fragments { phillip }

The water was so still, and the night so unusually clear, that aside from the occasional breeze to flutter across its surface, the lake was a perfect mirror of the sky. If one fell in, Billie thought, it was almost as if they would fall through the sky forever. Stunning, she thought, holding back a shiver. She exhaled a visible puff of air. It was getting cold again; Phillip’s warming charm must be wearing off. She couldn’t quite bring herself to say anything about it.

Billie blinked as a light breeze blew, rippling the water and tousling her hair. It being the middle of winter, there were very few leaves on the skeleton trees around them, so the wind was almost silent. She glanced up at the sky instead of at its imperfect reflection, keeping her gloved hands clasped together instead of fixing her hair. The size of their universe – even just their solar system – still shocked her sometimes. It was more shocking still that almost any two given objects contained within existed with an almost unimaginable amount of space between them, and yet here she was – so close to him.

Billie didn’t turn to look at Phillip as he shifted beside her, but she did feel herself grow a little more tense. Things had been strange all night; the air between their bodies felt denser and more difficult to move through. It reminded her of shared moments alone after spending time with her friends, or the way she felt when she had to decline plans because she already had prior engagements with the others, especially the ones he particularly disliked. Especially Killian. In response to this feeling, Billie was generally confronted with conflicting needs to both cling to Phillip more tightly, and to get herself away from him so as to not irritate or annoy him. In the end, the former always won out, even constrained as she was by her inability to be anything other than polite.

Right now she felt so anxious it was making her sick. What was wrong? What had she done? Their environment was cold and calm, but her mind was anything but. She couldn’t stop going over everything that had been happening recently; Christmas lunch; that sleepover she’d had with Nola; the last time she’d seen him. It was disorienting, and for a moment it barely felt as if she was inside her own body. Billie glanced down at her hands, clasped tightly in front of her. She could feel the soft, velvety material of her robes against the side of her thumb, even through her suede gloves. Good, she thought distantly. Still here.

“They’re late, aren’t they?” She breathed, looking ahead across the water instead of at him. Though softly spoken, her words sounded loud and harsh against the serenity of their environment. She winced internally at the gentle echo from the water, eyes ahead.

To say that Phillip hated pretty much everything about his life except for Billie was not an understatement. The wizard despised the school, his classes were useless, and the homework taught them nothing.  He hated feeling like his only option was to suffer until graduation. He loathed going to sleep and waking up, and almost everything in between. The only time he remembered feeling happy was this past summer. When he was out of Scotland and able to make his own schedule, and of course, Phillip had filled every possible second spending time with Billie. She was the only good thing in his life, but Phillip was familiar with losing the things he wanted to hold on to the most.

The second their Hogwarts letters arrived, Phillip had known everything was going to change. It was bad enough that Billie had become popular among the students in her year, but now she was a Prefect. Phillip could understand what her friends and professors saw; after all, there was a lot to love about Billie Fay, but he wished that he could have kept her all to himself. Returning to Hogwarts meant less time with Billie and more time being angry at the world. Soon enough, the pair had their very first fight, and while they made up, it never really felt whole. Phillip always felt like he was bargaining for time with her, and even worse, like she would have rather been somewhere else when they were together. He knew she was busy and that she would be polite until her dying day, and it was hard not to overthink every second that she might have preferred to be off with her friends, studying for her exams, or doing her Prefect duties.

For the first time in years, Phillip looked forward to the Christmas Break, to spending uninterrupted time with his girlfriend. And without the distractions Hogwarts presented, Phillip had started to feel like things were the way they had been over the summer. Time spent together made all of the other stuff fade away. All that mattered was the two of them and the lack of space between them. Phillip didn't return to Keithcairn or even London for the break but instead took Billie's offer to stay at Maidstone over the holidays. And it was there, despite the closeness, that Phillip's paranoia and curiosity began to drive a wedge into space between.

It had started small, and it hadn't been intentional when Phillip found the first clue, but by the time December was coming to a close, Phillip had pulled on more strings than he knew what to do with. The teenager had found a list of names in Billie's unmistakably pristine handwriting. And then a photograph of a wizard and a curly blond child standing together. And the more he found, the less he believed he knew what he was finding. At first, Phillip was sure the list must have been simple to explain, but he found they all had one thing in common when he researched the names. Every witch and wizard on the list had been murdered during the war, hunted down by a death eater, and his curiosity grew darker. Phillip had never heard the full story of what happened to Billie's parents, she had never offered, and he had never pried, but now he couldn't do anything but wonder.

