𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗜 ━━ 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗙𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧
012. woven with an invisible string

( song for the chapter:
invisible string — taylor swift )

❝𝐼 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑠, 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟,
𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔❞

━━━━ 𝑽𝒊𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒂 𝑾𝒐𝒐𝒍𝒇

          𝗜𝗧 𝗪𝗔𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗦𝗧 𝗪𝗘𝗘𝗞 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥 𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗜𝗗𝗔𝗬, 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗦𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗟𝗘𝗧 was sitting quietly in her room, being awakened by Celeste's disturbing shuffling of papers. Her mother started to take extra shifts at work, understandably so. She often got really bored, being home alone. Celeste went to the Ministry at five in the morning, and Scarlet had no idea what the hell was so urgent. 

There was an urgent knock at her door, and Scarlet was startled. She had no idea people actually have the energy to get out of bed at five in the morning. Getting out of her bed and making her way down, Jaggy stood at the doorway. "Little Mistress Bridget, Mr Black has come to see you,"

She furrowed her brows. "Regulus?"

"Wrong brother," a smooth voice said, and Scarlet came face-to-face with a grinning Sirius. The look on his face only indicated he was up to some mischief.

"Jaggy, leave us for a moment,"

"Of course, Little Mistress," he obeyed, nodding and making his way to the kitchen.

Sirius raised a brow, a smirk stretched on his lips. "Little Mistress?" 

"Don't even talk about it," she shot him a warning gaze, folding her arms. "It's five in the morning."

Sirius didn't take his eyes off her. It took Scarlet a good ten seconds to realise she was still in her night-gown, and it reached her mid-thighs. The mere five seconds felt like hours when his eyes roamed over her bare legs, her rosy cheeks evolving as a result.

"Eyes up here, Black," she snapped him out of his daydream, he muttered about a hundred apologises as soon as he tore his eyes away.

An awkward silence fogged over.

Scarlet squinted her eyes and glanced around the expanse of his pink cheeks, his eyes wandering around the house. "What the hell do you want?"

Her booming voice startled him, he looked back into her eyes and only looked in her eyes. "Let's go for a ride,"

      IT MUST HAVE TAKEN AN INTOLERABLE OUNCE OF BOREDOM for Scarlet to agree to such a vicious idea. She was sure she would regret it soon enough. Now, Jaggy was in charge of cleaning her broomstick, and she could not exactly ask for it and get out of the house with a boy.

      Jaggy has always been a snitch. He would most likely exaggerate everything she had done to Celeste.

Much to her dismay, she ended up sharing a broom with Sirius, sitting behind him and holding tightly onto his shoulders. "Let's go, Black," she said with her usual arcane tone of voice as Sirius prepared to fly. "If you fly fast enough, maybe we can forget about everything."

With that, Sirius took off into the sky, remembering to stay within the Wizarding world as he flew. 

"What if I pushed you off?" she shared her intrusive thoughts, the wind blowing in her hair. 

"You wouldn't," he scoffed. "And if you don't make me fall, your hair might! Get this thing out of my face."

She huffed loudly in annoyance, using one of her hands to place her hair behind, tugging them behind her ears. 

"Why the hell are we sneaking out this early in the morning, Black?" She asked curiously. "This sounds like the start of every murder story."

"Murder story, what sort of books do you read?" Sirius asked in disbelief.

"You know... boy charms girl, boy kills girl," she answered nonchalantly.

"I'm not gonna kill you, Blondie," he casually stated. "Wait, I charmed you?"

"Absolutely not," Scarlet rolled her eyes. At her rude behaviour, Sirius took a sharp and dangerous turn that almost knocked the girl out of her position.

She clasped her hands around his neck, burying her chin in his broad shoulder in fright. He could feel her breath on his skin, something that almost weakened his grip on his broomstick. 

"MERLIN'S BEARD! You are trying to kill me, you lunatic!" She shouted in her lungs. 

