Dark

Chapter 28

Eleanor
I walked in silence beside Malfoy. The weather had begun to clear and the snow was gone. Overall it was the mildest it had been all year. By the time we had actually reached the center of Hogsmeade, Malfoy had taken off his coat and draped it over his arm.
I had thought a lot about what my intentions were today. There were things that needed to be said, promises that needed to be made, and something more. I wasn’t sure how to accomplish it all. I wasn’t any good at friendships, or whatever it was that Malfoy and I were.
“So where are we going?” Malfoy asked curiously.
“Towards the shrieking shack.” I answered, and when I looked up Malfoy seemed unsure. “There’s usually no one around there, that’s the point.”
I continued to watch Malfoy as he looked around awkwardly.
“Is there something wrong with that plan?” I asked.
“No. I just had a ridiculous run in with Potter the last time I went that way.” Malfoy muttered.
“With Harry?” I asked, a smile beginning to break out over my face as I imagined what could have possibly happened. “I’m assuming you did something to provoke him then?”
“No.” He answered quickly. “Alright, I may have called Granger a Mud-“
“Stop. Whatever it was, you clearly deserved it. I don’t care to hear more.” I stopped him.
I turned down the High Street and Malfoy followed at my heels. It was only minutes before we were separated from the rest of the Hogwarts students who had been milling around both inside and outside the village shops. Surrounded by trees and nearing the fence of the grounds around the Shrieking Shack, I came to a stop.
“This should do.” I said simply as I turned to face Malfoy again.
I tried to gather my thoughts and to put them into a cohesive order. It seemed an impossible task at that moment though. I didn’t know how to do this. I didn’t know how try to be friends with people.
“So…” Malfoy said slowly.
“Er…let’s start with what happened last week.” I said, growing more apprehensive of the entire endeavor.
“We don’t have to-“ Malfoy started.
“Yes, we do.” I interrupted. “I just, I need to know if you’ve told anyone…about what I said.”
“Of course not.” He said incredulously. “That’s not something you just go shouting off about.”
“All right.” I said quietly. I took a deep breath before continuing, feeling both relief and yet another sensation of something tightening around my chest, choking my lungs for air. “In that case, thank you for not telling anyone. But I need you to promise me that you’ll never tell anyone.”
Malfoy narrowed his eyes slightly at me, watching me closely. I could almost see his brain trying to read my expression, trying to guess where this conversation would turn next.
“I promise.” He said simply.
“Malfoy, there are a lot of things that I can’t talk about. Things from my past. I just…it’s too difficult.” I said, trying to keep my voice from fading into nothingness. Everything in me wanting me to stop talking and just walk away. “I know you want to know my secrets. I can tell. But I just can’t tell you everything. I need you to understand that.”
He nodded, never breaking eye contact with me.
“I also…I need to know…” I struggled to find a way to ask my question without seeming pathetic, but every order of words that came to mind seemed weak and useless. “Did you really mean what you said before? Do you actually want to be friends?”
“Yes.” Malfoy said simply.
“All right.” I held out my hand toward him. “In that case, I think we should officially start our friendship over. With no ulterior motives.”
Reaching out, Malfoy took hold of my hand and we shook on it. I suppose it was more formal than the beginnings of most friendships, but it seemed right. So rather than walking through Hogsmeade with just another infuriating Slytherin for company, I walked alongside my first actual friend instead, infuriating though he may have still been.

Harry
I had never traveled so far in this direction in Hogsmeade before. Our journey for the stile that Sirius had asked us to meet him at brought us clear to the end of the village. There were few buildings out this way and we were slowly making our way closer to the foot of a mountain. As Ron, Hermione, and I turned one last corner we could see the stile ahead. A large and shaggy black dog had its front paws perched on the topmost bar and was carrying a number of newspapers in its mouth.
“Hello, Sirius,” I said as a smile stretched across my face. As dangerous as it was for Sirius to be so near, it was one of the best feelings to see him in person again.
The black dog sniffed at my bag and began wagging its tail before looking around and Ron and Hermione as well. Then its eyes began to move around the space near us. He walked around us and continued looking around expectantly for something. The guilt began to well up inside of me. I was sure that Sirius had been excited at the idea of meeting Eleanor. It would be like gaining another piece of the best friends he had lost so many years ago to Voldemort. I had taken that chance away from him today, but I just couldn’t bring Eleanor along. Not this time.
Sirius turned back towards me and I could see the confusion in his eyes, even in his animagus form. I shook my head slightly before looking away. I hoped he would understand, but I knew that was a lot to ask.
Without any further hesitation, Sirius bounded forward and began to lead us away toward the scrubby patch of ground that rose to meet the rocky foot of the mountain. We all climbed over the stile and followed him along. As Sirius continued up a trail that ran along the sloping mountainside, the three of us struggled over boulders and uneven ground. For nearly half an hour we climbed the steep, winding, and stony path, following Sirius’s wagging tail.
