𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐭 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 | 𝐑.𝐀.𝐁

1.1

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There were three weeks left of the summer. Three weeks until Violet and James had to leave Godric's Hollow and venture out to the platform for school.

Violet was planning to take advantage of these last few weeks when she would actually be able to sleep in. She was a relatively light sleeper and was rarely able to sleep past 8 on the weekends before being woken up by her roommates–be it intentionally or not.

Her plan, for this morning at least, was interrupted by loud, consistent knocking on the house's front door. Violet waited for a few seconds, hoping that someone else had also been awoken by the noise. That they would be the one to go down and investigate the noise instead, so she could stay wrapped up in her warm blankets and drift back to sleep.

Five minutes later and the knocking continued uninterrupted, and just as persistent.

She groaned annoyed, pulling herself up and throwing her covers to the side. She fumbled her hand blindly over the various items strewn across her bedside table until she found her glasses. Then she glanced over at her wand. Should she grab it? She was going into her fourth year after all, so it technically wasn't allowed for her to use magic outside Hogwarts yet... but with some weirdo banging on the door at 2 am on a Tuesday, it seemed like a good tool to have on hand.

She slowly crept down the stairs, straining her neck to catch a glimpse of whoever was outside on the porch from the windows framing the door. When she stood within inches of the door, the knocking abruptly stopped. She waited, assuming the knocking would pick up once more, but the hall remained saturated in a thick, unnerving silence.

Violet moved forward, heart racing as she cracked the large wooden door open the smallest she could manage–just enough so her voice could be heard and the tip of her wand could be seen from the outside, "H-hello?"

Silence.

She raised an eyebrow, confused why someone would knock for almost ten minutes straight, just to up and leave when the door finally opened. She opened it a tiny bit further, "Hello? Is anyone out there?"

This time, the brunette was met with a pain-filled groan coming from somewhere down by her feet. She promptly swung the door open, revealing the source of the knocking, curled up and shaking on the Potter's welcome mat.

It was her brother's best friend, a boy who had quickly become a brother in his own right to the younger girl, Sirius Black.

He was bloody and bruised, tears–both fresh and dried–staining his face. What is going on? Sirius Black doesn't cry. He never cries like this. He looked up to the girl frozen in the doorway, it appeared that even simply moving his neck to see her better caused him intense pain. "Violet?"

She dropped to her knees, trying to push past her shock to inspect him better–he barely looked like the Sirius she knew. The boy who would strut through the halls, the boy who would joke with her and her brother–making them laugh so hard her mother would scold them, claiming they'd be met with noise complaints from the neighbors. The prankster, the recklessness, the confidence, it was all gone now. Now, he sat shaking outside her door–pained, fearful, and completely broken.

"Are– are you ok?" she questioned quickly, "What happened to you?" gaze rapidly moving from the split lip, to the various bruises and cuts staining his once supermodel, picture perfect skin.

Violet was so, so confused. She had no thoughts in her mind as to how this could've happened to him. When the boys found out what kind of life Sirius went home to, he made them swear never to tell Violet. The girl was just like James, but at his baby brother's age. He knew that she would take his situation and file it away into her heart. He knew she would worry for him–just as his friends did–when he went home. She was too young to worry about something like that, he hated that Regulus had to know. He'd be damned if he let his little sister learn just how cruel people could become as well.