To the stars who listen, and the dreams that are answered. 
— Sarah J. Maas 

Oculoplania 
(n.) letting your eyes wander in order to assess someone's 'charms' 

Azalea POV 

"That's dragonshit." 

It's all I can say to keep myself together as I lean back in the armchair and cross one leg over the other, staring down the withering white bastard with a flat gaze that Cove would be proud of. 

Harry, on the other hand, says nothing as his body locks. Freezes. Petrificus Totalus style. 

"Azalea, I understand that you're confused and—" It takes every fibre of my will to keep myself from lashing out, smashing this old wizard's head onto the wooden desk, and then breaking into tears. "—don't know what to think. But, in time, I'll explain everything to you. Harry, I know it is much to take in—" 

Harry doesn't bother listening to the headmaster's drivel and cuts in. "And you only just discovered this, Professor?" 

Dumbledore's lips flatten into a sad smile. 

Oh. 

Oh, Merlin. 

He's known this for a while. 

Some forgotten part of my heart cracks. 

"No. No, that's not possible," Harry states, his voice wobbly but his gaze unyielding. "You don't just forget to mention I have a sister. You don't just hide something like that. Why would you—" 

"Every choice I made was in the hope of shielding you from hurt, Harry. You must understand." 

"Well, I don't understand what on earth could possibly make you keep something so important from me." Harry's low voice amplifies. The wobble dissolves into rage as he gets to his feet, fists slamming on Dumbledore's desk. I suck in a breath as the wood rattles. "I don't understand how keeping me from knowing the only family I have left is your idea of protection!" 

My stomach turns to stone. 

"The... only family?" 

My voice sounds very, very distantly familiar to me, barely above a whisper. It reminds me of a young girl. A young girl who was so lost and so alone. So hopeful yet so hopeless. A young girl with fractured dreams who lost herself in fantasies of a life she wished she could have, a family she wished she could have. That ache had been mildly soothed after finding some of the best friends in Durmstrang, but it never fully dissipated. 

"That's not true, you have Sirius," Dumbledore tells Harry, disregarding me. 

"It's not the same," Harry grits out, and then glances at me. Dumbledore notes the action, as if only just realising I'd said something. 

"Lily and James Potter," Dumbledore begins, clearing his throat. "Were courageous. They fought the Dark Lord with bravery... and love. Their love is what vanquished Voldemort, and thus, saved the both of you." 

"They're dead." It was more of a statement than a question. 

Dumbledore nodded, still sporting that sad, pathetic smile of his. My lip yearns to peel back, but I rein in my snarl, my screaming, the wrath that wants to wreck this room until it resembles my broken heart. 

"You knew," Harry begins, rage that looks so foreign on his boyish features twisting his face cruelly. "You knew about her. Where—" A hopeless glance in my direction as he looks at me like he's never seen me before. "Where has she been all these years? Why haven't I known about her? Why hadn't she been sent to live with our cousins, too?" 

Cousins? 

"This just keeps getting better and better," I mutter, the denial slowly turning to wretched disbelief. My muscles clench and ache in the manner they do when something hurts my heart, like my body decides that the emotional pain isn't enough and has to make the hurt tangible. 

"Please sit down, Harry," the headmaster says, his weathered, sympathetic voice only serving to piss me off even further. 

Harry exhales. Deeply. Jaw clenched. But he complies. 

"Tell us everything," I demand, because it isn't just me that's breaking apart right now. Beside me, Harry's world is flipping upside down as well. The truth has been hidden from him, too, and it's no small measure of relief that I hadn't been willingly abandoned. No, not at all. I wasn't an embarrassment, a mistake, or not worth the time. I hadn't been abandoned. 

Dumbledore, to his credit, does as I ask. I don't know how powerful of a wizard he is, but if he he'd continued to beat around the bush any longer, I would have gotten to my feet, rules be damned, and backhanded this lying bastard across his wrinkled face. 

I swallow as the thought crosses my mind. 

No, hold steady, Az. Keep it together. 

I listen as Dumbledore speaks like he's putting a toddler to sleep with a fairytale story, like it isn't our bloody lives he's talking about. 

I let my fingers run through a sleeping Knox's feathers, grounding me. 

He tells us how Lily and James—my parents, our parents—were attacked on "a fateful night" in Godric's Hollow, how James had laid down his life in his battle against Voldemort. Again, that familiar name. When I butt in and ask who Voldemort is, I get a horrified look from Harry. 

"A dark wizard," is Dumbledore's only response, along with a pained expression when he looks at Harry, like he's sparing him from the specifics. I decide that those three words are enough for now. 

