Celestial | Sirius Black Love Story

Girl code?

The next morning I woke up feeling groggy.

Thank merlin it was Sunday.

Veronica was in bed beside me, still asleep. I remembered what she'd said to me the night before, about Sirius. Groaning, I rolled out away from her, turning my back at her.

I heard she woke up beside me, and started rummaging in her bag beside the bed, then heard the sound of a quill scratching on parchment.

Pretending to just have woken up, I turned around and asked, "Good morning. What are you up to?"

"Oh, morning. I'm just writing a memo to Sirius, asking if he wants to hang out a bit later today."

I froze and felt as if a hangover had just suddenly washed over me. Nausea, dizziness, and aches.

"Oh. That'll probably be nice." I said, hoping my very hardest that it was anything but nice, "I'm going down for breakfast, you coming?"

"Ugh, no. I can't be bothered to get up this early, I'll eat at dinnertime." She replied.

Not being able to think of anything that wasn't rude to answer I stood there for a moment, before looking briefly in the mirror to check that I looked decent before leaving. 

What the hell was going on? Who the fuck did she think she was.

When I arrived at the hall, cheers and whoops met me as I took my place with the boys.

"Hero of the night" James called, "The twirling, whirling, hurling champion."

"Thought you'd look worse than you do, though I could compare your complexion to Nick here's." Remus said, and Nearly Headless Nick tipped his head in our direction.

"I'm fine." I muttered, feeling anything but fine. Nothing was fucking fine. Sirius had opened his mouth, a stupid grin on his face revealing that he, too, had something endearing to say, when an owl dropped a letter right in front of him. He hardly ever got letters; his family never wrote to him.

Knowing exactly what the letter was, I grabbed a plate of food and got up again gesturing with a bun. "Got to go. Homework to do."

"Oh come on, Ollie, we were just being prats, no need to be grumpy." James said, still grinning.

I scowled sarcastically and left, watching Sirius read the letter out of the corner of my eye.

Once I'd washed my face and felt I'd managed to be a little bit more presentable, I decided I might as well actually do some homework. I stayed in the common room. I was not going to go to the library.

Some time later the boys came up to the common room, though Sirius went straight up to his dormitory.

"What you think Ollie, want to do something stupid?" James asked.

Peter laughed, "We could turn all the Slytherins green"!

"That would be bullying, Peter. And tasteless. And an abuse of magic." I replied, not even bothering to look up from my book. Sirius was probably upstairs getting ready to go see Veronica.

"What's up with you, you've been a grump all morning?" Remus asked. I felt angry; enraged, actually; and yet as I opened my mouth to come up with an excuse, all I wanted to do was cry. Why did I care so much?

"Probably just hungover." I answered.

Seeing I really wasn't in the mood for any sort of bullshit, the boys then did something rather unusual; for Peter and James, in any case. They found out their homework and started working on it with me. Remus helped Peter with some jynx work and James and I discussed which plants would be best for a potion remedy of the common cold, a Pepperup potion.

Sirius came back down again, said, "I'll see you all later then." And headed off.

I caught my breath. 

James opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off, "Of course, muggle remedies do work very well, too. Eucalyptus, honey, ginger root, tea tree oil. Soothing and effective against infections and inflammations." I gave him a look, let's not talk about that now.

James did his best to keep me preoccupied for the next hours, and he did quite a good job of it. At lunch we went down to the kitchens, where I hadn't been before, and were offered mounds of food. We brought with us a basket, making sure there was hot coco in a thermos, and the four of us - Remus, Peter, James and I - went out for a walk and a picnic. It was cold, but nice.

Peter and James had a little snowball fight whilst Remus and I spoke about home for a little while. I hadn't realised I'd been feeling a little homesick as of late, without really knowing where I was feeling homesick to. Where I had grown up, or where I had spent many eventful and hard years with my father. Or perhaps I just missed the home I had in my mother. It didn't really matter, though, because talking to Remus seemed to lighten the feeling and the knot in my chest relaxed a bit. The sun peeked through the dismal late winter clouds for a bit, too, and I let the small warmth it cast seep over me, and into me. It's not really that bad, is it?

When we went back up to the castle, I spent some time with Cleopatra up in my dormitory. Stroking her and telling her about how I was feeling, what had happened lately, and how nice it was to feel the sun on my skin again. She looked at me and purred, meowing sometimes if I asked her a question. It had been a rather, dare I say, therapeutic afternoon. And as time would show, I would need it.

Sirius didn't show up for dinner, and I didn't see him come up to the common room; though I went up to the dorms again quite early. Deciding not to stay up wondering too long, I went to sleep early, and woke up early, heading out to the grounds to get in some morning exercise. As I walked down to the Dining Hall for breakfast I caught sight of Veronica. The evening before, when I had been talking to Cleopatra, I had begrudgingly decided to remain friendly towards her, and also burning with curiosity, despite her obvious breach of the universal girl code, "Friends crushes are off limits" or whatever, so I walked up to her, putting on my most believable smile and hoping it was convincing.

"Hey Veronica," I called out, catching up to her.

She looked up and saw me, then seemed to shy off, as if she had pretended not to hear me, and tried to fall away together with the crowd.

No, you cowardly fuck.

I danced through the crowd and caught up with her, touching her shoulder, "Veronica, hey! It's a bit busy here today, isn't it."

"Yeah, well, monday mornings." She muttered.

"So," I said, still smiling whilst inwardly bracing myself, "How was it with Sirius yesterday? What did you get up to?"

She looked awkward. Awkward didn't cut it.

"Well, uh, it was nice."

"Yeah?" I said, still smiling, "Did you fuck?"

She finally made eye contact with me. I felt a sort of horrible, grim satisfaction out of knowing how utterly uncomfortable she was now.

"Um, yeah. We did."

"Yeah. Well I hope it was good." I stopped smiling abruptly, then left.

Jealousy burned through me as I walked down the corridors.

That. That is why I don't make new friends. That is why I don't tell people things, because they won't care and they will hurt you.

I tried to recollect the tingling warmth of the sun, rather than this flaming rage, to calm down, but I couldn't.