Chapter Text
Orion Black woke up early, and utterly disorientated, because Alderton threw a shoe at him – well, not at him, as it hadn’t been meant for him, but for Blenkinsop (because Blenkinsop had apparently said something offensive about Alderton’s mother’s new hat or something), but he’d obviously missed, and the shoe had instead hit Orion right in the face.
At least, this was how Alderton explained it away, but the smirk on his face and the laughter coming from Blenkinsop and even Burke, who had nothing to do with the situation, told him otherwise. Or maybe they just thought it was a particularly funny accident. There was no knowing when it came to them.
In the end, did it really matter?
Orion didn’t say anything about it, anyway; he had been at Hogwarts for three-and-a-half months now, and shared a dormitory with these boys for just as long, and had learnt early on that it was better not to say anything when they got like this. It would only make it worse. Well, not saying something also made it worse, sometimes, but at least not saying something meant they’d lose interest in him quicker, even if they thought him weird for it.
He lay still for a few more minutes, listening to the sounds his dormmates were making as they, indeed, lost interest in him when he didn’t react.
Burke was wrestling with his trunk now, and he was losing, but nobody was helping him; Alderton just kept asking Burke if he’d seen his socks, and if he’d seen his shirt, and if he’d seen his robes – Alderton was a very sloppy boy, but Burke was, too, so Orion failed to see why he’d ask him, out of everyone in this room. Blenkinsop was much more organised. He already had his trunk packed and now sat on top of it, eating a Chocolate Frog and reading the card. Orion couldn’t see which one he’d got, but it had to be a rare one; Blenkinsop wouldn’t have read it so intently otherwise.
Only one other person in his dormitory was still in bed, and that was Bulstrode. Well, he was in bed again, seeing as he just got out a few minutes ago, just after the shoe had hit Orion, stood in the middle of the room for a long moment with a blank expression, and then got back in again. Orion didn’t blame him. After all, he was still in bed as well. He’d thought about getting up, certainly, but he’d decided he wasn’t ready yet. Not that it mattered what he was or wasn’t ready for; he hadn’t been ready for many things yet still had to brace them. The loudness of the dormitory, for example. The boys in it. The way they all already knew each other – the way everyone at Hogwarts seemed to already know each other one way or the other, beyond family, beyond cousins; there were ‘family friends’ and friends of family friends and they shared ‘complicated histories’ that they felt the need to reference constantly and he hadn’t been ready for that at all. He hadn’t been ready for how the little things, the things that really didn’t matter – at least at home – mattered such a great deal here. Things like him not liking Quidditch. What did it matter if he didn’t like Quidditch?
But he still had to put up with all of that, even if he wasn’t ‘ready’ – so he figured he might as well get up and face this thing, too.
‘Move your trunk,’ Blenkinsop said, the moment Orion’s feet touched the floor. ‘It’s in the way. Move it.’
Orion jerked his head up to see him standing by his bed – he hadn’t seen nor heard him come over at all – and he was looking at him with that look that meant he was going to find something wrong with whatever he did. Orion looked at his trunk. As expected, it wasn’t blocking anything. Orion knew this, and Blenkinsop knew this, and Orion knew that Blenkinsop knew that he knew this, but he also knew that pointing it out would only make things worse, so he crouched down and moved it an inch to the side, because it didn’t actually matter how far to the side he moved it. The only reason he had to move it at all was because Blenkinsop wanted to see him do something he’d asked him to do. That was all.
‘There,’ he said, and he felt like he shrunk an inch when he looked up at Blenkinsop, who was about a head taller than he was, and looked at him all funny. Orion was almost convinced he would find something else for him to do, something much less pleasant, but then Blenkinsop turned away and went back to his own trunk, sat back down and continued reading the chocolate frog card.
Orion got his uniform out and started getting dressed. He had learnt to do this when nobody was looking at him, and to do it quickly, because the first time he’d changed in front of them, Burke had laughed and said he was ugly, and scrawny, and looked like a House-elf, which he definitely didn’t; he was just small. He was the shortest in the year, which was not his fault, but it was still one of those little things that apparently mattered a lot more than it should, at Hogwarts.
