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[Chapter Sixteen: Wristbands]

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     Aspen instantly regretted her decision to obliviate a bunch of Slytherin boys. She replaced one illegal action with another which penetrated the mind of another human being. She removed the previous moments from five students' minds all to save her own back. Then again, she also saved the Order from exposure . . . despite being the one who almost exposed it completely. So she was simply cleaning up the mess she made. The only one of the Slytherins who still knew of the Order was Jay.

At least, that was what she hoped.

He could've told more people about it already, or he could have just told those boys she obliviated about it all over again. Either way, she was screwed—if Jay did tell more people, she was in trouble. If he doesn't, she'll still be in trouble because of her paranoia. Since then, she's been extra jumpy around people. Especially around the Beau siblings, Colby seemed innocent but, then again, Jay did too. Aspen didn't even know what to think about the sister, who she still hadn't learned the name of.

Aside from her troubles, Wendy hadn't spoken to her in a while, Aspen barely even saw her. Nor did she see Evelyn a lot—the only times she saw them were either at night or in the early morning. She only sees them because they're sleeping in their beds, it was odd, they always came back minutes apart from each other.

Everything was different now. What the bloody hell did she start?

Aspen didn't pay any mind to them, she was too busy with her own problems—as selfish as it was to say. Regardless, at that moment there wasn't anything directly affecting her, except maybe her mind, of course. The only interaction she had with other people was during classes, and she never spoke voluntarily. Other than that, she was with the Nutcracker—who was actually starting to cooperate with her. She didn't want to visit Myrtle because somehow, someway, that ghost always knew something was wrong with her. Aspen did not feel like being interrogated.

Everything was going great as she avoided social interaction with other human beings until one certain Wednesday of the week. She woke up that morning feeling different, not a good difference—but a familiar bad difference. A bad difference that made her want to sleep for the rest of her life. But she couldn't do that, she had to continue doing well in school. She may no longer be joining the French Auror Academy, but she didn't want to ruin her streak of good grades. She didn't want to make people believe she was unworthy of anything.

Even though she was undeserving of all.

She got into her uniform and ignored her make up. Normally, she wanted to at least fix up some of her features—but she just couldn't seem to accumulate the energy.

Once at the great hall, she immediately heard the obnoxious chatter of students. It was like none of them were tired—Aspen scoffed and sat down at the end of the Gryffindor table. Of course, every Gryffindor student excluding what had to be a few were sitting at all the other tables there were. Wendy wasn't to be seen but Evelyn could be seen sitting at the Ravenclaw table. Aspen could also see the Beau's all sitting together at the Slytherin table—that made her uncomfortable. Emma Stark was sitting at the Hufflepuff table speaking to a blonde-haired girl alongside Peter Pettigrew.

The rest of the Marauders sat at the Gryffindor table. James Potter was talking to Lily Evans, and Lily actually didn't look like she wanted to kill the boy! Marlene simultaneously spoke to both Remus and Sirius. Remus looked incredibly worn out, stressed, even. While Sirius looked tired—he still had an energized look to him.

Like when a puppy had the unfortunate circumstance of a cold, but was still energized like it consumed a dozen caffeinated energy drinks.

Why was she analyzing everyone as she ate breakfast? She shook her head and continued to nibble at her breakfast, why did she even try? It wasn't appetizing whatsoever. When she finally had enough of eating the food she didn't even want to eat in the first place, she stood up, grabbed her books, and left the great hall. Wednesday's were the days where she had most classes—though, seeing as most of them were advanced classes, she got to skip many.

Once she officially starts missions for the Order, she'll never have days like those where she could be lazy. Instead of suffering from those types of days in the future, she wanted to train herself to be used to it. When she got into class, it was empty due to her being unnecessarily early. But she stayed there, staring at the wall until the class began to fill up. It was like that for the rest of the day—she got to her classes unnecessarily early, and then spaced out during the lessons.

That wasn't necessarily her initiative for even going to class . . . but at least she did something that day.

