Thick Smoke

Teenagers

It was a few days later, at midnight, when Eliza took Furvus and glowered at Willy on the way to the door. That old bird had almost gotten her in trouble because he had given Snape the letter addressed to Sirius.

She had been furious afterwards and kept throwing mean looks at the owl, but he seemed quite proud of what he had done.

Once she got outside, she got on her broom and flew into the dark night, hiding behind the clouds so that no Muggle could see her. Earlier that week, she had received a letter with the exact coordinates to a house, which she found out had been a former hospital in the late 1800s that was rumored to be haunted. Newsham Park Hospital is one of the most terrifyingly haunted and oppressive locations, she had read.

She arrived in Liverpool around an hour and a half later and landed right in front of the hospital. No one was around and, from what she noticed, people were too scared to wander anywhere near the vicinity.

Eliza sneaked in through a window, falling on her face in the process and scratching her neck slightly.

Walking down the corridor, she couldn't help but feel a bit scared. The doors were only slightly open, enough for whoever was there to get the impression that something was hiding in the shadows, waiting for the most opportune moment to jump out and kill the innocent. Of course, that was only because human perception always imagined the worst-case scenario and would create something diabolical where there was nothing. But Eliza was human, and she was fairly young, so she couldn't help the chill crawling up her back.

The wooden floor creaked under her feet. Although it seemed like the hospital had been taken care of and remodeled, the dim lighting, peeling walls, and endless corridors still made the place feel abandoned. She was alright; not horrified yet. The problem appeared when she stopped and the door on her right swung open, revealing who was behind it.

Something grabbed her wrist and she immediately screamed, "Aguamenti!"

A jet of water hit the perpetrator in the face, yet she didn't even have a wand in her hand. He was soaked from head to toe, and Furvus crawled up his leg, plunging his fangs into his thigh. The perpetrator stumbled back and narrowed his eyes at the girl.

"Was that necessary?" he grumbled before his eyes moved to the small black ball of fur clinging to his thigh. Being a dog in some way, he couldn't help but glare at the cat and shrug him off his leg. "What is that?" he asked, glowering at the hissing cat.

"Furvus," she responded, reaching out and helping him up once she realized who she had just attacked. "You didn't have to be so sneaky and scare me, Dad."

Sirius had a few comments up his sleeve, but when she called him Dad, everything in his mind vanished.

*****

"How is Mooney? Howling at the full moon once a month?" Sirius asked after they entered a random room on the second floor.

"Sometimes twice. The weather has been very wicked lately, so it has been harder on him and his moods. But everything else is fine," she responded as though it wasn't a big deal.

It had taken them a while to get comfortable with each other, but once that passed, Sirius started telling Eliza more about his time at Hogwarts.

"Why does Snape hate Harry so much?" she suddenly asked, making Sirius laugh loudly.

"Snivellus hated James because of reasons that don't really matter," he started, remembering just how many fights he had subjectively begun because of Snape (and maybe because of James too, but mainly because of Snape).

"Then why does he hate me?"

Sirius grinned as he scratched his head. "Let's just say that house rivalry can affect people for a very long time. Also, James and I... we might not have been that nice to him at times. He deserved it, but we were kids and didn't know when to stop."