It was a rainy night in mid April when Lavinia didn't show up to the Room of Requirement for the first time since the Easter holidays. The four boys waited for over an half an hour past their usual meeting time before their worry turned into mild panic. Lavinia hadn't missed a single night in over a month and she was usually incredibly punctual, though Sirius suspected that had less to do with her eagerness to meet them or some ingrained quality in her personality and more to do with the fact that the library closed at the same time each night.
"What should we do?" asked Peter, glancing at his watch for what had to be the tenth time in as many minutes.
"We could look for her?" suggested James, stress tinging his voice.
Remus was sitting with his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes. "We don't have the map," he reminded them. "That could take hours."
"She's probably just doing homework," James tried, a point he'd made several times already. "Flitwick did set us a massive essay."
Sirius shook his head, ignoring James. "I should have known this would happen eventually," he sighed resting his forehead on his hands.
"You couldn't have known," Remus muttered. "We don't even know what this is anyway."
Sirius shook his head again and didn't say anything. True, he didn't know what this was, but he had a few guesses and he hated them all. And he should have seen it coming. He'd heard the words people threw at her in the halls. He'd seen the way she tucked her head and pulled on her sleeves and tried to pretend that she didn't care. And he knew Lavinia. When she was upset or angry or having a bad night, she ran. She pushed everyone away and isolated herself. Which, of course, only ever made everything worse, but she didn't seem to care.
"I'll look for her," he said suddenly, ignoring the surprised and slightly cautious looks he got from the others. "I'll check her usual spots and if she isn't there, I'll come back here and we can all go to bed." He saw the others looking frankly hesitant and sighed. "We can't help her if she doesn't want it," he told them gently. "And if I can't find her, that means she's hiding and wouldn't let us help no matter how hard we tried."
Reluctantly they agreed. They all knew it was true. They all remembered the month or so before the Christmas holidays, which somehow seemed an eternity ago, when Lavinia had disappeared both literally and metaphorically. She'd hidden herself so thoroughly that even with the map they hadn't been able to coax her out of her shell.
So Sirius got up without anyone protesting and made his way to the door of the Room of Requirement while Peter, James and Remus stayed there, in case she did eventually come to the Room. Sirius paused with his hand on the door knob, trying to figure out where he should look first. He was determined that at the very least, he would find her and offer her help, just as he had every night of the past December. If she was going to refuse it, then she would have to do so to his face.
His thoughts were interrupted by Remus who had walked to the door as well without Sirius noticing. "Sirius?" Remus asked quietly and the black haired boy jumped a bit in surprise.
"Yeah?" he asked, shaking off his initial shock and focusing his brain on his friend.
"If you find her and she's... if she..." He seemed unable to get the words out, but Sirius understood. Remus, who was calm and perceptive and far better at emotions than any of the rest of them, had been the only person Sirius had told about his suspicions regarding Lavinia's penchant for long sleeves and potions knives in her luggage. He'd taken the information remarkably in stride, simply saying that they should give her every chance to tell them herself and that he had noticed her strange habit of fiddling with the hems of her sleeves.
So Sirius nodded tensely, though he certainly hoped it wouldn't come to that. "I'll tread lightly," he promised.
Remus gave a jerk of his head that might have been a nod and turned on his heel, walking back to the couch with the air of a person who was forcing themself not to say or do something more. Sirius couldn't blame him. He knew Remus cared. All of them cared. But all of them also knew that Sirius not only had the most experience with tracking Lavinia down, but he was also the person she confided in most. Which made him their best shot. Besides which, the next night was the full moon and Remus was beginning to take on that monthly pallor as the night drew nearer. James and Peter perhaps could have helped look but... well. James wasn't always the most tactful and Sirius suspected that Peter might have panicked if anything got too serious. So he would go alone. He didn't mind. He wanted to be the one who found her. Not that he didn't trust the others, but he couldn't help but feel that he knew Lavinia better, knew her tells and tics and the tiny little signals that would tell him just how bad this night really was.
After a moment of standing by the door, Sirius made his decision. He would start in the dungeon and work his way up so that if she decided to go back down to bed, there was a good chance she would pass him on the way down and he would at least get the chance to see her and convince himself she was, of not okay, then at least still alive. Which made him wonder with a rather painful wrench of his heart if maybe he should check the Astronomy tower first.
