Twisted Tales

In the Room Where She Can't Follow

The next morning at breakfast, a letter arrives. Now, typically this wouldn't be strange, I get letters all the time from the Malfoys, but this – this is anything but typical. To start, the owl is not one I recognize. A tiny puffball of a thing with feathers sticking up at odd angles and a pointed little beak that nips at me as I try to untie the letter from its foot. The envelope is completely blank aside from my name, inked on as if by something completely inhuman, all letters even and completely the same size, each E formed exactly the same way, the Ls so straight they could've been stamped. The most peculiar of all, as I unfold the parchment is that it's smeared in ink, what appears to be a paw print the only bit of off-white still visible. Staring down at the sheet, I flip it over a few times; convinced I've missed something.

"Who sent it?" Draco questions after I've shown it to him.

Shrugging, I hand over the envelope; "There's no address anywhere on it."

"Maybe it was delivered to the wrong person." He's grasping at straws here. There are no other Isabelle Riddles that I know of. In fact, I'm quite positive Voldemort saw to the end of that bloodline himself.

I spend the first half of the day walking dream-like through the halls, my thoughts focused on the letter. I manage to blow up a trinket box we're meant to have dancing in Charms and burn a hole through the bottom of my cauldron in Potions. Severus suggested I go to the hospital wing. Instead, I find myself standing outside the portrait of the Fat Lady, wondering what will happen if I try and slip in while someone is coming out. Thankfully, I never have the chance to figure out, the person I want to talk to rounding the corner.

"Harry."

He stares back at me, his mouth hanging open as the thought he was about to share with Ron disappears, "Er – Isabelle. Is something wrong?"

"Can I talk to you – " I shoot a look at Ron. It isn't that I care if Ron hears the idea I've got, but this feels more like a personal matter " – alone?"

Harry glances over at Ron, who lifts his arms in the air as a sign of surrender, mumbling the password before slipping into the Gryffindor common room, which looks rather inviting from the quick glimpse I'm able to get. Lots of red and worn leather.

"I got this letter today," I explain as I lead us towards a bench situated in a cut out just down the hall. "I think it's from your Godfather."

Producing the letter I watch the same confused look I wore earlier spread over Harry's face as he too flips the parchment over a few times, "I didn't get a letter."

"Maybe it's Order business?"

Harry glances down at the smudge parchment again, "But it doesn't say anything, just a print. If he wants to send you a message this is a pretty odd way to do it."

"I thought maybe it was charmed, you know, cause Umbridge is reading everyone's mail. But I've tried everything I know and there's nothing. No hidden message under the ink. No invisible writing. No weird letter-shaped empty spots."

I'm uncomfortably aware that Harry is now staring at my thumb, where a single silver band sits. Slowly, trying not to set off the temper that's only growing worse, I hide my hand from his view.

"Maybe he just wanted to let you know he was thinking of you. Hoped you're doing okay, getting through all the studying." The words are biting, their double meaning not hidden very well.

Here Sirius is, Harry's only living family, writing me. Giving me some kind of screwy diluted message and leaving Harry with nothing. I get the bitterness, but I also didn't ask for this. I didn't go seeking out a letter. But you did. The little sneering voice in the back of my head rears its head. You took up all of Sirius' time this summer. You're the one he staid holed up in his room with. You're the one he paid attention to.