⚯͛ Sweet Caroline - Sirius Black ⚯͛

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･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. .**.☽ .*

Caroline Asteria Rutherford liked to believe that she was always in control. She was on top of the situation, knew exactly what to do and knew exactly what to predict. This wasn't true, of course, how could it be? Life was inherently random, unpredictable, uncontrollable...she just had to come to terms with that.

Perhaps that was the reason she loved astronomy so much. The study of stars, the ability to grasp ideas of the future, fate, of knowing what to expect, of control. The stars were beautiful, yes, but being able to use them to interpret fate and the future was an extremely helpful idea.

And that was why, on the last evening of fifth year before they would leave on the Hogwarts Express the day after, Caroline was sitting in the astronomy tower. Looking at the sky was one of the only things that calmed her, Merlin knew she needed some calm after the end of term, the most stressful time for her.

The end of term always brought excessive exams, extra pressure, and - of course - the House Cup. This year above others was extremely stressful for Caroline, because they had OWLs. In his OWLs, her Dad got 9 Outstandings, her brother got 8 and she was expected to do equally as well (if not, better).

Carrie was an anxious being, but liked to believe she wasn't. She was just clever, and always thought it would be wasteful of her to not study as hard as she could to always achieve the best, putting extra pressure on herself, making her more anxious. Because without good grades, would her parents really even care about her at all? It was an odd concept, the love of her parents having a dependency on her ability to academically perform, but it wasn't a concept she had disregarded.

She stared at the stars thoughtfully, wishing they would give her all the answers she needed. But stars didn't do that.

"I knew you'd be up here."

She didn't turn her head away from the stars, knowing it was Eloise, her best friend.

Eloise Greengrass was a kind girl, beautiful, intelligent, and the only person who knew Caroline well enough to know that the astronomy tower was her favourite place to go late at night.

Eloise was more extroverted than Caroline, louder, more confident and social. She was a loud scouser who, growing up in a large household in Liverpool, always had something to say. That suited Carrie well, because she personally despised confrontation and never warmed to the idea of talking more than you needed to. What was the point?

"You should come back to the dorms, Caroline. It's really late."

Caroline still said nothing, but stood up, rubbing her eyes sleepily. Finally she muttered a: "Let's go, then."

Eloise lead her down the steps and they walked back to the Ravenclaw common room. They had to go up a narrow set of spiral stairs to the get to the door which had no lock, nor handle, but only a door knocker in the shape of an eagle. To enter the common room, they always had to answer a riddle asked by the knocker.

Caroline took pride in never having got a riddle wrong in her five years at Hogwarts.

The door knocker yawned, before asking, "What 4-letter word that, if in all capitals, can be written forward, backward or upside down, and can still be read from left to right?"

"Easy one, NOON," Caroline said tiredly.

"Easy one?" The knocker seemed offended, scowling at her as the door opened.

"If it makes you feel any better, I found it really hard," Eloise whispered to the knocker, before following Caroline inside the common room.

The Ravenclaw Common Room was beautiful, but quite creepy late at night when it was empty. Both the girls were used to the hubbub of laughter and talking as people studied together, or played games like chess or exploding snap.