The seats of their train compartment were laden to the brim with sweets- Chocolate Frogs, Drooble's gum, and licorice wands, enough to feed an army. Their diet matched the atmosphere of the current conversation occurring between three seventeen year old girls- sickly sweet.
"I can't believe you wrote each other every day." Marlene snorted, smirking at a fairly flushed Dorcas. "That's-"
"Adorable." Emmeline chimed in, winking at Dorcas. Marlene shook her head.
"I was going to say rubbish, considering you never wrote me once!" Marlene picked up a wrapped and chucked it across at Dorcas, who raised her arms in an attempt to shield herself, as Emmeline dissolved into laughter.
"She would have been fairly busy, penning love poems and sealing each letter with a kiss." Emmeline grinned, winking at Dorcas, who shook her head.
"Both of you can shut it. I'll have you know, we didn't write each other every day."
"Every other day, then." Marlene grinned, rolling her eyes. Before Dorcas was given the opportunity to retaliate, the carriage door slid open. Emmeline felt her stomach drop as she instantly recognised the tall young man standing in the doorway, the slightest shadow of stubble on his angled jaw. Her laughter subsided rather instantaneously.
"Alright, girls?" Sirius Black said smoothly, one of his hands sitting in the pocket of his jeans. "Have any of you seen Wormtail? I've been pacing the corridors for ages, and the other two are doing their Prefect duties and things."
"I saw him with Benjy at the platform, but not since then." Marlene shrugged. "Sorry, Sirius."
"You're welcome to sit with us. We don't bite." Dorcas said kindly, nodding to the empty seat across from her, right next to Sirius.
"I'm sure Peter's around somewhere." Emmeline said quickly, but no one appeared to take any notice of her, least of all Sirius as he strolled inside the carriage, sliding the door shut behind him and sinking into the seat by the window. Emmeline sighed, scooting a couple inches away from him under the pretences of rifling through their sweet collection for more Drooble's.
Emmeline wondered to herself why she was acting like such a bloody child. She knew the answer. Speaking to Sirius would mean eventually confronting him about their last encounter, but as he engaged in conversation with Dorcas and Marlene, she tilted her head to one side, unable to resist shooting glances at him to see if he would notice. Perhaps it'd meant less than Emmeline had thought it had…though why would he split with his girlfriend the very next day if that was the case?
"I'm going to go find Lils." Emmeline said decidedly, as she stood up rather abruptly.
"She's doing head girl duty, idiot." Marlene broke off her sentence to look up at Emmeline, and the others followed suit. Emmeline was suddenly aware of Sirius' eyes on her face, and she glanced down towards the ground.
"I've, er, got to ask her something." Emmeline mumbled, and immediately excused herself from the carriage, shutting the door gently behind her. As she made to walk down the corridor, she didn't hear the carriage door open and close once behind her, and jumped when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Em." Sirius said blankly, his grey eyes searching her blue ones for a sign of recognition. Emmeline did little to acknowledge him, but nodding slightly, shrugging her shoulders as though daring him to say more.
He took the unofficial challenge. "Why've you been ignoring me?" Emmeline hadn't braced herself for the question, she'd been hoping to postpone this conversation for as long as possible. She pressed her lips together, leaning back on the carriage door slightly.
"Sirius, we've just had a week of holidays. I haven't been ignoring you." Emmeline said plainly, blinking in a meek attempt to break the obvious tension.
"Before that, though. You haven't spoken to me since Sluggy's." He stepped towards her, closing the oddly long distance between them.
"There was nothing to speak about." Emmeline breathed, averting her eyes from his gaze and looking down at the carpeted floor.
"Nothing." Sirius repeated.
"Nothing. Look, I've got to find Lily so…see you later, yeah?" Sirius ran a hand through his hair and shrugged his shoulders, Emmeline took the opportunity to turn on her heels and walk down the train, without looking back.
Liking Sirius Black? It was out of the question. Off the table. He was her friend , it was too weird to even think about. Besides, feelings didn't come summoned out of nowhere. They had to build up over time, into something that could count for more than a couple of shots of firewhisky and a sprig of mistletoe at a party.
Both of them had dated other people. Sirius had his fair share of girlfriends, none lasting all too long. Emmeline, on the other hand, had only kissed three people in her life.
The first, her first kiss, had been with her neighbour, a muggle boy named Paul. Emmeline had only kissed him because he asked her to, and because he had the same name as Paul McCartney. It had lasted for all of three seconds, before she'd tore away and ran straight out of his backyard, blushing furiously.
