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chapter nine;
makeshift magic lessons
Amaya wanted to flame the four boys that, like arseholes, called themselves the Marauders —what kind of stupid name was that anyway?
From the day they had the Order meeting and were on their way to getting a mission, they hadn't stopped pestering—it was getting on her nerves.
Amaya was sure their intentions were at least half good, they wanted to help her—despite the many times she told them she didn't want nor need their help, and would much rather have the quiet from before.
But because it was the weekend and they apparently had nothing better to do, since all four of them were prancing about the Manor, they had decided that No, I don't want your help meant that she told them to sit in the library and sigh every few minutes—like a bunch of cabrones.
At some point, she had snapped her book shut and turned to Black with a glare. "What?!"
Black had raised his hands in mock surrender. "Easy there, love. No need to bring out the claws."
"Amor, my claws will be the least of your worries if you don't get the fuck out."
Sirius was undeterred, in fact, her answer seemed to motivate him to stand up and walk over to her desk as he tried to peer over the papers she had been writing (though they were all written in Portuguese or Spanish or a mix of both with a dash of English, and she hardly thought he'd get a word, the Blacks were known for teaching their younger generations French).
He glanced over at her. "We just want to help, Maya. We're brilliant lads and a shit ton creative—"
"And a pain in my arse," she'd added, making them all snicker. She looked over at James who was also glancing at the papers on her desk curiously from his place on the couch. "Potter, can you take your little friends and go play outside like the children you are?"
"No can do, Santoro." He pointed at the window where she could see the rain splattering.
"So?"
"Wizards melt in the rain," said Remus not looking up from the book he was reading, a muggle one if the paperback was anything to go by.
"That's witches," corrected Amaya.
"We don't want to get wet," said Sirius.
"Why? You already smell as bad as a wet dog," grumbled Amaya, noting the looks they exchanged—they were hopeless in keeping a secret if just a comment like that had them looking at each other conspicuously.
"Do not," grumbled Sirius, grabbing his shirt and sniffing it before smiling pleasantly and looking at her smugly.
At some point, the four of them gave up on trying to help her or get her to allow them to help so they could feel useful. Amaya felt bad for them, she knew what it was like to feel like she wasn't doing anything of importance, but she had been serious when she'd told Dumbledore she wouldn't trust people blindly—that was just not a mistake she could afford.
But her pity soon went away, because instead of pestering her and trying to help her, they spent the rest of the weekend nagging her anyway, trying to look over her notes to the point she had to ward her desk off, which nearly broke Sirius' nose when he tried to walk through them.
Peter and Remus were less bad, or at least less obvious in their attempts of trying to figure out what she was doing. The latter seemed drained though, and the former just gave her chills, his magic bothering her for some reason despite the fact that he seemed as nice as the others—which still made him a prat because they all were.
The two of them also seemed more curious in a way that bordered on suspicion of her and that was the moment she'd realized why James had told her he believed her when he was drunk. They doubted her, and she understood that—to be honest, she understood that better than James' trust in her.
Additionally to spending their time trying to force their way into helping her (which stopped working fast after Euphemia had threatened to jinx them), the boys also dragged her along to have "fun".
Mostly they ended up on the Quidditch pitch and they'd teach her to play—James and Sirius were natural, Remus was a good flier but he didn't seem to care much about the sport and Peter was a bit clumsy but still managed to hold himself in a game. Safe to say she caught the hang of it fast, and by the end of the weekend she'd been able to steal the Quaffle from James a handful of times—and he was a pretty good Chaser.
Sunday after another pleasant dinner with the Potters (and their three extra children), she was sitting in her bed, reading the book she'd found in the bookstore—her favorite murder mystery of Agatha Christie that she'd only read in Spanish before—when she heard a knock on the door.
James poked his head with a grin—his friends must've gone home. He walked inside not waiting for her to invite him. "I'm ready for my class, Professor Santoro."
She was confused for a moment before remembering how he'd asked her to teach him the magic she'd learned. "Oh, I thought you weren't serious about that."
"I've never been more serious, and one time I had to pretend to be Sirius—don't ask."
"I wasn't going to." She sighed and gestured to her bed and James immediately sat down on the end of it, waiting for his class. "I'm not a good teacher," she warned him as she put her book down on the bedside table.
"I'm not a good student either," he told her with a wink and she rolled her eyes.