In time, Phillip started to imagine that her parents must have belonged on this list. That whoever had brought an end to these names must have killed Billie's parents as well. And it broke his heart to think that she was looking for more information on her parents but didn't tell him about it. The fact that still, after everything, she couldn't share that part of herself with him. And it made him feel guilty for having gone on for the last two years about finding his own family. And even though it felt like an invasion, Phillip decided to look further into it, hoping that he might be able to help her in some way. And that just brought him more information he couldn't wrap his head around. New names he didn't recognize, attached to places and people that felt so vaguely familiar. Like he'd heard of them before, or maybe see them in the prophet, but they were so distant he couldn't remember.

By the time New Year's Eve was rolling around, Phillip felt like he'd been down the rabbit hole and back. He shouldn't have snooped around the house in Maidstone; he was smart enough to know that, but he had gone too far to pretend he hadn't now, and he was left with nothing but questions. Even during the afternoon he'd spend properly asking Kendrick to allow Billie to stay out past curfew on New Year's Eve, Phillip had been distracted by his search for answers. He was distant in the notes exchanged with Billie and quieter even than usual when they were together, but eventually, everything came to an end, including his silence.

"What, oh, yeah," Phillip agreed, obviously surprised as she pulled him from the endless thoughts about who those people were and why they were important to Billie, clouded his mind. Turning his green eyes to the wizard's watch that clung to his wrist, he saw the time and shrugged. "Maybe they wait on purpose, to give everyone enough time to get situated over there?" Phillip motioned across the glassy dark waters to the bank opposite from the one they were sitting on. It was crammed full of people with their blankets, and coffees, and magical photographs. There was hardly room to sit and watch the fireworks, and more than ever, Phillip was glad they had moved further away from the crowd. He would sacrifice views for personal space any day.

Turning back to meet Billie's eyes, Phillip felt like he might disappear into the corners of his mind entirely if he didn't ask the questions that weighed on him, but he didn't know how to start. He was anxious, and it was evident in the way he was hunched over, his feet planted and his hands dangling from where his wrists rested on his knees. Sitting on the ground was uncomfortable, but the blanket from Maidstone and the warming charms helped. Then again, Phillip could have been sitting in the world's most luxurious piece of furniture, and he still would have felt tense. Despite the churning in his stomach, Phillip resolved to start the conversation.

"Since we might have some time... Billie, I have been meaning to ask you about something..." Phillip began to pick at the torn skin around his fingernails as he spoke, anxious to get the words out but terrified of the potential answers. Not knowing was always worse for someone like Phillip, though, so he forged on. "About a week ago, I found something in Maidstone—I wasn't snooping, it was sitting out, and I happened on it," Phillip felt the need to defend his actions, even though they led him to begin to snoop. "And it got me thinking... I don't really know anything about your family." Phillip had avoided asking her this question for so long it felt wrong to bring it up now. It was like waiting this long to ask her her middle name.

"Billie, what happened to your parents?"

It was dark, and the other side of the lake was quite far. Billie squinted, her eyes straining to make out the silhouettes of other people. She’d honestly forgotten they were there. The leafless trees made everything feel not just quiet but very still; only the water’s surface gave away the wind. She could only hear her voice and his. Privately, Billie didn’t think that his answer didn’t made much sense; why would they wait until after midnight to set off fireworks? Wouldn’t people have come on time, knowing that the new year began at midnight? She didn’t question him, though. She was too nervous for that.

Billie actually looked at him when he spoke; it was the most he’d said for the past half hour since he’d picked her up and brought her here. She felt a soft shock as their eyes met; there was intensity in his gaze that felt far too intimate for her to have stumbled across. He hadn’t had any of the cupcakes she’d made tonight (lemon and poppyseed), so she’d only forced herself to have a bite. It hadn’t felt polite. She stayed silent now, still tasting the lemon icing on her tongue. What could he have found? She would have asked, but he was still speaking. She was hearing his words, but could only think that she’d made the icing too strong.

