ink - sirius black

intimidation and burdens

February 15, 1977
8:44 pm
Queenie's Apartment

Sirius was overall very intimidated by the woman that he was sitting next to on the steps.

Dumbledore had agreed to take Black along with him to New York when he went to talk to Anneliese about some unknown subject that was obviously very important to the headmaster to get off of his chest, and Sirius had been anxious the whole time.

The old man had then left him with a woman sitting on a green velvet covered landing below Anneliese who was looking at him very curiously, like she simultaneously knew everything about him and wanted to know why the hell he was here.

For the past ten minutes since then, she had only looked at him occasionally with narrowed green eyes as she slowly smoked a cigarette, not giving Black the tiniest indication of what she was thinking.

For Sirius, both her judgmental gaze and the waiting game was killing him.

He understood that the main reason he was in America in the first place was because Dumbledore needed to talk to Anneliese, but the fact that he had to wait until after this discussion was making him only increasingly anxious by the second.

Sometimes he really hated adults making themselves the priority.

The letter he had written was ringing in his mind just as much as it was in Callaway's on the floor just above him.

Sirius had his feet planted on a few steps below him, his forearms resting on his knees as his head was held in his fingers from stress. He looked like the pure image of how none of the fellow Hogwarts students could have ever imagined him.

Freaked out over a girl.

Black was shifting his position every few seconds, not being capable of sitting still. His fingers drummed on the stairs and his foot tapped to an unheard rhythm, and he even whistled for a few minutes before he couldn't focus on the song American Pie without thinking too much about Anneliese.

If there was any time he needed a record player, it was now.

What if I made a mistake by telling her that I love her? he thought, running a hand through his hair for about the hundredth time in the past few minutes. What if she already had enough going on and all I did was add onto the burden that she's dealing with?

"I didn't know you sent her a damn letter, but I do know good and well that you did not make a mistake by telling A."

Sirius's grey eyes widened as he slowly looked over to the women sitting next to him on the steps with confusion.

"Oh yea, and I also know that you need to stop putting your fingers in your hair before it all falls out. I assure you, it's not that tangled."

She still looked completely innocent with the cigarette in her mouth and gaze forward, as if she hadn't just said what she just said.

"I'm sorry, what?" Black asked, adjusting his position on the staircase so that he now had his back against the wall facing her and choosing to ignore the second comment. "If you didn't know about the letter, then how-"

"Let's start off a little easier," she interrupted him, turning to face the boy on the stairs as well. "My name is Queenie Goldestein."

"Sirius Black," he replied slowly as he shook her extended hand, not knowing how to feel about Goldstein besides being highly suspicious like he had been of Leo as well when he first met him.

And still slightly was, actually.

"Yes, I already knew that," Queenie said with a dismissive shrug. "Anneliese has told me about you."