Paisley Higgs | (Sirius Black)

Chapter 1- Motorcycle Dude

"Sweetheart... there's a letter for you," Mom said, knocking on the door and walking into my new bedroom one Sunday afternoon. "It's from Matt..."

Of course it was from Matt. Who else would it be from?

"Okay," I said, not looking up from the book I was pretending to read, still wearing the cotton dress I'd worn to church that morning.

She stood there for a while, half in the door, half out, maybe hoping that I'd get uncomfortable enough with the silence to say something. But I didn't.

The sound of an obnoxiously loud motorbike zooming past our house floated up from the open window. Now normally, Mom would have made a comment about how dangerous those death-machines things are, but today she ignored it, walked in, and calmly added the letter to a stack of other unopened letters that had accumulated on my dresser over the past week. I could feel her frowning.

"You know," she began in that forced hopeful tone of hers. "We could see about getting a portkey to bring him here... the guest room's just about ready and there's plenty of time for him visit a bit before school starts... if you wanted..."

I shook my head, still looking at the same page I'd been not reading, wishing she'd just go away.

She sat on the bed. "You sure?"

"I'm sure."

Her frown got frownier. "Sweetheart... I don't mean to pry but... Did you... did you two break up?"

At long last, I looked up, horrified. "Ugh! Mom! For the last time, Matt's not my boyfriend!"

She was clearly unconvinced. "I just hate seeing you so sad..."

Well then you shouldn't have made me move across the freaking ocean, I thought.

"I'm not sad," I said.

Her hand rested itself on my blanket covered kneecap in a way that was supposed to be reassuring. "You know your father and I broke up for a while after he graduated—"

"Oh my gosh. Mom. We didn't break up because we're not dating!"

"Then why won't you open his letters?"

"Because I don't want to!" I exclaimed in a very bratty way, forcefully closing the book without marking the page and walking out of the bedroom.

She followed after me.

"Paisley, I'm just trying to understand!"

Trying to understand? I didn't know why it was such a difficult concept. I didn't want read the letters. I didn't want to see him. Because if I did, it would make me miss him even more. It would make going to a new school even more unbearable.

Besides, I already knew what the letters would say:

'Scotland is beautiful, Pais! You're going to love the furry cows!'

'You'll be fine at the new school, just hang around some extroverts until one of them adopts you like I did!'

'If anyone messes with you, tell them I'll kick their butts with my yellow belt karate skills!'

I huffed all the way down the stairs and to the entry way, grabbed my sweater from the hook and reached for the door handle. I wanted to scream at her to leave me alone, but instead I said, "I'm going for a walk."

*

The walk wasn't spectacularly interesting.

Dad's new job was in London for the British ministry of magic, helping them with some top-secret, super important thing or another, but our house was in a tiny (boring) village in the West Country of England. And when I say tiny and boring, I mean it. The whole thing centers on a little village square with only a church, a post office, a pub, and a few retail shops, one of which was an itty-bitty, locally owned grocery store that had a truly tragic ice cream selection.