Twisted Love | James Potter

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"If you open up then it would only seem fair for me to do the same."

Winter had begun approaching as it neared the late days of November, snow had yet to fall but the temperature felt as if it dropped daily and Del couldn't have been any less enthusiastic, she hated the cold.

Nonetheless, that didn't stop her from continuing on the newly found tradition where everyday she would wake up before the rest of the castle, run to the valley nearest to the Black Lake and sit on the blanket since the grass held small ice particles from the early mist, and she watched the sunrise to help clear her mind in hopes to find any sort of relaxation in her, lately she even went back to her old routine of doing yoga beneath the large apple blossom tree or taking morning runs along the perimeter.

It was now the freezing morning of November 17, only two weeks had passed since the first Hogwarts matched yet by how much had happened it felt like two years.

Keeping up with schedule, Del walked down to the valley as she laid out her soft black blanket before she sat down and set out a few books to help distract her mind as she had been doing for the past two weeks.

Yet for some reason she couldn't find it in herself to pick up one of the books, not even the constellation ones that always seemed to bring herself peace, she didn't have the motivation to get up for a run or get up to do yoga, not even the motivation to get out of the trapped reality she was slowly sinking into.

The more she avoided her problems the higher they began to build up until it all felt like too much.

And right now was a perfect description of everything becoming far too much for her to handle.

Tears didn't spring to her eyes and sobs didn't escape past her lips, instead she just sat and stared ahead numbly, that's what it looked like on the outside anyways.

On the inside she was far too emotional to even compare it to being numb, her mind felt like it was going at one hundred miles per hour as she let out huffs of air with annoyance and exhaustion, her breath clearly visible yet even under the thin clothes she was in she couldn't even focus on the brisk temperature.

All her thoughts began to attack her at once, her fear towards Leo, her attraction towards James, her longing towards her Slytherin family, her stress of building missing school work and dropping performance letters, her anger towards herself, her shame towards all the secrecy she was creating, and her guilt for all she was causing.

"What is wrong with me?" She groaned out as she anxiously ran her hands through her blonde hair, a tactic she began to adapt from James, she felt like she was losing her mind.

"I can list two as of right now, you willingly woke up early and you decided to go out into the blistering cold." A sarcastic voice came from behind her and Del let out a sigh of relief, she forgot how quickly Sirius Black was able to bring peace to her.

"I'm losing my mind." Del humorlessly laughed out while shaking her head, for the first time she turned her gaze away from the sunrise and to the right of her where the boy had decided to sit and join her, not forgetting to be overly dramatic as he furiously rubbed his hands together to keep them warm.

"Probably because the temperature is getting to your head, you're going to get sick." Sirius jokingly snarked, bringing Del out of her personal anxiety bubble, he was trying to distract her, he had been standing outside for a while after he woke up from a nightmare and saw her name outside from the map, he knew she was only leading herself into a panic attack and he wanted to intervene before things only progressed for the worst.