Voldemort killed my father, and then killed my mother. Why? Because he wanted to kill my brother. Fuck, that label sounds surreal. Because a prophecy had foretold that Harry would rise to defeat Voldemort, and so he decided to nip the blossom in the bud, but Lily's sacrifice and love for Harry had protected him, causing the killing curse to rebound and end the caster himself. 

The lightning scar—that's how he got it. No wonder he'd been apprehensive of exhibiting it. Shit, why did I push him to show it. 

That's when I notice Harry's eyes are glazed. Brimming with unshed tears. Merlin, has he been this way all this while? My heart stings painfully. 

"And... what about me?" I ask. 

I try to make it sound as little selfish as possible, even though the words are anything but. But I need to know. Need to know if I was ever there to begin with, if I had been sent away by my birth parents before the attack or if something had happened during or after it. 

Dumbledore sighs. "Your cradle had been rumpled when Hagrid arrived, indicating that it had been slept in. But you were... gone. I do not know if you were in the room when it happened. The wizarding world knew about Harry because of the prophecy, but you, Azalea, had been kept secret by Lily and James. They did not wish for the Dark Lord to find out about you. They only told a few, trusted people." 

"I'm guessing you're one of those so-called trusted people?" I ask, lifting a brow. 

"Yes, I knew, and I—" 

"It's a yes or no question, you don't have to paraphrase every response," I cut in, keeping my voice low enough not to rouse my sleeping owl. Dumbledore's gaze drops to the owl, as if he's only just noticing its presence, frowning disapprovingly. 

Maybe I'm being cruel. Maybe. But cruelty came easier than tears. Breaking down in front of this stranger who had kept such crucial information about my life from me was the last thing on my mind. 

"She was simply gone when you arrived?" A nod from Dumbledore. "And you didn't bother looking for her? You're the most powerful wizard of your time, and you couldn't find a bloody baby?" 

My stomach drops even farther. 

"It's not quite as simple as you make it to be, Harry—" 

"Ahem," someone behind us clears their throat. It's the woman from earlier. Professor McGonagall. "The first years are waiting, Professor." 

"We'll be there in just a minute, Minerva." Dumbledore turns an optimistic look towards me. "Are you excited to be sorted, Azalea?" 

"My name is Azrael." I don't skip a beat. Just say it outright. 

"But your parents—" 

"Are dead and it's horrible and tragic, I got all that. But from what you've told me, Harry seems to be quite the legend, and I don't want any of that attention on me. I just want to get through this school with my head down and no trouble. Is changing my last name allowed?" 

At that, Harry sharply pivots to face me. For the first time since the headmaster's revelation. His eyes are glazed like a wounded puppy, and I mentally kick myself for letting the look get to me. "Azal— Azrael, you can't mean that." 

I don't immediately respond, hesitating. 

"You have been enrolled under your birth name, so there will be no name-changing." 

Blast it, I should have just put my foot down and told him I was changing my name, not asked him like a respectful, feeble doe. 

"Any other things you're keeping from me?" Harry asks, a bite in his tone. "Maybe a forgotten brother or a second prophecy?" 

Dumbledore bristles. 

We're escorted out by McGonagall, who casts a sympathetic look at Harry, attempting to placate him, but he shrugs her off when he discovers that she knew, too. And I know, from the way he reacted, the rage and hurt in his features, that he trusted these people, and they'd kept something vital from him, and the glaze clouding his eyes—it's not sorrow, but betrayal. 

●⁍●⁍●  

I'm walking shoulder to shoulder with Harry towards the Great Hall, by order from Professor McGonagall, where the Sorting Ceremony will take place. 

For all my ballsy bitch act, my hands are still clammy. 

Before dismissing us, Dumbledore had graciously let us know a few more things—Harry and I were twins, and Harry was the older one. By a few minutes. Harry had snorted at that, the only trace of amusement in the wake of what we'd discovered. 

"I'm sorry," I whisper as he guides me down a flight of stairs. "That they kept this from you. You seem to trust them." 

I don't know any of those two, so the revelation of the secret left me a sad, raging mess. But Harry knows these people, trusts them, and betrayal of this kind scars. And I'm right, because the hurt is evident in his every tense motion. 

"You have nothing to apologise for. You were in the dark, too. You were... Merlin, where have you been all these years? Where were you raised?" Something akin to panic flares in his eyes. 

"An orphanage in a remote village. Not in this country." He levels a look at me, asking which one. "Siberia," I say, "Until my powers manifested, and I got shipped to Durmstrang." 

"That's—" Harry motions to turn right, and I follow, cursing my inability to memorise the turns. "Where even is that?" 

"Far," I say, my lips twitching up. "I never liked geography either." 

