numbers » remus lupin

chapter nineteen

Sirius Black and Scarlett Johnson sat at the back of the library, surrounded by books that were about numbers and Arithmancy, as well as muggle books that dealt with Mathematics.

"Tell me, why are we doing this?" Scarlett asked. Her voice was muffled due to her face facing the surface of the table.

She had slammed her head against it.

Sirius looked at her and snorted. "We are doing this because we want to find out what you are, and what else you're capable of," he closed the Maths book, "What's that rubbish, though? I understand nothing."

The girl groaned in response.

"I don't want to know, honestly, I don't even care about it. I'm not even proud of being constantly reminded that death exists," she grumbled.

"But I care about it, and I bet Remus will, too, once he finds out about this," he joked, though his voice sounded serious.

She looked him dead in the eye, "If you do that, we were friends for the longest time."

He put his hands up in metaphorical surrender, "When did you turn so snappy?"

She rolled her eyes.

Scarlett internally cursed herself for being so weird. Usually she was a funny person, she took things lightly and still knew her limits.

But recently, she realized, she was acting differently. She hated it, solely for the reason that she seemed to hurt her friends by being harsh, or mean. She never meant what she said, though.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what's going on with me right now," she sighed, rubbing her eyes.

Sirius frowned at her, but didn't say anything.

After a few moments of silence, which were spent with Scarlett dozing and Sirius reading a book about Arithmancy, he jumped up.

"I know what you are!" He exclaimed, startling his friend with the sudden sound.

She looked at him. "You're an Arithmancer!"

"No, really, I'm not. I don't like dealing with complex number charts," she raised her eyebrows, "Also, I don't make predictions with people's deadlines."

"You predict when they're going to die."

"Yeah, but I just know the dates by looking them in the eyes. I don't predict the future, I'm not a Seer."

Sirius sighed, defeated, and slumped back in his chair.

"I guess we'll never find out — "

Her voice broke mid-sentence and the brunette's eyes rolled back, and then closed.

Her vision changed into blackness, and then it turned into what looked like a forest. She felt like she was in a dream; when she turned around everything was full of trees and leafs.

The girl turned back around and saw a giant rock. It was covered in bright green leafs, and she stepped forward to put them away. Something drew her to the rock.

It must've been her subconscious, she figured.

Once she removed the leafs, old characters appeared. At first she struggled to recognize them, but soon she realized the characters were Runes.