Human Design | Sirius Black

xvii. Unfinished Business

IT WAS REECE'S role to be the first one to wake up and the last day at Hogwarts and he wasn't one to disappoint a role that had been assigned to him so long ago and this time was no different. He completed his morning routine as he had every day since his arrival, if not with more care than usual; he needed to perfect it for it would be the last time he would ever complete it in that dormitory.

He didn't want to leave Hogwarts yet, he had 'unfinished business' that he needed to sort out before he left the school. The day was supposed to mark a change in his life, everything from his adolescence was supposed to be concluded so that he could face all the obstacles and difficulties and thrills of the world beyond (hic abundant leones) without preoccupation or distraction.

 He couldn't carry his teenage identity crisis baggage with him. He'd need to figure out a way to leave it there, to leave it at the castle. But if he was going to do that, he couldn't keep denying it, not any of it.

Reece sighed as he left the dormitory in his dress robes and climbed up the stairs to the top of the tower where he sat down on a large cushion. He would pack later; he didn't want to waste the moment of silence he had now, it was his opportunity to take it all in for the last time because there wouldn't be a chance for him to do it later; the graduation ceremony was at noon, his parents would probably be there at eleven-thirty, and then the train would go back at two. He hadn't decided if he wanted to take the train or just Apparate yet; it depended on how the day went. A pair of birds broke the monochrome grey of the sky for a moment as they flew over the Ravenclaw Tower but it was only a few seconds and then the dull clouds were left in peace to loom seamlessly above him.

"You're up early too?"

He turned his head to see Adyasha. She was wearing a blue and green lehenga choli, the fabric decorated with intricate embroidery made with gold thread. A matching chunri wrapped around her head and fell down her back. She had completed the outfit with plenty of golden jewellery which at first glance looked odd on her because Reece didn't think he'd ever seen her wear even a single necklace or pair of stud earrings before but a moment later he grew to appreciate how elegant it all made her look. "Yeah," he said with a nod, "I guess cause everyone else is probably hungover."

She laughed, the sound accompanied by a gentle jingling from her bracelets as she walked over to him. "Yep." Adyasha sat down on a cushion beside him. Her eyes surveyed the room. "I can't believe this is our last time here."

"It feels mental, doesn't it? Obviously, I've known there'll be a last day and on occasion I've impatiently wished it would come sooner but now that it's here it feels much too soon." She nodded and said that she knew exactly what he meant. "It's like time went super slow for seven years and this last week passed in the blink of an eye."

"My brain hasn't really understood that there isn't going to be one more day. Like I know that this is it but it hasn't set in," Adyasha said. "And now we're supposed to be like real adults."

Real adults ... what did that even mean? He wondered if Adyasha knew or if it was just one of those phrases people said to each other and agreed to but secretly nobody could define it. Reece had always been a mature person (as he sat there on top of the Ravenclaw Tower watching the clouds above he started to wonder whether that was just an intrinsic part of his personality or the result of the way he had been raised) but that didn't mean he felt like he was an adult. When would he become an adult? When he had paid how own rent the first time – or maybe a handful of times? When did he get his first paycheck or raise? When he was married, bought a house, had a child? At what point in his life would he qualify as an adult? Or maybe it had nothing at all to do with milestones and it was actually about less concrete things, like having your morals and principles in place, knowing money was a means and not an end, being a little less self-absorbed ... being honest with yourself and other people.