It always took Padma a few moments to reorient herself when she landed after Apparating.

She’d never handled that kind of displacement very well; physically, it took a few minutes for her stomach to untangle itself and for her head to stop spinning and for her surroundings to come into clear focus. Mentally, it usually took almost twice as long for Padma to piece together how she fit into her new setting.

When she landed in Jaipur, though, her stomach seemed to tangle itself up further into a kind of Gordian knot and her surroundings remained blurry. She blinked, trying to absorb everything around her--and only grew further disoriented. Her parents had directed her to what seemed to be a semi-busy street in a residential area of the city; she saw a few kids running down the well-beaten road, chasing a soccer ball--and felt a vivid, arresting sense of deja vu--and a rickshaw driver shouted at her to get out of the way. Padma stumbled onto the sidewalk in front of what she took to be her family’s apartment complex.

She couldn’t fit into this new setting. She felt like a mismatched puzzle piece, trying to force herself into a space that seemed almost right, but regardless of how she turned and rotated, she’d always be slightly off.

For example: she was the only one on the streets in full-black. In England, her leather biker’s jacket and tight black jeans acted like protective armor. Here, they acted like a neon sign announcing that she did not belong--not when she was surrounded by aunties in colorful saris with flowers pinned artfully in their buns. Padma felt the questioning gazes of said aunties, could feel them undoubtedly hypothesizing and weaving tales about who she was and where she’d come from and her deepest, darkest secrets. Their gazes, like the heat, weighed down on her like a heavy blanket.

Padma’s cheeks colored. Trying to brush off the heaviness weighing on her shoulders, she shrugged off her jacket in awkward, rushed movements, tying it loosely around her waist, and focused her attention on the apartment complex in front of her. At first she was taken aback by how similar it was to her family’s home in England: the same pristine white paint, modest and unimposing square structure, and iron gate.

Then, as she approached the building, she started to notice some of the differences. Some of the paint was chipping, a few weeds smattered the garden outside the building--all natural consequences of a house that hadn’t been lived in for over ten years now. Although it appeared more weathered, something about it seemed welcoming. When she pushed on the gate, it swung open with no resistance, none of the protective wards that her father had placed on their home in England. It was like the building was convinced that she belonged here and thus implicitly trusted her--even if she didn’t believe that herself.

The door to the building opened as easily as the gate (much to Padma’s incredulity), revealing a crowded set of stairs. She pulled out her parents’ letter from her pocket, unfolding it neatly. Slight creases had formed in the parchment from the number of times she’d folded and unfolded it and it was slightly smudged, but she could still make the words out perfectly: second level, get the photographs, documents,... There was a lengthy list that she’d all but memorized now. As she started to scale the stairs, her fingers running over the rusting banister, she skimmed the rest of the letter, her gaze falling unbidden on the last line.

Keep an eye on your sister.

She had to stifle a humorless laugh at this. For one, her parents knew that Parvati would never allow anyone to watch her or control her or restrict her in any sense--least of all her annoying ‘big’ sister, who she liked to affectionately call “Pad-man”. Padma hadn’t seen Parvati in two years; she didn’t even know where her sister was right now. The last postcard she’d received was of Parvati pretending to hold up the Eiffel Tower. The one before that had been of her pretending to push Leaning Tower of Pisa upright. But who knew where she’d gone now?

(Padma tried not to think too much about how all of the postcards she’d received were in Europe—how Parvati was right here but had decided not to visit).

She arrived at the second level, unsurprised now (though internally still incredulous at the level of trust) when the flat’s door opened without any resistance. She took in the interior of the flat, amazed by how eerily similar it was to her family’s flat in London: lights everywhere, pictures of family mounted on every surface, books scattered around. The only difference was that this flat was significantly more cluttered—more things lying around: boxes, toys, objects from a past life left untouched. The whole flat felt vaguely familiar, so close—like a word on the tip of her tongue.

She bent down to look inside one of the boxes, finding a collection of photographs—all pictures of her and Parvati when they were babies. Padma’s heart gave a painful pang as she picked up one of the pictures: her and Parvati sitting on the couch, a book open between them. Parvati was pointing excitedly at something on the pages; in the picture, she pouted and grabbed Padma’s face, turning it to make her look at the book. Padma let out a laugh. Even then, her sister had demanded all of her attention.

“We look great in that picture, don’t we?”

Padma turned around immediately at the sound of her sister’s voice, convinced that she’d conjured her from the pain of missing her so much. Parvati looked...lighter. She had her hair in a messy bun, as always, and a mild sunburn—but her eyes seemed brighter. She was leaning against the entrance to the living room, her charismatic smile still on her face—the smile that she’d used countless times to get exactly what she wanted. Padma released a relieved breath when she noticed that Parvati was injury-free—or at least, appeared that way.

Her sister approached her, gently taking the picture from her hands. “You’re really rocking the bowl cut, Pad-man. Maybe you should bring it back—throwback to the good old days?”

Padma rolled her eyes, but couldn’t keep the smile from appearing on her face. It was like an instinctive response when she was with Parvati, and Padma realized, just then, exactly how much she’d missed her sister. Her heart hurt from the extent of it. And then, the hurt transformed into something rawer and angrier.

