We Are Nowhere

That year, summer had just started, and despite some ominous signs that a storm might be approaching, it promised to be a good one. The air didn’t yet hold the cold and misty chill that would be produced by dementors roaming lose, and the echoes of an upcoming war were still far away. No, there was nothing grim in the air. In fact, the sun had been shining brightly for days, bathing the surrounding countryside in peaceful, yellowy light. That bright sun shone through the windows of the large country mansion, flooding it with light. Just like the other rooms in the house, the bedroom on the third floor – just under the roof – beneficiated from that lovely light. But unlike the other rooms in the house, that room on the third floor was in a particularly messy state. The flowery wallpaper had been almost entirely covered up with giant, animated posters representing members of the Holyhead Harpies’ quidditch team. On an old table in front of the window, there was a small aquarium in which a large brown toad was idly swimming. A few vinyl records were scattered on the ground, next to a muggle record player that had been smuggled in the house with great difficulties. At the foot of an open wardrobe were a few old copies of the Daily Prophet that should have made it to the bin already, but that had instead been forgotten on the ground. The room was so full of books that there wasn’t enough space on the shelves to contain them all. As a result, some of these books were now piled up against the walls. Others could be found in the most unlikely places: under the bed, on top of the wardrobe, …

The titles of these books served to confirm what could already be guessed about the owner of the bedroom. She wasn’t a normal teenager.

No normal teenager would possess books with titles such as Advanced Spells and Counter-spells; Recognizing Dark Magic: A Theory, or even Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Of course, the owner of these books and the many others that littered the room was not a normal teenager. Winifred Elladora Willows was a witch.

And at this early hour of the morning, said witch was sprawled across her bed in a rather inelegant position, still sound asleep despite the brightness of the room. On her desk was the half-finished letter to the minister of magic that had kept her awake throughout most of the night – a complaint on the new amendments recently made on a law concerning the regulation of magical creatures. Next to that desk was a large mirror on which the motto of Ravenclaw’s house had been engraved:

Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.

Quite suddenly, a large barn owl flew into the room through the open window. The owl went directly to the bed, hooting loudly and flying in circles around the head of the young witch, who merely turned round and buried her face in the pillow, ignoring the animal completely. The owl only hooted louder.

“Greta,” Winifred Elladora Willows muttered in a sleepy voice, “Enough!”

But the owl didn’t seem willing to give up.

“Greta, give it a rest…” Winifred muttered. “Greta… GRETA! Shut it… Fuck’s sake, I said SHUT IT!”

Far from being discouraged by the reproaches, Greta the owl seemed to find encouragements in the rise of Winifred’s voice, and made some happy noises as she landed in the bedside table. Eventually getting annoyed, Winifred extended an arm to get the small scroll of parchment that the owl was to deliver.

“What the…” Winifred grumbled as she unrolled the piece of parchment and read the few words that had been scribbled in haste.

I shan’t be seeing you this summer, I’m going to Portugal. I’ll get in touch if I am back before September…

She contemplated answering that for a moment, but a strong discontentment grabbed her, and she threw the parchment away with a wince. She would not be answering it at all, she already knew that much. She groaned and sat up. It was no use to try get back to sleep. The room was too bright, and the abnormally warm temperatures were annoying her even more. She grumbled a few incoherent words, and searched for the tiny pocket watch that she usually wore on a chain around her neck. In the process, she knocked an old, tattered copy of Hogwarts: A History off the table, and the book fell onto the ground with a loud thud.

Winifred let out a few chosen curse words when the book hit the ground, before painfully getting out of bed. She dressed in a haze, and then hurried to the door, nearly tripping on her old broom – a comet one-forty – on her way. When she got out of the room, she had to blink several times before her vision could adjust to the relative darkness of the narrow corridor. The contrast between the room that she had just vacated and the rest of the house couldn’t have been starker. Everything was very neat and tidy. There was no trace of the mess that had invaded Winifred’s room in the rest of the house, but there was also no trace of the homely feeling that her room possessed. The rest of the Willows estate showed distinctly that the owners had a very strong taste for dark colors. The place was cold, full of strange-looking objects which left very little doubts as to the true nature of the Willows. Their house motto had been embroidered or engraved on almost every single thing. Never bend, never break, it said.

As she walked down the stairs, Winifred thought – for perhaps the hundredth time in her life – about the irony of these words. Downstairs, she could hear her mother’s loud voice, complaining about something – there was always something to complain about for Valeriana Willows. For a second, Winifred was tempted to retreat into her bedroom, for she was often the subject of her mother’s complaining. It was hunger that pushed her further down the stairs.

“Ha. There you are, at last,” Mrs. Willows said when her eyes landed on her daughter.

