It took a while to adjust to this dungeon home, but the Slytherin common room had become more and more homey every day she spent at Hogwarts. Joby kept finding more things to like, more things to admire, and more people to talk to. Managing to keep up with her schedule was becoming increasingly less difficult, especially as Christmas came around, and she was finding new shortcuts to classes every day.
Christine had attempted to show Joby how to be More Like a Gryffindor, as if Gryffindor was the best house to be in, but Joby decided to ditch Christine for much more selectively loyal friends instead of the kind that would change her because she wasn't the perfect friend just yet.
Joby began to love Hogwarts and treat it like her home. Of course, she wouldn't be going back to her parents for any holidays, so she figured it would be best to make the most out of this place.
Joby decided to keep her tie under her robes as she found herself bullied by the older Gryffindors, and it wasn't as if she had learned any defensive spells or was a favorite of many professors. Although...
As years pressed on, Joby became smarter and faster and stronger much more quickly. She kept her dark hair up in a pony tail or bun with little bits framing her visage so as to not get caught or pulled by anything, and she felt the attackers wade off--possibly because they were leaving the school. She liked herself pretty well, and although her parents would not always come to similar terms, she kept her spirits up by staying close to her chosen family.
During fourth year, Joby had taken to wandering the halls secretly after curfew since Filtch didn't favor the dungeons and she could easily get away with it. She didn't find many other students do the same except for one. He was a Gryffindor, an odd kind of boy, and she figured he was the older (more handsome) brother of Regulus Black, who was a year younger than she.
Joby made sure to keep herself hidden from him, though she knew they would meet at some point. Other than the boy, there was a large black puppy who roamed Hogwarts after midnight whom she liked to see more than Sirius Black, though she still kept out of its way.
Each night, at ten-thirty, she would slip out of the common room and head across the school, through every hallway and up nearly every moving staircase to the Astronomy tower where she tended to gaze up at the stars and wonder. She liked her alone time, though it was scarce, and it meant that she could keep to herself for at least a half of an hour.
This is where she began to see who she called the "kicked puppy."
On a cold, November night, possibly the thirteenth or fourteenth, Joby could never remember, she found a figure in the Astronomy tower before her.
She kept herself low on the stairs up, just out of view of the person who was on his knees, whimpering on the floor below a telescope. The student's hair was dark, not much to be observed there for not many Hogwarts students had light hair, and the boy must have been tall and lean, possibly even fit.
She silently stepped closer up, thankful for the sturdiness of the castle's stairs, and tip-toed around to the figure.
Her fingertips gently brushed his shoulder to console him, but the boy lashed out and whipped around, crying out. "Who are you?"
Joby sat on the wooded ground, her legs crossed, and she put her two hands out. 'It's okay,' she mouthed. 'I won't do you any harm.'
The boy's eyes flew wide open, realizing who she was. His eyes flickered to the whitened scar running down her pale neck. "You're Joby."
Joby nodded, then pointed to the Gryffindor (by the looks of his tie, though who was to say; it was dark) in front of her. 'Sirius Black.' She held out her hands again. 'Take.'
Sirius Black smirked. "What do you want?"
Joby could hear the uncertainty in his voice. She kept her hands out steadily, acting as if he were a scared dog--which must not have been far from the truth.
The boy stood, making himself taller than her. "You're not that awful for a Slytherin." He put his hand out, tapping her little but of tie that stuck out from her collar. "I guess that's because you--" He stopped himself. "Why did you come find me here?"
Don't get so cocky, she thought. She pulled out her wand and wrote a multitude of fiery letters in the air between them:
I ALWAYS COME UP HERE.
Sirius nodded. "I don't."
Joby snickered. HOW COME YOU'RE UP HERE NOW?
Sirius's face fell. He kept his mouth shut.
She left the words in the air and turned to face the sky. She wrote more. IT'S ALL SO BEAUTIFUL TO ME.
Sirius leaned on the ledge next to her. "What?"
Joby didn't need to write anything now; she merely gestured out to the dark school grounds which were alive with glittering reflections of midnight dew, and the dark sky filled with the smallest of glittering specks that most have had some life to them for they were so beautiful, and the Forbidden Forest which seemed blue and grey without the light of the sun.
Sirius turned his silvery eyes to the landscape, drawn to whatever Joby must have called beautiful.
Joby took her turn to examine his face, noticing a shining streak running down the side from his eye. She lifted her hand up to gently brush it away, though as soon as her skin met with his, Sirius Black leapt away.
Joby whipped her hand back to her chest, just as shocked as Sirius.
"What was that for?"
Joby sighed. He must not have been introduced to compassion in his life, just like her; and he was a boy, meaning his friends were like roughhousing brothers, not sweet sisters who would introduce him to kindness. She knew those.
She mouthed, 'Sorry,' and made to leave.
"Wait! I'm sorry." He took two long steps toward her and put his hand on her arm. "I didn't mean to jump."
Joby nodded and put her hand on his. She raised her wand and wrote in the air again, this time writing with smaller letters.
abused?
Sirius slowly pulled his hand away, his eyes drooping and his expression grim. "How would you know?" The sentence came out as a growl, whether he meant to hiss or not, and he leaned back against the wall of the tower and slid down to the floor, becoming smaller as he went.
She gave him a short, "hold on" look. Her fingers came up to brush the tear stain from his face again, and this time he didn't jump. He leaned into her gentle touch instead of leaping away as he had done prior, and she smiled when she took her hand back.
