Heavenly Waters||Sirius Black

Chapter 18

Harry tries to ignore the image that keeps flashing across his mind.

The strong black lines, the curve at the top of the symbol scrawled across Gwenyth Whitlock's arm. He hadn't been sure when he'd first spotted it, almost certain that he was mistaken as soon as her sleeve had obscured his view. It had been easy to forget it, too easy. Harry couldn't help but be distracted from the tattoo by stories of his mother and father. He'd never learned so much, he'd never learned something so valuable. Remus had stories upon stories, books that his mother liked to read, the jokes they shared from the Quidditch stands while watching Gryffindor play. 

Gwen had stories too, but she was blunt in her delivery. There was no flowery words, no snorts of laughter. Simple, vague. She didn't speak unless provoked, something Harry was beginning to notice more and more. And when Remus spoke to her, she answered plainly before taking a sip of tea. The same motion, the same way. Every time. Harry didn't catch another glimpse of the tattoo, and as soon as he departed to meet up with Ron and Hermione for supper, that symbol reappeared in his mind as if he were seeing it all over again. He wasn't sure what to think. 

But when he'd dug into his trunk, breathing heavily from his sprint to the Gryffindor boy's dormitory, he'd realized he hadn't been mistaken. His fingers twitch by his side, jarred by the memory of his tremors holding that piece of newspaper. A piece that had Sirius Black's screaming face moving across it, his teeth bared like a viscous animal, white knuckling the sign with his inmate number. And when his hands moved, when the placard no longer obstructed Harry's vision, he saw it.

That symbol painted across his chest, thick black lines and a half moon curve that taunted him. The same ink that formed the symbol on the Veela's arm.

Harry tried to mention it during dinner, tried to muster the strength to form the words. But he wasn't sure what to say. He wanted to ask Hermione what it was, to understand how a teacher he was beginning to trust, could share that symbol with the wizard that wanted to kill him.

Coincidence. It must be. Gwenyth Whitlock seemed too unbothered to be associated with a murderer. And Harry couldn't help but think the Veela liked him, or at least she did enough to invite him to tea. But he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong when he noticed her chair empty all throughout dinner. The only other one that had been abandoned, was Dumbledore's.

Ron and Hermione are too busy telling Harry about how amazing Hogsmeade is to notice, chattering about how excellent the butterbeer was and sharing sweets with him. He waits to feel annoyed, disappointed. But he can only wonder where the Veela and the Headmaster are.

Even as they climb the stairs after dinner, Ron is still babbling, "Did you know that the Shrieking Shack is the most haunted--"

"Yeah," Harry says offhandedly, grunting when someone shoves past him, "I know."

His voice trails off when he sees the crowd forming up ahead, brows furrowing as he wonders, "What's going on?" Hermione looks equally as confused, the two of them glancing at Ron as he shrugs, "Probably Neville's forgotten the password again--"

"Hey!"

Harry jumps, peering over his shoulder at a very flushed looking Neville. Ron offers up an awkward smile in apology, though they're all soon distracted by a familiar snark, "Let me through please! Excuse me, I am head boy!"

Harry moves past a few students, coming up just behind George and Fred as Percy says firmly, the tiniest hint of nerves in his voice,  "Back! All of you! No one is to enter this dormitory until it has been fully searched!"

Hermione gasps quietly, joining Harry in staring at the tattered portrait as Ginny whispers, "The fat lady! She's gone!" 

Gone. The fat lady had up and disappeared, leaving behind tattered cloth and a disrupted landscape painted in wispy brush strokes that only made the lines across it more forbidding.