She heard of the Marauders (mostly from them) and they were apparently infamous at Hogwarts for having a knack for trouble and rule-breaking. They told her about their dares that usually resulted in multiple detentions, and the few pranks they'd done over the years, leaving out the parts she would've found interesting—if the looks they shared were anything to go by.
Not that she believed they were bad students—James and Sirius were going to start training to be Aurors in September and if that was anything like Guardas, which she knew they were, they needed to be pretty clever and adept to get in. And she'd also gotten a chance to talk to Remus when they both took a break from Quidditch and sat on the grass—they'd talked mostly about broad topics but she could tell the boy had a good head on his shoulders.
"Alright, first close your eyes."
He did, without hesitation. Though he peeked at her through one eye. "And?"
She scowled. "Close them."
"Alright. Merlin, you're moody."
She resisted the urge to hex him. "You have to control your breathing, and make sure you're relaxed, we're attempting to tap into your magical core so you need focus."
"Focus is my middle name," he muttered and again she rolled her eyes.
Grabbing one of his hands in hers she flipped it palm up, trailing the lines that ran along it as she felt his magic waving off him and against her skin like the wind. "Feel that?" she whispered, trying to enhance his magic to make it more recognizable for him.
"I think so."
She glanced up at his face for a moment. His glasses were missing and his hair was as messy as on the first day she'd met him, as if he had just rolled out of bed. His nose was long, slightly crooked from what she guessed was an injury, and his lashes fanned over his cheeks. His jaw was chiseled and his cheekbones high, though not as high as Sirius' aristocratic features. No, James looked more unruly, effortlessly handsome. She shook her head, and let go of his hands, and saw him frown.
"To first feel the magic around you, you have to first learn how to recognize it in yourself. Most wizards can feel their magic when using a wand, the key is to feel it all the time. It's faint most of the time, just a reminder that it's there but you should always be able to feel it if you search for it." She saw his face relax as she spoke and his lips twitched up. "That feeling I just showed you was your magic enhanced. Your homework is to try and do that yourself. Grasp onto your magic and try to enhance it outwardly."
His eyes fluttered open. "That's it?"
She raised a brow. "What else were you expecting? I can't teach you anything else until you have a grasp on your own magic."
"But—"
"It's not hard. Especially for you. To be an Animagus you have to be in sync with your magic. So really, next time we can—"
"Excuse me?" His face looked pale and he was looking at her, his mouth agape. "What did you just say?"
"I said, it shouldn't be too hard for you since you're an Animagus?" she said, unsure.
"How do you know that? Did Sirius tell you?"
Oh. She'd forgotten that was most likely a secret. She shrugged. "No. I can feel the magic rolling off you. Animagus have a very specific shift in their magical aura when they become one. You, Black, and Pettigrew all have it. As does McGonagall."
James stared at her for a while before he spoke, scratching the back of his neck. "Why did you have to be so incredibly talented?"
Amaya felt herself blush. "It's not a talent. I just recognize the feeling. My father was an Animagus too."
"Are you?"
She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "He wanted me to be one but well..." She pursed her lips before adding, "He died before I could finish the process."
"Oh." James frowned, putting his hand over hers on the bed. "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault." She waved him off, taking the opportunity to take her hand away from his as she ran a hand through her hair and changed the topic. "Anyway, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out with the amount of animal puns you lot throw around."
"No one ever did."
"I guess I'm special then."
"Guess you are."
The air seemed heavy all of a sudden as they sat on the bed, a couple of feet away but their eyes not straying from each other. For some reason, she'd felt comfortable around him since day one, around all the Potters, but James just... He had a way of making her feel welcomed, despite the jabs her way and the teasing. That scared her more than she wanted to admit.
James cleared his throat and stood up. "Anyway, I'd appreciate it if you kept that a secret. It wasn't exactly... legal."
"Not my secret to tell," she said with a shrug.
That and she despised the Ministry—what with their lack of concern for her well-being, only having thrown her out into the streets of England, wandless (not that she wanted one), with a warning to behave—if she hadn't stayed with the Potters, behaving would've been the last thing on her mind; Amaya was pretty sure she'd been using her magic to con her way into free care and food. And honestly? Since when did she care for rules, she did get exiled for a reason.
"What animal are you, though?"
James grinned. "I'm a stag. Majestic, huge, quite dashing—"
"I get the picture, Prongs."
He laughed. "Thanks for the class."
"Anytime." She found herself smiling. "Good night."
"Night, Maya."
And he left her room.
