Thicker than Water (Marauders Era)

1 September, 1976 - Stars

It wasn't until Lavinia had to wake up early to catch the Hogwarts Express that she realized just how awful her sleep schedule had gotten. She'd fallen into the habit of staying up late, her eyes trained on the stars through her window, the book Regulus had given her for her fifteenth birthday open in her lap. By the end of the summer, she'd practically memorized the handful of constellations she could see out of her window.

Ursa Major, the bear. Leo minor the little cousin of the lion. Draco. The dragon. The Romans had believed it had been tossed into the sky by Minerva after she killed it. The Greeks said the Gods had painted a picture of Hercules' great labor in slaying it for all to see in the sky. She could see the constellation Hercules on the edge of the horizon, but she liked the Roman version better. She liked the idea that Minerva had preserved her victory in the sky so everyone would remember that she wasn't just the goddess of weaving, but of war.

Lavinia wished she could have that kind of bravery. But instead, she spent her nights staring at the heavens, afraid to give herself time to think. Not sleeping because she feared the inside of her own head.

So it was that come the morning of September the first, Lavinia dragged herself out of bed with heavy limbs, driven by a vague sort of desperation to get out of this house and away from her wretched family. She hated herself for thinking it and hated even more that she knew it was true. She'd spent almost the entire summer in her room, brought out only when Rhea wanted to show her off at some party or another, always under her mother's keen gaze.

They had reached an unspoken agreement never to bring up Lavinia's grades and when Lavinia had been asked by one of the many nosy women at her mother's parties, Rhea had cut in, laughing that Lavinia's scores had been perfect of course.

But they hadn't. They hadn't and now she didn't know how to proceed with her life. Not that she was so hung up on her grades she didn't know what to do but... She didn't know how to be around her mother any more. Didn't know what the expectations were for her next years in school. Didn't know what she wanted them to be. But regardless of what she wanted, she'd already failed at being perfect, and that was the only expectation she'd ever known. So what comes next? She didn't know.

All she seemed certain of these days was that she was spiraling. Losing control. And it was all her fault.

Her mother reminded her of that last fact on a regular basis. In August, she started insisting Lavinia come down to share dinner with her family, and Lavinia had been subjected to barbed comments about how she was letting herself go, how she was setting a bad example for William, how if she wasn't careful she was going to ruin all their plans for her future.

Lavinia had stayed still and silent and that night she'd cried herself to sleep with the silver dagger from her potions kit on her night stand, her sobs edged with a desperate and fearful hysteria for the thing she'd been contemplating.

But now, today, she felt something like excitement for what seemed like the first time since the summer began. She held herself from running for the train just long enough so as not to seem polite, but excused herself quickly nonetheless. She didn't care if she had to deal with Alexandra, didn't care if anyone asked awkward questions. She just wanted to be on that train.

It wasn't that she didn't still love her family. She did. No matter what voices screamed in her head that it wasn't logical, she loved them just as fiercely as she always had. She would do anything for them. But she also needed space and time to breathe. Two and half months at home was a lot. Especially given the circumstances.

She wanted the cold fresh air of the northern fall on her face, wanted the wide grounds of Hogwarts around her. She wanted something other than the four walls of her room to stare at. And more than that, she wanted her friends around her, a reminder that someone cared, that things were still normal somewhere. Because even after everything that had crumbled at the end of last year, they would all be sitting in the same compartment as always, bantering as always, laughing as always. They would be just as they had been, and Lavinia clung to that thought like a lifeline, desperate to be able to pretend nothing had changed.