𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗜 ━━ 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗙𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧
005. when everything falls apart

( song for the chapter:
best — gracie abrams )

          𝗖𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗪𝗔𝗟𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗚𝗔 𝗙𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗠𝗦𝗘𝗟𝗩𝗘𝗦 𝗟𝗢𝗡𝗘𝗟𝗬 𝗤𝗨𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗢𝗙𝗧𝗘𝗡 which caused the two to meet up almost every other day. Least to say, Sirius and Scarlet could not care less about seeing each other when it came to Christmas and summer holidays. 

It certainly stung, watching her first-ever friend ignore her as though it were nothing. She had no idea why they fell apart, or why Sirius stopped talking to her one particular day and never looked in her direction again. 

It was humiliating, when she approached the Gryffindor table to say hello to him, and he merely ignored her, not even bothering to glance at her in acknowledgment to show the littlest respect. 

As a year passed, nothing much truly changed. Sirius continued to make a full of himself throughout the entirety of second year, claiming he despises just how perfect and pretentious she is and still taking every chance to have a conversation with her, good or bad. 

Walburga Black had called her family members and respectable friends over for celebration over the summer, no particular reason rather than to once again show off what a marvellous ball she can through, themes of harmony and shimmering beauty here and there.

Whilst everybody was busy talking, Regulus grabbed Scarlet out of nowhere, dragging her away towards the stairway where no one seemed to gather around.

"Why do you think my brother hates Slytherins?" He asked, "ever since I was sorted into that house, he has all bitter and pretends to be all superior. Do you reckon he thinks I was sorted into Slytherin on purpose?"

Scarlet frowned, thinking about it. "I don't think there's a... strategy. In fact, even he couldn't have just asked to be in Gryffindor. That is not how it works."

"There must be!" Regulus threw his hands up in defeat. "Whatever, truly. Mother keeps on screaming her throat off at him, and he takes out that anger on me! It's not my fault I'm perfect."

This made Scarlet chuckle, and she softly patted him on the back, "you really are perfect, Reg."

"Don't call me Reg."

"Speaking of your idiot brother, have you seen him around?"

"He's up on the rooftop." Regulus answered, ushering away to Druella Black who called for him. Scarlet was aware that Sirius hated these parties, he hated social gatherings, especially when it involved his family. "How comes Sirius didn't get into Slytherin?"

"Because he's an idiot," Scarlet nodded confidently. "Gryffindors are all idiots."

Regulus laughed. "You two's bickering is really funny..."

"He starts it most of the time," Scarlet shrugged. "I don't know what's wrong with him, ever since the start of first year, he has been so intolerable like he's always got a stick up his—" she refrained from using inappropriate language in a room full of prestigious people.

Unfortunately, the last person she would have liked to listen to the conversation, Sirius Black stood by the staircase, listening to the conversation between Scarlet and Regulus, a sickening ache in his chest.

Scarlet turned around to find Sirius on the rooftop when she saw him dashing up the stairs, practically running. Her breath hitched.

"Black?" He didn't reply. "Look, I'm sorry okay, I wasn't talking badly about you or anything—"

Sirius was unimaginably quiet, with no mischievous words flowing out of his words.

"So, you're not even gonna talk to me?" She panted, following him all the way to the rooftop and taking a seat next to him, legs crossed as she faced him intensely.

No response.

"Real mature, Black!"

"You want to talk about maturity, that's quite rich coming from you!"

The constellations above glinted in his piercing grey eyes as he exclaimed.

"Why are you being such a dick?" Scarlet turned to look at him, raising a brow. "The egoistic nature has got to go, Black, it doesn't really suit you,"

"I'm the egoistic one, are you joking?" Sirius gaped, finding her words unbelievable. "Don't blame me... It's not my fault we fell apart, it's yours."

"What the hell are you talking about?" She scoffed. 

"I tried for months to spend more time with you despite the fact that everybody hates your house," his tone was harsh, thoughts rummaging through his mind painfully.

"You stopped talking to me." She scoffed, running a hand through her hair frustratedly.

"You never even bothered to know why," he desperately said, "If roles were reversed, I wouldn't give up on us so quickly."

"It's not my responsibility to fix whatever the hell went wrong."

