Fire Starter ~(Completed)

Chapter 9

If there ever comes a day where we can't be together, hold me in your heart, I'll stay there forever~ Winnie the Pooh

I laid in my bed that night, hardly able to feel my limbs anymore, let alone the thumping beat of my broken heart. It had been aching all day, a sort of tightness around my ribs that seemed to was to rip me in half. I rolled onto one side, so that my tears rolled ovef my nose and back into my eyes in a rather tickilish manner. I shut them, but nothing could control it now, I was full on crying, a damp stain forming on my pillow, the odd ugly whimper escaping my lips.

"Hey, Snivellus, are you crying?" asked Malfoy in my room. He sat up in bed, his silky, elbow length hair swooping over one eye in a manner mine would never achieve. 

"No" I replied, turning my face away, but even in the flickering candle light he saw my flushed cheeks.

"Hah, you were" he snorted, and I looked at him in annoyance. "Why, then? Your mum dump you?"

"I wish" I muttered darky. "Just leave me alone, Malfoy." With a don't-careish shrug, he regally leaned back into his pillows, and was quietly asleep within seconds. I hated that no one in the dormitory liked me- compared to me, Sirius was lucky- he had nothing but friends in his room, and friendly faces in every corner he could see. Yes, his family situation was rubbish, but his best mate was there to fall back on, leaving a warm and friendly Mrs Potter to scoop up his problems and mould him back into shape.

I was happy that he was happy. I just wished something similar would happen to me. Malfoy suddenly shot up again, a smug smile on his pale face. "Hey, Snivellus, you're not mad because that blood traitor Black died, are you?" He snorted with laughter, but the four other inmtes in my room contiuned to snore. There again. thinking happy thoughts over my best friend, when in reality he was dead. I curled up my fists in anger, and thought about punching him, but I knew that would do nothing, so I let myself walk past him and disappear out of the door, needing some peace and quiet.

The castle was kind of scary at night. Sirius had told me privately that he was afraid of the dark, and for the first time I understood why- I kept feeling like people were waiting for me in the darkness- it was too risky to make any source of light. Luckily I knew where I was going, and crept into the shadows, my back to the wall so nobody could creep up on me. I just wanted to... see. See why or how this could have happened. Why did my best friend die?

Shivering under my thin cardigan, I tiptoed past some windows that over looked the Forbidden Forest. It was near there that Sirius had been found, curled up alone and cold- I didn't want to think about it any more, actually. He'd been haunting my mind all week. Quite glad that no one was here to see the expression on my face, I grimly wiped my cheek on my sleeve, checking both ways down the corridor like it was a crossing. 

Someone had beaten me to it. A lone figure was sat outside Gryffindor tower, an over size sweater covering his hands like bear paws. He flinched when he saw me, which made me think he wasn't a particularly threatening person.

"Who's there?" he whispered, and I recognised the kind, Welsh tones of Remus Lupin. 

"It's just me, Severus" I replied, trotting over to him and sitting down on the step. I saw in the moonlight that he was crying, so I wiped away his tears and put my arms round him. He stopped trying to suppress himself, and ended up emptying his emotions onto my back, so the two of us shook and threatened to fall off the step.

"I'm so sorry" he sobbed, gripping me so tightly that I knew I would have bruises in the morning. "I know, you're grieving too-"

"I only knew him a few weeks" I said quietly, my eyes blank and staring at the floor. "Properly, I mean. Before that I hated him. Now I think about that, I feel so... bad."