PAPER CONFINES.
30. / Sing One We Know
✶
Nadya was in the dark again. Muted strokes of orange sundered the black backs of her eyes. It could have been the kitchen light of the remade church and Sachiv yanking her tablecloth shield. It could have been death. But there was a hand in hers she knew by its shape to be Colette's, and whispers of a voice that brought her back to life every time.
"Dieu, she's moving. Nadya?"
"There she is," someone else said wrly.
Nadya's eyes fluttered open to a squint. She was expecting to be in the hospital wing, but was relieved to find the room around her was an unfamiliar classroom. Presumably that meant it was chosen, and subsequently safe.
Still her bones ached. There was a foul copper tang in her mouth she assumed in hazy remembrance was from Malfoy's blood.
Colette was at her side, perched on a narrow bed with a thick, white quilt that must have been conjured. The orange strokes under Nadya's closed eyes weren't death or the church. They were just Colette: sunlight in the flaxen tangles of her hair. She looked exhausted. Her dress was singed and bloody, and in her gaze was fear.
In the first blurry moment Nadya's eyes landed on the woman behind Colette, her breath skidded past her lungs.
"Banks?"
"Ah ah, quiet," said Reid, "Save your breath for the million questions I have. And drink this."
Reid. Reid was here. Nadya adjusted to the light. "Why are you—?"
"I thought you'd have grown out of not listening by now. Drink this."
She handed a little blue phial to Colette like she was Nadya's interim keeper.
It was a stupid thing to think after six years, but Reid looked older. Her hair was done in manifold braids, knotted in a bun atop her head and gleaming with sparse golden beads of different sizes. She had the same frown as Amoret, but sterner eyes; they didn't give so much away upon a glance. But she was dressed in Ravenclaw's colours like a tragic relic of her sister. Long, indigo robes hugged her waist with a silver belt, the silk pooling thinly at her calves to expose heeled boots and thick tights. A fur-lined coat hung on the brass end of the bed, and Nadya tore her eyes away from the damp shoulders to read her Ministry badge.
It was embroidered on the right breast of her robe: a small, silver circle with a flip-sided globe, half snowy and half verdant. The top letters read DIMC and the bottom were in Cyrillic, but Nadya only knew Dutch curses and Hindi and assumed neither would help much with Russian.
"What does that say?"
Now Colette urged her, pressing the phial into Nadya's hands. "Nadya, not now."
Reid spoke only when Nadya swallowed the contents with an expression of disgust. The potion tasted like soap set on fire."BKSD. British-Karelian Subdivision of Defense."
"Karelia?"
"A republic of Russia. Wizarding society doesn't recognize the Soviet Union. Is it my turn to ask questions yet?"
That only reminded Nadya that she had more questions.
"Where's Ozanich?" Her eyes darted to Colette. "Did Zippel wake up yet?"
"Your friends are fine," Reid answered.
"I didn't say they were my friends."
"She needs rest," Colette said warily.
"I have rested," Nadya argued. "You need rest."
"I have!"
Reid was apparently uninterested. "Claude is being questioned in the headmaster's office by an impressively eager team of aurors. Unfortunately for him, being at the scene of the crime means he's as much a suspect as everyone else in the Slug Club. Luckily for him, you probably discussed that possibility in advance, he's diplomatically competent, and—" She pulled the mangled remains of the metal bug from her coat pocket— "I found this before anyone who would happily toss him to the dementors could.
"As for Alexander Zippel, his breathing has stabilized, he's demonstrating enough movement to rule out another case of petrification, and it's fair to assume he'll be awake by tomorrow."
"What about the Knights?" Nadya asked with renewed urgency, lucidity returning in full as she digested the potion. "I mean, Dolohov, Mulciber, Rosier—"
"The extraordinarily influential Ministry children you left in a pool of blood in the Slytherin dormitory, you mean? Spare your reasons—I'm sure I'd agree with you—but you really are stupid. Both of you. The three of you, in fact. Merlin, the four of you, if we're counting my sister."
Colette deflated like a scolded animal. Nadya just stared; Amoret had had older sisters all her life. Nadya had only thought of Reid as one for a year.
It was a different sort of reprimand than a mother's. It made her feel eleven again, vindicated and chastised in the same breath.
