Disclaimer-Once again, I do not own anything from the realm of Harry Potter…unfortunately
Chapter 2: Hope For The Hopeless
Ashlen Clarke knew only one thing for certain; that she would be much happier dead. What she didn't know was that the Astronomy Tower, and any ledge in the entire castle that would send a student to the hospital wing or morgue was charmed to toss them back where they fell from. She realized this fact two seconds after the boy who had grabbed her shirt, had shouted at her.
She looked up, a wave of different emotions roiling inside her chest as she gazed up at the angry face of Sirius Black. Shock, anger, desperation, and the most infuriating sense of relief flooded through Ashlen's body as the charm surrounding the Astronomy Tower kicked in. She felt a small shiver weave its way around her body before she was flung back through the open window, landing with a grunt on top of the very boy who had her dangling moments ago.
With a growl, Ashlen got to her feet and snatched the suicide note she had written several weeks ago from the telescope and stomped toward the stairs, leaving Sirius groaning on the cobble stone.
"What the bloody hell?" He rolled over and stared after her as she disappeared into the stair well. "Wait one bloody minute!" He shouted, racing after her, thoughts of his Potions textbook long forgotten. Sirius reached out and grabbed the girl for the second time, this time around the elbow, and whirled her around. Anger flared in her eyes, and it was his turn to stare at her with surprise.
"What?"
"What? I just saved your bleeding life and you say 'what'?" He shoved a hand through his hair, his fingers still trembling from the ordeal. "What the hell were you thinking? You could have killed yourself!"
The girl in front of him rolled her eyes and blew a strand of hair that had fallen across her face away. She put her hands on her hips and stared at Sirius. "Oh, thank you, so much. I had no idea that jumping from the Astronomy Tower would kill me. Thank you so much for clearing that up." With a final glare, she spun on her heel and stomped down the stairs.
"Yeah, well maybe I should clear it up with Professor Dumbledore." He snapped, smirking to himself when she stopped mid step, her foot hovering over the next step down. She turned and glared up at him.
"Look. It was a mistake." She said softly, slipping the tattered remains of her shirt around her body. "I'm sorry."
He took a few steps down and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the cool stone of the wall. "Yeah, well, how do I know you're not going to try it again?"
"Well, obviously it wouldn't work. Magic and all." She waved her hand around as if she were waving an annoying fly away from her face. Despite the sarcasm dripping from her words, she knew he wasn't convinced. Perfect. Just what she needed; someone to think she needed a white knight in shining armor.
Sirius scoffed and dropped his arms. "Yeah, until you've figured out a quick death potion. Or offed yourself in some other crazy way."
"Stay out of my business! I never asked for your help." Ashlen stood her ground, but knew her resolve was fading. All she wanted to do was curl up into her blankets and let the dam of tears that stung her eyelids free. The boy above her stared down quietly, his eyes burning with things she couldn't detect. He looked disappointed, as if he knew she was better than any of it. With a sigh, he let his shoulders slump.
"Look. I have to tell someone. If…If something happened, it would be my fault."
The tears behind her eyes slipped through the dam, and she found it hard to swallow the lump in her suddenly dry throat. She took a step and shook her head. "No. Please. I know I was being stupid just…please don't tell anyone." She swallowed again, damning her voice for shaking.
Sirius sighed heavily. "If I don't see you in class tomorrow, I'm going straight to Dumbledore and we will scour the entire castle looking for you. And don't even think I won't. There will be no where to hide." He narrowed his eyes on her as he passed by her, descending the stairs and leaving Ashlen standing with tears pouring like rain down her face.
For the first time in a long time, her thoughts weren't completely and utterly focused on the thought of death. She stared at the place Sirius stepped before disappearing around the corner, feeling her cheeks stiffen from sobbing before she made her way to her dorm. A night of crying was exactly what she needed to put this horrible day behind her.
The next day, Sirius sat in Ancient Runes ten minutes earlier than anyone else. He had been up and dressed before James could even wake up, which is something unprecedented. His leg bounced anxiously as he stared at the door to the classroom, growing more and more worried with every student that was not his mysterious jumper from the day before.
"Mate. Seriously. You're giving me the willies." James said as he slid into the stool beside him. The other students laughed and readied their notebooks for another hour of avid quill scribbling. But Sirius couldn't hear any of it.
Her seat remained empty.
Just as Professor Babbling waltzed in and erased yesterday's lesson, Sirius felt the urge to flee while her back was turned. He gripped the back of the chair and started to stand before another body slipped into the classroom and ducked into the back desk. Sirius felt himself visibly relax and exhaled the breath he wasn't aware he had been holding in. From beside him, James cleared his throat, a clear indication that he was seriously confused by Sirius' behavior. Before he could say anything, Sirius took the opportunity of the Professor's back still turned and hurried to the back desk.
He slipped his notebook out and cracked it open, despite the stares he was receiving from both James and the girl beside him. The chalk in Professor Babbling's hands moved furiously over the black board, drawing out intricate lines and curves of a new set of runes, and Sirius knew she would be busy for at least the next few minutes.
"I didn't get your name yesterday."
