Celestial | Sirius Black Love Story

The morning after

I woke up to the sound of something being pounded and looked around, my eyes stinging, for whatever was making the ruckus. It was only moments after when I realised that the sound was in my own head, and was the blood pumping inside my veins.

I moaned loudly and looked at my watch to check the time. It was seven in the morning and I groaned again. I then realised that Sirius' arm was draped over my stomach and his face had only been inches away from my own. I tried to remember how we could have ended up in such a position, but all I could remember from that night was trying the whisky, and for some reason, a scene in which James was jumping up and down singing "Dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeeeen!" While the rest of us acted as backup dancers.

I dragged my heavy and aching body out of Sirius' warm embrace and changed out of the clothes from the night before into a pair of loose running shorts and a sports bra and top. Sports bras were the only kind of bras I owned, I had felt too awkward to buy anything else with my father around me when my breasts had actually started to develop, though they were in no way big. I was quite petite, with hardly any curves, and having to get up and exercise every morning had in no way helped this. My father had insisted that physical fitness was as important as everything else, and thought that magic schools did not emphasis it enough. Personally, I thought that was bullcrap, but I put on my running shoes and tied back my hair all the same.

Before venturing out for a run, however, I stumbled into the kitchen and downed two glasses of water, and ate a couple of strawberries.

I then started to run. I ran towards the forest on the right side of the barn, wanting to explore it. It was my worst run ever. Worse than the first one, when my father had run far ahead of me and my lungs burnt from being out of shape. Now, every muscle seemed to ache and complain, begging me to stop moving. I did not get into that familiar automatic feeling I usually did, where I could let my thoughts wander, but thought only of how horrible it felt to run.

I pushed through the heaviness for as long as I could, then came to stop outside the barn again, walking around slowly so as not to let my pulse fall completely. Once I had caught my breath a bit, I crept into the barn to collect my staff to go through the routine my father had taught me.

Once outside again, I took off my socks and shoes and stood on the moist grass from the morning due, and took deep breaths, trying to sink into a deeper state of mind. I moved as slowly as I could through the routine, my arms and legs shaking as my muscles were now screaming. I wanted to move faster to complete the exercise and be done, but knew it would only be effective if gone through slowly.

When I had first watched my father go outside in the early morning and practice this routine, I had thought it looked easy. His arms stretching out in different ways, his legs bending and straightening out again, going through different positions fluently. When he had decided I was strong enough to try it, however, I found that it was much more difficult than I had thought. It had taken months before I could even complete the routine, and a year before I could really benefit from it, to manage to sink further into myself and feel only my muscles work. I had only started to use my staff in the routine last month, as a way to become accustomed to it.

Now, however, my body was too sore and too heavy for me to think further than how much I would love to stop. As I was going through a motion called Dancing Leaf, I fell.

A guffawing laugh rang out behind me, and I turned quickly to see Sirius standing in the doorway, holding two cups of tea. He looked as bad as I felt, dark rings around his eyes and his skin a sallow version of it's usual self.

"It's not funny, my bum hurts." I pouted, standing up slowly and wiping grass and dirt off my arse.

He laughed harder at this, and said, "I'm surprised you can do anything at all after last night, why are you up so early, anyway?"