Sirius laughed in response as they approached the destination Sirius spoke about. When they made the landing, Sirius swiftly turned around and faced a panting Scarlet, their eyes met, inches apart for only a moment. 

"See," he said, and his words erupted in a small cloud of cold smoke as she stepped back. "That wasn't so bad,"

They were still within the city, around the outskirts. A view of after came into sight, a large, beautiful lake, with a single dock off the land. There was a large house on the other side of it, perhaps someone's holiday home, or just a rich person's abandoned house. It was an exquisite house, surrounded by lovely plants and flowers, she wondered what it would be like to live in the quiet, staring out at the peaceful lake.

She found herself staring at the water, "Hm, planning to throw my body in the lake?" She smirked as Sirius shook his head. 

"Maybe."

The girl knelt and sat down on one of the wooden planks, crossing her legs under one another. Sirius followed soon, his legs slightly hanging off the dock and not touching the calm water.

When she spoke, she could feel a wet, salty taste on her tongue even though it was not the beach. "I didn't think you'd have good taste, Black but... this is a beautiful place, I'm impressed."

He looked at her, staring at her side-profile as her hair billowed in the wind. He smiled softly at her lips curling in mesmerisation. "Beautiful, indeed." he whispered.

She turned to look at him and he looked away, "Do you bring all your girls to this spot," Scarlet asked, eyes fixated on him. There was a slight joking tone to her words, but the question was one she wanted the answer to.

"Are you kidding, I don't put that much effort," he said, laughing a bit.

"True, it'd drain you off all your energy," she nodded, eyes shifting downwards. "After all, there's been so many."

"Can we not... talk about all that?"

She stayed silent which confirmed she agreed. She leaned over slightly, just enough so that she could see her reflection in the water. She could see Sirius', there in the water, next to hers. They were there, the silhouette of their heads between the lines of trees and the reflected sunrise in the distance. She caught herself admiring the way they fit into the picture, only for a moment. 

"You still didn't answer my question," she pointed out, "Why the hell are we here?"

Sirius took a deep breath, "It's the same old, boring story, let's spare it."

"I wanna know," she said genuinely. "And you're not boring."

He smiled at that, "My mother hasn't been letting me get out of the house this summer,"

"What?" She asked in disbelief, snapping her gaze towards his disheartened one. "What's wrong with her this time?"

"She doesn't want me to hang out 'with the wrong people'," Sirius shrugged. "It's sort of a punishment for going away to James' house last Christmas... mixed with many other reasons... so I snuck out early in the morning, and... you're the first person who came to mind when I thought about who I should go away with,"

She felt suffocated all of a sudden, a scratch at her throat. She shrugged it off with a joke, "You wanted to run away with me?" A smirk lingered on her lips.

Sirius chuckled under his breath, "Don't flatter yourself, Blondie,"

"Too late, I'm already flattered," she was using her shoes to tug at a random wood absentmindedly. "I'm sorry about your mother... she's such a raging..."

"SAY IT!" He exclaimed, grabbing onto her wrist in uttermost enthusiasm.

"—I can't," she laughed loudly at his excited face.

"Blonds, I dare you—"

"A raging—" She threw her head back with laughter, feeling the pressure of his gaze on her face. "A RAGING WITCH!"

"NO!" He shouted back, "Speak your mind!"

"A raging bitch," she stated, still wheezing as Sirius's head fell onto her shoulder with loud laughter escaping his lips.

"Such a raging—" he cut himself off, now understanding why it was so difficult for Scarlet to say it out loud. In his stomach, something was circulating, brought up by the sight of her laughing so hard and so genuinely. 

She felt an odd feeling at the pit of her stomach when Sirius' skin contacted her neck. To distract her heart, she stared at the array of colours in the sky, the horizon of yellow and clouds of deep blue all orchestrating together as the world was slowly enlightening. 

"And every time she yells at me, I just can't—I cannot get used to it, you think by now I should expect it, adapt to it but every time it affects me in the exact same way... maybe because I think it won't happen again, give myself false hope and when she gets mad... every time, it feels like the first-ever time... it's pathetic."