The girl continued to stare at him before pursing her lips and dipping her shabby looking quill in the ink jar that sat between them. "Ash. What are you doing back here?"
"Checking on you, of course." He looked up at the chalkboard and tried to replicate the runes as best as he could. His designs looked more like bored scribbling than actual things.
Ash sniffed and glared at him, her parchment stained with the ink that dripped off her quill. "Well, stop it. I don't need someone to baby sit me."
"Apparently you do!" The chalk stopped mid curl of a rune and Professor Babbling waiting for a moment before continuing. Blushing, Ash started copying the notes and glared out of the corner of her eye at the boy beside her. "Look, if you hadn't been there last night, nothing would have happened. I would have bounced right back in, and you would be none the wiser. Can we not pretend none of it happened?"
Sirius paused and dwelled on what she said for a moment before shaking his head. "No. Because I do know, and I can't just forget about it ok?"
Growling low, Ash scribbled furiously on the parchment, not paying the least bit attention to what she was writing down. "I'll pay you."
"Got lots of money, already."
"I'll do your homework for the rest of the year."
Sirius smirked with a small shrug of his shoulders. "Peter's got that covered. He lost a bet." He explained, as if Ash had any inkling as to who he was even referring to. Biting her lip she knew she had to get this crazy, irritating boy out of her hair. Not so she could find somewhere quiet to kill herself. She knew she had acted stupidly, and it took last night's incident and crying for five and a half hours for her to realize it.
But if Sirius Black was planning on stalking her until graduation just because he was afraid she'd throw herself off the swinging stairs, she was going to go crazy. Her life had enough problems; she didn't need him to add anymore.
"Then what? What can I do to get you to leave me alone?"
He lifted his head and looked upward, contemplating her question as he tapped the quill to his chin. "To convince me to leave you alone, and just forget anything happened? Nothing. You can, however-"
"Alright class. Today we are going to do things a little differently." Professor Babbling began passing out sheets of paper down the rows of desks. "I've asked the Headmaster for permission to do a little group project." She looked at the class as a collective groan rolled through the students. "It's a Runic Scavenger Hunt. I have hidden 100 runes throughout the grounds of the castle. Some are inside, some are out. If you are lucky enough to find all 100, you will get a special prize, and a passing grade. If you find more than 50, you will get no prize, but a passing grade. However, if you do nothing at all and find less than 50 before the deadline, we will have some problems."
Ash looked at the paper that was passed to her and sighed. The roll of parchment was ridiculously long, and had so many runes that she had never even seen. There was a space beside each to tell what it was, and give a description about it. Professor Babbling clapped her hands and grinned. "Now you will have partners but you must each turn in an assignment. However, you will not be free to choose. Those of you sitting next to someone, they're not your partners. Mr. Potter, you can pair up with Mr. Leventhal."
Sirius snickered into his hand as James whirled around and glared daggers at him. It would be payback for James 'forgetting' his text book in the Astronomy Tower. Les Leventhal was one of the smelliest kids in the entire school of Hogwarts, and James was going to complain for the next two weeks about it. It was a small price to pay for Sirius' enjoyment.
Sirius turned to Ash who was glaring icily into him. "Wha?"
"Now I'm stuck with you no matter what. Perfect."
With a grin, Sirius slipped his notebook shut and leaned back against his chair. "Perfect! We can start tonight after dinner! I'll meet you in the Great Hall." With that, he closed his eyes with a small smile still spread across his lips. Ash wished she could have poured their ink on his face.
The Great Hall was alive with hundreds of floating candles, buffets of endless amounts of food, and deafening roar of student's talking. Ash sat at the end of the Ravenclaw table, like she always did, pushing her food around her plate. A couple of peas rolled off the gold plate onto the table to be ignored. Since the first class of the day, Ash had been trying to think of an excuse – ANY excuse – to get out of being Sirius Black's partner.
Professor Babbling wouldn't listen to her and had told her that she was a bit too old to be complaining about trivial things like this before slamming the door in Ash's face. There was nothing more she could do, except complain about it to herself all day.
She stabbed a piece of chicken, imagining it to be Sirius' face just as someone slid in to the bench next to her. A plate of food appeared and Sirius' face lit with excitement. He rubbed his hands together before digging a fork into his food. After several long minutes, he looked over to Ash, unaware of the crumbs lining his bottom lip and sticking into the whiskers of his 5 o'clock shadow. "Wham? Do I haff sommin on muh fash?" He wiped off the corner of his mouth, completely missing the food plastered to his chin.
Rolling her eyes, Ash pushed her plate away and ignored it as it disappeared into Merlin knew where. "What are you doing over here? You said to meet after dinner." She spoke slowly, through clenched teeth as she glanced around at the group of girls sitting a few spaces up from them. They had been whispering since the moment Sirius sat down and kept glancing at Ash and looking down their noses at her as if she had done something to offend them.
With a shrug, Sirius bit into a fluffy roll and nodded back towards the Gryffindor table. "James is completely enthralled with Lily, Remus is completely enthralled in his book, and Peter is enthralled in the food. So, I figured I'd pay a visit to my new best friend."