A smile breaks on his lips. The first since we got hauled away. "You and I—we probably have a lot to sort through, don't we?" 

"Yeah," I whisper. 

"After Sorting?" he asks, hopefully. My heart swells. This is foreign territory, and I'm not quite sure how to navigate it. Not quite sure how not to fuck it up. Because this is something I've dreamed of, and now that it's come true, I don't know how to handle it. 

"What happens after Sorting?" I ask instead. 

"There are four long tables, one for each house. After being sorted, you go to your house, eat dinner, and sleep." 

"That's anticlimactic." 

"Yeah," he whispers. 

Brief, curt dialogues. That's what gets us to the Great Hall. But despite the clipped conversation, I can't help but feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Like the weight between us after the disclosure has lightened. Because despite the terse conversation, there had been an unspoken acknowledgement, a reassurance that things would not go south. 

And for today, after everything, it would suffice. 

●⁍●⁍● 

Turns out, this head-and-heart-ache of a day has not yet reached its end. 

Harry drops me off with the other first-years outside the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall is already there somehow, having arrived before us, standing before the crowd and giving them a brief intro. I feel horribly out of place with this crowd of eleven-year-olds, but my four-nine-point-five self blends in with the kids pretty well. 

Harry offers to stay and give me company, but McGonagall shooes him away with a stern look. 

And now we're inside the Great Hall. 

The Sorting Hat is a withered thing that looks like it belongs on Dumbledore's head, both old and frail and crumbling. I instantly dislike it because its first impression on me is that it's synonymous with a man I presently contempt. But then the hat does the most absurd thing—it breaks into a bloody song. 

And I, for some odd reason, find myself vibing to it. 

Owls weren't allowed inside the Great Hall, Professor McGonagall had told me when she'd seen Knox awake and perched upon my shoulder before we entered. She informed me of the owlery at the top of the West Tower and said that he should be able to find his way there on his own. So there went my emotional crutch. 

Now, I'm standing in the crowd of first years, fidgeting with my robes because I'm tired and drained and still in shock, and somehow, that white wizard sitting at the centre of the High Table in a golden chair expects me to go on like life's just the same. 

Bastard. 

I listen as McGonagall lists off names alphabetically, each house cheering as a student gets sorted into theirs. That's promising. At least it's not dead silence or bored, polite applause. I listen and mentally recite the alphabet in my head. L... M... N... O... P. That's my cue; my name should be called any second. 

"Peverell, Thalassa!" 

"GRYFFINDOR!" 

"Plumridge, Briony!" 

"HUFFLEPUFF!" 

Shit, okay, I should be next. Deep breath. Why am I panicking, there have been about three dozen students before me already. 

"Pomerance, Aurelia!" 

"RAVENCLAW!" 

Okay, never mind. Now, I should be next. 

"Pottelby, Vespera!" 

Oh, fuck Pottelby. Who even came up with that name. Now there's no way I'm not next. 

"HUFFLEPUFF!" 

"Pritchard, Graham!" 

"SLYTHERIN!" 

What the hell? 

The sorting continues, with McGonagall finishing up with the Ps and already continuing onto the Qs and Rs. I look at her, trying to catch her eye, but her gaze doesn't stray from the parchment in her hand. 

Did they forget to add my name to the list, or do I just not exist anymore? 

I look towards the Gryffindor table, but it's far too crowded and with all the cheering and applauding, I don't think I'll be able to find Harry anyway. I actively refrain from referring to him as my brother. My sanity cannot handle that today. 

It's only after "Whitby, Kevin!" and "HUFFLEPUFF!" that I realise I'm the last one left, sticking out like a sore thumb. I nearly cave in on myself. Nearly. Cove would decapitate me if she found out I'd done that, so I keep my head high and don't let my chin fall. 

"And lastly," Professor McGonagall clears her throat, glancing at me sceptically. "We have a transfer student, year four. Potter, Azalea!" 

I feel the moment the gasps and whispers break across the hall like a physical blow. 

So much for keeping a low profile. 

I step forward, and McGonagall drops the hat on my head. Whoever designed this did so with no regard for the fact that children would have this hat placed upon their heads because the brim of this blasted hat blocks out my entire vision. 

"Another Potter, eh? I've been waiting for you," the hat muses, startling me. "Hmm, interesting. So very interesting. Not a first year, I see. Yes, I see many things. So many paths, so many choices." 

"Do you enjoy listening to yourself talk?" I ask, half-mocking, half-serious. 

The hat barks a laugh, so loud in my ears that I clench my teeth to keep from yelping. "You're a strange one, so different from the others. So much potential. No, Hufflepuff would squander that potential, and with that fire... you'd be wasted as a Ravenclaw. Any preferences?" 

