Fic: The Girl I Knew Somewhere for laroseminuit

[escribo.livejournal.com]

Title: The Girl I Knew Somewhere
Author: escribo
Recipient: laroseminuit
Rating: PG-13
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): *blatant sexual harassment in the workplace *
Word Count: 2979
Summary: Remix of Strange How We Change applying Rule 63 (for every fictional character, there exists an opposite gender counterpart)
Notes: One of laroseminuit's prompts was Rule 63, which states that for every fictional character, there exists an opposite gender counterpart. As a pinch hit, I didn't have time to ask for permission to apply the rule to one of her stories, so I applied it to one of my own, remixing Strange How We Change. It was a lot of fun thinking about "would a woman say that or stand like that" to figure out what could stay and what had to change and especially, "what got them there in the first place," which I'd honestly never really considered (at least not in depth) when they were boys. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed thinking about these characters in a new way!



Rhea stared down at the tattered leave slip in her hands, smoothing out a curled edge, as she blinked back tears. It made her mad (madder) that she cried when she got angry, her face going all blotchy and red. She hated it. It was frustrating enough to have her leave request turned down, though she'd been expecting it for a while. Things had been going too well at this job. The bold red letters spelling out denied in her current boss' (Mr. Tavers, or Sir Tosser, as Sirius called him) thick, rough hand were just insulting.

"I really need this time off," she said into the empty office, crumpling the slip of paper into her fist before she followed him out of his office and onto the small sales floor. He had his back turned to her, watching where Lena, the young Muggle girl who also worked in the shop, stood stretching to stack boxes of soap onto a high shelf. She could tell he was mostly overseeing Lena's legs where her short skirt had rode up rather than her work by the way he kept mopping his hand over the shiny bald spot with its three greasy hairs that reminded her unpleasantly of Severina Snape. Rhea really hated this job. "Three days at the most. I'll work extra to make up."

"You needed a few days off last month, and the month before that."

"I know, and I am sorry, it's just that my dad isn't in good health." Rhea could feel her cheeks heat up as Mr. Tavers finally turned his attention back to her, Lena's task completed. Rhea hated lying but she was usually better at it than this. She blamed this oaf of a man in his ill-fitting brown polyester suit and wide tie. She hated him, hated working in this dingy little Peckham shop for less than one hundred pounds a week, and hated the Ministry rules that kept her from getting a Wizarding job just because of her furry little problem.

"Please, sir," Rhea said and then cringed as something in her tone seemed to pique his interest.

"You could be quite a pretty girl, Rhea," he said, once he'd dragged his oily gaze over her plain blue dress that she'd borrowed from Petra that morning, which meant it was too short though it hung on her thin frame rather like a potato sack. "At least you would be if it weren't for that scar."

Rhea could feel her blush travel down her neck and shifted, forcing her hands to stay at her sides rather than reach up to trace along the scar on her cheek, crumpling the request into a tight ball of paper. She tried not to think of what Sirius or Jamie would do in this situation--hex him, she supposed, and he would deserve it. Of course, neither of them truly needed to keep their job and were blessed to be able to live off their inheritances.

As soon as she thought it, she felt immediately guilty, knowing that Jamie would rather have her parents back and Sirius his Aunt Alula, and that none of this was their fault, just as she rather wished her mum was still alive just so that she could bury her face into her starched apron one last time and let her soothe all the hurts away.

Rhea brushed her hand over eyes and stood a bit straighter, determined to ignore Sir Tosser, and tried a different tact. "I could come in on Saturday to do the inventory."

"You could put on a little make-up and wear something a bit smarter. I bet you have quite a figure beneath your nun's habit."

On the other hand, sometimes hexing was too good for some people.

***

"Where's Rhea?" Sirius set down the paper sacks filled with curries and naan, her weekly turn at dinner done, and smacked hands when Jamie and Petra started grabbing for the food. She looked around the room, half-expecting Rhea to just appear though she didn't abuse apparition quite as often as the rest of them, but when she didn't turn up, Sirius leaned a bit over the table, her hands curling over the tops of the bags. "Rhea," she said again to Jamie's shrug.

