Seven. Cupid's Arrow

𓃵

                               Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

          January arrived, cold and unwelcome, and Circe spent most of the first week of term dreading the months that would come. Her morning Potions lesson did nothing to dispel her trepidation, as Snape was as unpleasant as ever, and her mood was further lowered by the fact that Enyo was constantly trying to find the reason behind her cousin's change in demeanour. 

          "It's nothing," Circe said over and over again, "I'm just busy. I've got to go to ... Remedial Potions ..." 

          Remedial Potions was the excuse Harry had given Circe in case she wanted to attend his Dumbledore's Army sessions. It was rather embarrassing, she thought, given that she didn't exactly need them.

          "You take Remedial Potions?" asked Enyo superciliously, having cornered her in the entrance hall after lunch. "You're not that bad, are you?"

          Circe stared at the floor, muttering through gritted teeth, "My mother insisted."

          "At least it's extra revision," said Enyo, albeit uncertainly. "If you get a good enough grade, you'll be able to take it at N.E.W.T level—"

          "Black, a word?" said a voice behind them.

          They turned around and found Michael Tallis, Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott standing there. Circe's stomach leapt uncomfortably: She assumed they wanted to discuss the Prophet article that was released in the past few days, detailing the mass breakout of Death Eaters from Azkaban—including Bellatrix Lestrange, Circe's cousin.

          "Had a good Christmas?" asked Michael.

          Circe opened her mouth for a snappy retort, but was beaten to it by Enyo:

           "It was quiet." For some reason, she was looking rather embarrassed. Michael was somewhat attractive, Circe was wiling to admit, but had very little else to say for himself in terms of achievements. He was handsome, clever and rich. In the past five years, he'd drifted in the background of Draco's ploys to embarrass Harry and other Gryffindors, but hadn't done anything heinous enough to be called a villain.

          On the other hand, Michael had silently watched Circe for years. He liked how she had an answer for everything, how she was loyal, how she wasn't afraid of anything. She was beautiful and wealthy and brilliant and everything; she was the girl who battled oblivion and won, but she was also hysterical and controlling and a drama queen and a liar, which was fine by him. It just wasn't fine by everyone else.

          She liked that he was a cunt and owned it.

          "There's a Hogsmeade trip next month, did you see the notice?"

          Enyo looked startled. "What? Oh no, I haven't checked the notice board since I got back."

          "It's on Valentine's Day."

          "Right," said Circe, wondering why Michael was telling them this. "Thanks for letting us know."

          But Enyo's ghostly pale face was now blushing crimson. "Only if you do," she said eagerly, despite him not asking a question.

         Michael almost beamed. Almost. "Good. That's settled then." 

          Circe didn't quite know how to react, so she simply stood there for a second, dumbfounded. Last year, it was Enyo who sat back and watched as her cousin was asked out to the Yule Ball. This change didn't make Circe feel any better, however, about everything Sirius divulged to her over Christmas. Every glance at Enyo she stole felt like a dagger to the gut. Guilt, she supposed, was wreaking havoc from the inside.

          Feeling that the day was now a complete loss, she spent the rest of the day cowering beneath her bedsheets. It wasn't until six o'clock that evening that she emerged, sniffly, and made her way down to the Room of Requirement for the first Dumbledore's Army meeting of the new year. 

          She arrived early, and was very glad she did, because it was only Harry, Ron and Hermione standing in a tight clump. The walls of the spacious room were lined with wooden bookcases, and instead of chairs there were large silk cushions on the floor. A set of shelves at the far end of the room carried a range of instruments such as Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors, and a large, cracked Foe-Glass.

          Harry gave her an awkward wave. "You came," he said, slightly nervously. "This is the place we use for practices, and you've—er—obviously found it okay—"

          "And what is it you've been practicing?" Circe asked. "What's this stuff, as well?" She indicated the Sneakoscopes and the Foe-Glass. 

          "Dark Detectors," said Hermione. She was eyeing Circe with obvious suspicion. "Basically they all show when Dark wizards or enemies are around, but you don't want to rely on them too much, they can be fooled." 

          Circe gazed for a moment into the cracked Foe-Glass; shadowy figures were moving around inside it, though none were recognisable.

          Ron cleared his throat. "Not going to go grassing to Umbridge, are you, Black?"

