Author: seer of spots
Summary: ONESHOT SiriusLily. I'm not saying that just the thought of you makes my walk a skip, and I'm not saying that my heartbeat's any more than just a radar blip … I'm saying that I like you … I like you very much.
A/N: Better late than never, eh, eh, Potter? My entry into the Box of Chocolates Reviews Lounge Valentine's Day Challenge.
You makes my walk a skip,
And I'm not sayin' that my heartbeat's
Any more than just a radar blip.
Oh well I'm not sayin' that I'm not affected
By your feminine such'n'such,
I'm sayin' that I like you...
I like you very much
-I Like You Very Much, Rockapella.
Lily shoulders her bag, stumbling a little on the uneven floor. She glares at her shoes, eying their scuffed and battered tips with annoyance. What did you do that for? she seems to be asking them. Her toes twitch in answer. Sorry, they say.
"And I should hope so," she says.
She blushes and looks around, hoping no one heard or saw her.
I like watching at Lily. She's very nice to look at (which I have told her on occasion, to be answered, generally, with a hex or a derogatory retort – wh-psh! - straight off the mark).
She sees me seeing her.
She wilts.
I laugh.
"Hallo, Lily, and Lily's shoes, of course, who, no doubt, are very apologetic – how dare they trip on these Hogwarts floors?"
The problem with Lily, I realised a while ago, is that she is far too similar to James. Both are very stubborn, both are very amusing and unerringly sharp, and both are very, very odd.
Lily rolls her eyes, but I can tell she's still embarrassed. "Don't worry," I say, twitching my toes. "Everyone talks to their feet now and then. For us boys, it's always, No, you shan't grow any more – there's only so many times a shoe can be expanded, you silly things. However," I add knocking my toe against the heel of my opposite foot, "they are boy-feet, and boys aren't well known for their listening skills."
No longer embarrassed, Lily plays along. "Well, no wonder," she scolds, hands on hips, books on a window sill. "Look at what you're making the poor things do. Stop scuffing the poor dears – feet never respond well to torture, male or female." She looks up at me – so little – and straight in my eye. "What your shoes need is a firm hand. Watch: Shoes, be kind to Sirius, and do not engage in games with his head – neither of you need swell further. If you aren't kind, I shall know, and I shall charm all your socks to Slytherin colours, and you shall have to wear them."
She adds a glare for good measure, and my toes curl under her scrutiny.
I raise my eyebrows, looking her in the eye. "Impressive."
"Well," she blushes. She looks at her feet. "I'm, erm, firm with feet, I suppose?"
Her eyebrows are skewed and her hands are twisting the cuffs of her robe sleeves around her thumbs. Here is where I can differentiate her from James, and here is where I can look at her and think to myself You're alright, Miss Evans, you're alright. I could live with you. And it's about that moment where I think, JamesJamesJames and school myself to act as though the idea of commitment has never crossed my mind.
… But her insecurity is so very endearing.
I swoop down and pick up her books.
"Where to, Miss Evans' Feet?" I ask, directing the question at her patchily polished shoes.
"Anywhere you like, Mr Black," her feet squeak back, giggling.
With my spare hand, I grab hers, and smiling at her – from the gold ribbon threaded through her loose red plait, down over the prefect-badged front of her robes (I'm not ashamed to say my eyes lingered there a little longer than strictly appropriate), over her chewed fingernails and wrinkled sleeve-cuffs, around her too-short robe-hem and thusly revealed stripy socks.
"Ready, Sirius?" her voice, stuck halfway between the squeaky-sock-voice and her own, cuts through my observations.
"Off course, Miss Feet," I say, and off we go, waltzing down the hall like two waltzing things in a waltzing place.
Her face is bright red, and she won't meet my eye, but when I cut a glance to the hands swinging between us, I have to focus hard not to let on that I have seen her "observing" me the same way I was her. She's looking at me in precisely the same manner, the 'I could have that, I could want that' sort of manner. The 'I'm not desperate, but if I was …' sort of manner. And the thought explodes into my mind: I'm not desperate, but I sure wouldn't mind if I was …
We are a few corridors and a short-cut away from the kitchens, and I have an idea, brought on my the thought of food and this new admiration I have of Lily Evans.
