Authors Note: I'm playing just a little loose with the James and Lily relationship, starting it a bit later than it did in the books. Forgive me. I do have my reasons I swear.
Nika Dunway had been at Hogwarts for a month and a half and she still wasn't thrilled. When Nika was nine her father had joined up with Death Eaters. Her mother, a muggle born, fled, scared of what would happen and person he was turning into. She left with Nika and headed to South America. Nika grew to love the place and once she went to school felt at home there.
Two years ago her mother had fallen ill and then when Nika was 16 she had passed away and with no relatives there had been forced to move back in with her very kind and very muggle grandparents. She had also been forced to transfer to Hogwarts if she wanted to continue her magical education and felt completely out of place, the first transfer student Hogwarts had seen in years.
She really didn't mind the people, most of them were nice and she had gotten into what she considered the best house, Gryffindor, Lily and Mary were lovely, but she missed her school friends, the ones she had had for years. She was homesick.
Sirius Black finally understood the reason James followed Lily around like a puppy, not that he would ever show it in the same way. He wasn't about to follow her around, but he couldn't get his mind off Nika. She had long, loosely curly black hair and blue eyes. She smelled like the ocean, and Sirius Black, the Lothario of the school finally found someone who didn't seem the least bit interested in his advances. He secretly blamed Lily, she didn't like James so she was obviously poisoning her brain against him. Remus didn't share his view.
"Padfoot, every girl isn't required to be interested in you." He said, offering the last bit of his bread pudding to Sirius who shook his head.
"I don't want every girl. I want this girl, and it's not very fair that I could have any other girl and the one I want isn't interested."
"She isn't the only girl who's ever not liked you." Lupin rolled his eyes and opened a book, "Why don't you and James go lament over unrequited love together."
Sirius rolled his eyes back and gave Remus a kiss on the cheek, "See you tonight Moony." Sirius took off towards the dormitory where he found James sitting by the fire polishing his broom and looking incredibly downtrodden.
"Jamesy darling!" Sirius said falling into the couch beside him, "My heart is literally breaking. How do you do it?"
"You have no idea Padfoot." James said with a great sigh. "She agreed to go out with that great buffoon Ladenmeyer, they're probably snogging right now."
Sirius gave him a solemn look, "I don't understand girls Prongs. You're much more handsome, Ladenmeyer has a huge nose, like a bird he is." He gave James hand a pat, "Perhaps it will be a terrible date and she'll realize she really wants romance and come running to your arms."
"One can only hope." James said.
The portrait hole opened up and in came Mary and Nika. Sirius stood up. "Hello ladies. Lovely evening."
"Just marvelous." Mary said laughing and falling into a seat by the fire.
"And how are you tonight Black?" Nika asked curling into a chair and pulling out a book.
"Lovely." Sirius flashed her a winning smile and several third year girls started giggling one even let out an audible sigh, "Well you ladies look like you have work to do, if you need any help let me know."
Mary looked up from the notes she was studying, "Oh yeah, the second I need help sneaking out at night and getting drunk with the house elves in the kitchen I'll let you know."
Sirius felt his cheeks flush, "Yeah and the second I need advice dating the worst bloody catcher this school has ever seen I'll ask you. I suppose that's what you get when you have to sink to dating Hufflepuffs though, huh Mary?"
Luckily, at this moment Remus had come back to the common room and after seeing the worried look on James face quickly made his way over to diffuse the situation. He grabbed Sirius by the arm. "Sorry Mary, sorry Nika, sometimes when Sirius gets around pretty girls his brain goes all mushy. And sometime he's just a twat." He said raising his eyebrows at Sirius and daring him to say something.
Sirius sulked but after the Incident-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named never did anything to upset Remus on purpose. "I'll be up in my dorm."
"What's wrong with him?" Mary asked as he walked away, "He's been buzzing around like a fruit fly. He's reminding me of James."
Lupin nodded towards Nika, "I think he has a bit of a crush."
Mary threw her head back and laughed, "The unattainable Sirius Black having a crush. The surprises never end."
Much to Nika's dissatisfaction she and Sirius Black were the only two Gryffindors taking advanced Care of Magical Creatures. Even worse they took it with the Slytherins, who were all taking it for the easy grade. Nika wanted to be an animal healer when she left school and Sirius wasn't sure what he wanted to do but he loved animals, not that he would ever admit this to anyone but James. He also loved Professor Kettleburn who always seemed excited to see him, though Sirius suspected he might be a bit rattled in the brain.
"Good morning class!" Kettleburn said, looking around at his students, and spreading out his arms, one real and one prosthetic "Today we will be doing a hands-on activity but if you all follow my instructions everyone can stay safe." He looked at the Slytherins as though he wasn't too sure they would make it through. "So first things first everyone find a partner."
Though she wasn't thrilled Nika agreed to partner with Sirius, since her only other option was a leering Slytherin boy who had caught her eye.
Kettleburn smiled at the students standing in pairs. "As I said we will be doing a hands-on activity. It will involve going into the Forbidden Forest." There was a murmur among the students and Kettleburn gave them a hard look, "If you follow my directions you will stay safe. If you don't think you can handle following my directions then I ask that you please sit this one out and not get yourself in trouble. You will not be going deep into the forest, as nothing you need is there, you shouldn't walk more than 15 minutes INTO the forest. You may walk around as long as you need but straight into the forest for no more than 15 minutes. Are we clear?" He looked around at the students, all of whom were nodding their heads,
"I have talked to several centaurs about this and if any of them, or myself, catch you far back in the forest you will fail this assignment and get a detention. Do not touch anything you cannot identify.