          "Oh please." She rolled her eyes and folded her arms. "Don't you remember Potter and I became best friends in detention?"

          Harry had only just managed to get the colour to drain from his face before the door creaked open and Luna Lovegood entered, looking dreamy as always: 

           "Hello, everyone," she said vaguely. 

           The presence of a hazy blonde reminded Circe of Mika, who she'd been avoiding since realising her Dreamwalking may very well have been the same condition Regulus suffered from when he foresaw that terrible evil. It wasn't Mika's fault; that's just what Circe did. Any notion of danger and she hid, like the little girl she once was—or perhaps still was.

          The arrival of the rest of Dumbledore's Army brought this depressing rumination to an end and within five minutes, the room was full enough to prevent her seeing the several reproachful glances she'd been receiving.

          "Okay," he said, calling them all to order. "I thought this evening we should just go over the things we've done so far, because it's the first meeting after the holidays and you might need to jog your memories—" 

          "We're not doing anything new?" said Zacharias Smith, in a disgruntled whisper loud enough to carry through the room. "If I'd known that, I wouldn't have come ..."

          "We're all really sorry Harry didn't tell you, then," said Fred loudly. Several people sniggered. 

          "We can practice in pairs," said Harry. "We'll start with Disarming just for ten minutes, then we can get out the cushions and try Stunning again."

          It felt very odd to hear him issuing instructions, but not nearly as odd as seeing them obediently followed. Everybody got to their feet at once and divided up. Predictably, Circe was left partnerless.

          Since first year, she'd been particularly standoffish towards her peers at Hogwarts. The Daily Prophet and other wizarding publications did their best to present Circe and her father as monsters, despite Walburga naming her granddaughter in her will. So when she finally arrived, merely eleven years old, whispers spread through corridors of the heir to the Black fortune, who held evil in her veins. She was fifteen now and very little had changed, even though Harry was making the effort to include her.

          Harry sidled up to her. "You can practice with me," he said. "Right—on the count of three, then—one, two, three—"

          The room was suddenly full of shouts of "Expelliarmus!": Wands flew in all directions, missed spells hit books on shelves and sent them flying into the air. Harry was too quick for Circe, whose wand went spinning out of her hand, hit the ceiling in a shower of sparks, and landed with a clatter on top of a bookshelf, which he had to retrieve with a Summoning Charm. Glancing around, Circe suddenly felt much better about herself; there was a lot of shoddy spellwork going on. Many people were not succeeding in disarming their opponents at all, but merely causing them to jump backward a few paces or wince as the feeble spell whooshed over them.

          "I can't do it!" said Circe exasperatedly. "Expelliarmious! I mean, Expellimellius! I—oh, for Merlin's sake!"

          Harry's sleeve had caught fire; he extinguished it with his own wand and gave her an amused stare.

          "That was quite good," he lied, but when she raised her eyebrows, he said, "Well, no, it was lousy, but I know you can do it properly."

          She looked at him rather sourly. "How?"

          "I've seen you hex Malfoy more than once. You can manage a simple Disarming spell."

          She laughed. It was maybe the first time he'd heard it without any spite. 

          "If you taught spells I could use against Draco, I'd be here every week. Maybe I'd even manage to drag Enyo along."

          Harry, however, said quickly, "We have a bit of a no-Slytherin rule."

          Circe shrugged. "Don't mind her," she said earnestly. "She's not like the rest of them, really. I know she seems a bit stuck up—her father forbade her to do anything that might upset Umbridge. He's still trying to keep a low profile."

          "What about your parents?" he asked. 

          "My mother's forbidden me to get on the wrong side of Umbridge too," she admitted, drawing herself up proudly. "But you know what Sirius is like. In fact, you probably know his feelings on the matter better than I do—"

          She broke off, bitter once again, and an awkward silence fell between them; Terry Boot's wand went whizzing past Harry's ear and hit Alicia Spinnet hard on the nose.

          "My father is very supportive of any anti-Ministry action!" said Luna proudly from just behind them; evidently she had been eavesdropping on their conversation while Justin Finch-Fletchley attempted to disentangle himself from the robes that had flown up over his head. "He's always saying he'd believe anything of Fudge, I mean, the number of goblins Fudge has had assassinated! And of course he uses the Department of Mysteries to develop terrible poisons, which he feeds secretly to anybody who disagrees with him—"

          "Don't ask," Harry muttered to Circe as she opened her mouth, looking put out.

