101 Ways to ditch the Date | SIRIUS BLACK

No. 72

Usually, Ora was alright at shaking things off and continuing like nothing had happened but Marlene's words stuck with her. That night she found herself rereading Marlene's passage over and over again, all the while pondering what the girl had said. When Ora awoke the next morning after her disturbed sleep, she had dark circles underneath her eyes and Emmeline immediately picked up on this.

"Ora, why didn't you sleep last night? Were you doing an all-nighter againt?" She rushed over to Ora, her hands rushing to her shoulders before she hastily removed them, as if second-guessing herself.

"What? No, nothing like that," She replied with a yawn, "I was just ... thinking. Me and Marlene had a really interesting conversation last night."

Instantly Emmeline's eyes widened twofold, her hands leaping to her mouth, "W-what did she tell you?"

"Em, I know everything ... almost everything."

Immediately Emmeline sunk down onto her bed, earning herself curious glances from their other three dorm mates. Just like Emmeline had done when Ora had been upset, Ora quickly got rid of the unwanted attention, taking a seat next to her friend.

"I-I can't believe she told you, how could she do that?" Em was murmuring to herself as Ora put an arm around her friend.

"Don't blame her too much, I antagonised her. You just seemed so off with me and I had to figure out why," Ora replied, "Look, I don't mind if you like ... girls. I'm sorry if you felt you couldn't tell me, Em, but I'll try and be as understanding as possible."

As she spoke, Em seemed to relax, a sudden gleam of curiosity filling her eyes instead, "That's all she told you?"

Ora's brow furrowed, "She did say there were things left unsaid but that you'd tell me. I don't want to pressure you though at all, Em, it must be hard to vocalise."

"Yeah ..." Emmeline laughed weakly.

"So just know that I'll always be there for you and you can tell me anything," She said firmly, "Anything at all, okay?"

Emmeline didn't say anything but returned this with a hug. For a few moments, that was all Ora could focus on but then her eyes opened suddenly as she remembered Sirius. Whilst she and Emmeline were happy, her opinions on her boyfriend were now suddenly somewhat mixed. 

After the holidays, when she'd confessed practically her entire life story to him, she'd felt like there'd been a change, more openness between them ... or so she'd thought. It wasn't like she wanted him to confess every secret to her, some things were incredibly personal but she would have at least like to have been informed on things that included her. As much as she was grateful to Marlene for finally telling her the truth, she wished he'd told her himself and trusted her enough to let her in on it rather than keep her in the dark like that.

It wasn't just that though, she wasn't sure why, perhaps it was because she'd grown to like the girl or maybe she was just annoyed at Sirius anyway but Marlene's words had made her think. Looking back, Sirius was happy to explain why he'd left so many people but his issues didn't excuse it. Whilst he was loyal to her, he'd never apologised or showed much remorse unless a ditch was 'worse' than another one and she'd enabled it. Maybe she was selfish. Not like her Mother but selfish nonetheless.

Part of her wanted to vent about it to someone, maybe Lily or Dexter but that wouldn't do anyone any good. If she was annoyed, she owed it to Sirius to talk to him directly and that's exactly what she planned to do.

•••

When Dexter had invited Sirius to help him on the project of Ora's birthday party, he'd imagined a chill affair by the lake, just a few friends with a few Firewhiskies. Perhaps it would even be fun, it would be nice to get to know Ora's closest male friend a bit more.