AN: Written for The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.

Prompt: Write about a work-based friendship.

'Wilhemina Grubbly-Plank – how do you live with such name?' The words fell as carelessly as a comet. Wilhelmina turned to see Aurora Sinistra standing in the doorway. Her pointed hat sat crooked on her head and black pearls swung gracelessly about her neck. She appeared to be reading Wilhelmina's face. Her dark eyes moved from left to right and up to down in that curious way of hers. Wilhelmina wondered what she wanted. They had not planned a meeting, and they were not particularly close. If this were Pomona Sprout, Wilhelmina would guess she was just being friendly, checking in to see how everyone was doing on a long night, but Sinistra had never struck Wilhelmina as one for small talk.

'It's an everyday struggle,' Wilhemina said briskly. 'How do you live with "Sinistra"?'

Aurora Sinistra had no idea what she was doing there. It was a Wednesday, and she had just finished a late night Astronomy class. She had happened to come upon an open door, streaming yellow light, and it had lured her in. Though she would never admit to it, Aurora was afraid of the dark. Also, she had been lonely. Both these reasons seemed very childish now, but she could not just leave, not without seeming wholly strange.

'I try to live it up,' Aurora Sinistra said. She did not smile. 'I make it my goal to be at least a little bit terrifying to my students. It gets more work out of them.'

Wilhelmina thought of that one time, Hermione Granger, had dipped her head into Wilhelmina's office, legs trembling, eyes wet. Hermione had asked for a homework extension – just this once. Her sole excuse had been a mumbled 'astronomy.'

'Yes,' said Wilhelmina. 'I have heard horror stories about you. Some of my best pupils tell me that you are trying to bury them dead or alive in homework.'

Wilhelmina did not know why she was continuing the conversation. The cuckoo clock, which was just about ready to topple off the wall, sang out that it was midnight. She should have been out of her office hours ago, left the piling paperwork for the tomorrow that was now today. She felt groggy and needed a smoke. Her bed and pipe were up in her room though, and she had no inclination to climb the stairs.

Aurora felt awkward standing in the doorway. She should either end the conversation and leave or come in and stay, uninvited. She looked at the back window of the room. The drapes were open. Outside, the dark sky was freckled with stars, and a full moon was blooming like some overgrown white dahlia. She crossed the room, the hem of her robe swishing against the worn wood floor. She placed her hands on the damp windowsill.

'I am only trying to prepare them for life,' she said. 'We get handed more than our fair share of disaster.'

Wilhemina raised an eyebrow. 'And how is busy work going to help them prepare for disaster?'

'By having them adjust to higher levels of stress.' Aurora Sinistra said the words solemnly, but a smile twisted her lips.

'Oh, you're fooling with me,' said Wilhemina. She shook her finger at Sinistra.

'Maybe a little, but Astronomy is an important subject,' said Aurora Sinistra. Her face was once again composed. She had a very still face, Wilhelmina thought. It was a perfect oval with great, dark, unmoving eyes. The eyebrows were carefully placed lines, and the lips were kept straight. Wilhelmina wondered what story came with such a quiet stance, but she could not guess it. She closed up her Care of Magical Creature books.

'Of course, it is,' Wilhelmina said. 'All subjects are important.'

'Some people think astronomy is not important. They say it's boring, not relevant to magic, but if we disconnect from the stars, we lose our past.'

Sinistra said the words like she meant them, like she believed them with all her heart, and Wilhelmina wondered about her past, how long it was. Sinistra did not look old but that could just be her African heritage. It seemed to Wilhelmina that other races aged slower than hers, outwardly at least. Old white women always looked so old. She knew –she had a mirror.

Aurora was examining Orion. It was bright because it was nearing winter, but it was faded because of the moon. The first years students she had taught earlier that night had been happy enough to learn of the constellation, but third year students were already bored and disgruntled. She puzzled over how to make the subject more interesting. How many times can you say the same thing, teach the same lesson, without it wearing you away.

'Stars are beautiful,' said Wilhelmina.

'They are more than that,' said Aurora Sinistra. 'They are what keeps us alive. But they do not live for us. They are our centers, and we revolve around them.'

Aurora wondered what it would be like to be a star. You would be an empty pit of sizzling glory, a thoughtless globe of fire and gas. No one could touch you until you were dead and most likely not even then. Collapsing in unto yourself, you could be diamond or black hole. No guilt, no, hope, no worry. Just drifting, drifting through space.

