Marmoris | Rabastan Lestrange [1] ✔︎

33 | CHASER

For the first time in her years at Hogwarts, Phoenix didn't feel at home in the Slytherin house. Not because of a special decoration in the Common Room or anything, however – they were as breath-taking as always – but because of the people surrounding her. During the holidays their interest in watching and supervising other people's actions had only gotten worse up to a point where she felt like there was always somebody watching her. 

There was much more whispering about one another and somehow it felt like their house had been weakened in some way. Sure ambition was one of their most important attributes, which usually included trying to be perfect, but brotherhood was too, and in more than a month they had already been back, she hadn't really felt any of that. They had split into smaller groups, only glaring at each other every once in a while and the atmosphere whenever they had to join up in their houses was more than just a little heated. 

Phoenix couldn't even say she tried to be better than the others, as she had barely spoken to her twin brother during that time and he hadn't forced her to. The two of them had never been so distant, as they had basically gone through every part of their lives on each other's side. Like him, most of his friends didn't cross paths with her closest friends, which only included Maureen and to most people's surprise Dawn. 

The brunette herself had expected her friends to turn their back on her after she had been disowned, but both Phoenix and Maureen agreed that their friendship wouldn't be based on the ideals of blood purity. It moreover seemed as if they were the only thing Dawn had left, while her housemates didn't stop picking at her with mean comments, calling her traitor and at one point wouldn't even let her into the Common Room. It took Maureen quite a lot of convincing to make Will, who was well-built due to his position as the captain of the Quidditch team and rather fond of the pink-haired girl, help her get to the dorms unharmed. After that the girl had been close to a mental breakdown, crying for almost an hour before she had no more tears left to cry. 

Although it was most of all Sirius' fault, even Maureen had stopped to curse him to death after she had realised mentioning his name wouldn't be of any help. Phoenix felt bad for her friend, but somehow she felt bad for her brother as well. She knew he would never do such a thing to a person on purpose. It wasn't like him. Knowing him for all her live, she could see who he really was. He liked to pretend to be a confident, rather arrogant boy, but on the inside what he most of all wasn't was confident. Her brother, like every other human being, had insecurities which included the fear of not being liked or of failing people, being a disappointment. He wasn't perfect; he simply knew how to cover up his faults. This, however, didn't include, like everybody liked to gossip, using girls and breaking their hearts for the fun of it. He would never even take the chance of them getting too close so they would find out about the boy behind the confident mask. Still, he had let one of her best friends into his life. Yes, he did break her heart, but Phoenix couldn't help but wonder if the bet had only been an excuse to actually get to know her. But even if it was, there was no possible way he could make up for what he had turned her life into, and that was why Phoenix felt bad for him.

She didn't even find the time to think about her disagreement with Regulus. She barely even realised how most of his friends didn't talk to her either; except for Rabastan who simply seemed to ignore the tension between the siblings. She had found herself wondering several times if it was because had experience at feeling like there was no possible way to live up to their parents' expectations. He often slipped sketches into her bag to make her laugh or they studied in the library, but other than that she didn't see him very often. Because of the upcoming Quidditch game Ravenclaw versus Slytherin, the team, which included Rabastan, was practicing at every possible minute and even when they weren't, he was pretty busy with something she didn't know about. Therefore, she enjoyed the few opportunities to talk to him even more, since she really felt comfortable talking to him about most topics.

But on a Friday afternoon nearing the end of February, they weren't talking. They sat in one of the bay windows in a corridor, their legs drawn to their bodies but still unintentionally touching. Rabastan was finishing his Potions assignment about Amortentia, the most powerful love potion in the world, while Phoenix, who had finished hers the night before, was watching him. In fact, she wasn't really taking in his looks, but thinking. After the Yule Ball the way she saw him had changed; she couldn't really describe in what way, but it had. She had no clue how to deal with the information of his suicide attempt. The only thing she came up with, was to act no differently. It didn't change who he was but still she often found herself looking at him, whenever he was concentrating on something else, wondering whether he was alright under his mask. She had read up quite a lot about various mental disorders, but she didn't really feel like she understood what was really going on in the mind of a person, who was actually affected. The only thing she really knew was that those people were incredibly good at keeping their true feelings a secret. She had even read a quote saying: 'The people with the brightest smiles are the most broken ones.' And it had scared her. Really scared her, considering how much Rabastan was joking around and making her laugh. She felt like she couldn't bear the thought of losing a friend as close as him, especially if she hadn't even known he wasn't feeling good. Still, she knew such a disorder couldn't be cured in the blink of an eye – or sometimes not at all – which meant Rabastan still had to be fighting with it although he had told her he was fine, and she had no clue how to help him with it, which made the feeling of helplessness eating her up from the inside. However, in nearly two months she had come to terms with it and tried to push it to the back of her mind whenever she could.

"Are you even listening to me, Nix?" he pulled her out of her dark thoughts.

Phoenix cleared her mind by shaking her head. She gave him an apologetic smile. "No, I'm sorry. What were you saying?"

He chuckled, placing the parchment and the quill on the stone next to him, brushing his fingers against her ankles in the process. "Nothing actually. I wanted to be sure you were listening, so I wouldn't have to tell you everything twice."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Then, what's the important thing you couldn't say twice."

"I could have; I simply didn't want to waste my precious energy to do so."

"Whatever. What is it?"

Rabastan ran a hand through his white curls before tilting his head slightly.

"Have you ever considered testing what else you're capable of doing because of your powers?"

Phoenix shrugged, playing with the bracelet he had given her for Christmas. "Not really. Why are you asking?"

"I was thinking, if we knew all of the things you can to we could search the books on those abilities rather than the runes. Perhaps we might actually find something," he explained.

"Added up we've spent more than a full week in the library. It's of no use. Perhaps we wouldn't find anything either and you've already got enough with practice and homework. It is okay, really," she assured him, giving him a tight smile.

He still didn't seem convinced. "Don't you think it would be easier for you to get on with the thought of those powers if you knew exactly what you were dealing with or what you were capable of."

She let the thought cross her mind for a second before answering: "It most likely would be. Still, how would you try to find out?"

"We could run some tests," he suggested with a shrug.

She furrowed her eyebrows but before she could answer, her name was called out from the end of the corridor. They both turned their heads to see Dawn running into their direction, dropping the subject immediately as she didn't know about Phoenix' abilities.

"You won't believe it," she exclaimed them breathlessly with a huge smile on her face.

Phoenix' lips curled up into a smile as well. She hadn't seen her best friend that happy in quite some time and it lifted a heavy weight off of her heart.

"As you know Rosier quit last week and Will was looking for a Chaser. Maureen convinced him to let me try out and, well... I'm part of the team," she told them speaking way too fast in excitement.

Immediately Phoenix was on her feet, drawing the brunette into a hug. "Merlin's pants, D. I think you are Slytherin's first female Quidditch player in history. I told you, you could do anything you put your mind to."