What will happen when a certain loud and irritating Gryffindor boy decides he needs his Astronomy grade to be higher? What will happen when an exhausted star lover happens to fall asleep in the wrong area in the library? Read the tales of Arabella a...
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"What keeps my heart awake is colourful silence."
-Claude Monet
CLOUDS OF DIRT ERUPTED into the once pristine air as the group of boys were seemingly unable to stay still and quiet for an individual moment. They had all taken it in turns to roll from the top of the grassy hill down to the bottom just by the lake. As the friction between them and the floor increased they all came to a stop leaving a large amount of dry mud to disperse into the air and cover everyone who was nearby.
"You absolute morons. Could you not for one second just use that one brain cell I know is knocking around somewhere up there and think?"Annika yelled at them whilst brushing the brown dust from her clothing.
"Sorry, lessons are over anyways so you should not be too worried." Sirius called back with a sly grin on his face.
"It is not that, it is the principle. This is my property and you have just messed it up and expect no consequence. If you had murdered someone and said to the judge that they were smoking and were going to die anyway it would not justify your killing him." Arabella flittered her eyes back and forth between Annika and Sirius as an argument began to unfold.
"Well that is a stupid analogy, I would never kill anyone." Sirius took a step closer to the girl.
"That is not the point and the fact that you are more focused on that than my reasoning explains just how dim you are." She matched his distance.
"I am not dim, I just understand that life should be lived and enjoyed not sat about waiting for someone to come and love you like you seem to be doing." Silence poisoned the air around them. Arabella's eyes had widened at the mention of Annika's largest insecurity.
Quickly, James had pulled Sirius away from the situation before it could escalate any further and Arabella noticing tears forming in her friend's eyes took her arm and led her away from the high tension environment.
Annika had settled her head onto her friends as the salty droplets dripped from her eyes to the shoulder she was on. She felt idiotic starting the argument but it irritated her how they could always get away with everything because teachers favoured them whilst people she knew had been punished for far less.
"I am sorry Arabella for starting the confrontation." She whispered.
"Why are you apologising?" The girl replied inquisitively.
"It was an idiotic thing to do. He was only messing around." The words came out in a mumbled mess.
"Why did you feel the need to call him out on his behaviour?" She had started to untie the girls hair to release the extra tension by her head.
"I am tired of them always getting away with being a nuisance. Every time they do something people always view the victims of their jokes as pathetic and overdramatic but no one ever comments on their behaviour. I just felt that maybe if I said something they would realise that actions do have consequences." Annika took in a large breath after her short spiel.
She felt rather ridiculous being so passionate about something that was so insignificant. In her opinion she thought the boys were actually a nice bunch but still too immature compared to what was brewing outside of the school. Too many families and children, including herself, were being forced to mature far too quickly and some part of her was bitter at the fact that they had no expectations to grow up.
"Do you feel a bit better?" Arabella placed a small cherry sweet into the hand of her blonde friend and followed this action with a small pat on her forearm. Receiving a small nod from her friend she rose from the ground and made her way over to the other side of the argument.
"She's a bloody nightmare, honestly it was a harmless accident, there was no need to get so wound up." Sirius angrily mumbled to his friends seemingly unaware of the girl behind him.
"Sirius you probably should," Peter attempted to prevent the boy from incriminating himself even further but he was not having any of it.
"No Peter she is ridiculous. We were just having fun it's not my fault her and her little gang don't understand the concept of the word." The boys opposite him had a glint of fear in their eyes as the looked at the figure behind him. "What are you guys staring at?" He regretted ever speaking when he turned around.
Arabella said nothing and just stared blankly at Sirius which made him unsure about whether or not to break eye contact. Another thirty seconds of silent staring went on before Arabella broke eye contact and opened her mouth to speak.
"Potter." James had been startled out of his trance when he heard a variation of his name being uttered. "Meet me on Wednesday at the same place, same time for our next tutoring session." She turned on her heel before deciding to add a final sentence. "Please advise Sirius that if he does not wish to be the victim of various life threatening events he should apologise to Annika." She then walked off.
After watching for a moment or two and deciding she was now far enough away Sirius once again opened his mouth. "Did Arabella Gonzales just threaten me?" The boys around him simultaneously nodded their heads. "Merlin I am going to have to apologise aren't I?" He spoke once more, with a mumble to himself.
"The alternative is dealing with whatever they have in store for you and with not only the incident to also then insult her and her friends it's surprising she did not have more of a reaction then and there." Remus spoke aloud before being met with a depleted sigh from Sirius.
All four of them stood up and made their way back inside after deciding that the ambience outside was no longer matching their moods. Remus led the group with his mind filled with future novels to collect on his next trip to the library. Peter followed closely behind thinking about nothing in particular. Sirius was the third Marauder trailing inside and his mind was filled with various ideas to apologise to Annika that would not be too extravagant but also not too minimal.
Finally James finished the quartet and his brain was still plagued with the image of Arabella's sort of episode and he was still unsure as to what truly happened. He of course had kept his promise and not told anyone but after zoning out a numerous amount of times and having to come up with new excuses each time someone asked if he was ok, he believed that he would most likely crack soon if he did not pull himself together.