It takes me a second to realise it's paused because it's asking me. 

"Do you honestly entrust students with the weight of selecting a house on their own?" I ask, my voice low. "I thought that was your job." 

"Sharp, clever tongue, I see," the hat muses, humour in its tone. "Are you quite sure you don't wish to pick? Very well, let's look into your head and see what you desire." Look into my head? "Wit and wisdom, yes, but there's also courage and loyalty. And such cunning... You remind me of a great wizard from a long time ago, although he eventually went down the wrong path..." 

"I'm starving, so hurry up or I'll place you on a pile of sizzling roast chicken," I threaten, voice still low so only the hat hears it, and, as if on cue, my stomach rumbles. 

"Yes, yes, perfect. I know just what to do with you. At least you aren't fighting your fate. SLYTHERIN!" 

And my heart plummets. 

●⁍●⁍●  

Slytherin table absolutely roars to life, thundering applause and raucous cheering nearly shattering the glassware and my eardrums. I think there are a few students outright standing on their seats, whistling and yelling, "We got Potter! We got Potter!" That's when I notice the snickering and mocking looks being sent to the Gryffindor table by Slytherin. 

Everything was just fine before I noticed that. The excitement thrumming in veins dims down. 

I gingerly slip into the first empty spot near the end of the table because I refuse to walk all the way down the aisle amidst the hollering, smiling politely at everyone as they give me varying degrees of satisfied smirks. 

So that's that. 

Beside me, to my right, an attractive, dark-skinned boy rests his chin on his palm, flashing me a grin. Blaise. The boy who helped me find the platform. "Hello, gorgeous. You never told me you were a Potter." 

My shoulders relax as I find at least one familiar face. Better than a downright stranger. My stomach had been queasy at the prospect of socialising with unknown people. 

"You never asked." 

"Touché. Deception and evasion—you're already a proper Slytherin." 

I debate telling him that I didn't deceive or evade anything, but settle for returning his welcoming grin, turning my attention to the Head Table when Dumbledore gets to his feet. 

The man has a huge smile plastered on his lips, a real one instead of the bullshit pitiful one he'd had earlier, arms opened wide. Is that supposed to be a welcoming gesture, or is he preparing himself to face the least resistance when he's mauled by a bear? 

Okay, fine, perhaps my judgment is a little biased, but in my defence, that man hadn't made the best initial impression. 

"I have only two words to say to you. Tuck in." 

And when I tear my gaze away from the headmaster, I find the long table brimming with food. Harry is a little shit because he'd conveniently failed to mention that dinner was a grand feast. My mouth falls open. 

I don't even know what to eat first. 

I decide to steal a page from Viktor's book and pile my plate with actual food, as he likes to call it, because right now, starving and exhausted, I'm no better than a dog salivating for a bone. I fill my plate with roast chicken, lamb chops, sausages, roast potatoes, and am in the process of reaching for a piece of every seafood I can find when someone pokes my side. 

I yelp, my smoked salmon splattering on my neat pile of roast potatoes. 

I glare at Blaise. 

"Parkinson is busy talking to Nott about things I don't want to involve myself in, and Malfoy doesn't look exceptionally cheery, so I'm going to let him brood with Crabbe and Goyle. So I'm lonely, give me attention." 

At the mention of Malfoy, my heart peeks out from the barrage of bombshells it's been buried under. 

I scan the students around us, none of whom are cheering anymore and seem wholly focused on devouring every last crumble on this table. I don't see the person I'm looking for in any of the faces. 

Blaise pokes my side again. 

"I asked you a question. Do you not want to talk to me?" 

I plop a spoonful of gravy on his pumpkin pasty in revenge for unsettling my pile of potatoes, and then respond, "If you pass me the chocolate pudding, you can have my attention for the rest of dinner." 

Blaise beams, not caring about his ruined pasty, much to my dismay, as he swipes a serving of pudding that's too far for me to reach. I smile and move to take it, but he holds his hand just inches out of my reach, grinning. "Alright, mystery Potter, you love your sugar, but tell me this first, what's your story?" 

I stand up and snatch the pudding out of his hands. 

"Wouldn't you like to know," I say, setting it on the left side of my plate, out of direct reach of the boy beside me. "Thank you for the pudding." 

"I would like to know, actually, yes," he says, his tone teasing. 

The sound of shuffling footsteps cuts through the clamour of the Great Hall, coming from somewhere close, and then, Merlin, that voice. "Move before I hex you." 

The first year sitting to my left frantically scoots away. 

My jaw unhinges as I watch Draco smoothly slip into the spot to my left, a charming smile dancing on his lips as he looks at me with twinkling eyes. "Welcome to Hogwarts, Potter."