WORLD ON FIRE ━ remus lupin

0. the 𝙍𝙄𝙎𝙄𝙉𝙂 sun

When the healers come out and announce to him that he does in fact, have a new baby, he nods and walks in. It's upon the sight of his wife, still tired but holding a bundle of pink in her arms and looking at it softly does he scowl, and shake his head — he takes on glance at the small head of blonde hair, the facial structure with no similarity to his own, the only being the small green eyes that blink up at him for a moment before they close in content, and he walks straight out of the suite, dragging two boys, aged two and ten years old, out of the room.

When Vienna is bought home after spending a week at St Mungo's for observation, she is placed in a small nursery right beside her younger brother, Rabastan, is room. The nursery is filled to the brim with toys — a toy depiction of the Hogwarts express, stuffed snakes, a toy wand and broom — and is painted a emerald shade of green, with silver decorations throughout the room. Malachi, Vienna's father, refuses to paint it another colour. On the third night, when Malachi is fast asleep with a murmuring charm placed over his room door, Vienna's mother, Isabelle, takes her wailing daughter into her arms and lets her clutch a small blue stuffed eagle, holding it tight between her hands as Rabastan sits at her feet, hugging her legs in an attempt to fall back to sleep after a nightmare.

For the most part, Vienna doesn't cry much as a baby — the girl had a weird depiction of calmness to her that bothered Isabelle to the brim, it was worrying and she felt that the people around Vienna had completely silenced her, however, she never voiced said opinion. When Vienna did cry, the nanny was always the one to calm her down, and when the nanny wasn't around it was Isabelle who did that — in the years since her birth, Malachi had only once held onto Vienna (it was for a family portrait about seven months after her birth). Rodolphus leaves for Hogwarts soon after Vienna is born, as he's turned eleven. The farewell at the station is hearty — Malachi gives Rodolphus more emotion in the two seconds it takes him to say goodbye than he has given Vienna in the year she's been alive. Isabelle wishes him well and frets over whether he has everything, still holding onto both Vienna and Rabastan tightly. Rodolphus nods, looking bored and gets on the train followed by Bellatrix Black, who is also starting Hogwarts the same year — Andromeda Black, who is around nine years old, fawns over Vienna in Isabelle's arms as they watch the train take off.

When Vienna is nine years old, she starts going by Vi.

Nobody ever calls her Vi, because her parents insist on calling her Vienna. An entire year of begging and rolling of her eyes, corrections and muttering every time Malachi snaps and screams at her to stop talking at the dinner table — the last time Vienna corrects him is the time he throws a plate at her. It hits right above her head on the wall, eliciting a silent gasp of breath as she backs up against the wall — Vienna never asks her parents to call her Vi again. From then on, the only people call her Vi are Sirius and Regulus.

Vienna's just turned eleven when she starts at Hogwarts. The farewell at the station, as like the last eleven years of her life, is icy cold. Malachi pats both his sons on the back and wishes them good luck, hoping for good grades and upholding of the family name, reminding them of rights and wrongs and telling them he's proud — he scowls once at Vienna and rolls his eyes, taking off towards the Black family before she can say goodbye. Vienna only breathes deeply and turns to her mother instead.

"You'll behave?" Isabelle asks quietly, bending down just the slightest bit to fix the collar of Vienna's jacket.

"Yes mother," Vienna mutters quietly.

"Speak up," Isabelle scolds, a glint taking over her eyes for a moment.

"I know," Vienna sighs, recalling the same line she had heard her father scream a hundred times, every time she did something wrong. "Ladies should never murmur."