The Quiet Kind Of Beauty -Marauder Era

Chapter 19

As Sirius shut the door behind him, he let out a long, disgruntled sigh while he found his way back to his own dorm, lost in his thoughts. Clara was not okay, and Joseph Campbell obviously was in the middle of all of it. Clara was stubborn by nature, but the look on her face - the pale skin, the glassy eyes - when she realised he knew who the sender of the letter was, reaped a stubbornness that could only be born out of something else. The way she looked that owl was out of fear.

She was afraid.

The thought alone was enough to send his own pulse racing.

~*~

After he left, Clara yanked open the drawer containing her letter with shaking hands, ripping the envelope open and nearly tearing the actual letter in the process.

With a deep breath, she opened the letter:

Good job.

Who knew two words could carry a lifetime worth of anxiety and trouble.

It was simple enough, but what did she expect? In the end, she walked down the path her father had paved for her, like any good daughter would.

~*~

The next couple of days passed by quickly. Between avoiding both Sirius and Lily, studying, and having to stop everything she was doing in order to not have another breakdown every couple of minutes, Clara's schedule was overflowing. The days blurred together, and finally, finally, Clara walked out of her last exam feeling as if she could lay down and sleep for a few centuries.

However, she did not sleep. Instead, she wound up sitting in a desk in front of a window inside the library, with no material to read, nor anything work on. With nothing to distract her, she could feel the ache in her chest get more noticeable and she forced a breath in and out, outstretching a hand so it lay blanketed by the afternoon light. At this point, any distraction was a good distraction.

The castle housed an energy of calm once exams were over, and Clara couldn't help but wonder why she was the only one having to drag herself through every hour of the day until her heavy head could hit her pillow. But even then, she could not sleep until unreasonable hours in the morning, when her mind was bone tired and her eyes had dried out of all the tears she had for that day. And when she woke up the next day, it was a repetition of the previous days events, and Clara had just about had enough.

So she let her heart lead her outside, stepping out among the happiness radiated by the other students. She spotted him sitting under a tree at the far side of the grounds, his back towards the noise, a book held lazily in his hand while the other twirled his wand, the way he does when he's concentrating on something. And Clara walked towards him, unnoticed, until she was seated right next to him, her heart trying to break her chest open.

To be frank, she hadn't expected she'd find him, so she sat in silence as Sirius flipped to the next page of his book, wondering what to say. She crossed her legs nervously as her eyes began to burn, clasping her hands on her knee. Finally, she opened her mouth to say 'I'm sorry'. Yet, when she began her sentence, Sirius set his wand down, cutting her short. With his empty hand, he untwisted her fingers gently, finally looking up from his book, and weaved his fingers with hers instead, giving a reassuring squeeze before returning back to his book.