"Cheers, mate!" Sirius screamed before emptying a fire whiskey shot with James. It was past midnight and Gryffindor common room was still full of people, drinks, and chatter. After all, it was Sirius's birthday and students from every house always anticipated that event. Especially now, since it was Sirius' and the rest of the Marauders' last year in Hogwarts nobody dared to miss any of the events hosted by the infamous four.
Everybody had the time of their life: drinking, flirting, dancing or just chatting in one of the corners. Only Marlene couldn't find piece and was fidgeting in her chair next to the fireplace. Last summer and past few months of school left a weird taste on her tongue. After having a huge fight with her parents, Marlene left her house and have spent half the summer living in the Potter's house as they were her closest relatives and were always happy to have her at their house. As James was preparing for exams or earning some pocket money by teaching the neighboring kids how to ride a broom, most of the time Marlene was left with Sirius, who was strangely different from the way he was in school. Late night talks, smuggling alcohol and cigarettes and diving into the world of the muggle and wizard music filled their free evenings. After returning to school that new tradition of theirs continued, as they were both insomniacs with no will to study. Everything seemed to change to go completely 180 degrees a few weeks ago.
Marlene looked around. The common room was almost empty. Remus was trying to flirt with some girl from Ravenclaw who was obviously not interested and hastily said goodbye to everyone and went back to her house. Peter was half-asleep and deadly drunk, still trying to participate in drink-off with Sirius who was obviously winning. James and Lily were hiding in the corner cuddling. There were also few Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws dancing, one by one going by one they were all going back to their bedrooms until there were only a few people left. James and Lily were slow dancing in the middle of the room. It was a fairly new thing to witness, as they only started to date a few weeks ago after James banged on the girls' bedroom door drunk as hell. Only the thought of that night made Marlene's stomach make a somersault. She breathed out and finished her firewhisky.
"Are you planning on going to sleep?" asked Lily as she was heading to the bedroom. Marlene wasn't sure to which one: girls' or boys'.
"I think I'll stay and help with cleaning" Marlene lied and Lily knew it. She gave a suspicious look, but as she was ready to ask another question James interrupted her and pulled her to the stairs.
Marlene's hands became sweaty as only her and Sirius were left in the common room. He was sitting on one of the couches playing with the pocket watch that James gave him as a present. The watch not only showed time but moon phases (James made a specific accent on that part), astronomical sign, time of sunrise and a lot of other things that Marlene couldn't remember.
"Never knew you had a passion for cleaning" Sirius quietly said and looked directly at her, putting his watches away.
"Somebody has to do it afterward. And I'm sure you're not in the state or mood to do it" Marlene chuckled with a note of nervousness in her voice. That was their first conversation of the night and it immediately threw Marlene's confidence out of the window. Everything that she planned, every possibility that could go wrong with her plan, all the consequences went through her head in one short supercut.
"Is everything alright? I mean with you and" Sirius made a long pause "between us?"
"What do you mean" Marlene shrugged and turned around as she was making all of the glasses and cups fly and collect themselves into one big pile.
"I dunno. You seemed to avoid me and didn't even give a present" Marlene heard Sirius' drunk voice behind her. She turned around and almost screamed when instead of sitting on the couch he was already standing right new to her. Maybe a little bit too close, as she could feel his breathing in cold, silent, empty room.
"I'm sorry I didn't mean to scare you" laughed Sirius and looked right at Marlene. As their eyes met, all the courage she had in her came back in a big wave. The words that James said that night were echoing in her head.
"Who said I don't have a present for you?" Marlene said putting a huge flirtatious smile on her face.
"It's not on the table" he argued.
"Close your eyes" whispered Marlene and watched Sirius obeying with a small smirk on his face. There was no way back anymore. She tried to get rid of all of the doubts in her head and remember all the feelings, all the memories, all the reasons why she's doing that.
Marlene moved in closer. Now there were only two inches between their faces at most. Sirius shivered almost unnoticeably as he felt her breath on his skin. Next second he loudly breathed in and held his breath as he felt a touch of soft lips above his right eye. Marlene's lips stayed for a second and left his face lonely and urging for more. Sirius opened his mouth ready to throw a million questions but was interrupted by Marlene's slow, quiet shush sound that went around the whole common room in echo, followed by breezy silence.
Marlene's breath was intermittent and as the sound of her breathing stopped, she placed her kiss on his left cheekbone. There was some indescribable magnetism between them, leaving sparks with every kiss. With all the possibilities in his head, Sirius could not imagine his evening ending like that. Marlene couldn't hide her smile and amusement of how she was making Sirius feel. He felt like a helpless puppy in front of her. With all of that, she was still afraid of how he's going to react. Were James' word just a prank or did he made it all up to win Lily over?
The third and final kiss was carefully placed on Sirius' lip corner, slightly touching his lips. After girl's lips left Sirius' skin he opened his eyes and looked directly into Marlene's deep blue eyes. Her smell hadn't left his skin just yet and was intoxicating Sirius. All of the wit and smartness left Sirius in a second. A person who could always find something to say was left few seconds of silence felt like an eternity to Marlene. She was desperately waiting for his response. Negative, positive - something. The last thing she wanted to do is to destroy their friendship and make a fool out of herself. A desperate clingy girl, who fell in love with her first guy friend. Why did she even believed James in the first
Those few seconds of silence felt like an eternity to Marlene. She was desperately waiting for his response. Negative, positive - something. The last thing she wanted to do is to destroy their friendship and make a fool out of herself. A desperate clingy girl, who fell in love with her first guy friend. Why did she even believed James in the first place? There was no way Sirius felt this way about her. And for sure there was no way she was feeling something for him. Just desperately made herself believe that there was something between them because she was lonely. Lily had someone, Dorcas had someone, everybody was busy with exams, leaving Marlene alone to herself. She fooled herself because of the loneliness.
"Happy Birthday" she blurted and headed to the bedrooms. All she was able to make is few steps until something grabbed her hand and rapidly turned her around. Before she could make an assessment of the situation her lips met other greedy, thirsty pair of lips and intertwined into a long, passionate, long awaited kiss.
James' drunk confession was on repeat in Marlene's head. "I would do anything for Lily because I love her! Just like Sirius would do anything for you".
That night the common room was left uncleaned.