Unexpectedly Expected

“I’m so happy for them,” Elizabeth said with a smile, about the shoes that would soon be reunited. She wasn’t totally sure why she was suddenly so invested in the happiness of inanimate objects, but she was. She laughed when Amalia said they didn’t know for sure that it was her shoe, but nodded in agreement. “You’re right, we better be sure it’s your shoe before we take it.” She smiled, trying not to laugh again as she knelt down on the grass. She held out the shoe in two hands, looking up at Amalia, “Let’s see if it fits. Are you really Cinderella?”

“Well they are a pair, it was probably worried you’d find the other one and then it would get really lonely out here on it’s own,” she said with a small shrug, actually feeling a little sad about the idea, and thanks to the alcohol. But she quickly forgot what she was sad about when Amalia asked about Cinderella, grinning instead. “I guess she is. It’s a muggle fairy-tale. In short, this girl goes to a ball and she has to leave by midnight. But she gets distracted dancing with the prince and has to run away as the clock strikes midnight. Only when she’s running down the castle steps she loses one shoe. The prince finds it and searches the entire kingdom for her, testing on every single girls foot until he finds her.” She shrugged lightly looking down at the shoe with a smile, “This could have been incredibly romantic if you were brushed up on muggle fairy-tales but alas.” She grinned slightly, holding out the shoe once more.

When Amalia’s eyes turned back to her Elizabeth held her gaze for a moment and returned her smile, albeit hers was probably less relaxed. She turned her head again when Amalia started to speak again, looking out across the lake. Even though she wasn’t looking at her, she was listening carefully to what the other girl had to say. Hearing Amalia speak about her own experience left Elizabeth feeling a weird mix of nerves and relief. Nerves because it scared her to think about at all, but relief because it all sounded like it had turned out alright for her.

“Suffocate in some sort of ocean of lies, woah,” Elizabeth repeated quietly before giving a short laugh, though it was mostly devoid of humour. At the core of her being Elizabeth was a positive person. She always tried to see the best in people and look for the happy in every day things. She wanted to say that statement seemed a tad extreme but then when she thought about how she actually felt when asked about her own sexuality she knew it was a lot closer to the truth than she wanted to admit.

“Weren’t you scared?” Elizabeth asked softly, turning to look at Amalia once more. “I know your real friends would support you no matter want, and I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t just because of your sexuality but weren’t you scared anyway. Or.. weren’t you scared of being.. different?” She certainly was. It seemed that no matter where she was she would always be a little bit different than anyone else. She had never truly fit in in the muggle world, even before she knew for certain about magic, and she doubted that she would ever fully fit in in the magical world. She wasn’t right a right fit anywhere and the thought of adding something else to make her different from other people was honestly terrifying.

“That may have been a bit of an exaggeration but it’s exactly how I felt. You don’t realize how many lies you tell to keep a secret until you let it out and then you look back on everything.” There were lessons in life that were only learned after going through a particular experience and as Amalia let herself fall into thought, she recounted the frequent lies that she had told others and herself. Acceptance had taken a while to be reached and even after she had allowed herself to relish in it, others weren’t aware. Perhaps in the eyes of others it wouldn’t count as being truly accepting of who she was but it was enough for her and that was what mattered. 

Elizabeth’s voice was what brought Amalia back to where they were and the lies that had visited her left as her focus shifted back to the blonde Hufflepuff next to her. “I was terrified of admitting it to myself mostly because that meant meeting a part of that I had pushed away for so long. There’s nothing wrong with being different, differences are what make each and every one of us amazing. It’s only really when you have to meet a different you that you get as scared as I was.” While Amalia’s gaze stayed on Elizabeth as she spoke, the moment she was done it shifted to the ground once more. In a way, it was her method of gathering her thoughts though in reality it was her trying to hide how odd it made her feel to be admitting how scared she was to someone that wasn’t her girlfriend.

“I think so, yeah.”

“Wait, do you think bread is healthy for it? I mean we want to get it out but I don’t want to hurt it.” 