          At the end of an hour, Harry called a halt.

          "You're getting really good," he said, beaming around at them. "Next week, we can start doing some of the big stuff—maybe even Patronuses." 

          There was a murmur of excitement, and the room began to clear in twos and threes. Harry collected up the cushions with Ron and Hermione and stacked them neatly away, but allowed the two of them to leave before he did; he hung back a little because Circe was hovering around, studying the extensive collection of reading material.

          He pretended to be straightening the cushion pile. He was quite sure they were alone now and waited for her to speak. Instead, he heard a cough. He turned and saw her standing in the middle of the room, arms folded across her chest.

          "What's up?" he asked feebly. She was simply standing there, staring at him. 

          "Do you remember a few months ago," she said thickly, "when we were in detention together, writing lines?"

          He thought about it all the time. "Somewhat."

          "And you got out of your seat when Umbridge touched you ... almost like it hurt?"

          Harry's heart sank right back past its usual spot and settled somewhere around his navel. She was asking about his scar, about the connection between him and Voldemort.

          "What about it?" he said heavily.

          "I think you're one of them. A Dreamer."

          Circe was very pretty even when she was accusing him of something. Her narrowed eyes, he now noticed, were hazel rather than brown. 

          "You survived Voldemort when you were just a baby," she said quietly. 

          "Yeah, well," said Harry wearily, eager to change the subject, "I dunno why, nor does anyone else, so it's nothing to be proud of."

          "It must mean something, though. Surely, you can't think it was for nothing."

          "What's it supposed to mean, then?"

          She shrugged. "That you're special. That there's something special about you."

          He did not say anything to this; it was quite true, what she said, but he felt uncomfortable admitting it. There must have been something special about him for all of this otherwise meaningless suffering to occur.

          They looked at each other for a long moment. Harry felt a burning desire to run from the room and, at the same time, a complete inability to move his feet. 

          "I thought I was special," said Circe quietly. "For a bit, I really did."

          "Yeah," said Harry. His mouth was very dry. "Who says you're not?"

          "My uncle—and his prophecy."

          "Could've been about you."

          Circe made a funny noise halfway between a cough and a laugh. "Born of the purest blood. That doesn't sound very much like me, does it? My father is about as traitorous to the bloodline as it gets, and my mother ..." She stopped herself short. "My mother's a good person, but I don't think she gave birth to the saviour."

          In that moment, she thought she understood why both Sirius and Regulus had crumbled underneath the weight of knowledge. It didn't feel good to know everything. In fact, Circe felt sick with worry. She was worried that one day all would be discovered by Enyo, and in her despair she would cast out the one family member who knew all about failing to live up to expectation. What would Enyo do if she knew the reason her mother killed herself had been staring at her all those nights she spent, forlorn, in front of the mirror? She had her suspicions, of course, but confirmation was a killer.

          "I think you're a good person, Circe." Harry could tell she was battling with something and wanted to ease her suffering. "Your family isn't your fault, y'know."

         "They will be," she said, "next year. I'll be seventeen and everything they do will be my fault."

          Harry was about to tell her that her family wasn't on the verge of doing anything dangerous when the cover of the Daily Prophet flashed before his eyes once more. More specifically, the witch with dark hair, heavily lidded eyes, an arrogant, disdainful smile playing around her thin mouth.

          Circe had heard far too much about Bellatrix Lestrange over the years to have any faith. She was deranged and dangerous, and Circe spent many, many childhood nights lying awake in fear of her father's cousin and the terrible things that could happen if she were ever released from Azkaban. As the story went: Bellatrix flew into a fit of rage at the news of Circe's birth, at the news that Sirius (the disgraced son) was continuing his own line of blood traitors. And Circe knew that, should Bellatrix be free, the threat to her life would be immense.

          But things ought to have changed now. Circe was in charge and could bring her cousin to heel.

          "I saw the way they all looked at me," she remarked miserably. "All your friends. This name—it's like a stain more than anything else."

          "They don't know you."

          "They wouldn't care even if they did."

          Harry shrugged. "They've been calling me mad all year for telling the truth about Voldemort. D'you think I let that bother me?"

          "I don't know how you stand it," she said bluntly.

