Cherry Lips // s. black

-OCTOBER. 3.-

Carmilla tipped some of the soapy cold water onto the ruined stone floor. A bit of it splashed over her shoes. She pushed her sleeves up to her elbows and left her robe on one of the chairs in the stack of furniture.

"What are you in for?" Sirius joked, gesturing to the bare and dirty room they were in.

Carmilla stared at him for a moment and then picked up one of the hard bristled brushes and got to her knees, thankful that she hadn't put on tights this morning.

Not that she could afford them. She scrubbed at the ground, waiting for Sirius to do the same.

"Well, I set off a Dung bomb in class. This new guy just doesn't have a sense of humour. Neither does Flitwick. How was I supposed to know we were charming books and not people?" Sirius grumbled. He didn't pick up a brush. "Besides, James likes flying anyways."

"At least you didn't knock Flit over with him." Carmilla said, and kept scrubbing at the floor, her knees growing soapy. She looked around for a drain in the room. If they were supposed to clean the floor without magic, how were they expected to dry it?

Sirius turned to her, grinning widely, "you knocked him off his book castle?"

"Are you going to help me," Carmilla asked, sitting up a little and tying her hair. "Or are you just going to sit there?"

He shrugged and didn't move from the table he was sitting cross legged on. "You're doing a much better job than I ever could, I'd just get in the way of all your hard work. I'll leave you to it."

Carmilla put down the brush in her cramping hand and stood up. She turned to Sirius. "I will rip your face off."

He jumped off the table and hurried to the bucket of cleaning supplies, struggling out of his black robes as he did so and slipping on the wet floor. With a shriek, he fell backwards and landed on his butt, face red.

Carmilla saved him the embarrassment and turned back to cleaning. A brow spider scuttled across the floor quickly and she scrubbed it into the ground, then tipped some more water from the bucket onto it. She watched to see if the dirty water trickled in a particular direction, but it just formed puddles. They had no way of drying it.

Oh well. That was a problem for after they'd cleaned everything.

She got back down and began to wash a scorch mark that looked like it had been there for years. The feel of the bristled brush in her hands and the soap gathering at her knees reminded her of home.

"Why would they make us do this?" Sirius moaned. "It's child labour!"

"It's just chores," she said, pushing her ponytail over her shoulder as to not get squashed spider guts in it. She was having a shower tonight, but the bar of soap she'd brought didn't do a lot for her hair.

Sirius scoffed at the dirty water around him, "we aren't maids."

Carmilla blinked. He must be like Ace. Brought up with enough money to put all of the girls at her home into private schools with white socks and ribbons. With maids that did the washing up while they... ate grapes and played instruments, probably.

Her face felt hot with embarrassment. She didn't say anything. Jennifer was a nanny for the family that owned the chain of shops down the main street.

If Sirius was what everyone called a pureblood, he would've grown up with magic. She kept scrubbing at the floor, and the burn mark let up a bit. It would've been so much easier with hot water.