Chapter 10. The breakaway
It went out to be a late night with Robert last night, and I had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. I stretched my stiff body and looked around in the messy room with my blurry eyes. I do not think that 'messy' is a word enough to describe what this place looked like. And as for the fact that I would not meet up with Sirius until afternoon, I might as well do something about it today. But halfway through only the beginning I gave up with a huge sigh. It was really boring and for every little thing I put back on Ally's side it forced me to remember how fun we used to have and that I actually missed her a lot. I could not even understand where, why and when it all had fallen apart.
I walked out of the dorm and down to the common room where a lot of other students already were hanging out. I did not pay too much attention to them, though my mind was still stuck in memorising the past. Ally and I had always matched each other so well, maybe because we were so different. She was the more dominant part of us, and was used to get what she wanted, and I just went with the flow, never putting up any big goals to reach. And now, when I really thought about it, I suddenly found out why. I did not have the time to want things for myself because I always concentrated on helping her reach her goals. It felt like my whole world had stopped at this moment. Had she even liked my company at all or was she only using me?
I was so lost in my own mind that I did not even register what happened on the other side of the big, rounded room before Sirius surprisingly shouted out loudly. I woke up from my brain freeze and looked at him chocked. I had never really seen him angry, and never heard him shout like that either of course. Now he looked almost furious as he pushed Ally away hard from himself. She let go of his shoulders easily and looked at him incredibly.
"I'm not your fucking boyfriend for God's sake! Leave me alone!", he snarled at her and she took a step back looking slightly frightened. He looked at her with his burning gaze and I saw how Ally slowly started to lose it. Then she ran of to the stairs, and when she passed me I saw the tears streaming down her face. I looked after her as she ran up the stairs and flinched a bit unwillingly for the sound of the door when she slammed it behind her.
I immediately felt very bad for her when I realized everyone in the whole room had watched the scene. He did not have to shout at her the way he did. I looked at Sirius again, and he surprisingly met my gaze. He still looked angry so I quickly broke the eye contact and headed for the door out. I was in desperate need of air right now. I ran down to the entrance floor and out through the big wooden doors. I stopped in the middle of the front yard and did not even notice the rain that poured down and made me soaked in a few seconds. I closed my eyes and just stood there. It was a quite nice feeling, almost like the rain washed away everything that I had been these years. Maybe this was the new start of the new me. The 'non-slaving-me'. I jumped high when someone suddenly touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes and saw a person covered in his robes. I looked at his face, which was covered in shadows by the cap, and got disappointed when the eyes that looked back at me was not grey, but brown. And I did not know why that feeling hit me, I had always liked brown eyes the best.
"What are you doing, Izzie?", Robert asked me and eyed me quickly from head to toe and back again.
"I-... I don't know", I said and blushed. "Taking a shower, maybe?"
We laughed a little together and he began to take his coat of but I put a hand on his arm to stop him.
"You'll get sick", he said but I did not move my hand away.
"I'm already wet, so if I take it we will both get sick."
"Well, let me at least share it with you on the way back inside."
I gave up and got myself in under his coat and he laid his arm around me as we hurried back to the door. He opened it and got us both inside and shut it quickly after. I looked down at my clothes that was glued to my body and sighed.
"God, Izzie. You're shaki-... Wait, are you crying?", Robert asked me and I looked up at him, trying to force myself to smile at him, but I only managed to make a strange grimace before I started crying. Or not really, though there was no tears running down my cheeks. He threw his arms around me and pulled me closer to him. I felt like a child where I was, letting out dry sobs against his chest. But it felt nice at the same time, because now I knew that at least one person cared about me.
When I had calmed down a bit, I just stood there, close to him. He was warm and at least a little bit dry compared to me who was ice cold and drowned.
"Thank you", I said and forced a smile at him. I blushed, feeling a bit embarrassed by the situation.
"Ah, look what we have here! A wonderful pair of love-birds!", a familiar voice said that came from the stairs. We looked up and saw James, Sirius, Remus and Peter coming down, and it was James who had spoken. I quickly pulled myself out of Robert's arms when I saw them and blushed even more, but I did not know why.
"Ahem, what are you up to?", Robert said to try to change the subject to something else. I looked up at James, curious for the answer.
"We are going to make a prank on Filch", he answered, looking very mischievous.
"Sounds awesome, what will it be?", Robert continued, sounding slightly interested. I bet he did not really want to know at all, he just needed a reason for them to continue talk about it to cover the awkward situation.
"You'll see soon", Peter said and rubbed his hands, looking a bit evil.
