✔️ 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐕𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄 → 𝑠. 𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘

12 | A S H E S

   "You used it?" Remus left eyebrow travelled up high his forehead. "All those years?"

    "Well, I didn't know what I had expected", Sirius replied with a shrug, his eyes fixated on the leathery black book in his hands. "I kinda hoped, you would find it, so I could explain to you what had happened. The exchange, the trick ... What Peter has done ..." He shook his head to get rid of that memory, before he sighed. "But never did a single word appear on those pages. I checked it daily, several times, for all these years. It remained empty. Until Margo found it."

   "The ministry had searched your home and taken loads of things with them", Remus replied. "Scrutinized it for black magic. Seems they didn't detect anything on the book. I guess Fudge gave it to his daughter."

   Sirius nodded. "He did. The book is one of the few useful heritages of my family. Fudge wanted Margo to get sorted into Slytherin, so he might have thought a diary in their house colours was a nice present."

   "But you wrote to her during all those years, never trying to tell her you're innocent? You never tried to use her to get out of Azkaban?"

   "She was eleven years old back then, Remus", Sirius said. "Who would have believed her? Fudge would have taken the book away from her, and that's it. I couldn't let this happen. Margo and her messages were what kept my sanity in place."

   Remus run his fingers through his sandy blonde hair, leaning back into his chair. It was the first time since Sirius had escaped Azkaban, that he was openly talking about something he had gone through in those awful twelve years, and Remus was lost for words. A silence lay over the kitchen, until Sirius broke it, speaking in a hoarse voice of a broken man.

   "I think Margo just found out, that it had been me, she was writing to throughout the years."

   "I guess she didn't take it that well?", asked Remus, his forehead wrinkled.

   "She threw me out of her room", Sirius replied and his shoulders sacked down. "I — I think she might be leaving soon. Latest, when the kids return to Hogwarts. But I fear she will be gone tomorrow, when Arthur is coming home from St. Mungo's."

   "You don't want that?"

   "I owed her my sanity, Remus. I still do. This house is driving me nuts, but somehow with Margo here, it is a bit less of a hell, you know?"

·

   Margo had her small bag packed. There wasn't much stuff left, that she really cared about. A few clothes, and a picture showing a five year old Margo with her mother, who was taken away from her all too soon. And a black leathery book with green ornaments on its back.

   It lay on the sheets of her bed, and as it lay there, she couldn't take her eyes off of it, wondering if she could ever write to the mysterious man again. She had just realized, that it had been a dangerous game. Somewhere out there, there was a man knowing more about her than anyone, and though Margo had always felt that he was one of the good guys, what if she had been wrong for all those years?

   Forever, she had been so sure, that she and her pen pal were the only ones being able to read those messages they sent to each other. But Sirius words had shaken her awake violently. Other people were able to read in this book as well. But how? Was the book itself revealing these notes to whomever it pleased? Or had Sirius hexed it to find out more about Margo?

   She decided, that it had to be the book, that was evil. Not Sirius. No, she refused to believe it.

   And it wasn't that offbeat at all. It wouldn't be the first book existing to trick a young Hogwarts student into evil traits. Hadn't Ginny Weasley been possessed by an old diary to open the Chamber of Secrets? Margo had witnessed it back then, she had been there when Ginny had vanished and almost lost her life to the ghost of what had slumbered inside this book.

   Had Margo been tricked as well? What if a Padfoot didn't even exist, but was just another curse or another ghost living inside an innocent book's pages, just to trick a young girl into something stupid ... maybe something deadly?

   After sleeping with the diary under her pillow during all her years at Hogwarts, even after having it had with her every day since she'd turned eleven, now Margo did no longer trust it; she didn't even dare to touch it. It remained laying on the sheets of her bed, looking so normal, but now feeling so utterly wrong.

   She had one last night left here at Grimmauld Place, and she wasn't sure, if she would want to take the diary with her in the morning. Staring at it for another ten minutes, Margo knew what to do. She definitely felt no longer safe with having it around her. Maybe all her overthinking had made her lose her whole sense of rationality, but in that very moment, there was only one thing left for her.

   Like it was poisoned, or could bite her hands of, Margo took it from the bed with the caution of carrying a raw egg. It was three o'clock in the morning, when Margo entered the kitchen, finding it empty, and for the first time, she wasn't sad about it.

   With a flick of her wand, the fireplace enlightened and its heat was so soothing, that Margo knew, it was just the right thing to do.

   She threw the diary into the flames.

   At first, nothing happened. Flames licked on the leathery book without seeming to touch it, but then they met the parchment, and it started glimming first, then burning like drenched in gasoline.

   It was six o'clock in the morning, when Sirius could no longer sleep, knowing that Margo would leave the next day. To his surprise, when he entered the kitchen, he found small embers in the fireplace, still hot gleaming as he neared.

   That's when he noticed the remainings of a leathery book, its green ornaments still visible on his back, while its inside had been completely destroyed by the fire.

   And Sirius' insides felt like burning to ashes as well.