Emma Potter

96: SPEW

For I had just hit myself in the forehead with my fist. 

"we shouldn't've told him!" I said furiously. 

"What are you on about?" said Harry in surprise. 

"It's made him think he's got to come back!" I said, nowslamming my fist on the wall. "Coming back, because hethinks we're in trouble! And there's nothing wrong with us!" 

"Emma--"

"See you later" I said shortly. 

---

Early  next morning, I woke with a plan fully formed in mymind, as though my sleeping brain had been working on it allnight. I got up, dressed in the pale dawn light, left the dormitorywithout waking Zoe, and went back down to the deserted commonroom. 

Here I took a piece of parchment from the table upon which I wrote the following letter: 

Dear Sirius, 

we reckon we just imagined our scar hurting,we were half asleepwhen we wrote to you last time. There's no point coming back,everything's fine here. Don't worry about us,our head feelscompletely normal. 

Emma

I then climbed out of the common room, up through the silentcastle (held up only briefly by Peeves, who tried to overturn a large vase on me halfway along the fourth-floor corridor), finally arriving at the Owlery, which was situated at the top of West Tower.The Owlery was a circular stone room, rather cold and drafty,because none of the windows had glass in them. The floor wasentirely covered in straw, owl droppings, and the regurgitatedskeletons of mice and voles. Hundreds upon hundreds of owls ofevery breed imaginable were nestled here on perches that rose rightup to the top of the tower, nearly all of them asleep, though hereand there a round amber eye glared at me. I spotted Hedwignestled between a barn owl and a tawny, and hurried over to her,sliding a little on the dropping-strewn floor. 

It took me a while to persuade her to wake up and then to lookat me, as she kept shuffling around on her perch, showing me hertail. She was evidently still furious about my lack of gratitude theprevious day. In the end, it was me suggesting she might be tootired, and that perhaps I would ask Ron to borrow Pigwidgeon,that made her stick out her leg and allow me to tie the letter to it. 

"Just find him, all right?" I said, stroking her back as I carried her on my arm to one of the holes in the wall. "Before the dementors do." 

She nipped my finger, perhaps rather harder than she would ordinarily have done, but hooted softly in a reassuring sort of way allthe same. Then she spread her wings and took off into the sunrise. I watched her fly out of sight with the familiar feeling of unease back in my stomach. I had been so sure that Sirius's replywould alleviate my worries rather than increasing them. 

"That was a lie, Emma," said Hermione sharply over breakfast,when I told Harry, her and Ron what I had done. "You didn't imagineyour scar hurting and you know it."

"So what?" said Harry. "He's not going back to Azkaban becauseof us." 

"Drop it," said Ron sharply to Hermione as she opened hermouth to argue some more, and for once, Hermione heeded him,and fell silent. 

I did my best not to worry about Sirius over the next couple of weeks. True, I could not stop myself from looking anxiously around every morning when the post owls arrived, nor, lateat night before I went to sleep, prevent myself from seeing horrible visions of Sirius, cornered by dementors down some dark London street, but between times I tried to keep my mind off ourgodfather. 

. On the other hand, our lessons were becoming moredifficult and demanding than ever before, particularly Moody'sDefense Against the Dark Arts.To our surprise, Professor Moody had announced that hewould be putting the Imperius Curse on each of us in turn, todemonstrate its power and to see whether we could resist its effects.