Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter 29: January Walks and Another Azkaban Interlude

By the time school resumed in January, the snow had lost its splendor and the students were wishing for summer to bring its warmth to them again. It was bitterly cold and dank, the snow nothing more than slush now and even the sun itself brought no warmth.

Lily was standing by Sara's tombstone again. The wind whipped her hair away from her face and stung her eyes, but she was still here, same as always. But this time . . . this time, Lily found herself with nothing to say. Oh, there was plenty to talk about in her life, but what to say? That was the tricky part.

Should I tell Sara about how happy I am these days? How James makes the sun shine? How thinking about you doesn't hurt me anymore? Lily didn't have the heart to fully admit it yet, but she was moving on and Sarah was becoming a memory. A precious, wonderful memory that Lily would hold dear to all her life, but still, just a memory. It happened to all the dead, eventually. They were always left behind.

*******************

James stood behind a large pillar and watched Lily stand by Sara's grave. She doesn't realize how beautiful she is, he thought. Her devotion to her friends was one of the many things James adored about Lily. Yet her refusal to move on from past events both touched and worried him: touched because of her obvious love for Sara, worried because she seemed scarred by a deeper evil he did not yet know about. Whatever Lucius had done to her was severe enough that Lily didn't seem whole yet. She still had not healed, and the worst part was that if she continued to stay silent, James wasn't sure if he could help her.

*******************

The raven watched as Sirius stepped out into the chill air and took a deep breath, his head thrown back and eyes closed. He stepped off the path, as he always did, and wandered through ankle deep snow. He didn't seem to be going anywhere; he was just walking. The raven followed, as always, but it was bored with this assignment and wanted something more to do than follow the boy around like a shadow. His master, however, was a harsh master, and so he followed. To what point, he did not know. To the raven, however, the ending did not matter as long as the journey was interesting enough. The wiles of humans never interested him much anyway.

Humans, he had learned, were petty creatures. They had become so accustomed to achieving their own desires that they had forgotten how to survive. Simple-minded beings, they seemed. Survival would come back to them soon enough. If it didn't, the humans would never survive what the red eyes would bring them.

Once again, that was not the raven's problem. It raven had to survive, and so it watched, nothing more than an ink black shadow against the driven snow, never noticed but always there. The spy for the monsters.

*****************

Sirius just walked with no destination in mind. In the past, these walks were taken to clear his mind of the turmoil that lived there. This walk, however, was just for him to enjoy the day. It had been so long since he had enjoyed anything.

The ongoing war between his group of Gryffindors and Severus' Slytherins had seemed to reach a kind of stalemate. The Slytherins had reduced their hatred to condescending glares across the Great Hall, which Sirius and his comrades found it very easy to ignore. In the back of his mind, he knew that the Slytherins were just waiting for something, but Sirius was too caught up in the new whirl of life to care.

Lily Evans still danced in the fevered heat of his dreams. There, no James existed to stand between Sirius and the red-haired vixen his heart so longed for. In the dark watches of the night, Lily was all his.

Yet daylight brought another story, one Sirius had never expected. Since Christmas Day, he had found himself drawn more and more to Autumn. Here was a spunky, vivacious, talented, sweet girl who was clearly interested in him and had even gone so far as to drag Remus into her schemes to get him. That fact alone made Sirius laugh: he, along with everyone else, had thought Autumn fancied Remus! Imagine his surprise when, on confronting Remus on Boxing Day, he admitted that he was merely trying to help Sirius notice Autumn.

"You look as though you could do with some laughter, and Autumn provides that in spades," Remus had said.

There was nothing solid between Sirius and Autumn yet; he was a bit nervous about it. It didn't seem right to lead Autumn on, while lusting after her friend at night. However, Remus had been right: Sirius was able to truly laugh with Autumn, something he had not done in a very long time. Sirius was becoming attracted to her, although he didn't want to admit it.

Autumn was becoming the miracle.

*********************

The Great Hall was packed with students gorging themselves on food, shouts and laughter echoing loudly off the walls. It left a ringing in Calista's ears; she did not enjoy being so lost in such a mass of students. It always made her feel a bit claustrophobic. She ate silently, now and then looking up from her plate to scan her fellow students. To the casual observer, it seemed as though she was trying to find someone in the massive throng of people, but no one ever observed Calista. None that she knew of, anyway.

Finally, during the desserts, a couple of chattering Ravenclaw girls left their table and Calista was able to see him. He was reading a book over his empty ice cream bowl while others talked around him. She took no notice of his friends; they were less than dirt to her. She only had eyes for her werewolf.

"What's wrong?"

"You keep asking me that!" she cried frustrated. "There is nothing wrong!"

"Then why won't you be seen with me? Why won't you talk to me in school? Why do you insist we hide ourselves in this miserable little hovel?"

She had gone very still, her fingers no longer twiddling with the blanket.

"What we have . . ." her voice was very small She hoped it didn't sound too rehearsed, even though she had spent hours in front of her mirror doing just that.

"What we have is not supposed to be," she said. "This is wrong. You know we don't belong together. We're too different. We-"

He silenced her with a small, delicate kiss. He pulled back just enough to whisper to her before he kissed her again.

"I don't care."

That was her sunshine, her own source of light in the darkness of her world. Calista kept crawling to that dilapidated little shack because those moments there belonged entirely to her and Remus and not even Severus Snape could take them from her.

She was in love with Remus Lupin. Completely, absolutely, totally in love. His innocence amazed her, his kindness warmed her soul. He was everything she was not, and yet she couldn't bear to tear herself away from him, despite whatever consequences may come.

"Close your heart, Calista, or you will just give them one more thing to destroy. They're like locusts, destroying everything in their path until there's nothing left to ruin. Only then will they finish each other. Then, maybe, the world will find peace. Until then, survive. Do what you have to, cut out whom you must. Caring about anyone will only ruin their life.