The only way she was even able to get her homework was because of her partners in each class. Wendy was her partner in one and helped her, but she didn't speak to her anytime other than that. Evelyn asked to switch partners from Aspen in a different class so that partner, instead of Evelyn, helped her. And lastly, in potions, Sirius helped her.

Normally, he watched when she did the work so he could copy. She allowed him to do so because he would also help her with some things. But now he had to do it himself while copying it onto her paper without Professor Slughorn noticing. Somehow, someway, he managed to do it and do it correctly.

Moony would be proud.

He didn't have time to celebrate because once classes ended, he had to wake Aspen from her daydream. He was concerned for her, she was always pale but currently she looked whiter than a sheet of paper. She didn't speak, nor did she pay attention—she was like a living-zombie.

"Aspen . . ." Cooed Sirius, nudging her slightly on the arm.

Aspen re-entered reality with a jerk of the head, she saw the look on his face—and then scanned the room where no one but those two sat. Her eyes went wide and she looked down at her table to see that her books were neatly stacked in front of her.

"I did that," Sirius coolly stated, "you kinda look out of it, so I helped. I also did your essay so . . . You're welcome!"

"Really?" She asked with surprise. He nodded, and she frowned guiltily. "You didn't have to do that, Sirius. Thank you! I've just, er, haven't been feeling well recently."

"It's alright, it was kind of refreshing doing work for once," Sirius said, making Aspen smile in amusement. "I've heard the stomach flu has been going around, is it that?"

"Uh maybe," Replied Aspen. She didn't even know the stomach flu was going around, could she actually be feeling bad because of that—rather than what she actually thought?

Has she really fallen so hard into the depths of depression that she couldn't tell physical sickness from mental sickness?!

"You should try and rest then." Suggested Sirius, standing up. "I don't think the Professors would mind if you skipped a day of homework. You're like a teacher's pet for each and every one of them!"

"I am not!" Aspen chuckled, grabbing her books.They continued to walk out of the room, "I simply respect my Professors, and they then do the same vise-versa."

"Are you saying I don't respect my Professors?" Asked Sirius, pretending he took offense—Aspen could see his smirk. If she didn't, she would surely be hyperventilating now.

"If you call disturbing classes every ten minutes and pull pranks on them with respect, then we have different definitions for respect."

"I'll have you know, I did not disturb class today at all. I was too busy doing essays!" Huffed Sirius.

"What about the classes before that?" Aspen asked, once hearing the question he was stumped. He tried to answer but then his face turned into a scowl in defeat. Aspen let out a genuine burly laugh for the first time that week—which felt amazing. Sirius smiled at her laughter and, well, got too concentrated on watching her laugh and accidentally walked into her. She didn't fall, but her stack of books did. So did her ink. Right onto his uniform—while she was mentally freaking out, he was laughing.

Seeing the look of stress on Aspen's face, he quickly cleared up the scenario, "Aspen, it's alright! Just another excuse to get out of this damned uniform. I hate this thing."

"But it's white!" Aspen whined as she bent down and began picking up her books. She also attempted to keep the ink stable while looking for her wand, which was, for some reason, not in her boot. Her chest swirled with an unnamable emotion— déjà vu? Black ink falling onto . . . white clothing, wait! It was familiar because it happened on the day Sirius became her new Potions partner! When he accidentally spilled ink on her white sweater. After that, he accidentally got it onto his unifor—

"Er, Aspen." Called Sirius, looking at the girl who seemed to have fallen deep in thought.

"Yes?"

"Y-your arm is— er—in the ink." He pointed out. She looked down to see that her arm was indeed in a large puddle of ink. Why did she even have ink? She used muggle pens, for Merlin's sake. "Am I the only one feeling déjà vu?" Sirius asked, trying to hold back laughter.

"Of course." Aspen jokingly stated, shaking her soaking arm. "It's not like this exact situation hasn't happened before. Even if it did, we are way too smart to never allow it to happen again."

"Yes," Sirius nodded, tapping his finger on his temple, "We're too smart for that."

