Chapter seventy-eight; Mystery box
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Floorboards creaked under Sirius' feet as he walked the length of the room back and forth, hands wringing in front of him and occasionally going through his hair to mess his curls up even more than they already were.
''Okay mate, calm down. You're making me nervous just by looking at you pace around,'' said James and tried to grab Sirius' shoulder to make him stop.
Sirius pushed him away slightly and continued his steps around the room. James sighed and dropped down on the couch, where Remus was sitting, his head resting back on the pillows with closed eyes. His body was bandaged up and he was barely keeping awake even though it was well in the afternoon after the full moon. Everything hurt on his body and more than anything in the world he wished to see Jasmine. Her voice and her calm demeanour were what kept him sane right before and after the full moon. His friends were helping as much as they could and anything was better than being alone in the cottage his family owned deep in the woods. This one was used by him during full moons and there wasn't much interior other than the couch and a few broken pieces of other furniture.
''You came here yesterday just before nightfall freaking out. Did something happen?'' Peter asked from his spot on the floor at the foot of the couch.
Sirius stopped abruptly with his back to his friends and all they could see is the rapid rise and fall of his shoulders due to his heavy breathing. He hadn't spoken a word since the previous night when everyone asked him if he was okay because of his frantic state but he only dismissed them before transforming into a dog preparing for the full moon.
James and Peter continued to state what Sirius did as if they wanted to remind him, not sure if he forgot. They were about to do anything for him to speak up. ''You have yet to tell us what happened when you took Jasmine home.'' James tried again.
At the mention of Jasmine, Remus picked his head up and blinked slowly to stay awake while the talk was about his girlfriend. ''Jasmine,'' he whispered. ''Did something happened with Jasmine?'' He addressed Sirius.
Sirius slowly turned around, hands still wringing in front of him as he met the eye line of Remus. He didn't have to say anything, that one look was enough to tell that something was very wrong. Remus took a deep breath and straightened up as if he wanted to move off the couch and go somewhere but James was there to stop him.
''Whoa, whoa, stay there buddy.'' James grabbed his arm and kept him in place.
Sirius joined and placed himself in front of Remus to block his path. ''Okay, I'll tell you. Just stay still and don't hurt yourself.'' He spoke for the first time.
Remus looked at him and a part of him still wanted to stand up and immediately apparate to Pearson's home to check out for himself. Sirius sighed and ran his hands once again through his hair. ''Jasmine is doomed and I'm the reason for it.''
''Wait, wait, what?!'' Remus raised his voice and leaned forward in his sitting position.
Sirius took a tentative step back and continued to explain as if his life depended on it. ''We were at her house and the coast was clear and her mum invited me to stay for tea. It was all nice and well until her dad came home, literally five minutes after we did and Jasmine's mum distracted him. We didn't know what to do so we ran in hopes we could escape. I got outside and through the barrier but Jasmine didn't. It was like this invisible wall was keeping her back and she couldn't step off her yard. She started crying and screaming and I couldn't do anything when her dad dragged her back into the house.''
Remus was torn between glaring at Sirius and worrying about Jasmine. But after another quiet moment or so, the angry side of him, still left from the full moon won. ''And you just left her there!?''
''What was I supposed to do?'' Sirius defended himself.
''Help her! Get her out! Anything but leave her there to fend for herself!'' Remus roused himself up and stood up from the couch, coming face to face with Sirius.
Since he was slightly taller than him they weren't exactly eye to eye but it was enough to make Sirius angry as well. At first he was scared, that's why he didn't want to tell the guys what happened in the first place, but now Remus wasn't giving him the benefit of the doubt and he lost the fear completely.
''For your information she told me not to do anything. I wanted to meddle in but she shook her head and I didn't try. You know full well what happened last time we tried to fix a problem she got herself into.'' Sirius made all of them remember the fight that broke out between William and Jasmine.
It shut Remus up for a few moments as he tried to erase that dreadful memory from his mind. But Sirius' excuses were not cutting it for him. ''I don't know whose brilliant idea it was for you to go but it was very bad! I should have gone instead of you!''
''And what? You would play the prince charming and save her? Again, there was nothing to do, the case was hopeless. Unless you wanted to unleash the fury in your werewolf form because in case you forgot you were not exactly yourself yesterday!'' Sirius puffed out his chest not standing out.
Remus was too angry to let the werewolf comment affect him. ''At least I wouldn't pussy out like you did!''
''Children! Please!'' James shouted stepping between the two and pushing them apart so each was standing at an arms length away from him. ''Even if you kill each other on this very spot with death glares, accusing each other will not change what happened. What's done is done. The only thing we can do is come up with a clever way to fix this problem.''
His head turned left and right, giving both Remus and Sirius a meaningful glance. Only when the two calmed down a little he dropped his hands, feeling that the threat to kill each other passed by. But they did still stare at each other with not so pleasant expressions.
James sighed. ''Please, think of Jasmine. She might be locked up for real now and we should try and help her out.''
It was as if the name of the brunette girl sparked something in the boys and they both returned to their usual demeanour. Remus looked away from Sirius and since the adrenaline from the yelling passed, he started to get the feeling of his body back. The pain showed again, clawing at his insides and pulling on the skin and the bandages around his torso. His shoulders sagged a bit and he dropped down on the couch again, a thoughtful expression back on his features as he tried to work out the problem at hand.
