claret, sirius black

05

chapter five

LENORA CLARET STROLLED through the corridors of the castle, her hand brushing against the wall as she did so. The portraits complained each time she touched their golden frames but she ignored them. Portraits can't feel anything.

The castle was dimly lit, only a few candles in each corridor were ablaze so it wasn't completely pitch black. It had just turned three am. Lenora doesn't mind the dark; she's learnt how to avoid the ghosts that haunt the castle and Filch, who haunts the corridors with his moody feline looking for students out of bed.

It was the first week of October, so the weather had started to get colder but it wasn't unbearable just yet.

Lenora was going outside.

As she walked towards one of the side doors she almost tripped on the bottom of her pyjamas. Her mother had sent her some new pyjamas after Lenora complained about her old ones being too short on her long legs.

Lenora pushed open the heavy door, the cold air hitting her face and the actual door hitting someone else's face. Lenora's brown eyes widened, she prayed she hadn't just hit a teacher with a door.

"Ouch."

Lenora stepped outside, looking at Sirius Black who was holding a hand against his left eye. Lenora gasped, covering her mouth with her hands for a brief second before letting them relax beside her hips.

"I'm so sorry," she said, her eyebrows raised and her mouth hanging low. She picked her hands back up so she could look at Sirius' face, stretching her arms out but dropping them again before she actually touched him.

He smiled and shrugged.

"I'm really sorry," she repeated. Sirius dropped his own hand to reveal his very red eye. "Shit," Lenora said, jutting her bottom lip out, revealing her teeth.

"It's fine," Sirius shrugged again, brushing the fabric of his burgundy pyjamas with his hands, acting as if he hadn't just been bludgeoned by an iron door. There was a cut high on his cheekbone, Lenora glanced at it for a second before Sirius wiped it with the sleeve of his dressing gown. Lenora followed his hand as it fell to the side of his body, quickly snapping back up to look at his face.

"I can take you to Madam Pomfrey," Lenora suggested as she took a step back, "She'll probably hex us both for waking her up but I don't think she'll mind too much."

"It's fine," Sirius assured her, "I'll just put some ice on it."

"Do you want me to walk you to your common room?" Lenora asked, feeling awfully guilty.

Sirius shook his head. His dark hair covered his pale face like spilt ink, the ends reaching just below his jaw, framing his face perfectly. "I was coming out to smoke," he told her.

"But you were heading inside?" Lenora questioned.

"I was walking outside." Sirius said adamantly, "I was just going back in to get my wand because I forgot it, and I don't have a lighter."

"You can use mine," Lenora said, pulling her wand out of her pyjama pocket. She nodded towards the wall a few meters away from the door that she had hit Sirius with. Lenora wasn't wearing shoes, but she pretended that she didn't notice despite the floor being cold against the soles of her feet, her socks too thin to be a decent form of insulation.

Sirius sat down, Lenora remained standing up.

"Incendio," she uttered, holding the end of her wand to Sirius' cigarette, lighting it. He thanked her, putting the butt between his lips and taking a drag, he offered it to Lenora but she shook her head. "Why are you walking around so late?" He asked, trying not to look too excited to have found her in the middle of the night again, it was the perfect situation for him to find out if Lenora Claret was actually up to something.