Paisley Higgs | (Sirius Black)

Chapter 3- I Was Not Spying

I wish I could say that my life in Godric's Hollow got better after that fateful evening of apple pie and awkwardness. You have no idea how much I would like to tell you, dear reader, that those teenage boys and I became fast friends and were inseparable the rest of the summer. Or, perhaps, that charged with the excitement of a thrilling evening, I went home and wrote my best friend, relating the tale in detail, and by so mending the slow burning bridge that spanned an ocean. 

But that didn't happen. 

Actually, it felt for a while as if that weird dinner party didn't even happen. 

Sure, I saw James and Sirius out and about, riding on that stupid motorcycle death machine (of course) but we had an unspoken agreement to act as if we had never met... or so it would seem. 

I tried, in a very un-paisley moment, the day right after our dinner party, to wave at James when I saw him walking by himself as I walked to the grocery store. I thought, why not? At the very least we could be acquaintances. 

But he ignored me. 

Straight up ignored me. 

He stopped, looked at me, frowned deeply, then stomped off toward the post office. Why he had such a negative reaction to my just being friendly, or why he was using no-maj mail and not owl was beyond me. 

I won't lie. My pride was bruised. 

After all, hadn't he been the one winking things up before? 

Had I become repulsive over night?

However, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just having a bad day? I didn't see Sirius so maybe he was all off kilter being without having his other half around. 

The next time I saw James, Sirius was with him. It was that same week, a very rainy Wednesday. I remember it was a Wednesday because Mom dragged me to London on Tuesday to 'see the sights'. It was a rather boring trip, but I finally got some rain boots while I was there. 

They were yellow and made me look rather like a duck when I wore them with my yellow rain jacket, but I wasn't complaining. 

Anyways, I knew I was highly visible because of all the yellow, and I knew it was a rainy Wednesday because the boots were brand new and still a little squeaky and stiff and Mom had just put a water-resistance spell on my book.

So, there I was sitting on my park bench, as had become habit, trying to read the least boring school book, A History of Magic, in an attempt to get sort of caught up on my summer assignments, when I heard them zoom up. 

Water splashed everywhere as the motorcycle rumbled to a stop along the road behind me. 

I turned, and without thinking, waved, even throwing in a smile— and ended up dropping my book into a nearby puddle in the process.

Maybe it was out of secondhand embarrassment that they ignored me, I don't know. But again, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. They seemed to be on a mission of sorts, this time working together to carry a rather large box to the No-Maj post office. 

Our third meeting is when I was sure that they didn't want to be my friend. 

It was exactly one week after our dinner party. I had just got out of an exceptionally long church service where the preacher did the whole, "you never know what someone else is going through" thing, and I was walking with Dad to the pub to grab some lunch for us to bring back home when, who would have guess, James and Sirius came walking up the opposite direction towards us. 

Without thinking, I raised my hand, opened my mouth to say, "hello!" but as soon as James made eye contact with me, he scowled and ducked into, you guessed it, the post office, yanking a stumbling Sirius in behind him.