The Disgraced of the House of Black - A Multi-Character Fanfiction - Part One

4. Visions

August 1993

Amara woke with a start, her wings fluttering as she shook herself dry, showering the ground below her perch in dew. It was nearly dawn. Once she had sufficiently shaken herself, Amara took flight, instantly setting off for the one place she knew she could find some answers. She had only been flying about an hour when she caught sight of the very same window she had grown so accustomed to spying through. Setting on a branch, Amara peered through, looking for any sign of a young boy with startlingly black, messy hair, green eyes, and a lightning-shaped scar.

Unlike usual, however, his window was closed instead of open, allowing for his owl, Hedwig, to fly in and out freely. Curiously, Amara took flight, coming to rest on the branch closest to Harry's window. She had only been waiting a few moments, however, when Harry himself appeared at the window, staring out his window with a miserable expression. When he caught sight of her, however, he could not restrain a small smile. Pushing the window open, he pulled from a bag some owl treats and held them out to her cautiously.

With a small squawk, Amara tilted her head at him, doing her best to convince him she was a real bird. However, after a moment, she quickly took flight, landing gracefully on his desk, just inside the room.

"Hey," he said with a small laugh as she began eating the owl treats which, to her in this state, tasted good. Cautiously, he began to pet her with the back of two fingers. "Did Hedwig send you?" he asked with a small chuckle. "I wish I hadn't sent her away. My Aunt Marge is staying, see, and if I don't behave, my uncle won't let me go to Hogsmeade."

Amara looked up at him, affectionately nipping at his finger. Harry smiled, beginning to stroke her soft feathers again. Questions were burning within her. She was desperate to reveal herself, to speak to her godson for the first time in twelve years, but she knew she couldn't. Revealing herself would mean endangering herself. And anyway, she didn't know if he got the Daily Prophet. They were sure to have printed something about her.

"Oi! Boy!" a loud, male voice shouted from down the stairs.

Sending Amara a panicked look, Harry said, "You have to go. Uncle Vernon will kill me if he finds you in here. You've got to go!"

Amara pretended not to understand for a moment, but when Harry gently picked her up and carried her to the window, she quickly took flight, leaving him behind feeling slightly more cheerful than he had before, wondering privately to himself where such a bird had come from.

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September 1976

Amara was still fast asleep eight and a half hours later when Eliana finally decided there was no more time to spare. With a small sigh, she crouched down by where Amara had shifted to lay on the seat in her sleep, covered in the blanket Eliana had taken from her trunk for herself.

"Amara, darling," she whispered, moving a stray hair from her face. "It's time to wake up. We're almost to Hogwarts and you've still got to change."

It took more than ten minutes to wake her, but once she had woken, she instantly began her usual apologies for sleeping the entire ride, causing Eliana to instantly begin waving off her apologies with an understanding smile. Aside from the train rides their first and second year, Amara had never managed to stay awake the entire time. She was always dropping with exhaustion and almost instantly went out, but it had never before happened that Eliana was forced to wake her. This fact likely had to do with the fact that prior to this year, she had only been working one job as opposed to three, but as her parents had finally realized their daughter was working and had more money even than themselves, they began demanding half her money from her, money she couldn't afford to lose.

After she had finished changing, Amara sat back down with a yawn, shifting her gaze to look out into the darkness of the night.

Becoming slightly more awake, she asked, "I forgot. What did Sirius want?"

"He's thinking about running away," Eliana admitted with a sigh. "Dad and I have been worried about him in that house."

"Yeah," Amara said softly. She had tried many times to tell Eliana about the state of her own home life, but never before had she been able to articulate it. Eliana likely knew it was an unhappy household, but she knew nothing else. "I'm so glad to be back here," she said. "Back to Quidditch finally."

"Oh, yeah," Eliana said suddenly with a wide smile. "Am I making it back on the team, captain?"

Amara laughed, giving her friend an incredulous look.

"You're kidding right?" she exclaimed. "You're the best chaser we've ever had."

"I was just making sure you remembered," Eliana said, flipping her hair over her shoulder with a look of perfect seriousness.

Holding each other's gazes a moment, both their serious expressions broke as each began to laugh.

.

August 1993

Amara had only just landed on the top of the first reasonably concealed tree she could find when she suddenly drew in a sharp breath as her mind was suddenly overrun by another vision.

Harry was sitting at a circular table with four other people. Immediately to Harry's right was a rather thin, boney-looking woman with an abnormally long neck. On Harry's other side was an extremely large boy. Beyond the boy was a woman who looked eerily similar to the man next to her, both of them large and beefy.

The beefy woman was speaking.

"Now, this one here," she began, taking a large sip of what looked like brandy. "This one's got a mean, runty look about him. You get that with dogs. I had Colonel Fubster drown one last year. Ratty little thing it was. Weak. Underbred."

Before Amara could hear more, she jerked back to reality so harshly she fell out of the tree. Landing harshly, she let out a protesting squawk as she felt something snap. Without a chance to look around her, Amara quickly shifted forms, holding back a cry of pain as she tried to sit up. The break in her wing seemed to have roughly translated to her shoulder and arm. Letting out a harsh breath, she turned her head, her vision hazy as she looked for what had startled her. There was nothing in sight. Laying her head back, Amara let out a long, deep breath as she tried to remember everything she had ever learned about healing injuries.