Narcissa's words rang in her head, invading her thoughts. No, she thought. Narcissa is wrong. Loving Remus will not hurt him, it will save me. Calista sought out Narcissa now, finding her next to Lucius, who was thoroughly ignoring her. So that was like being Narcissa Black: a trophy, a shadow to a man she did not love. Narcissa may have surrendered, but Calista was-

A very familiar hand touched Calista's shoulder. She gritted her teeth but did not cry out as she wanted to.

"Come with me," Severus whispered into her ear. The feel of his breath on her made her skin crawl, but there was nothing she could do. She no longer bothered protesting, it only made him rougher.

She carefully placed her fork next to her plate, then whirled around and buried her knife into Severus' neck. Blood gushed out, streaming over her hands and spraying the walls. She wrenched the knife free and sank it again, this time into his chest. She watched his eyes glaze over, becoming empty, becoming nothing, as he fell to his knees before her. Calista released her knife and slowly turned to face to the Hogwarts students.

No one had paused in their movements; indeed, no one had even turned their way. They continued with their meal, as happy as ever, completely uncaring that a murder had just been performed right in front of their eyes. It did not matter to them, not at all. After all, the culprits were Slytherins and what else could be expected of Slytherins but murder and hate. . .

Calista was screaming but making no sound, not only invisible as always but now not even audible anymore. Why didn't they take notice of her? Was she so little to them that her taking of a life meant nothing?

Remus was staring at her, hatred darkening his usually sweet face. Hate was not an expression that suited Remus, it made him seem cold and ugly. Calista wanted to smack the expression off of his face. How dare he look at her like that! As if he had the right to judge her actions. What did he understand; he was just a lowly werewolf -

Calista put down her fork and her knife on either side of her plate, took one last swig of pumpkin juice from her golden goblet and stood to face Severus. She placed her hand in his without a word. She would not let him evoke any emotion from her; he would just use it against her later.

When his fingers didn't close over hers right away, as they always did, she looked at his face. Actually looked at his face, and what she saw startled her. By the sneering look he wore, it was obvious he knew every detail of the fantasy she had just had. She couldn't read the other part of his expression; did it almost seem like pity? But that was impossible because Calista knew that Severus Snape could not feel anything, let alone pity. Besides, she didn't care if he knew. She disappeared a little more each time he touched her; felt her life become darker with every kiss. Didn't he realize he was making love to one already dead?

***************

Lily watched them go, her eyes especially focused on the tiny Calista. Lily prided herself on being a fair, decent person; the only being she truly hated was Lucius Malfoy, and yet when she looked at Calista . . . she evoked a feeling that Lily could not put to words. It was something dark and sinister and even worse than that.

When Lily was twelve, she had come across Calista in the gardens, apparently tending to a dove that had broken its wing. She had been cradling the injured bird in her hands, staring at it with an almost compassionate look. Lily was very fond of animals, and also enjoyed the chance to talk to people she felt had the same compassion. She saw that in Calista's eyes and was about to approach the other girl when thin, pale hands swiftly clenched down on the bird, grasped the unbroken wing and bent it until Lily heard a snap echo throughout the dry fall air. Lily had stood hidden in the shadows, completely stunned that a human had the capability to be so cruel. What was even stranger, and somehow horrifying, was that Calista's face mirrored what Lily was feeling, as though hands and face belonged to two different beings. Lily had fled, silently, too afraid then for a confrontation and was positive Calista had never realized she was being watched.

Lily had rarely had contact with Calista in the five years that had passed since that day, speaking only when school demanded it. In fact, she made it a point to stay physically as far away from Calista as possible. Lily believed in evil, she believed in the maliciousness of Lucius' gang on miscreants in particular. It was no surprise to her that Calista had molded herself to them. She belonged there, with the serpents, as slimy and debaucherous and twisted as any Slytherin Lily had come across. Severus made Lily fear for her stomach, Lucius made her fear for her life, Bellatrix made her fear for her sanity. Calista, however, brought a feeling completely different.

She didn't realize her capacity for evil! She didn't understand that the darkness festering inside her, the darkness the Sorting Hat had obviously seen in her (for how else could she be in Slytherin?), that darkness was bound to rise to the surface someday and when that day came, that fetid blackness Calista would ooze, would overshadow the lesser doings of Bellatrix and Severus and even Lucius Malfoy himself. Calista made Lily fear for her soul and for the souls of anyone who dared to believe that any goodness could come from a creature like that.

That is what Lily knew about Calista Serene. Nothing but darkness would ever come from her; Lily knew it in her bones. Calista was death to all who tried to believe in her. At least Lily and her friends were safe from it. No one in Gryffindor was crazy enough to get mixed up with the likes of her.

~ Azkaban Prison ~

In all his years locked in this island of hell, Sirius had never imagined this face coming to see him. This horrid face that haunted his nightmares. Here was the one who had torn his group of friends to shreds; hunted and attacked until he, Sirius, and poor Remus were the only ones left. Sirius searched those eyes for any sign of a soul. There was none. There was no remorse, no cause for sympathy. There was only triumph as Sirius looked.

"Aren't you going to say hello?"

Sirius gritted his teeth. He did not want to speak; indeed, he almost missed the solitary confinement of his cell. Seeing this face before him, this wicked face that dared put on a mask of innocence during the light of day, increased all the pain of Sirius' miserable life in full force.

Here was the reason for everything, sitting before him: the reason Lily and James were gone, that Peter had turned, that Remus was out there alone. There was not a person in the world Sirius hated more than the face in front of him. Yet, he found himself swallowing his pride as he cleared his throat to finally speak.

"Hello, Lucius."

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