'That is so,' Wilhemina agreed, stirring Aurora from her thoughts. 'But perhaps the students have a hard time comprehending the importance of something that is to them quite distant, abstract. It's not like Transfiguration or Charms where they see the changes they are making first hand. They can't control the cosmos. Maybe stars make them feel powerless.'

'Astronomy is a science,' Aurora Sinistra said firmly. 'It is the only core requirement at this school that can be used in both worlds. The only course in this whole damn school that any of them could use in the other world if this magical one disowns them, and they call it useless.'

'There are the art courses,' Wilhelmina said quietly. She guessed now that Sinistra had come to complain. Which was fine, though she could not understand why Sinistra hadn't chosen someone she knew closer. But maybe she doesn't know anyone closer. That's a thought. Sinistra is always quiet at meal times.

'Yes,' said Aurora Sinistra, tapping her fingers on the windowsill, 'there are those, but only a very few are going to be artistically talented. Sometimes I wonder if we aren't setting up our students to fail.'

'Well, it isn't like all of them are going to be dumped out into the muggle world.'

'No, not all, but many,' said Aurora Sinistra. She turned round and looked straight into Wilhelmina's eyes. 'Many will fall for muggles, some will choose the muggle world for its own merits, and a few will be expelled – what are they going to do with an education in wizardry then?'

'Well, I would like to think Care of Magical Creatures could transition over. I mean if they can tame magical beasts, I am sure they can handle non-magical ones: birds, dogs, lions – '

'So,' said Aurora Sinistra, 'they'll work at pet shops, be dog walkers, and maybe get their own show in the circus – fabulous.'

Wilhelmina was silent, thinking the matter over. She stacked student essays, slid them into the top drawer of her desk, and locked the drawer. Perhaps, Sinistra was right, perhaps there were things that were being neglected, things that should be looked into for the benefit of future students. Changes needed to happen in order for improvement to be made, but changes did not often happen, not at Hogwarts. Everyone respected the Founders so much. Years and years had gone by and yet few drastic modifications had been made to the syllabus, but the Founders were long out of their time. Different skill sets were needed these days than ones practiced in the 900's.

"Well, I don't know what do about it,' Wilhelmina said finally. 'I am just a substitute.'

'Yes,' said Aurora Sinistra. 'And the man you are substituting for nearly got kicked out of our world as a boy. Thanks to Dumbledore, he didn't, but what would he have done? A half giant – a freak, the muggles would have called him'

'Become an actor, a wrestler? I don't know. He can lift things.' Wilhelmina spoke lightly, forcing herself to remain optimistic.

'Yes,' said Aurora Sinistra. 'He would have had to choose between going on display or getting a menial job.'

'I doubt he would have done better if he had gone to a muggle school.' Wilhemina was growing very tired of this. It was too late for an argument. Her mind was slipping into sleep.

'Maybe not in his case but in others. At least, the muggleborns and some of the half bloods get primary school. I worry about our purebloods. They marry so close because otherwise they would be doomed to go into a world they cannot understand. A world where they would be infants."

Aurora Sinistra paused and looked out the window again. The moon had drifted behind clouds. It shown through blearily, dappling the room in white spots. Stroking her thumb over the back of her wrist, Aurora thought back on her own childhood. She was a half blood, with a pure blood father and a muggleborn mother, but her mother had never taught her about the muggle world. Her mother had hated everything to do with muggles, having never forgiven her father for calling her a 'horrible little witch' when she had gotten her Hogwarts letter on her eleventh birthday. Aurora had grown up presuming she was pureblood. It wasn't until her fifth year at Hogwarts that she found out about her muggle grandparents. The event had left her both thrilled and shattered, exploring a broken identity. She had found a job in the Ministry of Magic for a time, one that indirectly involved muggles. She studied muggles freelance as well, though that been harder. She had had no idea how to talk to muggles. They didn't know half of the things she knew, and she had a tough time figuring out what they were talking about. And her clothes, they had always picked on those, questions like: 'How strange?' or 'Are you in a play?'

'We should make muggle studies a required course,' Aurora Sinistra said.

'That's been brought up many times in staff meetings,' said Wilhelmina, 'but we always get overruled by people like the Malfoys.'

Aurora Sinistra nodded thoughtfully. 'The Malfoys,' she said. 'I have Draco Malfoy in

my class. He is a brilliant boy, but he's a lot of trouble. His papers are impeccable, but he

gets so bored. He already knows everything I have to teach him, and he makes it well

known. I don't know what to do about it.'

Wilhelmina shrugged. 'Be sinister.'