"They've forgotten the entire ordeal," Reid went on humourlessly, "but I'm faulty with memory charms. I'd give you no more than a week before it comes back to them, in pieces at first, then the entirety. Still, once Alexander wakes up and last night's discord is at least temporarily deemed a concluded matter, the aurors should leave destitute and your so-called Knights will be smart enough to know there's no crime to report. Claiming one would only draw suspicion to them and they'll have enough of that now."
"Should?" Colette asked nervously.
"I don't offer miracles."
Nadya needed one. "How could you have possibly cleaned this up overnight?"
"Nadya, I was a prefect in Slytherin and I interned for three years under Spyros Yves. I navigate Soviet Russia on a daily basis. I find people. I protect them. Cleaning up messes is all I do."
She laughed incredulously and with marginal fear. "What are you, a spy?"
Reid shrugged.
"I bit Malfoy," Nadya reasoned, "I took a chunk out of him."
"That you did."
"I helped to heal him," Colette said quietly, "You fell unconscious, and I cleaned up while Reid altered their memories."
"Altered?"
Reid picked at glossy mauve nails. "Taking them would only risk more suspicion. As far as Abraxas knows, him and his friends, suspicious of you, went after whatever it was you were after—Nott's potions, the Ministry thinks—before the effects of the same draught Alexander was slipped finally hit the rest of you. You're all unfortunate victims of a prank done in bad taste. That might be the only benefit of such a stupid potion; no one slips themselves Living Death on a whim. So the story will go, the Knights followed you, caught you rummaging through Nott's very illegal potion's drawer, a duel broke out, and you all fell asleep before it could get ugly."
Nadya shook her head. "None of them will believe that. Are they being questioned now?"
"They haven't woken up yet."
"They were given extra drops of the draught," Colette explained, "You and I were given only one. For the sake of the story."
"So why are we here? Where is this, anyway?"
Reid settled on the foot of the bed with a sigh. "Classroom eleven, locked and silenced. I demanded to be assigned to you." She basked in the morning beams of window-light but looked exhausted under a pretty ruse. "Dippet is desperate, as you already know. After bribing Ministry interns and dismissing Spyros from my sister's case, I met with him to take it. The British Ministry wasn't thrilled, I... stirred some division at a base on Mantsinsaari last year. Regardless, I insisted, and a widespread auror call last night that someone else had been petrified was the straw that broke the camel's back.
"Leonard's quietly unhappy about my being here, but insofar as Hogwarts goes, I have the privilege of being important to Dippet. Besides, Rosier's father Flooed in from Marseille, Nott's father is under summons by the Ministry, and the Malfoys arrived an hour ago from Austria, funnily enough. I'm sure they reek of Nurmengard ash. They've issued privacy claims for the first twenty-four hours upon their children's waking. I issued the same for you."
"You're not my guardian," Nadya said unsurely.
"No, but you're muggle-born, and throwing muggle parents into magical law isn't exactly commonplace. Besides, Etta told me your father was a navy captain—he'll be at sea now, won't he?"
She nodded. She thought of her mother's letter, and looked down at her saree for the first time since waking up. It hurt more to see it ruined than she thought it would. Nadya still hadn't written back, and what was there to say? She couldn't go home now.
"And Colette's aunt and uncle are welcome to come," Reid continued, "but now that the situation isn't urgent, no one is hard-pressed to see anyone else brought into the mess, let alone those who might induce the far-reaching wrath of the Quibbler."
"They would not write about this," Colette grumbled.
"They're Lovegoods. They'll write about anything."
"What about Ozanich?"
Reid turned her attention back to Nadya. "I thought he wasn't your friend."
Nadya glowered. It was also a stupid thing to think that after six years Reid acted differently. Dryer in humour (if her quips could be called that), sooner to disagree, and a grade less forgiving. If she was really a spy even by the loosest definition, Nadya supposed that made sense.
"Claude was stunned last night. Your Knights left him on the floor outside the gala hall. The Ministry started asking him questions the minute they resuscitated him. Now he's in the same position as Colette, and grateful for the option, I'm sure; his mother will be furious when she finds out."
"Fine. Then what's the plan?"
Reid raised a perfect brow. "Your plan is when your twenty-four hours are up, a Ministry official is going to ask you questions, and you're going to recite the same story I planted in those trolls' heads. Then you're going to enjoy your holidays, study, take your exams, and graduate. My plan is finding my sister and bringing her home."
