• Emma Vanity •

„We look up at the stars
and see such different things."

A change was taking place in the wizarding world, Emma had also noticed. She would have to be completely naïve not to notice it. The constant death notices and attacks had piled up in the headlines. But for her, they had always been out of reach. As if they had happened in another universe. Another reality.

Until the death of Dorcas.

What would she have to fear? Her family was pure-blooded, they always had been, and they had never given the dark lord any reason to set his followers on them. But at the same time, they would never join him. They just wanted to go on with their quiet lives. It was precisely this desire that was to be the undoing of their aunt, uncle and Dorcas. They had refused to serve him and they had paid for it with their lives.

It could have been her parents and herself. The Death Eaters could also have stood on their doorstep and forced them to swear eternal allegiance to the Dark Lord.

The wood of her racing broom gave Emma comfort. Polished and familiar, it lay in her hand as she marched across the muddy lawn to the Quidditch pitch. The treetops of the forbidden forest lay grey and menacing like a fortress before her. They swayed to the right and left in time with the icy wind. Soon dusk would set in and swallow her in the darkness of the night.

She just had to clear her head and nothing helped more than throwing a few quaffles through the rings. Dumbledore's words from the speech still echoed in her ears. No more and no less had Dorcas received. A speech that everyone would probably have forgotten the next day anyway. For her life went on.
Not the Ravenclaw's.

Emma wished she had spent more time with her cousin. They had been very close as children. Hung out together at family gatherings, like Hagrid and his magical creatures. But during their school years, they had drifted apart. After all, Dorcas had certainly not been interested in a first year in her third year. A Slytherin one at that. But now they would never get the time to make up for their lost years.

Deeply, the captain of the slytherin team breathed in the freezing winter air of January and felt life, expelling it in a warm cloud shortly afterwards. Emma cursed as she spotted a person on the field she had intended to use for her own emotional outbursts. But she was not about to be chased away. Especially not by a Gryffindor.

Sirius Black didn't even look up as she came closer. He was sitting there on the seat of his trousers, playing with the Snitch that Potter usually had wrapped around him. "If you're just going to sit there, you might as well do it in your common room, Black!" she called to him, wading through the sand that covered the field. "Because others want to train."

"Knock yourself out," he muttered, looking up at her with tired eyes. Emma, of course, had not been unaware of what had happened during the Christmas holidays. The elder of the Black brothers had turned his back on his childhood home, leaving a lonely little brother behind. Well, whether Regulus was really that lonely, she didn't know. She had never been able to judge him very well. But she suspected that, judging by his forlorn looks when Sirius came near, he was not as indifferent as he pretended to be.

Instead of exercising, however, she gingerly put her broom down on the floor and sat down next to Sirius. She didn't know herself what had prompted her to do so. Perhaps the bottle next to him, which contained an amber liquid. Emma knew exactly what it was. The smell that clung to the Gryffindor gave it away. Firewhiskey. It was not unusual for it to hang in the air at home when her father had had a bad day.

Emma reached for the bottle without invitation and popped the cap. "To Dorcas," she murmured and took a hearty swig. The alcohol warmed her body and burned her throat like fire. It lived up to its name.

Sirius regarded her thoughtfully from his grey eyes. The fine features on his face were contorted in wonder at the sound of his classmate's name. They had, after all, been in the same year and not infrequently out and about together in the village. "Don't tell me you're betraying her victim," he groaned snidely, raising one of his arched eyebrows. "But you already know who is responsible for that?"

"Death Eaters," Emma replied bluntly. She was already a little offended that he thought her so ignorant. But she knew what he was getting at. Lowering her voice, she finally answered his question. "Dorcas was my cousin."

"Your friends' families have them on their consciences."

"And what about your family?" returned Emma angrily. After all, he was the perfect example that not everyone was like his family.

"They're not my family anymore." Sirius rummaged around in the pocket of his dark jacket, unimpressed, and pulled out a white box from which he pulled an oblong, round stick. He held it by the brownish end and brought out another object, which he held to the white end. With a click he ignited a flame that made the small rod glow. He put his full lips to the other end and sucked on it, expelling the smoke in a cloud of breath. "Just take care of yourself, okay?"

Curious, Emma watched him. "What's that?"

"A cigarette," he replied between puffs and then held it out to her promptly. Cautiously, Emma accepted the unfamiliar object and did as she had looked at him. The inhaled smoke burned her throat like an inferno and the disgusting taste made her gag. Coughing and gasping, she expelled it again and almost threw the cigarette into Sirius' lap. With a barking laugh, however, he had caught it. "And you like that sort of thing?"

"Not really," the Gryffindor admitted, wrinkling his narrow nose. Casually, he clamped his cigarette between his teeth. "But it looks cool."

Emma rolled her dark eyes but had to agree with him, much to her chagrin. He really did look quite handsome in it. The cool wind blew the smoke he expelled through his dark curls. Shivering, he wrapped the leather jacket tighter around his body and reached beside him with his free hand to nearly empty the bottle of firewhiskey.

Lost in thought, Emma reached for the small oblong object Sirius had lit his cigarette with earlier and let it click curiously. A tiny flame shot forth and warmed her excited face. Muggles seemed to know a way to create their very own magic. Emma stared into the fire. No, she didn't hate Muggles and she didn't support the ideals of you-know-who. It seemed wrong to her. She thought of Dorcas and all the innocent victims and abruptly made a decision; if the opportunity arose, she would stand against them. Fight against them. For a better world.

"You're shaking," Sirius observed, tossing his cigarette butt on the floor. With his jumper boots, he kicked it out. The smoke drifted past his soles like a fleeing ghost and rose high into the sky, over which darkness had now fallen completely. The night was cloudless and starry. With both hands Sirius grasped Emma's quivering ones, still clutching the firemaker.

The air expelled her in a surprised cloud of breath at the touch and she looked at him with wide eyes. She had been pining for him for some time. In secret. Just to herself. Had admired his courage in standing up for his own ideals. Now she even understood why he had acted the way he did and marvelled at him even more. A talented flyer he was too. She had never admitted that to her friends, of course. Camille would probably give her the same speech over and over again for months until Emma would eventually believe her.

The way Sirius was looking at her at that moment, no boy had ever looked at her before. So tenderly. So desirable. Emma was not a classic beauty like Camille and Lorraine. She didn't come from a distinguished family whose marriage would bring her housemates anything and the students of the other houses gave her a wide berth. Sirius alone seemed brave enough to even touch a Slytherin. How much she detested these prejudices.

Emma wanted to be as brave as him. Perhaps some of him actually rubbed off on her at that moment, when she leaned in and just kissed him. For an agonisingly long moment, their lips merely lay on each other, as if they were both surprised by the situation. But then Sirius' tongue ran over her lips and Emma melted in his hands, which had settled on her hips, like the chocolate in the well from the honey pot.

The skin where he touched her tingled like sizzling Wissbies kept on the tongue too long. She wasn't even cold when he pushed her thick coat off her shoulders. There was just this pleasant warmth in her belly from the alcohol and on her skin from his touch. Emma could see the stars looking down at her and was sure she could just reach for them at that moment.

Never would she have assumed that Sirius' charm would actually be her undoing one day and that this evening had never been under a good star.