Huffily Puffily || Golden Trio

Convictnic! || lix

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Early next morning, Lucy stumbled out of her dormitory still clad in her pajamas and collapsed on one of the couches. Her mind was so foggy that she hardly noticed that her dormitory was completely deserted, and for the first minute or so in the common room, she didn't register the absolute disaster that had overtaken the tables.

The scattered piles upon piles of parchment on the coffee table were a laughable amount compared to the other pieces of paper crumpled up, strewn across the floor. She also noted a large amount of chocolate frog wrappers at the feet of the boy responsible. In the midst of this disaster, Anthony was kneeling on the floor, his face pressed against the coffee table as he let out a quiet snore.

Wow. Anthony wasn't joking when he said he'd come up with a plan.

Lucy had the decency to fetch a mug of coffee from the kitchens before she broke the boy from his slumber. She moved forward to grab his shoulder, but the smell of the coffee was enough to send Anthony shooting upward, his eyes wide.

"CAFFEINE!" he shrieked, seizing the mug from her. A few droplets spilled on his hands and onto the coffee table, but he didn't care. He drained the coffee in less than five seconds.

With wide eyes, Lucy handed him the second mug of coffee. She'd gotten one for herself, but he clearly needed it more.

He drank the next cup a little more slowly, but not much, and then hoisted himself onto the couch as well. He rubbed at his eyes with a grimace before asking, "How'd things go with Harry?"

Her lips turned downward. Things weren't bad. By all means, she did as best as she could have done, but it'd be a long while before Harry's anger would ever alleviate. After she led him away from Ron and Hermione, she took him to the kitchens where he explained everything to her. At least, everything from how he understood it. He'd snuck to Honeydukes using a map— the Marauder's Map— and he heard straight from the Minister of Magic himself that Sirius betrayed Harry's parents.

She sat in silence as he ranted, wordlessly cutting a piece of treacle tart out of the tin. There wasn't anything she could say to make him feel better. What was she supposed to do, tell him he was wrong? Tell him that she was helping the person who everyone else in the wizarding world assumed was guilty? She hated withholding even more information from her friend, but she knew him better than anyone and she knew that if he ever saw Sirius Black, his instincts would override his reasoning.

He ranted late into the early morning hours, at which point he grew tired and Lucy ordered him to go to sleep. We'll talk more tomorrow, she promised him, and he wearily agreed.

She hadn't slept at all last night. She stopped pretending to try after a few minutes of tossing and turning, and instead she sat at her desk, deep in thought. She wasn't angry at Sirius anymore, not really. She went inside his mind— she felt his desperation, his need for justice for his two best friends, and if Lucy was put in a similar situation, she couldn't say she wouldn't do the same. She wasn't angry, but she was, however, embarrassed.

She told Grimm things she would not have told anyone because she was under the impression that he was a dog, and he wouldn't think badly of her. She told Sirius Black, someone who lost his best friends to Lord Voldemort, that she missed Tom Riddle with everything she had. And then after all of that, she completely lost her cool on him. It was bad enough she broke down in front of Tom on multiple occasions, but at least then she'd known him.

It was all just rotten. She thought she was doing better, that maybe everything didn't matter so much any more, but it seemed as though any time she started to feel better, she was reminded once again of Tom. Sirius saw her partially lose her mind yesterday because she could not trust her own senses.