Three Small Words
- “You want to know why I won’t do it again?”-
Mr. Evans stopped the old station wagon right in front of an aged, white, three-story building. Rachael hadn’t seen it for three years and at first glance she saw nothing about its presence had changed, on the outside at least. She only wondered what changes could have taken place inside while she was gone. Stepping out of the car, she looked at the railing with the chipped paint in the front of the building. She distinctly remembered the last day she had lived here, when she was sitting on it waited for the cab to take her to the train station. Ms. Marshall had told her their doors were always open to her. This seemed as good a time as any to take her up on that offer.
Mr. Evans said he would come back in an hour and a half for her, to give her some time to look around and talk with old friends. Rachael nodded and thanked him for the ride. She waited until his car was safely around the corner of the street before walking up to the front door and ringing the bell. Tapping her foot patiently, the door opened only two minutes after she had rung. Standing in the doorway, was an aged woman with a kind face. It was one of the first faces she had met seven years ago, when her father left her here with Mrs. Ramben. She was standing face to face with none other than Ms. Marshall, her old “personal instructor.”
“Ms. Marshall?” she asked uncertainly, not sure if she would remember her.
The old woman looked at her for a moment, as though she was trying to place her. When she realised who was standing in the doorway, her face broke into a small grin. “Rachael Lupin?” she replied disbelievingly. She had never expected her to come back once she left.
“Yes?” She was beginning to get uncomfortable with the one to two word answers.
“What brings you here?”
“Well, I was in the area… I’m staying at my friend’s house for the holidays and I thought I’d come here to visit.”
Ms. Marshall smiled and stepped aside for Rachael to come in. “I guess you took me up on the offer that our doors were always open for you,” Ms. Marshall said cheerfully.
Rachael nodded, happy and surprised to see Ms. Marshall in such a good mood. When she had lived at the orphanage, it was extremely rare for this ever to happen. Ms. Marshall led her through the familiar common room and down the corridor that led to the room she had once shared with Becky Beckham. She wondered how much the room changed since she left it. She only remembered it to have bunk beds and yellow walls. She doubted Becky would’ve rearranged it much.
They stopped at Room 35 and Ms. Marshall knocked on the door. From inside the room they could hear the voice of Becky say, “Who’s there?” Ms. Marshall responded, saying that she had a surprise for her. This got Becky’s attention and the door flew open within seconds. Standing in the doorway was a blonde haired, blue-eyed girl of fifteen, who hadn’t changed much from her twelve year old self. When she stepped backwards into her room, she saw Rachael and her eyes lit up.
“Rachael Lupin?” she said in the same tone Ms. Marshall had used.
Rachael nodded and joking said in the same voice, “Becky Beckham?”
Becky laughed shortly and stepped aside so Rachael could walk in. After being away from this room for three years and having the girls’ dormitory for a home, she found it wasn’t much different than it had been. The walls were still yellow. She could see through the space in the door that the closet was still full to capacity. The only thing that seemed to have changed was there was a single bed instead of bunk beds. Ms. Marshall left the room, saying she had to talk to Ms. Ramben about important matters, and left the girls to themselves.
“So,” said Becky, sitting down on her bed. “How’ve you been?”
“Pretty good,” Rachael answered, leaning against the wall. “Spending the holidays with my friend from school. Are you doing anything for Christmas?”
Becky nodded, somewhat enthusiastically.
“Ms. Ramben decided to get all the older kids tickets to see A Christmas Carol at the theatre. So, I’m going to go.”
“Sounds fun. I’d rather be at the theatre than at my friend’s house with a sore head for days on end.” Becky raised an eyebrow, signaling she didn’t know what her former roommate was talking about. “I’ve learnt that sledding, trees, and I aren’t that great of friends,” she explained carelessly, gesturing to the cut on her forehead. “Went sledding yesterday and let’s say a certain tree trunk and I got to know each other better.”
Becky laughed slightly and took a look around the room.
“Are you, Brenda, and Brandy getting along any better? Or are they still as stuck as they were three years ago?”
“They’ve gotten worse if you can believe it,” Becky grimaced, suddenly looking bitter. This expression gave Rachael the impression that something bad had happened between the three of them. Their relationship hadn’t been the greatest when she left, but it hadn’t been so bad that it would bring that kind of appearance on Becky. Faintly inquisitive, she almost asked if anything had happened, but she restrained herself. She didn’t want to go prying around in someone else’s business, especially if it involved a fight with someone who was your good friend.