He finished dressing and just made to leave the dormitory to go up for breakfast when Alderton called out, ‘Hey, Black, shouldn’t you be packing?’
And Orion froze; Alderton had asked it in a pleasant, even friendly-ish voice, which surely meant something bad was coming next, and Orion didn’t really want to find out what it was. Was it something with his trunk? Was that why Blenkinsop had said something about it before? Had they ruined it somehow, or maybe stolen all his clothes, or his books, or – he swallowed down his panicky thoughts the best he could. He had to answer them, he couldn’t just stand there and do nothing, because this was one of those moments when not saying anything was not better. It wouldn’t even make them lose interest in him any quicker. It would only make things much, much worse.
So he said, in what he hoped was a casual voice, ‘No.’
He could feel them all looking at each other over his head.
‘Why not?’ Alderton asked. ‘Aren’t you going home for Christmas?’
‘No,’ he said again, though he instantly wished he hadn’t; a roar of laughter erupted from Burke’s mouth.
‘I bet his family don’t want him back,’ he said, still laughing. ‘I imagine they’re glad to be rid of him – maybe they’ll ask for special permission to have him stay over summer too –’
‘That’s not true,’ Orion murmured, though he knew it would do him no good to go against them. ‘I just decided to stay –’
‘Do you cry at home as much as you do here?’ Alderton asked, making his voice seem genuine. ‘Because that’s probably why, you know. It’s just embarrassing, isn’t it, having a son who cries all the time.’
‘I don’t –’ Orion started, then stopped, because the worst thing he could do was argue with them about it, especially about that, especially since the argument would only end one way and everyone in the room knew it: with him crying. He could already feel the tears coming now, burning hotly beneath his eyes. He hated how easily his eyes betrayed him, letting them out. It had only happened a few times over the last few months, well, a few times that his dormmates knew about, at least. The first time had been the very first night here, and he’d been so very homesick he just hadn’t been able to help it. He’d only cried harder when the three of them had made fun of it, which had been the wrong thing to do, of course; he knew this, he just hadn’t been able to stop.
The second time had been that next morning, when when Burke had said he looked like a House-elf. It had happened a few more times that very week, because Burke had kept talking to him like he actually was a House-elf, until it thankfully wasn’t very funny to him any more. He hadn’t cried much since (only when they accused him of it, like now, which was why he hated those treacherous eyes of his so much), but those few times had been enough to earn him the reputation of someone who cried at the slightest provocation.
Sure enough, there were the first few tears, trickling down his cheek – he all but ran from the dormitory to hide it, but he knew he wasn’t quick enough; he could hear the other boys laughing as he left. He tried desperately to force his tears back into his skull but he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop them now. Not with his mind playing their laughing over and over again until it made him sick.
He had been going to write home about it – about all of it, Alderton and Blenkinsop and Burke and even Bulstrode, because Bulstrode never helped him, not once, he just kept to himself whenever the other three were doing something to him, which was all the time, and it had been like this ever since that very first night – but he hadn’t, because he couldn’t figure out what he would write, and also because he wasn’t sure what would happen if he did. His mother would not be sympathetic, he already knew she would just tell him not to give them any more ammunition and to stand up to them. His father would probably scold him for even letting it happen in the first place – he was a Black, wasn’t he? He had to act like one for a change, but he found it so very difficult to pull that off, acting like a Black, that he had wished, more than once, that he wasn’t a Black at all. Because maybe people would be kinder if he wasn’t. And maybe he would be allowed to struggle then.
