ink - sirius black

bitterness and two angry americans

"I'm totally blanking on what the hell ground pearl is used for," Anneliese said to Remus, flipping open her notebook with a frown. "And the exam is in two damn hours, for fuck's sake, I'm such a mess-"

"It's just one fact," Lupin reassured her calmly. "And don't worry about the mess thing, none of us are in a right state right now to take this exam after.. well, after this week."

As if he could hear Remus, Sirius let out an enormous yawn so loud they noticed from halfway down the table and rubbed his bleary grey eyes in exhaustion before returning to whatever conversation he was already having.

Anneliese couldn't help but smile softly at his theatrics, but then reminded herself that right now, she was angry at him and was completely disgusted by the sight of him. He needed to come to her first, and even then, Callaway wasn't sure if she would accept his approach.

Black at least needed to do that much for her.

But then again, she missed him already.

Anneliese missed his stupid smirk and his completely out of line comments whispered in her ear and his oddly deep statements about both of their emotions that came out right when she thought that he was the stupidest boy she had ever met.

Don't be so fucking weak, Anneliese thought, disgusted with herself. He doesn't deserve to talk to you right now, hell, even Remus doesn't, but he's just the most sane of all these British whores.

"You should talk to him," Remus said softly, seeing Callaway's expression and instantly reading it. "Sirius, I mean. You can still be mad at him, but you of all people should know that being silently mad won't do anything."

Okay, maybe not so sane.

"Yea, and you of all people should know damn well that keepin things you know silent doesn't do anything either," Anneliese snapped, and Remus cringed. "So don't be such a hypocrite and talk to me about not saying something when I should when you kept your mouth shut for weeks too long."

Lupin didn't defend himself, knowing that she was right. Just because Anneliese was talking to him didn't mean that she wasn't mad at Remus, it just meant that she was less mad at him than everyone else.

Anneliese had chosen Lupin to talk to out of everyone else in her year plainly because he was the simplest to be friends with, and easiest to tolerate when she knew that she couldn't stand to be alone.

"And no, I am not talking to him," Callaway said. "I am angry, and he is talking to me first. He is going to be the one to get some nerve that all the sudden seems to have vanished conveniently now that it's not calling me a bicth he has to do and it's actually something hard."

Remus just took a small sip of his black tea before looking down at his notes made up of various shades of neatly color coded ink and precisely drawn diagrams before answering her question after a few seconds of weighted silence.

"Ground pearl is used for amortentia," Remus said quietly. "It's the element that makes it smell after the rose petals give it its color."

Anneliese didn't know why this simple fact felt so heavy or why it hurt so much to hear instead of Remus saying something about the way she had just talked about Sirius, but she felt it strongly nonetheless.

Thankfully, the colorful swarm of owls of all shapes, species, and sizes coming in to deliver the daily mail came just in time to spare her thoughts from becoming too depressing at eight in the morning.

Instead of just one owl coming to Callaway like normal, though, two letters were dropped off in front of her. One of them said A in Leo's handwriting, as always, but the other was in penmanship that she didn't recognize.