The Potion Princess

Christmas Eve

The holiday goes by faster than Audra could remember. This always happens when she's with the Weasley's, like when the whole family gets in one room together they somehow speed up the clock. The past few weeks have been a cycle of stuffing herself on homemade breakfasts and helping Ginny and Hermione cook dinner for all of them. She spends lazy morning curled up by a fire somewhere, reading or working on homework until Fred comes to find her. Afternoons she gets dragged into some sort of activity- family board games, washing Buckbeak, helping Sirius with some sort of decorating. And at night, she stays up talking with Ginny and Hermione, taking a moment to talk about the things that normal girls must talk about with their friends- boys and hairstyles and celebrities and worries about the future.

Audra tries as hard as she can to be festive. She's worried that she might ruin the holiday for everyone else if she starts to worry about what's going to happen on Christmas. The Weasley's deserve this time of being able to enjoy themselves, knowing they are safe, especially while their dad is still in the hospital. Still, that doesn't stop her from looking towards the clock every chance she gets, each movement of the second hand taking her closer to the time when Snape would appear to take her to the Malfoy's. Audra thinks she's doing a good job of hiding, but sometimes she'll find herself on her own and the smile slips, and she catches one of her friends watching her with worried expressions.

Even Sirius had gotten into the holiday mood, becoming more and more cheerful with each guest he was instructed to entertain. He's been a constant presence of comfort for them all these past few days, which is why it was so surprising when he wasn't at breakfast on Christmas Eve. Audra had volunteered to go find him, knowing that he was in Buckbeak's room and that the hippogriff would react better to her than anyone else.

She walked down the hallway as fast as she could, racing to get to the stairs, which were lit by one of the windows. Audra had brushed off Fred's concern about Sirius cracking up a bit after being left alone in the house she hated, but now that she's become accustomed to walking in the middle of hallway to avoid brushing against the santa hats that adorn the heads of decapitated elves, she wasn't so sure. And that wasn't all- Christmas cookies and eggnog were available nightly, poinsettias decorated his mother's portrait, and upon Ginny's request, a Christmas tree sprang up in the living room overnight. "Sirius?" Audra knocked on the door to Buckbeak's room, pushing it open gently so as not to startle them. "Are you in here? Molly made breakfast."

She let the door fall open all the way and walked in, holding her breath against the stench of rotting meat and feathers. Audra wondered how long it had been since Sirius had washed this room. Truthfully, she doubts he cleans anything at all when he's here by himself.

It takes her a second to find him in the dark of the room, hidden back in the corner with a bag of Buckbeak's food. She only spots him when she pulls the curtain back and lets the light in, and only then because he gives a groan of protest. He's slumped against the wall, eyes half closed and a half empty bottle of his special spiked eggnog threatening to fall from his hand. "Oh, Sirius." She knelt down beside him, helping him sit upright. "Come on, come downstairs with the rest of us. It'll be better than sitting in the dark."

Audra knows that Mrs. Weasley finds it repellent, what Sirius was doing to himself, but Audra had been around others that had had a stay in Azkaban. She'd seen first hand what dementors did to otherwise perfectly fine people- drive them mad, make them hear things, give them nightmares so terrible they never sleep. That may be why it's always easier for her to understand why Sirius gets drunk, just to numb the echoes of what he was forced to remember all those years. "Tonight's your night, isn't it?"

The words make him sound sober, but they've also got a deadened ring to it Audra doesn't like. "It would seem so."

"You're going to die, you know." He stares at her with eyes that don't really seem to be seeing anything. They look past her instead, at something that only exists to him. "They always die, the young ones, the brave ones. It'll ruin you, this war." He reaches out to her with a pleading look in his eyes, the fragile bones in his wrist cracking and popping when he moves towards her. "Don't fight a fight that isn't yours."