/𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒\ [𝒔. 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌]

𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞

"I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in." ~ Virginia Woolf

Artemis had yet to meet Harry Potter, but the Triwizard Tournament was stressing her out. It didn't help that Sirius and Remus were just as perturbed, and they showed it by pacing around the house and murmuring at random intervals, "I'm worried about Harry."  The first two tasks, however, had gone well from what Artemis had been told. She'd known from the start that he could hold his own- he had to be a smart kid. He was Lily's child. 

The third task had everyone on edge, though. Artemis and Sirius had been living together in Sirius's childhood home for nearly a year, and had fallen into a sort of routine. On the evening of the third task, they were cooking dinner together. They were the only two people in the house. Remus had chosen to spend the evening and his and Artemis's old house with a few Order members, receiving constant updates on the task from Moody. 

"We should go see him," said Sirius, flipping the fish in the saucepan. 

"Who?" 

"Harry." 

She  shook her head. "Absolutely not- you already snuck out once to see him-" 

"If I go as Snuffles, nobody will recognize me," he argued. 

"You're not going," Artemis said with a sense of finality. "Say you do go, and he gets himself in trouble- there's nothing you can do about that." 

Sirius pulled a face and moved to the sink to wash off the vegetables for a salad. "I could help him somehow." 

"What part about staying in hiding don't you understand?" 

He sighed and leaned against the counter, the vegetables forgotten in the sink. "The part where they trap and innocent man in the house where he grew up and tell him to 'lay low." 

"The rest of the world doesn't know your innocent." 

Sirius let out a dramatic groan and slid down the side of the sink to the floor. Artemis watched him with a would-be-disapproving-scowl, but she couldn't help laughing. He looked up at her. "Art, look me in the eyes and tell me you actually like being here all the time." 

"I don't," Artemis answered easily. 

"Then sneak out with me." 

Artemis waved her wand over the setup in the kitchen to make dinner cook itself, then settled herself on the floor next to Sirius. "This isn't Hogwarts," she said, resting her head on his shoulder. "If we sneak out, we won't just get a firm talking to and maybe a detention- If we got caught, you would go back to Azkaban and I would probably get carted off too for being an accomplice... again." 

Sirius sighed again, but he knew she was right. "Alright, then let's finish dinner and wait for news." 

"That sounds more like it." 

Artemis stood up and pulled Sirius after her. She'd forgotten, over the years, how much she loved cooking with him. They'd always been able to read each other's motions and coordinate their actions without a word, whether it was when causing trouble at Hogwarts, in battle, or just splitting up the work of making dinner. It didn't take words. They just did it. 

"You've got to meet him," Sirius said, putting a hand on her waist as he stepped past to put dinner rolls in the oven. "You'd absolutely love him." 

She smiled. "I know I would."

"I mean, he's just like James. Really. Just like him." 

It always blew Artemis's mind how easily he could talk about the people they'd lost. She and Remus, for years, had avoided the topic because it always meant tears or nightmares later on, but Sirius talked about them like they were still around. It was sort of nice, in a way. It made things feel a little more normal.