Winifred bit the inside of her lips, stopping sarcasm before it could escape her mouth. Her eyes travelled through the dining room, landing on the large grandfather clock which told her that it was barely eight in the morning. “Good morning mother,” she muttered, “good morning father.”

“I wouldn’t call it good,” Valeriana Willows groaned. “Not when you can’t find a bloody damn house-elf able to do its work properly…”

“Valeriana,” Anton Willows interjected softly, but his wife did not listen.

“I assume that you didn’t sleep well, then,” Winifred said as she sat at her usual place at the family table. “Could I have some porridge?”

The house-elf appeared to her side in an instant, bowing so low that its nose nearly touched the ground. Winifred hardly even threw him a side glance, but it was enough to notice the elf’s head was heavily bandaged, sign that it had already punished itself for whatever it was that Valeriana thought it had done wrong. The creature placed some porridge in front of her and disappeared to the kitchens with a loud plop. A disagreeable wince appeared on Valeriana’s face, yet in that moment the resemblance between the mother and the daughter could not have been more striking. They shared the same dark hair, the same porcelain colored skin, and the same green eyes. It was the look in those eyes that made all the difference between them. Valeriana’s showed trust and self-confidence – haughtiness, some would have said, whilst Winifred only showed surprise and curiosity. There was some difference in their posture, too. Valeriana looked like all women who were sure of their importance and beauty. The way Winifred held herself showed that she thought the world in her head to be more interesting that anything else happening around her. Winifred Willows certainly did not have the grace of her mother, that was sure.

“Any plans for today?” Winifred asked to no one in particular.

“We’re going to London for tea,” Mr. Willows said as he lowered is copy of the Prophet and smiled at his daughter.

Winifred said nothing for a moment, taking a spoonful of porridge and eying it with interest. “Hmm,” she said after a moment. “London, uh? Can’t be the Somervilles, they’re away for the summer. So, Black or Rookwood?”

“Black,” her mother answered curtly.

“Nice. Have fun then. Present my greetings, stuff like this…” Winifred commented, the hint of sarcasm in her voice luckily escaping her mother’s attention.

“You are coming with us, this time,” Valeriana said briefly. “I’ll not have you ruin the house like you did last time.”

“You are once more exaggerating, mother,” Winifred protested, “It was a minor incident, that's all. The fire only destroyed the folly in the back of the garden. And it has since been rebuilt anyway.”

“You are still coming with us.”

Winifred winced and turned to her father, always the softer of the two, and the easiest to convince. “Do I really have to, father?”

“Of course,” Anton Willows answered, frowning slightly as if he could not understand why his daughter was even asking. “You know why, Winnie. It’s a question of…”

“… appearances, I know… But still. It’ll be boring.”

“Winnie, your sorting was enough of a misfortune to us. It is important for you to keep frequenting the right circles despite that. Besides, I thought you liked going to the Black’s…”

Winifred rolled her eyes and repressed an annoyed whine. “When I was five years old, perhaps, but much has changed since then.”

Anton Willows looked at his daughter for a moment, then shook his head. “Well, of course, I’m not going to deny that the older son’s a nuisance, but Regulus is a fine boy, if you ask me. I’m sure you’ll have plenty to discuss with him. And I heard that Bella would be there too. She is one of your friends, isn’t she?”

Winifred sighed. No matter how many times she explained it, her father always forgot. Or perhaps he simply did not want to hear it. “If you ask me,” she countered, “Reggie’s turning into a bit of a prat. And Bella hasn’t talk to me for ages. That’s hardly what friends do. Can’t I please, please stay here and read instead. I promise I won’t be setting fire to anything…”

Anton Willows looked at his wife, who shook her head. “You’re going,” Valeriana chimed in, her tone indicating that the decision was final. “And you’d better get properly dressed.”

“Alright, I’ll go up and change, then,” Winifred said, and then she hurried up the stairs, but as she made her way up, she could still hear what her mother was whispering to her father.

“I swear that it’s that Ravenclaw house that has perverted her, Anton, I swear it.”

“Well, at least she didn’t end up in Gryffindor,” Mr. Willows answered in the same hushed tone.

“You are right. You are so right,” murmured his wife. “I don’t know how they’re coping. I really don’t…”

This made Winifred smile. If there was one tiny thing that was good about her parents assiduously frequenting the house of the Blacks, it was that all that she did, all the mistakes, all the detentions she could get, nothing, absolutely nothing would look as terrible as what Walburga and Orion Black’s oldest son had done. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something. Her little betrayals were nothing in comparison to his.