After a few very quiet minutes Sirius cleared his throat awkwardly. ''Maybe we can try to contact her with an owl first, see how bad the situation is?'' He suggested.
Remus looked at him again and saw the fear back in his eyes as if he overstepped the line. But he nodded. ''I remember she said that William's owl brings letters straight to her and it doesn't go through her dad. If we send a random owl there's a possibility that she won't get the letter or even worse that her father will open it.''
Sirius sighed and sat on the floor in front of the couch, putting his face in his hands in frustration. The group thought long and hard of something that could help them. It was almost like they were trying to solve a problem on a random exam at Hogwarts, yet this was real life and they couldn't come up with a solution. To spare themselves some patience they avoided stupid ideas, like raiding the Pearson house or anything similar. They didn't want to give in, since it was Jasmine that they were thinking about, but the feeling of having nothing to help with was coming after them like a ton of bricks.
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Weeks have gone by. Several very boring weeks. Jasmine sighed and leaned her head back in frustration and with that, she managed to bang it on the wall behind her. She winced and grabbed the throbbing spot with her hand to ease the pain. All this time her ears were listening to the sounds outside her room since she was sitting on the floor right next to the door, knees pressed up against her chest. William was off in a foreign country, gaining experience for his future Ministry job and that's why it was fairly quiet on the second floor of the house. She hadn't seen her mum in several days. Smartly Mrs Pearson was taking a lot of extra shifts at the editor's house just so she was away from home as much as possible. Jasmine liked that idea, she even encouraged it. Today was one of the days that her mum had an afternoon shift so she didn't depart early in the morning.
Jasmine leaned her head closer to her door and listened to the voices from the main floor. It sounded like their parents were having a semi-normal conversation, even though Mrs Pearson was giving rather passive answers to her husband. The sweet sound of the door closing meant that her father left for work which then sparked Jasmine's plan into motion. No longer than a minute after he left she heard the footsteps going up the stairs and they stopped right in front of her door. Three knocks followed.
''Jasmine, I brought you some breakfast.'' Mrs Pearson said through the door.
Jasmine's door was otherwise locked during the day, but when it was mealtime they automatically unlocked just so she could receive her food. Usually, either Tinker or Tasha brought her a platter of food, but on Mrs Pearson's off days or different shifts, she did so herself for her daughter. Jasmine stood from the floor and waited to hear the door unlock so she could pull it open. The sight of her mum with food made her smile and she quickly received the platter of food before hugging her mum.
''Oh, my sweetie.'' Mrs Pearson murmured as she affectingly combed Jasmine's hair, before reluctantly pushing her away. ''You know there's a timer, so get back inside before your father knows.'' She warned and took a step backwards.
Jasmine frowned at the distant look on her mum's face but she did as she was told. She watched as Mrs Pearson avoided glancing at her and she left the hallway to go downstairs. Jasmine hastily swung the door but before it would close completely, she put a piece of parchment right where the lock would click it close. She waited if anything would happen, but nothing did, which was a very good sign. The time when it was supposed to lock passed and she pulled the door open slowly.
She listened for a moment, hearing her mum walking on the main floor before she stepped quickly towards the master bedroom. She knew her dad hid her wand somewhere in there and the need to find it was never greater. There was a possibility that the wand was in his office downstairs but it was safer to look through the bedroom first. Her hands rummaged quickly through the nightstand on Mr Pearson's side of the bed, but all she found was stupid unimportant objects. The next was his drawers of clothes where she was supposed to be more careful to not make it look messy. Hope was dying out quickly as drawer after drawer she found nothing but clothes.
Then her eyes panned over to her mum's side and an idea, that her dad would hide her wand somewhere she would last look, seemed too great to pass on. Sliding the top drawer of her mum's dresser open she listened for the sounds, but it didn't seem like anyone was going upstairs. The top drawer was filled with different coloured warm jumpers and long-sleeved shirts. Jasmine wondered if her mum ever owned anything that wasn't long-sleeved, knowing full well she used clothing to hide the scars and the bruises.
Her hands hit something solid at the bottom. Jasmine moved a whole pile of shirts away and was met with a sight of a wooden box. Her hand slowly pulled it out to examine closer.
A.C. Her mother's initials.
The same pattern and the same carving as the small ring box Jasmine received for her birthday. Invasion of privacy wasn't even on Jasmine' consciousness when she opened the box with no hesitance. She had never seen this box before and her mum hadn't mentioned it either so naturally she was curious. Inside there were a few letters bound together with a red ribbon. She turned the bundle over and saw all of them were opened and addressed to her mum, Aleah Pearson. The writing was so messy she barely recognised anything, but her mum's name was what it stood out. Right underneath the bundle was a postcard of a medieval-looking city and on the other side there was something written, but again messy handwriting made it ineligible.
What got Jasmine's attention was the moving photo at the bottom of the books, it looked old and it had creases from being folded before. But undoubtedly there was a family, a father, mother, a girl and smaller boy were smiling at the camera. It looked like the cameraman told them a joke and the four people laughed. Jasmine smiled, seeing their smiles, but then her eyebrows creased. She had never seen this photo before and she couldn't recognise the people on it, so why was it in her mother's drawer.
''Jasmine, what are you doing?''
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