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chapter one

"LITTLE EMILIA ELODIE"

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     The men in black stood outside. Colourful fabrics peeped out from the pockets of their jackets. Cars lined the street. Relatives that hadn't been seen outside of a photo album for decades stood around, silently critiquing what they could, smiling as they said yes, I would love a cup of tea...

     Their family was the sort that had a relative in all continents, the sort that went all-out for any occasion somewhat special. Birthdays were treated like the second coming of Christ. Funerals were celebrations of death and black outfits. Even the current reason of gathering was being treated like it needed a chapter in a history book — it was literally just a nice dinner party to say farewell to one of the younger family members. Like, that was all. And yet, the house-elves were working tirelessly to make the house look spotless, and the food look perfect.

     The house is big. It isn't large, nor arrogant enough to be named a manor, or a mansion, or anything equally cocky, but it's enough to resemble a home taken over by the National Trust. Like, the ones with hidden hallways and priest holes marketed to the capitalistic tourist as "haunted". (Although, it might not work well as a tourist attraction, the house is still on a street, masses of tourists would spark an outcry to the council.)

     Upstairs, one of the inhabitants has her gaze fixed on her own reflection. A dainty brush leaves sandstone-coloured powder on her eyelids. Dying flowers sit next the mirror. Someone knocked on her bedroom door. She frowned. Her brother let himself in. His smile was the exact mixture of politeness and nastiness. "I come bearing news," he said.

     Freshly-ironed table linen was hurried through hidden hallways — big enough to fit a house-elf and whatever they were rallying around the house on a trolley, and just big enough for a witch to sneak through — followed with trolleys holding the expensive vases, the ones usually stored away in a display cabinet. Another trolley followed. Bouquets of marigolds and cosmos and hollyhocks blocked the house-elf's vision. The fake butterflies enchanted to sit on the flowers flutter around the house-elf's eyes and ears; he shook his head, the trolley scraping past the skirting board on one wall.

     Outside, some great-great-uncle from Canada was laugh-coughing. He stopped, and he returned to his cigar.

     Inside, the walls began to shake with the volume of the witch upstairs yelling. A house-elf in one hallway skidded to a halt, and whimpered. The witch storms out of her bedroom, away from her brother, away from her worried godmother, and in the direction of her younger sister's room.

     "Where is she? I swear to fucking God, I'm going to crucify that bitch—"

* * *

     To say Emilia Salvatore disliked her family — her siblings especially — would be a massive understatement. It was like, saying that a lack of plants would be a minor inconvenience to the local butterflies. It was comedic, actually, how much dislike was an understatement. Em didn't think that she hated them, but she knew her feelings towards Chandler, Mona, and Paisley were far more negative than dislike. It was more resent that hatred. She had a reason for it, but she still felt somewhat attached to them, that she couldn't quite hate them, because they were still siblings.

     And, really, her siblings had been the ones that had been with her for the longest. As much as she resented it, she felt loyal to them. Even if they didn't deem her worthy of actual respect.

     A small jar filled with blue flames sat on the windowsill. Emilia had a hairbrush floating through her hair, one of the enchanted ones they sold in Diagon Alley. The rest of her family was in the house, around the house, probably under the house, checking that the house-elves were cooking the food right. And then there was her, wishing she could make like Alice and hide in some random magical wonderland.

     But, really, the more she thought about it, she probably could've befriended the wizard boy that lived in the same town as her, when she was in the younger years at school. She had felt too comfortable with her friends, though, and hadn't realised how much she needed extra friends near her family home until she returned home in a school break and found herself being blamed for everything her siblings had done.

     Em held onto her glass of water. The soles of her feet were pressed up against the cold radiator underneath her window. She could hear her family members talking outside. In the distance, she could hear her older sister talking. Possible shouting. Knowing Mona, it was something between snapping and shouting.

     Her neck tipped backwards as she finished the water. The bottom of the glass rang as it hit the windowsill, and Emilia got to her feet. She grabbed the closest jacket, socks, and shoes, and snuck out of her bedroom. Her house had hidden hallways designed for the house-elves to use — all thanks to her grandad, who hated to see elves running around when they weren't helping him — and one of the entrance happened to sit opposite her bedroom door.

