Eunoia | Sirius Black

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Haslemere, South-West Surrey, 1981
January 17th, Extreme cold

"So, tell me a little about yourself."

"I'm twenty-one years of age. I'm independent, opinionated, loved, and trusted. I have an older sister that I had a falling out with a few years ago. I have very caring friends, the type that would quite literally die for you without any hesitation. I have a traumatic past. My mother was suffering from psychosis. My father is a stranger to me. My grandfather, he was the only one I actually loved. He . . . died."

"Your grandfather, was he a nice person?" He asks. 

I smile and shake my head, "The best to me, not so much to everyone else. He loved me, too. Had a weird way of showing it. Chess was one of them. Whenever we were cross with each other, we'd play a game of chess."

He smiles, too. "Seems like a man of mystery."

"Oh, he was." My smile doesn't falter. "He had this strong belief in the butterfly effect. He was obsessed with it. He always thought that everything he did would lead to some part of his future. His entire life was calculated risks. He thought a match could burn the world if lit cautiously and calculatedly."

"A smart man, too." He nods. 

"Extremely," I tell him. "Sometimes he reminds me of my husband — better, my husband reminds me of him."

"Your husband." He raises a brow. "Right . . . you're married."

"I am," I confirm. 

"Tell me something about your husband."

I hum in acknowledgment of the question for half a minute straight. "He's strong. Super strong. The kind that could pick me up full weight and then you when you're drunk."

He laughs, and I see a dimple on his left chin. "That's great. Tell me another thing,"

"Uh . . . " I inhale and exhale deeply before nodding to myself. "He likes reading. He wouldn't admit it till the day he died, but he loves it. He has a secret stash of poetry and classic books in his bedroom. I saw it once during cleaning but he still refuses to admit he likes Jane Austen." 

He nods, "What else?"

"My husband has majestic beauty. Any gender can't help but look twice in his direction, he is that gorgeous. Sometimes, that makes me insecure," I gulp for I was yet to admit it myself. Not anymore. "but he reassures me constantly. Even during school, he literally had a fan club of pining girls and boys and they would trouble me constantly even though I wasn't dating him." I roll my eyes. 

"He still has one?"

"He might," I admit. "He works in the Ministry now. There are a lot of women there who seem to fawn over him all the time!"

"And how does that make you feel?"

"Like I want  to quit my job." I reply honestly, "I can't bear it. Sometimes, it just gets too much for me. I can't handle that much insecurity, the constant conscious feeling, and that heavy sixth sense that I might lose him one day."

"How does that make you feel?"

"Honestly?"

"Yes?" He tilts his head. 

"A year or two ago, I would've replied without hesitation that it makes me so mad that I could fight those women and never let him out of my sight because I am so in love with him it hurts."

"And now?"

I look up at him, dead in the eye, and smile a deeply miserable smile. "I don't know."

He hums and jots it down in his journal and in seconds, looks back up. "What do you like about him?"

"Everything. I used to love everything about him." I chuckle. "Even his bad habits, the typical husband behaviour of leaving the cabinets open or forgetting to keep the toilet seat up. Everything. He's a protective man who can provide for me. As a husband and in the long run, perhaps as a father. What more could I need?"

"Do you want children?"

I frown. "No. I don't like babies. I'm practically allergic to them . . . but when we married, the idea of having a mini him growing in me didn't sound that bad."

"It does now?"

"I don't know."

"Is there anything else you'd like for me to know about you?"

I shake my head with a polite but tight smile. "No, that's pretty much it. I am Elena Hawke, and I am in a failed marriage with Sirius Black."