Somehow, the world grew even stiller after he’d spoken. She felt all of the usual feelings that came with panic – the disorientation, the sweat on her palms, the twisting in her gut, the feeling that the ground was giving way beneath her, like she’d stepped too far out onto the ice too late in winter and could feel the tiny cracks underfoot. Her thoughts didn’t really kick into gear, though, and a part of her was experiencing all of this from a distance. She clasped her hands even tighter together – an imperceptible action – squeezing until she could feel her knuckles aching from the pressure.

“I don’t… really enjoy talking about that,” she told him, the words automatic and polite. She was overreacting, surely. Surely. Surely she only felt so panicked because she’d been anxious all night – for a couple of days, really – and was spring-loaded to overreact to any little thing. Billie didn’t speak, but she did move her hand a little to brush against his leg. He was sitting close enough that she could do that, and that fact surprised her. She thought again of galaxies and star systems and the unimaginable luck that had him right here with her. "Is... There something...?"

Phillip wasn't sure if there was a pause between when he stopped speaking and when Billie began or if his mind had only perceived one. His heartbeat so loudly he could feel it in his ears, but it didn't seem as fast as it should have for how nervous he was. Like time had slowed down, and the space between them was expanding exponentially. He felt further away from her as the tiny, measurably delicate words crossed the distance, and Phillip frowned.

As much as he wanted to understand, as much as he should have sympathized with not wanting to talk about it, the idea frustrated him. Phillip had told her his story; he had shared that painful truth with her when they were only beginning to become close friends. It made him wonder what could have been so bad about her past that she still couldn't share it with him, her boyfriend, the wizard who loved her the most in the world.

And even as a part of his mind accused her of keeping things from him, he couldn't stop worrying about whether it was only him she couldn't share it with. Had she told her friends? Had she told Killian? Time sped up again, rushing past him as she hesitated, and Phillip cut into her sentence. "No, there is nothing, that's what I mean. I don't know anything about you, about where you are from and your family. It's like the day we met is as far back as you will let me in."

He paused, swallowing and furrowing his brow, before starting again. "Billie, I understand why you don't like to talk about it. You know I do, but isn't it weird that you won't talk about it with me? Do you not trust me?" They may have only been dating for months, but they had been best friends for years, and Phillip wondered why that wasn't enough. Why wasn't she comfortable telling him what happened?

He cut her off.

Despite the sense of grandeur this place held – the tall skeletons of trees, the stars scattered across black, unfathomable depths, the lake so still it was a perfect mirror of the sky – Billie was feeling a rising sense of claustrophobia. Their environment them was expansive, but his presence was bigger still; even if her automatic response to him being like this wasn’t to make herself smaller (as she did now), she wouldn’t have had any space. His overlapping questions were driven by something more frustrated and impatient and frantic than he’d ever directed anything at her before. Her heart was racing and she hadn’t moved an inch.

Her mouth barely moved. “I don’t think that’s true,” she said, but her voice was so much smaller than his and he talked right over it. He knew things about her family, she thought. He knew her father had taught her how to bake, and how to sew. Knew she had her mother’s wand. Billie’s nose and cheeks were aching from the cold now, and it took a lot of effort not to shiver. It didn’t occur to her that stopping herself from shivering from the cold was not something regular people did out of politeness. She felt like something was crawling up the back of her neck.

“It’s not,” she protested, as soon as she could get a word in. Already she could feel a kind of pressure building up behind her eyes, and she really did not want to cry. She had to speak, but what could she say? What would make him feel better? Calm down? “I do trust you,” she insisted, her hands closing around each other once again as she retracted further into herself. She shook her head slightly, feeling shaky internally and trying not to let that permeate her words or her actions. She felt her composure crumple just a touch as she started speaking. “I just don't – You want to hear about… What, how my father…?” She looked down mid-sentence, feeling her throat closing around her words.

It occurred to Phillip that it wasn't entirely true that he did know about her family, but it had always seemed very censored. Maybe he hadn't asked the right questions when she did offer up small pieces of herself, maybe that was his fault, but he felt the things he knew were mere drops of water in a vast ocean. There was a lot more unknown than known and realizing it made the Ravenclaw uncomfortable.

Phillip wanted to keep himself in check and forced himself to take another breath, to put another pause between his onslaught of questions before his head exploded. Regardless of his frustration, of all the things that had never been said, Billie didn't deserve to be interrogated.