     Shouting came from upstairs. It increasingly became louder. She usually let her siblings get their anger out, for whatever her punishment for being blamed was going to be, but it was different when their uncle-stroke-godfather was at home. Her Uncle Capulet was scary when he was angry. All havoc wreaking was postponed when he was at home. But, he was at home, and Emilia didn't want to see him angry with her. She'd most likely burst into tears and explain that everything is blamed on her, which would get her siblings into so much shit — and, Em always thought that her siblings blamed her because they didn't want to get in trouble with their godfather. But Em was used to it. Well. There was no reason to get used to it. It had always been like that.

     Emilia darted into the hallway. She inched a little away from the door, so she could lean against the wall without causing the door to open. That entrance into the hallways was still secret to the rest of her family; her grandad Rupert had showed it to her when she was old enough to remember. She liked have a secret. And, she didn't want her siblings to find out her hiding spot.

     She pulled on her socks, then shoes. Emilia was pulling her hair out of her jacket as she heard her bedroom door slam open, and her sister screech, and their godmother question, "What did she do—?"

* * *

     The door of the bedroom on the first floor — the small one, the one that overlooked the street, the one opposite one of the concealed corridors — was pushed open with such force that the doorknob slammed into the wall, and left a dent. Well. Added to the dent. The usual resident of the room often had angry relatives storming into the room. She didn't mind. She just couldn't have anything hanging off the door, because that would result in even more damage to the wall.

     "What did she do—?"

     The brother looked at their frowning godmother, and he explained to her, "Emilia's—"

     "Well, I know it's about Emilia, it always is. Be more specific—"

     "Emilia went and destroyed my relationship! Call off this goddamned party, I don't have a girlfriend to move in with — and I was so looking forward to living in Edinburgh, but, of course, little Emilia Elodie running around, thinking she can get away with something like this — again, might I add — how many times has she done this now?"

     "A little over fifteen thousand?"

     Their other sister appeared, and chirped in, "Yeah, around there, I'd say," as she crossed her arms and glanced around, examining the insides of the bedroom. The sister that stood in the room was looking at the furniture like it was equally guilty. "Where'd you think the pest's gone this time?"

     "Do we really care?"

     The godmother gave them a look. The sister with ruined makeup opened her mouth to shout at her godmother, but their godfather appeared, standing in the hallway and frowning as he looked at them all.

     It was an unspoken law amongst the siblings — don't piss off their godfather. Most of the time, they could dodge angering him, because he was often in different countries and continents with his work. And, on the few occasions they'd seen him angry, he resembled his namesake, when he was telling his daughter Juliet that she had to marry Paris, whether she liked it or not. And it was scary. And it was avoided.

     The brother's eyes widened. He let out, "It was Emilia—!"

* * *

     The little park down the street was quiet, mostly because there wasn't a playground attached, so the local children weren't interested, unless it was to cycle through as a shortcut. Little Emilia Elodie had herself staring at the gap between two pavement slabs, at the weeds between them. She let out a sigh. She felt stupid every time that it occurred, every time that her siblings would do something and pin it on her, and she'd find herself feeling guilty for something she didn't do.

     But, her siblings blamed her for their wrongdoings, because she was the easy scapegoat. Especially since she looked visibly guilty when she saw whichever sibling she had apparently hurt, and she saw them upset. She had nothing to do with whatever had upset them, she just felt terrible, because they looked upset, and they looked at her like she deserved to be in the lowest pits of Hell.

     "Blimey, Salvatore — what crawled into your pipes and killed your beloved dog?"

     Emilia's eyes narrowed. Only, not in an intimidating, but more, in a way that made her resemble a confused cartoon character. "Um, hello, Sirius," she said. He sat down on the park bench. Emilia gave a nearby tree trunk a confused look. "I don't have a dog. I have a rabbit. Had. My sister might've found it's hiding spot. She'll probably murder it, considering, um — how are you?"

     "I'm okay," Sirius frowned. "Better now that I'm staying with Prongs." He looked around. Emilia noted that he looked a lot more at ease than she did. Probably because her brain was churning away in the background, filling her with dread with going back to her house. Sirius looked at Emilia, and she frowned. "Family trouble, then?"

     Emilia nodded. Sirius nodded back.

     And then, there was silence. Emilia could've sworn that she could hear her relatives in the distance; cars starting up, driving off; the house's usual residents shooing off random relatives; shouts aimed at house-elves drifting out from opened windows...

     She was still. The more there was silence, the more the dread moved from the background to the foreground, as clumsily forceful as a bull in a china shop. Emilia asked Sirius, "If you don't mind me asking, how bad was it with yours, when you used to live with them?"

     "It was all right to persevere through."

