Vivicendium ➝ Sirius Black/OC

Auctoritatis

Chapter Two | Auctoritatis

[Authority]

Fifteen years ago

Platform 9 ¾ is bustling, but Vivian Blair barely notices. Her mother is fussing over fixing her robes and her father is grasping her shoulder tightly, and she is far too preoccupied with standing up straight and glancing around in hopes of catching sight of a head of white-blonde hair to care overmuch for the swarm of other students.

"I don't see him," Vivian sighs impatiently, much to her mother's amusement.

In a delicate voice, she replies, "Perhaps he's already on the train, darling." She barely pauses a moment before hurrying on with a carefully unconcerned, "You know, Lucius Malfoy would be a wonderful – "

"I've already told you, him and Narcissa have a thing. Besides, he's rotten," Vivian adds with a grumble. She should know better than to complain about Lucius Malfoy in front of her pureblood parents, but sometimes she can't help it.

Her father tightens his grasp on her shoulder and leans down to murmur, "Your mother and I will be making arrangements for you, Vivian. Don't cause any trouble this year. It's your last chance to make a good impression."

Vivian stiffens, but doesn't argue. She gives her father a terse nod and falls silent. It isn't as if she can go against these 'arrangements' anyhow. Like every good pureblood daughter, she will have the same fate as the next. For her to be married off into a respectable family is the hope of her parents. Her entire life has led up to this one goal. She has been groomed for it. By the time her seventh year at Hogwarts comes to an end, she will immediately begin the next stage of her life. It has all been planned out from the day of her birth, and it isn't possible for her to verge from that path.

In this moment, as she stands there and waits for the Hogwarts Express to shuttle her back to school for her final year, she truly believes that. Little does she know how everything will change in the course of said year.

"Oh, there's Lucius! I'll say goodbye to you now, then," Vivian hurriedly says, turning back to her mother to give her a brief embrace. There is little love behind the action. The sight of Lucius Malfoy's blonde head and black robes is all Vivian is focused on.

She cannot know, in that moment, how drastically her entire world will be altered in the coming months. As she steps away from her parents to intercept Lucius before he can board the train, she is utterly blind to the changes that will soon sweep into her life.

They say that fate works in mysterious ways. Perhaps it does. Perhaps her overpowering desire to catch Lucius before he disappears on her is just some altered twist of that mysterious force that presses into her, guiding her forward. Or – perhaps what happens next is merely due to the clumsiness of one Peter Pettigrew, who gets right in her way as she storms forward. She's glad that her parents aren't the type to stick around, because when she stumbles into the boy and ends up flying flat on her face in the middle of the station, she does so with such impeccable gracelessness that it almost seems divinely orchestrated.

"O-oh, s-s-s-sorry – "

"You idiot!" Vivian snarls, pushing herself back up with a scowl. Pettigrew is one of those people who she just cannot stand. Besides being a clumsy simpleton who seems to lack even the smallest shred of common sense, the boy is friends with those aggravating Gryffindors who are always getting into trouble and picking fights with the Slytherins. If that isn't enough to make her loathe the very ground he walks on, he also creeps her out. There's just something about him that makes her grimace with disgust. Maybe it's his small black eyes or his jumpy reflexes, or perhaps it's merely the fact that wherever he goes, he is rarely alone.