Barking Mad (Sirius/OC)

A stormy sea of moving emotion

Chapter 41

On a stormy sea of moving emotion

Tossed about, I'm like a ship on the ocean

~Carry On My Wayward Son - Kansas

I stared at Sirius for a moment and heard James shuffle awkwardly next to me. I turned to him. "Do you mind leaving for a bit?" I asked him, raising an eyebrow.

Sirius watched me confusedly. "Maybe it's better if he stays." To James he whispered: "I think she might kill me."

I gave him a look and rolled my eyes. "I'm not here to kill you, Sirius. I could just as well have killed you out in the corridor."

We were currently sitting in the boy's dormitory, which was deserted except for the three of us and looked a frighteningly lot like ours. Except ours was actually messier, who would have thought?

Of course, James was quite good at feigning ignorance, I must say. It was obvious that I wanted him to leave by the glares I had been giving him for the last ten minutes, but of course Mr. Potter needed it vocalized.

James hesitated.

"James, get out," I finally said, pointing to the door, to which Sirius gave a husky laugh.

"But-" James turned to Sirius, but when he didn't speak up, he shrugged. "Fine. Don't forget our plans." Without another word my way, he removed himself from the room. I wondered what exactly the gruesome twosome had been up to before I came along and ruined their plans, but right now I just couldn't be bothered to try and figure it out.

"I think you hurt his feelings," Sirius grinned. I didn't answer. I wasn't even sure how to begin talking about any of this. After all I was just about to tell him my biggest secret, because someone close to him was going to die in the next few days and I had absolutely no clue how I was going to breach that subject.

When Sirius was about to open his mouth again to say something that would probably make me want to run out of this room, I held up my hand. "Look, I'm still angry with you and I have not forgiven you." The smile slowly died on his face. "You hurt me badly, Sirius, and I need time to get over that."

"You had three months," he pointed out.

"Not to mention," I carried on, ignoring him, "that we said some pretty awful things to each other in the heat of the moment and I am sorry about that." I shouldn't have started about the bone and the dog and all that. It had been childish of me.

Sirius grinned at that. "That's okay. It was pretty funny in the end."

I shook my head. "No, it wasn't," I said a bit hesitantly. I didn't understand why he was being so light-hearted about this. He had been just as angry as I had been when we fought back in February, hadn't he? Why was he treating this as if he had never been angry at all? As if he had already forgiven everything?

And if he had truly forgiven me about the fight and wanted to reach out to me - as his almost giddy behaviour was telling me - then why hadn't he? What was going through his mind, right now?

I really didn't understand the lad sometimes.

"Sirius... Do you know what banshees are?"

He seemed a bit stunned by my question and turned more serious as he pondered it. "I know that they are evil creatures whose screech is deadly. They have green skin, floor length hair and are basically walking skeletons. Why?"