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Breaking Up is Hard To Do


They were learning about augureys in Care of Magical Creatures class. Professor Kettleburn had one of the smoke-grey birds in a black iron cage, on loan from the Ministry. “When it rains, the augurey appears closer to a shade of emerald than she does now in the sunlight,” Kettleburn explained, running a hand over the feathers of the bird, which looked mournfully about at him. “The augurey cry indicates when it is about to rain… Many superstitious wizards of ages past were foolish enough to believe that the cry of the augurey foretold a death, but research by Newt Scamander has since proven this old-witch’s tale incorrect…”

Sirius was concentrating very, very hard on his textbook and the bird, trying to ignore the stares from Marlene McKinnon, who was sitting on the opposite side of the cluster of students before Kettleburn. He turned his eye downward and caught a flash of green ink on Remus’s parchment. He’d drawn an impeccable illustration of the augurey. “Wow,” Sirius said, “You’ve done a grand job of that.”

“Thanks,” said Remus quietly.

Sirius watched as Remus worked. He had a box of muggle pencils and markers of all different colors that he was using to add detail to the sketch, shading in areas that needed to be darker and highlighting parts where the sun reflected off the feathers… Sirius was reminded of the muggle boy he used to watch, what seemed like hundreds of years ago, drawing in the park… He remembered zooming in with the omnioculars to see the boy’s sketches, thinking that Spencer - for that was the boy’s name, he remembered from the brief encounter he’d had with him - might have been a muggle, but there was magic made in his sketchbook. Sirius realized he felt very much the same about Remus’s drawings.

“You’ve captured the sadness in its eyes,” he whispered.

“It’s the way the light reflects them,” Remus answered. He looked around and his eyes caught Marlene’s. “You have an audience, Sirius.”

“I know,” Sirius whispered.

“She looks sadder than the augurey.”

“Don’t say that,” Sirius pleaded.

Remus looked up at him. “Are you going to talk to her today?”

Sirius looked uncomfortable, “I dunno…”

Remus took a deep breath and looked away from Marlene, “You really should, you know. Dragging her along like this when you don’t really want to be with her isn’t very fair. You should let her go if you’re going to.”

“I know.”

Kettleburn’s voice broke over their whispered conversation, “Nothing in this world sounds as heart-wrenchingly awful as the augurey’s soulful cry…”

“‘Cept maybe that of the girl who’s heart you’ve just shattered,” muttered Sirius, watching as Remus added flecks of silver along the edges of the tear shaped nest he’d sketched as a backdrop for his drawing.

When class had ended, Sirius drew a deep breath and dawdled, waving Peter, James and Remus on without him. “You’re alright?” Remus asked as he closed the book of parchment he’d been using for his sketches. He stared at Sirius with imploring eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll be alright,” Sirius replied.

Remus peeked to his right and saw that Marlene was hovering, watching as Sirius and Remus talked. “Are you sure you want to break up with her? You were very happy at the end of last term…”

Sirius nodded. “Yeah.” He sighed, “A lot’s changed since then… and… I dunno, I can’t really talk to her the way I ought to be able to talk to somebody that I care about that way.” His throat burned a bit and he realized that he’d been staring directly into Remus’s eyes, which were honey in color at the moment. “When you love someone you… you ought to be able to tell them anything.”

“Anything at all,” agreed Remus.

Sirius felt his heart seize up and he opened his mouth --

“Sirius?” it was Marlene.

“I’ll see you inside,” Remus promised, and he turned away, taking up his bookbag. “See you, Marlene.”

“Bye, Rey,” she said.

Sirius watched Remus go, feeling as though a moment had passed him by just then and he wished he’d just gotten ‘round to his point a bit quicker. But it was gone and now here was Marlene McKinnon, looking up at him with her over-wide eyes. He hesitated. “Hey…” he said slowly.

“Hey,” she answered. The tone in her voice was heavy. She knows, he thought.

“Pretty great lesson today…” he said by way to make small talk.

Marlene nodded, “Yeah… they’re a very beautiful, but very sad bird…”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

They stood in awkward silence for a long moment, her eyes were downcast, reading the text on his t-shirt - a logo for a motorbike company that read Triumph in a grey font across his chest. Gingerly, she put her hand over his heart and turned her view upward, looking at him through her eyelashes. “I just want you to know… that… that I really do… did… care for you,” she said.

