Between Coffee And Cigarettes

-18-

TW: panic attack, thinking about suicide

The pouring rain pattered against the window and the sky looked dark, wild and intimidating. In the last years, the wizarding world got way more dangerous, due to one great, but very bad and reckless wizard. His followers, which were known as death eaters, called him the Dark Lord, everybody else knew him as Lord Voldemort or the one Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

People disappeared, especially muggleborns, and people were scared. Extremely scared. Lily, who was always so happy and amazingly positive, was scared for her safety and the one of her family. And even if she tried to hide it, when she felt like no one could see her, her expression always changed to worry.

In the middle of the night Lenny woke up, tears streaming down her face, like the raindrops on her window. Her chest felt heavy and made it difficult to breathe. Drastically she gasped for air, trying to get oxygen into her body, but it only made it worse. Hyperventilating, sitting in her bed, she kicked away her blanket, which suddenly felt abnormally heavy. Sweat dripped down her forehead and her shirt stuck now on her wet chest.

Panicking thoughts ran through her head. Absurd thoughts, unrealistic situations. She saw how her family got tortured and killed by people she couldn't identify, she saw her brothers abandoning her, being mad at her and throwing her out. She saw how Walburga came near her and just at the plain sight of this women, Lenny's fear got even worse. She saw Remus as a werewolf, fetching her and ripping her body apart in many pieces, she saw Lily turning her back at her and Marlene turning Sirius against her.

Lenny tried to stop these thoughts in which the people she loved, hurt her physically just as bad as emotionally. Her sight got black and she could sense that she was about to pass out. Opening her mouth to let out a scream for help didn't do anything. Didn't matter how hard the girl tried, no sound came out. Her body was shaking and her limbs and skin felt numb. Sitting there for what felt like hours, but was probably just thirty minutes, she was unable to do anything.

Once again she tried to scream for her brother and thankfully a screaming whisper escaped her lips. "Sirius!", she repeated over and over again, but her screams were too quiet. "Mum! Dad!", she tried, but again, no one came. Gathering all the air she could get into her lungs and with her last strength she cried out: "James!"

Grasping her pillow into her fists, against her chest, she thought, she would die and nobody even heard her.

Suddenly the door flung open and James stood in the doorframe. Sirius came trotting behind, rubbing his eyes, but as soon as he laid eyes on her he lunged forward and took her hands in his. They were cold as ice and wet from all the sweat. "Oh god, Lenny!", he said, roaming his eyes over her worryingly, "What happened?" She couldn't answer him. Her mouth moved but nothing came out.

By now, her eyes burned from the tears and her face hurt from all the distorted muscles in it. She wanted to tell them how she felt, what she saw, but the only thing that came out of her face, were tears. James was gone, but quickly came back with new bed sheets and covers. He changed her old ones, which were damp and then took an old shirt from her closet, murmured Aquamenti and patted her forehead and wrists with the cold, wet cloth.

Non of them said a word, mostly because they didn't know what to say or simply couldn't. But Sirius and James never left Lenny alone. They held and hugged her and were just present. It was not much but it was enough for her. Eventually her tears stopped, but her breathing was still quite fast and uncontrolled. Normally she would try to light a cigarette in this kind of situation, but did she want to risk, Sirius and James finding out?

All three sat in silence, hearing the clock ticking and Lenny's rapid breathing. It didn't normalized itself. Whatever she and the boys tried, nothing worked. Ten minutes went by, twenty minutes got around and still nothing changed. Sirius and James took turns taking her pulse regularly, before looking at the other one with always the same expression. Worry.