Celestial | Sirius Black Love Story

Laborious, arduous, gruelling

The seasons turned as the end of April dawned over Hogwarts. The winter had been long this year, miserable and bleak with only a few days of brief sunlight. Inevitably, however, with the promise of a warm summer comes the promise of the gruelling OWLs. 

The past weeks had been packed with preparations and studying, stressed out fifth and seventh years bustling through the corridors; some still pale from staying inside the past week it had been sunny, some flushed from constant stress, and some were just plain green.

In an interesting turn of events, a sort of study group had sprung forth as a result of the increasing demand of the teachers. Every day after classes were finished, Lily, Remus, Septima, James and I had gone outside to review all our subjects together. The group dynamic was surprisingly pleasant and effective, but there was something off. It was starting to seem as if there was always a feeling that something was "off". Right since I came back to Hogwarts.

"Who will you be practicing your DADA with, Ollie?" Asked Septima.

It was a fair question. I thought about it for a while. "I guess I'll just wing it." I finally replied with a wide grin, knowing that three of the four present in my company would hate that answer. As predicted, Lily, Septima, and Remus all groaned, and James gave offered up his hand for a high five, which I granted him enthusiastically. 

"No, I suppose I'll just be doing it on my own. Not much else for it, and it's no biggie if I fail, I'll still have two more years to complete it." I said, knowing that I would be pretty devastated if I did, in fact, fail and all my laborious late night work I'd done on the subject after everyone else had gone to bed would have been a waste.

"I'm sure you'll nail it," Said Septima. I gave her a quick smile and looked away.

Sirius and Veronica had been dating for almost two months now and I had come to the formal conclusion that I hated it with a decent amount of animosity. I had to keep reminding myself that nothing had happened between Sirius and I, he probably had never thought of me in any way but a friend, that he was a freethinking human, and that Veronica had therefore never actually stolen anything from me. It did hurt though.

Everyone had seen less of Sirius, and when he did hang out with the boys, they said he seemed exhausted. They were also concerned that he'd started smoking rather too frequently to be facing important exams.

In the mean time, I had formed a sort of obsession over Veronica. She was beautiful, without a doubt, though her nose was rather big and even I had bigger boobs than her. But that's beside the point. I had come to realise that my attraction reached beyond the grasp of heterosexuality, and that Septima really was a great friend.

"What's wrong with you, are you hungry?" Remus shook my shoulder, "You've been staring at the same spot and muttering to yourself for the past minutes."

"Yeah, I'm starving," I said, glad to take advantage of the excuse. My stomach assisted me with a perfectly timed growl. "Isn't it dinner soon?"

Remus checked his watch, "Oh shit, we're actually ten minutes late. No wonder the grounds are so empty."

"Did you just say we're late to dinner?" James asked, aghast, "I've been late to every class I take, but I don't think I've ever been late to dinner. We must make haste!" He sprang up and puffed himself up, speaking as if he were a old time duke late to an important ball.

Everyone laughed, Lily laughed the hardest.

After dinner, we all went up to the common room and chatted and laughed for a while. Before it was too late though, Remus and James had to go "up to bed". It was a full moon tonight. I had almost forgotten, Remus didn't seem quite as drawn as he usually did the day before. Some ten minutes after they went up, Sirius entered the common room, looked around to where Lily, Septima, and I were sitting, then went on up the dormitories