Human Design | Sirius Black

v. Boys Will Be Bugs

THE SLIGHT BUMP of the train as it chugged along the tracks didn't help ease the dread that filled up Reece's hollow stomach. He kept his gaze locked on the landscape outside, the snowy landscape fading away in the distance and he knew it would only be a few more hours until he arrived at the station and made his way home. 

 Reece couldn't say that he was particularly excited to go home. It wasn't that he didn't like his parents, it was more that the atmosphere of their home in Upper Flagely wasn't exactly relaxing and he had felt in a constant state of acute stress that could use some relaxation to be eased. He didn't usually stress so much about exams and he hadn't ever really been worried about graduation either because (thanks to his parents) he already had plenty of 'contacts' at the Ministry and could get work at the Department of Magical Games and Sports easily enough. Nonetheless, 'stressed' was the only adjective he knew that could come up with to explain what he felt.

He had decided to sit alone. Both Orla and Dris had chosen to stay at school and Benjy was no doubt sitting with Veronica and her friends, and Reece was hardly in the mood to listen to the other blokes in his year go on about girls. Originally, he had planned on reading, but the book had been abandoned on his lap after thirty seconds as he stared at the snow-blanketed woods outside the window.

The train had, however, barely been moving for a few minutes before there was a knock on the door and he turned his head just in time to see Yrsa slide it open. "Can I sit in here?" she asked and he nodded so she stepped in, tossed her bag onto a free seat and sat down on the one beside it. "How come you're not sitting with your mates?"

Suddenly feeling quite defensive, he shot back "Why aren't you sitting with yours?"

Yrsa must not have picked up on the chipped tone to his voice because she responded with her own in a completely regular tone. "They're all staying at school this year – well, except Em, but she had..." she paused in the middle of digging something out of her bag, before continuing with, "a family trouble so she already went home last week." An image of a funeral instantly swam to the front of his mind and Reece could only hope that if a funeral really was what 'family trouble' was a euphemism was for, it had nothing to do with the war. "So how come you aren't sitting with your mates? I saw Oliver and Colin in a department and Josh, Alex, and Kevin Michaels in another one."

"I just fancied being alone for a bit," he said with a shrug.

"I can go if you like." Yrsa shoved the novel she had just pulled out back into her bag. "I think I saw Kenneth Clarke with some other blokes; we're not friends exactly but I'm sure he wouldn't mind –" She had already stood up and pulled the door open when Reece interrupted.

"No, no it's fine." He had expected that he would have liked to be alone but it was quite nice to have her there; she was distracting enough to make him feel less stressed. If he could worry about her, he didn't have to worry about himself.

So she sat back down and pulled Sense and Sensibility out of her bag again. "Are Mum and Dad picking us up?" she asked. Yrsa never owled their parents; even when they owled her, she never replied (not that she could be blamed for it because they never asked questions in their letters; they just said things), so he was always resigned to the role of being aware of logistics.

"No, they've got some work dinner thing so I'll just Side-Along you."

"You know, maybe I'll walk," she quipped with a cheeky grin tugging at her lips. "I don't really trust your Apparition skills."

"I passed the test the second time!" he said defensively and Yrsa's smirk grew. Blood rushed up to his cheeks.

After a while of poking fun at him, the smugness faded from her expression. "I'm only joking. I trust your skills fine; you always do everything perfectly." If only that were true.