Enemies - Fred Weasley X OC

Love (and what it means to lose it)

~Zephyra~

It was hard to say how long we'd been trapped. Time meshed together and the glowing ball that was our only light source didn't dim or brighten at all - meaning we couldn't count the days.

At first, I was worried we'd starve. After a while I realised we couldn't. We didn't get hungry even though it must've been ages since we'd eaten and nothing passed through us at all. 'Stasis' Sirius called it, saying there were similar mechanisms at Azkaban which stopped anyone requiring food.

It didn't stop us losing weight though. That was the only marker for how long we'd been there - my trousers hanging loose and Sirius' face slowly hollowing. 

The man in the corner never did much other than whisper menacingly. Sometimes I felt like his eyes were on me but by the time I turned to look he'd be staring blankly back at the floor. I did have my suspicions, however, that it was his magic that formed the light ball - I never saw him sleep and he did have a wand in his hand that looked to be pointing at it.

Magic worked in the cell. I had Dolohov's wand still and Sirius had his own. It was one of the many ways we'd found to distract ourselves. We'd dual and practice spells - we did try casting on the walls to see if we could blast out but they didn't even crack.

We sat and talked, we played games, sometimes we cried. What else was there to do?

"If you want to see me do a cool thing, you have to say a thing," Sirius said stiltedly. 

"What would I say?" I replied. 

"A long word," he said. 

"I would lose the game." 

"I know."

"I can't have that, can I."

He narrowed his eyes at me and I aimed a kick at his shin. 

"Fucking hell, Zephy!" He said, exasperated, rubbing his leg. 

"Ha!" I yelled, "I won!"

"No, that didn't count! You kicked me!"

"No words with more than one syllable, that was the game. You said 'fucking', which is two."

He rolled his eyes. "This is why I don't play games with Slytherins, you play dirty," he said with a smile. 

"Winning's winning." 

I slumped down on the floor. It was getting harder to stand for long periods of time - I think we were losing our muscle.

"Tell me a story," I said, eyes closed, my head tipped back against the stone. I imagined sunlight on my face, a breeze making me shiver and the rustle of leaves - but all I could feel was the thin layer of dirt on my skin.

Sirius sat down next to me, wincing at the unforgiving stone. You'd think he'd be used to sitting on hard floors but he wasn't. He hated sleeping in his human form; 'it's comfier as an animagus,' he said. So, we both did - me with the better deal, since a massive fluffy dog was large enough a bed for a falcon.

"I feel like we've run out," he shrugged, "I've told you about every prank I can remember pulling, every mission I went on in the first Wizarding war, the parties I went to... there's nothing left."

"What about love? You always avoid that," I asked, resting my head on his shoulder. 

Sirius heaved a deep sigh. "I don't know. I never talk much about that sort of thing other than jokes. I don't really know why, actually."

"I can't imagine your parents were happy about you being gay," I thought aloud. 

He chuckled, "no, they weren't. I told them the night I ran away to James'."