"Do you?" Phillip asked, a sharp tone in his voice, as he wondered whether or not she truly did trust him. Or if he had given her some reason not to. He had all this information but no answers; all these details that he couldn't put together, it was chaos. And as much as the signs should have pointed to a secret that Billie had kept from him, Phillip ignored his instincts and turned his doubts inward and wondered if he had done something wrong. If somewhere along the line, he had caused her to stop sharing bits of herself.

Phillip couldn't turn away from her as she fumbled, starting sentences only to grow silent again, and he pulled at her words. "What about your father? About how he did what? What did he do, Billie?" Paranoid cynicism crept in as Phillip turned her cling hanger of a phrase over in his mind. What did her father do to her family? Why did she have a list full of the names of dead people? And most importantly, how did it all connect?

Her thoughts felt frayed at the edges. She was sure the disbelief was evident in her tone. The incredulousness. Why was he weaponising his… Whatever this was – curiosity? Weren’t they sitting in silence not two minutes ago? As soon as she started trailing, Phillip came back in, hard.

What about your father– ? About how he did what– ? What did he– ?

“He died,” she said, answering him with the last part of her own sentence. There was an ache in her throat as the words came out, like they were dragging an anchor up behind them. Billie moved then, pressing her hands into the rug they’d laid out on the damp ground so she could push herself to her feet. She felt sick, and scared. Her heart was racing but it felt jittery and stuttered rather than the steady, pounding thud of, say, exercise or making out or something. Her whole self felt jittery and she couldn’t help but shiver as she got to her feet and left the warmth of his body behind. She took only a step towards the water, then stopped there. Her hands found each other again and she clasped them politely in front of herself, too hard.

“You want me to talk about how… He died?” She shook her head, almost feeling like she was talking to herself rather than to him. She heard him get to his feet behind her but didn’t turn; she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she put conscious effort into stopping her teeth from chattering. “I don’t…?” Billie looked at the ground rather than look at the stars, or the lake, or at him. She shook her head again.

The less Billie said, the more Phillip felt the urgent need to fill the air between them with questions. She hadn't answered anything, and that silence just fed into his fears and paranoia. It couldn't be true that her parents had something to do with the list. It just absolutely could not be true. Phillip had considered it, he had come across some strange information in his search, but he had quickly dismissed it. Jumping to conclusions had never done him any favors. And yet, every clue led him back to the list, like somehow those names were at the center of the whole thing. Phillip thought he had all the pieces but couldn't figure out how they fit together, but he missed the most important part.

Billie's parents weren't on the list of deceased because they were responsible for the list.

And deep down, some dark part of Phillip had suspected that all along, he just couldn't let that suspicion see the light of day. It was the linchpin of information, the corner piece that would make the whole thing make sense, but Phillip couldn't see it yet. He couldn't believe it. And when Billie stood up, he lost sight of everything he had already asked. All he saw was her walking away from the conversation, turning inward and being secretive, and he moved quickly to his feet. Phillip stalked over to where she was now standing, the cold night air hitting his back as the silent wind rustled through bare trees.

"I want to know why you won't talk about it," All things considered, that was the most frustrating part. Phillip knew she was keeping something from him, and he had so many suspicions about what it could be, and he was desperate for her to set the story straight. To tell him he was crazy to think the dark things he was thinking about her family. All he wanted in the world was for Billie to tell him the truth and then stand on her tippy toes and kiss him like she had all summer so he could forget the whole thing.

Standing next to her, the cold breeze ripping through his blond hair, Phillip reached into his pocket quietly. The list was in there, but he didn't need it to remember the names. He'd read them, researched them, and thought about them so many times in the short span of the week that the wizard had them memorized. Stepping around her, Phillip moved so that he could see her face perfectly in the glow of the moon so that he wouldn't miss her reaction when he began saying the names out loud, and he was glad that he had. It hit him like a tidal wave that feeling like he was finally getting an answer, and it wasn't the one he wanted.

"Who is Sybil Sinnoway?"

Why she wouldn’t talk about her father’s death? It seemed like an absurd thing to comment on. People didn’t say things like that. I want to know why you won’t talk about it – wasn’t it obvious? Who said that kind of thing. Honestly.

These were the surface thoughts, balking at the ridiculousness of his words, his actions. But beneath the surface there were all kinds of feelings swelling upward. She loved him, and she loved her parents. She knew about all of the people that had been hurt by the Dark Lord and his followers, and yet still cried on the anniversary of her father’s death every year. Did that make her a horrible person? She didn’t know. It had always been so difficult to separate the pieces out. It was difficult to make sense of now, with him relentlessly interrogating her.