"Close your eyes," I tell her, and, with a sly look to me (a look I am sure to gladly remember for quite some time), she complies, a secret grin playing with the right corner of her lips.
A jerk of my wand and a muttered incantation later, and I kneel on the floor, offering her my gift. "For you, my High-heeled-ness," I tell her laces with a flourish, flipping the lid off the box of chocolates.
The corner of the box-lid catches me on the arm and hurts a little, but Lily's face is so eager and pleased I take no notice.
"Oh, wow, Sirius," she says, hand drifting over the elaborate truffles nestled in the gold tissue paper lining the deep heart-shaped box. "Wow, wow, wow," she whispers. She selects one, and pops it in her mouth.
Watching her face is bliss.
A minute passes and I stand, my knees crackling as I straighten, grabbing a chocolate for myself and swallowing it whole.
She swallows, but sucks her tongue for a moment or two more (I'm not ashamed to admit how much I like this, either).
"You have to teach me that spell," she gushes, picking out another and nibbling on it, leaning close to my face (An orange truffle? I like orange very much) and looking up through her lashes.
I grin, quite enjoying the closeness of Fascinating Little Evans. "It's simple transfiguration – sharp jab and then you say –"
'Transfiguration?" Lily's gaze slips away, distracted as she pops the rest of her orange chocolate into her mouth. Then her eyes snap to mine, astonished yet amused – "Sirius! Where are my books?" she chokes out, coughing around an oesophagus full of cocoa and sugar and flavoured syrup.
I smile wider still, twirling my wand innocently in my fingers.
"How on earth should I know?" I ask. "They're your books, Lily; if you can't look after them, perhaps you don't deserve to have them. A wise person once said something about a firm hand … ?"
She is irritated, but smothering a grin as she – Finite Incantatem – spells the chocolate box back into her books.
There is a bite out of the cover of her Potions text and her notebook is missing a crescent-shaped wad of pages.
She glares at me and I grin back, and soon she is giggling and pretending she isn't.
I like a girl with a sense of humour.
She doesn't let me win, however, and snatches the books out of my grasp. Soon, she is marching importantly ahead. "Come, Shoes!" she cries. "Away from this common fool – this filthy trickster – and hope he rots where he stands!"
She swings around to throw a glare over her shoulder, but I am already there. She is thrown off balance and shrieks. Her hands fly up in surprise; her books (bites missing and all) fly into the air. Ducking out of range, she burrows into my chest (and there is no shame at all – I'm definitely enjoying this).
The notebook and Advanced Potions seem to dive out of the sky and hurtle towards me, their pages flapping like thousands of tiny scolding fingers. I shout and cover my head with my arms as the books peck at me and – whap! – hit me over my head, very much the firmest of little hands.
Lily's grin-smeared chin is stuck, lips pursed against a triumphant laugh, determinedly out.
"A firm hand, Sirius," she reminds me, as if I need to be told, her green eyes shining.
It is in that moment I feel it come over me, and she, too, notices. It is a predatory feeling, the possessive want I occasionally experience when battling it out with Moony at the full moon.
There is no longer the question of Oh! How like James she is! or My, what a silly little thing! or even What a crafty little witch!, there is only the I LIKE YOU VERY MUCH! a thrumming rhythm in my brain.
With a swish of my wand, a wide, arcing sweep, the books transform again, one thousand kisses crashing down on Lily like a tidal wave.
She is frozen, startled, and her feet are no longer under her command. Tripping forwards, she stumbles, amidst the loving onslaught, into my grasp.
"A firm hand?" I say, as I slide my left underneath her plait, feeling the coarse gold ribbon and her curly red hair against my fingers. In an action mirroring mine, she has her hand on the back of my neck as she nods.
She leans up towards me, and I lean down, and we kiss.
It isn't a wild groping thing, or so light we only imagined it was there. But it is still very much a kiss.
She is close to me, one hand on my shoulder, one in my hair; I am close to her, one hand around her waist and the other flicking her plait lazily behind her.
And I am far from ashamed to admit that I like this. I like this very, very much.