Chapter 39: Constellations and Consternation

AN: Here we go! The start of the real romance! I'm very excited to have reached this part of the story, as you can tell.

A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay

Like the cowardly Ravenclaw I was (for I certainly wasn't a Gryffindor), I avoided Sirius after our talk outside the Great Hall. But I couldn't ignore how his gaze followed me wherever I went, in the classes that we shared, in the corridors, and in the Great Hall. How did I distract myself? By stealing a crystal ball from the Divination classroom of course, and using it to try to see more of my family's future. Though I'd never used a one before, I was hoping that me being a Seer would overrule my lack of knowledge. I assumed that I would naturally have a leg up on others without an Inner Eye. However, by Thursday I'd yet to see anything in the crystal ball, though I was patient and I refused to give up on trying to reassure myself that I'd made the right choice for my family, by confirming that I hadn't ruined their lives. Maybe I'd given them a better quality of life with what I'd done, or maybe that was only wishful thinking.

Of course, I'd known that Avery would find out that I was a Muggleborn because of my family coming to Platform 9 ¾, and I'd known that there would eventually be a confrontation of sorts. It happened on Thursday of the first week back. I was standing with Em, Tess and Lia outside the D.A.D.A classroom, minding my own business as usual and thanking my lucky stars that the Marauders hadn't shown up yet, when Avery led his gang of Slytherin goons into the corridor. To be honest, I was surprised that it had taken him this long.

"Oi! Grindylow!"

The three of us looked up to see Avery swaggering over with Mucliber, Snape, Rosier, and Wilkes in tow, outnumbering us. Maybe he had more brain cells than I'd initially thought. I gripped my wand in my pocket but waited to see what he'd say.

The Slytherins stopped in front of us, Avery at their helm and towering over me. His face was twisted into the most vile expression that I'd ever seen. "I should've known you were mudblood filth."

I stepped forward, gripping my wand. "How observant of you."

He grinned nastily, while Rosier, Wilkes, and Mulciber laughed and Snape looked fit to kill me for being a "scum of the earth." "Didn't anyone bother to tell you not to bring your filthy family to the platform?"

"Didn't anyone bother to tell you not to pick a fight with students who are more powerful than you?" I snarled.

They all laughed, the sound cold and cruel. "As if mudblood filth like you would ever stand a chance against any pureblood," Mulciber said, spit flying from his mouth.

"Fuck off before I make you, Avery," Emily said, raising her wand and stepping forward to support me.

Mulciber leered. "So you're a blood traitor, Sanderson?" Their laughter was the only sound in the corridor, which had gone silent. The other students had their eyes glued to our confrontation.

"Fuck you, Mulciber," Emily spat.

Avery stared at me, his expression crazed. "You and your family are no better than filthy, disgusting animals, Grindylow."

I curled my lip and growled from deep in my throat as if I were Stripes. "Fuck you, don't fucking talk about my family."

"They're no smarter than beasts, that's for certain. No wonder you turned out so soft in the head."

I stepped forward, drawing my wand to point it at his face. "FUCK YOU! Talk about my family once more, I FUCKING dare you!" I yelled.

Avery raised his own wand, now inches from me. "Filthy fucking mudblood! Don't you dare talk to me like that! Learn your place, Grindylow."

"SHUT YOUR BLOODY FACE! I WILL RIP YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!" I yelled and grabbed him by his lapels, making him stumble back a few steps. I snarled and dug my wand tip into his throat so hard that his head was tipped up at a severe angle. The other Sltyherins drew their wands and pointed them at me, yelling insults.

"Kersti, no!" Lia said, trying to pull me away.

"Say one more thing and you're dead," I spat, eyes still fixed on Avery, feeling the pulse beating tantalizingly fast in his throat. I could rip him to shreds as Stripes alone.

"Enough! Stop!" someone else yelled.

"Kersti, no! He's not worth it!" Lia said, sounding panicked. "Don't get yourself expelled over him."

