(Maura)

There were very few people in the world who could do as many things on a broom as Maura Shacklebolt. Sirius appreciated that in absolutely every way he could.

Truth be told, there were a ton of things Sirius appreciated about Maura - her easy-going nature, her confidence, her well-timed quips. But the thing he enjoyed the most about her was that she didn't make everything a Big Deal. She didn't start naming their hypothetical future children after one date (unlike Reda Dunnell and... really... Agrapantha Black? Seriously?). She didn't get possessive or call him her boyfriend. She didn't even make a big deal out of sex ("That was fun, Black," she'd said after their first time together. "Should do it again some time"). Yes, he really, really liked Maura.

They'd been together, though not exclusive, when he'd left his family and found refuge in the Potter's home. They stayed that way afterwards, too.

His break with his family had been bitter, nasty, and left him more rebellious and sour than usual. It had shifted something inside him, brought a darker edge he'd not had before. But denying the world outside was easy when he was drunk or fighting or had some girl's skirt hiked up around her waist. Usually, the girl in question was Maura. When it wasn't, she didn't seem to care much. At least at first.

It was sometime in late January, snow piled heavily outside and a chill in the air that not even heating charms could erase entirely. He didn't remember much of the night before but his face hurt and his throat was brittly dry and from the weird tingly feeling in his legs he was pretty sure there was some sort of hex wearing off on his lower extremities. Groaning with great distaste at the whole idea of morning, he shielded his eyes because, why exactly was the sun so damn bright?

"Morning sunshine," came a voice that sounded less amused than usual and Sirius peeked open one eye to find Maura - hangover remedy mercifully in hand - looming over his bed.

"Ugh, shut the curtains," he begged, grabbing the potion from her hand and downing it with a wince, grateful to feel its effects washing over him almost instantly.

"Preferably with you on this side of them, love," he said, wagging his eyebrows a bit (because, hey, sixteen-year-old boy).

"Glad to see my potion-making skills are up to par," she replied, taking the now-empty vial from his hand. "You smell like the floor of the Hog's Head, Sirius. What in the world makes you think I'd want to be within five metres of of you?"

He sniffed his own shirt and winced. Damn... was that blood on his shirt? What the hell had he done the night before?

"I don't know. My dashing good looks? My charm?" he questioned, grinning widely. "Experience?"

She snorted in retort.

"No need to be ego-bruising about it," he grumbled a little.

"Where are the boys?" He asked, noting for the first time that it was just the two of them in the room (though, really, the lack of groaning and long-suffering sighs as he propositioned Maura ought to have been a clue).

"Remus and Peter were going to work on Transfiguration homework with McKinnon and Meadows," she said. "James said something about meeting Clio down at the lake, which explains Lily's miserable mood this morning."

"He's an idiot," Sirius said with great affection, yawning hugely.

"He really is," Maura confirmed with far less affection.

If James was trying to get Lily by making her jealous, he was doing a terrible job at it. Yes, she was clearly annoyed by James' on-again/off-again snog-fest with the Slytherin girl, but it sure as hell didn't seem to be endearing him to her in the least.

"Take a shower," Maura half-suggested, half-ordered.

"Join me?" he asked.

"Merlin you just don't give up, do you?" she asked, laughing in spite of herself.

"Wouldn't be very Gryffindor of me if I did, would it? I am nothing if not a credit to my house," he nodded solemnly.

"You're ridiculous is what you are," she countered. "Go. Shower. Alone. I'll be here when you get out."

Contrary to character and owing entirely to the fact that he didn't particularly like smelling of stale beer, hay and the bottom of someone's shoe, Sirius listened. And, true to her word, Maura was still there, sitting on the edge of his bed.

Sirius didn't really have a "type" when it came to girls. He liked girls, appreciated whatever assets they had. But Maura really was stunningly pretty, made more so by the fact that she didn't seem to care about her looks at all. With her, he pretty much liked the whole package. She was muscular but curvy with rich skin, light eyes and half-tamed curls that spilled just past her shoulders. Usually she wore a devil-may-care grin, too. Right now was not usual.