     "... Until you left."

     "Well, yeah, until I left."

     "In the nicest way possible, I mean, sorry—"

     "Don't worry about it, Salvatore," said Sirius. Emilia smiled softly. "So, what have you done? I'm intrigued."

     Emilia explained, "I've done nothing." Sirius opened his mouth to argue, and she quickly pressed on. "I haven't done anything, but one of my siblings has. My sister, Mona, right, was planning to move up to Edinburgh with her girlfriend, Ella, so we were having this cocky little dinner party for a farewell. And, I heard her shouting, and I heard loud footsteps down the stairs, and I figured I was getting the blamed, so I snuck away before I got skinned."

     Sirius, in Emilia's opinion, looked both confused and delightfully interested. Like, in the way she had looked, when she overheard the news that Sirius had been kicked out from his house — ah, wow, that's cool, someone has a shitty family life, too!

     "Why would she blame you?"

     "All of my siblings think that they can blame everything on me, because I'm the easiest target, because I'm the youngest, the Hufflepuff, and they're all convinced I'm brain dead because I'm not cunning like they all are — not that all Slytherins are bad, oh, no, I didn't mean that—"

     "I'm not bothered, mate," Sirius said. Emilia, whom had been mid-exclamation, exhaled, having spent the last couple seconds frozen. "My family were all Slytherin, and they're all shitty people—"

     Emilia frowned. "Yeah, but my friends are Slytherin. They're all nice," she argued back. "That's why I felt bad for saying that, because I know the whole house isn't nasty — every house has some rotten eggs, y'know?"

     "You're such a Hufflepuff," Sirius said. She looked unharmed. She didn't know if that was meant to be a joke or a jab. "If all of your siblings blame you, then, why haven't they figured out that you're never behind it?"

     She raised her index finger, making her point. "They don't know the others do it. So, Chandler thinks he's only doing it, so does Mona, and so does Paisley. They all think I'm like our mum, which is the biggest insult they could give, so they think the stuff the other two have blamed me for was stuff I've actually done," Emilia explained to him. "It's confusing. And annoying. Sorry. Say, why'd you show up—?"

     "How bad are the things they've blamed you for, then?" asked Sirius. Emilia gave him an odd look. Maybe she asked too quietly. That was probably it. He frowned. "I'm interested," he justified.

     "Um, they're all petty things, I guess, but they're big enough to get someone having a tantrum," Emilia told him. She smiled slightly. "I bet Mona's having a proper tantrum from this, Godric, she's the worst, that's why Chandler messes with her so much..."

     Sirius' eyes lit up. "I remember her from school! She's the one that tried to clobber the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, after her team lost by a couple points!"

     Emilia laughed. "Yeah, that's the one. I believe she broke someone's rib," she said. He sniggered, and her stomach sank slightly. "I shouldn't be saying that."

     "Why not?"

     "Why not? Um, because it's fucking wrong?"

     Sirius blinked. Emilia rolled her eyes. Because swearing was evil. Of course. Bloody hell. "Well, if they don't treat you nicely, why should you treat them nicely?" he asked her.

     "You're such a Gryffindor!"

     "And you're such a Hufflepuff, we've been over this—"

     Emilia gave her a look. Her brows furrowed, and she looked away, and she sighed. "You're right, though. It's unfair that they always do this," she said. Sirius nodded in agreement. She went quiet for a second, her brows furrowed. He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it, standing up and letting out, "It is unfair!"

     "You just said that—"

     She began pacing. He frowned.

     "You know what? I'm going to do it," said Emilia. She span around, looked Sirius dead in the eye, and smiled. He frowned still. "I'm going to do every single thing that they all blamed me for doing, and I'm going to do it even worse. Hell shall pour blood and venom and everything they've thrown at me for the past sixteen years."

     "Salvatore, I love the enthusiasm — it's making me even more attracted to you, honestly — but you've got to keep it quiet so that we can actually figure out what to do."

     Emilia's eyes were still widened from the previous comment. "We?"

     "Oh, hell yes," said Sirius. He stood up, and grinned at her. "Hufflepuff gone bad? This, I've got to witness."

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     i reaaally hope that this is all right. but, i've had the majority of this done for a while now, i just had to finish it off, and i was procrastinating that lmao. the beginning bit, with all of the different parts of the house, was lowkey inspired by the party scene in romeo and juliet?? like really lowkey. the lowest of keys.

     i hope you enjoyed, and let me know what you thought! :)

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