Eventually he disappeared from view up ahead and as we rounded the bend we discovered a fissure in the rock. I squeezed into it first and found myself in a cool, dimly lit cave. Tethered at one end of the cave was Buckbeak the hippogriff, his fierce orange eyes flashed at the sight of myself and Ron and Hermione who had followed me in. We bowed to him, and after regarding each of us separately for a moment, he bent his scaly front knees and allowed for Hermione to rush forward and stroke his feathery neck.
I turned to find Sirius and was greeted with not a dog, but a man. He was sitting upon a large rock, wearing the same dirty Azkaban robes he had escaped in two years ago, and the newspapers that had been in his mouth were now scattered before him on the cold cave floor.
“Chicken!” he said hoarsely.
I pulled out a bundle of chicken legs and bread from my bag and handed them over.
“Thanks,” Sirius said, tearing off a large chunk of chicken with his teeth. “I’ve been living off rats mostly. Can’t steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I’d draw attention to myself.”
He grinned up at me, but then the smile faltered quickly.
“Where’s Eleanor?”
“She couldn’t make it.” I answered quietly.
“She couldn’t make it or you didn’t tell her?” Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
“What are you doing here, Sirius?” I asked, avoiding the question that I didn’t want to answer.
“Fulfilling my duty as godfather,” he said, gnawing on a chicken bone in a very doglike way. “Don’t worry about it, I’m pretending to be a loveable stray. I want to be on the spot. Your last letter…well, let’s just say things are getting fishier. I’ve been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I’m not the only one who’s getting worried.”
He nodded at the yellowing Daily Prophets on the cave floor, and Ron picked them up and unfolded them.
“What if they catch you? What if you’re seen?” I asked.
“You three and Dumbledore are the only ones around here who know I’m an Animagus,” Sirius said, shrugging. “Though Eleanor might know as well, I’m not sure how much Dumbledore may have told her about me.”
Sirius looked at me pointedly at his mention of Eleanor. I turned away, looking toward Buckbeak again.
“I assume if you’re going to ignore my earlier question that means that you didn’t tell her I wanted to see her today.” Sirius said. “So why didn’t you tell her, Harry? Dumbledore’s told me that you two are distant, but I didn’t imagine it was enough for you to purposefully keep her away from me.”
“That’s not it.” I said quickly. “I’m not trying to keep her away from you.”
“Then what is it?”
I looked back to Sirius again, trying to choose my words carefully, but it suddenly felt like everything in my brain had become a jumbled mess.
“We just haven’t been speaking. She doesn’t want to talk to me,” I said quietly, “and it’s all my fault. I really messed up, Sirius.”
“Dumbledore couldn’t get much out of Eleanor either about the two of you.” Sirius said simply. “But from what he told me, it seems that you told her she wasn’t your family. Is that true, Harry?”
“I…yeah…” I said awkwardly, hanging my head toward the floor, “I might have said that…”
There was a long silence, only broken by Hermione shifting her feet and snapping a rat bone under her shoe. It felt like ages before the sudden urge speak again came over me.
“Look…I know I messed up.” I started. “I messed up, really bad. I didn’t even realize that until the night of the second task. I’ve been so preoccupied with whether or not Eleanor could actually be my sister or whether Dumbledore was simply mistaken that I didn’t even consider what it must mean to her to be here at Hogwarts. I had no idea what her past was. But…” I stumbled for a moment, unsure if I should go on. I didn’t want to tell Eleanor’s secrets, it wasn’t my place. Especially not when she was already upset with me. I didn’t know how much Sirius might already know and I wasn’t sure how to say what was lingering in my mind. “I just…Eleanor…she told us something, that happened to her…it was terrible, Sirius. It was really terrible. I had no idea how horrible her life had been and I had spent this entire year being worried about things that didn’t even matter. I didn’t even want to talk to her on the first night of term, Sirius. I was a complete jerk to her.”
I stopped for a moment, biting nervously at my lower lip. I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t know what to say. Not to Eleanor, not to Sirius, not to Dumbledore. I had no idea at all.
“I just don’t know what to do now, Sirius. I think it might be too late. She won’t come anywhere near me, and I don’t know that I can get her to talk to me again.” I looked up, unsure what I would find when I looked back to Sirius again.
His brows were knitted together, and his lips were pursed into a thin line. He was watching me, and he looked as though he was torn between being upset, sympathetic, and all together confused.
“It’s never too late, Harry. If I’ve learned anything since escaping Azkaban, it is that it is never too late to show people your true colors. To let them know that you are there for them.” Sirius said solemnly. “Just do what you can to let her know that you’re there. If she wants the chance to get to know you, she’ll take it. But she might need time.”
“Do you know?” I hadn’t meant to ask it, but before I knew what I was doing the words were already spilling from my mouth. “Do you know about her past?”