          It was true that Circe was the subject of much muttering and pointing in the corridors these days, but there was a slight difference in the tone of the whisperers' voices compared to how the spoke of Harry. They sounded curious rather than hostile, and more than once she overheard snatches of conversation that suggested that the speakers were wondering whether Circe would disappear after her O.W.Ls to join the Death Eater ranks.

          He smiled wryly. "I won't be for much longer ... well, I don't know whether ... but it's worth trying ... and I might be able to get her to maybe ..."

          "Maybe what?" said Circe rather snappishly, not appreciating his vagueness. 

          "Listen," he said, swinging his bag over his shoulder. "The next Hogsmeade trip ... Do you think you could meet me in the Three Broomsticks around midday?"

          She almost choked on thin air and had to take a few embarrassing moments to collect herself.

          "You mean, the one on Valentine's Day?"

          "Yeah. You don't have plans, do you?"

          "Only consoling Enyo when her date with that troll ends in tears," she murmured, rocking back and forth nervously. "I suppose I could make it."

          Harry smiled. Only as she gazed at him, his lips seemed to be too stretched too widely, and he was suddenly horribly aware of his crooked teeth and how awkward he looked with his hands shoved into his pockets.

          With so much to worry about and so much to do, January seemed to be passing alarmingly fast. Before Circe knew it, February had arrived, bringing with it wetter and warmer weather and the prospect of spending Valentine's Day in Harry's company. 

          On the morning of the fourteenth, therefore, she bundled up in her winter coat and set off for Hogsmeade against the breeze. The High Street was full of students ambling up and down, peering into the shop windows and messing about together on the pavements. A large poster had been stuck up in the window of Dervish and Banges, and a few Hogsmeaders were looking at it. They moved aside when Circe approached and she found herself staring once more at the ten pictures of the escaped Death Eaters. The poster ("By Order of the Ministry of Magic") offered a thousand-Galleon reward to any witch or wizard with information relating to the recapture of any of the convicts pictured.

           "A thousand Galleons," said a low voice behind her. "Got any information I can share?"

          Circe turned. Karl was wrapped up in a Puddlemere United scarf, Mika by his side with a few flecks of snow tangled up in her blonde hair.

          "It's funny, isn't it," said Karl, also gazing up at the pictures of the Death Eaters. "Ten Death Eaters are on the loose and there aren't dementors anywhere." 

          "Yeah," said Circe, tearing her eyes away from Bellatrix's face to glance up and down the High Street. "It is weird ..." 

          She was not sorry that there were no dementors nearby, but now she came to think of it, their absence was highly significant. When Sirius escaped, there were dementors all over Hogsmeade looking for him. They had not only let the Death Eaters escape, they were not bothering to look for them ... It looked as though they really were outside Ministry control now. 

          "We're going to the Three Broomsticks," announced Mika cheerfully. "Will you come?"

          Karl put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure a beautiful girl like Miss Black is busy today—"

          "Not until noon," Circe cut him off with a smirk.

          Mika squeaked with delight, took Circe's arm and immediately dragged her down the street towards the tiny inn. The ten escaped Death Eaters were staring out of every shop window they passed.

          "Who are you meeting at noon?" asked Karl after they'd sat down in a warm, cramped corner of the pub with three tankards of Butterbeer. 

          Circe shrugged half-heartedly. "Nobody special."

          "I haven't seen you in a long time," said Mika. "Where have you been?"

          "Remedial Potions," she answered bitterly.

          "Not Dumbledore's Army, then?"

          Circe gave Karl a disdainful look. She did not know what to say to him, or whether to tell the truth. They sat side by side in silence for a moment. Then he said abruptly, "I got my invitation too, you know."

          "Then why haven't I seen you there?"

          He took a great swig from his tankard. 

          "Papa said no," Karl said. "He has to be careful in his job, so we have to be careful."

          "Department of Mysteries, right?"

          "And the Order," murmured Mika. "Fudge, he said, has been getting suspicious about the sudden transfer to London."

          Circe seized the opportunity to ask, "Does your father know about your dreams?"

         Mika and Karl shared a short glance, both looking startled. It was hard not to notice.

          "He knows," Mika began delicately, "and he knows what I saw before we came here. That's why we came—"

          "Part of why we came," corrected Karl.

          Circe continued to press them: "What did you see, then?"

