Marmoris | Rabastan Lestrange [1] ✔︎

34 | EXPERIMENT

„That's crazy," Phoenix stated, looking at her older brother in disbelief.

They were standing in an empty classroom, different kind of things sprawled out over three desks, which were pushed closer together. To a person not knowing what was going on the scene must have looked odd. Well, in fact it was, considering Sirius had asked her to make one of the objects lying in front of her move only using her mind. In proper words he wanted her to practice telekinesis. She shook her head in disagreement. "That's never going to work."

Sirius shrugged, fidgeting with the pen in his hands. "You could at least try. If it won't work, we will at least know you can't do anything at will."

"Which doesn't sound like a waste of time," she muttered, her gaze running over the things placed in front of her. "Listen, I don't even know how to do it. It just happened without me knowing what was going on."

"And people call me stubborn." Sirius rolled his eyes. "I thought one of Slytherin's attributes was determination."

"It is, but you can as well choose what you want to be determined about. There's no point in wasting energy for something unnecessary, which might most likely not work out anyway."

Sirius swiped her statement away with a movement of his hand.

"Anyways, Lestrange said something about concentrating on the thing you want to move and trying to see the image of it moving in your mind." He frowned, muttering: "Speaking it out loud somehow makes it sound illogical."

Phoenix simply crossed her arms in front of her chest, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, come on just try it with this one." Sirius pointed at a feather, which lay next to a heavy book.

"Since when do you team up with Rabastan anyway? I thought you hated him," she questioned, trying to distract him.

He let out a sigh. "I don't really hate him. I hate our parents, Lucius Malfoy or Bella, but I might simply very strongly dislike your little snake friend."

She noticed he hadn't mentioned Regulus among the people he hated, which nearly made her give him a big smile. As much as the two of them tried to act as if they didn't care in the slightest about each other, she had always known they did. Sirius reaction after she had told him about their brother being a Death Eater had said more than enough.

"Besides, we both want to help you with your powers," he added, "and now, stop changing the subject. You will at least try."

Phoenix groaned, letting her head fall back. "But what if it leashes out and hurts people. There are already weird rumours about me, spread by Crystal Morgan, and I'm glad those are only rumours, which means they aren't true, but what if I actually hurt somebody? It's too dangerous."

Slowly a childish smirk spread across her brother's face. "Well, dear sister, that's always a matter of attitude. It might as well blow up the whole castle, but there's no fun without a little risk."

She couldn't stop the smile curling up the corners of her mouth, because of his enthusiasm. "You're impossible, you know that?"

Sirius chuckled. "I've been called worse."

★

"Would you please stop staring at me?" Phoenix demanded after a good ten minutes of trying to concentrate on the feather in front of her.

She looked in her brother's direction, who was sitting on the edge of one of the tables, squinting his eyes at her.

"I'm not staring," he answered, not moving an inch.

Phoenix crossed her arms in front of her chest. "If you're not staring at me, what would you call to not stop staring at somebody in fear of missing out on something?"

"I think observing would be rather fitting." Sirius shrugged, before placing his chin on his hand, elbow placed on his leg.

"Then stop observing," the brunette girl requested. "I can't concentrate with somebody constantly staring at me - or observing every smallest movement I make."

He groaned dramatically. "Why are you girls so complicated?"

"We are not-" Phoenix interrupted herself. There was no point in reasoning with her older brother. Whatever one said, he always knew something to talk back with. "Will you just do it?"

With another groan Sirius jumped off of the table and turned around. "Satisfied, Princess?"

She simply rolled her eyes as a response, which he of course couldn't see, and focused on the white feather in the centre of all the other things. From staring at it for quite some time, she thought to know every detail about it, but no matter how hard she tried to concentrate it didn't move even the tiniest bit. It didn't even quiver.

Frustrated, Phoenix let the air out of her lungs, opening her mouth to argue about it being silly. A voice, however, stopped her mid-movement. 'You are trying too hard.'

She glanced at her brother, who fidgeted with something in his hand and didn't hear anything. How should he? The person, the voice belonged to, had been dead for centuries. Nobody should even be able to hear Ariadne talking to them – at least not if they didn't share the same abilities the beautiful Greek woman had once used.

'It is no science, dear. You should not try to control it,' the calm voice went on. 'If you accept it as a part of yourself, you will be able to work peacefully with it. Trust it and let it lead you, and you will succeed.'

Phoenix waited for her to say more, but she didn't speak up again. The only thing she heard was the noise of Sirius' foot tapping a constant rhythm on the cold stone floor. She ran a hand through her dark hair, trying to understand what Ariadne wanted to tell her. There was no way she could accept something, which had the ability to hurt everybody around her. She couldn't just let it do whatever it wanted – especially because she didn't know what exactly it could do.

'Trust me,' she heard Ariadne's voice as a distant echo in her mind.

It seemed like her body had fallen in some state of meditation after these words. Unconsciously she took a deep breath, her shoulders relaxing, before her hand raised slowly. When she turned her palm up and went on with the movement, the feather started to move. Only a quiver at first, but then it rose up in the air. Phoenix' eyes widened in disbelief. Ariadne was right, it actually worked.

But the feeling of success only lasted a few seconds before the door was forcefully pushed open, slamming into the wall next to it. A startled cry left Phoenix' mouth, followed by a loud crashing sound and shattering of glass. With wide eyes she stared at the empty tables for a moment. Every single one of the objects, which had been placed on it, were sprawled out all over the floor, some of them unharmed, some broken.

Rabastan, who leaned casually against the doorframe with this usual arrogant smirk, he liked to war in public, placed on his lips, remarked: "And once again I think I was right, wasn't I?"