That was part of why he wasn’t going home for the holidays; he did not feel much for his behaviour being scrutinised by all his Black relatives who already thought he was far more emotional than an eleven-year-old had any right to be. Then there was the fact that he didn’t really know if they even wanted him there at all, because he was such a misfit. He had to admit the treatment of his dormmates had done nothing to improve this feeling, which was something he couldn’t tell anyone, because that was the whole problem, and it was also why he didn’t want to go back home, because he also didn’t want to have to look his parents in the eye and tell them about how Hogwarts was going for him, so far, because it would inevitably lead to a talk about his dormmates. He just knew that would be one of the questions that was waiting for him when he came home. And he knew he was only delaying the inevitable, because he had to go home eventually – but the summer was still a blissfully many months away, and he was sure he could learn how to be a convincing liar by then. He would have to be, because if he told them the truth, he would have to explain why he hadn’t said anything sooner, and that would just bring about even more trouble than if he had written home immediately, because he’d only added to his sins; Blacks also weren’t insecure or afraid of what their parents would say. Blacks didn’t overthink these things. Blacks just did.
Except for him, it seemed. Even writing home to ask them if he could stay at Hogwarts, last month, hadn’t been something he just did; he had thought a lot about it, even made a list of reasons to go home and reasons to stay. It just so happened to be that the list of reasons to stay was longer, that was all. The only real reason he could come up with for going home was his homesickness anyway, which hadn’t actually gone away in all his three months here, but he figured he had to get over that and going home would only do him more harm than good when it came to that. He’d said that in his letter, too. Said that it would be easier on everyone if he stayed behind.
His mother had written back a letter that talked about several other things but didn’t actually address his question, but then his question had been more of a statement anyway. He’d taken the lack of a ‘No’ or other contradiction or clear demand he come home to mean he could stay, however, and so he’d signed up, and that brought him to the situation he was in now: standing stock-still in the middle of the Slytherin common room – which was slowly filling up now, with people dragging their trunks around and talking about this and that – with a tear-streaked face and puffy eyes, staring at the fire as if it was something far more interesting, trying to get rid of his emotions in the way all other Blacks seemed to be so good at, and wondering why he was so bad at it. Why he was so bad at everything he did.
It was in this position, too, that he spotted Lucretia out of the corner of his eye, and saw that she was slowly coming nearer, with one of her girlfriends in tow. Orion didn’t know her name, but he knew that he liked her about as much as he liked most of Lucretia’s friends, which was not very much, because they were girls, and they never wanted him around. He’d tried, of course, when he first got here, but he knew better by now. Lucretia simply didn’t have time to be his big sister at Hogwarts.
Which was why it was odd they came towards him now. What was odder yet was that they both came to a halt in front of him, and that they were staring at him.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Lucretia.
Orion looked up at her and knew at once she knew he’d been crying. He glared at her, because it angered him that she knew; she would tell their parents, he was sure of it.
‘Standing by the fire,’ he answered.
‘Why are you just standing by the fire?’
‘I, er … I was about to go to breakfast.’
‘Then go to breakfast,’ she said, smiling a little. ‘I trust you’ve packed?’
He hesitated. This was the thing – he hadn’t told her. He’d meant to, but he never could catch her alone, and she truly wasn’t just his big sister here at Hogwarts, so surely she hadn’t expected him to keep trailing after her the way her girlfriends did when they had something to say to her? He had thought, at the time, that it would come some other time. He’d had so long to tell her. But the weeks had gone by and they’d got to today and he just still hadn’t said it.
He braced himself. ‘I’m not going home,’ he said quietly.
‘What?’ mouthed Lucretia, her smile fading. Even her girlfriend looked mildly shocked and took a polite step back, but Orion could tell she was still listening. Girls like gossip, his father had told him before he went. He had also told him not to let girls gossip about him. Well, he supposed he failed that too. He just hoped that girls didn’t listen to first-year boys for more information about this gossip, or soon everyone would think he wasn’t wanted at home because he cried so much.
He wiped at his puffy eyes to be sure the last of his tears were gone, and hastened to add, ‘I wrote home, and they said I could stay if I wanted to.’
