( LEMONS / sirius black )
pretty little liar chapter one

september 1 , 1976

           IT IS PRESUMED THAT Lenore Bisset is so sour because she sucked on lemons long before she could speak. Not figuratively, literally. With muggle parents so destitute that not even a spare dime could go towards buying their young daughter treats, she resorted to eating lemons instead. All through primary school, in her tattered pinafore dresses and stained knee-high socks, she could be seen sucking vigorously at those small yellow slices and not stopping until every drop was drained.

            As a child, poverty did not stop Lenore from having an attitude. In fact, it fueled her more. Her personality was noticeably cold and children feared her on the playground, often times stepping out of her way when she wanted a spot on the swing-set or dashing off elsewhere if she made an appearance at the monkey bars. And the little girls that did dare tease her got bruised eyes in return. It was an upsetting sight to see Lenore sitting alone in the center of the courtyard every recess. There seemed to be an invisible barrier around her, an unseen caution tape always present. But beneath her dark, guarded eyes, loneliness lingered - a constricting feeling that cast a somber aura around her. Lemons were her only company and their bitter flavor always stained her tongue and veiled her senses.

             She had always been different than the others. Lenore mastered the art of persuasion at a young age. Maybe it was through constant practice or it came naturally to her, like hunting is a primitive instinct to wolf. Lenore's stern voice and her perfect posture had anyone stepping into line and obeying her commands. A perfect way to get people to follow by her rules. Not only that, but she had an odd way with creatures, especially her uncle's pet snake. She never understood growing up what made her so special, what set her apart from her ordinary classmates. 

              Even her muggle parents weren't surprised when a school focused on witchcraft and wizardry sent them a letter, specifically addressed to their strange 11-year-old daughter. After reading the invitation, everything made sense. Multiple situations that seemed to have no logical answer suddenly become the most rational things in the world. Once Lenore could have sworn she caused her desk to levitate for a few seconds in Grade 4. Another incident she told a nasty bully to go choke to death and the girl immediately coughed her lungs out, eventually having to be sent to the emergency room. Not to mention, all the times when her mother asked her to convince her younger brother to do his chores and he complied questionably fast every instance.

              Considering all of this, it came as a shock to no one in the wizarding world that Lenore was sorted into Slytherin at the start of her first year. Her cold personality never faltered, but at least at Hogwarts, she had a home. For the first time in her life, she finally had a group she could call her friends. She was relieved to be away from her poor, muggle family, no matter how much she loved them. She stayed at Hogwarts for the winter holidays and any other vacation periods every year without fail and was only forced to return home every summer to her displeasure.

             From the moment she stepped onto the Hogwarts Express as a frightened first-year, Lenore Bisset become a new girl. To everyone, she was a pureblood. Her father attended the Durmstrang Institute when he was young, and her mother was a Horned Serpent at Ilvermorny. According to her well-constructed story, her parents moved to Wales after her birth, conceiving only one child during her mother's fertility, but in reality, six siblings awaited her back home. It was an easy lie to uphold, and for five years studying at Hogwarts, her secret had never been revealed. Not one student had ever questioned her, for her renowned ability to speak Parseltongue had always been much too rare for a muggleborn witch to ever possess.

           Over the years, Lenore found herself forgetting occasionally that she was not like the others. She fell for her own deception. Her gang of so-called friends teased muggleborns when she herself was secretly one of them.

            Now, as Platform 9 and 3/4 and her sixth year at Hogwarts looms before her, it all looks so dull. All those years ago, after begging her parents to allow her to attend, she'd pranced onto this platform full of hope, full of desire.

            But instead of those happy aspirations blooming in her chest, her heart feels hollow. The weight of the upcoming year rests on her shoulders and the stress from the O.W.L. scores she received in the post still linger. Not everything is fun and games anymore. As a sixth year student, Lenore has bigger things to worry about than the silly side of the magical world.

            Her overloaded trolley creaks as Lenore stops to stare absentmindedly at the looming red train that steams before her eyes. Her muggle clothes consist of a tight black skirt that sways just above her knees, an oversized, navy sweater that used to belong to her older sister, and a scuffed pair of combat boots. Other wizards and witches huddled around her don't have such precise outfits. Their interpretations of muggle fashion are quite interesting ensembles to observe.

             Lenore's blank face doesn't falter when she feels hands fasten tightly around her shoulders and jolt her back and forth. She shifts her dark eyes only slightly to the left, her only implication of interest, towards her newcomer to see the familiar sight of sandy blonde hair and a crooked smile. Evan Rosier, still gripping her shoulders as if claiming her as his territory. He's always been closer to her than all the others, sometimes even romantically.

