It had taken a week for Sirius Black to even look at her after the kiss on the train, and that was probably a good thing, because Matty would have blushed for sure and then everyone would have known.

They would have known that Sirius was playing with her, that he was winning, that she would lay awake at night replaying the kiss in her mind and memory, that she'd even had a dream where the kiss had turned into much, much more.

When Sirius finally did look at her it was because they had been assigned as partners in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Professor, I don't think that's a good idea," Sirius had said. "Everybody knows Clondon can't duel. I'll not get any proper practice if I'm to keep from putting her in the hospital wing every week."

The professor, however, was a new one, just like every year, and Matty still couldn't even recall what his name was yet, but Sirius's rude but thoughtful warning went entirely unheeded and Sirius and Matty were stuck trying to duel each other for at least until the professor got the idea that they were the absolute worst pairing in the class.

"Sorry," he said, walking quickly to keep up with her as she made her way to the hospital wing instead of lunch for the third week in a row. "I even held up, thinking you'd see what I was doing, but the spell was stronger than I thought."

"It's my fault," Matty said stubbornly, refusing to look at him. "I'm the one who's useless at dueling. What sort of help am I going to be in a war if I can't even help myself in a classroom when someone's not even trying to hurt me much less kill me?"

"Don't say that," he said, his tone hard as steel. "Nobody is going to hurt you."

"You don't know that," Matty pointed out evenly.

"I..." Sirius growled, looking at her fiercely, stopping her as she cradled her bloody arm. "Nobody is going to hurt you, Matty. I won't... I..."

Before she realized what was happening he was pressing his lips to hers again, more gently than on the train but just as surprising. Matty thought briefly about pulling away but then she found herself growing dizzy and realized it had nothing to do with the blood loss from her arm.

She was getting lost in the kiss and she hardly noticed that it was chaste and closed-mouthed even, his fingertips brushing her cheek with all of the gentleness of a mother washing the tears off her child's skin. Her breath caught at the warmth of his touch and then she had a thought about whether he had done this same sort of kiss with other girls he'd been with, or if he'd saved it just for her.

And that thought was all she needed to pull out of the kiss. She wouldn't be another one of his whores.

He looked down at her with a question in his gray eyes.

"My arm," she said by way of explanation, hoping that she wouldn't ever have to lie to him and say that she hadn't liked or wanted that kiss, because there was little she wanted more than to have him lean down and press his lips to hers again regardless of the consequences.

Unfortunately, with all of the things Sirius Black was, he also happened to be a Gryffindor and so he did have a bit of chivalry in him so he nodded and began leading her hurriedly to the hospital wing.

"You don't have to do this, you know," Matty said, trying to put a bit of distance between herself and Sirius. "You don't need to take me to the hospital wing. I know where it is. I can get there myself."

"You could also pass out from blood loss and end up a lot worse for the wear," Sirius said stubbornly. "I'm going to walk you there and make sure that doesn't happen like the professor told me and you're going to swallow your pride and let me."

She held herself a bit stiffer.

Pride! Who did he think he was, lecturing her about pride?

Instead of dignifying his insults with a response, however, she sniffed and continued the walk in silence, ignoring the way he would look at her occasionally as they turned a corner, like he had half a mind to push her against the wall and snog her instead of taking the hospital wing after all.

Or was that her imagination misinterpreting the looks?

She certainly couldn't say for sure because she wasn't actually looking at him, just out of the corner of her eye, which was admittedly not the best way to judge expressions. Instead she just looked straight ahead, wondering if it had ever taken two people so long to walk from the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom to the infirmary.

Matty nearly sighed of relief when they finally reached the hospital wing and were greeted by the familiar face of Poppy Pomfrey, the matron, who clicked her tongue disapprovingly at the very sight of them.

To say that they had sent each other to her frequently throughout their years at Hogwarts would have been a vast understatement. There hadn't been a single month that had passed without one or the other of them visiting her because of something the other had done, often both at once, and very few weeks passed differently than such.

"Just the one today?" she said, looking at Matty's arm shrewdly. "Well, then, off with you Black. If you don't hurry you'll miss lunch. I assure you she's quite all right with me."

Sirius didn't look pleased about being made to leave Matty before she was healed, but he did so. It was a bit silly because the healing had taken all of two minutes and then another minute of cleaning the blood off of her and mending her robes, and then Matty was sent on her way as well.

What Matty had been fairly convinced wasn't a big deal was apparently a far bigger deal to everybody else in the world.

