Among the Stars

“We are not inviting him to our birthday party!”

“Of course we are.”

“No we are not.”

“And why not?”

“Have you forgotten what he did to Sev? To Remus?”

The Evans twins have been arguing over whether or not they are inviting Sirius to their birthday party for a little under an hour now. All of their friends are very annoyed.

“He made a mistake Wisty.”

“A rather big one, dont you agree?”

“Yes, he was reckless, but the situation ended up okay. Besides, since when is Sirius not reckless.”

“That’s the point Lily! He needs to learn that there are times when he need to be able to control his impulses. And as for the situation ending up okay, that doesn’t mean anything! It could have ended horribly!”

“Honestly, Wisty, you can ignore him all you want, but I don’t see a point in excluding him entirely.”

“The point is that he learns first hand that his actions have consequences!”

“We weren’t even directly involved with this! This is something he needs to make right with the Marauders. I would also say Severus, but he never had a good relationship with him to begin with.”

“I’ll forgive him when Remus does.”

“That’s nice, but in the meantime he can come to our party and you can just avoid him. Or does his presence somehow offend you?”

Wisteria flushes. “It’s just that it’s much harder to remain indignant when he’s actually in the room.”

“That’s because you know you shouldn’t still be mad at him!”

“I’ll forgive him when Remus does!”

“All of the Marauders are coming to the party!”

“Then I guess we’re gonna have two separate parties this year!”

Lily rolls her eyes. “Fine, I’ll just have mine in the Gryffindor Common Room then.”

“And mine will just be Ravenclaw friends. I’ll give you your present during dinner in the Great Hall the night of.”

“Yeah. I guess that works.”

“I’ll see you later Lils.”

“See you Wisty.”

The night of the 20th of January finally rolls around and Wisteria found herself and her 4 closest friends sittin on the floor of their room.

“Remind me again why we are sitting on the floor of our room just the five of us rather than having a party with all our friends like every other year.” Christine says.

“Because Lily and I couldn’t come to an agreement on who was and was not invited.”

“Who was it that you guys were arguing about anyway?” Shannon asks.

“Probably Sirius.”

“Pen!”

“Oh come on. Don’t act like its not obvious that something happened. You’ve been avoiding him like the plague and the other Marauders have been tense around him for the past month. What did he do that was so bad?”

Wisteria coughs a bit. “Can we maybe not talk about that today? I’d rather have a good time tonight.”

The good time couldn’t last though. The next day the Evans sisters received letters from their parents with some bad news.

Dear Lily and Wisty,

The news is a little delayed in getting to you because we didn’t want to ruin your birthday, but we didn’t want to withhold the news from you for too long, so hopefully this gets to you soon after your birthday. Your Grandpops was found in his bed with an empty pill bottle and a suicide note on the nightstand next to him. They tell us that he passed painlessly and in his sleep, and his note explained that he had been reading the signs and believed it was time. We’re going to visit your Grandma for a little while to help her adjust and we’ll visit again with you girls when you’re home for the summer. If you need anything, send the letters to us at Grandma’s house and if you feel you need it we can try to ask Headmaster Dumbledore if he would allow you both some time back home to grieve with family. Be sure to talk to one another and be there for each other. We love you both.

~Mum and Dad

Grandpops was their grandfather on their mums side. Both of them had been very close to him in the past, but it had gotten harder to stay that close with them at Hogwarts. On top of that, this is the first major loss of a family member that either of them have had to deal with. Lily runs off with her friends hot on her heels leaving Wisteria to gape dumbly after her. It doesn't take long for Fabian to appear asking what happened and if she's alright. She gives him the letter. She doesn't know if she's alright. She just feels numb. Shouldn't she be sad? Is she sad? She doesn't know. Then Fabian touches her face and is wiping away tears she hadn't been aware were falling and her stunned calm comes crashing down. She gasps and stutters in shaky breaths at sudden sobs wrack her body.