            "Did I scare you?"

            "Nope," she mumbles, shifting her shoulders to brush away his fingers.

            The Slytherin boy rolls his eyes. "Shit."

            When entering the Hogwarts Express for the first time years ago, she'd stumbled into his compartment, and that's where the lies began. Evan Rosier, Alexander Mulciber, Elias Avery, Stephanie Wilkes, and eventually Severus Snape had all looked at her in the eyes and no truth spilled out of her mouth besides her name. Not after they'd told her that pureblooded wizards and witches were superior. Not after they'd wanted to be her friend. In her first year, she would have done anything to fit in somewhere for once in her life. And that's what she did.

            Hello, my name is Lenore Bisset and I'm a pureblooded witch. I have no siblings and I've always grown up surrounded by magic. I hate mudbloods, I hate werewolves, I hate anything that is not pure.

              And it stuck. Somehow, Lenore is still in that same, sadistic gang of Slytherins, supporting the rise of the dark lord and feeding off of other student's terror. It will always stay this way, at least until she graduates. So for now, despite her own heritage, she thinks and acts like the others as well.

            "Where are the others?"

            Rosier clicks his tongue and stands up on the tips of his toes to peer briefly above the crowd. His squinted eyes rake through the bustling ocean of people until he gives up after a few seconds and stands back down next to her, level-footed. "I don't know, but I saw Avery messing with that mudblood, Mary...Mary-"

            Lenore doesn't even spare him a glance before she continues off into the crowd to park her trolley in front of the nearest boarding entrance. "Mary Macdonald. Are you thick?"

            The lanky boy dodges a few hugging families to follow her. "Ah, yes. Mary Macdonald. She's the bitch Mulciber and Wilkes tested out dark magic on last year. How could I have forgotten?"

            She certainly had not forgotten about that specific incident. In their fifth year, the two boys attacked the poor Gryffindor girl so viciously that she was in the hospital wing for over a week. To this day, Lenore is still surprised that they weren't expelled for using dark magic on school premises, especially to target another student. They'd gotten a laugh out of it for weeks afterwards.

             Rosier unloads his cart along with her, not hesitating for a moment when Lenore orders him to place her largest trunk into the carrier with a wave of her wrist. It's not that she isn't capable of doing it herself, but she knows that her friend will obey her without question because whenever she is in the right mood, she rewards him with a kiss - on the lips if he is lucky.

            But, Lenore is not in a good mood, and his face falls when she struts past him without giving him anything in recompense. She has no family on the platform to bid farewell to so she climbs aboard the thrumming train and walks down the narrow hallway to their usual compartment. The students move aside for her and the ones that don't, she shoves out of her path. Evan chews out a few first years that dare to challenge her, leaving them staring after the duo in fear.

            She swings open the compartment door to see her close friends already seated in their usual positions. Elias Avery, a gangly, tan boy with almost ugly features, stands up to greet her first. Alexander Mulciber follows suit, and by the looks of the bruises on his arms and face, the situation regarding his father has still yet to be resolved. His black hair is now long and uncared for as if his parents had been too focused on other things to have enough spare time to provide their son a haircut. Stephanie Wilkes barely gives her a dip of her chin in greeting, the dark-skinned girl who has always been terrifyingly beautiful. Lenore and her have never been the closest but they still hang out everyday together with the others. Severus Snape is no where to be seen.

            Rosier embraces Mulciber briefly, disregards Wilkes entirely, and collapses down next to Avery. The two boys immediately get into a deep conversation about something Lenore doesn't care for, and before she can take a seat facing them, Rosier grabs her wrist to yank her down beside him. Instead, she lands straight in his lap and he takes it as a sign to rap his arms around her waist, causing the girl to scowl and stand up angrily.

             "Piss off, Rosier!" She spits before sitting away from him beside Wilkes. The other Slytherins in the room snigger at the sight of her disheveled skirt and pat Rosier on the back to show sympathy for his rejection.

             Lenore grabs her trunk and unlatches the clips to reveal her carefully folded cloaks, skirts, and undergarments. Thankfully, she smacks Avery's hand away before he can move fast enough to grab one of her lace bras. A strand of her long brown hair slips out of her tight ponytail into her vision and she tucks it subconsciously behind her ear as she digs through the clothes. First, she finds her wand, which she'd foolishly buried deep within the piles that morning. The wand is an eleven-inch, embellished stick of beech wood, known for its artistry and lustrous reputation, with a unicorn hair core.