Her body felt too small to contain all of these conflicting things. It hurt her; she really felt physical pain in her twisted up stomach and her tense-to-the-point-of-aching muscles. She felt claustrophobic standing here with him rounding on her, almost a full foot taller than her. The way he was talking, his agitated, pent-up energy, it took up all the oxygen between them – and was suffocating like fire. But even though she felt small under all of this, panicked and powerless, she felt trapped inside her own body right now. Claustrophobic within herself. Too small to contain all of the parts of her he was demanding to see.

“Phillip,” she said, but the word came out like a plea. Pleading for what? For him to stop? To see sense? He was right, though, wasn’t he? She never did talk about those things, and she couldn’t even bring herself to lie about them now, when he was asking so directly. There wasn’t enough space in her head to feed this thought path, though, so it skittered away, out of her grasp, giving way to plain distress. She curled her arms around herself, eyes still cast downward and full to the brim with tears; if she blinked they would certainly be running down her cheeks.

And then he asked another question.

What was left of her composure crumpled. “What?” She breathed, looking up at him, the word barely past her lips before a loud bang! cracked through the night air, making her wince. The sky lit up suddenly. His form spilled out of the darkness into harsh relief, colours bursting high above them and  reflecting off of the lake. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

When he had decided to bring things up today, Phillip had been very methodical. He had made mental notes of his questions, of the bits of information that didn't quite line up the way that he thought they should have, and he had planned to be very specific. He had categorized what he wanted to ask her into most important and least important, and he had even gone over potential scripts in his head so that he would glean the most information, but none of it mattered. All the planning in the world couldn't prepare him for the overwhelming amount of feelings that were ripping him apart from the inside now. Every thought was fleeting, his fear and panic rising, and nothing made any sense.

"Phillip," Billie had said, and Phillip nearly winced at the word. Phillip had always loved how she called him by his full name, instead of Lip or something else, but now it felt off. It sounded so bizarre like it wasn't Billie saying it, but a stranger.  As much as he tried to convince himself that there was no possible way she was related to the Sinnoway family, it was getting harder with every breath. Every question that went unanswered fell directly into that column, and the whole table was starting to lean in the worst direction. Finally, Phillip felt like there was only one thing he could do, which was to ask her directly. And although Billie hadn't really answered his last question either, her face spelled it out pretty clearly.

Billie Fay was Sybil Sinnoway, the daughter of Death Eaters, kin to murderers, and she had lied about everything.

About everything.

Fireworks burst into the sky; vibrant colors filled the air as every last breath was knocked clear out of Phillip. It couldn't be true, but it was. Phillip had learned about the Sinnoways during the last week, and he had pretended not to see all of the connections. It took some digging, but once he'd started to turn over the right leaves, it wasn't hard to put things together. A birth certificate, the receipt for a burial, a picture of a curly blond girl on an island. Phillip had been sure he'd seen the estate in the picture before. Still, he couldn't place it until just then, and suddenly all he could see was the magical portrait of that same island that was in the Daily Prophet's article about Death Eater properties seized by the ministry after the battle. The pieces started to fit together. He remembered she'd told him about the constellation Cygnus; Phillip recalled the night on the astronomy tower when she had pointed that one out specifically. And her mother's wand, her wand.

"No," Phillip's hands curled into fists as the fireworks continued to explode around them. He couldn't hear the cheers across the lake over the sound of his own blood pumping in his ears. "No fucking way this is true." That tiny part of him that Billie had taught to believe there were still good people in the world was breaking, smashed into a million pieces, and scattered across the night sky like a thousand stars. Phillip was breaking. "How could you?" He asked, shaking his head as he took two steps away from her, putting distance between them. "You fucking lied to me this entire time, I trusted you, and you lied, you..." Mortified and betrayed, Phillip could barely finish the sentence. His throat felt hoarse, his throat dry.

She wanted so badly to only be Billie. She still had constant nightmares about dementors, and more frequently, about Kendrick or Phillip dying. Even some of the others – Barbie, Killian – had featured in those kinds of dreams. She wanted to be Kendrick’s Billie, or Phillip’s Billie. She didn’t want to carry the trauma of being isolated, being raised outside of the world, or having her guardians taken away from her, one by one. She didn’t want to be haunted by these ghosts, carry the weight of her parents’ crimes in a name she never used. A lot of the time, she didn’t want to love them either.

