COLORS ϟ SIRIUS BLACK [1]

XVII. SILVER BULLETS

COLORS ϟ SIRIUS BLACK

XVII. SILVER BULLETS

THREE WEEKS LATER, CLARA felt the whispers of being okay again. Sometimes when James and Sirius were joking around she felt herself smiling despite herself. When Fleamont Potter would give her a bear hug after she returned from some excursion with the boys, Clara felt her heart healing. Euphemia's kind smile lifted Clara up as she assisted her around the house, needing a break from the shenanigans of Sirius and James.

James' laugh was like a healing potion. He was home to her when every other sense of the word brought a sharp pain to her chest. Even though he would be bull-headed, when it came to Clara he knew exactly when he needed to step back and when he needed to coax her into speaking. It was him who she confided in when her world felt like it was imploding and exploding all at once.

By the end of July, it didn't take a lot of effort for Clara to smile. She wasn't back to 'normal' because she would always be different now. But she had come to realize that it wasn't a bad thing.

"Change is good!" Sirius was ranting to James one say on the sunny hillside a couple of miles away from the Potter house, "Half of the amazing things we are able to do now are because of change. We can't be stagnant, we have to- we need to evolve!"

James was laughing at him, "Right on!"

"Hey, don't laugh at me you twat!" Sirius tackled the Potter and they wrestled in good nature as Clara watched them, trying to hide her smile behind her copy of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan.

This was one of the many sun-filled days they had the pleasure of enjoying during their summer break. James' parents would be gone doing some sort of errand and the remaining trio of kids would floo to James' smaller summer cottage and spend days on end there. Full of sugar and laughter and everything that was healing for Clara Green.

Everything was perfect, except for one glaring uncertainty— Sirius Black.

Sure, he held her hand and while they watched muggle movies ( that either Clara or James would charm to play on the wall ) they would snuggle and spoon but once the lights turned on, they would return to acting as if nothing had changed and they were just friends. Of course, this small detail in her life wasn't that big of a deal, but it just added to the long list of things Clara Green was unsure of. And as the days went on, her patience at his lack of commitment wore thinner and thinner.

But just like everything else, Clara was a good actress. She kept her smiles relaxed and kept her jabs at Sirius dull and tried to not let her true insecurities deep into them.

But, if she was being honest, she would rather overthink this than spend her time imagining where her parents were and what had happened to them. And why they hadn't come for her.