Sirius’s expression quickly grew grave as his eyes wandered toward the floor of the cave. “I don’t know much about her past, Harry. I just know that there are a lot of horrors from her past, that she’s experienced a lot of terrible things. Dumbledore told me after he found her that he was worried for her, that he hadn’t met many kids like her. Just one in particular. He’s worried that she won’t ever get the chance to have a normal life.”
Ron nudged me before I had the chance to say anything else. As he passed me the Daily Prophets he and Hermione had been reading, I noticed two titles that stood out: Mystery Illness of Bartemius Crouch, and the second, Ministry Witch Still Missing – Minister of Magic Now Personally Involved.
As I read through the first article, a number of phrases jumped out at me: hasn’t been seen in public since November…house appears deserted…St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries decline comment…Ministry refuses to confirm rumors of critical illness…
Before long our conversation had turned from Eleanor to Mr. Crouch. Once we had exhausted our discussion of his strange absence from the Ministry and the Triwizard Tournament, and Hermione had thoroughly abused him for having sacked his house elf over the summer, we discussed Crouch’s son. According to Sirius he had been a Death Eater, and it had nearly ruined Crouch’s career when it came out. The boy had died not long after being sent to Azkaban.
Eventually Sirius heaved an enormous sigh and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand.
“What’s the time?” He asked tiredly.
“It’s half past three,” Hermione said.
“You’d better get back to the school,” Sirius said, getting to his feet. “Now listen…” He looked pointedly at me. “I don’t want you lot sneaking out of school to see me, all right? Just send notes to me here. I still want to hear about anything odd. But you’re not to go leaving Hogwarts without permission; it would be an ideal opportunity for someone to attack you.”
“No one’s tried to attack me so far, except a dragon and a couple of grindylows,” I said, but Sirius merely scowled up at me.
“I don’t care…I’ll breathe freely again when this tournament’s over and when you and Eleanor are through with it, and that’s not until June.”
Sirius handed me the flask he had emptied of the pumpkin juice I had brought him before he walked over to Buckbeak and stroked his feathers. “I’ll walk to the edge of the village with you,” he said, “see if I can scrounge another paper.”
After transforming back into a dog, Sirius led the way back down the mountain side and then across the boulder-strewn ground below. Stopping only a few feet away from the stile we had met at earlier, Sirius reached his large front paws up against me and I wrapped my arms around him for a moment, unsure when I would see him again.
It was as he lowered himself back to all fours on the ground that I noticed Eleanor. She was near the edge of the village, stuffing a parchment into her pocket and looking at the back of a man who was walking away from her. It was as though she had sensed me watching her because her face turned and her eyes immediately locked onto mine.
I could tell, even from this distance that she was narrowing her eyes at me. Then her gaze shifted downward. The pained expression she wore as she looked from me to the dog and back to me again was enough to tell me that she knew exactly who I was with. I hadn’t wanted her to know that I had met with Sirius today. I had needed his advice with how to approach Eleanor now that she was so mad at me. Now that I was certain she knew about Sirius, and now that she knew I had been with him today, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much more upset she would be.
I watched as she turned and hurried off up the street away from us.

George
“So the idea is that one side would give you the desired effects,” I told Lee.
“And the other side would make the effects go away after they had done the job properly.” Fred jumped in.
“That’s genius!” Lee said loudly, his face lightly up brightly.
“We’ve already started working on –“ I had started to say but was cut off as I turned a corner and collided with someone.
Looking down I recognized who it was immediately. It would be difficult on most days to not notice Eleanor Potter from mere intimidation alone. Then there was the unmistakable black hair that was always draped over her left shoulder in a messy fashion, and her commanding eyes. Up close like this I could make out the fact that they were hazel, quite different from Harry’s vibrant green. It was strange how much she looked Harry and yet didn’t look like him at all, all at the same time.
“Damn it!” Eleanor muttered. “I’m sorry…I just…”
Eleanor closed her eyes for a moment as though she was steadying herself. I had never seen her look so discontent. I had watched from the sidelines as she marched head on towards a dragon, staring it down. I had heard about her refusal to back down against even the likes of Snape and Moody in her classes. Yet here she was, looking down, not trying to intimidate anyone, and muttering quietly.
“It’s fine.” I said simply.
“I should have watched –“
“Really, it’s fine.” I assured her. “Are you okay though?”
Eleanor’s eyes shot up to meet mine finally and for a moment she looked unsure. Then she narrowed her eyes and it was like the flustered version of Eleanor I had just experienced was completely gone.
“I’m fine, why would you even ask that?” She said harshly.
“You just seemed upset or something.” I answered.
“Well I’m fine.” She said, a rough bite to her words. “Bye.”
Before I even had the chance to utter a goodbye in return, she was gone.
“What was that all about?” Lee asked.
“I have no idea.” I answered.