⚯͛ Sweet Caroline - Sirius Black ⚯͛

-27-

Sirius rolled his eyes and shoved him away.

Later on Sirius and Caroline sat silently beside each other in astronomy, looking out at the midnight sky. Sirius kept glancing at her, debating whether he should talk to her about how upset she had seemed all day. He saw her in Herbology, talking to Professor Sprout after the class, and then leaving with tears in her eyes. What was going on with her?

He cleared his throat, but failed to get her attention as she was focused studying her star chart.

He waited another moment before whispering, "Caroline."

She looked up at him then, "yes?"

He was taken aback for a moment, as he often was when she looked at him, before composing himself and starting to talk, "um well, I saw you a couple times today and...well you looked...um, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, smiling in a 'fine' way for good measure.

He sighed, shaking his head, "no you're not," he said gently.

"I am, I'm fine."

"You looked upset today..."

"Did I?" She asked, rubbing her eyes tiredly.

"You did...just, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, Sirius."

"What is it? Is it to do with exam results?"

Her eyes, to her own frustration, began to fill with tears. Fuck her emotions. This was pathetic, it was just one test but failing it had made her feel so awful about herself.

She shook her head, looking away from him, trying to hide the tears.

"It's okay," Sirius said softly.

"It's stupid," she whispered.

"It's not stupid."

"It is."

"It's not-" but Sirius was silenced by a stern look from their Astronomy Professor, so he turned back to his work.

"It really is silly," Caroline whispered after their professor had moved away, "I got a bad mark and for some reason...my brain has just decided to go on self-destruct mode."

"Because you have high expectations of yourself," he said.

She glanced at him fleetingly before looking back at her parchment and then up at the stars, "yes."

"It's okay, Caroline-"

She shook her head, furiously wiping away her tears, "sorry, I feel really embarrassed."

"Don't. I get it. When...you work hard and think you deserve something and it still doesn't happen, it's hard not to start to blame yourself," he said, avoiding her eye now.

"Have you felt that way?"

"Not about school."

"Then about what?"

"It's nothing-"

"Come on."

He sighed, and looked at her, "my family. I always wanted to please them and I never could."

She seemed taken aback, "I'm sorry..."

"Nah it's fine, I'm better off out of there anyway. They weren't good people."

They had both turned back to their work. She grabbed her quill with her left hand and began to write again, before stopping herself. She stayed looking at her parchment as she let her right hand drop and gently slid it into Sirius' own hand. He enclosed his fingers over hers and she squeezed back comfortingly.

And they stayed that way for a while.

Sirius didn't think he had ever felt more content in his whole life than when holding her hand.