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Sagitta Black was the fourth and youngest girl in her generation of the notorious Black family, and for the previous fifteen years, everything she did or was had resulted in a comparison to an older cousin. If she was well-behaved and pretty, she was like Narcissa. If she was wild or commanding, she was like Bellatrix. As for Andromeda, Sagitta was not often compared to her explicitly, not anymore, but when she started arguments about politics - and especially about blood politics - the name of the middle sister lurked in the dark glances the adults exchanged and the sentences that were not finished.
Because of this, any rebellion, triumph or ambition of Sagitta's had a certain superfluous air: her cousins had done it before, good or bad. Her cousins had succeeded and failed as spectacularly as a pureblood girl could in their respective turns. Sagitta was expected to do it again (the good parts because it was her duty; the bad parts because her opinion of her duty had been obvious for years) but it would not be noteworthy in repetition. The Blacks hadn't especially needed a fourth girl, but having one, they would find some occupation for her - some convenient marriage or useful Ministry position - and if Sagitta knew what was good for her (which she manifestly did not) she would quietly accept her fate, her duty and her accompanying galleons.
There had been one unprecedented exception, and it was Sagitta's sorting into Gryffindor house. Now, Sagitta felt she had managed a second: Andromeda might have run away with a muggleborn, but Sagitta had run off with a werewolf, and a girl, too.
The sun was rising over the Lupins' village. The curtains in Diana's bedroom were cracked, just a few inches, so gold light split the navy darkness of the room, ran in a thin, glowing line up the bed and highlighted the tip of Diana's finger and the edge of the scar that splashed across her inner thigh, before it traced a gleaming edge to her face. Sagitta resisted the urge to lean over, touch the golden line up Diana's cheek with a finger and kiss the corner of her eye. It seemed like every time she looked at Diana, she found a new favorite image to press into her memory forever. Diana laughing in the light of the half moon had been beautiful, and Diana asleep in the shadowy night after moonset had been gorgeous, but Sagitta had to conclude - at least for the next fifteen minutes or so - that sunrise Diana was the best of all.
All of these Dianas belonged to Sagitta to see, and Sagitta belonged only to Diana, because Sagitta was free now. Sagitta had arrived at about eight o'clock the previous evening, the culmination of the worst family argument of her life (and that was a high bar). It had been clear to Sagitta for years that this was coming, and when she had fantasized about the moment, the running away had been an epic triumph, the ultimate defiance of her family's will and a romantic pledging of her loyalty to her girlfriend along with the forces of liberty and goodness.
In fact, when the time had actually come Sagitta had been rather sheepish. Being fifteen, she was not allowed to Apparate, so she had taken the Knight Bus. She had been cold, hungry - the argument had started before dinner - and more than slightly nauseous by the time she debarked and stumbled up to the Lupins' front door, and rather than pledges of loyalty or defiance, all she could think of was a desperate hope the Lupins would let her stay. Sagitta's family was rich and vengeful, and the Lupins had had quite enough trouble arranging for their daughter to be allowed to attend Hogwarts. But there was nowhere better: her other best friend would have been in an even worse situation with Sagitta sleeping on her bedroom floor, because the third girl in their little group in the Gryffindor girls' dorm was Lily Evans, and her parents were muggles.
But it was all right, at least for now. The Lupins had welcomed Sagitta inside and fed her tea and biscuits, and when she accidentally ate a dozen without noticing and had to confess she hadn't had dinner, they had heated up leftovers for her, too. Sagitta had decided overnight that as long as nobody found out she and Diana were dating - and nobody yet had noticed except for Lily - there was no reason why her parents should find out where in particular she was sleeping on school holidays. She couldn't elope with Diana, being fifteen and also a girl, and since her parents considered even halfbloods beyond their notice most of the time and subscribed to the expectation that a pureblood girl who ran away naturally had eloped with somebody, they would probably focus their suspicions on Sagitta's classmate James Potter, who studied with them mostly because it required Lily to speak to him.
Sagitta should probably feel guilty about siccing her family on an unrelated third party, but the Potters could handle it. James's father was a quiet, mild-mannered pureblood man in his seventies, but he was an absolute fiend on the dueling circuit.
