Love You In My Mind // Sirius Black

Chapter 53

Marlene and I paced up and down in front of the locked door.

Since the one year anniversary of the start of our training program was close, the day of our practical exam had arrived, and I was really nervous about it. This would decide whether I could stay in the Auror training, and I definitely wanted to. I really loved it so far.
It was the right mixture of thrill and detective work.

"Ugh, how long is this gonna take!?" Marlene groaned impatiently. "We've been standing here for hours!"

A grin made its way onto my lips as I looked at the watch on my hand. "Twenty minutes, actually."

Marlene gave me a frustrated look. "Still too long! I wanna know what's gonna happen! Constant vigilance, my arse, I hate that sentence!"

I loved it when Marlene got riled up about stuff. She turned even funnier when she was frustrated. The only thing missing was that she kicked the door.

We were standing in the basement of the Ministry of Magic, where a training parkour was set up. We didn't know more. All Moody had said in preparation was 'constant vigilance', so I felt Marlene's frustration.
His only instruction was to get through the parkour 'unharmed'.

"I feel you," I said. "But it shouldn't be long anymore, so be ready. We've got this."

"Of course we do." Marlene grinned and winked at me. "We're the best, duh. We've got each other's backs, so nothing's gonna happen."

I smiled at her encouraging words. "Yeah."

We didn't speak after that, only focused on the massive black door in front of us, wands in our hands.
I don't know how long we still had to wait, but after a while, the door swung open soundlessly. Behind it was an empty room, nothing more.

I breathed out and focused, then we went inside.

As soon as we stepped into the room, the door fell shut behind us and we were engulfed by complete darkness.
Marlene's wand next to me immediately lit up, but it didn't help - we could see the light, but not even Marlene's hand was visible. At least I knew where she was, though, so I hurried to light the tip of my wand up as well.

We walked a few steps further into the room, but what was strange was that it was completely quiet. We couldn't even hear our own steps.

Out of nothing, I saw that Marlene yanked her wand away from where it originally was, shouting "Stupefy!"
This time, I heard a soft thud.

The light turned on, and after I'd gotten used to the brightness by blinking repeatedly, I could see that Marlene was looking at something behind me.
I turned around and saw something that looked like a distorted ball of brown yarn as big as me.

"What in the-" I began, but Marlene cut me off.
"It brushed my arm. I think it was supposed to test our reflexes."

"Oh." I nodded. The first part of this parcour was done already, nice. "What now?" I looked at her.

Marlene turned around again and eyed the room. "That door over there wasn't here when we first got in."

She was right. It hadn't, or we would've seen it right in front of us when we'd entered, before everything had turned black.

"Let's go through it," Marlene said, taking off in the direction of the wooden door.

"Wait!" I called out. "Maybe we should prepare for what's behind it."

Marlene stopped once she stood directly in front of the door. She eyed it. "You're right. Let's take a few deep breaths first."

We did just that and waited a few seconds, before Marlene reached for the handle. "Ready?" She asked me.