sharp quills and overheard statements

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September 2, 1976
6:34 am
Hogwarts

There was always the fact that for some stupid, inconvenient reason Hogwarts had moving stairways to get one Anneliese's already very short temper nerves first thing in the morning.

The letter to Leo in her hand was going to get torn directly in half if she clenched it any tighter with her freckled hand, and that seemed like a highly likely possibility if things kept going at this rate. No one asked if she needed help because she walked so confidently, but Anneliese simply had no idea where she was going.

Lily had given her instructions from Gryffindor common room, but the castle seemed to be working against her. Callaway would normally be able to tell what direction she was facing based on the sun, yet of course she had taken the only route possible not to have seen a stained glass window for ages.

Letting out a loud groan, Anneliese turned up a spiral staircase in hopes that it would lead her to a point where she could see all the towers and identify the Owlery from there, but she ran directly into someone while making the sharp turn.

"Lost, are we?"

Grey Eyes was looking back at her with an infuriatingly attractive smirk and raised eyebrow.

"We are nothing," she said back, shoving past him in the narrow stairway. "I was previously lost with all of these ridiculous moving stairs, but I know how to get there now."

Sirius glanced down at the letter in her hand, and a sudden curiosity overtook him as to who she was writing to.

"Headed to the Owlrey, then?" he asked. "I can just show you the way, no need to climb the tower to try and get a better view and find it."

Anneliese briefly wondered if he was a Legilimens for how quickly he had guessed her thought process.

"Don't you have something more important to do?" she asked, her thumb moving back and forth against the envelope. "Need to go maintain a reputation?"

"Nah, everyone already loves me," Sirius grinned as they started to walk. "Who're you writing to?"

"Grindelwald."

"Thank you for the direct answer," he said, the grin still on his face as he pointed the correct direction, which Anneliese begrudgingly went in. "Actually, who?"

"You see, back home, we had these things called boundaries," she said back, starting to climb an outdoor staircase as the cool breeze hit her in the face with a slight shiver. "I've known you for a day, and I have no desire to further do so."

"Why did you get expelled?"

This question made Anneliese freeze. She had never told him or anyone else in this crack castle why she had transferred. Sirius instantly saw the puzzled expression on her face with a satisfied smirk that he finally had gotten something out of this girl.

"I killed somebody," she replied with a simple shrug, not letting him get to her any further like he wanted to. "It was very messy."

"Will you just not be difficult for a second?" he asked, annoyance creeping in his voice. "I want to know the person that I plan on hating."

"How gentlemanly," Anneliese said as she walked into the room full of hooting owls and tucked hers under the beak of a jet black one in the section labelled Hogwarts Owls. "But I don't plan on us getting to know one another."

An odd thought hit her as she watched the owl fly away like a streak of ink on the cloudy grey sky.

"How did you even find me?" she asked with a creased, tan forehead. "You had no holy business being up this early and going back and forth in random towers. Especially for us to run into one another in a castle this big."

Sirius hadn't anticipated her thinking of this. Usually, he could read women very well, and her being unpredictable sent a small thrill through him that he told himself was very wrong.

He had made his decision to hate her and fully planned on sticking to it.

"Who said the business was holy?" he asked with a wink as he exited through the open air corridor.

And made sure the Map was secure in his pocket.

Anneliese blinked a few times in surprise at both his response and departure, not having expected such a bold reply.

But she had decided on hating him, and that wasn't going to change.

──────────

September 8, 1976
2:19
Transfiguration Classroom

"Did you guys have Transfiguration in America?" Marlene asked curiously as they went to the first block of the day. "Where you transform things?"

"Yes, we did," Anneliese confirmed with an amused expression. "Ilvermorny wasn't all that different from here. Actually, that's a lie. We didn't have Peeves."

Lily groaned at the mention of the poltergeist that her friend had become partners in crime with instantly.

The two of them had already blocked an entire corridor yesterday with an enormous pumpkin swelled to mold the walls. The huge vegetable had taken two hours and three professors to clear away because of the protective enchantments around it, and made the fourth years miss Potions.

"Yes, that is enough chatter," the stern professor that had welcomed Anneliese to Hogwarts said with a wave of her hand. "You too, Miss Callaway. I don't want to take any more points from my own house after the pumpkin."

James, Remus, and Peter all grinned at the mention of the prank they had never thought of with admiration, but Sirius forced his features into a gruff expression.

"Yes mam," Anneliese said, setting her bag down and sitting down only to see that the entire room was staring at her oddly, McGonagall included. "Did I say something?"

A few sniggers went through the classroom at her question.

Sirius frowned a bit. They should know that she wasn't from here, and that she had no idea what things meant here versus in America, not laugh at her for something that wasn't her fault.

"When in my classroom, you will address me as professor or Professor McGonagall, is that clear?" she asked with a tight, strict expression.

Anneliese's face flushed a light pink the color of rose petals, not knowing what she had done wrong as she mumbled her confirmation and finished getting out her things.

"Hey," the boy with green eyes identified by Marlene as Remus Lupin whispered, leaning over from his desk over to her.

"Yea?" Anneliese asked, hoping that he wouldn't proceed to embarrass her further or make fun of her like many people in the room already seemed to be doing behind her back but not her observant eyes.

"I know it's just manners in America, or in the South or whatever, but here it's considered offensive to call a woman mam," he said in a hushed tone. "Might be a hard habit to break, but worth your while."

