deceit - sirius black

thirteen

In the same evening, Sabrina had decided that it was finally the right time to approach her brother. She knew that he generally only came to the common room to pass through to the dormitories when necessary, and usually spent his time in the library, surrounded by friends that were anything other than Slytherins.

So that was where she went: she shamelessly peeked her head around every corner, until she reached the table of people she recognised as Seth's friends. Seth was facing in the other direction to where Sabrina stood, as well as only one of his friends: the others, who knew all about the Wraith family and their split life choices, looked on steadily at Sabrina, with clear mixed emotions.

Noticing the silent gaze, Seth followed their eyes, and landed on Sabrina. He turned his full body around to join his head, and stood slowly, walking towards her, concerned by her silence and calm expression.

Despite her cool demeanour, she was nervous: she gulped before she spoke, "I want to talk to you."

"Why?" He said, sternly.

"I know I've not spoken to you in a while, and I know you think I'm evil, but you're my brother and I miss you. And I need you." She spoke as though it pained her to admit it, and he could tell it damaged her ego, at least a little.

And if she was willing to sacrifice her pride, he could spare her a few minutes of his time.

"Do you want to go somewhere else?" He asked, gesturing to his friends.

"Here's fine." she shrugged, not planning on disclosing any details. He nodded, awaiting her response, "I made a mistake," her voice strained a little, "I did something without really thinking about it - or caring, I guess - and I could hurt someone whatever I do."

"I might need a little more information." He said, slightly amused, and pulled her to an empty table nearby, inferring that this might be a longer conversation than either of them had anticipated.

"I agreed to something without thinking about the person it would involve," she sighed, trying to tell him what was wrong without giving him any information that could put him in danger, "And now I actually care about the person, but they'll hate me forever if they find out what I agreed to, and if I break off the agreement, I could be walking right into a death trap."

"I'm guessing it's something to do with Sam?" Seth didn't want to know, explicitly, whether his sister was involved with the Dark Lord: he didn't want to hear the words. But if she was with Sam, that was the next step.

She nodded regretfully, "I don't want to do it anymore." She almost whispered.

"Just this? Or all of it?" He began to grow worried.

"All of it. I should've never got involved in the first place, and now I've fucked everything up for everyone, and I can't get out of it-"

"Sabrina," he stopped her, holding onto her shoulders, "If you need to get out of this, I'll help you. But you need to tell me exactly what's going on."

"I can't," She struggled, "You and Sadie escaped that sort of thing ages ago. I don't wanna drag you back into it."

"I'll always help you if you need it," Seth assured, "It's painfully obvious that you aren't evil. Maybe you were at some point, but not now. And in terms of this person you now care about, I think you need to put them first. If you do, I can help you with whatever consequences come with it, but you got yourself into the mess, and you can't make someone innocent suffer for it."

"I know," she nodded, "I need to go." She stood up abruptly.

"Where? Are you doing it now?"

"Yeah," she nodded, trying to convince herself at the same time, too "Yeah, definitely."

***

"Padfoot, you can't force people to stay out of the common room for the whole night." James reasoned, as Sirius rushed around to try to stop people from moving anything around in the corner of the room which he'd 'reserved' for his date.

"I don't need people to stay out of the common room, just this corner." He groaned. He'd drawn the curtains, someone had opened them; he'd placed candles delicately around a table, they'd been moved. Sirius was stressed: he just wanted his night to be perfect.

"It's a common room, Sirius," Remus sighed, "Key word: common. People are well within their rights to go wherever they want inside it."

"Well, then, we need to change the rules," he sassed, "I am not letting these Gryffindor hooligans destroy my date."

"You're the epitome of a 'Gryffindor hooligan'." said Marlene McKinnon with nonchalance, who was sitting nearby with her friends and had overheard.

Sirius ignored her, "I just really want this to go well." He said, exasperated.

"Why's it so important?" James asked.

Peter gasped, "Are you going to ask her to be your girlfriend?" He asked excitedly.

Sirius looked to ground, "Maybe." he shrugged, "But not if I can't even set up a bloody date!"

"Why don't you just go somewhere else?" Remus suggested, "Improvise, if you can't get what you originally wanted."

"Great, thank you, Moony," Sirius sighed and sat on the sofa with pessimism, biting his nails, "How the fuck do I plan a whole new date-" He checked his watch, "-An hour before I'm supposed to pick Sabrina up?"

"You could bake." Marlene said nonchalantly.

"Bake?" Sirius repeated, unsure if he'd heard her properly.

"Yes, bake." She said.

"Oh, it'd be fun, Sirius!" Lily exclaimed, "I'm sure she'd love it."

"I can't bake." He deadpanned.

"No one cares," Marlene said, in a similar tone, "My brother and his girlfriend did it one time, and neither of them could bake, but they had loads of fun."

"If you're going to, you'll need to check the kitchens have all the ingredients." James said, "And if they don't, just bring Sabrina here and we'll figure something out."

"Fine." Sirius sighed, and followed James, Remus and Peter towards Hogwarts' kitchens.

"Are you really going to ask her to be your girlfriend?" James asked, almost timidly, as they walked in twos down the Great Staircase.

Sirius tried to conceal the inevitable smirk creeping across his face at the thought, "Yeah," he nodded, "Definitely."