"I SAID ENOUGH!" a girl screamed.

I took a few measured steps back from Avery and turned to the source of the voice, which was Lily running down the corridor, the boys in tow. I backed away from Avery, pocketing my wand with shaking hands as she stopped next to us. Avery was snarling at me, his face red and a vein bulging on his forehead, the other boys still standing with raised wands.

"Put down your wands, everyone," James said, staring the Slytherins down and using his height to intimidate them.

Snape's face screwed up in an impossibly sour expression before they reluctantly did as they were told. He opened his mouth to say something when another voice interrupted, the footsteps echoing down the corridor.

"Absolutely unacceptable behaviour!" Professor Darkmore was running towards us, her midnight-blue robes billowing out behind her like she was an odd-coloured bat. "Students, separate yourselves this instant, or everyone will be going to see the Headmaster for possible suspensions."

The Slytherins stepped away, with Avery directing one last smarmy grin at me. I sensed rather than saw Sirius standing next to me, looking at me worriedly. I avoided his gaze, trying to still my shaking hands.

"Miss Ridgelow, that was completely unacceptable behaviour, laying hands upon another student, and both verbally and physically threatening them." Sirius tried to interject with the beginnings of an angry protest, but the professor silenced him with an icy look. "Detention every week for the whole of January, starting today, Miss Ridgelow. And I will be informing your Head of House about your inappropriate conduct."

"But, Professor, Avery and his-"

"No 'buts,' Miss Evans." She gave me one last look of utter reproach before striding off to let us into the classroom. Avery and the other Slytherins pointed and laughed at me, and I made a very rude gesture at him, which only made them laugh harder.

"Fucking bullshit, that's what that is," Sirius growled, fists clenched.

"Bloody manky Slytherins, getting away with everything," James added, glaring daggers at Snape.

"Why'd she punish you if that arsehole started it?" Lily added.

I shrugged. "Favouritism, most likely."

"Stupid. How're Muggleborns supposed to feel safe at Hogwarts if the professors won't even lend a helping hand?" Lia said sadly.

Sirius grumbled something under his breath about blood purist buggers.

"I'll be fine. I have some presents for Filch anyway," I said. "I'll make it out of detention in one piece."

Sirius looked at me sadly, but no one really had anything to say to that, and so I trudged into class behind the girls. A month's worth of detentions and a bloodthirsty Avery were small concerns in my mind compared to my grief.

I served my first of four detentions for January directly after dinner. I had to tidy the entire Trophy Room without magic, seeing as Peeves had flung all the trophies around last night, leaving the room in total disarray. However, I'd managed to placate Filch because I'd brought him a tabloid magazine about the Queen so that he'd have something to read while he supervised me. He'd snatched it out of my hands suspiciously, but then he'd buried his face behind it and not said a word since the detention had begun. I could've sworn that he was tearing up and sniffling more than usual as he pored over the glossy, high-resolution images of the Queen, Prince Phillip, and Prince Charles. Silly old bugger.

Filch dismissed me with a mild wave of his hand when I'd finished three hours later at nine o'clock, never peeling his eyes from the magazine. I slipped out and closed the door behind me, faltering in the hallway.

"Hey, kitten," Sirius said, leaning against the wall opposite me, his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face.

My heart thrummed to life and my stomach began bouncing up and down. I suddenly felt very hot and flustered, and loosened the tie around my neck in an effort to not feel so trapped. "Hey," I said quietly.

He moved away from the wall until he was standing in front of me, looking down with an inscrutable look on his face. "I'd ask you how detention went, but I reckon I already know how it was."

I managed a nod and a shy smile, my insides reduced to mush and my pulse beating furiously at his proximity. Would he ever feel the same way about me?

"Fancy a smoke with me?" he said, eyes scanning my face for my reaction.

"Okay."

