Answer to the 'Last Man Standing' Competition. This weeks promt: Romance.

non Voldemort AU, pure-blood society, courtship, fem!James Potter

Disclaimer: Everyone knows that Harry Potters isn't mine, or at least everyone should know.

An Offer of Courtship

The summer after fifth year was a time some people looked forward to, while others hated it completely. The reasons differed; there was of course the fact that there were no homework assignments after the OWLs, but for Sirius Black the reason that he had dreaded and waited for this time to come was another one: That summer was the summer were the courtship offers were written and send. By passing one's OWLs one became a fully qualified, but not highly qualified, witch or wizard, further education was not required and technically one could now continue on to get a job.

It had lost importance over the years, but for the scions of old families it was still traditional to do so, not because it was required, but because it was considered proper behaviour. It showed not only respect for the old traditions, but also for the witch a wizard wanted to court. Originally it was considered to be just a slip of paper to represent one's interest in a witch and it was quite common to send one to every witch you would consider marrying based on their blood status. As blood status had lost quite a bit of influence in the latter years – not in the house of Black though as his mother was happy to remind them – it had become more of a form of asking someone out while showing that you had serious intentions, at least among the more proactive pureblood families. In the recent years pureblood wizards who wanted to court half-bloods and even muggleborn had taken to writing these offers as well. It was considered very romantic.

It was a sentiment that even Sirius best friend, the tomboy and Gryffindor Quidditch star Jasmine Potter, agreed with as Sirius had found out when he had heard her and Alice Smith explain the whole thing to their muggleborn yearmates.

Which was pretty much the reason Sirius had sat down and wrote an offer of courtship to begin with. But as it turned out, writing it was not quite the same thing as actually sending it. Sirius had walked up to the the small owlery in Grimmauld Place quite a number of times, each time determined to send the letter. He had never quite made it to the top of the stairs, much to his father's and brother's amusement.

His sorting into Gryffindor had caused quite a bit of unrest on the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and Sirius knew that his mother would likely never forgive him, but it seemed then when he needed the famed courage his Hogwarts House was famous for, it had deserted him.

That was the reason that when he boarded the Hogwarts express on September the first the letter was still in his robe pocket and his father's eyebrow would likely never come down from it's place high on the man's forehead ever again, by that time Regulus at least had looked at him with pity. Both knew quite well which witch held Sirius affections and it was part of the reason that he was quite glad to get away from them.

He found his friends easily enough. Over the last years it had become tradition for them to meet in the same compartment, ironically the one in which Jasmine and him had first met.

But even in the company of his friend it seemed that he would not be able to escape the uproar that was this years courtship offers. It seemed like he was not the only one who was not all that keen on the topic as Jasmine's smile became a little strained when the it was brought up.

Sirius wondered how many offers she had received and how she planned to answer them. As he asked her he found himself hoping, that she would not accept any of them as he would prefer her to spend the Hogsmeate weekends with him, rather than on some getting to know you dates with potential suitors. It was the cowards choice, but Sirius knew by now that he was brave, but not brave enough to risk loosing his best friend.

Jasmine sighted and made a face at his question, but she did answer him.

"Nah, non of interest. Mum said I should answer some of them and meet them, but dad said that it was my choice and as long as I was polite in my refusals he there was no problem with me not meeting those guys. He and mum did not meet that way after all."

Sirius nodded, but before he could say anything his best friend posed a question that he wold rather not answer.

"And you, did you write any offers?"

He had never been able to lie to Jasmine well, even in their first year she had always been able to see through them, over the years he had stopped trying knowing full well that if he told her he did not want to talk about it she would drop the subject, unless of course it was for his own good and not out of her curiosity.

"I wrote one."

Sirius might not have send it, but he had written it, so it was not a lie.

For a moment Jasmines face fell, but as Sirius blinked it was gone and there was a teasing grin on her face.

"And did you get an answer already?"

He shook his head.

"She does not like me that way."

Jasmines lips pursed and she looked a bit stumped.

"Who wouldn't like you? Your the best Padfoot."

The comfort was bitter sweet, but better than the truth.

"I will make sure to pass it along."

She chuckled and bumped his shoulder with her own.

"You do that."

–

In retrospect he should have known that it was not a good idea to carry the letter around with him. It would have been smarter to get rid of it, but as he had not done that the next best option would have been to store it somewhere safe. And that safe place was most certainly not the pocket of his overrobe, especially not when he had potions with the Slytherins.

Maybe he should have know it would get him into trouble, but he had not expected Snape of all people to get his grubby hands on the envelop, open it and then decide to read it out loud in the Great Hall in the middle of lunch.

As soon as Snape started reading nearly every eye in the great hall was fixed on Sirius who was still in his seat. Usually the heir of house Black did not mind attention, but right in this moment he wanted to disappear even more than he wanted to hex Snape into the next millennia.

Sirius didn't even hear what he had written as Snape read. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his own blood roaring in his ears.