Sirius said, “I do, too. Just… just not… not like that anymore. You understand?”

Marlene nodded, but she turned her eyes away again. Her chest was tight and it was sort of hard to breathe, like being crushed, she thought. She wondered why they called it a crush when you fall in love when it felt an awful lot more like a crush when you fall out of it.

“It’s not you,” Sirius said honestly, “It’s me.”

She nodded again and the first of the tears started to fall over her eyelids and onto her cheeks. Sirius felt horrible. He reached up and put his hands on her face, cupping her cheeks with his long hands and sweeping away the tears with his thumbs. “Don’t cry,” he pleaded. “I’ve been dreading you crying.”

“I can’t help it,” she whimpered, “I’m sad. You’re supposed to cry when you’re sad.”

Sirius scrambled to pat her back as more tears fell across her face, and he blurted out, “You smell like eggs and butterscotch.”

“What?”

“And I like your hair.”

Marlene was looking at him like he had twenty heads growing off his neck. “What are you going on about?”

Sirius couldn’t stop. “My mate Peter’s available.”

“Sirius.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve never broken up with a girl before, I dunno how I’m supposed to do this. You’re crying, I dunno what to do about it.”

Marlene hugged him ‘round his middle and Sirius held his breath as she squeezed his torso. Finally, gingerly, because he knew he owed it to her, he put his arms around her back and he sort of awkwardly patted her. After a few moments, even Marlene knew it wasn’t working out so well, and she pulled away. “I’m sorry,” Sirius said honestly.

“I know,” she answered. Marlene stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss, just a quick peck on his cheek. “Bye, Sirius,” she said.

“Bye,” he whispered the word, barely audibly, and watched as she turned and walked across the grounds. Far across the grass, halfway back to the castle, Lily Evans stood on the path, waiting for her. Sirius chewed his lower lip, standing there until the two girls had gone back in through the main entrance doors, Lily looking back over her shoulder at him.




“So how’d it go?” James asked as Sirius came into the dormitory almost thirty minutes later. He’d walked slowly back to Gryffindor Tower, feeling weighed down and terrible for having hurt Marlene. James was sitting on his bed with his new copy of Releasing the Animagus Within open across his lap while eating a fragment of a chocolate bar Peter had broken into parts to share with the other two boys.

Remus was still working on finishing touches of his augurey drawing, or at least was pouring over his sketchbook at anyrate.

Sirius sighed and flopped himself onto his bed, “It as terrible,” he declared, “I’m a horrid human being. Her face… I felt positively awful.”

“At least it’s over with now and you can stop skulking about trying to avoid her,” Peter pointed out.

Remus held up a half of the bar of chocolate Peter had given him, “Here. Eat, you’ll feel better,” he said.

Sirius shook his head no. “I’m alright. I just… I fancy a bit of a nap, I think.” He crawled further onto his bed and put his head down on the pillow, facing the ceiling, his legs sprawled about on the mattress.

“Did you tell her Pete’s single?” James joked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Oh God, I did,” moaned Sirius, covering his face with his hands. “And I told her she smelled like eggs.”

“Eggs?”

“Yes,” Sirius moaned again.

“Blimey.”

“You told me to tell her what she smells like…”

“No, mate,” James said, shaking his head, “I told you to tell her she smells good, not like eggs!”

“Well she did smell like eggs. But in a good way. Like good eggs. I like eggs.”

“Girls don’t wanna smell like eggs, mate,” Peter said, “They want to smell like flowers and sunshine and fruit and cotton candy.”

“But she doesn’t smell like that stuff,” Sirius argued.

“But you tell her she does,” said James. “Oi, Black, no wonder you’re the first one of us to break up with a girl.”

“Technically, that honor actually belongs to me,” Remus spoke up. “I went with Lily in second year, remember?”

“Blimey, I forgot,” James said. “Alright then, I don’t understand why you weren’t the first to break up with one, then,“ he amended.

Sirius groaned, “I don’t understand it either. I’m terrible. Bloody hell.”

“Not terrible, maybe just a bit - er - clueless, perhaps,” James said.

Sirius closed his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” James said, “It’ll get easier… Maybe next time you, er, won’t have to go through all this.”

Sirius looked over at James.

“You know… because you’ll be sure before you do anything with another person, so you don’t go breaking anymore hearts… yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sirius answered. “I will. I'll be really sure.”