"They're not going to believe it," Nadya repeated vehemently, "They might pretend for the Ministry in hot water, but they'll see the book is gone and—"
"That. Tell me about the book."
She'd forgotten about it. Fear lodged in her throat. "Where is it?"
Colette took her hand again. "We have it, Nadya."
"I have it," Reid clarified, "and if you don't mind, I think I've done enough explaining, so do tell me why I'm carrying around an object that reeks of dark magic."
"It's Amoret," Nadya said instantly, and at last something softened in her sister's eyes. A lambent mourning. A flash of terrified hope.
"What?"
"It's... It was the only thing they found in the lavatory where she disappeared. You looked at it, didn't you? It has Riddle's name on it."
"Dippet was protective of it," Colette explained, "It was a task to attempt to steal it the first time, and then—"
"You tried to steal this from Dippet?"
"Yes," Nadya and Colette said in unison.
Reid looked absolutely agonized. She pinched a sure headache at the bridge of her nose.
Colette cleared her throat. "We need to study it."
"No, we need to keep it somewhere safe while I study it."
"With all due respect," Nadya said with diminishing respect, "you were gone. Colette and I fought like hell for this. Ozanich will probably lose Head Boy. Zippel's in hospital. That's for Banks—for Amoret, your sister—and you show up now, thinking we're just going to abandon her?"
"I'm not—" Reid bit the inside of her cheek and stood, words effectively swallowed— "We'll finish this conversation later. I should check on Dippet and the aurors, I'll be back in an hour or two with food, and hopefully Claude." She gave a very good glare. "Don't do anything stupid."
She muttered an unlocking charm and slunk from the room with such quickness it seemed she was afraid someone would catch the door before it shut and sneak inside. Dust blew in upon her exit. Nadya remembered that classroom eleven was on the ground floor, but not much else. It appeared relatively unused. She expected a sudden drone of cricket wings flossing their scrapers, a leathery chirp to fill the dead space.
Instead snow whirred on the wind outside, and flecks stuck to the windows until the sunbeams cast upon the room were peppered in little shadows.
Nadya pushed out of bed and Colette stopped her with an arm across her collar and a glare. "If you need something, I will get it."
"Colette, I'm fine."
"No, you are not! Malfoy broke your arm."
"And you healed me, didn't you?"
Colette was rendered momentarily speechless as Nadya pushed past her arm and started shuffling elbow-deep through Reid's extended coat pockets. "Nadya, I—I am not Banks. I did my best but—"
Nadya stopped when she found the eager, palpitating force of the book, her fingers hooked around the spine. She fixed Colette with a look of absolute assurance. "You did perfect."
Colette flushed through tear-streaked makeup. Nadya wondered fleetingly if she said enough kind, true things she could even glean one of her pretty smiles.
Instead she settled her attentions on the book.
The strange push and pull was something Nadya could only compare by experience to magical transportation; the second of suction of platform nine and three quarters before she found herself on the other side, the flames licking painlessly up her sides in Floo, the first gust of wind on a broomstick. It felt like something distant fighting to come closer.
An invisible wall stood in its way. Nadya was tentatively grateful.
"Have you ever felt magic like this before?" she asked Colette.
"Me? Of course not."
"Have you read about it?"
Colette frowned. "I have heard about cursed objects, but I'm not familiar with what it is that differs them. Perhaps it's best to wait for Reid."
"Like hell."
"We have nowhere to begin with this. We knew before last night that there was no plan beyond getting the book—"
"And now we have it, and by the massive fucking storm cloud over it it's clearly something important." Nadya huffed in frustration, flipping through empty pages. "We could try writing in it?"
"Nadya, no. It's dangerous."
"There's no way Riddle was just walking around with it though, right? Someone would have felt it. So why did he have it that night?"
"Nadya."
"God—Reid could have searched the Knights' memories while they were unconscious. We might never get an opportunity to do that again."
"We were panicking," Colette contended, "as you are now."
"How are you not?" Nadya exclaimed, slamming the book closed. She sucked in a long, quivering breath, feeling suddenly on the precipice of crying.
Colette stared with flat, bitten lips at her lap, as if afraid to shatter the silence and with it Nadya's composure. Then she reached delicately and plucked the book from the bed, her tattered blue dress swishing as she placed it on one of the sidelined desks. The force of it dissipated per step, the exiled, languishing call of it denied its sought return. It fell eventually silent.
