April 6, 1977
5:09 pm
Hogsmeade

On the surface, Anneliese hadn't changed much.

She was still argumentative and feisty. She still found ways to tease all of her friends whenever possible. She still was one of the fiercest players on the quidditch team, she still got more of a southern accent whenever she was annoyed.

She was still fine and happy and normal.

But on the inside, Anneliese was struggling with everything.

Yes, she still got mad over small, mildly amusing things. No, she didn't ever let it show when she was deeply hurt by something.

Anneliese was suddenly terrified, terrified that she was selfish and didn't think enough about others. Her whole life's already cracked frame had suddenly been violently smashed into dozens of pieces, all reflecting times when she had only been watching out for herself.

Whenever Remus was feeling down about his mysterious secret he was keeping from Leo, or Lily was struggling with Petunia, Anneliese was there. She was there to make sure that they were okay, because that was what was important.

Not her, because that was selfish and unfair.

When Sirius had written her that letter, he had promised to be there for her. But looking back when half the school had turned on Anneliese, he hadn't. Looking back to that green leather notebook, he hadn't.

And then even after he made that promise to her, he had broken it on the night when she needed him the most after Remus's rage.

Sirius had let her down, just like Regulus had warned her in what seemed like another lifetime.

But she couldn't say anything, because Anneliese didn't want to prove him right. She didn't want to invalidate his emotions, she didn't want to in any way make Black feel like his feelings didn't matter.

So on the surface, Anneliese was perfect.

She did everything right.

She was the perfect caring girlfriend that still knew how to keep Sirius's actions in line.

She was the perfect friend who was always there to listen and give the best advice she possibly could.

She was the perfect quidditch player who was unconditionally encouraging her team and doing her best.

She was becoming popular and well liked for the first real time at Hogwarts. She made Sirius happy, hell, she made all of the teenagers in her year happy. Everyone enjoyed hanging out with her.

But just a thin cut into her skin, she was so desperately not okay.

All of the problems of her past, she couldn't say. Not about the foster home, because that would just add onto Sirius's plate. Not about the mystery of her family, because that would take her attention away from her friends.

All of her fears were much smaller. She needn't worry about the trauma of abusive parents like Sirius or getting the girl like James, and being a muggleborn in the middle of a war was just something she pushed aside.

But she did want.

She wanted to give herself an incredibly painful tattoo but without the ink.

She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs about how angry and hurt she was.

She wanted to hit someone or something to get it all out.

She wanted to get some of that old strength back that Sirius had stolen from her.

But instead, Anneliese just channeled all of her energy into being Little Miss Perfect, because that was the only damn thing she could hold onto anymore.

It couldn't be Sirius, so it had to be herself.

Anneliese wasn't entirely sure when she had made this decision to be like this, but she did know that something inside her had snapped when Remus had found her sobbing her soul out on the common room couch.

Ever since that night, she hadn't let her real emotions show to a single person, or at least she tried to the best of her ability. It was hard to hold in the things that made her want to scream the most, but she was in Gryffindor for a reason.

Stubbornness and ridiculous determination, Anneliese repeated to herself as she sat in the Honeydukes bathroom. Damn my stupid house.

Despite her nearly perfect exterior, two people had a suspicion that Callaway was completely and utterly broken.

James and Remus.

It was obvious to Lupin that all of the sadness and longing she had let come flooding out that night hadn't just disappeared with four hours of sleep, there was no way that much negative emotion went away that quickly.

But then again, Remus didn't want to be the person to snap Anneliese's superficial happiness. He didn't want to bring back old sadness even if there was the tiny chance that Callaway really had gotten over whatever emotions she was feeling towards Sirius.

The tiny things that he noticed, even Remus didn't know if they were enough to build up a larger picture.

He had a reputation for being the most intelligent and perceptive Marauder, the one with the most common sense. He used to have the role of the therapist friend that Anneliese had taken up, which meant he saw things that most didn't.

Yet still, with all of his analytic logic, Remus just couldn't for the life of him figure out exactly what was wrong.

The signs were fragmented, which was probably because Anneliese herself was fragmented too.

Then, there was James.

Watching Anneliese was almost making him break as much as she was. Potter knew that there was something wrong, because how could there not be?

He didn't have the same logistical approach as Remus did, which was both a good and bad thing. It allowed him to think more with his heart than mind without needing a sufficient amount of proof to back himself up.

He knew Anneliese, and he would always stand by what he said when talking to her about the Map. She was brave and resilient, along with understanding and the remarkable ability to be both petty and know when all someone needed was her comfort.

