Pawns & Players - Sirius Black

-36-

In case you ever foolishly forget, I am never not thinking of you  - Virginia Woolf

Hanging upside down, her feet touching the end of the glass dial, the girl was sneakily rearranging the Clock Tower's inside mechanism. The five bells, each of different sizes, marking every beginning and conclusion of class sessions and controlling the entire castle's time frame were surrounding her, as her legs were tightly wrapped around the largest one, arms reaching inside the clock's mechanism and pendulum suspension.

Focused precisely on the swing in front of her, a loud clap distracted her making the wand she held tightly in her hand fall to the ground followed by herself after a few metallic noises while her legs wrapped around the bell lost their grasp.

It was an awfully stupid way for her to die, and her last thought being that was even more useless. Realising how she would die a fucking virgin while falling off of one of the tallest towers in the castle, the breeze hitting her suddenly stopped, floating above a few meters from the ground. The adrenaline of the fall slowly fading away, she lifted her head, trying to find any living around her when the four boys slipped under the cloak one by one, revealing Sirius lastly, his wand facing her.

"What are you doing" Remus's eyes were wide open with both worry and interrogation in his eyes while he fastly led his way towards her.

Following him was James, once again he seemed panicked from what he had just witnessed. "You know you can always talk to us, what's happening ?" They all had obviously arrived at the wrong conclusion, which wasn't so hard to come to considering the situation.

Peter wasn't even moving, and assumedly was trying to formulate his own way to comfort her with furrowed brows indicating the way he felt, when someone held her floating self to bring her down, but before being put back on her feet, she was lifted so the saturnine grey eyes filled with fright met hers.

His firm grip on her arms held her in the air solidly as she looked directly into his eyes from his level for the first time.

"Are you okay ?" He let out in one breath, easing her to conclude he had come to the same understanding as the three others.

 The misunderstanding was hilarious and the four boys were nearly shaking from either panic or worry, leading to the girl held in the air, folding in the boy's arms while laughing hysterically.

"Are you drunk ? What's going on ?" Pressing his palm on her forehead to take her temperature and checking for any broken bones or smell of alcohol, his inspection was over and his gaze on the folding girl was even sharper, not being able to figure out the problem.

"A person was trying to kill themselves and your reflex was to hang them up by their underwear ?" Her laughs and snorts had gotten louder by then, making it difficult to let the sentence out properly.

"I don't know I was with Snivellus just now, reflex I guess, what were you doing here ?"

"Astronomy ?"

"We all know you hate it but I never thought it would be a reason to-"

"No, you dumb old door, I was reprogramming the Clock Tower's bells so the class would end earlier before I would have to present my constellation"

They all sighed in relief by letting out their breaths and nodding in understanding.

"We might also be here for the very same reason" Peter muttered quietly while chuckling at his reaction.

"That proves exactly my "a marauder not a part of the marauders" theory" 

The only one who still seemed tense was Sirius, still holding his clenched grasp on the girl he was holding in the air a few centimetres away from his chest.

"You fell off the fucking Clock Tower, one second later and you would be cracked open in front of us"

"We all do risky stuff constantly, and for the record, I didn't die. Everything's fine" She reassured the stiff boy carelessly, before being thrown on his shoulder, her head facing the ground.

"You know, carrying me truly isn't going to solve any of our world problems"

"Who knows, maybe we're preventing your death since the last time we saw you, you were supposedly going to the Great Hall to grab something to eat" 

The last part of his sentence seemed to have made the lanky boy, still tired from the last full moon, remember something as his eyes lit up in concern but continued following them silently with questioning eyes.

"Well, could you do it ? Because if not I really have to start drawing a constellation" Peter broke the silence hesitantly, earning himself a few glares and an upside-down smirk.

"There is nothing I can't do Pete" Still inverted, she grinned at the boy sarcastically, sending him a flirty wink.

"Yeah, aside from standing still"