"Sirius Black?"
Cherry was stunned. Where was Mikey? Where was her father??
And what the hell was the mass murderer Sirius Black doing inside the Gryffindor common room??
"Sh! Be quiet, someone will hear us!" he whisper shouted, approaching Cherry.
She stumbled back a bit, her wand still pointed at him, the other hand clasped tight on her mouth, scared she was going to let out a piercing scream that would wake up everyone else in the Gryffindor dorms. "What the fuck are you doing here??" She whispered, sort of scared for her life, since after all he could very well kill her at any second.
"No, it's me, M- Mikey."
Cherry froze, right there on her spot in front of the couch, processing the words that had just came out of Sirius's mouth. "Y- you're Mikey? No- no you can't be!"
Fuck my dad is a mass murderer.
"Yes, I am. I just used Mikey as a name so people wouldn't have recognized me. They're starting to check people's mail, and I couldn't risk it, now please, let me explain," he shushed her, and carefully walking towards her talking. "I'm not the murderer everyone claims I am."
Cherry was extremely confused as to who the man standing before her was. He was her father, Mikey Way, Sirius Black, the wanted criminal, Azkaban escaper, evil mass murderer.., who was he?
Not lowering her wand, she took another step back. "So you're my father? Sirius Black? You're the one who left my mother? And killed all those people??"
"Yes, and I am very sorry about that, if I had known anything about me having a daughter I never would have left you-" --a lie-- "and I regret leaving Alicia every day of my life," he said, lying as easily and taking another step forward. "And I never killed anyone," another lie.
"No- no you can't be- are you really? You're not kidding me?"
"Yes, Cherry, I am," Sirius said, in truth. "I am your father." [(Luke) *sorry*]
"So then, who was the teacher that helped you in?" she asked warily, lowering her wand the tiniest bit.
"Oh, an old friend of mine, you may know him as Professor Lupin now," he said, a bit of pain flashing through his dark eyes, giving his face a ghostly look.
"Wait- Remus??" she asked. Thinking back, it had all made sense now. She had learned about animagas, and werewolves, when Snape had been filling in for Lupin that one time.
Now, it made sense, Remus had been a werewolf! That's why she'd been seeing flashes of a dog everywhere, it was Sirius! Cherry was also sure she'd overheard Hermione talking about it with Ron and Harry, and it all made sense now.
It wasn't a surprise that Remus had kept that part of him hidden; she could guess why. Lots of people didn't like werewolves, no matter how close he was with her. But Cherry didn't care that he was a werewolf.
"Yes, Remus," Sirius continued.
"Does anyone else know you're here?"
"Only you two, and Harry," he said, looking left and right, checking to see if anyone was coming.
"Wait- why Harry??" she asked.
"I'm his godfather, and it's a lot to explain, I promise I will explain everything to you later-"
"But then why-"
Suddenly, there was a noise, a rustling from above them, coming from one of the stairs, and the two snapped there heads toward it. Sirius said, "I must leave now, but I will send you a letter-"
"Wait-" Cherry turned around to look at him once more, but he was gone.
He had disappeared, and he'd left the pink haired girl's question still sitting on her tongue, her heart pounding, wondering what the hell had just happened.
~~
She spent the rest of the night, tossing and turning in her bed. She'd been tired and worn out of her mind earlier before she had came to the common room and met her father, Mikey, or should she say Sirius.
But then, when she'd returned to her dorm room that night, she couldn't stop thinking about it, and she was quite frankly wondering, at this point, if she'd dreamed all of it. She was wide awake, as if someone had injected straight caffeine into her system, pumping through her blood as she lie there staring at the bottom of the top bunk bed.
She'd talk to Remus tomorrow on Monday, after her Defense class, and ask him about it. Then she'd know if she was dreaming or not. That had seemed to give her a bit more peace of mind, and not long after, she'd started drifting off to sleep.
Not long after, only getting five or six or so hours of sleep, her phone alarm rang at around nine and she groaned, not wanting to get up for the Sunday.
So, she'd hit the snooze button and turned over, going straight back to bed without even considering waking up and getting ready for whatever the twins had planned for her today, and if she was even going to think about getting up, she'd need a whole bunch of coffee.
And almost as if on cue, the twins burst into her room carrying a mug of hot streaming coffee towards her bed.
"Ugh, go away," she groaned, turning over again.
"No, get up, it's like nine in the morning, we've got things to too!" Fred yelled, sitting down on her bed and violently shaking her awake.
Mumbling curses under her breath, she finally opened her eyes and slowly sat up, cuddling into Fred's side while yawning.
"Darling, get up," he yelled laughing, as he put his arm around her shoulders, handing her the mug of coffee.
"How did you know?" she said, laughing a little as she brought the Christmas themed mug up towards her dry lips from the dehydration and slowly sipping the hot liquid.
"Oh love, we know you too well," George said, sitting on the other side of Cherry and laughing.
"We knew you'd preferred it iced, but it's cold, and not good for your immune system," Fred said.
Cherry raised an eyebrow at the red head. "Immune system?? Where'd you learn that, you go to muggle school or something?"
George chuckled. "Fred over here, has been doing some research on that muggle tech of yours, a toplap, is what it's called?"