            After a second thought, she comes across the usual pair of gleaming, silver scissors and lets her triumph flash across her face for only a moment before she shuts her case with swift ease.

            "Mulciber," she beckons, gesturing him towards her with the scissor blades.

            Avery stops his conversation with Rosier to study Mulciber's greasy hair in more detail, holding back a shuddering cackle. "Merlin's beard! Your hair looks like shit! You'd think he's a prissy little girl!"

            The room laughs, all except for Lenore, who keeps to herself as she begins to snip away the Slytherin boy's unkept locks. It is a tradition they've upheld since second year ever since she'd seen his hair in desperate need of a trim in Year 1. Her mother works in a muggle hair salon and taught her how to cut hair over the years, but of course, her Slytherin gang doesn't know this. No one ever asks where she'd learned the skill anyway.

              Severus Snape enters the compartment just as the train pulls away from the station exactly on time. His thin face and bulging eyes land on Lenore only for a moment before he sits down next to Rosier and Avery, who invite him into conversation almost instantly. Mulciber hisses and bats away her hands when she accidentally cuts dangerously close to his neck.

              "Oh, you're still alive then," Rosier says, regarding Snape for the first time all summer. His eyes flick up and down Snape's outward appearance quickly, making Lenore's stomach turn.

            "Don't sound so disappointed," Snape says sarcastically. "I had business to attend to before this."

            Avery's lips tug upwards in a knowing smile. "With that muggleborn, Lily Evans, no?"

            The greasy-haired boy's face goes scarlet, and everyone groans, not needing his reply to know the answer. "In my defense-"

              "You make me sick! There is no defense, you imbecile! You're in love with a piece of shit, and that piece of shit doesn't even have feelings for you," Mulciber voices, leaning forward a bit only for Lenore to yank his head back with a harsh tug. He rounds to face her with a fiery expression. "Dammit, Bisset! I'm starting to like Wilkes more than you these days."

             Lenore watches a strip of his black locks flutter to the matted carpet. "Well, I don't like you any day of the week, so we're even." Little does he know that a piece of shit is cutting his hair during all his complaining.

              The train lurches and Rosier curses colorfully before hunching forward in his seat. "Guess what my father told me last week after I got him drunk?"

              Almost every Slytherin sitting in the compartment has parents who are Death Eaters, besides Lenore and Snape. The Pureblood Rosier, Mulciber, and Wilkes families all support Voldemort's rise to power, and each of their children follow in their legacy. Snape is the only half-blood in the room, which the others often tease him about, including Lenore. But Mulciber and Wilkes are definitely the most extreme in the terms of their prejudice, using violence and slurs during the school year, while the others usually keep to themselves most of the time, speaking from afar.

               Everyone bends in closer, desperate for any news concerning Voldemort's steady rise to power. Rarely will the schoolchildren be informed of anything major while at Hogwarts besides through the weekly Daily Prophet reports delivered in the morning post. Lenore can't even spare any knuts to buy any copies and usually resorts to reading over Rosier's shoulder during breakfast. But sometimes on a rare occasion, their parents will write information in letters for the Slytherin gang to learn. Snape and Lenore are never sent any letters, and if they get a rare note, it is nothing worth sharing.

               "Get on with it," Wilkes orders after his dramatic pause. "No one gives two shits about the suspense."

               The blonde-haired boy sneers at her. "Before I was so rudely disrupted, I was going to tell you how my father has learned of some news regarding the Order of the Phoenix. But I guess-"

            "Tell us, Rosier, now," Lenore says, her voice calm yet cold. The room goes completely silent at the sound of her command, always willing to listen to her.

            But the quiet breaks when Avery snorts into his sleeve, not taking her facade seriously for a moment. Lenore can't stand the boy at times. Everything is always a joke around him even at the mention of the torture and deaths of blood traitors and muggleborns. "Yeah or she'll send the snakes after you."

            Lenore ignores him, not wanting to get herself caught up in an unnecessary, petty argument in which she knows she would win in a heartbeat. She knows her talent of speaking parseltongue is something he deeply envies anyway.

             "Shut your hole, you slimy git!" Rosier snaps and then turns his head subtly to wink at Lenore. She doesn't give him a reaction, only glaring at him with an unyielding stare. "Fine, so, my father told me that they've identified two more members of the Order of the Phoenix. Obviously, they'll be hard to eliminate if that auror, Moody, or Elphas Doge is around, so I think they're planning a trap."

