Marmoris | Rabastan Lestrange [1] ✔︎

32 | TREMBLING

                   

The rest of the holidays went by in the blink of an eye. At first Phoenix had wanted them to be over as fast as possible but after Christmas every day seemed to be far too short. It wasn't only the fact that she enjoyed her time with the Potters, but the fear of facing the consequences of her disappearance, which made her want to never leave for Hogwarts again. But as much as she wanted time to stop, it simply seemed to pass by faster and faster with every day their return came closer, and with it Phoenix' nerves went crazy. Although Rabastan had agreed to cover up for her, she had come to a point where she feared her parents and her housemates at Hogwarts. All of it had his peak the evening before their return, when Phoenix lay on the couch in Sirius' room, where she had spent every night. Afterwards she couldn't really describe what the panic attack had felt like, since it turned into kind of a blur, but she knew it involved a lot of tears and trembling. It took Mrs. Potter and her brother quite a while to calm her down until she fell asleep, Sirius still holding her tightly.

The next day on the platform her eyes nervously searched the crowd for any known face. Usually she would have been excited to see somebody she knew, but on that day it came along with the fear of the consequences of her actions after Christmas. She could feel her brother's gaze flickering into her direction every now and then, while talking to James and Mr. and Mrs. Potter, but it didn't really reassure her.

"You're always welcome at our house, hon, alright?" Mrs. Potter told her once more.

Although Phoenix really appreciated the offer, she had repeated several times already, it made her feel a little uncomfortable. They had been kind and welcoming and had never questioned her as to why she stayed with them. Mrs. Potter even seemed to be happy to have a girl in her house for once and had spent quite some time with her and Lily, who really had come over for a couple of days, but somehow Phoenix couldn't help but feel like some sort of a charity case.

Still she answered: "Thank you, Mrs. Potter. That's really kind."

The woman in her mid-fifties drew her into a hug, while her husband, a man with mostly grey hair, smiled warmly at her. The following few minutes with their goodbyes were over in what felt like a single second and when the train started to move out of the train station, she found herself walking to the front with Sirius and James trailing behind her. Even though she made it look as if she knew exactly where she wanted to go, she didn't. As soon as they reached the last compartment she would have to decide whether she wanted to join her friend and face her brother or stay with Sirius and his friends.

Her older brother seemed to sense her insecurity. "You know we just walked by the compartment with your snake friends, don't you?"

"Yes, sure," Phoenix lied.

In fact, she hadn't even glanced into any of the compartments they had passed by. She was to focused on finding a way to do the right thing, but finding her mind totally lacking any ideas. Her brother, however, seemed to know exactly about her not telling the truth as she could basically see him furrow his eyebrows, even though he walked behind her.

"Who's now running from the consequences of their actions?" he mumbled, but even if his words hadn't been audible to her, she could have felt a strong wave of suspicion out of his direction.

She stopped, turning around to face her brother, who nearly walked her over. "I'm not running from anything."

"They you're walking away from it," he suggested with a mocking grin.

Phoenix rolled her eyes and gave in: "I simply don't want to talk to Reg right now, okay?"

"You don't have to talk to him if you don't want to," James pointed out.

She could see him run a hand through his dark, curly hair, which had surely been passed down to him by his mother, over her brother's shoulder.

"Exactly, you can ignore him for however long you want to," Sirius agreed, still smirking. "Worked out for me over all those years."

Phoenix tilted her head and inquired: "Are you talking about all those times when he said something and you got angry about it and the two of you ended up in a fight? That's not exactly ignoring, you know?"

"No, I'm talking about those times where all of these things didn't happen."

"Which one can count using only one hand," Phoenix told him.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," James chimed in, trying to sound like somebody with a really important position in the ministry. "I'm really sorry to interrupt, but I've got to head to the prefects' compartment." He changed back to his usual voice with a grin similar to the one on Sirius' face. "Try to not rip one another's heads off while I'm gone because I really don't want to clean up the mess it would turn into."

With those words he pushed them softly aside, patting Sirius on the back in the process, and headed further down the aisle.

The siblings watched him for a moment before Phoenix turned back to face her eldest brother. "Why do you even want me to go sit with them? Usually you would want me to stay away from any Pureblood for as long as somehow possible."

Suddenly he started to walk backwards into the same direction, in which his best friend had just disappeared. "Because I need to do something really important."

"What are you talking about?"

"I guess that's for me to know and for you to most likely never find out," Sirius told her before turning around, leaving her standing her standing alone in the empty aisle.

She wanted to shout after him but as he opened the door of a compartment something else caught her attention. There was some kind of yellow smoke or mist surrounding his body. At first it was only a hint of yellow but in the few seconds it got denser. It had the same shape of his body but was a simple cover of some kind – like an aura.