Becky, however, wasn’t the least bit hesitant in disclosing this information. She explained it in little detail how Brenda and Brandy started making up nasty rumors about Becky with no reason to do it and they were circulated around the entire orphanage. The rumors were so nasty that the entire orphanage made fun of her for three weeks and therefore ended the friendship that was once known as The Three B’s. Rachael wasn’t the least bit shocked that those two would have done something like that. They were always capable of it. It was only a matter of time before they would actually execute it. What did surprise her was that they did it to Becky. Becky was their leader, their role model and for them to do that to her was definitely astonishing.
“Well, friends do tend to do that you,” Rachael added, thinking of Sirius and what he did to her. But, shaking the thought out of her mind, she continued listening to Becky’s tale of how she hadn’t seen them for weeks and how they were supposedly adopted. Rachael found that extremely hard to believe, considering the circumstances. First of all, no one who ever visited the orphanage adopted someone over five. Brenda and Brandy were well over five. Second of all, why would any adopt them in the first place? A person looking for a child would want someone sweet and lovable, not two girls who were self absorbed and nasty.
“Those are only rumors, right?” Rachael asked concernedly. “I mean… no one in their right mind would subject themselves to that kind of torture. Here you can get away from them, but at your house there’s no escape.”
“I hope they’re only rumors,” Becky agreed. “But I think they’re true, since I haven’t seen them in ages and at school they’ve been marked absent for a lot of days.”
Rachael shook her head disgustedly. What human with a functioning brain would do that to himself? That’s madness.
The two spent the rest of the hour talking over the past three years and how each other had spent them. Rachael told her how she and her brother were living at their school with the Headmaster over the break. Becky didn’t understand how someone could actually stay at school all year round on their own free will, but Rachael said it was better than most people thought it would be. Rachael learned that the important matters that Ms. Marshall had mentioned were actually plans to stop the orphanage from closing. With all of the orphans getting older than the normal adopting age and no new ones coming in, they were running out of money to keep the building open.
If the building did close that meant that everyone who wasn’t old enough to live on their own (which meant they weren’t eighteen or older) would be sent to foster homes until they could find a job for themselves and a home. Becky would be one of the orphans that got sent to a foster home. As she was only fifteen, she had no means of getting a job to support herself. If the orphanage closed that meant all of the administration would be out of work, and Ms. Marshall was too old to enter a regular job, she was nearing the retirement age. Everyone would be at a loss as to what to do with their lives if the building closed.
“You’re lucky you left when you did,” Becky said sullenly. “All the problems started a little while after that. The money just started disappearing as people became less interested in us.”
“No one wants to adopt someone just because of their age?” Rachael asked angrily, even though she knew that was the top reason why no one was getting adopted. “That’s ridiculous. People should be grateful that they wouldn’t have to raise them from infancy.”
“Well, that’s just the thing,” Becky said quickly. “People want to raise an orphan from birth or a young age because then it wouldn’t be so difficult. They figure we’ll be rebellious if they don’t.” Becky sighed and shook her head. “It’s really stupid, but that’s the way it goes and we’ve all learned to accept it.”
“You shouldn’t accept it if that’s what’s going to happen. You should put up a fight or something. Why go to a foster home without a fight?”
“Well, I wish Ms. Ramben had your attitude. She’s just letting it all happen. She doesn’t care how many kids go somewhere they don’t want to be and how many people she puts out of work. She just cares that she’s getting a nice profit.”
“Then she’s even worse than the people who are buying this place.”
Mr. Evans came, as he said, an hour and a half after he dropped her off and brought her back to the Evans’ house. The car ride back was a very quiet one, as Mr. Evans still felt a little guilty about his topic of conversation at dinner two nights ago. Rachael was too busy ruminating over what she and Becky had discussed. She just couldn’t believe the orphanage was going to be sold and everyone there was going to be sent to different places, probably never to see each other again. She had never really liked Ms. Ramben. But she had always respected her for being able to open an institution for kids with no place to go when their parents died or just didn’t want them. Now she had about as much respect for her as she did for her own mother, and that meant it was nonexistent.
She was disgusted at the people more than she was at the orphanage administration. She was disgusted that people would refuse to take on a child just because of their age. This child could be well-behaved, intelligent, funny and sweet, but just because they were over five they could no longer have a home. It just wasn’t fair and, even though she knew a lot of things weren’t fair, she just didn’t think people could actually do such things. It sickened her.