"I could throttle that arrogant toerag," Lily said furiously, and for the first time all year the words were not directed at James Potter.

"Lily, it's really not that big of a deal," Matty said with a shrug. "My arm's fine and it's not like he was trying to hurt me. Actually, he'd tried not to hurt me and failed at it because he's just far too powerful to be my dueling partner."

"That's beside the point," Lily snapped. "The very nerve of him, walking you to the hospital wing like that! People might think-"

"That Sirius didn't want her to pass out on her way there because her arm was squirting blood like it was going out of style?" said their roommate, Marie Wellington-Sinclair dryly. "Yes, Lily, I suppose that really is what everybody would think."

They didn't dislike Marie, exactly, but she didn't vibe with their trio very well. She was a nice enough girl but she just didn't share their view of Sirius and James. In fact, she'd been James's first kiss back in second year Christmas holiday when they were caught under the mistletoe together, and (if the rumors could be trusted at all) she had been Sirius Black's first shag.

That made her sort of her own kind of legend at Hogwarts, and while Matty didn't really have a problem with her, she didn't think she wanted Marie Wellington-Sinclair involved in any of her interactions with the Marauders, much less Sirius Black.

"Can we just drop it?" Matty snapped. "There are more interesting and important things to talk about than Sirius bloody Black and my arm, which is, as I would like to point out, healed!"

"Good idea," Mary said, coming to Matty's rescue. "I think that we should talk about the way James Potter was ogling Lily's leg in Charms class."

"I beg your pardon!" Lily spluttered. "What in the name of Merlin are you talking about?"

"Oh, I had nearly forgotten that!" Matty giggled.

Lily had been so excited to give the answer that she happened to know (despite the fact that nobody else knew it) she had been a bit jerky about putting her hand in the air and had disrupted her robes enough that they had dropped off one of her legs and displayed her skin bare between her socks and her skirt.

The fact that Lily had no idea it had happened made it even more entertaining.

Someone who had noticed, however, was James Potter, and he actually couldn't concentrate on anything else for the rest of class. Matty had a sneaking suspicion that he had been drooling as well, his mouth had hung open unceremoniously for so long, but she had been too far away to know for sure.

The girls talked and giggled and teased each other the rest of the night, including Marie, and it completely escaped Matty that she went all night without thinking of Sirius's lips for the first time since the train ride.

The following morning, however, she was not so lucky.

After morning Quidditch practice James had the team come over and sit with her, where she had been minding her own business, and so the Marauders naturally joined him. And Matty was all alone while her friends slept in as they liked to do on the weekends.

It was just her luck, being suck next to Sirius Black.

His leg was pressed right up against hers and she knew in that moment that it wasn't an accident. He was trying to drive her crazy, to make her feel so good that she fell right into his bed.

Well, if he wanted to play games that was just fine. Matty Clondon was quite good at playing games, especially good at getting what she wanted, and very accomplished and winning.

She let him think he was teasing her for a while, and in reality he was doing a very good job of it, but she would never let her stubborn pride admit that to even herself. Once he had gotten himself into a rhythm, Matty moved her hand to his leg, running her nails up it with enough pressure that she could be sure that he felt it through his trousers. His eyes widened so slightly that only a careful observer could be sure that it had happened at all. That was all she needed to strike.

Matty moved her hand to cup Sirius's erection mercilessly. The fact that he was already so hard made her a bit suspicious as to what he had been thinking about since he sat down, but she said nothing and tried to stay focused as his whole body stiffened. It was very hard not to smirk as she ran her hand along the outside of his trousers, teasing his throbbing cock that she could feel hardening underneath. His breathing was becoming ragged and she found herself wanting to make him come, wanting to know what it felt like to do that to Sirius Black, and that was how she knew she'd gone too far, got too caught up.

And before she could find out what that felt like she pulled away her hand, used that same hand to brush her hair out of her eyes and stood.

"I'd better get back and wake up those sleepy roommates of mine," she said brightly. "Good to see you all. Potter, I'll get you those notes you were asking me for on Muggle relationship practices, but it's not going to help you with Lily."

Matty should have probably expected that more than just Sirius Black's eyes would follow her as she left the Great Hall, but she really hadn't counted on him following her all the way to the third floor before pulling her into an abandoned classroom.

"You dirty little minx," he said in a low, dangerous voice that she had come to associate with Sirius Black being about to do something that would make even the other Marauders a little bit frightened of him, if only for a moment. She'd heard it a few times before when she'd seen him dueling Slytherins, but never whispered into her ear in a way that made her wet. "What was that for?"

