Paisley Higgs | (Sirius Black)

Prologue

She loomed over my shoulder for an annoying amount of time, but eventually waddled off. When she did, I tucked my copper hair behind my ears, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried, really tried, to focus on the exam before me. But when I reopened my eyes and read at the words printed upon my own parchment, their meaning floated away like smoke in the air before I could make sense of them.

Scritch-scratch.

I read them again.

Squeak, squeak.

And again.

Rustle, Rustle.

But it was no use.

They were just words. A string of random words shoved together into a sentence without any meaning or significance because my brain had decided it was infinitely more important to focus on the scritch-scratching, rustling, foot tapping cacophony that sounded me.

I wish I could say this was a special circumstance, but this was pretty typical.

"Thirty minutes left," round Professor Tibbs announced as she continued to waddle around the hall importantly with her hands behind her back, further distracting my already rebellious brain with the obnoxiously glittering ring on her finger.... was it new? Was she engaged? How was it that a toad like her could get a man and I couldn't?

All around me, other students were checking over their already finished exams...

I shoved away a particularly nausea-inducing train of thought that asked, 'what would I do if I didn't finish the exam?' and 'how was everyone else able to power through when I couldn't?' then I put my fingers in my ears.

The fingers in my ears tactic helped, but sadly it was too little too late.

The damage was done.

Just as I was gaining some momentum answering a question over the Troll Wars, my exam flew from my desk mid-sentence, leaving a long sad ink stripe down the empty half of the page, and joined its fellow parchments in a neat little stack at the front of the hall.

Only half finished.

Which meant that even if I got every question right, I'd still fail.

Great.

This was the one final exam I was sure I'd pass, (after all, who doesn't love History?) but now it seemed that, like the rest of my classes, it would only further solidify the fact that I was, in fact, an idiot.

Soon after, we were all released from the drafty room and I followed the flock of students out the double doors and into the big hallway, colorful from the stain glass windows that lined the walls.

I walked with the hoard of students (carefully avoiding one apprehensive Rodger Picquery) back toward the Pukwudgie dormitory, moping over another failed exam, thinking about how stupid it was that they made us take tests all squished together like that, when my brooding was interrupted, as it usually was, by a lanky arm being thrown over my shoulders.

"Paisley! Can you smell that?!" he asked with far too much enthusiasm, sniffing the air with his crooked nose. I didn't have to look up to know that Matt was grinning, you could just hear it in his voice. Also, he was always grinning.

"The stench of failure?" I replied flatly.

"It's pronounced Freeedommm!" he said importantly, squeezing my shoulders so I nearly tripped mid-step.