Sirius stared at Snape who was still smirking triumphantly and he could not even bring himself to be angry any more. The tension in the Great Hall was so thick it could have been cut with a butter knife the silence near oppressive and loaded with anticipation.

There was a reason that Courtship offers were usually not made in public. While it was considered to be romantic to get one such offer, it did not mean that the recipient had to accept. And the answer had to be presented to be in the same way as the offer. Romantic stories said that the witches showed up in the wizards doorstep with a letter in hand and a smile on their face. Given that Sirius offer had been made in the middle of the great hall at lunch, Jasmine had to answer the same way. Sirius only hoped that she would let him down gently.

There was the sound of clothes rusting and judging by the way the people Sirius could see were craning their necks, he was pretty sure that Jasmine had gotten up from her seat and about to answer him.

He turned and got to his feed, meeting her eyes evenly even if he wanted to run, knowing that, avid supporter of bloodpurity and old traditions or not, there were certain traditions to be observed, especially after such a public confession.

And it could be considered nothing but a confession. Offers of courtship were always personalized, standard phrases were included of course and when it was simply an offer of interest the letters were pretty generic, but if true emotions were involved and offer of courtship was meant to represent that. Given that Sirius pretty much considered Jasmine the centre of his universe, confession might actually be putting it rather mildly.

Jasmine had walked around the Gryffindor table, from where she had been sitting across from him and by now and was standing in front of him. She was pale, Sirius could see, her eyes wide and there was a familiar stubborn set to her jaw that he knew indicated that she was about to do something drastic, she also had her wand in her hand.

He swallowed and Jasmine sank into a deep, deep curtsey and held out her wand to him. Handle first.

Sirius wasn't sure if he took a deep breath out of shock, but given that nearly the whole of the great hall did, no one would have heard it anyway.

"If you will have me, my lord."

There were different ways to answer to offers of courtship of course, and those were mostly the reason that even the old families had never been able to control who their children married. They might disapprove of a match and disinherited the daughter or son of course, but in the end it was everyone's own choice.

When Jasmine had gotten up from her seat at the Gryffindor table, Sirius had hoped that maybe she would say something along the lines of trying and later break it off cleanly, if only to spare him public humiliation. Everyone would know why she did it and it would still be embarrassing, but it would have lessened the impact. When he had seen the set of her jaw he had thought her to be furious and hoped that he would not find himself in St. Mungo's, never had he expected Jasmine to do this.

By offering her own wand in return she had turned the whole thing around and brought it to another level. At least technically, everyone in the Great Hall had heard that what he had written was more than a common courtship offer after all and one of the reasons he had not been brave enough to send it.

Jasmine had gone a step further: the ritualistic offering of a wand was something that was done only in very few situations: when pledging ones loyalty, offering surrender, or by a witch when she prepared to leave her own house and accepted the protection of another one, via engagement to a wizard.

By this point the whole Hall could have been screaming, Sirius would not have heard it. His attention was on Jasmine and Jasmine alone as he gazes at her and she met his eyes nervously through her messy fringe. There was a reason she had made Gryffindor and he could not help but admire her bravery. He had been to much of a coward to send a private letter, while she had the guts to all but propose to him in the middle of the Great Hall.

Sirius found a smile finding it's way onto his face as he stepped forward and knelt down in front of her, grabbed her wand and offered his own in return.

"Only if you will have me, my lady."

Traditions or not, Jasmine would never be anything but his equal. By the soft smile and the mischievous glint in her eyes he knew that she understood. She took his wand just as he took hers and together they rise again, together this time. He could feel Jasmine's magic wash over him, soft, warm and loving, and nothing had ever felt so right in his life. Jasmine grinned at him, her eyes a little bright.

The hall burst into applause as Sirius leaned down to softly press his lips against Jasmine's and she met him halfway. If they ignored a voice that sounded a lot like Sirius' younger brother saying something suspiciously like 'finally', than no one really cared about it at that point.

–

They were walking around the lake later that evening, trying to escape the countless congratulation that they had received, when Jasmine turned to him an usually fixed expression on her face.

"So, Sirius... The courtship offer..."

She bit her lip, a nervous habit that Sirius knew her mother had long tried to get rid off.

"It was the only one you wrote?"

She sounded more unsure than he had ever heard her before and the shock at that alone caused him to take a few moments to respond to the question she had actually asked.

"Yes, it was."

He smiled wryly and held her gaze.

"I just never dared to send it. Some Gryffindor I am, huh?"

The answering smile he got in response took his breath away and Sirius chose to return the favour by leaning down and kissing her.

Ah well, I always wanted to try writing something like that. Since James x Sirius is pretty much my OTP, even if I like Jily quite a lot, this is what came out. I'm not really all that happy with it, I would like to write more and give more detail and less exposition, but that would no longer fall into the 3000 word limit so that's it.

Genderbending just fit with it. Usually I change Sirius gender, but I wanted to try fem!James at least once.