They pulled into the driveway, where she saw that Lily was sitting on the porch, lazily flipping some rocks into a rose bush across from her. Lily looked up when she heard the car engine and smiled, dismissing her rock throwing activity.
“How was your visit?” she asked her friend inquiringly.
“Oh… it was fine… They remembered me; I remembered them, nothing too spectacular.”
“You sure? You sound like something bad happened.”
“No, nothing bad happened. It’s an orphanage, what bad thing could possibly happen. You know, I think I’m going to go sit down for a while, my head hurts again.” And before Lily could stop her, she raced up the steps and down to Lily’s room.
On Christmas morning Rachael was awakened to the sound of Lily singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in a loud and purposely annoying voice. She was letting all the high notes screech high enough to shatter glass. This was her idea of a wakeup call on a holiday, acting like an eager five year old that couldn’t wait until nine o’ clock to open her gifts. Rachael snatched her pillow and held it tightly over her head in hopes that it would block out the sound. To her misfortune, however, Lily merely ripped the pillow up and sang even louder in her ear.
“I give up!” Rachael yelled, pulling her sheet up and waving the white flag of surrender. “Just spare me a hearing aid!” Lily laughed triumphantly and pulled the sheets off her friend and proceeded to drag her up the stairs. “Jeez! Are you always like this on Christmas?”
“Of course I am!” Lily said, taking her friend’s question as an insult.
Rachael rolled her eyes and continued to be dragged up the stairs, stumbling over nearly all of them, as Lily was moving at the quickest speed she could. Rachael didn’t understand why she was so eager to get up there; it wasn’t like the presents were going anywhere. Then again, this was Lily, the girl who was always excited to get something “ whatever it may be.
Finally reaching the top of the stairs, only after Rachael tripped and brought Lily down with her, they reached the living room and saw a large pile of colourfully wrapped gifts under the brightly lit Christmas tree. Mr. and Mrs. Evans, along with Petunia, were already sitting in the living room, obviously having been woken up by Lily’s inhuman singing. They gave her a glare as she walked by, but quickly forgot about their alarm and began passing out presents.
Rachael enjoyed watching them open their gifts, as Lily made a huge fuss every time she got something she really wanted or she was surprised by it. She didn’t know whether she always did that, or if she was just doing that to act stupid, either way it was funny. She was surprised to see that she had gotten presents as well. She didn’t think that she would, since she wasn’t at Hogwarts like she always was. But all of her friend’s owls had managed to find her and she found that she had a decent pile of presents in front of her. James’s owl had brought her two presents, one from James and one from Remus. Peter had managed to find an unfamiliar owl and sent something. Lily’s owl didn’t need to go anywhere at all to deliver the gift.
Christmas at the Evans’ house was much different from Hogwarts, and by different that meant celebrated at a much larger scale. They had relatives from both sides of the family, friends from the neighbourhood, tons and tons of food, a truckload of gifts, and loud holiday music. It was a marvel that so many people and things could fit in the house at once. Rachael and Lily spent most of their time with Lily’s cousin, Marie, who was older than them by a year, but proved to be just as childish as Lily was.
Christmas dinner was even better than the House Elves’. Mrs. Evans made every food imaginable, which was a lot in comparison to how much the relatives brought. Rachael and Lily were beside themselves and managed to eat three helpings of everything, even the stuff they didn’t like. This must be what Christmas in the house does to you.
Time for the end of the break came too quickly for Rachael’s liking. She had grown fond of staying at the Evans’ and didn’t want to go back to her humdrum life at school. Reluctantly, she packed up her bags on the last night of the break and, even more reluctantly, dragged them down the stairs when they had to go catch the train. They were nearly late on their arrival at King’s Cross, but managed to get to the train just as it was pulling out of the platform.
They walked down the train for about five minutes before they discovered Remus, James and Peter in a compartment, discussing their breaks. They sat with them and immediately joined in the conversation. They listened to James and Remus as they unraveled their tale of Christmas dinner mischief. James and Remus were feeling a little restless and decided to stir up some trouble, which meant that the entire dining room was filled with the frogspawn they had gotten at Zonko’s Joke Shop. Everyone was startled for a minute before they saw James and Remus looking through the doorway in the hall. Mrs. Potter shook her head and took away the two plates she out for them, which caused an uproar on the boys’ part. They did get their dinner back, only after they had to chase down every frog that escaped the dining room.