And she's funny, James thought with a small smile as he and Lily looked at the different kinds of enchanted lollipops. Quidditch practice wouldn't be half as enjoyable without her.

And because he knew her so well, he knew that she took things to heart.

Anneliese hadn't really when she first came to Hogwarts, but then after he watched her slowly internalize all the cruel things the students had said to her, James realized that Sirius must have taken the small cracks in her confidence and split them wide open.

The one thing Potter and Lupin shared was just having the gut instinct that Callaway wasn't really herself anymore.

As for Sirius, he either wasn't applying himself fully to thinking about Anneliese's deep emotions or was subconsciously blocking out the small signs that he saw for the sake of his own conscience.

Seeing what he wanted to see.

Standing in front of the gold framed mirror of Honeydukes, Anneliese took in a deep breath of the bubblegum scented air, so sweet that she could practically taste the neon, artificial pink on her tongue.

It made her want to throw up.

"Scourgify minor," she muttered, rubbing both thumbs under her eyes.

The spell did the trick, and all of the mascara leftover underneath her dark blue irises from breaking down in the stall only a few seconds ago disappeared.

Evidence removed, Anneliese thought bitterly, practicing her smile in the mirror. Does that look natural? Did you used to smile like that?

If Callaway was capable of momentarily stepping out of her own body and looking at herself and her thoughts from a third person perspective, she would realize that she was forgetting how to be naturally happy.

Or actually how to look happy, because that was all that mattered.

She could easily pick out the sounds of the other sixth year Gryffindors even through the door. She could hear Marlene and Dorcas laughing, and she could hear a loud bang probably caused by Sirius chasing Frank because he stole his chocolate frog.

Anneliese moved away from the mirror and leaned back of her head against the door, taking a deep breath in and instantly regretting it once again from the sickly sweet smell.

Leave and just be fine, Callaway told herself. Leave the bathroom, Anneliese.

Wrapping her skeleton tattooed fingers around the handle with as much caution as if it was going to be made of white hot metal, Anneliese forced herself to step out into the happy chaos with a smile on her face.

That perfect, practiced smile.

Anneliese was immediately swept into the current of her friends, and she had covered up the traces of her tears so well against her freckled, tan skin that not a single one of the girls noticed a thing.

But James, James did.

He couldn't help but observe through his glasses the tiny specks of black out of place on her already tattooed hand, and how some of her mascara was missing.

She had been crying.

Anneliese could feel someone's gaze on her, and her dark blue eyes darted around the busy store for a few seconds before they landed on James a shelf away.

Unlike Sirius when he and Callaway caught one another from across the room, Potter's eyes instantly darted away as he turned around, trying to act like nothing had happened.

"You wanna know what I just realized?" Anneliese asked, turning to Sirius next to her with a bright smile. "That nothing has ever been a coincidence with you."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Black asked, laughing slightly as he pocketed a carton of Bertie Bott's. "I may seem like a god on some accounts, but I sure as hell can't control fate."

Callaway's eyes lingered for a split second on the stolen candy. Mentally, she weighed whether or not to say something to try and listen to herself from another perspective to see if it was selfish or not.

After a split second of verdict that felt like forever, Anneliese decided that the scenario didn't have enough to do with her for it to seem self involved.

"Don't steal that," she said, slapping his wrist and snatching the candies out from his grip. "You're rich as hell, just buy them."

Sirius just gave her an amused look before gesturing for her to continue.

"All those times when you just happened to stumble into me, especially when I first came here," Anneliese started, wiggling her eyebrows jokingly. "That wasn't luck, that might have been the use of a particular Map."

Sirius's neck flushed a bit with her very accurate accusation, but he quickly disguised it with a smirk.

"Well, aren't you happy about that?" he teased. "Would have been lost on your way to the Owlery quite a few times without me wouldn't you?"

"I could have managed myself, you arrogant prick," Anneliese replied, messing up his hair in the back with a small hop. "Don't overestimate your abilities."

To anyone else in the store, this conversation would seem completely normal. And that was a good thing, because Anneliese made sure of that to the best of her ability.

But the next section in that little green notebook, mixed in with the flowers she pressed from Sirius was an inventory of words and things to say.

Anneliese had a list, an arsenal of sorts, with conversation topics and phrases she could use to start up a discussion with Sirius.

Usually, these things would come naturally and yea, they still did. But once again, Callaway didn't want to seem like she wanted to make everything, even the smallest conversation, about her in a way that would make her beloved Black feel like she was selfish.

And it was working, of course it was. Anneliese was the one who was doing it, after all.

