February 14, 1976

IT IS VALENTINE'S day. Adira wakes up to an empty room scattered with red and pink ribbons and presents. Indie is already gone, and Adira knows that she is with Alvis. It has been a week now that the two have been official.

It is also Hogsmeade weekend, and that is what gets Adira up off her bed to get ready. Although she would rather be anywhere except the place that all of the Hogwarts couples will be at today, she has to go out and buy a gift for Indie's birthday. It is tomorrow, and Adira has been putting it off long enough.

It takes her about fifteen minutes to shower and change into a beige sweater that she has had since she was thirteen. She decides to skip breakfast and instead eat once she gets to Hogsmeade.

The carriages are just about ready to leave, so she gets in line to get into one of them. As she is waiting, she senses someone's eyes on her, so she glances to her left.

Sirius Black stands in one of the other lines with his friends beside him. He has a nonchalant expression on his face as he continues to stare at Adira. Adira stares back, refusing to look away.

Sirius breaks out of the trance first and turns away from her as he and his friends board their carriage. Adira stares at his back for a second before she faces forward again and starts to walk towards the carriage, shaking away her thoughts of the dark-haired boy.

With her luck, she is placed in a carriage with an overly excited couple. They pay her no mind, however, as they are caught up in their own world. They whisper and giggle together. One of the girls places a kiss on her girlfriend's lips, and then they start to make out.

Adira has a faint memory from when she was younger. Her mother had taken her to the marketplace, and she had seen a young couple who couldn't have been older than nineteen or so. While the girl's face was turned, the boy tapped her right shoulder and disappeared on her other side. She looked towards her right but saw nothing. Turning back to the front, the boy stood in front of her, holding out a small daisy. The girl had just rolled her eyes with a slight smile on her face.

The boy then tapped her on the nose and placed the flower in her hair. The girl had smiled then, a beautifully bright grin on her lips. On her left hand, there was a ring slipped on her finger.

Adira doesn't know why this memory suddenly springs into her head, but it does.

She hopes that wherever this couple is now, they are living a happy life in a nice house, completely unaware of the danger that awaits them as people unfortunately born with no trace of magical blood.

Adira sighs and looks out of the window at the green landscape below her, the reflection of the sun shining upon the rippling surface of the Black Lake. From the air, the lake looks like an abyss of darkness. Adira wishes she could dive into the deep waters and get lost in them and never come out.

She has been feeling like this a lot lately.

Thankfully, the carriage lands before the couple can go further than kissing, and Adira hurries out. She does not want to spend any more time in Hogsmeade than she has to, so she quickly walks to the other side of town where Honeydukes is.

She decides to go there first because, for some godforsaken reason, Indie adores salt-water taffies. She reaches the small, colorful shop and starts to scour the place for the candy her best friend would die for. After about ten minutes of looking, Adira can't seem to find the disgusting taffies. She walks around the shop looking for someone to ask but finds no one.

She turns the corner down another aisle and crashes into a solid body that towers over her.

A dark figure stares down at her, and she cannot stop herself from staring back. Sirius has a thoughtful expression on his face and says, "Strawberries."

Adira furrows her eyebrows. "What?"

He grins. "Your hair," he explains as if that is the answer she is looking for.

She crosses her arms and looks down self-consciously. "What about my hair?"

"It's the color of strawberries," he muses.

Adira immediately scoffs. "No, it is not."

"Yes, it is." Without realizing it, Sirius takes a step closer to the girl. "What are you looking for, Berry?"

Adira scrunches her nose up, and grumbles, "That is a horrible nickname."

The grin on Sirius's face is unmistakable. "I believe Berry is a wonderful nickname."

Crossing her arms tighter against her chest, she rolls her eyes at him. Swiftly, she turns on her heel and starts walking away. She isn't fast enough, however, as Sirius catches up to her with ease.

She groans when she realizes she isn't going to be able to get rid of him. "Go away, Black."

Sirius ignores her and insists, "C'mon, Adira. Just tell me what you're looking for. I'll help you."

Adira suddenly stops walking and turns to stare at the Gryffindor boy. "What are you doing here, Sirius?"

Her tone is serious, her face demanding, but Sirius cannot stop thinking about the way his name effortlessly flows off of Adira's lips and how he has never particularly liked his name as much as he does in that exact moment.

He is caught off guard by the question and cannot come up with an answer other than the truth.

"I don't know."

His voice is barely above a whisper and Adira knits her eyebrows together. There is something awfully vulnerable in Sirius's eyes, and she wants to know why he is looking at her like he is right now.

She doesn't voice her questions. She just sighs at him and says, "Salt-water taffies."

Sirius scrunches his face up to make a disgusted expression. "Salt-water taffies?" he repeats.

"That's what I said, wasn't it?" Adira replies impatiently.

"But why?" He sounds so utterly repulsed by her suggestion of the candy that Adira cannot stop herself from letting out a loud laugh.

It is in no way like music, nor is it soft or wistful. If Sirius is being honest, she sounds rather like a seal on the verge of dying. Nevertheless, this is the first time he has ever really heard her laugh, and he thinks that if he could keep her laughing like how she is now, he would spend lifetimes figuring out all the ways that sound would leave her lips.

It has been a while since Adira has genuinely laughed. She doesn't even remember the last time she genuinely smiled. With everything going on with her home life, she has stopped thinking she deserves anything other than misery.

She grins at Sirius. "They're for my friend. Her birthday is tomorrow. Since you believe you know everything, come help me find them."

Sirius smiles back at her and gestures for her to follow him as he walks confidently to a corner in the shop where she has already looked. Miraculously, he reaches out and grabs a few pouches of the taffies.

Her face is just shocked enough for Sirius to let out a small smirk. She rolls her eyes and turns away just quick enough so that Sirius doesn't see her smile.

Maybe, she thinks, just this once she will allow herself to have something that makes her happy.