            "What is it?" Mulciber says but doesn't move his head upon speaking this time. "Whatever it is, I want in."

            Rosier shrugs and settles back so he is reposing against the cushions again. "Hell, I wish I knew."

             In the corner, Wilkes groans and shakes her head repeatedly. "Typical, Rosier, showing up with the half the story!"

            But the information in the story is enough for Lenore. They still haven't found a way to detect muggleborns by any other method besides blood which has been one of her biggest fears since the beginning of her lies. Also, her large family still seems to be safe even though for years after Rosier discards his Daily Prophet onto the Slytherin table, she rakes through the articles and names, praying to a god she's never believed in that her parents and sibling's names wouldn't make an appearance anywhere.

            "Okay, well, it's not my fault that-"

            The creak of the compartment door sends the conversation spiraling down an entirely different path, one consisting of a Quidditch match between the group that never occurred. It is their back-up plan that they'd constructed in Year 1. If they were ever speaking about any confidential information regarding the Dark Lord and someone walked in, the conversation switches directly to meaningless Quidditch.

             But the insignificant talk dies away when everyone beholds who is standing in the doorway. Tall, lanky Regulus Black with his smooth cases in hand and bruised circles beneath his glowering eyes. The golden boy of the Black family unlike his blood-traitor older brother. He slips through the glass door and invites himself down next to Lenore.

            "Hey, Reg, how was your summer?" Avery says, leaning forward to rest his arms onto his knees. His curls dip down into vision but he makes no effort to move them away. "Sirius still a nuisance, I suppose?"

            The Black boy raises a thick eyebrow. "He ran away actually."

            Lenore can't help but let her surprise show. Sirius Black is known as one of the most attractive, charming, and brooding boys in her year, however, the Slytherins don't see it that way. A pureblood spoiling his family name more like it. When Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor in his first year, his views changed to match those of his new friends known as the Marauders, an annoying group of boys who always seem to be getting into unnecessary trouble. Sometimes, Lenore physically has to grab Rosier by the arms to strain him from beating the boy up just for existing.

            "Where'd he run off to?" Mulciber asks.

            "Where do you think?"

            "With James Potter," Lenore blurts out. Sirius and James are as close as brothers. In her opinion, James is even more insufferable than Sirius and that says a lot. "That Gryffindor. Doesn't he support the Order?"

            Regulus nods. "Mum went absolutely ballistic. She blasted his portrait off the family tree."

            Mulciber sits forward and runs his hands through his newly trimmed hair. After giving Lenore a thankful glance, he stands up to grab his trunk. "I'm changing into my robes. Who's coming? Bisset? Wilkes? We can share a stall."

            Both Slytherin girls give him a rather obscene gesture before he disappears with the other boys to switch into their more formal attire. Lenore has never cared much for the welcoming ceremony or the feast but it's never given her an excuse to look untidy.

            "Don't you think it's a bit early to be changing?" Lenore says. Rosier grabs onto the door to swing himself back around to face the two girls remaining in the room.

            "We've got beat the rush of first years, sweetheart," he says playfully, his lips tugging upwards slightly.

            Lenore raises an eyebrow. A sign to tell him he's walking on thin ice. "Don't call me that." Rosier is no where to be seen within a few heartbeats.

            With all the boys gone, Stephanie Wilkes sighs and moves to sit across from her. Her thick, brown dreads are pulled back into a low ponytail and her muggle clothes are very precise. She chews a nail before she says, "I can't believe Sirius Black had the balls to do it."

            "Do what?"

            "Run away from home like that. Deep down, I thought he was secretly a pussy," she snorts, going back to biting at her nails.

            Lenore chuckles softly. "I've never liked him much. Blood-traitor." Her own words make her chest hurt. She swallows the feeling away.

            Wilkes hums a note of agreement. The girl has always struck Lenore as someone who uses their beauty to their advantage. Stephanie Wilkes may be pleasing to look at, but beneath her chocolate eyes and big lips lies a monster equipped with insults and prejudice to last her years. Many times Lenore has caught her harassing muggleborns purely for the fun of it. "A present for the new year." She grins, extending her hand to drop something into Lenore's lap.

            A yellow lemon rests in the folds of Lenore's black skirt and she can't help but smile too. She pokes her long nails into the outer peel, tearing off a strip to reach the sour treasure within. The juice trickles down her fingers and she sucks it off without a thought. When the acerbic taste hits her tongue, she shuts her eyes to savor the refreshing feeling. "Wow, you actually thought about me for once?"

            "Don't be so insufferable."