ink - sirius black

ripples and traumas

March 2, 1977
3:09 pm
Black Lake

As if the coming of March was Mother Nature's cue to suddenly make things warm once more, springtime hit the Hogwarts grounds practically overnight. All of the leftover snow had melted away to reveal delicately growing, spindly flowers against the bright green mosses and grass, filling the air with a subtle and natural perfume.

The formerly frozen Black Lake was suddenly occupied again by dozens of groups of students studying all across the various shores, basking in the bright sunlight that warmed their skin against the still chilly wind.

Underneath a particularly large willow tree, Sirius, Anneliese, James, Remus, and Marlene were all working together on a very complex Water-Making Charm that even Remus was struggling with slightly.

The cream colored blanket they had smuggled down from the common room to sit on was thoroughly soaked by their various attempts at getting the perfect sphere of water they were required to perform on their N.E.W.T.s, and Marlene was wet as well from Anneliese's latest attempt.

"I swear to Merlin, if you miss one more time I will snap your wand in half," Marlene declared, wringing out her dripping hair onto the blanket. "Or I'll push you in the Black Lake myself."

"I'd like to see you try," Anneliese said back tartly. "I'm a very good swimmer from Ilvermorny, and some lake is nothing compared to the Atlantic."

"Care to test that theory?" Mckinnon prompted, narrowing her eyes at Callaway, who just rolled her dark blue ones teasingly in response. "That's what I thought."

Anneliese just smirked slightly before picking up her wand again from where Marlene had thrown it down on the blanket.

Sirius just stared at Callaway's wand warily from across the blanket, not wanting to be in the path of her spell this time. Anneliese had many strengths, but precision with her spells wasn't one of them.

She was brilliant at detecting patterns in the charms themselves and figuring out how they worked, but getting one that she didn't invent down to the slightest flick of her wrist was never something she had been perfect at.

"Okay, Remus, you try the spell again before I embarrass myself," Anneliese said, turning to the tall boy with a grin.

To her slight surprise, Lupin seemed very out of it. His fingers were carefully twirling around the delicate stem of a light pink flower, and his green eyes were staring at the bloom like he was looking for something that simply wasn't there.

"Are you alright?" Callaway asked with concern. "Remus?"

Snapping out of his daze with that forlorn expression, Remus turned to Anneliese with as much of a smile as he could muster and nodded his head in recognition that he was alright.

James gave Lupin a very condemning, almost stern and scolding expression that a mother would show to her child, knowing exactly what he was thinking of.

Two nights ago had been the full moon of February, and Remus had realized something that hadn't stopped bothering him since. An odd, sickening feeling went through his stomach whenever he thought of it, making him want to throw up and cry at the same time.

His peers had been very correct that things with Leo were becoming quite a bit more intense.

With every letter, both of them learned a dozen new things about the other, whether it be something as small as how they drew their exclamation marks or as large as their greatest fear.

Both of them could feel the other falling even harder with every stroke of their quill.

Yet for Remus, he felt like he was hiding something from Leo, a part of him that would either break everything or something that Anderson would hopefully not care about.