"Hey," Diana mumbled, turning her head away from the encroaching sunlight. "What time is it?"
"About six," Sagitta said. "I was just wondering how you could sleep like that."
"Why are you awake at six?" Diana said, squinting suspiciously at her. "Have you slept at all?"
"I was thinking."
"Never a good sign from Sagitta Black," said Diana solemnly, lifting her head off the bed. Her wavy hair promptly fell over her face, and Sagitta started laughing and leaned down to kiss her.
For all that Mrs. Lupin had ushered them off to share Diana's bedroom last night (the Lupins, thank Merlin, didn't have a spare) they hadn't had time to do much the previous day. There had been explanations to give to Diana's parents, and more detailed and honest explanations to give Diana, and then Sagitta had burst into horrible and unrelenting tears for a good twenty minutes. Diana had pulled her down to the bed and wrapped her blankets and more helpfully her own arms around Sagitta, but by then it had been very late, and not much time later Diana had fallen asleep.
It was the end of July, and Sagitta had been cooped up with her family for nearly a month. She remembered very distantly that her family had once been affectionate and effusive in their touches, and Narcissa and Bellatrix still were, albeit mainly with each other and with Regulus. Sagitta had withdrawn after her sorting, or everyone else had withdrawn from her, or both. Perhaps it had been a gradual thing, a linear and mutual separation over the course of argument after argument. During the school year it didn't matter, because she had her best friends Diana and Lily, and for the past year Diana had been her girlfriend, too. But over holidays, especially the summer, Sagitta felt like she was starving, shut up in gloomy Grimmauld Place away from touch, laughter, and color. Even the windows filtered all of the life out of the light that passed through.
Now, kissing Diana in between her cotton sheets, Sagitta pressed the length of their bodies together, her breasts to Diana's shoulder and her hips to Diana's. She kissed Diana like she wanted to drown in her, like she wanted to dissolve the layers of thin fabric between them - Diana's cotton T shirt, Sagitta's silk nightgown - and meld their skin together. Sagitta kissed Diana like her breath was the only air Sagitta could breathe.
Sagitta put her hand in Diana's hair and rubbed her scalp with her fingertips, and felt Diana shiver. She sucked Diana's lip into her mouth, and heard her gasp. She was working her way inside Diana's shirt with her other hand when Diana murmured, "Damn it," and pushed her gently away.
"What's wrong?" said Sagitta, instantly both anxious and hurt.
"I didn't lock the door last night," Diana said, and gave Sagitta a very gratifying longing look as she got out of the bed. She was wearing panties with lace edging. Sagitta didn't recognize them, which probably meant they were new, and she wondered with a little rush if Diana had gone underwear shopping over the holidays with her new girlfriend in mind. "I don't think my parents would be too mad about me seeing a girl, but I don't want them to find out by walking in on us. And they'd probably make one of us sleep on the couch if they knew."
"Wait," said Sagitta, helplessly bemused. "You've got a lock on your door--"
"Yes?"
"And you're allowed to use it--"
"Yes."
"And you didn't bother, even though you were asleep? Asleep in bed with me?"
"My parents," said Diana, pointedly, "Respect my privacy. If they want to come in, they knock. I'm only doing it now because you were taking my clothes off, and because of that one time you fell off the bed in Gryffindor and the floor shook."
"I can't help it, my head is very heavy," said Sagitta, solemnly. "It's because it's so big."
Diana laughed, but Sagitta felt slightly adrift. Living with normal parents was going to be even weirder than she had expected, apparently. She was not entirely sure she could manage it.
"Come on," said Diana, looking at her face. "We're out of bed now--"
"Thanks to you."
"And I want breakfast, and if you go back to kissing me, we won't get back up until noon. And I should show you around the rest of the house, and the village..." Diana cast a nervous look back at Sagitta.
"I love it," said Sagitta immediately, detecting an echo of her own nerves.
"You haven't seen it!" Diana said, laughing again.
"I love it anyway. It's yours," Sagitta said, and got up to follow.