Sarah Potter and the Mauraders

Part 28

Sarah stormed up the stairs to her room and pushed the door open. Immediately, all eyes were on her. "Everything ok?", Lily asked cautiously, "we heard loud voices." "Well, then you propably heard everything what he said", Sarah said bitterly and went straight to her bed not wanting to think about that further. The guilty and pitiful glances of the other three girls were answer enough. "Well, in my opinion Sirius was an idiot to say something like that. If I were you, I'd slap him and tell him to mind his own business", Marlene said loudly. Sarah smiled at her peace offering and nodded at her thanksfully. "I'm going to bed", Sarah then said and after a chorus of goodbyes she closed the curtains of her bed. After two minutes a picking sound of a owl was to be heard. Sarah ignored it but Lily gasped and said: "It looks like James' owl!" "So it's James now?", Marlene teased her and Lily blushed furiously and mumbled: "Shut up!" Alice laughed and went up to retrieve the letter. "Ehm Sarah?", she asked softly not knowing if she was already asleep or not. Sarah opened the curtains and said: "Yes?" "It's a letter from Potter." Lily's face fell at that but Sarah couldn't care at that moment. All she wanted to do was to go back to her bed and think how quickly the night changed into such a disaster! In her opinion Sirius behaved more and more like Malfoy (Draco Malfoy). She slowly grew to understand how Snape could hate Sirius so much. If she didn't know Sirius in her time, she would also hate him when he said such hurtful things to her! Sarah thanked Alice and picked up the letter. She closed the curtains again, placed the silencing charm on it, not wanting to disturb the other girls at night as she was beginning to have nightmares about the torture at Malfoy Manor. She then opened the letter and saw James' messy handwriting:
Hey Sarah,
As I cannot go to the girl's dorms, I decided to write a letter to you. How are you? I'm really sorry about what Sirius said. I don't know why he said such things! Don't take his words to your heart! You're the nicest person I've met!
How about we meet again at the fireplace at midnight? I'm not really good at writing letters. I didn't imagine we would part that way and I'd like to say goodbye properly. That is if you want to. But if you're tired and want to sleep, just tell me!
Greetings,
James
Sarah smiled at James' ramblings and tears threatened to leave her eyes when she thought how nice it would have been if her parents would have been alive in her lifetime.
She simply wrote yes and gave it to James' owl who was waiting for her patiently. "What did he want?", Marlene inquired. "He asked me whether I'm fine", Sarah answered shortly not in the mood to discuss it further. She went back to bed hoping that the other girls would do the same. And after a while, they did so. Sarah waited until it was midnight and slipped out of her bed quietly and went down the stairs.
James was already there. He paced up and down restlessly and when he saw her, he went to her and inquired: "Are you ok? I really don't know how Sirius could say such things! We all don't agree with him. He is..." "I'm fine, James", Sarah interrupted him softly. "That's bullshit", James flew off the handle. Sarah raised her eyebrows amused at his choice of words. But then her face fell and she whispered so softly that James almost couldn't hear her: "But he is right. I don't have any parents left..." ("not that I had any before", she thought bitterly). "But don't worry James, I'll be fine in time", Sarah said smiling bravely. James looked like he wanted to protest but he was silenced with a look at her face. They now sat comfortably in front of the fireplace.
"Did you actually found what you were looking for?", Sarah asked desperately wanting to change the topic. "Hmm?", James was stunned by the sudden change of the topic. "Well, you lot said that you couldn't find an old parchment, did you found it?" "Oh that you mean! Yes, we've found it! It was under my ... in my trunk!", James said remembering that Sarah didn't know about the invisiblity cloak. The Mauraders only found the map by chance. As they wanted to use the cloak to go to the kitchens, they saw the map laying beneath it. Sarah knew of course what he was speaking about and was inwardly glad that they've finally found it.
"Well, I guess, I'll see you on Sunday evening then?", Sarah asked James, "enjoy your time with your parents." "Yeah, I will. I'll leave tomorrow morning at seven. I thought you all would be still asleep so I would say my goodbyes now", James said slightly embarrassed and angry at himself as he didn't know what else he could say. He wanted to comfort her but he didn't know what to say. "Don't take Sirius' words to heart", he added. "I won't", Sarah said and tried to smile. She stood up and said: "Good night", gave him a kiss on the cheek and went back to her dorm.
After Sarah left, James sat a while in front of the fireplace thinking how such a fine evening could end like this. Then, he sighed and went to bed.
Sarah on the other side replayed Sirius' words in her head again and again: "Look, how high and mighty you speak. How would you understand what I am feeling? After all, you don't have any parents."
Sarah then broke out in tears. All her emotions, stress about time travel and experiences in the last few days have been bottling up and now she couldn't hold it anymore. She cried, cried for Sirius' cruel words, cried for her lost friends and family and she cried for her torture experiences at Malfoy Manor. And mostly, she cried for her loneliness as she was actually literally surrounded by her family and friends, noone of them would ever know that they were her family.
In that night she never felt so lonely.