"Knew I could get you into my bed," he smirked, hoping to lighten the mood.

And, about that, what the hell? Why did the mood need lightening? He was confused. And Sirius Black did not like being confused.

"We need to talk," she told him, looking up at him with total seriousness.

"Er, what's up?" he asked, heart suddenly pounding madly in his ears because... 'We need to talk?' Wasn't that how birds started conversations that ended in shot-gun weddings and dirty nappies?

"You remember how you got home last night?" she asked him, head cocked to the side a bit with honest interest.

"Bleeding hell, Maura," he said taking a deep steadying breath. "This is about me being stupid about something last night?"

"Yeah," she agreed, looking at him as though he might be off his rocker as he laughed with huge amounts of relief. "What the bloody fuck is so funny about you being a total jackass?"

"For a minute there you had me worried that you were going to say you were up the duff," he choked out in the midst of his nervous laughter, collapsing next to her on the bed.

"Oh Good Godric, no," she said, wrinkling her nose at the idea and looking every bit as young as she was in that moment.

She looked a little like she might puke at the thought, actually, which only made him laugh harder.

"It's not funny, you prat," she said, trying not to break out into a grin because his laughter really was infectious.

"It's a little funny," he argued.

"It's not!" she protested, laughing a little along with him.

They laughed together for a minute in spite of her objections, both of them lying back on the bed, staring up at the garnet canopy as the sunlight played across it. They didn't speak, even after the laughing stopped, for quite some time. And, considering there was no snogging going on either, that was kind of odd. The silence was heavy and awkward and Sirius still didn't know why.

"So what's going on then?" he finally asked, not knowing what the conversation was about but already loathing the idea of it.

"Aurors had to drag you back to the castle last night, you know," she said after a minute. "You snuck out, got into a bar fight with Lucius Malfoy at the Hog's Head and got your drunk arse dragged home by Aurors, Sirius."

Well... that explained the blood on his shirt anyhow.

"Brilliant," Sirius said dryly, a dark gleam in his eye, patently not seeing the problem. "Tell me Malfoy's in Mungo's and this'll be a capital morning. Already my not-girlfriend is not-pregnant, did I manage to get my not-family not-in-one-piece, too?"

And that was the crux of it right there. His not-family.

"You're a bleeding idiot," she told him, eyes boring into him with uncomfortable levels of understanding. "You're lucky Aberforth told the Aurors that Malfoy was baiting you or else you'd have woken up in a Ministry holding cell this morning instead of your bed."

"Doesn't matter," he argued petulantly, because he didn't want to feel indebted to anyone, even if - maybe especially if - he owed them a debt.

"It really does," she countered. "Sirius, ever since... ever since you moved in with James' family - don't interrupt me, I need to get this out - ever since then you've been more and more destructive. As your friend, I'm worried.

"I get it, I do. I completely understand why you're acting out, but I don't want to be part of your rebellion," she said.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, denial and defenciveness evident in his voice.

"Sex, alcohol, fights. It's what you do to cope, to act out, whatever," she clarified. "And the fallout is getting worse every time. Now there's Aurors involved and you're punching out Lucius Malfoy..."

"I punched him out?" Sirius asked, perking up a bit and letting the rest of what she was saying slip right past him.

"Sirius, I'm breaking things off with you, love," she replied, ignoring his question totally.

"I don't get it," he said.

And he didn't. Girls didn't break up with him, but if they did he'd expect them to be mad or crying or... or something. Maura was lying next to him on his bed like she'd done dozens of times, smiling at him and telling him it was over? It just didn't add up.

"We've been mates since we were firsties, Sirius," she clarified. "I hate seeing you fall apart and I refuse to be part of your self-destructive patterns. I'm better than that. If you need me, really need me. I'll be there for you, no matter what. But we're not shagging again."

Either due to prior experience or stubbornness, he didn't believe her.

It didn't really bother him at first. He wasn't lacking for female attention and even though he liked Maura, he wasn't what anyone would call broken-hearted.

