Orphic » Sirius Black

Chapter 31 - Deeper Oceans

The returning to the routine after the holidays tended to be overwhelming, especially waking up early and attending classes with the cold freezing everyone's bones. But for the first time, that wasn't the case for Juniper. She was excited, to say the least, which came as quite a surprise. After the latest discovery, nothing else occupied her mind, and if she didn't talk about it with another human being instead of a water produced turtle, she was going to go mad.

On the day everyone got back to the castle and after having hugged all of her friends, Juniper didn't waste a second and ran out of the common room. She dashed through the halls until reaching the seventh floor, and entered the Room of Requirements, where Sirius had told her he'd be waiting.

Standing in the middle of the room, with his leather jacket on and the most beautiful smile Juniper had ever seen, Sirius expected her. She beamed with excitement, and after long embraces, kisses, and catching up sessions, Juniper began explaining how she came across this new and intriguing form of magic she had already started to master.

"And how did you get into this?" he had asked, joy standing out his voice from seeing her invested in something other than her constant and endless research.

"I was just curious," she had said, shrugging, and proceeded to keep talking about the wand movements of a spell as old as the origin of magic itself.

Eventually, she had learned everything from Water Sorcery for the Trained Eye, and gave it back. But it was not enough. Soon after, she requested another book from Flitwick. She wished she could go out and try some of the snow spells she had been reading about, but every time she attempted to set a foot outside, fear crept up her legs, with the intention of gripping her and not letting go. She didn't have to battle the urge. Her body would do it for her, even if she wanted to or not. And Juniper hated not being in control of something so personal as her decisions.

A month into the spring term, her daily meetings with Sirius in the investigation room were becoming something else. The purpose slowly turned into more than solely investigating and searching clues of Marcius's whereabouts. At first, Juniper hated spending her evenings inside the dim and negative atmosphere of the room, but eventually, she started to feel comfortable between those four walls. It had probably begun changing the moment Sirius brought in a small radio, or when he had transformed a couple chairs into cushions, or since he started to bring stolen food from the kitchens everyday.

The disgust and rejection she had developed throughout the past year was slowly vanishing without her noticing. From time to time, the thought of Marcius, or any other like her uncle Deimos, would make her feel uneasy, but she didn't associate it with the room itself anymore. She had made it her own. Sirius had made it better for her.

Years later, she would recognize that, in that moment, she had sealed her mind and started bottling things up as a habit, not allowing herself to hurt, despite everything pointing her not to. It was real, and personal, and it hurt—it had to hurt. And even if it appeared as the best thing to do, it had betrayed her, in the end. Like gravity taking over, she would collapse like a supernova, high in the sky, out of everyone's reach.

"Hello!" sang Sirius, entering the room and kicking the door shut. He left a pair of trays on top of the desk, beside the couple of newspapers they had pending for the day. "Found some pumpkin pasties and biscuits down in the kitchens. Thought you might like both."

"Cheers," she said, summoning one biscuit with her wand straight to her mouth, "what took you so long?"

"Oh, I was transfiguring some twigs into snakes to scare some people."

"Again? You did that yesterday."

"Yes, what about it?"

"At least transfigure the twigs into another reptile. People are going to know it's you soon. Unless you want detention again..."