“Trust me, I’m pretty good at hiding things but even so, this is something I haven’t seen before.” Sirius had been hiding things for as long as he could remember. Whether it was back in his old home or here at Hogwarts, he was very well practiced in it. Although, alcohol was something he barely even bothered to hide. The professors rarely came looking, even though he was sure they must know he of all people would have some. He chuckled lightly, before looking around at the house elves. Kind though they may be, he knew their master was Dumbledore and if he asked them any questions they wouldn’t lie. But he didn’t think it would be too smart to point that out in front of them. “Do you hide all of your possessions or just the important ones?”

“Haven’t you figured out by now that I know everything?” he asked with a smirk as he raised an eyebrow at her. “Besides, Merlin has a very distinct signature, it’s easy to tell who he sends down,” he added with a shrug before they turned to leave the room. He walked along next to her as she told the story a slight grin on his lips. He shook his head when she finished, giving a short laugh, “I’m sure that made you quite happy to be here,” he joked. “Supposedly we have some of the best and brightest teaching here at Hogwarts but it took two days for a prefect to find him,” he shook his head again with a small laugh. “Smart people can be incredibly dumb.”

“Where to now?” he asked as the reached the end of the corridor, with options that would lead them to many different places within the castle.

“I only hide the ones that I think need to be hidden, which isn’t a lot.” Her words were softer now as they reached the top of the stairs and found themselves on the ground floor of castle. While she normally wouldn’t have minded if they had been caught ( she had the detention slips for that reason), Amalia believed things would only get worse for them if they were caught with alcohol too. Still, her words were only just barely softer than before. “Nothing gets pass you, Sirius. I’ll have to let Merlin know when I see him again, maybe he’ll trying to trick you the next time he sends you something or someone. Keep you on your toes.” She joked before leading the other towards the hallways she knew would lead out towards the Astronomy tower. 

“I believe someone said the smartest of us are blind to the simplest of solutions or something like that.” Shrugging slightly, Amalia glanced over towards Sirius for a moment before looking back to where they were walking. “Honestly, it was what made me realize that this was the right school for me. I mean why would I want to go to school in France when I could go to school here and play a game of who will go missing next? Truly, a better experience.” With light words and a smile on her face, Amalia hoped Sirius wouldn’t pick up too much on the fact that she meant the exact opposite. Weeks had gone by before she had allowed herself to fully accept Hogwarts as her new home and while tears had only been shed on the first night, Amalia could still remember the nights of wishes to wake up the next morning in a castle far from where she was. 

“We’re going to be keeping the star company tonight, Sirius. Or we’ll make them think that anyway. Besides, drinking outside with just the stars above you, nothing can really beat that.” Genuinely smiling at him now, Amalia spoke with excitement tinting her words. “The astronomy tower, that’s where we’re going.” She clarified, though she doubted he hadn’t already figured that out with what she had said before. “But what’s the craziest story you have about this place?”

“ I will have to remember that. “ She said looking at the green dress more excited about the date now she had a perfect outfit. “ I’m not sure. Ed wants it to be a surprise. He told me to whatever I liked and meet him outside the Hufflepuff common room.

The smile stayed on Amalia’s lips as she listened to the other girl and a small sigh left her shortly after she was done speaking. “That sounds rather cute, I take it you’re a fan of surprises? Or just his surprises?” She inquired, hoping once more that she wasn’t prying into things Hestia may not want to speak on.

The vision distorted between realities. What he witnessed was real and true. Horrifying even, growls combined with howls echoed in the distance of the landscape as he lowered his gaze to the bottom of the lake, seeing the remains of creatures. Bones simmering into dust from how old they’ve begun. Shadows stood staring up at the Slytherin prince. He gave but a single blink. Reality was normal for what a shallow of a moment. He gripped onto the female’s arm as she had yanked him. His grip strong as his golden hues glared into hers. Silence emitted around them drowning out the sounds of animals afar, the noise of the water of lake hitting against the shore as darkness crept behind the males body, shadowy hands coming forth from it as figures embraced him. “Come & See” they spoke in unison, his voice combined with them. The skies turned deep crimson, the castle of the school was nothing but crumble and ruin, the lake no more but a crater, the landscape struck by famine and pestilence. Strong winds howled along the landscape filling it with density, scraping along the ruins of the castle emitting dust into the crimson sky. “Drown in the deep.” the voices spoke louder as if they could sense the female. Sanctus’ held his grip onto the others arm as he took other step into the black lake walking further into it as he pulled the other with him

