It had been a few sleepless nights since she had arrived back at Hogwarts. Adjusting back to normal life did not seem feasible. Everything was in black and white, foggy. Shadows were everywhere, and Zia constantly felt trapped in them. Spiky dark corners where the bad thoughts and jarring memories. Yet paradoxically, Zia had the sensation that she was in the spotlight. And after all the years she’d spent seeking attention, now that she had it, she just wanted to hide.

For once things weren’t easy, bright, and happy, and everything just kept getting worse. Going home made her heart hurt, staying at Hogwarts felt the same. This problem was too big for a few family dinners to fix.  Every time she closed her eyes she saw blood. For the first time since her second year she took out the stuffed dolphin, a token meant to remind her of home.

Now she was perched on a window ledge, twisting a curl of hair around her finger. It wasn’t even the slightest bit pink anymore, not since she’d washed all the blood out of it. Girl the dolphin was in her lap and with her also were cigarettes. Many more than her lungs could handle as a new smoker, if that’s even what she was. She had only ever done it socially. and in with her other hand she fiddled with one of the cigarettes, trying to decide what to do.

[thread title inspired by ”smoke” by ben folds]

Ever since his cousin had come back from being kidnapped, Marco had been keeping a closer eye on her. He was so thankful that she hadn't died. When she came back, he had even greeted her with a hug. And he was not a hugger, not even a little bit.

Zia had changed. This whole year had been hellish for her and their family. Not only had she lost a brother, but some complete lunatic had decided to abduct a bunch of students, throw them in a room full of blood. Marco wasn't sure what exactly happened, and he didn't really want to know. Whenever she made a point to be mopey and alone and he noticed-- he actually put an effort in on checking on her.

"You still haven't figured out how to smoke?" Marco teased, taking a seat next to her on the window ledge.

“Still haven’t learned how to smoke?

Zia jumped at the sound of Marco’s voice and let out a small yelp. She’d been staring down the barrel of the cigarettes, deciding whether or not this was a habit she wanted to start. The reaction sent the small stick flying out of hands, and Zia made a few goofy attempts to catch it before gravity finally won.

She turned back to her cousin with a glare, but as her eyes met his she remembered the big hug he’d given her when they’d all returned. Even though they were family, and Italian at that, Marco wasn’t really affectionate. It was the Pisellis who would cover each other in a thousand kisses, going from cheek to cheek for what seemed like forever. That had kind of been a lot when she returned; she was still in shock. The hug from Marco was simple enough to let her know that she was back, and presumably safe.

“Want one?” Zia asked, plucking another cig from the pile. “I can light it for you,” she boasted, just so Marco’s comment wouldn’t go without a comeback. Even in this state of brooding she had to prove herself.

“Did you see the lake, yesterday?” Zia asked. She was challenging herself, bringing up the horrors of the last few days.

He gladly accepted the cigarette-- she got the pre-rolled ones. Fancy.

With the cigarette between his fingers, he held it out towards Zia with amusement as he waited for her to light it. Marco gave exactly zero fucks about getting caught. Between people getting kidnapped and the NEWT-level loads of homework, he deserved to unwind and relax. Besides, he was going to blow the smoke out the window anyway.

At the mention of the lake his expression turned grim. Marco's reply was a curt nod, followed by-- "I tried to get Amherst to drink it. He called me a monster." Marco shrugged, "You think it was real blood?"

Zia didn’t really care if someone found her smoking. It wouldn’t even be the worst thing that had happened to her that week. Recently she had been getting into so bits of trouble, for rebellious little acts that had just been her trying to act grown up. She saw through how silly that was, now. Even after Ronaldo died, when she was leaning on whosoever shoulder was willing, drinking and saving up sips of wine. As if she could have kept him here. Even then, it had been about trying to have fun.  Now, she was just trying to feel something else.

As foretold, Zia lit Marco up with minimal struggle. She found it was easier to light someone else’s rather than her own. Once her cousin’s cig was lit she folded an arm back over the knees held close to her chest, locking it with the other, which had her own cigarette. She took a few quiet drags, desensitized enough not to cough.

Zia sat looking out of the window, at the very lake that had been filled to the brim with the heavy red liquid. It had been a particularly jarring sight for ZIa, who was only hours back from her return from a place where she had been in her own pool of blood. Actually, she didn’t even know if it was hers. Where were they getting all this blood? Who was getting all this blood, and why? Zia pursed her lips.