Later that day, just as the clock stroke five, Winifred emerged from the large fireplace that stood in the Black’s dining room. The first thing that she heard was the angry whispers of two women’s voices. She shook her head and brushed the dust off her shoulders, watching it fall onto the dark stone floor. The she raised her head and looked around. Her smile immediately fell. She had expected the event to be quite informal, but she had been wrong. The whole clique was there. She swallowed hard, knowing in advance what their reaction to her presence was going to be. Then, eventually, she forced a smiled on her face, to act as if she cared not about what they were thinking.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Black, Mr. Black…” she chimed in brightly. “Afternoon Bella, Cissy…”

Narcissa Black, who was standing next to the fireplace, clinging onto the arm of her pureblood of a boyfriend, gave a short nod. The boy, a Malfoy, gave something that was somewhere between a smile and a sneer. Bellatrix didn’t answer. She didn’t even acknowledge Winifred’s presence. Not that Winifred had expected it to be otherwise. It had been a little over five years since Bellatrix had last spoken to her. It was almost funny to remember how Winifred always used to tail after Bella when she was a child, looking up to her with admiration. Winifred could still recall what Bellatrix’ last words had been, just as Winifred stepped aboard the Hogwarts Express for the first time. ‘I’ll see you at the Slytherin table’, Bella had said. But fate had decided otherwise. Winifred never made it to the Slytherin table, and Bellatrix never spoke to her again.

As she continued to gaze across the room, Winifred noticed that Narcissa and Bellatrix’ sister, Andromeda was absent. There was nothing extraordinary in the fact that Andromeda was persona non grata in the house. Much like her cousin Sirius, she had breached too many rules to ever be completely forgiven, although she didn’t seem to mind much. But Winifred regretted her absence. Out of the three Black sisters with whom she had grown up, Andromeda was the only one who still considered her a human being.

Winifred’s own parents were in the middle of the room, already animatedly talking with their hosts. Winifred had no trouble identifying one of the angry whispering voices as that of her mother. The other one probably belonged to Mrs. Black. The woman’s eyes were still blazing with contained fury. It was a look that Winifred knew very well. Her mother had the same look whenever she discovered what she called her daughter’s betrayals – the last one on that now very long list being Winifred trying, as any normal teenager would, to sneak out of the house to listen to a popular band that was gigging in their area. Mrs. Black now had the exact same look on her face, and it wasn’t that hard to guess who was responsible for it.

The tension that Winifred had perceived when she had first set foot in the house didn’t seem to wear off as the afternoon went on. Wishing to avoid further annoying conversation, Winifred quietly slipped out of the room after a moment. There were too many guests for anyone to truly notice her absence, as long as she didn’t stay away too long, and there were better things to do than simply standing in the room like a wallflower, eyes fixed on the clock as she waited for the minutes to pass. She passed into the large entrance hallway as silently as she could, wishing that she had never been forced to go there in the first place.

There had been a time, when she was only five or six years old, when her visits to Grimmauld Place were a source of joy rather than of annoyance. But that time was now long gone. Everything had changed since then, and whenever she thought back at it, Winifred was surprised by the innocence and carefreeness that had been theirs at the time. She walked past the Blacks’ ugly house-elf, ignoring him like most wizards did house-elves, and carefully climbed up the stairs. She had half a mind to hide in the attic for some time, but when she eventually reached the topmost landing, her eyes landed on a particular door. After some hesitation, she softly knocked.

Nobody answered, but Winifred could hear noises inside the room, that told her that the owner was inside. She pushed the door open without waiting for an invitation. The room she now found herself in had been ostentatiously decorated with everything that would annoy Mr. and Mrs. Black, which was typical of its owner. Everywhere on the wall, red and golden banners glowed, along with several pictures representing both girls and motorbikes. The boy inside the room seemed determined not to look at the door as he threw what looked like a giant pile of clothes all rolled in together inside a trunk.

“Go away,” he said shortly, still not looking.

Winifred leant against the doorframe and observed the posters on the walls, showing muggle models who were very scantily clothed. The motionless women were staring blankly at her, and Winifred felt a sudden and rather annoying urge to cross the room and poke the paper to make them move.

“Pretty girls,” she said casually, digging in her pockets for a pack of cigarettes. “Though a bit too dressed up, don’t you think?”

The young man in the room stopped for a second, his hand still holding the book that he was stuffing in the trunk. He had clearly not been expecting to hear her voice, probably under the impression that it had been one of his relatives who had opened the door. He turned round with a look of mingled annoyance and surprise.

“Oh,” he said. “It’s you…”

“Good afternoon to you too, Sirius,” Winifred said, slightly irritated by his nonchalance. She chose a cigarette, took it out of the pack and lit it.

“Not in here,” he groaned, looking at the lighter that she was using with mild interest, “or you’ll get in trouble.”

