Paisley Higgs | (Sirius Black)

Prologue

I grumbled the usual amount and pushed him away, sparing a small scowl up at him—which is far more difficult than it sounds because he's so much taller than me. I really had to crane my neck to do it properly.

But he just ran a hand through his floppy dirty-blonde hair, flashing his signature snaggletoothed crooked grin.

I'm pretty sure I could kick that boy in the shins and he'd still be grinning.

One time, during our second year, Matt got bitten by a baby mandrake during Herbology, and you know what he did? He laughed so hard it made the baby mandrake giggle.

"So what was up with you and Picquery?" he asked, more subdued.

I explained what happened as well as I could as we took a short cut we'd found our third year (one of my favorites because there was nothing but paintings of dolphins hanging on the walls and there were hardly ever people around).

When I was finished, he smiled sadly, because even when Matt's worried he smiles. "Pais, I wish you'd talk to a doctor—"

"You mean healer."

He waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah—Same thing—point is, I think it'd help."

I sighed. This was the same old conversation.

"There's no point, Matty. They'll just say I'm lazy or undisciplined or— or crazy or whatever..." I muttered. Part of me was afraid they were right.

It had always been like this. Lazy Paisley never finishing her tests. Crazy Paisley getting mad at people like poor Rodger for weird things. Spacey Paisley, incapable of following the simplest of lectures and conversations...

Needless to say, everyone at school thought I was weird and honestly I couldn't blame them. Thankfully, Matty found my weirdness endearing.

As we turned the corner and walked up to a tiny staircase that led to an opening hidden by a musty old tapestry, I could tell he was gearing up a rebuttal. But before he had a chance to speak I pulled the tapestry back and gestured gallantly for him to walk through to the bustling hall of other students.

Matt, distracted for the time being, grinned wide and stepped through like a king walking out to greet his fair subjects which made me laugh. No one noticed us. No one ever did. But it was fun all the same.

"So... what do you say to some ice cream and comic books tonight?" he asked, nudging my arm with his boney elbow. It sort of hurt, but I still smiled, grateful that he had dropped our previous subject.

"Only if it's Superman," I qualified.

He acted all offended, but he was, again, grinning so it wasn't very convincing. "But the flash—"

"Superman"

"But—"

"Superman."

He sighed, running a hand through his floppy hair again. "You drive a hard bargain, Higgs..."

"That's because I don't bargain... "

He rolled his eyes and laughed in defeat. "Fine. Fine, you win. Superman it is."

I smiled up at him, elbowing his side. "We can read the Flash tomorrow."

This made him considerably happier.

That evening, and every subsequent evening until our last day of school, was spent in much the same way: Matt and I would sneak into the kitchens, steal some ice cream (which was passable, but not nearly as good as the stuff back home), sneak back up to the Pukwudgie dormitories, then take turns theatrically reading stories from Matt's library worthy collection of Comic books until we were fat, slap happy, and annoying all of his roommates.

That's when I'd finally leave.

That's when I'd go moping up to the girls' dorm, to my tiny little twin bed, crammed up too closely to about a dozen other girls' tiny twin beds, close the cranberry bed hangings, and cry myself to sleep because I knew it would never be like this ever again.

Because, what Matt didn't know, what I didn't have the heart to tell him, my best and only friend, was that a week after I got home, before our final exam scores would even come in the mail, my family would be moving 4,000ish miles from America to England.