"You want to play, don't you?" she whispered back, silver eyes flashing at him as he grabbed her waist and pulled her back to his front sharply so she could feel his erection digging into her lower back. It was exceedingly difficult to ignore the way her heart was pounding in her throat as his fingers traced up her torso.

"Why, are you interested?" he said teasingly. "Considered my words on the train?"

Oh, had she.

"What I can't figure out, Sirius Black, is why you're interested," she said evasively. She was not going to lie, but she certainly wasn't going to admit to him that she actually wanted him.

He snorted.

"Have you looked in the mirror lately, Clondon?" he whispered in her ear. "You're... beautiful."

She blinked, looking across the room at the window where the light was coming in.

Nobody had ever called her beautiful. Her father barely looked at her, so consumed with his work, and her mother was always too busy appeasing her high-maintenance older sisters. She'd dated, and she would hear that she was hot or pretty or sexy, but beautiful?

But Sirius Black was charming, she knew that. Sirius knew what to say, how to say it, and just how to make a girl feel special. It was probably part of his training as a child for being head of the Black family.

She stepped out of his hold, moving to the window sill and sitting on it daintily, crossing her legs and looking at him with her head cocked slightly, almost as if in a challenge.

"I'm not falling for your sweet words, Black," she said softly, and he raised his eyebrows. "I'm not stupid like the other girls you seduce."

"You're certainly not stupid," he said with a small nod. "You're bright, you're beautiful, you're a bit of a spitfire... And I'm not asking you to just fall into my bed, although I wouldn't object if you did." Matty snorted. "The point is," he continued with a grin, "I'm not just interested in you in my bed. I want you, Matty. I'm not playing a game."

Matty raised her eyebrows in disbelief.

Sirius Black didn't want relationships, he wanted games, and she wasn't going to fall for that one.

"You want me?" Matty whispered as he drew close to her again, his forehead nearly touching hers as his eyes watched her lips form the words.

"Yes," he whispered, moving his face a bit closer.

"Well then," she said with a smirk, "you'll have to prove it."

And before he could kiss her again and make her forget what she was trying to do, she got to her feet and left Sirius standing alone by the window.

Her heart was racing as she walked back toward Gryffindor Tower.

"Matty?"

She paused and turned to find Remus walking after her.

"Hey," she said, "just heading up to the common room."

"I thought you'd be there by now," he said, confused.

Matty looked down at her feet as she walked.

"I got detained temporarily. Not a big deal. Where are you headed?"

"The common room, I guess," Remus said with a shrug. "Have you seen Sirius? I thought he came this way."

"No, don't think so," Matty lied easily. "C'mon, I've got to wake up the girls before they miss food altogether."

Remus nodded, walking with her for a bit before he said, "I'm sorry about the letter thing. I mean, we all are. I know you don't want to talk about it, but I thought I ought to apologize on behalf of the Marauders."

"You're always doing that, aren't you?" Matty laughed bitterly. "You're always trying to clean up for the others and apologize for their behavior. Why do you bother?"

He shook his head and smiled a little.

"They're really good guys at heart you know," Remus assured her. "I know that you and Lily never really got on with them, especially Sirius, but he's a great guy and a really good friend."

"The way he treats girls," Matty began, forcing as much disdain as she could muster into her voice, but Remus cut her off.

"Look, a lot of that is just rumor, and I would know. He's even been attacked by fan girls, so some of it wasn't even consensual, if you know what I mean. And when he has dated girls... Well, he never does anything they don't ask for first. He's surprisingly gentlemanly, Matty. You ought to know that most of reputations are talk because people our age are stupid."

She pursed her lips but didn't respond.

She had been counting on Remus to talk Sirius down, but it was a foolish hope. Remus might like her, she didn't know for sure, but Sirius was a Marauder, one of his best friends. For all she knew they'd all become blood brothers or done some other such ritual to bond them for life. They would not speak against each other unless it was necessary.

"Do you want to work on my defensive spells next weekend?" she said, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. "If I get made fun of one more time I think I'm going to explode."

"I don't know," Remus said slowly. "We were going to... Well, I'll squeeze in some time for you. It's O.W.L. year, after all."

"Exactly," Matty said, grinning broadly.

She would be able to get Lily and Remus help her all year long. She had the exams at the end of the year to keep them as her own personal study team.

Sirius Black would be dealt with later.