As she reached her skeleton tattooed hand forward to inspect a pack of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Sirius was the second person to notice that a few flecks of blackness were out of place, very clearly mascara.

His grey eyes rested on the imperfections for a few seconds before they flicked back up to her blonde lashes, no longer stained with black.

But here was the things about Sirius.

Ever since he was a child, he and Regulus both had grown to learn how to block out things in their life that they didn't want to see.

Whether it be their parents' screams of fury echoing through the house while they huddled together in Sirius's bedroom, clinging to one another and hoping the anger wouldn't be taken out on them or just sitting as stone cold as possible while they themselves were getting verbally massacred, they found ways to ignore those things, block them out.

For the sake of their own health.

So instead of saying something, Sirius just blinked and let his old habit fester, ignoring the issue.

"So.. things are going well with us, right?" Black asked slowly, doing a quick scan of the store to make sure none of his friends were too close by to hear what he was about to say.

No, things are going horribly, Anneliese thought, rage swelling along with the lump in her throat. I feel trapped but I can't say anything because I don't want you to not like me, but it fucking hurts, Sirius, it hurts so bad-

"Yea, obviously," Anneliese said with a wide smile, turning all the way towards Sirius. "Why would you ask that?"

"Well, if things are fine, then I was wondering if we could maybe tell a few people?" he suggested softly. "Not a lot, maybe just James, Peter, Remus, Lily, you know?"

Callaway's breath caught in her throat. Of all the things she had let slide recently, this was the thing that made her want to shout and slap Sirius across the face the most.

Because how many times had she told him how badly things would go for her if that happened?

How many times had he just told her that she was making him feel not worthy?

How many times had Anneliese felt overwhelmingly guilty because Sirius wasn't fully happy because of her?

They both knew good and well that if they just told those four, the rest of the school would find out in a matter of hours, because that was how things worked at Hogwarts. They both knew that Anneliese was suddenly going to be subject to much more attention, good or bad.

"I-" Anneliese started, starting to feel completely sick and dizzy.

The sickly sweet air was making her head spin, and seeing Sirius's caring expression with his wide grey eyes was just making her even more confused.

But before Callaway could answer, Remus entered the aisle they were in.

He had literally armfuls of chocolate bars in his arms, which made sense, because he ate it when he was stressed. And with N.E.W.T.'s getting closer by the day, they all had a good bit of that going around.

Lupin's green eyes darted between the flickering expression of fear and false happiness on Anneliese's face to the pleading, almost manipulative one on Sirius's before frowning slightly.

"Hey, we're checking out," he said in a clear,slow tone, and the two of them both took a step away from the other. "So if you want something, grab it now."

Remus opened his mouth to say something else directed to Sirius, but then seemed to second guess himself and shut his lips again before walking out of view.

Anneliese wished that he wouldn't have gone, because she didn't want to be left alone with Black.

"Just think about it, okay?" Sirius whispered, then jogged up to the checkout line to start up a joking conversation with James.

It was all she was going to be able to do, and as Sirius looked at her expression with a turn of his neck, he found himself not minding that it appeared to be mildly stressed.

All of her emotions weren't his problem.

"Hey, is Anneliese okay?" James asked, looking over Sirius's shoulder to see if she was behind him.

"Uhm, yes," Black answered dubiously with slight suspicion to his friend, as if this was obvious. "Why would you ask that?"

"Didn't you see, her, uhm, her eyelash makeup stuff?" Potter prompted, making a loose gesture to his glasses. "It was on her hands and messed up, wasn't it?"

"Need a stronger prescription with those glasses, do you?" Sirius teased, looking at James like he was crazy. "I think you're seeing things."

"Who's seeing things?" Anneliese asked, smile still in place as she stood by Black. "Actually, nevermind, obviously James-"

"Just because he wears glasses doesn't mean that he's blind," Marlene pointed out, joining them in line. "Well based on the last quidditch match, maybe, actually-"

"Okay, you know what-"

All of them started to laugh as the lighthearted conversation continued on, not a care in the world that didn't seem to extend beyond the colorful walls of Honeydukes.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we did tell people, Anneliese convinced herself, still laughing on the outside. Maybe that's what will be good for him, you know? It'll help both of us in the long run.

Because she wasn't angry anymore, she didn't think badly of Sirius, she wasn't bitter. No, Anneliese was happy and sweet and one hundred percent fine.

So she would keep everything fine, no matter what that meant for her.

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i made an edit summing up the past few chapters so (watch on phone 720p quality zoomed screen so portrait is filled otherwise it'll be super pixelated)-

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brb im sobbing

3k words

what do you wanna see?

VOTE! - it rly helps