You jumped,she wrote, her writing becoming softer as she changed her perspective of the boy in front of her.
His eyes grew wide. "Is that not normal?"
Joby shook her head and sat neatly aside him, only inches from his side. I want to help you. Who is it?
Sirius turned his head to face the other direction, away from Joby. He mumbled something inaudible, but Joby truly wished to help. The reason she herself was mute was because of abuse. Not that anyone knew that, of course. It was too personal.
Maybe she shouldn't have asked him who his abuser was. It may have hit home for him, and she immediately felt bad after the sudden realization. She lifted her wand again to write, but before the hissing orange script floated from the tip, she heard a bangfrom underneath them.
It wasn't directly below the floor, more outside the building, but it was still loud and disruptive, and it made them both jump right out of their skin.
"What the--" Sirius Black leapt to his feet, looking out to the fields, and then he put out his hand to help Joby up to see what he was watching. A grin suddenly spread to his lips, and Joby noticed that they were quite smooth compared to other boys' mouths which were typically chapped and broken.
Joby beamed when she spotted her housemates blowing sparklers into the air, green, red, blue and yellow. The shouts of success were heard for miles, Joby figured, and they seemed to not be heard by any authority figure in the school. She eyed Sirius Black, whose mouth was spread from one side of his face to the other in glee.
"Who knew they could pull this off without us?" Sirius mumbled, presumably to himself.
~Line of the breakage~
It took many weeks of meeting in secret to properly get to know each other, but they made accomplished acquaintances in the end that was not the end.
Joby started to like Sirius, though she never told him (it's not like she could), even when fifth year rolled around and they had established a solid friendship. Her kicked puppy was warming up to her, acting less kicked than ever, and he was beginning to show her off to his friends--even though no one seemed to believe that Sirius Black, the notorious prankster, was ever capable of befriending the Mute Slytherin of Hogwarts.
On a cold night, specifically December twenty-ninth, they met again in the tower they had first spoken in.
Joby was, of course, wearing a green and grey scarf, and she was wrapped up in a thick robe for the winter weather--much unlike Sirius, who was decked out in jeans, a jumper, and boots.
The troublemaker was visibly shivering, but Joby could tell that he was trying to hide it and look tough. She pointed to her own windbreaker and then to his chest, poking him right between the pectorals.
Sirius chuckled. "I'm not that cold," he promised, but his teeth started to chatter as a burst of wind flew by them.
Joby took off her scarf and tossed it around his neck, catching both ends, and then, when she had steadily wrapped her hands around the fabric, she pulled him up close to her, flush to her chest.
She rolled her eyes at him when his body shook suddenly with surprise and chills, and Joby decided to wrap her robes around him, too. She wasn't going to let this cocky little puppy kill himself. He smelled slightly of the dinner they had just eaten, maybe gravy and potatoes, and she could definitely smell blueberry pie.
Sirius smiled when she covered him with her warm jacket, but he said, "You didn't have to do that." As he wrapped his arms around her waist, however, he succumbed to the intrigue of her body heat, and he pulled her even closer.
She liked being so close to him, when he let her. It was comforting to have a good friend she could be so close with. It wasn't that they were friends that she liked about it, because she would gladly become much more to him if that was what he wanted. It was their closeness and security with one another that she liked. She couldn't do this with anyone else; she didn't trust anyone as much as she trusted Sirius.
As they stood there, in the cold, wrapped up in Joby's windbreaker, Sirius began to hum. His voice made a deep, resonative tune, and he started to sway her to it.
It was just moments later that she realized that what he was humming had been playing below them for a minute or two, and she smiled.
The next words to tumble from Sirius's mouth shocked her, and she panicked, grasping for a response in her head.
"Could I kiss you?" He bit his lip and pulled himself away for a moment after saying this, but he quickly corrected himself. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. Never mind."
She whipped her head back and forth suddenly to regain her confidence from the shock, but he must have taken it the wrong way because he apologized quickly again. Her head fell on his chest, and since she had no way of correcting anything she had done, she kissed him.
Sirius froze--not that he wasn't already freezing, he just seemed to seize up--and she pulled away immediately, biting her blueish lip.
They now stared at each other in complete and utter silence, their ears burning in the cold without motion.
Joby's dark, thick hair fell in front of her face, and Sirius steadily swept it to the side and behind her ear.
By way of habit, he placed his lips upon her mouth, slowly getting a feel for her limits, and letting her do the same.
Joby almost let go of her jacket, which would have blasted Sirius with bitterly cold winds, so she didn't. She did, however, stand on her toes to reach him, and she pulled him even closer to her, eliminating the slice of space between them. His cold lips were slightly chapped and did taste of a multitude of desserts. Her eyes stayed shut until her lungs began to hurt from the insufficient amount of oxygen she had been receiving.
They broke away slowly, their eyes staying closed, and they felt the other's breath puffing over their necks.
Sirius was the first to move, opening his mouth to speak but closing it again. Then he closed the space between them once more, realizing that it would be so easy to become addicted to her lips, whether words came out of them or not.
Her breath, he could feel, was warm, as if she had just been dunked in a cup of hot cocoa--and she smelled sweet and chocolatey, too.
Joby pulled away this time, coming down from her tiptoes and resting her head on his pulsing chest. She felt his heart beating, and she was reassured by the sound; it reminded her that this god of a man was still, unequivocally, human. This life-giving organ was what kept him alive, and she had long ago decided to keep it beating for as long as she could.
