ᴅɪsᴘᴇʟ ᴍʏ ʙᴏʀᴇᴅᴏᴍ | ᴍᴀʀᴀᴅᴇᴜʀs' ᴇʀᴀ

Chapter 4: Detention

Black Lake, after noon

The weather in the morning left much to be desired: the air gradually cooled and the world plunged into autumn gray despondency. The Black Lake occasionally rippled from incoming gusts of wind, not yet strong, but compelling from time to time to wrap in jackets and scarves tightly.

Dark figure on the shore organically merged with surrounding landscape – gloomy, unsociable and cold. Sirius Black, wearing only white shirt and trousers, ignoring bad weather, looked silently at smooth surface of the Black Lake. Even now, he hasn't changed his aristocratic style.

"You'll catch a cold."

"Ah, Parker," Black said, not even turning around, "you've been plucking up courage for a long time."

"What do you mean?"

"You stood behind the same tree about twenty minutes yesterday. And the day before yesterday. I thought you'd turn around and leave again."

"I don't know how to apologize, Black," Emily said and after a moment's reflection sat down next to thick roots of trees.

"We have more in common than I thought."

"You have no idea, Black," Emily snorted. "You and I will tear anyone's throats for our friends, won't we?"

Black raised his head, looking at her in surprise. Parker, meanwhile, continued to say, "Without knowing the reasons, without thinking about the consequences." She gave him a crooked grin.

"Your apology is odd, Parker, but I accept it," Black looked indifferently at the distance. "Did Remus send you?"

"I haven't spoken to him for three days. He seems to be hiding from me," she smirked. 

"So, you did quarrel with everyone you could in one day?" Black raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Well, we're almost identical, Parker."

"Meaning?"

"I yelled at James, then told Moony to get lost, and Wormtail is afraid to talk to me."

"Don't get me wrong, Black, I'm not going to apologize for what I said. My opinion hasn't changed. But maybe I shouldn't have said all of that in front of everyone."

"Maybe."

"You had a go at Beata, Black."

"Are you blaming me again?" Black turned in surprise to Emily and his face finally brightened up.

"You don't understand," the girl pondered for a moment, then, apparently deciding that there is nothing to lose, continued, "Do you know when I entered Hogwarts?" Sirius stared expectantly at Emily. "At third year. Magical abilities appeared later than usual, if you speak official language. In a simple way: I'm retarded muggleborn," Parker chuckled bitterly.

"Do not pity me, Black!" she cut off immediately, seeing the awakening sympathy in his eyes. "You know, Dumbledore told me to do first year, but I refused. The thought that I will study with first-years and some second-year will point a finger at me and call me overgrown was unbearable. In order to achieve at least a pitiful similarity to the level of third-year student, I had to literally live in the library. It so happened that all the best people in my life I met exactly there."

She sighed wearily and as if forcibly expelling words from herself continued to say further, "Beata constantly wandered around the library. To be precise, mainly in the Restricted Section. She doesn't care about studying at all, she's simply brilliant in her own way, she doesn't need to sit over books all night long. But there is a downside – it's always boring. She always tries to entertain herself. One day, she came up to me and asked me why the hell was I always sitting in the library with all those boring books, did I really have no friends. I told her that I don't have time to look for friends. I told pureblood Slytherin, prefect of the house, that I'm retarded muggleborn, Black. She laughed. She told me that our tandem is doomed to success, for it will be a spit into the face of all magical foundations. She laughed for long when she saw my dumbfounded eyes. She still laughs when she remembers."