Whatever Lucretia had expected to hear, it wasn’t this; her face was doing all sorts of gymnastics as she shifted through her feelings in the way she so often did, when she was deciding which to display. She settled on a slightly pointed look that he knew meant she disagreed with something but wasn’t going to argue about it in front of present company, which he guessed meant her girlfriend. He knew that look because their mother often used it at their father when they were present.
‘You didn’t tell me that,’ she said, hands on her hips.
‘I know. I should have.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Because you kept running away from me, and you never even talked to me since we got here, he thought. And because I knew you’d make this face. But because he was too pathetic to even say this out loud, he said, ‘I just didn’t think to.’
‘You didn’t think to?’ She stared at him, glanced at her girlfriend (who was still pretending not to listen) and then stared back at him again. She sighed. ‘Oh Orion, but why would you want to stay at school for Christmas?’
He could think of several answers to this question, and if they had been alone, he might have actually said some of it. He might have said that he wanted to see what sleeping in a dormitory was like when it wasn’t full of people who didn’t want him there, who mocked him, who took his things and ruined them, desecrated his textbooks and his library books and caused him to lose so many points … who seemed to find it hilarious when they managed to push him over the edge to tears again … He might also have said that he didn’t know why he was such a failure of a Black, but that he didn’t want to go home and be around people who judged him for it, and that it would be easier to spend the upcoming holiday at school, alone, trying to work out how to actually be a Black – or even just a proper person, never mind the name – than to go home and to come back and still not know, or be even worse at it than before the holidays, and to have to face all his dormmates fresh from the holiday of hell – but of course, even if they had been alone, he wouldn’t have said this, because she would surely tell their parents, and he couldn’t have them knowing any of this, because that would be very bad for him indeed.
And so he just shrugged, then stopped mid-shrug, because his parents always told him off for it and said it was for commoners, that it wasn’t a thing Blacks did at all – see, he was such a failure, it was the same as those awful tears that he could already feel rising again, if only he could get a grip on himself –
‘I just want to,’ he managed, but he knew it didn’t sound very convincing at all, and he could see it in Lucretia’s girlfriend’s eye; he was about to become the newest piece of school gossip. Defeated, he looked back at Lucretia, who was now being blurred by his own fresh tears, but he could still make out her careful expression and knew she was thinking of at least as many things as he was. But she was fourteen, very nearly fifteen, and she was better at this than he was by a mile, so she didn’t cry, and she didn’t shrug.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t –’ she cut off her own sentence with a sharp sort of sigh, then stepped forwards and straightened his robes, brushing some imaginary dust or dirt off them in the same way she’d done when he was little and they were being presented to someone important, like their grandparents. It meant, depending on when she did it (and how he looked when she did it), either that she was embarrassed by him or that she was worried about him. Right now, he couldn’t tell which it was. She hadn’t done this in so long, he had forgotten the subtle differences in it. But as he didn’t think he looked particularly unpresentable …
‘I didn’t mean that,’ she whispered, when she was close. ‘Of course it matters. I’m your sister.’
Then she smiled at him, and it was a warm, convincing smile, and he smiled back at her, because it was true; she was his sister, even if she seemed to have forgotten it all of the last three months – and that was why it also hurt, because she had forgotten, for three long months she had forgotten all about him and left him to fend for himself when he just hadn’t been ready to do that yet.
‘Don’t only eat sweets,’ she continued, stepping back towards her girlfriend. ‘Eat proper meals. And don’t sulk in your dormitory, go somewhere with other people. You don’t have to talk to them, but just, be near them, all right? I don’t know who else is staying but I’m sure there’ll be someone. And write to me.’
‘All right.’
‘I mean it. Write.’
‘I will,’ Orion said, and mostly meant it, too; she hadn’t told him what to write to her about.
She sighed. ‘All right. Happy Christmas,’ she said.
‘Happy Christmas,’ he echoed.
And as he watched her leave the common room, her girlfriend trailing after her, he wondered, not for the first time, if staying at the school would be the biggest mistake in his life.