At that point, Aspen couldn't hold it in anymore. She began laughing which caused Sirius to laugh. By then they looked like two overgrown children crying in laughter in the middle of empty hallways . . . Soaking with ink. That was exactly what they were, actually. Sirius shook his head and held out his arm for Aspen to grab. She grabbed it, covering him in more ink, though she didn't care because once she was pulled up she was only centimeters away from his face.

Very, very closely.

Instead of pulling away and going to go grab her books like what she should've done, she stayed there staring at his face in shock. He did the same which left them there inches apart in complete silence for a few awkward seconds.

"I should er—" Started Sirius, his breath hitting Aspen in the face, she didn't mind. "Go get my uniform cleaned off. For, y'know, classes tomorrow."

"I should, uh, do the same." Replied Aspen. Still, neither of them moved. They continued to stare at each other in the face. In the back of Aspen's mind she wondered if they looked ridiculous, but she couldn't think more on it because Sirius looked conflicted.

As if he wanted to do something.

Probably walk away . . . Merlin, was she freaking him out?

After a few seconds of him rapidly scanning Aspen's face, and Aspen's internal core, quite literally, melting, he whispered. "God damn it."

He closed his eyes and leaned forward, placing his lips on Aspens. Aspen's eyes went wide but they immediately drifted closed as the kiss deepened. He was reaching to undo his shirt when Aspen's eyes went wide and she pushed herself back.

In surprise, he began to ramble apologies. "I-I'm sorry! I don't know what overcame me, I, er—"

"Now I'm not familiar on this sex thing—" Started Aspen truthfully, interrupting the rambling boy. "But I'm pretty sure if people were to do it, they'd do it in some place private."

"Wha—Right!" Sirius said. He thought she didn't want to do it, but he was wrong, very wrong. She surprised herself, but she couldn't find herself wanting to stop this moment—she quickly stacked her books and placed them against the wall. Seeing that she was waiting to be brought somewhere private, Sirius' thoughts went rapidly. Eventually, a light bulb clicked in his mind and he let out an excited yelp. "I have the perfect place!"

Aspen anxiously nodded and followed him down the corridors. During that time, she began to overthink. She's never had sex before! What is she supposed to do? Don't they have to share their medication papers first? To make sure they don't have you-know-what in you-know-where? Does he have a condom? Is she supposed to be the one carrying the condoms? Are they even going to have sex, what if they were going to play a friendly game of chess?

She kept thinking until she realized where she was. They were both standing in front of a wall. Well, Aspen was, Sirius kept pacing back and forth—confusing her greatly. Has she caused him to go insane? She was about to ask him until she heard a cracking noise.

Sirius smirked in triumph and watched as the blank wall began morphing into a door. Aspen went wide-eyed, what the hell?

"This is called the Room of Requirements," Sirius answered for her, noticing the confusion etched on her features. "The boys and I call it the come-and-go room, though. Just do some walking and a room would appear in your own desire!"

"Magnificent." Aspen managed to whisper out. Sirius smirked and grabbed the girl's hand, she clasped her hand over his and followed him into the room. If this was the room of his desires, then he had amazing desires. The floor had a soft burgundy carpet and the couches looked softer than a puppies fur. Music was playing, she could recognize the muggle song 'Hey Jude' playing from the stereo at the other side of the room. There was also a crackling fire which gave the room more comfort than it already had.

"You like it?" Sirius asked, growing nervous over his taste.

"More like love it," Aspen responded as she continued to observe the room, "I didn't know you had such great taste!"

"I didn't either." He replied as he fondly scanned the bewildered girl. She grew self-conscious at his gaze and began blushing. "So now what?"

"Now we do whatever you want." He stated. He then looked down to his now ink-hardening clothing and stated, "But first and foremost, we should remove these clothes before they turn into stone."

Aspen nodded and watched as he pulled his shirt off, exposing his pale white chest. Next, it was her turn.

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AUTHORS NOTE:

I WAS 13 WHEN I WROTE THIS, I PROMISE THERE IS NO SMUT.

posted: February 14, 2018
word count: 2,522