/𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒\ [𝒔. 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌]

𝟓.𝟙𝟘.𝟣

"Because we care about you!" James shot back. "But why do you always have to mess things up so bad?"

He immediately felt guilty, but it was too late. Artemis turned in a slow circle, her hands going to her hair, looking completely overwhelmed. "I don't mess things up!" she finally screamed back at him, and there were tears in her eyes. "Stop saying stuff like that!" Her voice cracked and she stepped towards him, shoving him back with every word. "I- don't- mess- things- up!"

"You're acting crazy!" said James.

She was. She knew she was. She felt crazy. She hadn't been able to keep her head straight for months now. She felt like she was spinning out, crashing further and further below rock bottom every day. "Stop it, James! Just stop talking about it-"

Artemis broke off in an instant as the door was pushed open again and Sirius trotted in in dog form, looking up at the two with his mouth hanging open slightly. Artemis glanced at him, and then gave James her best warning death stare. James looked like he was going to say something, but stopped himself and sat mutely on the window seat. Sirius transformed back into a human and looked back and forth between Artemis and James, confused. "What, going to cut James off now too?" he asked at last.

Artemis acted like she didn't hear him. She turned to James. "Thanks for trying to help, but I don't need it. Just leave me alone." She brushed past Sirius and stalked out of the dormitory.

James let out a defeated sigh and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. Sirius sat down next to him, suddenly worried. "What's up? What's wrong with Art?"

There was a long silent moment in which James went back and forth between whether or not he should tell Sirius the truth. He ultimately decided against it. Out of anyone, Sirius was probably the last person Art wanted to know about her secret. All the same, it killed him to keep something like that from his best friend. "Nothing, and you shouldn't transform so much around the school. You'll get us all caught."

~

Spring was Mary's favorite time of year. She loved when the flowers first broke the surface of the soil and the whole world smelled like rain. She walked with Emmeline across the grounds on evening as the sunlight bathed the grass in golden light. Emmeline could talk endlessly for hours, and Mary was happy enough listening and picking a bouquet of flowers from the vast selection that grew on the Hogwarts grounds. "So I was thinking about how Marlene and Bellatrix hooked up and honestly, that wasn't such a bad idea," Emmeline was saying, talking a mile a minute. "I mean, if I could get an insane bully to have sex with me so I could figure out my identity, I'd do it too."

"I'm sure you could figure it out without a Bellatrix in your life," Mary murmured serenely.

Emmeline let out a long sigh. "Who do you like, Mary?"

"Nobody."

"Oh, don't do that," said Emmeline. "You know I hate that. Just tell me, it's not like it really matters."

Mary shook her head. "No, really. I don't like anyone. Not in that way."

"There has to be someone," said Emmeline, sounding confused.

She looked over at Mary, who was bending down to carefully break off the stem of a particularly pretty daisy. Daisy's for love, Emmeline's mother's voice echoed in her head. Her mum loved flowers. Mary held the flower carefully between two fingers, then turned to Emmeline. "C'mere." Emmeline bent her head forward so Mary could tuck the flower behind one of her ears. She gave Emmeline a soft smile, illuminated by the quickly disappearing evening light. "I've never liked anyone in the sense that I want to date them," she said with a sense of reasonable finality. "I love my friends more than anything in the world, and I feel like I can see people's inner beauty better than most, but no, I've never had a crush on anyone."

"Huh," Emmeline said, considering Mary's words carefully. "That's fair. But... you've got to admit, Alice Fortescue's whole group of friends is insanely hot."

Mary let out a loud laugh that rang like bells chiming in the empty fields of Hogwarts. "Yeah, Em, they're really hot."

~

Sirius was fuming. He hated his parents. He hated his whole family. I'm not a disappointment, he kept telling himself as he read his latest letter from him mother. But deep down, he knew he was. Why couldn't his family just ignore him like Art's did? That's a horrible thought. That's why you're a disappointment. Can't even keep your friends around. She's going through something and you don't even know what. Can't save anyone. Can't save anyone. He crumpled the letter up and tossed it angrily into the fire before the words could affect him even more. Then, too restless to stay inside, he grabbed a jacket and jogged to the portrait hole before anyone could stop him to talk.

The air outside was humid with new spring and he headed across the grounds with no real direction in mind, his hair blowing in the soft breeze. He reached the edge of the Forbidden Forest in no time. He hesitated on the border of the trees, staring quizzically into the darkness. Night was falling and he knew it would be a bad idea to go adventuring, especially without his friends, but he couldn't think of anything else to do. He rocked back and forth on his heels, hesitating for a second. Then, Sirius turned into dog form and darted past the trees, disappearing into the shadows.

An hour later, he was back, and limping. He'd gotten into a bad run in with a bicorn, a sort of unicorn type creature with two horns and sharp teeth. With his eyesight impaired being in dog form, he'd thought it was some kind of horse and had gone up to it out of reckless curiosity. Now, he had a nasty gash near his eye and a leg that hurt to stand on. He was worried to change back into a human, not knowing how bad the injuries would look when he did.

In seconds, he was standing upright, wincing at every step. He tried to convince himself his ankle was sprained, not broken. He could go to Madam Pomfrey, convince her he'd taken a nasty fall down the stairs and get some Skele-Gro to fix him up. But he didn't feel like spending a full night in the hospital wing. He made it back to the school with gritted teeth and leaned heavily on the railing on the way up the stairs. He couldn't go back to the common room, people would see him, they'd ask questions. He would have to put on his charming, not-taking-anything-seriously act, and he didn't have the energy for it just now. A disappointment, the words rang in his head at top volume, screaming at him in his mother's voice.

There was a bathroom near the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. Sirius went there and locked the door behind him before leaning against a sink and collapsing his head into his hands. He could feel his own blood on his fingers, warm and sticky, and he turned to examine the cut on his head. It looked bad, there was not covering that up. He looked around helplessly for a second, then shrugged his jacket off and pressed it to his forehead. It wasn't his jacket, he thought immediately after he'd done it. He'd grabbed a random one from a chair in the common room. He'd pay back whoever's it was, now that the brown was stained dark by his blood. There was too much of it. His breathing started to quicken and he turned and sank onto the floor, leaning against the wall, his head back in his hands. His thoughts were going too fast, there were too many of them, he didn't know what to do with himself. His hands were shaking. He lit himself a cigarette, took one drag, then put it out on the floor.

He had to get to the hospital wing. "Pomfrey can fix it," he muttered to himself, then winced. "Shit, now you're going crazy." He grabbed the sink and hoisted himself up, his ankle bursting into a torrent of pain the second he did. "Hospital wing," he whispered, his voice choked with pain. "Gotta get to the hospital wing."