"I'm... Going to change my clothes...", was all I could say and Robert just nodded as an answer and I rushed to the stairs. I made a fast glance at Sirius when I passed by him, and if I did not mistake myself he looked a bit grumpy. He did not even say anything to me, and that was unusual these days. Maybe he was still mad at Ally or something I thought as I took two steps at a time to get up faster.
"Hello?", I said when I opened the door to the classroom as walked in. Sirius sat in front of McGonagall's desk with his feet on it. He looked up at me, but showed no interest at all. I raised my eyebrows in wonder but continued forward and stopped in front of him. He made a short glance at me before looking at his feet again.
"How did the prank turn out?", I asked, trying to catch his eyes, but it was an impossible mission.
"Great.", he said with a bored sigh. I was surprised he did not want to share the victory with me. They always wanted to brag about something spectacular they had done lately.
"Oookaay... So, what are we going to do today?"
"Work with our project...?", Sirius asked, trying to make my questions sound stupid, but I would not play his game.
"Well, you can contact me when you want to be serious about this, 'cause I won't waste my time on someone who's acting like a child.", I said and turned around and headed for the door.
"So what are you gonna do instead? Snog a little with Robbie again?", he shouted after me. I stopped and looked at him incredibly.
"Didn't you just tell me he was gay?"
"I was obviously wrong."
"We're friends, nothing more."
"He's only hanging out with you 'cause he likes your boobs."
"Excuse me?"
I did not believe my ears, but Sirius just answered with a simple "you heard me" as he made a superior smirk and lay his hands behind his head. I snorted.
"What the hell is wrong with you? A few days ago you were the nicest person I knew and now you're acting like an idiot every time I see you!", I shouted back at him, making his smile vanish away. He took down his feet from the table and leaned forward over it.
"This is who I am, Iz. This is the way I treat everyone, so don't come here and think you're special."
"You don't have to treat me in any way at all 'cause I will never talk to you again."
As I said that he rose from the chair and walked towards me.
"I'm sorry to say that you have to, because we have this project that we are meant to do together.", he said with a stern voice.
"I'm quitting.", I told him as I crossed my arms and put my chin up a bit when he stopped right in front of me.
"Do it. It's gonna be nice to not have to deal with your mood swings anymore."
"Idiot."
"You didn't mean that."
"Oh yes, I certainly did."
"No. I know you like me."
"I hate you."
"I hate you, too."
"Good."
We glared at each other from where we stood, closely together. It was as if it all had lead to a glaring competition with both parts way too stubborn to give up, and then suddenly Sirius let out a big sigh before he reached forward and kissed me on my lips. I got really chocked at first, but his lips were soft and gentle and made my mind go to ease as I answered the kiss cautiously. I do not really know for how long it lasted, but we both ended it together as we backed away a bit from each other. I looked up at him and saw a sparkle in his eyes before he broke the eye contact and cleared his throat.
"I just had to test it, you know. Just so that I could tell Robbie how easily I can get onto his girl", he said and the anger blew up in me again. I slapped him right over the face and turned around and walked out of the door and slammed it really hard behind me. I was so angry that it blackened before my eyes now and then as I hurried through the corridors. This made me slightly unsteady on my feet and I had to take support from the stone walls so that I would not fall. I met a few students who went the other way, and one of them, Fiona DeKeyrel, a Ravenclaw girl, came up to me and blocked my way.
"Hey, Izabel? How are you?", she asked and looked at me with a worried expression.
"She's drunk, Fiona! Just leave her there", her classmate, Keaton, said and his friends laughed with him. One of them came forward to me and put his arm around me, and I gave him a killing gaze but he only ignored it.
"Had to much of the firewhiskey, hun? You wanna follow me to my tower and sleep it away a little?", he said as he stroked his hand down my spine. I got away from him and turned around as I pulled out my wand and put it under his chin.
"Don't. Touch. Me.", I growled at him before i spun around and ran to my own common room, but I could hear their laugh the whole way until I changed from the corridor to the stairs.
I ran all the way to the girls dormitories and stormed into my room and threw my bag and my wand onto my bed. I started to clear the floor from things, and everything that belonged to Ally had a more or less safety flight the muggle way over to her side of the room. Some things actually broke when they hit the floor, but that just made me laugh. If someone had come in and seen me now they would probably think I was mad, but it felt great to just let go of everything called sanity for a moment. My mind was in total chaos and I suddenly got the feeling that I needed to break away from everything, but that was the exact moment when Ally herself came into the room.
"What the hell is going on here?", she screamed out loud as I threw a bottle of perfume that exploded when it hit the floor next to her bed. "Have you lost your mind? That one was expensive!"
"And so was a lot of the other things I've already broke", I said calmly and pointed at shards of glass and other materials that was spread all over the floor.
"Get out of here, now!", she ordered and I could see the fury grow inside her, but I was not going to obey her rules anymore.