"Of course, because a Gryffindor mustn't be worth your precious time," he nodded, eyes burning into hers. "You'd rather spend time with arseholes like Silas Abrams and Snivellus Snape than me because you also consider yourself to be superior."

"This isn't about Silas or Severus—"

"But it is!" Sirius exclaimed. "I've always appreciated you, and even though all my friends hate Slytherins, I never let it stop me from liking you," his voice quieted, becoming croaky. "You didn't even bother to ask what got me so upset, instead, you went on chatting shit about me to my brother..."

Sirius had a point. He had the upper hand and Scarlet hated when he had the upper hand on an argument. Because she always won. And she wasn't gonna let him win this one either despite the moral compass in her mind flicking, sending a red alert.

"It's ridiculous."

"What is?"

"What I'm about to do."

Her eyes burned into hers. Sick of their fighting, sick of his very valid arguments, Scarlet snapped.

Sirius was cut off from the words he had prepared by Scarlet's hands grabbing his face and bringing him closer to her, softly slamming her lips onto hers. He instantly closed his eyes to it, shock melting into pure comfort. He managed to move his lips softly and rhythmically with hers, lips as soft as cotton candy. He ran his fingers through her hair, caressing them gently.

It was a small, quick, blissful kiss. A peck that lasted about five seconds.

Sirius' pulse was already racing and now it had increased tenfold because he was kissing Scarlet Bridget.

Scarlet softly pulled away with a large inhale, moving back into her previous position and staring back up at the stars whilst he looked at her, frozen in his place.

The kiss was very short and very simple. It could be missed within a blink of an eye. 

Sirius' heart stopped right there and then. He noticed the expression on her face differed from his in ways that broke his heart. Whilst Scarlet's face was always unreadable, this one was crystal clear.

That meant nothing to her.

"You owe me five galleons worth of green tea," She shrugged, unbothered.

Sirius felt a little pang in his chest.

Her words shattered him.

It meant nothing to her.

It meant everything to him.

She kissed him for a bet, for green fucking tea.

It was stupid of him to think for those beautiful five seconds that it was anything more. And he kissed her back, hard. And she knew it. It was humiliating.

He was an idiot.

If she can pretend to not care, I can play the same game too. Sirius thought to himself grumpily.

The next day, Scarlet sat in her bedroom and wrote a letter. It didn't say much, her brain could not come up with the right words to say without the help of Everest. 

Dear Sirius Black,

I want you to know the kiss meant more to me than just tea. I was scared about the aftermath, so I knocked you off hoping I don't get humiliated by your possible rejection. At the moment, I just felt quite stupid about kissing someone who had been ignoring me. 

Shallowing all my pride, I apologise for the way I behaved.

Kind regards,

Scarlet Bridget.

"KAZ! Will you drop this letter off at Sirius Black's window?" She called for her pet crow, one that was practically magical when it came to understanding her. Running a delicate hand through his raven feathers, she cooed lightly with a smile—a gesture the crow adored.

      The blob of black merely nodded and disappeared out of the window. Scarlet hated unpredictability, something that made her hide under her duvet before Kaz could back his way back or before she received another letter.

      THE BLACKS DIDN'T JOIN THE BRIDGETS when they travelled to King's Cross Station that year. The mothers knew very well their children are at each other's throats these days, and could not afford for them to break out in arguments in the middle of a busy area.

      To say Scarlet was pissed due to the lack of response to her letter was an understatement. She felt like burning his whole house down to ashes. However, she wondered if he was simply expecting an in-person apology. A letter truly symbolised a lack of effort. 

      Over the course of the summer, she had the perfect idea in mind. The moment they go back to Hogwarts, she was going to tell Sirius their kiss did mean something to her. She was going to apologise, something she could never dream about doing—she was going to admit she was wrong.

      Being only thirteen years old, Scarlet had yet to mature fully. But realising she made a mistake counts as something, right? It's not like she knew anything about relationships, or boyfriends and girlfriends. Her only source of true information was Everest who was under the impression that kissing someone in the first place means you're obligated to marry them. 

      In reality, that is just some bullshit Eve's brother made up to scare the girl into not kissing any boys, or whatever. 

      She had an idea about how this would go, she would apologise and Sirius—being his usual, calm self—would forgive her. And they would go back to normal—being friends, perhaps even more.