"Roof," Petra said, her milky blue eyes firmly on her dinner.

Satisfied if not happy, Sirius let Petra draw the bag closer and dig out the steaming, white cardboard containers, the warm and spicy smell filling the kitchen. "What's she doing up there?"

"What does she ever do up there but pout?" Petra's focus was firmly on her dinner now and she didn't see Sirius scowl in her direction as Sirius dropped into the chair across from her.

"I think she had a bad day," Jamie said, trying to diffuse another argument between Sirius and Petra, and Sirius twisted her lips in acknowledgment. She knew it was becoming something of a habit for Jamie, even more so than when they were in school, done often enough lately that Sirius wondered if Jamie even noticed she was doing it.

"When is it not a bad day for her?" Petra had the plates handed ‘round, skipping Rhea’s usual spot, and dug into the prawn briyani with one hand even as she stuffed a samosa into her mouth, talking around it. “She was home when I got here, locked in the loo for ages. God forbid if she has her monthly and her monthly at the same time. She's been bad enough to deal with lately as it is."

"Don't start in. You know she hates when you do."

"It's true though. It's like double the PMS when her period lands on a full moon." This time Petra did see Sirius' scowl but seemed pretty unaffected by it. If Jamie wasn't there, Sirius would have hexed a boil onto the end of her nose. As if sensing what Sirius had in mind, Petra rushed on. "She probably lost another job though she didn’t say. I hope she remembers rent is due next week."

Sirius bristled a bit more, resettling her elbows on table, a fork in one hand and taking up her knife in the other, looking at little as if she meant to go into battle with her before she caught herself and set them next to her plate. Her mother would have been appalled at her table manners, and that thought was the only thing that brought her a bit of pleasure as she spooned out some of the prawns onto her plate. When the four of them had moved into the Knightsbridge flat nearly a year ago, it'd had been like an extension of their years living together at Hogwarts, just with no essays or detentions. It’d been another game, another laugh. The last couple of months had brought the strain of adulthood with lost jobs and lost loves, proposals, and family strife. The war.

"Who’s going to get her?" Jamie asked, digging into first one container and then the next. She licked her thumb gracelessly and grabbed a fork, finally looking up at Sirius because it really hadn’t been a question.

"I did last time," Petra said, missing the silent conversation that was happening between Jamie and Sirius.

"So what's stopping you from going again," Sirius bit out, this time ignoring Jamie when she shook her head sharply.

Petra gestured to her own plate with her fork, as if it explained everything, and reached again for a container of food, the chicken tikka this time. Sirius grunted out an answer. She’d known she was going anyway; it just bothered her that Petra made it sound like a chore, like a burden. It’d become like that between Petra and Rhea, or rather Petra toward Rhea because Rhea didn’t fight, didn’t argue, at least if she could at all avoid it. Now that Petra didn’t need Rhea to tutor her in charms or cheat off of in transfiguration, it seemed like Petra had no need for Rhea at all. At least that was what Sirius thought, though Jamie told her to stop being thick, believing—or wanting to believe—that nothing had changed except their beds no longer had thick velvet curtains and Leander didn't have to sneak in through the window to see Jamie.

Another grunt and Sirius pushed her chair back, scraping it against the floor, and eased herself out through the window, up the fire escape, and onto the rooftop. She saw Rhea where she stood near the ledge, looking out over the city. Her hands were shoved deep into the pockets of her favorite worn denims, her red shirt familiar and faded nearly pink, one of Jamie's, an artifact from a Muggle concert that Sirius and Jamie had sneaked down to Manchester to see in the summer before sixth year. In her short sleeves, Sirius could see the faded scars that lined Rhea' arms shine silver in the setting sun.