"No, Ally. If you don't want me near you then leave yourself, 'cause I'm staying right here.", I said and froze to the ground.
"Are you deaf? Get out of here! I never wanna see you again, you stupid cow!", she said and came up to me as she pointed at the door. I just made a glance that way and then continued to look at her. Then she took a grip of my arm and tried to lead me out, but I pulled myself out of her grip.
"I'm not your dog anymore, Ally. I won't do as you tell me."
"Oh, so you're changing now? Just because a few other people began to show interest in you? Did you know that until recently, when you snogged Robbie in the entrance hall, everyone thought you were a lesbian and a loner. That there was something wrong with you, and we only hanged out together because I pitied you."
"You're lying.", was all I could say.
"No, I'm not.", she answered with a cold voice.
"Then who's said it?"
"Everyone. Sirius. And your part being muggle didn't really help your reputation either.", she said, and then I really had had enough of her and this whole day sent from hell. I gripped her arm with one of my hands, and her neck with the other and pushed her out of our room and the whole dorm until we reached the top of the stairs. I dragged her down and made a final push as I was to go upstairs myself again, but she took a grip in my hair and pulled me with her down. I started to beat her all over to make her let go of me, but her grip only hardened and I felt the agony when she tear a piece of my hair off my head. I beat harder and harder as I heard someone shout "Stop them!", and then a pair of bigger, stronger hands gripped my wrists and stopped my fists from continue beating. A second later I felt Ally's grip of my hair loosen up and the strong hands steered me away from her completely.
The hands slowly released my wrists and I turned to face whoever it was. But in some way I already knew who I would face, so it did not surprise me when I looked up into those grey eyes one more time today. At first, it felt very calming to have Sirius there, but then I remembered what he had done earlier and what Ally had said.
"Get away from me", I said and tried to pass by him, but he stopped me with very little effort.
"No.", he said and I glared up at him.
"Haven't you done enough today?"
"I'm sorry for earlier today, I-"
"Oh, really? I thought you only showed your true self to me. And what about the part where I'm a mudblood? Isn't it disgusting to you? Like you feel a sudden need to wash your hands when you've accidentally touched me?"
Sirius looked at me with an incredible facial expression that slowly turned into anger.
"Who the hell has said that?", he said furiously.
"Doesn't matter.", I answered and he took a grip of me and looked me closely in the eyes. He actually frightened me a bit when he was this angry, and I guess that was his purpose for the moment.
"Who was it?", he snarled in a low voice and I just looked to the left as an answer. He followed my gaze and found Ally a few meters away, looking terrified when she met his eyes. I felt Sirius right hand let go of me as he reached to pull out his wand, and I tried to stop him but he only pushed me back. He was just going to raise the wand at her when James came in the way and stopped him.
"Calm down, bro. She's not worth it.", he said and bent Sirius' hand down again.
"You heard what she said about me", Sirius said with a dark voice, but he had calmed down a lot already thanks to James.
"Yeah, like we care about some chick's big mouth! We both know the truth and that's all that matters right?", James said to him and tried to meet his gaze, but Sirius only looked at the floor and stayed silent. "Right?"
Sirius made a short glance at me, and James followed it and looked at me. At the same time as he did that he lit up a bit and turned back to Sirius again.
"Don't worry about it", he said and gave his friend a pat on the shoulder before he went back to be with Peter and Remus at the big couches.
Sirius slowly turned around as he put his wand back in the front pocket of his pants. Then he came towards me, scratching his back head and it looked like he actually felt a bit awkward or maybe even shy.
"I'm sorry, Iz. For... How stupid I was earlier today and for... No, I'm not sorry for that mudblood-thing, 'cause I would never say anything like that, and you know that", he said and I remembered that evening when we had met Mr Lestrange, and how angry Sirius was at him and his whole family too.
"I know that", I repeated in a low voice.
"Good", he said and made a warm smile that spread over to my lips as well.
"Sooo... We're friends again?", I asked and he let out a small chuckle before answering.
"Yeah."
He raised his hand and we did a high five, but did not let go of each others hands directly after. But it did not matter to me at all, because I really liked the feeling of his bigger hand holding my own in a safe and steady grip. In some way it told me that he would be there for me, and vice versa. It was kind of strange though. We had only really known each other a few weeks, but I already trusted him more than I had ever trusted Ally or any other friend I ever had before. It was something about him, like a shining aura that represented loyalty and friendship. He was like an animal, maybe a dog or even a wolf, that was very easy to love, but you really had to work to get close to it. And as I stood there, with my hand in his, looking into his shining grey eyes, I started to wonder if there actually was a dog somewhere inside him, and if it was judging me right now, whether I was worth his trust and loyalty, or not.