Love You In My Mind // Sirius Black

Chapter 56

"Why are we doing this again?" Sirius grumbled, his face propped on his palm. "This is so boring."

I sighed. We hadn't even been sitting here for three minutes.
It was Sirius' and my turn to look at the map while the others were on patrols or at work and couldn't do it.

We were sitting opposite each other, the table with the map on it between us. It was weird to be in the headquarters all alone, since I wasn't used to it being so quiet.

And yes, it was boring. We were just watching moving spots, trying to figure out where they were going. If we could make out where some were living, we'd have to write it down, but so far, we didn't see anyone stay at a place longer than ten minutes.

"Someone has to do it," I replied, trying not to smile at the adorable way his face was smooshed behind his hand.

"I know." He sighed again. But a split second later, he lifted his head. "We're allowed to talk while doing this, right?"

I shrugged. "No one forbid it."

"Great." After a quick glance at the map, he looked at me again.
"Marls has told me that you've been at Azkaban a few days ago. How was it?"

I shuddered at the thought alone.
"Horrible," I said, dropping my gaze down to the map to avoid his eyes.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw Sirius bite his lip thoughtfully. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I hesitated, my eyes still on the map.
One spot was walking through Diagon Alley, which didn't help us at identifying the person.

I sighed. Talking to Sirius always made me feel better, so I could give it a try.
"The trip itself was actually interesting, but I couldn't focus at all because of those stupid Dementors."
I huffed out some air, getting angry at myself. "I don't know why, but no one seemed to be as affected by them as I was! I felt nauseous and super depressed, just sad and then I began to hear voices!"
I rolled my eyes and chuckled homourlessly to act unfazed by it all. "No one else heard them, so I figured those were just some of my worst memories.... You know, a normal Monday."

"Oh," Sirius said dryly. He looked sympathetic. "I'm sorry, Frey."

I scoffed and probably blushed because of his sympathy. "Please, it's not your fault that I can't handle Dementors."

"Stop talking yourself down, Freya!"
Sirius studied my face for a split second.
I was about to panic, thinking that he'd read something into my words that I didn't want him to know, but luckily, that wasn't the case.
"Have you managed to create a Patronus yet?"

My mouth tasted bitter. "Thanks for the reminder."

"So no," Sirius concluded. "Maybe that's why they affected you more? Because I'm sure that you're not weaker than others."

I couldn't quite follow his train of thoughts.
"Why would they affect me more just because I can't produce a Patronus? No one had summoned a Patronus; they've all been as exposed as I've been."

Besides, didn't it make me weak that I couldn't summon a Patronus?

Sirius shook his head, briefly looking at the map again. "That's not what I meant. Like... Maybe you felt so discouraged because you can't produce a Patronus that it made you a target. They can sense worry, can't they?"

"They can sense all kinds of negative emotions." I agreed.
It began to dawn on me. I knew that I had only briefly thought about how I couldn't produce a real Patronus, so that couldn't have been it. But I still had a lot of negative emotions inside of me that could've drawn the Dementors to me.