Troubled Love║Sirius Black

Chapter 11

A few nights later, when Hogwarts was bathed in the depths of darkness, Hallie tossed and turned under her covers, with sleep coming to no prevail.

Thoughts raced through her head, each one reminding her of what had happened only days prior. She had to fix things with Remus. But the thought of having to push away her own stubbornness, was having a turn for the worst. Hallie wasn't someone who could apologise easily, nor forgive easily. Yet if she wanted to make things right, then she only had one option.

Problem was, Hallie didn't exactly know how.

Hallie grabbed her duvet, before shuffling over to the windowsill, sitting down and wrapping the red cover around her body.

The night was clear, without the shrouding presence of the clouds covering the starlit sky. They looked like specks of dust of a canvas, that were twinkling effortlessly.

Hallie watched the grounds of the school, as the moon reflected off of the edge of the black lake. The moon was a giant glowing orb - for the first time in a month it was full.

The Gryffindor felt at peace, tranquilised, calm - the only thoughts running through her head were 'why was Remus mad at me? Look deeper? Think harder?'

But those questions only confused Hallie more. Look deeper for what? Search harder for what?

Hallie tugged her duvet up and around her neck. She watched the trees billow in the cool autumn breeze, the long pieces of dewy grass dancing in the wind, the gentle ripple of the water, a rat riding on a...deer?

Hallie pressed her hands against the window and shuffled onto her knees, but the minute she saw it, it disappeared completely. Hallie rubbed her eyes in confusion, yet nothing was there.

 'Stupid hallucinations,' she muttered.

Yet there it was again - the stag and the rat now accompanied by a shaggy black dog at the edge of the forest. Hallie rubbed her eyes tiredly once more, in the hopes that her eyes were deceiving her or playing a cruel trick on her brain. Though the more she watched in fascination, the more Hallie came to believe that the scene before her eyes was real.

The three animals chased after a wolf, that had appeared out of the line of trees at the edge of the forbidden forest. The creature tipped its head back to howl to the moon, as though calling out in anguish and fear. The wolf had to be a human. It just had to be.

Yet as Hallie pressed on, watching the animals intently, it became harder and harder for her body to ignore the nagging feeling of exhaustion - her body pleading for sleep. After each movement, Hallie would peel her eyes open to watch the animals playing together in front of the forest, bounding around with not a care in the world.

But soon enough, she became drowsy and disoriented, tired and anguished.

After several minutes, she couldn't keep it up any longer and soon drifted off into a gentle sleep - the animals continuing their midnight rendezvous until the waking hours of the following morning.

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The next morning proved difficult for Hallie, as she battled through her tiredness from the night previous. Hallie had been so sleep deprived, that she no longer could distinguish whether she really had been fully awake; awake enough to witness a rat, a werewolf, a deer and a dog playing in the forest.

Hallie sighed. 

She really was losing her shit.

That day, Hallie had been woken up at the crack of dawn for a Quidditch training session. James hadn't long been dismissed from the hospital wing and was already back to scheduling sessions, in the hopes of taking down their biggest rivals, the Slytherins, at the first house match of the year.