But a week turned into two - January slipped away, then February - and still, while they played gobstones together and drank together and listened to quidditch on the wireless together, she refused his advances, wholly sticking to her vow. It did become kind of annoying. But he wasn't actually convinced that they were done until March.

"You slept through an interesting morning," Remus said, leaning against a bedpost as Sirius yawned and stretched in front of the mirror.

"I find that doubtful," Sirius countered. "'Interesting' and 'morning' are contradictory in the first place and everyone's had their nose stuck in a bloody book prepping for OWLs for the past two weeks."

"Not today," Remus said, contradicting him.

"What happened, then?" Sirius asked, sniffing a shirt that had been tossed upon his trunk before shrugging and pulling it over his head.

"Well, for starters, James broke things off with Clio," Remus replied.

Sirius tossed a skeptical glance at his friend. Because... really? James and Clio having a spat wasn't exactly shocking news. Or news at all for that matter. They were both hard-headed and often at odds. If they'd actually started dating or holding hands in public or referring to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend, that would have been shocking. But the commitment-phobic Slytherin girl and Mr. Ego Gryffindor having a row? Not news.

"So they yelled at each other and she stormed off in a huff," he said, looking at Remus as though the other boy were maybe crazy. "You know how this goes. They'll be snogging each other's faces off by noon, Remus. Hell, they probably already are."

"No, they didn't have a fight," Remus explained. "It was all very calm and awful. James finally went and told her that he was never going to have a shot at Lily if he kept fooling around with her and that he wanted to be with Lily, so he was breaking things off. It was the whole 'let's just be friends' and 'it's not you it's me' speech."

"He's an idiot," Sirius said, shaking his head.

Evans was never going to give James the time of day. He was convinced of it. And Clio and James? Against all odds, they kinda made sense together. Sirius gave it a week tops before they got back together. Maybe two if Clio was livid.

"She looked pretty upset," Remus ventured. "You know, as much as she ever does. She doesn't really tend to show her feelings much."

"Could you sound more like a girl if you tried?" Sirius asked, because informing him their best mate had broken things off with his sometimes-girl was one thing but speculating about other people's feelings was entirely another.

"I just thought... well you guys are friends... kind of," Remus shrugged, letting the girl comment slide by without phasing him. "I thought you might want to know how she's doing."

Whatever. He liked Clio well enough, sure. But his loyalty was clearly, absolutely with James. Always would be. He wouldn't go see how Clio was doing. She wouldn't even expect or want for him to. Probably he wouldn't anyhow. Maybe.

"Er... Speaking of relationships..." Remus started, looking kind of awkward. "I wanted to ask you about something."

"Moony, please tell me you aren't about to confess to fancying me or I'm going to feel entirely awkward about having just changed in front of you," Sirius deadpanned.

Remus made a rude gesture and threw a nearby pillow at the other boy's head (and missed).

"I wanted to ask you if you'd mind if I asked Maura out," he replied, looking no less nervous.

Sirius' brow furrowed and he froze, staring at his mate. Did he mind? Sort of, but he couldn't quite sort out why. After all, he certainly wasn't dating her anymore and while he still thought fondly of her it wasn't like he was pining away. Still, it rubbed him a bit wrong that his mate would date his ex-girlfriend. He was pretty sure that broke some sort of rule or something.

"Uh..." he replied, wholly taken off-guard.

"It's just... I really like her," Remus said, biting on his lip a little. "And, I don't know, we've been talking some lately and I think she might fancy me too. But I know you two had a thing for a while and if you don't want me to ask her out, I won't."

"Doesn't bother me at all," Sirius replied, lying through his teeth.

"You sure?" Remus asked, hopeful but hesitant. "You aren't upset or anything?"

"Yeah, well, you know, I kinda pity you, actually," he grinned, the smile taking over his whole face. "I'm a tough act to follow, mate."

Sirius promptly had another pillow chucked at his head (this one didn't miss).

Later that day, Remus and Maura were a couple. Weeks (and months and years) later - much to Sirius' surprise - they still were. They were both his friends and he cared about both of them. He wasn't jealous in the least and he didn't still want Maura. But still, every now and then when he looked at them together he felt like maybe he'd missed out on something