"Thanks darlin," she whispered back, and Remus blushed a bit. "Sorry, I use that casually."

"No, it's fine," he muttered, turning back to his notes as Anneliese did the same.

The lessons at Hogwarts were just as challenging as Ilvermorny, but the American school had given her a head start on a few classes, Transfiguration and Potions being two of them. Most of the things McGonagall had been teaching the sixth years so far was review for Anneliese, and she took to doing something she did best.

Tattoos.

Some might find it a bit painful and to give yourself a stick and poke with a quill tip and ink bottle, but Anneliese had done it so often since her third year with Leo that it no longer phased her.

The skeleton hand had been a result of a very boring fifth year of Defense Against the Dark Arts where the teacher barely noticed the masterpiece forming on his student's hand in the back row. Anneliese never sketched out what she was going to do beforehand, it just sort of came to her along with her knack for anything artistic.

The one she was working on right now had started in Potions, and was of a tiny lion on her wrist for both Gryffindor and Leo next to one of a thunderbird.

"Miss Callaway, would you mind answering the question?"

Her head jerked up from where her dark blue eyes had been squinting over a particularly detailed section of the mane to McGonagall, who had crept up in front of her desk without her noticing.

"Would you mind repeatin the question?" Anneliese asked hopefully.

The professor gave her an exasperated, vaguely disappointed look before sighing.

"I asked if- oh my! Miss Callaway, why is your wrist bleeding?"

Any head that was not looking was now turned in her direction once more.

Sirius, in particular, looked very alarmed at the location of the blood that was commonly associated with self harm.

Anneliese looked down at her hand in dismay to see that the professor was right, she had pressed the quill too deep at one spot and drawn blood along with the black ink.

"I'm sorry, that sometimes happens when I mess up," she said with a smile. "Nothing to worry about."

"When you mess up on what, exactly?" McGonagall asked warily as she looked down at the skeleton hand.

"A tattoo," Anneliese replied honestly, seeing no point in lying to this woman who would obviously see right through it. "I find that quills can be a highly underestimated tool to make them with."

Sirius was absolutely furious with himself for not doing that earlier. But if he gave himself one now, it would seem like he was copying her, and there was no way in hell he was going to let her bruise his ego even more.

"Detention," McGonagall declared. "No more giving yourself stick and pokes in my class."

Anneliese slumped down in her chair as she looked at the incomplete lion in dismay as the professor walked away back to the front of the class.

"Bet Minnie never thought she'd say that," James whispered to Remus, who nodded in return. "That's the most mental thing ever."

"It's badass, too," Marlene jutted in. "I like her."

Sirius turned back around, a weird, sour feeling filling his stomach that he decided was even further dislike towards Anneliese before he could get too deep in it.

He loathed the way she made him feel.

──────────

September 15, 1976
8:13 am
Great Hall

So far, the morning had been absolutely awful for Anneliese.

She had woken up to see that her period had started completely unprepared, and thankfully Lily had taught her an easy spell to get blood out of sheets. Then, after that, cramps had started so horribly that she wanted to burst into tears.

Finally, when she sat down at breakfast, a pitcher of what she called jelly and they called marmalade had exploded all over her and Marlene from some Slytherins who thought they were very clever.

Wiping the stick orange stuff off her cheek with a crimson napkin, Anneliese was certain that nothing could make this morning good in any way.

And then a letter landed in front of her with familiar, square handwriting that read simply A.

"What's got you all excited?" Lily asked in amusement after she picked a bit of a peel out of Marlene's hair.

Anneliese simply held up the cracked open seal in response as she eagerly began to read.

A,

Things at Ilvermorny suck without you. My mom tightened all of her policies on Shimmerkeep visits, so now we can only go on weekends and not whenever we please. Not that it really matters, the only person I really enjoyed going with was you.

So let's talk about Sirius Black.

Hell is going to freeze over the day I meet a boy who can get under your skin. After dealing with life on that farm and the orphanage, nothing can phase the strong Anneliese Callaway that I know. I highly doubt that he's going to keep pestering you if you give him signs, and if he does, let me know and I'll send him a loaded howler.

Say hi to Peeves for me,

L

"Do you reckon that's from a guy?" Sirius asked Remus with narrowed eyes as he watched Anneliese giggle over a letter.

"Hmm?" Remus asked, just then snapped out of reading the Daily Prophet of that morning. "What now?"

"He asked if he thinks that A got a letter from a boy," James said with a chuckle.

"Wait, since when do you call her A?" Sirius asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Since she told me I could in the common room last night," James replied casually, not having thought much of it.

Sirius got that sour feeling again that made the food in front of him suddenly seem unappetizing.

"I hate her. She is the most difficult, annoying person I have ever met," Sirius declared to the Marauders in a tone much more prominent among the chatter than he intended. "Why can't she just like me? I'm very likable."

Anneliese heard him.

"Uhm, that was very loud," Remus muttered, his cheeks flushing from second hand embarrassment.

Sirius turned in alarm to see Anneliese furiously writing something with narrowed blue eyes. These things just slipped out at this point out of routine, he didn't mean them that much anymore.

He didn't really mean to hurt her, but at the same time, it felt good to make her feel how he did.

Leo,

If hell freezes over when he gets under my skin, then the devil better buy himself a jacket.

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