          "Why do you care so much about my sister's dreams?"

          The severity of Karl's tone and the protective nature in which he held his arm out in front of Mika made Circe take a step back. She gazed into the depths of her pewter tankard and sighed; all signs of previous haughtiness had departed.

          "My uncle had a dream just like hers ... he saw this force, or evil, that was going to end the world as we know it." She swallowed, hard. "This dream killed his wife. It's killing my cousin—and now it's killing me. I need to know if there's any truth to it. I have to put it to bed."

          Karl stared at her, utterly bewildered. Mika, however, appeared mildly interested.

          "You two are the only ones I know who'll talk about it," Circe went on gloomily. "Everybody in my family treats it like a taboo."

          "Dreamwalking was outlawed by a statute in 1647 when a witch foresaw the death of the King," said Karl matter-of-factly. "You're not allowed to talk about it."

          "He should've told Dumbledore," Mika chimed in. "He's always predicting the end of something."

          Circe shook her head. "No, my mother worships Dumbledore. They would've done that already if they could."

          She looked irritated as she checked her watch. Karl turned to the nearest clock and noticed that it was now past noon, but the lateness of Circe's date didn't seem to be the main thing bothering her: She was clearly unhappy and she was hiding something, but she seemed determined not to accept help.

         "Do you care because it's your family now," asked Karl, "or because there's more to it?"

          He was far too clever, Circe thought. Or perhaps she wasn't as subtle about her emotions as she imagined. She wished he wasn't quite so attractive, either, because then she would've felt better about lying to him.

         Before Circe could say anything at all, Mika had lunged across the table and grabbed her hand. In the second or so it took for her to register what was happening, Circe's insides had become glacial.

          "What are you doing?" She snatched her hand back and clutched it to her chest. 

                     "From my blood, come The Prince That Was Promised ..."

          Mika's voice was rather higher when she spoke and it filled Circe with this awful sense of foreboding.

          "How did you know about that?" she hissed accusingly.

          Both Macauley siblings grinned and said together, "Magic."

          The door to the pub wrenched open with a tuneful tinkle and Harry suddenly burst in, shaking his wet hair out of his eyes and peering around. He spotted Circe in her corner, looking morose, and dashed over to her with a series of jumbled apologies spilling out of his mouth.

          "Circe, sorry! I didn't mean to be late—I was with Cho and she started crying and ... are you alright?"

          He stopped short. She'd stood up, shivering with humiliation.

          "You were with Cho Chang?"

          "Yeah, for a bit. Like I said, she was asking me about Cedric and everything—"

          "I understand."

          Harry raised his eyebrows. "Y-you do?"

          "You didn't think your first date would take so long that you'd be late for your second."

          As though he wasn't in a terrible predicament already, Hermione began to wave at Harry from the other side of the room.

          "Harry! Harry, over here!"

          Circe gathered up her coat. "My mistake. Second and third. How many are you meeting after Hermione?"

          Everything was going nightmarishly wrong; Harry couldn't believe that what had begun as a relatively calm day had descended into this. Cho in floods of tears in Madam Puddifoots, Circe seconds away from tipping her Butterbeer over his head, and Hermione sitting at a table with the unlikeliest pair of drinking mates he could ever have imagined: Luna Lovegood and Rita Skeeter, ex-journalist of the Daily Prophet.

          "I-It's really not like that." He desperately tried to recover. "I wanted you to sit with us ... I thought Hermione could've helped."

          "Haven't you embarrassed me enough already?" asked Circe under her breath.

          The Three Broomsticks was gone and the Yule Ball was coming back into focus. Circe, in a gown of ivory silk and gold, was sitting by the fountain in the rose garden with her Beauxbatons date. And suddenly he was leaning in, and she was backing away, and there was a great and terrible splash. Then came Ron's howling laughter, swiftly followed by Harry's ... and the rest of the school's in corridors and classrooms.

          "I'll see you around, Harry," she said moodily, and she dashed to the door, pulled it open, and hurried off into the pouring rain. 

📿 𝕹ote.

hi. im not the best at orchestrating drama so i apologise for the sloppiness of the ending. i just needed them to be on bad terms. there's a lot of plot going on rn and i need them to all weave together by the last chapter of this act (chap 10) so i'm speedrunning ootp. updates should be coming more frequently >_<