsure. Adults aren't any better off than children, no matter who they are." After a moment, he added, "Have you ever considered asking him why he does the things he does?"
He stopped then, rubbed her hand a little. His tone was soft, almost soothing. "As for your friends. Nothing's lost. Luna isn't lost and if you talk to Ron, maybe he'll explain some of his plan. Ginny's always going to be like her mother and have a hot head. Just give her time." A pause. "I know it's unfair. I know it's difficult to deal with. But you can deal with this."
"The way the world should be is a story, Peter," Susan said, gripping his hand, grateful for the contact. "I need - we all here need - the adults not to be confused and unsure because you're the ones who know it as it actually is. It's a fairy tale my mother tells when she's angry at God." She looked at the wall, at nothing, as she talked, "How she met da, where, classes, her parents, her best friends, my da's parents, my namesake, what she wanted from the future and all the hopes she had that just mock her now in her dreams. Sometimes I think I'm going to wind up just like her, that she couldn't handle it, so I'm going to hit a breaking point where I can't deal, just like her. It terrifies me almost as much as the thought of someone threatening her to get to me."
She let go his hand to press the heels of her palms to her eyes, the salty tears stinging her lips. She shuddered as she bit back a sob. It was something she'd never told Neville, or Mrs Longbottom; it wasn't that she didn't trust them, it wasn't about trust at all. Peter was simply the only person she trusted who didn't have Sarah Bones such an intricate part of his life. It wasn't what she'd wanted to talk to Peter about, she had asked him here to talk about Black, to ask for answers, but Peter hadn't given her anything easy, and that had led to this.
And now she felt very silly. "I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I don't mean to talk about her. Do you think if I actually asked Black anything, he'd give me an honest answer?"
Peter watched her cry silently, feeling rather awful about it. He bit at his lip and only reached out after she'd pulled her hand away, resting a hand on her shoulder instead. He wanted to be better at comforting.
Taking a deep breath, he said, "You aren't your mother. And you aren't weak. You can get through this." A pause. "The difference between you and your mum is that you have people here for you. You can bet I'm not going to let you fall apart." He wanted to hug her, almost told her to get up, but hesitated. "Don't apologize, alright?"
"I don't know if he'd tell you the truth. It couldn't hurt to ask questions just to see how he'd answer."
She actually sobbed as he comforted her. It was so bitterly unfair, and not just for her. She and her and her mum, and Ginny and Ron had lost a mother and brother and had Alecto Black torture their family at whim, Neville had parents in an impossible situation, Luna hadn't felt there was any other option … and all the untold stories she knew anything about. She cried some more until she was cried out and shaking from the cold.
"I'm sorry," she said again, though he had told her not too. "It's just … so much sometimes. Bl- Black said that not everything is how I think I see it, and I already know that's true, but I don't know how I'd ask him anything and have him tr-" she shook her head. She hated the word trust and the implications it had. "I don't know how he'd understand that I wasn't trying to justify some sort of box I painted him in."
After a few minutes of Susan crying, Peter took a seat on the ground beside her. His hand stayed on her arm, a light touch that he simply didn't want to break. He had the feeling that she needed the contact.
"It's alright," he responded after she'd finished. "Maybe you should be honest. Say you're trying to understand. You also need to understand that he has his own issues and may not always be willing to talk." He looked up at her. "It's just... it's so hard to do anything in this society. We're all so beaten down, it's difficult to breathe, let alone talk." He sighed. "Maybe you'll get somewhere with him. Maybe not. But if you want answers, there's no better place than going to the source."
"I'm scared too, of talking to him because he threatened me over the Animagus thing, and he threatened to kill me in the Shack," Susan said, taking deep breaths as she talked. She leaned into him, drawing comfort and strength from him.
"Is he just as beaten down as the rest of us, you wonder?" she asked. And suddenly her thoughts were on Draco, and how she pitied him when he'd had his meltdown a few weeks ago. She'd called it sad, Ginny had seemed almost gleeful. If she could pity Draco, there was a chance she could find a way through her anger and hatred to see anything redemptive and human in Black.
She just had no idea how to get to that point without Black dismissing her completely out of hand.
"I think anyone with a brain, who hasn't been completely taken in by the Dark Lord's rubbish has been beaten down." He considered it for a moment, letting Susan rest against him. "Imagine being married to Alecto Carrow." He made a face, nearly shuddered at the thought. That was a fate worse than death as far as Peter was concerned.
Susan just nodded. Yes. Only Sirius Black was married to her and they had kids, and it was hard to separate him from her, sometimes. She sighed and took a look at her watch. Past midnight. Not that she minded spending the night in here. "It's late," she said quietly. She was tired. She still knew nothing about Black that was certain – if anything, there were more questions, but she'd talked to someone about it, and that was what really mattered.
