𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗜 ━━ 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗙𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧
021. troubled by the emptiness

          𝗦𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗟𝗘𝗧'𝗦 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗦𝗧 𝗡𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗖𝗔𝗠𝗘 𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗘 𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗡 she opened her eyes the next morning, wrapped around in Sirius' arm over her shoulder, her face buried in his chest. She slept over in the Gryffindor common room!

      Luckily, it was still quite early and the room still awaited the arrival of other students. She kicked Everest's leg harshly, waking the girl up with a loud gasp.

      Rubbing her eyes, she shook herself away from her dream, noticing the surroundings to be all red instead of green.

      The movement caused Sirius to wake up wryly, being brought back sharply to reality, he pushed himself away from her, clearing his throat.

"We should go," she mouthed to him, grabbing Everest's wrist as the two girls make their way out of the place after grabbing their coats.

A heart-wrenching, earth-shattering realisation rained over Sirius' mind when the conversations from last night ricocheted on him. And he could not afford to let history repeat itself. No way. He was not going to get himself hurt again.

Speaking of history, he was surely going to kill the Bloody Baron for the words he uttered that still echoed in Sirius' mind. He wanted to know what he meant.

      Whatever peculiar feelings he felt dancing in his chest every time he was in the presence of Scarlet, had to stop. And Sirius Black was a mastermind when it came to pushing feelings away.

      When a moment came where Scarlet wasn't infiltrating each and every one of her thoughts, he remembered he had Transfiguration with Slytherins—he shook his friends wide-awake, reminding themselves to maintain composure in lessons after the heavy drinking from mere hours ago.

      Transfiguration was a lesson Scarlet quite enjoyed, and Miss McGonagall certainly had a way of making everything more interesting no matter how tedious the topic of learning was. However, on that particular day, the girl's mind was anywhere but the lecture.

      Without the distraction that was Sirius Black, Scarlet remembered the peculiar encounter when she came to her dorm late the night before. Scarlet couldn't remember why she came to bed late. And Scarlet doesn't forget anything and the thought causes her worries to skyrocket. Has Everest made a mistake? Sleep does cause her to become drowsy. She tapped her pen against her table mindlessly, wondering what the hell is wrong with her.

      A sudden ringing in Scarlet's head caused her to squeeze her eyes shut, and when she did open her eyes, everything went dark. Pitch black. Just void with no illumination. Her heart rate shot up as she blinked again, finally regaining her vision. Her peculiar thoughts and effects were spiralling out of control. It wasn't just nightmares anymore, she was living in terror.

"Miss Bridget?" Professor McGonagall's voice snapped her out of her gaze as she shot her eyes up, looking around to see a few of her fellow classmates staring down at her. "Miss Bridget, is everything fine?"

"Hm," she hummed in response, blinking her initial thoughts away. "I zoned out, sorry."

      The professor nodded hesitantly before moving back to the front, continuing her class as Scarlet sank back in her seat, wondering how many times it took for the professor to call her name before she snapped out of it.

      She couldn't focus as the rest of the class went by, absentmindedly biting her lips and staring out the window with her brows furrowed to rest her thoughts and calm her nerves.

Once the professor dismissed the class, she rapidly gathered her books and made her way out, not sparing anyone else another glance.

"Blondie!" A voice followed her amid the crowd of students, she kept walking but did spare Sirius a small nod of acknowledgement. "Can you believe she gave me detention?"

"What for?" Her curiosity perked up as she asked.

Sirius chuckled under his breath, looking at her confusedly. "Did you not—were you not listening?"

Scarlet's lips parted as no words left her mouth.

The boy's smile dropped. "What's going on?" He moved to touch her shoulder as a means of comforting her when she jolted away, widening their distance as they walked. Sirius immediately shoved his hands in his pockets. "Do you not remember her yelling at me for throwing around paper birds?"

"Of course," Scarlet pushed her weird behaviour aside, smiling lightly. "That was stupid of you, I'm totally on McGonagall's side."

"Blondie..." Sirius pursed his lips, a deflated look that deepened the crease between his brows. "I wasn't throwing paper birds."