"In the real world you will sometimes have to do jobs in the field. I am attempting to prepare you for this and I hope you are all mature enough to act responsible. I will hand each group an envelope, inside you will find a scenario involving a magical creature. You will need to find the plants you would need to solve your problem. This could be anything from venomous bites to hurt animals. Several times in my work I have been somewhere and needed something but did not have it on me, and was force to find it in the wild. This can save your life or the life or a colleague or animal. Please put on your boots and gloves and wait for me to hand you your envelope."
"You think you can handle it Black?" Nika asked as she pulled on her boots, "I'd hate to fail because you get lost in the forest."
"I'm more worried about getting stuck protecting you." Sirius said, taking the envelope Kettleburn was holding out.
"Keep an eye on him Dunway, I've caught him sneaking around the forest several times. Who knows what he will get up to when he's actually allowed?"
"Oh Professor, I wasn't sneaking, I was being incredibly brash about it."
"If you weren't one of my best students I'd knock you around the ears Mr. Black." Kettleburn said with a coy smile.
As he walked away Sirius opened up the envelope and leaned against the tree behind him reading the note, "It says there is a young unicorn, still gold, and it has a broken leg. We have to be able to fix it but we have no healing potions on hand."
NIka thought for a moment, curling some of her dark hair around a slim finger, she kept her eyes off Sirius, instead focusing on the tree behind him, because despite her irritation at him, he did look handsome, sitting up against the tree like that, the sun in his hair and a lopsided grin on his face. "Well," She said finally, "We don't want anything that would make it grow too fast. That could scare it and it's only a baby. Plus faster acting things tend to be more painful which could cause it to try to run off injuring itself more. " She started opening her book.
"Brookweed." Sirius said, "If we crushed up the flower and rubbed it on it would work as a painkiller and the roots cause fast healing. It would be mended within a day." Sirius had used it several times on the Marauders when they got hurt out with Remus and didn't want to chance going to see Madame Pomfrey.
"Really?" Nika said, looking impressed and opening her book to double check. She scanned the pages until she came to an entry on Brookweed. "You're right." She looked up at him smiling, "Good call Black. But it says it's mostly located near water sources such as streams and ponds, which are well shaded. I hope we can find water in the forest."
"I know just where to look." Sirius said standing up and offering Nika his hand, which she waved away standing up herself and putting her bag over her shoulder. "Off we go I suppose." She made her way towards the forest. "I hope there's nothing too dangerous in there."
"There are plenty of dangerous things in here." Sirius said as they made their way past the first line of trees onto a small path. "But they all stay towards the back. That's why Kettleburn said no more than a fifteen minute walk, twenty five minutes or so gets you into acromantula territory." He pointed to his right, "And if you go up and that way there is a herd of thestrals, ugly creatures- if you can see them that is- but friendly. And sometimes you will see unicorns but they just roam."
"You know a lot about it." Nika said, "What are you doing spending so much time in the Forbidden Forest." Sirius just shrugged and the two walked on in silence for a few minutes. "Sirius?" Nika asked.
"Yeah?" Sirius asked, trying to get his bearings and figure out where the stream was, he usually used a different path, one further from the Care of Magical Creatures class.
"How come you're in Gryffindor when the rest of your family is in Slytherin?" Nika asked and immediately regretted this decision. Sirius' face took on a hard, yet saddened look.
"This way." He said, pointing to a path leading to the right, "Because my family is a bunch of worthless prats. I don't even live with them anymore, I live with James and this summer I'm getting my own place."
"Is it true about the Death Eaters?" Nika asked before she could stop herself, "That some of the Slytherins are joining up? He's recruiting students now?"
Sirius shrugged, though he was sure if Voldemort was recruiting students Regulus would be one of the first to join up. It would make his parents so bloody proud.
"Sorry." Nika said, "I was just wondering because…"She paused for a moment and Sirius slowed down to look at her. She was so pretty and seemed so sure of herself, he really wished he wasn't having this conversation. There were a million things he'd like to talk to her about, he spent his time trying not to be his usual arrogant self and show her what a nice guy he could be, and now they were talking about his Death Eater family, "Well because my dad is a Death Eater. He ran off when I was nine. I wonder if he regrets it."
"That's terrible." Sirius said, "We need to go this way." He said pointing off the path and trying to change the subject. He didn't like talking about his family and he certainly didn't want to talk about Voldemort
"Are you sure we should leave the path?" Nika asked looking around. It was dark in the forest and big trees loomed over them.
"Don't worry. This is centaur territory, they don't love humans by any means but they aren't hostile. In fact they're quite the opposite. We'll be fine."
Nika followed him closely through the woods, not saying anything, her eyes darting around. In a few minutes they could hear running water.
"Almost there." Sirius said looking back at Nika. "Just around here." He pointed to the stream opening into a wide pond.
"It's beautiful." Nika said smiling and walking over to the water. "And look Brookweed!" She bent down and grabbing a handful which popped out of the earth easily and started squirming around.
"Careful!" Sirius said as it tried to squirm away from her hands. "Dip in the water but don't let go. It will stop moving."
Nika grasped the plant with both hands and carefully held it in the water until it stopped moving. "Sirius?"
"Yeah?"
"This was a lot of fun."
"Yeah it was." Sirius smiled. "Are you going to Hogsmead tomorrow?" He asked.
"Yeah." She turned to him smiling, "And you should tell James to ask Lily to go to get a drink with him. I think she's warming up. Her date with Laydenmeyer went terrible."
Sirius sighed, "I'm sure James will be thrilled." He couldn't not pass the information on to James, they were best friends, but Remus was still feeling off colored and didn't want to go and Peter had gotten into a spot of trouble at the Hogs Head last time and wasn't allowed to go this time. "Maybe I'll see you there too." He added trying to not sound too hopeful.
"Maybe you will." Nika said.