"Do you think it would be a good idea to – not like what Fred did, but make Umbridge give me the detention again? Like, say it anyway, you know? Just those seven words and then everyone will know that it was just those words, and just the act of saying them, that got me into detention? Or is it – I don't know. I just feel if I don't say anything, she'll have won, and maybe she will anyway, and I've got to wear these words for God knows how long, so it is ... worth anything to so blatantly get detention for them again?" Susan said, all in a rush. It wasn't entirely an impulsive idea, she'd thought about it all day Friday, much like she'd thought through asking Black to forgive Ginny's detentions.
"Or is it just a stupid idea and I shouldn't, and I should just keep my head down and try to deal with everything else around me and – they're going to whip us, eventually, Peter. Maybe it's better to start resisting that now by showing how the simplest of words will get you into trouble and it's what's been talked about, you know? It's not blowing something up, or being rash, or anything like that, it's just ... I don't know. It's just words."
She looked down at her hands, "I don't know. Maybe it's stupid."
It was getting late. Peter didn't mind spending his time there, though. He liked talking to Susan, liked having discussions with her like this, liked getting to know her better."It's a difficult choice," Peter said after a moment. "Either way you lose something. I don't... I don't think it's a bad idea to speak up. If you're getting so severely punished just for some words, it might catch some eyes. And it might be good to have other students see that it's not just those who break rules who get hurt." He sighed. "But it'll make you a target. Even moreso than you already are."
He met her eye. "It's up to you, ultimately, Susan. Only you know what the right decision for you is. And no matter what you choose, you're doing a good job. I want you to know that. You're staying strong. You're making us proud." It was such a strange thing to say that he stopped there and blinked. Peter never sounded so paternal. "You know what I mean," he added quietly.
She laughed softly, not able to smile all the way without it hurting. "I'm already a target. There's not many of us left unMarked after that visit." She met his eyes, looking concerned for just a moment at Peter's reaction to his own words.
"Yeah," she said softly. "I know how you mean." She glanced around the room, at the heaps of pillows,and was that a stack of blankets in the corner? "I'm going to spend the night in here. Not going to risk getting down 7 floors of this castle undetected and it's very much past curfew. Everyone'll be preoccupied with Hogsmeade in the morning to notice if I wasn't in my bed last night. You could stay, if you wanted, we could talk some more? But if you have to leave … then you have to leave."
"I should probably... well." He stopped to consider. He wouldn't mind staying and it was such a show of trust on Susan's part to ask him to stay. But it probably wouldn't look good and there wasn't an alibi he could use. It wasn't like he ever spent the night out.
Worrying his lip, Peter looked down. "I would like to, but if anyone notices I'm gone I won't have an excuse." He frowned. "I'm sorry."
Susan gently laid a hand on Peter's arm, "It's okay. Really. Probably better you don't, anyway, I just don't like being alone after I cry. Next time we do this, no crying. And I'll tell you about this boy you might know, named Neville."
She glanced at the door, "But I think you'll have to get out as Wormtail. So no-one can find me in the middle of the night." She paused, "Thank you for even coming."
"No worries, I wouldn't travel any other way." He smiled and rose, offering his hand to help her get to her feet. Peter was sure he was going to hug her once she was standing. "It'd be nice, if we could get together next time and you didn't cry. And I'm interested in hearing about Neville. I've spoken to him before."
She stood and immediately hugged him, not letting go for a very long time; she didn't say anything as she held him, she just held and hoped he wouldn't let go before she was done.
"I cry a lot," she said when she was done hugging him. She took a step back. "But not when talking about Neville, my bloody idiot friend." She said it very affectionately, and flushed faintly.
"Will you leave me a note in the journal? That you got home okay?"
He returned the hug, warm and gentle, with a hand going up and down her back. Peter wondered, as he waited for her to let go, whether this was almost what it felt like to be a dad. It wasn't all that bad, really. He couldn't quite help the need he felt to make Susan feel better, even if it meant he just stood there and returned a long, quiet hug.
When it was over, he took just a step back. He smiled as she spoke and nodded at her request. "It was nice to finally meet you, Susan Bones." He meant it more than he could really show. "I'll write you a note in a bit. Don't worry if it takes a few hours. It's slow getting home, especially as Wormtail."
He hesitated a moment before turning. And then the transformation took place. Wormtail squeaked quietly and gave Susan one last glance before he was out the little mouse hole and running down the Hogwarts hallways.
Once she was certain that he'd left, she pulled the blankets over, and curled up on the pillows, journal in one hand. She had intended to stay awake until he wrote her, but the second her head was on those soft, soft pillows, she was out for the count.