And he did, driven by fear and some level of self hatred that this was what he thought she would do. That he had so little faith in her that he needed to do this. But she had a history and he couldn't ignore that panicked part of his mind that kept replaying that awful night over in his head.
But she wasn't there. And he couldn't bring himself to look over the edge.
So he ended up down in the dungeons, hardly expecting her to be there, but doing a quick loop all the same before he made his way up to the entrance hall. He glanced out at the grounds and checked in the kitchens, which were full of sleepy house elves who informed him they had not seen Miss Selwyn and asked politely if she was in trouble. That tripped up for a little while because despite the gravity of this night, he couldn't help but smile at the fact that the house elves would worry about her. He wondered what she would think of that news when he told her. She'd probably brush it off and pretend they'd have asked the same question about anyone else. Which was ridiculous, but this was Lavinia, who didn't believe there was a kind bone in her body even when she was in the process of helping people who had done little to deserve her goodwill.
That made him sigh as he walked up the grand staircase. It could be incredibly frustrating to be around her when she was in one of her moods because it never mattered how many examples he gave or how vehement his denials were. She wouldn't be swayed. She could explain away a kindness in the most ridiculous way and be utterly certain she made perfect sense.
But he kept on telling her how good she was, how kind, and one of these days he would get through to her. He was determined to. Because she was stubborn and infuriating and a whole host of other things, but she was also sweet, and funny and loyal to a fault. And he cared. More than he was ever going to admit, no matter how much James prodded him about it.
The other issue was that it was impossible to tell where Lavinia stood on her relationship with him. Some nights she would sit close to him and tease him with an almost flirtatious smile that made him feel light and giddy and foolish and other nights she planted herself firmly next to Remus and barely looked at him until he walked her down to the dungeons. He had no idea what caused her fluctuating attitude with him for all that he wished he did. He wasn't sure if it was something he'd done to put her off or if it was all just in his head.
If he was honest, he wasn't sure Lavinia herself knew what she felt about him. He supposed she didn't exactly spend much time thinking about it, nor did he think she should. She was busy worrying about making it through her days, thinking about classes and NEWTs and the social life that had blown up in her face. She had far bigger problems than what she might or might not feel for one person.
Then again, he supposed he probably did too, but he spent plenty of time thinking about her all the same. Not all of it was about how much he cared either. More often it had to do with worries. A lot of it, actually, was wondering if he should bring up the knife he'd seen in her suitcase over break. She'd seemed to be in a reasonably good mood lately and he couldn't decide if that made it a good time or not. On the one hand, she seemed more stable than she had been in a long while and it made sense that if she was stable she would be able to handle someone asking about it. And on the other hand, he didn't want to risk breaking what he knew was a tenuous and hard fought peace for her. He didn't want to remind her of darker times.
None of which mattered right now, because if the past was any indication, this was not a good night for her. Which meant whatever ease or contentment she'd fallen into was gone. Not that that helped solve the issue of when to bring the knife up to her. It just meant he had more pressing concerns at the moment.
So he kept walking, kept searching. Every corridor with windows that he could think of, he walked down. Every corner he'd ever found her in. Floor by floor. Not caring as time ticked by and the clock inched farther past midnight.
He was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, by the time he made it through a few floors, but he didn't much care. He had to find her. That was all he knew. And though it was possible that she was simply in her common room, or had already gone back to her dormitory, he wasn't going to rely on that. Only once he finished searching all the floors would he go to bed. Otherwise it felt too much like giving up on her, something he was certain he would never do.
He was on the fifth floor, walking down one of the many windowed corridors when he remembered the night he'd seen her dot on the map in the Prefects bathroom. He sighed. He'd never been sure, for all his guesses, what she'd been doing in there and if he was honest, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. But it was a possibility, which was why he deviated from his circle of the outer hallways and made his way to the room. He had no idea how to get in, not being a prefect himself but he supposed he could always just knock.
As it turned out, he didn't need to. He was about halfway to the bathroom entrance when its door opened and Lavinia walked out, her book bag over her shoulder and her head bowed as she pulled the door shut behind her. She stood for a moment in front of the door before her shoulders moved as though heaving a sigh, though Sirius was too far away to tell. It was obvious that she didn't see him and for some reason he waited before calling out to her.
Only once she made as though to walk in the opposite direction of him did he open his mouth. "Vin!" he called, moving forward towards her.
