"You can't judge a book by its cover, Rhea"
"Yeah well, I can judge a person by their thoughts"
For Rhea Devereux, being in other people's mind was as easy as taking candy from a baby. Being born with the gift of Legilimency, it was something she wa...
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The first week of February arrived, and with it, the long-awaited visit to Hogsmeade.
Sirius had wanted to go to Honeydukes and Rhea accompanied him. After buying several sweets and giving half of them to a smiling Rhea, they left and walked the cold streets, where they ran into a happy Remus.
"Moony" Sirius greeted him, "I suppose you will go with Rhea and abandon us... your friends!" he said dramatically as Remus took Rhea's hand.
"Dramatic" murmured Remus and Rhea at the same time and Sirius looked at them, narrowing his eyes.
Then he smiled, "that's my second name" he winked.
"I thought it was Orion"
Sirius mused, "nope, pretty sure it's Sirius Dramatic Black... Yeah, that sounds about right" and then he was gone.
"You know, it's the first time I've been to Hogsmeade since fifth year," she said as they walked hand in hand through the little streets.
Remus looked at her, "did you miss it?"
"Well, sometimes, but not when you stayed in the castle with me," she replied, looking up. Remus smiled and took her by the waist, leaning to give her a kiss.
"You know that I love and cherish your company," he grinned.
"That was too cheesy, Moony," laughed Rhea.
"Yeah, too much" he nodded in agreement, laughing, "but it's true though"
"Well, in that case" she kissed him, "I love and cherish your company too"
✧☽✧
The following week, in Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Professor Wallace seemed to have an expression that was hard to read when she welcomed the sixth year students to the class.
Sitting next to Remus in one of the middle seats, Rhea looked at her curiously as she pulled the book from her bag.
"Well, according to the school curriculum I must teach you about the Unforgivable Curses" said the professor bluntly and upon hearing those words, Rhea shuddered and fixed her gaze on her book, "there are three, well, can anyone tell me one?"
"The Imperius Curse" said a Gryffindor girl.
"Right, 10 points for Gryffindor... you see, the Ministry has many problems because of it. This curse allows a wizard to control other people... Yes, many who have been captured because they were using dark magic say they were being controlled by someone... But there is no way to know..." she said, "well, does anyone know another one?"
"The Cruciatus Curse" said a Slytherin boy and Rhea felt her body freeze.
She had felt it.
She had felt the immense pain that the curse inflicted, and she could not prevent her hands from starting to shake.
Rhea suddenly found herself in 12 Grimmauld Place.
She knew the place very well, for she and her family used to go constantly before everything happened.
It didn't take long for her to understand that she was inside a memory, someone else's memory.
She heard shouts coming from the floor above, there were certainly from a fight.
Coming up the stairs, Rhea heard the shouts intensify. But now, they weren't shouts of people fighting, someone was screaming.
Screaming out of pain.
Nearing one of the doors on the second floor, she saw a woman, her wand pointing at someone.
Rhea took one step closer and felt as if her entire world burned to the ground.
There lied Sirius, her best friend, the boy she considered a brother.
He was screaming and suffering.
Walburga Black was using an Unforgivable Curse on her own son.
Getting out of trance, she felt a couple of tears running down her cheeks and she quickly wiped them away.
But she couldn't stop trembling, gaze fixed on Sirius, who was looking at an empty piece of parchment with interest.
And Rhea knew what he was thinking about.
It seemed that Professor Wallace had explained the Cruciatus Curse because at that moment, she was talking about the last one, "the last one, the Killing Curse, no one has survived it..."
Again, Rhea went still, remembering.
Remembering seeing how a ray of green light coming from her father's wand killed her mother.
She didn't say anything, she didint even move at all in the time the class lasted, and when it finished, she saw Sirius run off and followed him.
"Siri" she called out to him when they reached an empty corridor and he turned around, his eyes red and full of tears. Without saying anything else, she took a couple of steps closer to Sirius and hugged him.
And Sirius cried, as he held her, remembering bitterly the horrible times he had spent at 12 Grimmauld Place.
✧☽✧
"Now we have something else in common," Sirius said to Rhea.
They had decided to skip their classes that day and were sitting in the Astronomy Tower.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, one of our parents used an Unforgivable Curse on us," Sirius tried to joke and Rhea began to laugh. But her laughter soon turned into sobs, "oh no Ree, shit, I'm so sorry"
"Don't apologize Sirius, it's stupid to cry about that" she said, wiping away her tears.
"It's not " answered him, hugging her with one arm, "it's not, Ree"
"I deal with everything with sarcasm and jokes, you know? But this- I- I can't take it like a joke and it bothers me," she said, her voice trembling. "Sometimes- Sometimes I dream that it happens over and over again..."
"And you can't do anything to stop it..." Sirius finished and Rhea nodded, "I know, Ree"
"Do you think we'll ever forget it?"
"No, I don't think so... But I'm sure it will make us stronger" Sirius said, a couple of tears running down his cheeks.
"You know, we're fucked up" chuckled Rhea between sobs after a moment.
"Yup, we really are fucked up" laughed Sirius, "but we're fucked up together"