"No," she dismissed quickly. "I don't think it's pathetic— it's quite reasonable, Siri-" she cut herself off with a thick gulp, "It simply makes you human."

He stared off into the water dauntingly, not a single expression on his face. Scarlet couldn't help but notice Sirius Black has a heart of glass. 

"Tell me about yourself," Sirius turned it back around on her with a grin. "I think it's always been me talking, I rarely let you talk."

"I waited five years for you to realise that," she joked, chuckling with humour. "What do you wanna know?"

"Why did you move?"

Scarlet was caught off guard by the question but managed to mentally compose herself. "My mother wasn't happy there... my dad was sort of, strict and cruel... and I believe that's why we left that place..."

"You believe, how do you mean?" Sirius asked, confused about her words.

"I asked Mama once about it... repeatedly and she got mad, and started to yell at me and blurted out that she felt guilty..." her brows knitted together, she still felt confused about the matter. "That she made a mistake, and regretted not being smarter... perhaps she thought she should've paid more attention, I don't fuckin' know — and then our house elf quieted her down,"

Sirius was listening very carefully. 

"Do you think everybody is intertwined with somebody?" He suddenly asked, calling her off guard. "Like, you sell your youth trying to figure out what person you want to be, and some people are so similar yet so different..."

"Like your mother and mine?" Scarlet asked.

"Yeah," he shrugged in response. "They spent their teenage years being two sides of the same coin, yet today, they are quite different... if you look closely."

"I suppose," Scarlet had no idea he was into metaphorical things like that. 

"It's like we're all woven together in the end," said Sirius with a certain tone of voice. 

He thought she was going to mock her or make fun of her stupid thoughts.

"What are we woven together with?" She asked, genuinely sounding into the conversation.

He nearly smiled to himself that she listened and understood. But he composed herself and shifted his attention to her face. "I don't know, some sort of unseen string, I guess."

      "And I think my invisible string is tied with yours."

Sirius was looking at her in a way she couldn't help but crack a smile. The birds were chirping somewhere, crackling in the tree branches all around and orchestrating with the swaying of the leaves. The clouds got heavier. Mist from the water evaporates into thin air. Haze floating above the little ripples and the sunrise in the reflection in the deep blue.

      A sweet visual and all Scarlet could see was his gaze, the piercing grey eyes instead of the grey, cloudy sky above. All she could hear was his soft, meaningful tone as he spoke. 

      She wondered if he also thought she had a glass heart underneath the steel-facade. Because he was talking to her so carefully, as though one change in his tone would break her.

      The differences between them were as solid as rocks. Anybody could point it out. The only similarity was that their lives were stamped with a bloody curse when they were born. 

      Sirius Black was a puzzle; broken pieces that seemed as though they would never slot together, as though they could never truly be solved and stored away in perfection. He looked closely at others, and yet the moment eyes fell upon his own flesh, scouring for a break in the cycle of misery the Blacks live, well, he turned away and put on a bright, cheerful, and ever-glowing charming face. His eyes and heart not only held the warmth of the sun but also the light.

     Scarlet Bridget lived in a world where she felt haunted. And that haunting world would always flood right back in like a tidal wave only seeking to drag her to its depths and fill her lungs until she begged and pleaded for release. She drowned. Every walking hour she swallowed mouthfuls of water tinged with the taste of blood, laden with the colour of crimson.

"I'm glad we've started to talk again," he whispered, eyes and heart holding pure adoration as the girl stared up at the sky, a peaceful smile creeping onto her face.

      Scarlet had been the ice, and Sirius had been the flickering ember that enveloped her with warmth. 

The moment was interrupted when a sawn showed up and scared the hell out of Sirius. He shrieked and screamed until Scarlet offered to leave the place.

𝑪𝑨𝑹𝑨 𝑺𝑷𝑬𝑨𝑲𝑺

i was actually screeching when
writing this chapter.

mum was giving me weird looks. 
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