“Maybe we could throw some food in and see if it takes the bait? We could try and sneak into the Slytherin Common Room to catch a glimpse, but I feel like we’d get caught.”

“I think trying to feed it would be our best bet. Also I think that would be way safer than trying to not run into an irritated Slytherin seventh year like Rodolphus.”

“I was able to bring some food that the Giant Squid might like.”

“Brilliant! So just throw it in and lets see if it comes to visit us.” 

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

“Alright so lets go to the Kitchens, I doubt it’ll be gone or anything while we’re getting it food. Although maybe toast isn’t the right thing for it.” She muttered the last bit more so to herself as she began leading the way towards the inside of the castle.

“Okay,” Elizabeth replied softly, smiling when Amalia said she didn’t want to pretend either. She felt butterflies fill her stomach as the other girl took her hand, though it wasn’t unpleasant. In fact it was very far from unpleasant and she felt her smile grow a little because of it. “Well I’m glad we’re not,” she said, “Because I don’t think I could pretend it didn’t happen either.” She certainly wouldn’t have been able to forget about it, even if Amalia had wanted to act like it never happened.

“Good,” she said with a nod at her improved mood, smiling still. Her smile however, quickly dropped with Amalia’s next words. Instead she groaned, blushing furiously. She put her free hand to her face, letting her hair cover the rest of it. “Nooo, stop,” she said, chancing a glance up at Amalia. “You know perfectly well what’s on my neck,” she added, looking over at her, now moving her hand to her neck instead of her face.

Though in all her embarrassment she never let go of Amalia’s hand. And part of her – a very small part because the rest of her was too busy being embarrassed – was quite happy with the mark on her neck. Elizabeth was fully aware that this was for one reason and one reason only: Amalia had been the one to put it there. “I can’t leave this room, I can’t risk seeing Ted,” she said, completely serious.

In her time at Hogwarts, Amalia had been certain that there was no one who would have caught her attention the same way Giselle had done so. It had been that certainty that made it easy for her to not look for comfort in others while letters had been her only communication with Giselle. Interest hadn’t sparked the moment she had met Elizabeth nor had it even appeared when she shared her secret with the other but snuck in at a time when she hadn’t been paying attention; holding Elizabeth’s hand would have been completely normal and something she would have done with any other friend, but interest made sure to wake the dormant butterflies in her stomach and it was then that Amalia knew alcohol had only made her aware of what she had already been feeling. “Good.” Simple in every way and yet accompanied with a smile, Amalia assumed Elizabeth would understand that she was more relieved than anything to her not wanting to pretend.

Elizabeth had been right: Amalia knew very well what it was that was on her neck. “Well, it’s not very big so we can hide it with make-up. Is anyone else in this dorm the same shade as you? I don’t think they’ll mind if we just use a little bit of their make-up.” As she spoke, Amalia sat on her knees and she moved Elizabeth’s hand away from her neck to get a better look at the mark. “It’s really rather cute, if you ask me but I might be bias on that front.” She muttered before sitting back down on the bed. “Or we could use a scarf, it’s a bit chilly in the morning... do you think you could handle the scarf later on?”

Ted Tonks wasn’t someone Amalia would have thought of as being an issue until he was. In fact, up until that moment she had no actual feeling for the older Hufflepuff that exceeded indifference but as she looked at the mark once more, worry came with his name. “I don’t think he’ll notice. Besides, Prefects are super busy during the day and if you see him later on in the evening he may be too tired to get a really good look.” She was being hopeful though she was aware that the possibility of her situation was incredibly slim.