He grinned and I felt my pulse quicken. I followed him in a haze as he led me through the corridors, unable to stare at anything but him as I walked at his side. How could anyone as amazing as him feel the same way about me? Was it delusional to think he could fancy me too? My heart did somersaults every time he turned to grin at me, and I wanted nothing more than to kiss him until I forgot all about my grief.

It didn't take us long to reach the darkened grounds, and we stopped in our usual smoking spot as Sirius hunted around in his robe pockets for his pack of cigarettes. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but it looked to me like his hands were fiddling nervously with the pack as he gave one to me and took one himself. I mirrored his pose and leaned against the wall as we began to smoke. My shoulder was nearly brushing his, but I resisted the urge to lean into his warmth.

I couldn't help but stare at him as he lowered the cigarette from his pursed lips, exhaling a lungful of smoke before he spoke, his gaze fixed on the clear night sky. "Do you know that constellation, kitten?" he said, gesturing to one.

"No," I said and took a drag.

He stared at the stars, brow furrowed in concentration. "It's Canis Major, although I've never found that it looks like anything but a blob of bloody stars."

I laughed and looked at the constellation. "Yeah, I agree."

He flashed me a smile before turning back to the night sky. "The brightest star in it is Sirius. Well, it's also the brightest star in the night sky. Bloody stupid parents naming me after a star." I laughed. "What?" he said, staring at me.

I grinned. "Dunno, it's just… well, figures you'd be named after the brightest, most beautiful star in the sky."

He snorted. "Why, because I'm always the best and brightest and most beautiful?"

I nodded, grinning like a loon. "Yeah."

He smiled ruefully and turned back to the stars, taking a pensive drag. "I mean, it's not surprising that my parents named me after a star, seeing as star and constellation names run in the Black family."

"Really?" I said, unable to hide my curiosity.

"Yeah. My father's name is Orion, after the constellation that's right next to Canis Major," he said, gesturing to a different group of stars. "Identifying the stars in the sky that my family members are named after was quite possibly the only thing my father taught me that I remember. And my little brother Regulus is also named after one. Of course, my middle name had to bloody well be Orion, so I've got two star-related names."

"Sirius Orion Black?" I said quietly.

He nodded with what looked like a grimace. "Real fruity name, yeah?"

I shrugged. "I take it you don't like your name?"

He shook his head vigorously. "Bloody Black family names. At least I chose the name 'Padfoot' for myself and like it. But 'Sirius' is just another reminder of the family that I come from which I hate. Not to mention that my parents didn't even have the decency to come up with an original one for me. Strictly speaking, I'm the third Sirius to appear in the family tree."

"The other two are surely pathetic excuses for Sirius Blacks in comparison to you."

He turned to look at me, smiling. "Thank you for the compliment, kitten. Are you the first Kersti Ridgelow of your family?"

I smiled back. "Yes, and the only one to attend Hogwarts."

"You're a trail blazer, kitten."

I shrugged and took another hit from my cigarette. "Could've just as easily been born a Muggle."

"That would've been a terrible waste," he said.

I looked away, my heart stuttering in my chest. Sirius always reduced my limbs to jelly when he grinned at me like that. I felt almost like Sirius B, which was the dwarf star that made up the other half of the binary Sirius star system. That left Sirius as the star Sirius A, around which I incessantly orbited.

He exhaled another puff of smoke and said, "There are my other relatives who're also named after stars and constellations, like Pollux, Cassiopeia, Cygnus, all that rot. And the cousins that Avery mentioned when we dueled him and Mulciber, though one's named after a flower."

"Are they cousins on your mother's or father's side?"

"My mother's." Sirius turned to give me a sombre look. "I reckon I should start from the beginning so it makes sense, kitten."

"If you want to. You don't have to if you don't want to tell me," I said.

He looked at me seriously. "I want to, Kersti. Just don't… don't judge me too harshly because of what I come from, will you?"

I shook my head. "I could never, I promise. I realized a long time ago that you're not like your family at all. I promise that I won't."