      The moment a very frustrated Sirius stepped foot into the Great Hall, he approached the first girl who showed him any sort of attention and started a conversation with her.

      "What's Black playing at?" Everest leaned towards Scarlet, not taking her eyes off of the boy, his hand wrapped around a Gryffindor girl who stared at him with glittering eyes.

Due to the lack of response, the brunette turned to her best friend whose fingers were picking at her bottom lips. The girl narrowed her eyes.

"I kissed him."

"WHAT?" She shrieked, earning the attention of the entirety of Slytherin's table. Despite liking the idea of them, she was still astonished at the sudden words. She knew Scarlet had no intention of going out with him after the conversation they had before summer. "Why on Salazar's grave would you do that?"

"I was being immature," she admitted, voice still low as she shot her a warning gaze to quiet down. "It was a bet we made a long time ago about our first kiss and we were arguing, and I wanted to win..."

"What was the prize?"

"Green tea."

"I'm seriously considering a friendship breakup with you," Everest raised a brow, knowing her words were exaggerated. "You kissed the poor guy for tea?"

"I didn't know he was gonna kiss me back, I royally fucked up, Eve... all I wanted was the upper hand, you should've seen the look on his face."

"You better have a darn good apology planned," Everest hoped.

"I do!" The blonde exclaimed. "I mean... I don't know what happens after that though..."

"You two become boyfriend and girlfriend because you kissed," the girl said, a little bit of confusion hitting her. She had little knowledge of romance. "Right?"

"I don't know," she sighed, looking at Sirius who only kept getting closer to the girl he was speaking to. 

Everest's jaw dropped, she grabbed Scarlet's wrist to tug at it, starting to turn her away, make her stand up, avert her attention, or anything for that matter. She knew what was coming and she didn't want Scarlet to witness it. "Scars, don't look."

      But she saw it anyway.

      Sirius pressed his hands against the girl's cheeks and brought her into a kiss, the entirety of the Gryffindor table gasping at the sight. 

      Everest saw the earth-shattering guilty look plastered on Scarlet's face, and it changed into sorrow. It was the first time she ever looked this crestfallen. 

      Scarlet averted her gaze back to Sirius and the girl he had in his arms. her twisted mind decided the apology she had planned over the summer holiday was never going to get used.

The blonde turned to her side where Evan Rosier sat, the entire Slytherin table oblivious to whatever is going on, more like careless. "Tell Professor McGonagall I won't come to class, I'm not feeling well,"

Evan's worried gaze lingered on her for a few seconds, watching as her eyes became slightly glossy. "Will you be okay?"

Scarlet didn't respond, she would rather die than shed tears in the presence of other people. Everest followed her anyway, watching as Remus and James practically pulled Sirius off of the girl, dragging him away to their table.

In the empty corridor, Scarlet halted to a stop once she heard Everest's loud footsteps. "I don't do anything right," she whispered, turning around and facing her best friend with tears brimming in her eyes. "I should've known."

"You can't blame yourself for that, you tried apologising," Everest tried comforting, stepping closer.

"I sent him a letter," Scarlet scoffed, "I should've taken the hint, that he wants nothing to do with me,"

"You sent him a letter?" Everest whisper-yelled, only now finding out this information. 

"I saw the look on his face and I thought he genuinely wanted me to like him," she shook her head, a frown on her face. "I'm never talking to him, ever again."

"If he ever comes near you again, I'll hex him into Oblivion," Everest said with determination glinting in her eyes. "It's not your fault boys think with their dicks instead of their brains."

Scarlet spent the rest of the month not even looking at Sirius for one second. Watching her careless behaviour, Sirius found someone else within a month. And then another the next month, and another in a few more weeks. It angered him that he could not mess with Scarlet's emotions the same way she did with him.

Because no matter what he did, Scarlet just did not care. From his perspective, at least.

Even she had convinced herself she did not care at all. It's not exactly like they can go from one stupid kiss to getting married. They're both just dumb teens anyway. 

𝑪𝑨𝑹𝑨 𝑺𝑷𝑬𝑨𝑲𝑺

haha, well. there goes nothing.

also, I just want to clarify this chapter IS a time skip.
last chapter was 1st year, and this was end of 2nd
year, so, they're both 13 going to 14.
which is why there were so much confusion in 
the comments. sorry about that everyone.