scars || sirius black

10 - goodbye to the windows

On Monday afternoon, the Astrals sat in Defence Against the Dark Arts waiting for the moment their prank would be set off.

Their professor was mind-numbingly boring, but Emmy had been assured by everyone she'd complained to that they'd only need to wait until next year before he'd quit. The job was cursed after all.

However, this prank didn't include him, just his classroom's windows, or more specifically the lack of them.

At a height of 192m, the DADA room was significantly colder than the rest of the tower and the wind that hurtled around the turret was ferocious at the best of times. So when the glass protecting the students from the gale force winds and snowfall suddenly disappeared halfway through the lesson, the room broke out into chaos.

Parchment flew around the room and paintings crashed off the walls as everyone frantically hurtled out of the room and slammed the door shut behind them.

Pressed against each other in the stairwell, the girls were desperately trying to stifle their giggles but it became too hard to hide when their professor awkwardly cleared his throat and said with a shaky voice, "Well, we shall just have to conclude our lesson elsewhere today."

Their pranks were getting better every week and, despite the Marauders' eye rolling, they knew the rest of the students were loving it.

Tuesday morning was overcast and just as cold as the day before. Emmy woke up too early, and it set her on edge for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, Lily noticed something was wrong about two minutes into Herbology and caught up to her afterwards as they headed to lunch.

"Emmy, hey! You alright?" she called. "Is something wrong?"

Surprised she'd let her emotions shows and that someone had noticed, she panicked and spoke hurriedly, "Nothing! Nothing at all, I'm fine!"

She felt Sirius' eyes on her and did all she could to block him out. Just her luck, she thought, he's definitely going to make a fuss later.

"Ok," Lily replied slowly. "I know something's making you nervous, and I know you don't want to tell me what it is so I won't push it."

Emmy felt like crying with relief.

"But I just want you to know that there's nothing you could ever tell me that I won't try to help you sort out. I'm your friend. I just want to know you're ok."

"Thanks, Lily," she smiled softly.

At dinner that evening, Emmy told the girls that she and Remus were going to see a family friend to pick up the last of their father's belongings.

"But have you seen the storm outside, is it even safe to apparate?" questioned Alice with concern.

"Yeah, don't worry. McGonagall's going to take us in two journeys," she replied cheerfully.

"It's such late notice though," added Dory, "How long are you staying for?"

"Hopefully just tonight, I've only packed a small bag."

Indeed she had, it's just that she'd hidden the holdall containing the sufficient missing clothes and toiletries inside a suits of armour in the Astronomy tower where no one ever walked unless they had to.

As everyone headed back to the dormitories after dinner, Emmy hugged her friends goodbye and held them tight.

Lily's worried eyes followed her to the Marauders waiting in the doorway but rolled them as James winked. She was getting worse at hiding her smiles for him by the day.

He used to annoy her so much with his constant messing around and bullying Severus. It wasn't until the day when her old friend decided he was too good for her and called her a mudblood in front of half the school that she realised how much James truly cared for her.