He managed a pinched smile and turned his attention back to his cigarette. "You already know about the Blacks and all their pureblood rot, so there's that. They're one of what's called the Sacred Twenty-Eight. The 'noble and most ancient House of Black' has always been very… obsessed with blood purism, and I'm the first Black to have been sorted into Gryffindor."

"They were all Slytherins before you?"

He nodded, his posture tense. "Yeah. My father and mother- like the rest of them- are fixated on the pureblood agenda, to the point where they married each other even though they're second cousins."

I couldn't help but gasp. "Second cousins?"

He could only manage a grimace. "Yeah, they married for the sake of some stupid notion of blood purity, and then they had me and my brother Regulus, who's born in 1961. So my cousins on my mother's side, the ones that Avery mentioned, are Blacks too."

"And they're all blood supremacists as well?"

"The worst of them. Well, Bellatrix and Narcissa are, but not Andromeda. She got disowned just like me because she married a Muggle, Ted Tonks. But her sisters married respectable purebloods, so they're the 'shining stars' of the family. Obviously, she's my favourite cousin, and the only other family member I respect besides my Uncle Alphard."

"Wasn't… haven't I heard about him before?" I said, the name sounding vaguely familiar.

"Yeah. Prongs mentioned him when we were talking about the niffler in my flat. He left me a handsome sum of money in his will after he died, which meant that I could fend for myself. I used some of it to buy my own flat."

I stared at Sirius, my cigarette long since forgotten. "Why'd you get disowned?" I asked.

He offered me a bitter smile before he turned back to the sky. "Because I didn't agree with their pureblood mania. I rebelled against my parents from the beginning, and things only got worse when I was sorted into Gryffindor. After that, well… things declined very quickly. And… when I was sixteen, during the summer between fifth and sixth year, I ran away from home."

It took me several moments for me to speak. "You did?"

Sirius turned to meet my gaze. "Yeah. I couldn't take it anymore. Of course, Regulus was always the perfect pureblood son, and they loved to make me feel like shit by comparing me to him, yelling at me and asking what was wrong with me that I couldn't be a perfect heir like him. They thought I was soft in the head, defective, for not believing in their pureblood rot. I reckon things hit a breaking point that summer, and I couldn't stay there anymore. And that was the best decision I've ever made in my entire life."

I threw away my smoldering cigarette, my heart breaking for him and all that he'd gone through at such a young age. "I… I'm so sorry that you went through that, Sirius," I said quietly.

He shrugged. "It's okay, kitten." He leaned against the wall, smoking in silence, while I studied him. Who were you, Sirius Black? Who were you under the mysterious, bad-boy image you projected to the rest of the world, and would you let me know everything about you?

I wrapped my arms around myself. "I'm sorry for lying about my holidays. And I am sorry about blowing off the invitation."

He watched me. "That's okay, kitten. I'm sorry about your fight with that manky arsehole today. I reckon that's the angriest I've ever seen you."

"Oh, Avery? Well, I should've seen it coming. He did see my family at Platform 9 ¾."

"But…" Sirius sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Even though my family is just as bad as him, you know that I'd never say anything like that to you, right?"

"Of course I know that. You're not your family, Sirius. If you were like that, you would never have… gotten involved with me after you found out that I'm a Muggleborn."

"I know, I just… I don't want you to think I'd ever be like that, you know?"

"I know."

We lapsed into silence for several minutes before he spoke again. "What happened to you over the break, Kersti? You came back all… different. Did something happen with your family?"

The image of my parents, bodies frozen and eyes open as I obliviated them in what had been the safety of their home, flashed through my mind. I shook my head.

Sirius threw away his cigarette butt and turned to face me. "What happened?"

I shook my head harder and, despite my best efforts, the tears started falling. "I can't tell you."

"Why not?" he asked quietly, stepping nearer until he was within touching distance.

"I can't. I just can't." I hid my face in my hands, embarrassed that I was becoming a teary, sniffling mess in front of Sirius. "I want to, but I can't," I said, struggling around the lump in my throat. He was silent, and I feared that he was going to be angry or that he was going to turn around and leave me out here alone. "I'm sorry, I can't," I said, choking on my words.

