"Do you think you could mope about anymore?" James chuckled as he sat beside Sirius on the sofa in the Gryffindor common room.
"I'm not moping about." Sirius grumbled, folding his arms tightly around himself.
"Alright..." James frowned slightly, pushing his glasses up his nose, "How about that prank we were planning for next week? It's a little early but I think we could all do with a pick-me-up."
"I don't know... Not really feeling up to it."
"What about we find a girl to set you up with? I reckon there's a few girls you haven't made out with left." James smirked.
"Alright, let's go find Moony and Peter to do this prank then."
Asteria wrapped her scarf around her neck tightly, adjusting her broom beneath her arm as she walked back towards the castle. She'd spent every spare second over the past week practicing her quidditch - what for she didn't know. Asteria's robes billowed around her legs and her cheeks were a vibrant shade of red as she entered the warmth of the castle and pulled her hood down.
"Halloway... Fun practice?" Regulus sneered, leaning against the doorway as Asteria passed.
"Black, what do you want?" She asked, moving away from him.
"How's my brother?"
"Why don't you ask him yourself if you care so much." Asteria replied coldly, glaring at him out of the corner of her eye.
Regulus chuckled as he walked beside her, "We all know I'm the better brother. Did you fall out or something?"
"Since when did you care?" She retorted.
"Shame I missed the Christmas meal... Sounded like you had a great time."
"What do you want, Regulus?" She folded her arm and rested against the tattered broom.
"Just checking up on how my favourite mudblood is doing."
Asteria turned to face him, holding her hand to her chest. "Your favourite? Wow I'm so blessed, thank you so much."
Regulus chuckled lightly as she rolled her eyes.
"Have I not been tormented enough recently? You catching up for lost time?"
Regulus chuckled again.
"Seriously, what do you want?" Asteria frowned.
"You know you're not so spineless after all." Regulus began, eyeing Asteria up and down, "When you were bothered by Avery and Mulciber and the others, you used to be really quiet and not say anything back. You were boring. Then I saw you hanging around with my brother and I heard he invited you over to our house and... I wanted to know why he was so interested in you."
She didn't exactly know what to say. Regulus had never exactly been horrid to her, but he'd never done anything to stop it so she'd always labelled him just as bad.
"Now you're... Confident and you stand up for yourself... It is interesting." Regulus narrowed his eyes, "It's like the Slytherin in you had come out."
Asteria glared at him, this was an uncommon reaction whenever she saw the boy and he was used to this. But what came next was not so expected.
"Right, lovely story Black but I do have things to do and I don't particularly care what you think of me. Oh, and if you see your brother around make a point of ignoring him for me."
Regulus smirked to himself as she stormed away, digging his hands into his pockets. Asteria, on the other hand, was fuming. Over the week she had been building up this anger and sadness within and was refusing to deal with it. She kept burying her thoughts and emotions deep within.
The past week had been torture for her. She wanted nothing more than to go to Sirius and talk to him about her problems. The only issue with this was that he was the cause of her problems - she couldn't confide in him. With each day that passed by, now only did she become more alone in school but the OWLs were growing closer and closer. Creeping up on her like a reoccurring nightmare.
So Asteria swiftly dropped of her equipment in her dormitory and once again departed from the Slytherin common room. She hated being down there, in the cold and dark gloom underneath the lake. Asteria dreamed of the wide open skies and picturesque views and endless horizons. The only place in school that provided such solitude and beauty - the only place perfect enough to revise out of lesson times - the Astronomy Tower.
Asteria clutched two Potions books under her arms as she ascended the stairs, listening out for the sound of any students lingering about. She didn't hear anything.
So, with a confident smile plastered on her face as she was going to finally get some work done, Asteria pushed open the door to step into the top room of the tower.
The smile instantly vanished.
Her face paled and her blood ran cold.
Sirius Black was pressed up against the wall with none other than Mary Macdonald latched onto his face.
He pushed her away from him as he heard the door swing open. Then, seeing Asteria stood there with tears welling in her eyes, he felt his heart break. He wanted to shout out for her, tell her that he wasn't interested in Mary. He only wanted Asteria.
But, as was becoming accustomed in the company of Asteria, Sirius Black was silent and nervous and too scared to speak out.
"Um... This room is occupied." Mary frowned at the girl.
"Yeah... I... I can see that." Asteria nodded slowly.
"So get out? Or do you want to watch?" Mary laughed, still gripping Sirius' jumper in her hands.
"No thanks... If I wanted to see leeches sucking blood I'd go down to the Black Lake... Or then again, this does look like you're sucking his soul out of his body... Is this a dementor's kiss?" She retorted angrily.
"Ria..." Sirius began, completely unsure of what he could possibly say to rectify the situation.
"He had us both but he came back to me. What does that say?" Mary snapped.
"I have morals?" Asteria spat.
Despite feeling his heart beating in his throat, Sirius let out a small laugh and tried to conceal it with a weak cough.
"I'll go, it's fine. In fact, it's more than fine." Asteria narrowed her eyes, "And Regulus was asking after you before."
And with that, Asteria turned on her heels and slammed the door behind her before running down the stairs. Sure, Asteria acted cold and distant but the only thing she really wanted was Sirius. She just wanted to talk to him and explain herself and allow him to explain himself.
As usual, they were both too stubborn to do the right thing.
So Sirius remained up in the Astronomy Tower for a few more minutes, in a frozen state of shock.
"Sirius? Is she a freak or what?" Mary laughed, turning back to face him.
"No."
Mary widened her eyes and laughed again, stepping back from him.
"What?" She asked.
"No." Sirius began, "No she isn't a freak. Don't you dare call her anything like that ever again. I can't believe you."
She stumbled backwards further, at a loss for words, her eyes wide open in shock.
"Me? What about her?"
"What about her? She's amazing and she doesn't deserve the crap she gets from you and everyone else. You people disgust me. She's everything you aren't!" Sirius snarled at her before pushing her away and shooting out of the door, after Asteria.
He knew he wouldn't be able to find her to speak to her. Sirius knew, as he hopelessly trudged back to the common room, that he would spend the night tossing and turning and getting no sleep as he thought about finally confronting Asteria in the morning. He had to do it because Sirius was not okay.
Little did he know, Asteria wasn't either.