Laughing, she said, "It's a laptop, and did you go through my computer??"
"Possibly..," Fred said sheepishly. "I may have seen a few things I wasn't supposed to see..."
Groaning, Cherry put her hands in her face. "Oh gawd, you went through my files didn't you, fuck..."
Fred was laughing his ass of, and George was chuckling to himself on the left of her, and Cherry was sitting in the middle blushing, extremely regretting not putting a password over her, -ahem-, *explicit pictures*.
"It was quite wicked," Fred teased, pulling on the hem of her shirt, making her turn even more red. "But don't worry love, we clicked out of it as soon as we opened it," he laughed as she buried her face in his shirt in embarrassment.
"But I do admit," he whispered in her ear, without George able to hear him, "you did look, pretty damn good, if I do say so myself..." His gaze met hers and he widened his eyes, smirking the tiniest bit at the pink haired girl snuggled closely next to him.
As if Cherry couldn't turn into even more of a cherry, she blushed again, refusing to look up at the gorgeous red reads face, who was gazing down at her.
~~
Later that day, she had thought about what Sirius had said last night. He'd mentioned how he was going to send her a letter, but when?
The anxiety was starting to creep up on her, and she wondered if he really was going to contact her at all. She had so many questions, but mainly, she wanted to know why and how the hell did he manage to escape Azkaban, and if he planned on returning to her and her mother's life.
It was already too late, she thought. Her mother rarely spoke of her father, and when she did, she spoke quite lowly of him. She didn't even know his real name.
Why on earth would he had even gotten together with her, why they'd gotten married to each other, why he would suddenly leave. If he knew he had to go eventually, why settle down just to break a woman's heart?
Cherry didn't know if she could trust him; he did leave Alicia without warning, which to be honest seemed quite cruel. But he did come back for her, and he allegedly didn't know she existed until Remus informed him about her.
She needed more answers, but until she could talk with Remus; and Sirius, she'd have to focus on something else so she wouldn't go insane.
Sighing, Cherry got up from where she was sitting on the couch inside the Gryffindor common room and left to go find the twins, who she guessed was in the great hall with Ron and the others, getting ready for dinner.
The sun was setting earlier and earlier by the day, winter creeping upon them like an old man's memory loss, chilling the trees and making the bare branches freeze, turning the fresh morning dew into an icy frost blanket littering across the fields of grass.
Finally, she had found the two tall red heads at the Gryffindor table with Harry and Ron, Hermione next to them too. There had been another sighting of Sirius Black, somewhere near the castle, and Cherry smiled to herself.
She liked being in on secrets usually, but she could never keep them to herself. She didn't know whether to clue the twins in, maybe Luna, about her father, since they were her three closest friends at Hogwarts here at the moment.
But maybe it was too dangerous. She reckoned that the twins and Luna could keep a secret, but could Ron, or Harry, if they found out? Cherry thought it would've been better if she didn't tell anyone- for now at least, until she could get more information on this strange mystery that had somehow stumbled into her life on such short notice.
After the three returned to the common rooms, Cherry snuck the twins into her dorm room.
"So, Winter break is coming up, right? I mean, it's the middle of November already," she asked excitedly as she sat down on her bed, Fred flopping down besides her and George sitting on the floor, leaning against the bunk.
"Mhm?.." George asked, questionably.
"What are you up to?" Fred laughed, playing with a strand of Cherry's fading pink hair.
"I was thinking, maybe you could come back to my house? Just for like a day or two, so I can show you stuff?" she asked.
Fred looked up at her. "Wait, really? You want to take us back home to the muggle world with you?" he asked.
"Yeah, why not?" she shrugged, laughing. "New York, in fact." Her mother had sent her a letter the other day, and said that she had gotten an amazing job offer in the states, so she was going to move back. Cherry was fine with it, since Alicia had promised to set up all her stuff in her bedroom.
They would be living in an apartment of course, but mind you it was a rather large one. There were three bedrooms, one in which Alicia were going to turn into an office, two bathrooms, and a full kitchen and living room.
Alicia was rather wealthy, at the moment, since her ex husband "Mikey" had left them a lot of money when he'd left. It was the only thing that was alright about the unclean separation.
Of course getting home would have to mean taking a plane, but it was worth it. Cherry had always wanted to go to New York, some of her muggle friends back in Paris when she was still eleven had talked about it a lot.
"Are you kidding? That'd be bloody wicked!" George shouted, jumping up. "We've got to tell the others!"
"Yeah! Send a letter to mum, let her know that our best friend is coming back to meet her!" Fred said, also jumping up from the bed. "Wait!" he slowly turned to face her again. "Do- do you want to go back to the burrow with us? Like after, for break??"
"Really? Holy fuck, that would be so radical!" Cherry yelled, laughing. "You sure your mum wouldn't mind? I don't want to be an inconvenience or anything-"
"Oh sweets, our mum loves you," George laughed, picking her up and twirling her around.
"Hey! Share!" Fred yelled grabbing my arms as we fell onto the floor in a laughing mess.
"But, seriously, your mum wouldn't mind?" Cherry asked, getting up from her spot on the floor and resting her head on Fred's shoulder.
"Darling, we would love to have you."
~~