Her head snapped to the side so fast it was a marvel she didn't crick her neck. He was still a little ways away but even so he could make out something like fear in her eyes.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice shaking slightly, though she seemed to be trying to force it calm.
"Looking for you," he replied, now hesitant. Her fingers were pulling at her sleeves in her usual nervous gesture and her eyes were flicking over the walls, looking anywhere but at him. "We were worried," he continued, now standing only a few feet from her
"Sorry," she whispered, her eyes dropping to the floor.
He frowned even as a cold stone seemed to settle into his stomach. This was definitely a bad night. A very bad night. "Don't apologise," he murmured, reaching out to offer her some sort of silent comfort.
She flinched away and he dropped his hand, more confused than ever. "What's going on, Vin?" he asked, shaking his head and trying not to panic.
She shook her head and looked up with a smile so forced it seemed almost painful. "Nothing," she said lightly.
"You're a terrible liar," he asserted. "Well. Okay, you're not," he amended honestly, thinking of the years she'd spent lying about just about everything. "But that was a terrible lie."
Her eyes dropped again, studying the floor around her feet. "You shouldn't be here," she said finally.
He ignored the stab in his chest at that. "Why not?" he asked patiently.
She glanced up again for a brief moment, her breath coming faster than it should have. "Because I don't want to hurt you," she whispered, so quietly he barely heard her.
"You won't hurt me," he insisted, wondering where in the hell she'd gotten that idea. "Vin, please, just tell me what's wrong."
She looked at him for a long moment, her face utterly unreadable before she spoke. "I couldn't stop... I didn't..." She seemed to struggle with words for a minute before she shook her head and gave another strained smile. "I really am sorry, Sirius," she whispered. "I never meant..." She trailed off again, grimacing as though in physical pain.
And now Sirius was really worried. Not that he hadn't been worried before, but an edge of panic was setting into the anxiety and he didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to bring her back. "Hey," he murmured, keeping his tone gentle, something utterly at odds with the wild fear in his head and heart. "It's okay. We're here for you."
She closed her eyes. "You shouldn't be," she murmured. "I don't want to hurt you."
"And I told you you won't, Vin. I want to help," he insisted, unable to keep traces of fear out of his voice this time.
"Just... just let me go to bed," she sighed. "I'll find you tomorrow and... and explain. I just..." She gave a shaky breath that was halfway to a sob. "I just need a little while to... to contain it."
He didn't know remotely what that meant, or what 'it' was, but he had a very bad feeling about this. His heart was beating too fast in his throat and he wasn't actually sure he could get his tongue to speak around the fear that was rapidly building.
"Goodnight, Sirius," she murmured and turned away.
There were still no words in his mouth so he reached out, knowing only that he couldn't let her leave, couldn't let her finish this night alone because something was very very wrong and he had to fix it. He had to help.
His fingers wrapped around her wrist only briefly before she yanked her arm away and started running. Sirius was so surprised at the reaction that he didn't immediately follow. She'd never done that or anything like it before and he hardly knew what to make of it. She might resist his help sometimes, had even run a few times before, but she'd never been quite so... violent about it.
He was about to follow her, to run after her because frankly, he didn't trust her to be alone right now, for all that she'd promised she'd see him tomorrow. Death wasn't the only bad thing she might do. So he shook his head to try to clear it, closing his hands into fists to disperse the tension in his limbs.
As his fingers touched his palm, however he became suddenly aware of something on them. Freezing and fighting the first thought that entered his head at that, he forced himself to pull out his wand. Forced himself to light it and look at his hand. And then he had to force himself not to cry. Or vomit. Or lose it completely.
Because where his fingers had touched Lavinia's wrist, there was blood, bright and red and a confirmation of every awful suspicion he'd ever had about just how bad her nights sometimes got.
A/N: So this is random, but I was in the middle of editing this and I heard my dog whining. I thought she just wanted outside, because that would be classic Poppy at 12 am. But I opened the door to the study I'm working in and she just ran in here past me because apparently she was whining for me to let her in here? And on the one hand, oh my God, I've been blessed because she usually kinda hates me and would choose my mom or dad's company. And on the other hand, she's shaking and I don't know why and I guess she came here because I'm the only awake person here to comfort her? So I took a 10 minute detour to comfort my dog and now she's sleeping at my feet, which is fucking adorable. She might actually like me. Crazy, right?
Anyway, as always, I hope you enjoyed and I'll be back again tomorrow!