minnow // sirius black

thirteen

13 : new

My blood had seeped so deeply into my flooring and the bedding that my parents decided to just replace it all.

So they asked if I wanted a different color scheme all together.

Now, I frowned deeply as I stared at the floor options. I was very firm in that I did not want a light colored flooring, that I wanted something dark. So I stared at the final two, before I tossed them on the floor in front of me, groaning.

"What?" Sirius said, picking them up. With slightly bewildered eyes he helped them back out to me. He looked between me and then, then kind of shook them in my face. "You realize that there's nearly no difference, right?"

"There is a difference!" I exclaimed, yanking them back from him as he rolled his eyes and laughed.

We were sitting on the floor, in my now empty bedroom. Mum and Dad were hiring Muggle contractors to redo it, since they couldn't, and I had no idea how to. James complained, playfully, saying that he wanted a remodeling too, but when Mum gave him the flooring options, paint colors, and a furniture catalog, he cringed and claimed he changed his mind. He was now leaning against my bedroom door, his arms crossed and rolling his eyes.

"Lily said you should go with the 'cool-toned brown' one," He said, shrugging. "I sent her all the finalist options."

I groaned.

"You sent her the final four, James, I'm down to two, and neither of them are the ones that Lily suggested!"

"I still don't know the difference," Sirius said, giving the samples back to me. "They both look black to me."

"One is lighter, and a warm brownish grey, not black, and the other one is black with a bit of a lighter hue in the grain," I explained, again. "I've said this twelve times!"

"I know literally nothing about this."

"Clearly," I rolled my eyes. "I'm going to go ask Mum."

I pulled myself off the floor, shoving past James, who protested to being 'manhandled', and jogging down the stairs.

The contractors had torn up the wood, and the padding under it, nearly a week ago. They'd already done the base of the repainting, and tomorrow, the artist Mum and Dad had do my room the last time was coming back. She'd done the faint silver swirls, spending meticulous time making sure they were perfect, as she, too, had OCD, and knew how awful it would be to have to stare at uneven swirls.

Mum and Dad didn't understand, but they were supportive. James thought I was dramatic, and only just realized that I could not help it.

He realized how serious it was after I laid in a puddle of bloody soap water because my floor was stained and I couldn't remove the stains.

I still had a few days to choose the flooring, as Mum wanted the floor to be bare when the artist came in, so they didn't have to worry about cleaning it.

I found Mum sitting in the living room, flipping through the furniture catalog. She looked at the bed frame I had circled, and I hopped over the back of the couch.

"I liked the dark grey color, by the way," I said as she jumped, startled.

"Maybe the silent stairs weren't a good idea," She grumbled. I grinned as she flipped to the other options, on the same page.

The first was a flat headboard, made of wood but painted with several layers, so there was no visible planks or grain. The dark grey color option was a cooler grey, but since I had decided against cool tones, we'd ruled that bed frame.

The second idea was a four-post canopy bed frame, similar to the shape of the ones at Hogwarts. The one pictured, and the one I liked, was the black wood option. The posts would reach well over my head, and they were connected at the top with beams that you could hang curtains on.

The third option was a platform bed frame, without a headboard or foot-board. It was dark oak wood, and was flat against the floor.

"I like the canopy bed," Mum said, shrugging.

"What if I start coughing like that again, and get blood on the curtains?"

"Curtains are easily replaceable," Mum turned her head, raising an eyebrow. I nodded, making a face that said 'you're right'. "So, which design?"

It was an obvious choice, at least for me.

"The one with the thin posts," I said pointing. "There are removable bars at the top. In dark grey."

Mum nodded, taking her marker and circling it in red.

"Decided on a floor?" She asked, looking at me.

"Just did!" I grinned, handing her my choice.

She took the warm grey option, smiling as I hopped off the couch.

"What about dressers? Nightstands? Desks?!"

"That can wait!"

I heard her grumbling as I went back upstairs, barging into James' room.

Him and Sirius both groaned as I flopped onto his bed, in between the two. I laid on my back, my legs hanging off the bed. I looked at James, smiling widely.

"We were talking," James scowled. I raised both my eyebrows.

"Oh, well don't let me stop you," I grinned, swinging my feet up and down. James rolled his eyes, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

"About you."

I stopped smiling, my feet falling against the side of the bed.

"Why?" I said quietly, now turning to Sirius. My heart started racing. I looked back at James, furrowing my eyebrows. James looked at Sirius, who looked at me with the saddest face.

Mum and Dad wouldn't have told either of them, would they?

It had been a few weeks since my incident with my bedroom, but I hadn't had another breakdown. I'd been happy, calm and collected. At least around them. I'd kept my head around them because I didn't need them asking me a hundred questions. I didn't want James asking Mum what was wrong, because while Dad could lie to him, Mum was an awful liar. She'd spill the beans just as quickly as Remus would.

I'd been careful, too. I'd done everything Mum and Dad had told me to, Floo-ing to St. Mungo's every-other day, for a BT and tests. I was not getting any better, but I was stable. I wasn't getting worse. I'd been quiet, telling them that they were monitoring me, while they were preparing me for what my last weeks would likely be like. How I was dying, and it wasn't going to be a quick death, and it wasn't going to be painless.

"He heard you last night," James whispered. "He wanted to see if you wanted to sleep with him, and he heard you throwing things against the attic wall, crying."

"I read a sad story," I said, smiling sheepishly. "I threw the book against the wall, and then a few magazines. It was quite an unfair ending."

That was a half truth, actually. I had read an extremely sad story, one ending in the main character's death, and I had thrown the book across the room, but not just because I was upset about the book. I couldn't stop thinking about the ending to my story. I didn't want a violent ending. I wanted a peaceful ease into nothing, like she got. She was in a car accident, and died while in a coma. She didn't actually feel the pain, and that's what I wanted. I didn't want my death to be that I was internally bleeding, my insides twisting and collapsing. I didn't want my death to be literally coughing my lungs up, blood spewing out of my mouth and all over my brother as he tried to comfort me.

But I knew that was the most probable end to my story.