Fabian has no idea how to handle this. He didn't know her grandfather, so he cant morn with her, but he should be able to console her right? Make her feel better or something? How do you even do that? He tentatively puts his arms around her and suddenly she's clutching to him, pulling herself tight against his chest and now he really doesn't know what to do. He looks helplessly to Gideon who just shrugs and then and then to her friends who are next to her. Finally Penelope pulls her away from Fabian and hands her a glass of water.
"Drink this. You'll get dehydrated from crying so much."
Wisteria nods and tries to drink it, but her hands are shaking too much for her to drink most of it. By now news has spread to most of the room and the group are given space to help her mourn. Sometime during most of the room moving away, the Marauders found their way over and sat down.
"Tell me about him." Sirius says simply.
"I... I haven’t seen him since I got my-my first Hogwarts letter. When I was growing up he-he was always kind of old fashioned, and he was su-super smart. He was a-a nuclear engineer or-or something. He taught me how to-to play piano during the day and at-at night we would sit outside and-and talk about books and he wo-would teach me constellations and stuff." She smiles a bit.

"The last time I-I saw him, he had me do a-a scavenger hunt around the house. He-he showed me a statue and told me to-to do some research to find out what it was of. When I did that he-he told me to do a bunch of research on a specific part of it. It-it went like that for a while, I did research, reported to him wh-what I'd found, and he told me what part to research next. In th-the end I came to a gold coin used South Africa as currency since 1967 that had a-a breed of Antelope called Springbok on it. My prize for doing all of that was one of those gold coins. I still have it. It’s in my room back home."

She takes an easier breath in and Penelope hands the water back to her. This time her hands are shaking considerably less and she manages to drink most of it.
"Maybe, er... Maybe you and I can go to the astronomy tower and look at the stars like you used to with him?" Fabian offers.
"You can’t exactly do that in the daytime Fabs." Gideon reminds him.
"Oh... Right."
"That sounds really nice actually.” Wisteria says. “Maybe we could to that tonight?"
"Yeah. Do you... Do you want me to walk you back to Ravenclaw tower right now or anything?"
"I... think I wanna be alone with my thoughts for a bit actually."
"Okay. I'll meet you at the Astronomy tower at Dusk then?"
"Sounds good." She turns to her friends. "I'll see you guys tonight."
They all reply and she wanders out of the hall.
After about an hour of wandering she comes across the Room of Requirement. Upon opening the door she finds Michael sitting at the piano. He turns to hed, shocked.

"Wisty... You wanted to play the piano?"
"Yeah... I didn’t know you played."
"I didn’t know you played either. Are you okay? You look..."
"Like shit? Yeah... It’s been a rough day..."
"I'll... just leave then."
As he passes her on his way out she grabs his sleeve and he freezes. "Michael." She whispers. "I just lost someone very important to me and I could really use all of my friends to help me get through the next few weeks."
"Do you... Do you want me to stay with you right now?"
She shakes her head. "Right now I want to be alone. But I want my friend back..."
He gives her a small nod. "I'll see you around Wisty..." she lets go of his sleeve and he starts to walk away, but before she can shut the door behind him he turns to look at her. "Maybe... Tomorrow or the day after or whenever works for you, we could have lunch in the kitchen with the elves. You could bring your friends and Fabian."
She smiles at him. "Tomorrow would be nice."
"Great. I'll uh... I'll see you then."

Wisteria spends most of the rest of the day in the Room of Requirements, relearning to play the instrument she hasn’t touched in four years. She skips Charms and Herbology, her only classes of the day, and when the sun gets low to the ground she makes her way to the Astronomy Tower to meet Fabian.

“Hey.” He says.

“Hey.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Honestly? I’m moving back and forth between drowning in my sorrows and not believing it. I guess I’m moving into denial right? Isn’t that a stage of grief?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

There are a few beats of awkward silence. The awkward part might just be on Fabian’s side though. He still doesn’t really know how to handle this situation. He watches as Wisteria moves across the room and sits on the floor.

“I’m sorry that I’m so bad at this… making you feel better thing.” He tells her. “I haven’t lost anyone close to me before so I don’t really know how to do this.”

“You being here for me is enough.”

They have another few beats of awkward silence as he sits beside her and considers what to say or do. Finally he reaches out and grabs her hand.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?”

“Right now I just want to feel close to him I think.”

Fabian remembers how easily Sirius managed to calm her down in the Hall this morning. “Tell me about him. Some stories of what he taught you about the sky or something.”

She smiles a bit. “Sure."