"I am not your new friend. We had an unfortunate meeting, and we just happen to be working on an assignment together." She pressed her finger into his shoulder harshly, making him wince. He rubbed the sore spot and dropped his roll on his plate, his eyes narrowing on her.
"Look. You're not getting rid of me. I'm not forgetting what happened. You're going to work on this assignment with me and I will be checking up on you. If you don't like that, then I can go straight to a Professor and turn you over to them. Your choice." He nodded with finality, but his tone made Ash seethe with anger.
How dare he think he could just control her life? How dare he think that she was just some suicidal maniac waiting for the chance to try again? He had no idea what she had been through, what she's going through, and no matter how much he forced himself in her company, he never would. "Fine! But if you so much as get in my way once, I'll go to the damn Headmaster myself!" She slammed her books on the table and stood up, making the girls who were still whispering hush immediately and look over at her with wide eyes. "Oh, go to hell!" Ash snapped at them, knowing they would have rumors spread by dawn about how she threatened them with a steak knife.
Outside the doors to the Great Hall Ash realized she was still supposed to be working on their Runes project. With an aggravated sigh, she leaned against the stone wall and waiting for Sirius to finish eating, or flirting, or whatever the hell he was doing. Never in her miserable life did she imagine things would turn out this way.
She let her head fall back against the wall and her eyes close as she tried to sort her thoughts. It wasn't as if she had a terrible life. Her parents were rich, but incredibly set in their 17th century ways, thinking a witch her age should be looking for a suitable husband instead of concentrating on school work. The drawers of her night stand were filled with letters from her mother asking the same things: 'Have you found a suitable match for you?', 'Have you been reading the papers for eligible husbands?'( as if they had such a section), or her absolute favorite, 'Ashlen, dear, you need a husband to fulfill you duties as a woman'.
The letters had stopped recently though. In a way, she was thankful she didn't have to hate the sight of her owl pecking at her window late at night, but she would trade incessant letters for her current situations. It was completely unbearable to think about, and Ash's eyes stung with the threat of tears. She felt a drop slip from her eyelid and roll down her cheek annoyingly.
"Here you are…Are you okay?" The voice made her start and she quickly wiped her face, trying not to look at Sirius.
"Just dandy. Let's get this over with." She pushed off the wall and together, they went to search for the runes. For each one assigned were clues that led you in the right direction. Ash looked down at her paper, damning the blur from the tears that pooled in her eyes. "What has a face but cannot see, cannot smell, cannot taste." She rolled her eyes and led their way to the clock that hung over the entire foyer of the castle.
Sirius stood behind, tapping his chin in deep concentration. "What has a face….a face…Well, we all have faces. I'm stumped." He dropped his arms to his side as Ash pointed up at the clock with an eyebrow raised. "Oh," Sirius said, smirking sheepishly. "I knew that."
They both marked the rune down and moved on to the next one. After half an hour, Sirius was yawning and slacking off. He hadn't copied down the last two and was currently sitting in the library, his feet propped up on the table. Ash ignored him as she wrote down the 15th rune before sitting back in her own seat. "Are you even trying anymore?"
He made a sound as he yawned and shrugged. "Let's do something else now."
"Something else…No. We're only in each other's company for one reason. And that's not to have fun." She didn't look up from her parchment, but could feel Sirius staring at her. Her cheeks flushed and her stomach twisted in a nervous knot. "What?" She asked, looking up as she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Nothing." Sirius sat up, letting his feet fall to the floor with a thump. "I'm just thinking." After Ash didn't respond, Sirius leaned forward and propped his chin in his hand. "Do you even know how to have fun?"
Scoffing, Ash rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her chest. "What kind of question is that? Of course I do."
"Really? Because from the very brief moments I've spent with you, you haven't been very friendly. And it doesn't look as if you have any friends…So, what do you do for fun?"
Ash swallowed slowly and took a deep breath. So what if she didn't have friends? That gave her less things to leave behind. With a sigh, she shook her head and gathered her things. "Not everyone has to be a jack ass to have fun."
"You're avoiding the question."
"I'm trying to avoid you."
"Still avoiding the question." Sirius said in a sing-song tone, examining his fingernails as Ash steamed in her seat at his persistence.
"Fine. Whatever. No. I don't have much fun. Are you happy now?"
"Happy? Of course not! I feel a very important, very personal mission coming on." He nodded as he tapped his lips in deep thought. "Yes, I do believe we have happened upon each other for this reason. I'm going to show you how to have fun!" He grabbed her hand and jerked her up, gathering their books quickly. Ash was shaking her heat, the knot in her stomach growing by the second.
"No, really. You don't have to."
"Sure I do! Meet me in the courtyard tomorrow before Hogsmeade. We'll have fun." He winked at her, sending another wave of heat to her cheeks before strolling out of the library as if he had just won an esteemed award. Ash was left, staring after him for the second day in a row. This time, however she couldn't help the foreign feel of a smile starting to prick at the corner of her lips. She quickly wiped it away and stalked off to the common room.
Tomorrow was going to be interesting, indeed.
An- Thanks so much for my reviews! PrincessDripDrop, ixamxeverywhere, and WickedFaith! You guys rock!