Lily and Rachael didn’t go into too much detail about their Christmas, as there wasn’t anything as spectacular as rabid frogs. They did mention things that were worth mentioning, such as the tree. They spent the rest of their train ride playing Exploding Snap, which of course Remus won. They didn’t have the faintest idea of why they played it. They just assumed they liked to see themselves lose.
The Hogwarts Express pulled into Hogsmeade station just as the sun was setting and casting its pinkish glow over the sky. Lily and Rachael got out and hurried to get their things to avoid the rush of students who were taking their time and clogging up the platform. They found their trunks under a gigantic pile of Slytherin trunks and pulled them out, not being too careful at keeping the Slytherin trunks in place. On their way back to the castle, they saw out of the corner of their eyes Sirius and Marilyn talking. Rachael slowed her pace and observed them inconspicuously, so they wouldn’t be able to accuse her of spying. She fixed her attention on the tree above them, already with the excuse that she was watching the bird on it. She listened carefully, trying to catch as much of the conversation as possible. Except what she heard she wasn’t sure if she should take as good news or bad news.
“I feel really bad about what I did,” said Sirius in his most sincere voice.
Marilyn merely scoffed at his words. “Why should you feel bad? It wasn’t like she had a right to get all upset at you. Did she ever say you couldn’t see someone else?” she questioned harshly, her eyes flaming somewhat.
“Well, no… she never said that, and since she didn’t say that… I really didn’t do anything wrong, technically.”
“That’s right, technically.”
“But what about you and Remus? Do you realise how bad you made him feel?”
“Not as bad as you made her feel, I bet.”
“Still… He’s not mad anymore I don’t think. But if you apologise to him, I’ll apologise to her.”
Marilyn didn’t say anything. She simply nodded her head and walked off with no intentions of doing as she was told. Sirius watched her leave and looked around for any signs of Rachael, who quickly vacated the scene once their conversation was over. She and Lily hurried through the large double doors and up to Gryffindor Tower, eager to dispose of their trunks in the dormitory.
A few minutes after, Rachael went down into the empty common room, leaving Lily to finish some homework. Once she got to the bottom step, she discovered that the common room wasn’t completely empty. It held just a single occupant, who was watching her from the couch. Sirius was sitting on the couch, looking at her expectantly, thinking she was going to say something to him. She wouldn’t, though; she turned on her heel and attempted to run back upstairs.
“Please, don’t go upstairs,” he said, just loud enough for her to hear. She hesitated for a moment, but still kept moving. “Please, I want to talk to you.”
She was considering going back upstairs, but Sirius actually sounded desperate, and it was only on rare occasions that he sounded like that. Sighing in defeat, she retreated from the steps and took a seat on one of the armchairs.
“What about?” she asked dully, pretending she didn’t already know.
“About what happened before the holiday. I feel really bad about what I did.”
“You should feel bad.”
“Look, I know what I did was stupid and “”
“What you did was incredibly stupid.”
“Will you stop interrupting me?”
“No. Everything you’re saying right now is what I told you then. Why would you just go and kiss her? Of all people, it had to be her, the girl I can’t stand and the girl who was going out with Remus, who, by the way, isn’t really over that.”
Sirius groaned in frustration. Why wasn’t she listening to him? Why was she being so stubborn that she refused to listen to his explanation, which he intended to turn into an apology? He wanted to apologise ever since he did it. He hadn’t been able to think up something to say. And now that he had something to say, she wouldn’t listen to him. He had thought she would listen.
“Why are you being so darn stubborn?” he burst out, not meaning to say that.
“I’m being stubborn because you’re probably apologising just to get it out of your head. You probably don’t mean it!”
This made him mad.
“What are you talking about? How could you say that I’m apologising but don’t really mean it? I’m not that shallow! I’m saying I’m sorry because I mean it and I care about you almost as much as I care about my best friend! And you know me and James, which means I care about you a lot! I don’t understand what you’re not getting. Isn’t sorry enough? I am really, truly, deeply sorry about what I did and I would never do it again!”
“To coin a cliché, how do I know you’re not going to do it again? You could if you wanted to so how do I know you won’t? You made me feel horrible. You, of all people, made me feel like absolutely nothing. How do I know you won’t do that again?”
“You want to know why I won’t do it again?”
She nodded, glaring dangerously at him. Sirius put an arm around her neck and kissed her. He pulled away from her and in the most heartfelt voice he could, he said,
“I wouldn’t do it again because I love you, Rachael Lupin, and that’s all there is to it.”