He sighed, as if he were trying to let go of the urge to question me. "That's alright, kitten." He wrapped an arm around me and let me lean into his side. He started smoking another cigarette as I hid my tear-stained face in his chest, sinking into his warmth and scent and the feeling of his body pressed against mine. "There's a party happening in the Gryffindor Common Room tomorrow evening, if you want to come," he said, his voice rumbling through his chest.

"Okay. I guess I'll come." At least the alcohol might help me drown out the pain.

"Don't worry, I'll be there so you don't have to be at the party alone."

"That sounds nice," I mumbled into his robes.

He chuckled, gripping my shoulder in a comforting gesture. "I'm…" He cleared his throat and began again. "I'm glad that I've begun telling you about my family."

"Thanks for telling me," I whispered, unable to help the smile on my face. "Have I ever told you how glad I am that you've shaken my seventh-year upside down?"

He let out a bark of laughter. "No, you haven't."

I drew my face away from his side to look up at him fondly. Never had I wanted to be so close to someone else before, to know everything about them. "Well, you have. In the best way possible."

He looked down and brushed a strand of hair away from my cheek. "As long as you're happy about it, I guess it's not so bad?"

I nodded, unable to look away. He smiled softly, his beautiful eyes searching my face. His gaze flicked briefly to my lips before he leaned in and kissed me.

I'd sorely missed the feel of his mouth on mine, with his soft, beautiful lips that were perfect for kissing. His scent, so unique and beguiling, wrapped around me and pulled me under. As we kissed, he reached out to hold my cold hand in his warm one, squeezing in a comforting gesture. Raising a hand to tangle in his hair, I deepened the kiss. His tongue poked out between his lips and met mine, and I gripped his hand, loving the feeling of our fingers intertwining. I could feel my cheeks flushing and my body thrumming with electricity. I'd kissed him so many times before, but this was different because now I fancied him, and I wanted so painfully for him to fancy me back. But he was Sirius, and I would never be able to force him to feel the same way about me, even if I had wanted to. If he were to have the same feelings as me, it would have to be of his own volition. Yet, the thought of losing him, of no longer having him in my life, made me achingly sad.

Sirius pulled away, his hand still gripping mine. His thumb rubbed over my skin slowly, like he was trying to memorize the feeling of my hand in his. I let my fingers fall from his hair as he watched me. I couldn't read his expression in the darkness. "Will you be okay, kitten? Until I see you tomorrow, I guess."

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I can manage alone."

He squeezed my hand but didn't say anything. For the first time, it seemed like he had no idea what to say.

"I'll be fine, okay? Thanks for inviting me," I said, watching his face.

He offered me a half-smile. "Wouldn't be the same without you."

I shrugged. "I s'ppose so."

He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. His eyes scanned my face. "I, er… I did miss you, you know. Over the holidays. Er…" He swallowed again.

I smiled, my cheeks burning. "I missed you too," I whispered, unable to break his gaze even though my body was on fire.

Sirius grinned and abruptly he was kissing me again, squeezing my hand in his as if he never wanted to let go. He kissed me harder, with a desperation and need that I'd never felt in him until now. I tried to keep up with his pace, but he was snogging me now like he was a starving man and like he needed me to fill a chasm inside him.

He broke away and sighed, a sound so pleasant and content that my throat closed with emotion. He was grinning, features alive with happiness, and I wondered how I could have possibly made him that happy. He squeezed my hand in his. "Reckon we should go back before we get caught, kitten. I don't want to make you get any more detentions."

I smiled. "Yeah, I reckon you're right."

Sirius clasped my hand once more before letting go and turning away, heading back into the castle. I caught up and walked side by side with him, both of us grinning from ear to ear at each other like a pair fit for the loony bin. But I couldn't be bothered to care about what we might look like to outsiders; I was with Sirius, and that was the most important thing at the moment.