The ache in Scarlet's chest was back, a sinking feeling in her stomach encapsulating all her thoughts, "I'll see you later, Black." she whispered, breathing pattern uneven as she stormed away from him, leaving the boy alone in the middle of the corridor.

      LATER THAT DAY, PROFESSOR MCGONAGALL TRACKED down Sirius Black whilst he was walking around with the Marauders in the middle of the corridor. "Mr Black, may I speak to you for a moment?"

Sirius looked hesitant, "Professor, I swear it was not me who turned Professor Krane's couch yellow."

"No—you what?" The professor's eyes widened before she shook herself away from the thought. "This isn't about that, why don't you come and follow me, Sirius."

Sirius looked at his friends who nodded sharply, and the boy trailed behind the woman who took him to her office.

"I need you to keep an eye out for Miss Bridget," Professor McGonagall issued, sitting opposite the Black.

Sirius squinted his eyes. "You want me to spy on her?"

"Not spy," she scoffed at his conclusion. "Just make sure she's alright..."

"Is everything okay, professor?" He shifted uncomfortably. "She has been acting a little peculiar."

"Oh, yes, Mr Black, perfectly fine," the woman assured. "The reason behind the matter is best classified to us... but if something does look out of the ordinary, you must come to us first."

Sirius nervously scratched the back of his neck. "You don't mean she's doing something... illegal—I mean, she's a little weird all the time, that's just who she is, a perfectionist." The professor quickly cut his ramble off.

"My worry is for everybody's safety," the woman nodded slowly, a concerned expression plastered to her face. "None of us truly knows what the other is capable of, Mr Black."

Sirius looked down at his lap, trying to knock off the professor's words just like he always does in lessons, but this specific information and her cryptic message seemed to hinder his usual tries.

"I'd say you'll have better luck asking Everest Chasseur, professor, or Sni—Severus Snape or... that Rosier." He shrugged.

"Miss Chasseur runs the other way every time she sees me and..." Professor McGonagall narrowed her eyelids. "I suppose you two spend quite some time together considering... you—something is going on with you two—I'm not... let's not have that conversation."

Sirius started to feel weirdly awkward, shifting in his seat. "Let's not."

"Just let me know if she acts strange in any way outside of class."

"I will, Professor McGonagall, have a good evening." The boy sat up from his seat, sending a nod her way before exiting the place with confusion hitting his mind.

      "THOSE THINGS KILL YOUR LUNGS, YOU KNOW?" Evan Rosier's voice echoed through the empty Slytherin common room when it neared midnight, where only he and Scarlet were present.

The blonde was sitting on the ground—a rather odd act for a girl like her—lighting a cigarette and blowing out a huff of smoke, the other hand tapping on her thigh mindlessly.

"The faster the better," she sarcastically smiled at him as he took a seat right next to her, on the tiled floor.

"Haha, really funny," he deadpanned. "Why do we always meet like this?"

"This was my alone time area until you killed it, Rosier," she turned to him, taking another inhale of the thing that 'kills your lungs' as Rosier put it.

"It's literally the common room, Bridget," Rosier laughed, and the temporary noise from their conversation died down.

Scarlet chewed on her bottom lips, her chin down as she stared at her lap, the hand that held the cigarette slightly shaking. "Do you ever feel like you're being haunted?"

Evan knew that was a rhetorical question, and noticing the despondent look on her face, he kept quiet, eyes relaxing for a mere second.

"Like everything goes dark for a second and you have to scream yourself awake..." she gulped, explaining the situation and having to experience it all over again. "For a moment, nothing exists... and you're in an eternal void and you're going crazy—"

The boy suddenly took the cigarette out of her hand and put it out, and turned to look at her fully. "Everybody has something on their mind that makes them feel like they're going crazy," he stated confidently. "Not everyone shares it, but it's always there, Bridget."

Scarlet looked at him fully, in the eye and then glanced down to his fingers, he too was fiddling with his rings. She found herself softly whispering, "Thank you."

"For what?" He chuckled, taking a sip of his hot drink.

"For making me feel better," said the blonde and Rosier gave her a tight-lipped smile.