Rhea turned her head slightly at the sound of Sirius' boots crunching across the gravel but said nothing. She didn’t have to, not to Sirius, who could read the hunch of her shoulders like a map as she hugged her arms around herself. Sirius eased closer, sliding her foot across the tar paper roof to edge it against Rhea’ worn ballet flat. She could see the tight line of Rhea’ jaw now though not her eyes as she shaded them against the remnants of the sun.

"You're missing dinner. It's my night."

"Curry, then."

"You like my curry."

Rhea gave a ghost of a smile, which was almost enough for Sirius. Sirius' rebellion from her family didn't extend to household charms when even Petra and Jamie could manage a few basic meals that didn't involve working out the strange Muggle money as Sirius did on her nights. Rhea was the gourmand amongst them, her mum having taught her to cook properly, frugally, and without magic. Sirius found it endlessly fascinating, though still feigned helplessness at even the most basic tasks when Rhea offered to teach her to chop an onion or fry up an egg.

"Your curry, yes; I'm just not much up for company," Rhea said, the smile gone as she looked back over the dirty rooftops.
Sirius didn’t take it as a hint, assuming, as she often did, that Rhea didn’t mean her or even Jamie. She liked to think that she knew Rhea too well for that, that their drunken fumbling over the past year when neither had wanted to be alone, gave her some sort of immunity from Rhea’ moods, even at times when Jamie would have backed down.

"What are you doing up here anyway?" Sirius asked, pretending that this hasn’t become a sort of habit, too.

"Nothing." Rhea shrugged, pulling her arms up to fold them over her chest. Her mouth twisted around other words, her lips twitching to the side dismissively. "Thinking."

"About?"

Rhea shook her head and shoved her hand through her short curls. Her smile was weak and her eyes looked tired when she finally leveled them at Sirius then back out over the horizon.

"Bad day at work?"

"Yeah, but at least that won't be a problem anymore."

"They let you go?"

"I had an slight disagreement with Mr. Tavers."

"Which means?"

"I asked for time off and he denied it, unless I wanted to be on more friendly terms."

"He didn't."

"Of course he did. It was awful."

"Did you quit?"

"No."

"You should have."

"Because I'm terribly employable and can just toss away jobs."

"Rhea—"

"Don't start. It's been a terrible day. Besides, it hardly matters."

Sirius cursed beneath her breath. It was the second job Rhea had lost this summer, the fourth this year, the seventh since they left school. Sirius knew Rhea took each redundancy as a personal failing, knew she'd spend the next few weeks throwing herself at the unpaid work of the Order though people looked at her with suspicion there, too. There would be weeks of worry over money, her own strange brew of cold resentment and embarrassed gratitude when Sirius or Jamie covered her quarter of the rent or magicked some coins into some spare jacket pocket to be found when she needed bus fare or a cup of tea. That it meant nothing to Jamie and Sirius, either would be happy to support her completely, made it worse to Rhea, and Sirius knew that too.

Rhea pulled the fastener from her hair and combed her fingers through before pulling it back up. "I should have quit," she said after a while. "It came out to be the same anyway."

"You should have hexed him."

"I slapped him instead."

"Did you? Good for you. He deserved it."

Rhea nodded, seeming to cheer a bit at the thought but it was short lived. Her shoulders sagged after a minute and she shook her head. "I cast a memory charm the second after I did it. He's probably still wondering why his cheek is red."

"Rhea!"

"I would have had bigger troubles if the Ministry found out that a werewolf went on a rampage. When he finished being dazed, he fired me, so no harm done."

"No harm," Sirius said incredulously but Rhea just nodded.

"My dad wants me to go back home," Rhea said into the stretching silence between them, her eyes never leaving the horizon. In the heat of the day, a haze had settled over the city, giving the sky a reddish glow like an exit sign, and it was Sirius’ turn to curl her hands into fists, to twist and fidget.