'I do my best,' said Aurora Sinistra. She paused. 'I still don't know how you live with that name. Wilhemina Grub – '

'My friends call me Billie,' said Wilhelmina. 'What about you?'

'I don't know. I don't really have those.'

'Friends or a nickname?'

'Either really,' Aurora Sinistra said, forcing a smile. 'A muggle girl I knew used to call me "Sleeping Beauty," but I could never understand why. She slept longer than I did, but when I said that May just laughed.'

'What happened with her?' Wilhemina said. Something about the catch in Sinistra's voice drew her in. It wasn't proper; the matter was probably private and painful. There were tears brimming in Sinistra's eyes. She had turned her face away, but Wilhelmina could still see them.

'To her,' Aurora Sinistra corrected. 'She died. Bellatrix…' She stopped and shook her head.

'Killed her?' said Wilhelmina. The Wizarding War had brought many deaths, not only to wizards and witches but to muggles as well, especially to muggles. He had hated muggles. Wilhelmina had lost a couple acquaintances herself: a retired milkman who wrote poems about barn owls and a young actress who practiced her lines out in the woods.

Aurora was quiet. She stared at the clock, at the minutes ticking by. Somehow it was nearing one now. She folded her arms across her chest. She thought of the night, the smell of cut grass and the taste of strawberry ice cream. It had been the last night she was going to see May, for the safety of them both. She had bought May ice cream as a good-bye gift, something that would not last, so she could completely erase her friend's memory of her.

'No,' Aurora Sinistra said. 'I ended up doing that.'

Wilhelmina leaned her hand against the back of her chair and waited for Sinistra to continue. Sinistra looked once more out the window, as if she found comfort in the voiceless galaxies beyond the pane.

"Bellatrix found out I liked her," said Aurora Sinistra finally, her voice weak. "She tried using her to kill me. May was under the Imperius Curse. She had a gun. She kept shooting, and I kept stunning her. But May just kept getting up, and I was scared. I was scared as hell.'

Aurora remembered the bridge in the dark. She had been walking May back to her apartment, trying to explain why they could never meet again. She didn't know why she was doing this, since she had already determined she would use a memory-erasing spell. She was finding closure, she guessed, but May had become increasingly angry, lashing out about how Aurora never cared. Then with one quick swing, she had drawn a gun from her pocket book. At first Aurora thought May was going to threaten suicide, but then the gun was pointed at her, and Aurora saw the blank look in May's eyes.

Wilhelmina watched Sinistra closely. She had not spoken in a while. Then suddenly Sinistra trembled and started to speak again, haltingly. Her pupils were eating up her irises, so her whole eye was black.

'For some reason Expelliarmus was not working,' Aurora Sinistra said. 'Maybe I wasn't saying the word right. My voice was shaking. Or maybe Bellatrix or someone was nearby blocking the spell. I don't know. I kept on using stronger and stronger stunning spells. Eventually they shocked her body. She started convulsing. She fell and hit her head on the stone, cracked her skull.'

'That's awful,' said Wilhelmina. 'That's just awful. I am so sorry.'

Sinistra nodded. She was still looking at the stars. Her hands stretched against the glass.

'May loved the stars,' she said. 'She worked at a place with a massive telescope. She showed me how to use it to see the planets up close and to see other galaxies and nebulae and all the craters on the moon. There are faults in the rest of universe, same as on Earth. There is no escape from imperfection, no way to bring order to the ever-changing galaxies. We are expanding out and out into nothingness. Or so it seems, but nothing is certain. We don't know about the beginning, but at some point, we must have an end. We are limited, finite, in a universe of endless potential, but we think we are the center, and that is why astronomy must be there – to show us the excess of our arrogance.'

Sinistra opened the window and let the wind in. She reached her arms out to Venus, which shown bright and yellow.

'We can never touch them,' she said. 'And we can never conquer death.'

She looked down at the ground beneath her – at the stone pathways and the grass lit lightly by the moon. A hand touched her shoulder. She turned to see the warm and wrinkled face of Wilhelmina.

'No,' said Wilhelmina. 'We cannot conquer death, but we can value the life we are given, and we can treasure the ones we love, Aurora, be they dead or alive.'

Aurora Sinistra smiled. 'Yes,' she said. 'We can. I always remember her when I look at the stars. And, Billie, from now on I'll think about you too. You're a good friend.'

Aurora pressed Billie's hand in hers, let go, and walked out. The cuckoo squawked, and Billie locked the door on it, left it in the dark.

Finis