Colette returned awash in sunlight again, and Nadya fiddled with her undone hair, tears wiped away before she could see.
"I am," Colette answered quietly. "I just feel it... buried under all that happened. I don't know if my body will allow it yet."
Nadya pulled a pin from the bloody yards of her pallu. A blond, filigree sliver, she held it in a closed fist. "I'm sorry."
"I wish you would go back to not apologizing."
"No you don't."
"No, I don't. But there is nothing to apologize for today. I knew the risks."
They sat in the room's quiet, and there was something peaceful in knowing it was only theirs, that whatever existed beyond the door couldn't hurt them here. So much else had tried. The wounds had never had time to become scars.
"What were you doing?" Nadya asked in a strained little voice that didn't suit her at all. She shook her head as if to dispel it, but the question itself revealed enough. "Last night, Dolohov was coming for you and you just—went down with the book. I don't understand. Why would you do that?"
Colette looked down. Her face was cast in shadows that made even her softness seem severe.
"I don't know if I understand either. I didn't know if he wanted me or the book more. I suppose in that moment I was willing to give him both. As long as it was not you, I think I would have given him anything."
"I would have killed them." And this Nadya said without reluctance. It held no weight of a threat, no fury or temptation. It was just the truth. "If they took you from me, I would have killed them."
Colette looked up, and her severity lingered even in the light. "I know."
It sounded somehow like I would too, and didn't pose the questions it should have, like whether being taken from her implied she was hers, or what it meant to be so terrified to belong to someone and still admit without pause that you belonged to them, whether Nadya knew that she kept saying she loved her without saying the words, that she had been saying she loved her ever since she started loving her; that, no, it hadn't stopped—she had been a fool to ever think it could stop.
All it was was I know. It sounded somehow like I love you too.
"Do you still feel like you're there, too?" Nadya asked, truer confessions halted on her tongue. "Like that day just... repeats, over and over. You're stuck on the pitch."
"Sometimes, yes. It's funny what brings me there and what does not." She shrugged far too casually for the weight of it. "I've given up attempting to understand."
"I think everything brings me there."
Colette considered that with her lip in a bite. "You remember more."
"I told you, I make myself remember. I think maybe—" She almost laughed at herself for feeling the prickle of tears stain her words again— "I think I just don't know how to be anything other than this anymore. If I give up now, then I did this to myself for nothing. I was angry and vengeful and covered in bruises every day just for it not to matter. What if the outcome is the same either way, but I could have been happy?"
"I'm not happy," Colette admitted, and then frowned. "Surely you didn't think I was happy. I was just... I try, Nadya. I do not know what else to do, and I ask myself the same question every day. What if I was kind, and merciful, and let myself be mocked by them for what they did to me and it means nothing? What if I spent all this time fighting to be better than them when I could have hurt them back? What if there is no reward for goodness?"
"There is." Nadya didn't think she'd ever believed that until now, but for Colette it had to be true. Fuck divinity. If Nadya had to suffer the punishment of her retribution, then let Colette revel in the fruits. Let Nadya burn the world and burn for it. Colette could keep warm by the fire.
She sighed after a long pause like she didn't believe her. "You do not need to forget, Nadya. Just don't stay there alone. We can remember together."
Together. She never tired of that word.
Nadya nodded, her fist opening to reveal the glimmering hairpin.
She brushed a section of Colette's hair back and twirled it into a lazy part, weaving the pin through until it disappeared in the strands and her face was clear of the obstruction, free to admire. She traced her ear and her jaw with a callused thumb, the little moon of a scar on her cheek, and Colette shivered.
"I'm sorry," Nadya whispered.
"I told you to stop saying that."
"I'm not ready."
"I know."
"But I think I will be."
"I know."
"Will you wait for me?"
Colette smiled tearfully. "Yes."
Nadya led her closer with her hand, trembling fingers steadied by the firm heat of her skin, and with all tenderness, pressed her lips to Colette's forehead.
They fell asleep in the makeshift hospital bed until nightfall with their hands entwined, their breaths in slow, twin rhythm. Snow accumulated on the windows until nothing could be seen. The world was just them.
[ . . . ] nadyacolette forehead kiss i used to pray for times like these / word count. 3432
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