Maya. Most of them either called her that or Santoro, it seemed the nickname Ninny had bestowed upon her was catching on. And despite herself, Amaya had to admit she quite liked the way James said her name.
By the time Tuesday rolled around, Amaya had made no further progress with the Horcruxes. It was inevitable—she needed to talk to Dumbledore: ask for books on the matter, for knowledge about the Hogwarts artifacts, the woeful story that was Voldemort's past (though she wasn't sure the headmaster would be able to help her there).
And now, she was just stalling because she didn't want anyone's help. She was supposed to do it alone; she was supposed to shove it in her father's face that she had managed to beat him, she was supposed to be able to flip the old man off from where he lay on the ground and tell him where he could shove the opinions he had of her.
She was supposed to be extraordinary. That had always been her father's mission for her, but failure after failure, Amaya was feeling more and more like an ordinary person. Without anything to be proud of.
She was supposed to be good at puzzles, solving mysteries, in gaining information to use before she had to nick whatever object she had to. Her father was a thief, not out of necessity, but out of thirst for glory and prizes—he wanted her to be his legacy, and she was beginning to believe he was right when he said she fell short of his accomplishments.
Even her mother, who used to wipe away her tears, now saw her more of a burden than a daughter, she didn't even see potential in Amaya to have her help in her charity—You're too much like your father, mi hija, too much of an outlaw, was mother's last words before the Guardas had taken Amaya to the Consortium (a place that messed with her head arguably more than her parents).
Amaya was trying to stay positive. At least her nightmares were getting better, or she was forgetting most, and a morning run was enough to push any feelings away and the ghosts of her past back into their shallow graves. She hadn't seen Elio's face in her nightmares since her time at the Consortium and she was glad for it. But then negative thoughts barged in her head; like the fact she hadn't heard from her mother in weeks, or that she wasn't making any progress in her task.
She groaned, closing the journal and letting her head fall on the desk she'd claimed as hers in the library. She heard a chuckle from the door and turned to see Euphemia standing there. "Perhaps that's enough for today," she said kindly.
Amaya nodded, rubbing her temples. "It's so complicated. Half the words that are written are pretty much gibberish."
Euphemia let out a laugh as she walked inside the library, glancing at the journal as she took a seat next to Amaya. "Is there anything I can help with?"
Throwing caution to the wind, because she was getting tired, Amaya opened the journal and read a sentence out loud though she did have to first translate it in her head: " Each contour, every serpent's scale etched in silver, whispered secrets that transcended the mortal coil. The locket, a Pandora's box of arcane malevolence, throbbed in my grasp, and the air hung heavy with the weight of a thousand ancient sins. "
Euphemia's brows were furrowed by the time she finished talking, and her lips were pursed as she thought. Then a glint passed in her eyes and she met Amaya's eyes. "What exactly are you looking for, darling? Because that sounds a lot like dark magic."
Amaya hesitated. She thought about telling the older woman, who'd embraced her like a mother and took her in. She knew she was well on her way to trusting the Potters, but in the end, she just shook her head. "It doesn't matter. It's my responsibility to figure it out."
"Well, just know that I'll be glad to be of help if you need it. Until then, Amaya, write down on those notes of yours that your father spoke of the Slytherin's Locket, and let's have supper."
Freezing, Amaya looked from the passage to the woman. "What?"
Euphemia placed a hand on her shoulder, standing up. "Darling, I might not know much about your mission but I'm not clueless. You're hoping to take down Voldemort, which means whatever it is has to do with him. Your father spoke of a locket with a snake, and the only one worth knowing is Slytherin's Locket. It's an old artifact from a Hogwarts' founders, and important enough that might've fallen into the Dark Wizard's graces." Euphemia shrugged. "What do I know, though?"
"Thank you," Amaya said, grasping the woman's hand on her shoulder with a grateful squeeze, before quickly scribbling the note amongst the other warded papers.
She quickly organized her papers again, putting them face down, before following Euphemia to the dining room.
Dinner was more of the same, never boring with the Potters, and each day she felt more like a part of their family—they certainly acted like she was. And in a way that scared her, because she wasn't worthy of them.
But then again, she was selfish, and she liked the feeling of having a family, laughing with them as Fleamont and Euphemia bickered with loving smiles, or as James teased her at any point, before bragging about how he'd won against her in a Quidditch match—not bothering to mention that he had lost every single race they'd ever flown.
She felt selfish over wanting to be part of a family she didn't deserve, but she wanted it anyway.
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