Billie felt like loving someone meant that you’d do anything for them. That you’d give anything – everything – that you’d die for them. She felt like she’d place herself in harm’s way to protect him, but she couldn’t stop this.

“No,” she pleaded, frantic now as she shook her head, but she wasn’t even sure what the word was in response to. No, no, no. It kept spilling out of her repeatedly, and she was only barely conscious of the fact that it was verbal, too. Her breaths were coming in short, stuttered gasps. She reached for him but he was moving backwards. She felt like she was in motion, too, reaching out for nothing as the ice cracked beneath her. “I didn’t, I –" she felt sick. A gut-wrenching sickness. Anxiety hitting its peak like a bell being struck over and over. “Phillip,” she said again, but she couldn’t keep looking at him when he was looking at her like that. Like that.

Instead, she shut her eyes, gasping for air and grasping for some kind of thread to follow. Damage control? Denial? Begging? Her eyes snapped open again; she was terrified that he’d be gone already – the only thing worse than the expression on his face right now. Was that selfish? Twisted? Was she more scared to be left alone than to hurt someone she loved? She felt disgusted at herself, and thought she could see that same feeling echoed back at her in his eyes. “I didn’t – I’m not…” She couldn’t quite get out a full sentence, and it trailed off into nothing just like all of the others.

"You're not what?" Phillip shot back, the fury in his voice begging to be let loose. He felt like he could scream until his lungs collapsed. "No, please, finish that sentence. You're not what? Not her? Not a Sinnoway? Not a fucking liar?" Phillip had never been reserved; he wasn't calm or patient like Billie; his anger was always there just below the surface, just waiting for the ice to crack so that it could swallow him whole. And they were on the verge of falling into the darkness now. He wasn't quiet, but Phillip often had very little to say; this was not one of those moments. "Tell me it is not true then? Tell me something, Bil—" Phillip cut himself off, unsure of what to call her and not wanting to say either name out loud. Billie was a lie, and Sybil was a stranger.

In between the flashes of light from the firework show's finale show, Phillip could see the tears glistening on her cheeks. Streaming down them, and it should have made him feel something other than the absolute rage that was devouring him, but he didn't. Phillip loved Billie, but he didn't know the witch standing in front of him.

When the show ended, and the sky was dark again, Phillip was reminded of how dark it was this time of year. And it made the space between them feel even further. Like he might never find his way across it again, the blackness was the only thing that remained. The distance. He thought about turning around and leaving, but his feet couldn't possibly leave this spot. Phillip grew quiet, turning away to stare out at the lake, the night sky reflected in it perfectly. The reflection was a lie too, it was distorted and wrong, and it didn't matter that might not have intended to be deceptive.

"They killed them, didn't they?" Phillip finally asked, his voice as hollow as he felt. Ripped apart and empty, devastated. Reaching into his pocket again, Phillip pulled out the crumpled bit of parchment he had folded and unfolded so many times this week. Her delicate handwriting was smudged from his fingers tracing over the names repeatedly. Letting go, the page fell to the ground slowly, and Phillip was tempted to join it.

The fireworks screamed, stuttered and cheered in the sky, and the sounds echoed off of the water. Billie could barely make out the actual things he was asking, though the issue might have been the anxiety-fuelled sirens in her own head rather than the show being too loud. She kept shaking her head, feeling like she was lurching forward but not moving her feet at all.

“I’m– It’s not–“ His questions kept coming and she couldn’t seem to scramble up fast enough to meet them. If she paused, she might wonder what she could even say; he wasn’t exactly wrong. As it was, Billie was more preoccupied with a panicked want – need for him to just stay here. It came out in her pleading tone, the denial that she couldn’t seem to stop repeating. Desperation was evident in her expression. “No,” she protested again, this time through the gloved fingers of a hand that had come up to cover her mouth. Her chest ached. She shook her head quickly.

Despite the teary blur, Billie’s eyes didn’t leave him as the fireworks faded and things darkened again. It felt like a slow transition but it was darker than before – the bursts of coloured light had stained her vision. His expression was furious and taunting. Bitter. Vulnerable. Hurt. Tears streamed down her cheeks but she couldn’t see if he was crying too.