“I tried to get Amherst to drink it. He called me a monster.”

Her eyes snapped to her cousin’s face, Zia’s own expression looking as though she had just been slapped. It had been her snap response to Marco’s gruesome comment. She should have been used to his dark sense of humor, and any other time he probably could have gotten a smirk out of her. “Merda, Marco, that’s dark,” Zia sighed.

“You think it was real blood?”

This had been the very question Zia had been trying not to ask herself. Her jaw tensed and she let out a puff of smoke. She shrugged and looked sideways over to her cousin. “All I want to say about that is, of course it can’t be real,” Zia told him. She bit her lip, then let go and took another drag. “Except after the other day…” her voice shook. and she took a deep breath. The smoky sharpness at the back of her throat helped keep her from crying, but her big brown eyes were glossy. She tried to blink that away with another puff. “It totally… could have been.” Her lips twitched to the side. For once, the babbly bubbly Zia couldn’t come up with the words to say.

Marco, being as dense as he was, didn't really realize just how much his comment had impacted Zia. He didn't find anything strange in her not laughing, even though she usually did at his dark sense of humor. After all, she had just been through something horrible. That was enough to make it so it was difficult to laugh or smile. He kind of understood, though not completely.

He nodded absentmindedly, mind going to the blood lake and wondering how the teachers even dealt with it... When Zia's words hit him. It totally could have been blood.

"Wait, what?" Marco nearly dropped his cigarette, "Whose blood?" Not hers, certainly. She was right there.

Pulling her legs up, Zia hugged her knees, keeping the cigarette tight between her fingers. She looked away from Marco’s shock. Zia hadn’t talked about what had happened to anyone yet, besides the aurors who had arrived on the scene. Even then there wasn’t much she could say; she was weak and disoriented, not to mention traumatized.

She pinched the cigarette between her lips and pulled up her sleeves. There were vague marks where the gashes had been, even after being treated by healers. Zia didn’t want to look at her arms, so instead she watched for Marco’s reaction. She didn’t really know how to feel about this whole ordeal, besides horrified, and was still reeling from the horrors.

“We all woke up with them,” Zia told him after removing the cigarette from between her lips and taking a final toke before throwing the butt out of the window. She nonverbally combusted the tiny white spec with a burst, and watched the ash float down.

Feeling that her point had been made, Zia pulled her sleeves back down over her knuckles, How much the students had been told about their kidnapped peers, Zia did not know. She had never been on the inside of a Hogwarts scandal such as this ever before. She squeezed the fabric between her hands and crossed her arms, then rested her chin on her propped up knees. “I don’t really know what they did,” Zia continued after a pause. “We just woke up… there, like that, all…” Zia’s lower lip quivered, so she stopped talking and leaned back against the cold stone wall.

Marco looked at Zia's arms. He tried to keep his face stoic, though his eyes widened ever so slightly in shock."That's fucked." He sighed, "You need more than this." He motioned towards the smoke and then followed her lead, disposing of the butt of his cigarette. Even if those scars went away, Zia had been left with the more invisible kind. She had her own horrors to deal with. Everybody did. Hers were fresher, and more grotesque.

"You didn't deserve that, none of you did." Marco finally said, "You lived. You're tough. This year has been shit for you, and here you are." He bumped shoulders with her with lukewarm affection. 

Thinking about the scars made Zia feel nauseous. Just thinking about that night made her heart pound, gave her a sinking feeling that convinced her that there was danger in everything. Throughout her life there had always been someone to protect her, to shield her from the possibility of being hurt. Starting to shake, Zia realized - she didn’t feel safe anymore.

“Who would do this?” Zia asked. She had no memory of what happened in the time before waking up at the Ministry. It bothered her, the nagging question at the back of her mind, left unexplained. Did she even want to know? Still trembling, Zia lifted another cigarette to her lips. She didn’t look at her cousin, avoiding his gaze, not wanting to witness any judgment he might pass.

Once it was lit she stroked the stuffed dolphin she’d brought with her. It seemed surreal that she owned this, had once been unable to sleep without it. She thought somehow this dolphin, Squittio, would be able to guard her from the monsters that lurked in her closet and under her bed. She knew now, though, that monsters could be anywhere.

"You lived. You're tough. This year has been shit for you, and here you are."

Nudging back, Zia blew out smoke with a sigh. “Yeah, here I am.” Zia’s lips pursed and she thought about the years when she had sisters in the dorm with her, brothers to walk the halls with.