"You don't want to go." Statement, not a question, but Sirius didn't breath easily until Rhea shook her head. "So, you'll stay."
Rhea gave a short, humorless laugh, dipping her head low and letting her hair slip from her messy bun to cover her face. "If only it were that easy."

"Why can't it be?"

"Nothing about me is ever easy." She said it off-hand, an old joke, but her voice was tight. She looked over her shoulder to Sirius then back over the city, the river a pale brown snake to the west. "I mean, it feels like he asks every time this happens. I mean, he never wanted me to come in the first place. He doesn't think it's proper for young witches to be on their own in the city."

"You're not on your own," Sirius said but Rhea just shrugged.

"He tells me it's okay and not to worry. He's got his pension from the Ministry and sells what he can from the garden to make extra. I could have my old room back. The grand adventure done and I can just tick off time between fulls."

Rhea didn’t sound angry anymore, like she had the first couple of times someone showed her the door. She just sounded tired, defeated, Sirius found that she actually missed the anger.

"I want you to stay," Sirius said.

"Only because you feel sorry for me."

"I don’t. Leander says I’m genetically predisposed to only care for myself so pity’s out completely.” That at least got another smile out of Rhea and Sirius moved closer, curling her hand around Rhea's, reveling in the smooth skin against her callouses. “I really want you to stay."

"Yeah, well. Maybe then because you're likely to kill Petra if it's just you and her after Jamie is married next month."

"Petra's leaving, too."

"Is she?" There was surprise and a flash of something indefinable in Rhea' face; guilt, Sirius didn't wonder, at believing she’d been so involved in her own problems that she'd failed her friends in some way. Sirius felt a stab of irrational anger at Petra and squeezed her hand tighter.

"She told Jamie, not me. She'll have her own place, though Jamie says it just a bedsit in Chalk Farm."

"I wouldn't have thought she'd go for a Muggle area."

"Close to Jamie and Leander as she can afford on her own, I suspect." Sirius turned to capture Rhea's other hand and tugged her close until they were nearly nose-to-nose, taking a chance when before it’d been a liberal dose of Ogden’s worst that made this okay in the past. Rhea didn’t pull away though and Sirius spoke rapidly, barely breathing, her warm breath ghosting over Rhea's lips and fluttering the wisps of hair that framed her face. "I really want you to stay with me, Rhea."

Rhea tilted her head, watching Sirius carefully in her cautious way. She could always tell when Sirius was lying, and Sirius held her breath, determined to pass the test. "You'll get tired of me, all on our own."

Sirius recognized that as more guilt but at the core it was something else—longing or hope, maybe both, Sirius wasn't sure, but smiled because whatever it was, it meant that Rhea was giving in. She'd seen the look a thousand times whilst they were in school and pranks were afoot. "More likely, you'll tire of curry, or stumbling over my shoes."

"I like your curry and your shoes, especially since we wear the same size."

Sirius laughed quietly, dragged her nose over Rhea’s skin to nuzzle into the crook of her neck as they hugged. She could smell the gentle, sweet scent of Rhea's perfume, taste sweat and the grit from the city where she touched her tongue to the soft skin of Rhea's neck.

"Y'great daft puppy," Rhea whispered but affectionately as she relaxed into Sirius’ arms, the tension of the day mostly gone even if her problems weren’t.

"Stay with me," Sirius whispered back and held her breath until the sun sunk below the horizon, until the sounds of the city faded away to nothing, until Rhea nodded and turned in her arms.

Comments

[escribo.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I thought a lot about how to adjust the relationship between Sirius and Remus. In the original story, Sirius stands behind Remus and wraps his arms around Remus, touching his stomach. I purposely changed that (simultaneously thinking too hard about it and not enough) because it seemed like too much, and because I thought that women would have that conversation face-to-face. I don't know. A lot to think about, and I honestly don't think about it nearly as much when I'm writing femmeslash (rather than genderswap). I'd like to read some other writers' attempts, too.