“Why are you here? I thought you were going to Switzerland,” Padma asked, all aggressive with no passiveness. Her tone was clearly pissed off, and Parvati had the grace to look ashamed and guilty.

“Ma sent me a letter...you know what happens when we don’t listen to Ma,” Parvati explained. “I hoped and wished for a daughter all through my pregnancy and was blessed with two daughters—and went through thirty hours of labor—and now? They are both ignoring me. Thirty hours! Don't they love me?!” she complained, mimicking their mother’s accent—clearly attempting to make Padma smile.

Padma bit her lip, forcing herself to keep the disapproving, unfazed look on her face. It was difficult when her sister was so damn charming.

Parvati’s grin turned into a sad, almost self-hating smile. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be joking around...I don’t really have any right to joke around. I probably have the least right to joke around,” she said. Padma really wanted to smile then; Parvati always rambled like this when she was nervous. Padma felt like she was finally getting a glimpse of her real sister, not the facade she put on to the rest of the world.

“No, you don’t,” she agreed without hesitation, making Parvati let out a light laugh.

“I should’ve written you and visited...I’m sorry that it’s been so long,” she said, seeming genuinely sorry. Her voice wavered a little in that way Padma knew it did when she was trying not to cry. “I was just...lost.” At the pain in her sister’s voice, Padma couldn’t resist coming to her side; she wrapped her arm around her sister’s shoulder to lend some support, feeling instantly warmed when Parvati leaned closer to her.

Parvati took a deep breath. “At first, I was looking for Lavender.” Padma squeezed Parvati’s shoulder at the mention of her girlfriend. “After the battle, she ran off, and I wanted to find her, to bring her home...and then I kept thinking about what home was like.” Her eyes darkened, and Padma knew exactly what she was talking about. It was why she had found the trust in the open doors in this building to be so naïve, because she’d grown up with none of that. She’d grown up reading stories about her friends’ families being killed in the newspapers, feeling the white men in her neighborhood sneering at her when she walked down the stairs, feeling the constant weight of fear. Everything in London was permeated with fear and war, but this building—her past home, or maybe her current home in another life—was filled with only warmth.

“And then you didn’t want to come home again,” Padma continued for her, and Parvati nodded.

“Right. Or maybe...I don’t know, maybe I was looking for a new home. But nothing ever felt right...” She bent down and picked up another photograph from the collection—one of them, probably two or three, dressed in saris. Padma was trying to guide Parvati how to dance, but Parvati was spinning out of her grasp. Both of them were laughing, their faces shining. “This is my favorite picture,” Parvati said, her voice soft. She glanced up from the photograph, meeting Padma’s gaze, her eyes shining with tears. “I never...I missed you. So much.”

Dammit.

Padma’s heart squeezed in her chest and she reached forward, pulling her sister into a tight hug. She marveled a little at how well they seemed to fit together, like two puzzle pieces snapping into place. Her bones curved perfectly into Parvati’s bones. Her sister released a relieved sigh, and Padma felt her own body uncoiling.

“I forgive you,” she said as she withdrew. “The only thing I don’t forgive you for is for eating gelato without me.”

Parvati laughed, her eyes still a little teary. “We’ll go together next time. There’s a Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Gelato Shop, it’s wonderful,” she said delightedly.

“We are never going there, that sounds terrible.”

Parvati let out another laugh, and Padma wasn’t sure how she’d survived two years without her sister’s laugh. Her smile dimmed slightly. “Is that where you’re going next? Italy?” she asked, taking the photograph from her sister’s hands andputting it neatly on the stack of photographs.

“No. I was actually thinking of going back to London. There’s this pretty cool chick there, she might let me stay with her for free...” Padma’s gaze snapped back to her sister’s, seeing the hopeful excitement and genuinity on her face.

She pretended to look contemplative for a second, narrowing her eyes, before an uncontrollable smile spread across her face. “Not for free.”

Parvati pouted. “No discount for your dear sister?”

“There’s no discount for sisters who abandon me for two years.”

Parvati released a fake-aggrieved sigh. “Never mind, I haven’t missed you and your sarcasm..”

Padma grinned. “You know you’ll have to visit Ma first thing?”

Parvati’s face paled and she bit her lip. “Shit,” she cursed quietly, making Padma laugh.

“Take a video of her reaction—that can be your first month’s payment,” Padma suggested with unabashed schadenfreude, making Parvati throw an old sari at her face, and turn away and start complaining about her sadistic sister (a rant that Padma was well acquainted with).

Padma turned back to the boxes, laughing. Parvati let out a squeal, and Padma turned around as she put a record inside the old record player, and started singing along (very out of tune), “Tujhe dekha toh ye jaana sanam...”

She giggled as Parvati wrapped up one of their mother’s old dupattas around her and used to pull her closer, to make her dance with her.

Padma wondered if maybe her mother would be expecting Parvati to come home with her—if she’d known of the unique power that this place, their old home, held. Padma glanced around the flat again, feeling her stomach finally starting to untangle itself, her surroundings becoming finally perfectly clear.

Now, she knew exactly how she fit.