“I’m really glad you’re here, Marco,” Zia said earnestly. Her glassy eyes looked like they were about to overflow, and with a blink a hot tear slid down her cheek. She hugged Squittio close, thought about the juxtaposition of the stuffed dolphin and cigarette.

Shit. She was going to cry.

Marco was not equipped to deal with crying girls. Even if they were family.

"I'm glad you're here too." He said monotonously, "Better than the alternative. With all the blood sucked out of you and put into the lake." This was the worst attempt at comforting a traumatized person in wizarding history. "Better you be here than, you know, dead and bloodless."

“Better than the alternative. With all the blood sucked out of you and put into the lake… Better you be here than, you know, dead and bloodless."

This comment prompted even more questions and concerns within Zia. Marco's blaze word choice was jarring. Her face crumpled and grew pale. Now all she could think about was the grotesque scene she’d woken up to, not knowing how she’d gotten there or what had happened. She was ashamed of how scared she’d been, how stupid she felt, freezing like that.

Zia’s palms began to sweat but she felt very cold. She gripped the stone beneath her and looked down. The castle walls seemed to go down forever. “I don’t know how they could have that much left…” Zia held her breath and swallowed. Then she looked back at her cousin, “There was so much of it… everywhere.” Even with the cool, fresh air Zia could imagine herself there again. “It was everywhere. All over us. And Samira…” Zia couldn’t talk about that. She shook her head to send the thoughts away.

Her bottom lip poked out, wobbly. “I thought we were gonna die too,” Zia added quietly.

Marco wasn't equipped to deal with emotions that didn't involve liquor bottles being thrown across the room. His attempt at comfort had gone horribly wrong, and he began to panic. Eyes widening, he patted the top of Zia's head like she was a feral chihuahua and slowly began to scoot away, as if she wouldn't notice.

"Well you didn't die so...." He let his voice trail off, not knowing what to say. And also knowing that whatever he would say could make things worse.

“Well you didn’t die so…”

Zia stared at her cousin, filled with cold disbelief. After all that had happened, this still chilled her to the bone. She didn’t know what to say. Marco had always been emotionally distant, rather the opposite of melodramatic Zia.

The wave of shock reverberated within her and flooded her eyes. “How can you just be so…” her voice cracked. For once she had no idea how to feel. So overwhelmed with fear and grief and confusion, and there was anger and frustration. “Do you just not care?” Zia didn’t think that was it- she’d gotten a hug, that was a rare treat from Marco. But she didn’t understand. Her glossy eyes scanned him, searching for some type of explanation.

"Of course I care!" Marco countered, feeling the heat rise to his face. He cared, but he didn't particularly like that he cared.

Zia had always been so full of feelings, bouncing around from one emotion to the next. It was aggravating as much as it was endearing. Her family was that way, loud and boisterous. Loving. His parents, too-- when they were around other people. When it was just him and them though, the dynamic was different. Colder. Ice hot. They were loud, but not in the ways Zia's parents were. It was easier to just shut down and hide away. Grow a thick skin and move on. Soon, very soon, he could move away. Out of their home, out of their hair.

How could anybody go through this world being so... Sensitive? It'd tear them apart. He wasn't going to let that happen to him.

Marco let out an exasperated sigh, "It's complicated. I'm not good at this shit, Zia."

Despite being the same age and from the same family tree, Zia and Marco were completely different. They were foils of each other, Zia’s drama highlighted by Marco’s aloofness. Close as they were, they were opposites. Zia wondered if Marco only tolerated her because she was family - a thought that had never really crossed her mind before. In her experience people had always been genuine, and she took them at face value. But that philosophy had just been betrayed by her kidnapping.

"It's complicated. I'm not good at this shit, Zia."

Zia turned as pink as her hair used to be, hot tears balanced on the edge of her eyelids, tickling her eyelashes. If she blinked they would fall, but for now she had shiny crystal balls for eyes; it wouldn’t take a Seer to divine her emotional state.

“You think I am?” she exclaimed in a half-sob. Yet again she had sprung a leak. “Look at me! I don’t know what to do either.” It was good she hadn’t had the energy to do her makeup, because it would have been chased off her face by tears. She let her arms drop and hang at her side. “I’m just really scared Marco,” she mumbled. She rubbed her temple with the hand that wasn’t hanging onto the tiny dolphin. "Still." She sighed and sniffled. "Maybe I should be more like you." She leveled eyes with her cousin.