ink - sirius black

breaking points and refusal

May 8, 1977
6:22 am
Gryffindor Boys Dormitories

By the time that Sirius woke up, Anneliese was gone.

He could still feel her warmth against the mattress of where she had been laying for hours, which just made his sheets feel even more empty now that she wasn't in them with him. Black let out an enormous yawn before looking over to James's bed, only to see that it was also empty.

"Moony, where'd Prongs go?" he asked Lupin, who had mostly recovered from the last full moon and was now studying for N.E.W.T. 's on top of his bed like normal. "And did you see A leave?"

"I think she left hours ago," Remus replied. "As for James, he called an early quidditch practice because of an 'emergency,' so she's probably on the pitch as well."

Sirius stood up and tugged on a shirt to look out the tower window where if he tilted his head at just the right angle, he could see the quidditch pitch.

Sure enough, against the orange flushed early morning spring skies were the crimson streaks of the Gryffindor team along with even smaller dots that Sirius could barely make out as the quaffle and bludgers.

"I'm going to go see if they have breakfast out yet," Black said, pulling on socks. "Do you want anything? Pete? Frank?"

Pettigrew and Longbottom both muttered their groggy orders before falling right back asleep, and Remus just shook his head and gestured to the tea and chocolate he already had on his bedside table.

Sirius walked down to the common room, humming American Pie under his breath.

He was expecting it to be mostly empty at this hour of the morning, but Anneliese was already sitting on the floor next to the coffee table with her hair in a messy bun and small smudge of ink on her forearm as she added onto the notes about wandmaking from the book she had been reading last night.

"You're up early," he observed, sitting down by her on the carpet. "Did you get enough sleep?"

Callaway let out a tiny yelp as she jumped back slightly, startled by Black. She had been so deep in her notes that she hadn't even heard him come down the stairs.

Then, before Anneliese could answer that question, Sirius asked another, his mind going back to the quidditch practice he had just seen going on outside the tower window mere seconds ago.

"Why aren't you at quidditch practice?" he asked, suddenly concerned. "Did something happen last night? Is that why you came in?"

Black was about to ask is that why you were crying, but then remembered that Anneliese still had absolutely no idea that the dog she had laid with was actually him in animagus form, and he couldn't ask unless he wanted to reveal himself.

Callaway took in a deep breath and set down her quill before turning to look at Sirius.

She knew that the whole school was going to know in a matter of hours that she dropped off the quidditch team. There was no way they wouldn't with James having to look for a new one and her being in the stands during the next and final match of the year versus Hufflepuff.

Besides, Anneliese would rather Sirius hear it from her first and directly than the rest of the school's gossip so they could get things clear the first time.

"I quit the team," Callaway told him. "Last night."

"WHAT?!" Sirius exclaimed, eyes wide with both shock and horror. "A, you're the best chance we had at winning the Quidditch Cup this year! How could you be so selfish- this is about the whole Gryffindor house! It was one more match, for fucks sake, just carry through-"