Hogwarts, Giant Squids and Sirius Black

Chapter 22~ Serial Heartbreaker

Abigail's POV

I don't know how long I lay there, watching Sirius cry on the hospital bed, his black hair splayed across the pristine white sheets which were slowly dampening with each second, looking completely drained of emotion.

I think at some point he noticed me looking at him because the next thing I knew, I was up and out of the ward, walking, breathing and alive.

Well not truly alive. I think being alive means physically functioning like breathing and having a beating heart but being truly alive requires more than that. For weeks I've been breathing, walking and smiling but not once did I ever feel anything remotely close to life except for when I'm with Sirius.

I loved how he made me feel yet hated that he could make me feel something beside the self hatred I'd been harbouring for months.

I wished that nothing mattered to me anymore, not even friends,not even family and definintely not lovers.I wished that I couldn't feel a damn thing, wished that I felt completely numb. Nothing lasts forever and when Sirius finds someone better, which I know he will, I'll be completely crushed like Nicolas Lester after that quaffle smashed into him last year.

"Abs?"

Lily's voice broke me out of my reverie and my eyes focused on her figure which was currently sitting cross legged across her bed, peering at me with her large doe eyes.

"Are you alright?"

I must have smiled and nodded a little too enthusiastically because she had jumped on my bed and stared me down.

"No seriously, are you alright?"

I paused for the adequate amount of time required to convince someone that I was genuinely fine before replying as convincingly as I could.

"Yeah definitely! I was just spacing out," I beamed brightly at her, trying to ignore the whispering voices coming from the dark corners of the room. She hates you, you're better off alone, everyone hates you.

Leave me alone, I whispered weakly in my head, completely done with the voices I was wearing. They snickered before quietly settling down, in the background occasionally emitting a snicker here and there which I tactfully ignored.

I'd love to promise you I'm not mental but after someone hijacked Lily's body and tortured me, I'd started hearing and seeing things that weren't there and quite frankly they frightened me. No one knows about it and I want to keep it that way so I don't end up in St Mungos like my dad.

"So how are you and your man," Lily giggled, tossing her flaming hair behind her head as she waited for my answer.

"We're going great," I replied, biting my lip as laughter echoed from behind me. Shut up. You think he actually cares about you! Stupid girl, he doesn't even like you, no one does. Shut up!

"The way he asked you out was so cute," she gushed before pausing. A light blush spread across my cheeks as my heart started pumping slightly faster, spreading warmth throughout my chest before it suddenly receded with Lily's next words.

"For someone like him I mean."

"Someone like him," I questioned as my heart sank to the bottom of my stomach, "what do you mean someone like him?"

"Merlin's beard, I shouldn't have said that," Lily exclaimed, lightly slapping her head. I shook her shoulders demandingly, ignoring the fact that I probably looked like a loony.

"No, what do you mean?"

She sighed deeply before pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Umm remember the rumour in third year?"