ATLAS -James Potter-

• Chapter XL

Passing tree after tree, the girl could only scream at his back as their path lead through a meadow Victoria had never entered, and surely would never enter again when the grass was too high to run and the trees were too dark to see.

"Sirius fucking Black, stop now! We both know I'm way faster than you!" And to the surprise of the girl, he stopped. With grass, so high that it brushed against that her elbows, Victoria was left to stare at his back, because then, when he was somewhat willing to listen, she didn't know why she was even there. Because she thought they became somewhat friends and was now sad that he acted like she was the worst person ever? Or because she felt like she had to talk to him for Regulus?

"How can I help you,-" he turned around and when he sent her that knife like glare, again, Victoria missed that mischief she cursed so often. "-Atkinson." She knew that he knew that it stung when he spit out so dark as if that was everything she was. An Atkinson.

"I-I just...I just want to-" Talk? To stop those poisonous glares in the hallway and the nasty comments he would mutter under his breath?

"Mock me? Talk to me? Teach me? Preach to me? ," he laughed darkly as he stepped one step closer to the girl who needed a little longer to process those words.

"Mo-Teac- Preach?" Why would she-

"Yes of course! ," Sirius barked out, and something about the confusion and calmness in her voice made something in him boil. "Isn't that what Aktinsons do? Preach to others about their beliefs and views of the world?" Sirius saw that hurt in her eyes, but when anger clouded your vision, you get obvious to hurt. "I mean isn't that what you want to do? To preach to me about forgiving everyone and everything around me? Now you are here to tell me to talk to my brother?" He stepped closer to her, close enough to continue screaming into her face. "This is going to be new for you, but you are wrong! Not every fucking problem can be solved by talking through it with that sweet, sibling love you and Cayden have to force on anyone around you, just because you guys did this shit! Not everyone has the same fucking opportunities laid perfectly in front of them!"

She wasn't understanding anything that he was saying. It wasn't like he understood his own words, but who was he to think rational at the moment. She understood the emotion behind it, but the words... Even it was quickly greeted with the boy deciding to distant himself again from her, she had tried to just lay a hand on his shoulder. "Sirius, it isn't impossible to talk to Regu-"

"You don't get to fucking tell me what is possible and what not! ," he had whirled around again, his face morphed into a grimace of anger. "You don't get to tell me what was so wrong in your life that proves things to be possible in my life. You don't know shit!" She had lost sense of distance when she had run after him only moments ago, but no matter how far their feet could have carried them, there was no way that no one at the castle would hear that.

"Sirius, I didn't-"

"No, you fucking did. You did it when you found out with Remus and you're doing it now. ," his voice was barely angry when it was breaking that often, and even when the night was dark, she saw the redness of his eyes. "You are placing your pain as the universal solution for anything. If you went through it, everyone else needs to go through it and dare they should hurt any more than you! News check, not everyone gets to have the same life like you!" The raspiness of his voice was more permanent with every passing letter, the screaming slowly and tortuously distinguishing into the night. "We don't get to have the luck the same fam-" He stopped and she could feel that change.

And then pain truly hit her. When his voice turned from the storm to the rain, when the tears finally released from his eyes and he just fell back to that small boy, just in pain and searching for his place in a world that just seemed to want him out. Never would she have thought that she wished for Sirius Black to scream at her.