A light breeze picked up and Billie caught the faint scent of gunpowder. Was that what it was, she wondered? Gunpowder? She couldn’t remember learning that word, but she certainly hadn’t seen fireworks until after her father had died and she’d gone to live with someone else. Billie shivered in the breeze; she was wearing winter robes but she’d taken off her cloak and folded it away when Phillip had done the last warming spell. It was somewhere behind her, on the picnic rug. At least it won’t smell like gunpowder later, she thought mechanically.

He was quiet now, and not looking at her.

She could hear herself crying – little gasps for air, the occasional sniff – and her cheeks were stinging from the cold, but everything felt so surreal that she almost felt a bit dizzy. She didn’t want to answer questions like the one he’d just asked. “I… I don’t know,” Billie responded eventually. The words were wrung out of her with some effort, and heavy with emotion. She couldn’t see what was on the paper, but if he knew everything… Then the answer was probably a yes. Her heart beat rapidly like a rabbit’s.

“My… Mother…” She started slowly, horrified at hearing herself say the words in this context. Billie tried to slow herself down – the racing thoughts, gasping breaths â€“ but it was a futile effort. My mother repeated internally. He’d asked if they’d killed them – the they and the them unnamed. Both hands covered her mouth now, and they were shaking. She couldn’t believe he’d called her that other name. It felt dirty on his lips.

“Please, Phillip,” she managed to say, though her voice was barely above a whisper.

Feeling so many things at once was chaotic, and it was consuming him. Phillip had never felt a betrayal that cut so deeply as this one. Billie had been his light, she was the one person he thought he could trust, and she had deceived him more than anyone. Billie had pretended to be his friend, that they were similar and most devastatingly, that she had loved him, and now all of that was coming crashing down around him. Phillip wasn't sure if he wanted to turn around and scream at her until he was blue in the face or disappear into the black lake beneath the ice.

From behind him, he could hear her saying things. Short words, false starts of sentences that he couldn't have believed even if she had finished them, and another wave of anger rushed through him. Even now, when he had found out all that he had, she couldn't be truthful with him. Now that everything was falling apart around them, Billie still couldn't look him in the eye and tell him the things she had hidden for so long. It was intolerable.

Spinning around quickly, Phillip's cheeks were stained from tears he had fought so hard to hold back, and his green eyes burned to look at her. "Why won't you answer my questions?" He demanded, his face still and serious. Phillip was used to the feeling of anger and disappointment, but this was on an entirely new level. There was a darkness to it that could not be escaped, like a light that had burned out forever. "No, don't say 'Phillip please,' don't you dare," The wizard interjected before stomping back toward her. Close enough now that the height difference was harrowing.

"Answer my fucking questions, or I will leave." An ultimatum. It was something he had promised he would never give her; as much as he wanted her to choose him over her friends, he had never asked. In his mind, Phillip had spent every day for the last seven months trying to put her needs first, but that was over now. Billie had always been soft-spoken, and he had loved that about her, but now he wanted her to speak. He was desperate for answers, and now he was demanding them.

Billie winced when he cut her off again, and she fell silent immediately as he approached. Her gaze dropped, hovered unfocused somewhere around his chest.

Her thoughts skittered backwards through the conversation, grasping for any memory of the actual questions he’d asked her. Barely two minutes had passed, but everything was already obscured by her panic. Had he asked her what her father had done? Well… Cygnus Sinnoway had taught her how to bake lemon cupcakes – she’d added poppyseeds to the recipe herself – and he’d shown her which spoon to use with soup. He’d taught her how to play chess, and sometimes he let her win. He’d worked with Gaius under the Dark Lord to restructure the ministry –

No. Her mind went blank and she shut her eyes again, this time letting her chin dip so her hands covered her whole face. She couldn’t stop gasping for air, like she was scared she was running out of oxygen. Mechanically, she started wiping her tears from her cheeks, her breaths coming too fast. Time was ticking – he was waiting. New tears appeared more quickly than she could clear the old ones.

When she spoke, her sentences were a little stuttered and uneven, the pacing off. She felt like she had to wring the words out of her body. “After my father... Died…” She swallowed. Tried her best to hold back a choked sob. “…I mean, my aunt changed her name a long – long before the first war – so…” She lowered her hands, clasping them together again as she forced herself to look up at him. He was crying too, she could see it now. Even in the dark. Her next words were a whisper. “I don’t know what you know, Phillip,” she started. She shook her head quickly. “But you’re right. About that name, that’s… That was... mine.”