“Who’d have thought you’d turn out to be such a killjoy,” she muttered, putting the cigarette out by pressing it against the doorframe, on which it left a tiny burnt spot. “So…”

“So? Is there something that you want, Winnie?” Sirius had already turned his head, more interested by the contents of his trunk than by the visitor.

Winifred shook her head. “There’s plenty of things that I want, but I don’t think you’d be able to give me any of them, Sirius Black. No, I was just paying you a friendly visit. And hoping to receive an answer to my question…”

“And that question would be?”

“What have you done again, for the old hag to be in such a bad mood? She seemed positively furious when I arrived, and I guess I’m not wrong in thinking that the two of you had another row. And, as I was getting bored to death downstairs, and in passing, might I say that I was hoping that you would make an appearance, even if only a brief one, you know, to distract everyone a bit? Anyway… I forget what my point was, except, what happened for Walburga to be looking even colder than she usually is? What did you say to her? Or was it something that you did rather than said? What could be so terrible? Got a muggle girl pregnant, didn’t you? I always told you that was going to happen…”

“You’re extremely funny today,” Sirius said, with the air of someone who did not find it remotely funny.

“Yeah, that’s me, the joker. But no, you’re right, it can’t be that. Knocking up a muggle girl wouldn’t be such a problem. Nothing that a little Avada can’t solve, right?”

“Merlin’s beard, how can you joke about that?”

“Better laughing about it than crying over it, right? So, seriously now, what happened?”

Sirius smirked, the grave look leaving his face for the first time since Winifred had entered the room. “I’m leaving,” he said with a fierce smile, as if it was the thing that he was the most proud of in his life.

Perhaps he had expected to be praised for his courage, but praise wasn’t what he received. “You – you’re … what?”

“Leaving. Goodbye, Adieu. I’ve had enough. I’m getting outta here.”

Winifred shook her head, taking some time to digest the earthquake of a novel that this was. She’d never really understood Sirius Black, she didn’t understand his need to provoke all the time, she didn’t like the ease with which he strayed from the path that his family would have him follow – just like he didn’t like her ability to conform to everything that they expected from her as soon as she left Hogwarts. She’d never really understood Sirius Black, but she had thought that there were limits for him, like for her, boundaries that he wouldn’t dare to trespass. She had been wrong. It was quite a shock to discover that. A shock that called for a cigarette. This time she lit it, not bothering about his protestation. She took a long drag, and observed Sirius Black with narrowed eyes through the smoke. He observed her in return, waiting for a reaction. “This is bullshit,” Winifred stated calmly. “You’re barking mad, Sirius. Surely you know what it means?”

“It means I’m finally getting rid of this lot,” he muttered under his breath, a little disappointed by her reaction perhaps.

“It means you’ll never be allowed to come back, do you realize that?”

“It’s not as if I wanted to come back,” he snapped.

Winifred shrugged her shoulders and walked out of the room, but before she closed the door, she turned round one last time. “This is ridiculous,” she said, animatedly. “You don’t even have any money.”

“I don’t need money!”

“Everyone does. If you leave like this, you’ll have to come back on your knees, begging for them to take you back.”

“I won’t. Never. I’d rather die!”

“You’re being overly dramatic over this.”

“And you’re being just like them…”

“Sirius…”

“If you’re going to take it like this, you might as well leave. I feel like I’m hearing my brother talking. I thought you, out of all people, would understand.”

“But I don’t…” Winifred sighed. There had always been something about Sirius’ reckless behavior that had unnerved her, no matter how further back she looked. But this time it was even worse, and she had to take deep breaths to calm herself. “Do you even know where you’ll go?” she asked, forcing herself to keep her voice down.

“Potter’s”

Winifred let out a small chuckle. “Barking mad, that’s what I’ve always said.” Then, with a shrug of her shoulders, she closed the door.

As she arrived downstairs, she almost bumped into Regulus Black, who was hanging round at the foot of the stairs, with a sneaky look on his face. “Were you with Sirius?” he asked suspiciously. “I heard voices…”

“Well if you heard voices, Reggie…”

“It’s not what I meant. He’s a traitor, Sirius. He is. A blood-traitor.”

Winifred decided to interrupt him before he got the occasion to start about his life’s ambition which nowadays only seemed to be to join the ever-increasing clique that gravitated around the man who called himself Lord Voldemort.

“I know he is, Reggie,” she sighed. “But at least he’s good-looking. What more can I say?” Then she left the youngest of the Black brothers standing there, looking a little dumbstruck. In the reception room, her parents were now complaining about the ministry, talking about the absolute necessity of pureblood unions, and ranting about the poor quality of education ever since Albus Dumbledore had been appointed headmaster of Hogwarts. For a long time, that would be the last memory Winifred would keep of her visits to the Black household, for it would be years before she would set foot in the house again.