Thicker than Water (Marauders Era)

6 April, 1977 - Little Kindnesses (II)

*

As the days, weeks and eventually months marched on, Lavinia started noticing a trend in her late night wanderings. Somehow, she always seemed to run into a Marauder, and rarely more than one at a time.

It started out slowly, a few instances of running into Black and occasionally Lupin. They were always casual and nothing serious was ever said. They just seemed to be there. Naturally, Lavinia had been more than slightly suspicious and had spent most of the conversation trying to get out of them what the hell they were doing there. She never got a satisfactory answer and as time wore on, it was easier not to ask questions.

Once or twice, Potter even showed up in the middle of the night, though he seemed mildly annoyed by the whole thing and Lavinia wasn't sure why he hadn't just left. She did have a good time trading insults with him, if she was honest, and by the time she'd headed back to bed, she'd almost forgotten what she'd been upset about in the first place.

Pettigrew spent one slightly awkward evening with her, rambling on about his difficulties with Transfiguration and apologizing profusely every time he realized what he was doing. Lavinia hadn't minded much, if she was honest. Pettigrew struck her as the sort of boy who was surrounded by people out of his league and knew it, but didn't particularly want to admit it to them. So she'd let him talk himself out, selfishly glad to be hearing about someone else's problems instead of thinking about her own.

Often, it was actually rather nice to have a distraction and it didn't escapre her notice that their presence often prevented her from doing anything particularly stupid. Often, but not always. There were still nights when she wanted nothing to do with anyone. Nights when she wanted her pain to be only her own in the silence of the empty halls. When she didn't have the energy to play along with any kind of distraction.

One night in particular, Lavinia was wandering more than usual, not wanting to hold still. She had no particular reason for it, no catalyst and no explanation. It was just a bad night. Her day had been fine, normal really. She'd gone to classes, gone to dinner, the boys had even joined her and Eloise and Alexandra. And yet she'd gone to bed feeling more hollow than she had in weeks.

She'd ended up in the prefects' bathroom again, potions knife in her bag, desperate to feel something. Anything. And when she left the bathroom behind, her self loathing and disappointment worn like a familiar cloak, she didn't want to sit still. She wanted to move, to focus on anything other than the stinging of her wrists and the reminder of her failures. She wanted to run, sprint, leave it all behind.

But running was too risky, too likely to draw unwanted attention and too difficult to explain away with what had become her default excuse: that she was a prefect and it was her night to patrol the corridors. It wasn't a perfect excuse seeing as the prefects stopped patrolling at midnight and Lavinia was regularly out past then, but no one seemed to notice. Most people she saw ran as soon as they recognized her. Not that she usually ran into many people, but it was still good to have an excuse in case anyone asked. The last thing she needed on a night like this was to be brought to a teacher for being out of bed past curfew.

So she walked, wishing she had wide open spaces around her and wind in her ears to drown out her thoughts. But wind or no, any movement was better than sitting still.

She was properly lost when she heard footsteps behind her and subconsciously yanked on the ends of her sleeves to make sure no evidence of her recent actions showed. She turned around, drawing herself up and putting the face of an alert prefect on, only to find Black hurrying towards her, folding up an old piece of parchment as he came.

She felt her shoulders fall and some of the tension left her body. "Oh," she murmured, more to herself than to him. "It's just you." She turned back around.