Her next share of kisses was with the same boy, in her sixth year. Emmeline's first and to this date, her only boyfriend. Benjy Fenwick was a Hufflepuff boy in their year, and when Edgar had told Alice who told Lily who told Emmeline that Benjy had a crush on her, Emmeline had accompanied him to Hogsmeade. Their relationship had lasted for a month and a half before Benjy told her that he loved her, and Emmeline had broken up with him two days later.
And the third, the third boy she'd kissed had been none other than the boy she'd just walked away from. Sirius Black, who'd glanced up and seen the mistletoe this past Christmas, and while Emmeline had initially made to just laugh it off, once she'd felt his arm snake around her waist and pull her so close to him that her body was pressing against his, that was it. She was done for, and they'd kissed in that manner for ten minutes straight before they'd realised what they were doing, and parted rather awkwardly.
"Shunpike! Watch where you're going." A disgruntled looking Lily Evans pushed past a rather pimply third year boy, who stumbled over his sheepish apologies.
"Lily!" Emmeline called in a rather relieved tone, and both girls smiled in seeing eachother, embracing.
"Merlin, I wish you weren't Head Girl." Emmeline muttered. "You're always off being superwoman when I need to speak to you." Lily raised her eyebrows.
"Superwoman?"
"You know what I mean." Emmeline rolled her eyes exasperatedly,
Lily laughed. "What's up, Ems? First day back and you're already worried about something. The hair looks good, I'm glad your mum didn't change it back?"
"What? Oh yeah, me too." Emmeline tugged on one of her blonde strands of hair absent-mindedly, as two seventeen year old boys made their way towards them.
"Here comes trouble." Lily grumbled. "Honestly, all he did during our debriefing was talk about bloody Quidditch. I've no idea why he's Head Boy…" Lily's spiel was cut short by James Potter's charming smirk, and a quietly smiling Remus Lupin beside him.
"Ladies." James grinned. Lily visibly rolled her eyes, but James didn't appear dismayed in the slightest. "Good meeting, wasn't it Lily? Glad you're stepping up to patrol the corridors, we can't have any slacking off now."
Lily was moments from gracing James with a rather rude hand gesture before Emmeline shot her a disapproving look. "Actually, the fifth years are in charge of that. Now if you'll excuse me, Potter, Em and I are going to find our friends." Lily's voice was laced with contempt, and she gave an apologetic nod to Remus, who simply shook his head amusedly.
"I'll come with, Lils, I haven't seen Do yet." Remus said wistfully, and the three other teenagers rolled their eyes.
"Moony! We need to find Pads and Wormtail…got things to discuss, y'know?" James emphasised, raising his eyebrows at his lovestruck best friend.
"Sorry mate. Try with the Hufflepuffs, I saw Benjy and Tom boarding." Remus shrugged, and turned around to join the two girls.
"Don't run away from me yet, Em. We haven't had the chance to catch up." James said cheerfully, grinning at Emmeline, who looked at him inquisitively. "Had a nice holiday under the mistletoe, Vance?"
Emmeline's expression turned to one of horrified embarrassment, but she masked it before Lily or Remus could notice. She felt her cheeks flush red, and gritted her teeth. "You two go on ahead." She said softly to Lily and Remus. "James and I need to discuss Quidditch strategies."
"Ems! What was that thing you wanted to tell me?" Lily questioned, and Emmeline could tell by James' arrogant smirk that James knew exactly what that thing was.
"Later, Lils. Back at the common room. I'll see you at dinner, yeah? I wouldn't want to bore you with discussing tactics.." Emmeline dismissed Remus and Lily with that, and once seeing they had turned around, grabbed James by the collar and dragged him into the nearest compartment.
"Out." She snapped to the two second year Ravenclaw boys, who took no hesitation in obliging to her demand. James nodded apologetically to the two boys. "Teenage girls. Completely mental, the lot of them." Emmeline silenced him with a single lethal glare, and he let out a low whistle as she slammed the door shut.
"Fiesty, Em. I have to admit, I've never seen this side of you before." James grinned, as he collapsed down into the seat by the window, folding his arms behind his head and lazily stretching his legs across to the opposing seat. Emmeline strutted over to them and wrenched his legs off of the seat, sitting opposite him.
"Right. What do you know?" she demanded. James' cheeky smile didn't falter.
"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no li-"
"Potter!"
"Alright. Merlin, calm yourself, yeah?" James suggested. "Sirius snogged you at Sluggy's Christmas break-up. Honestly, it's no big deal, is it?"
"It's not." Emmeline said quickly, covering her surprise. She'd assumed that Sirius would have wanted to pretend it never happened. "Why would he tell you?"
"I dunno, genius. Friends tend to tell each other these things." James shrugged lazily. "But you haven't told any of the girls. Interesting. Are you a wee bit embarrassed by your slip-up?"
"What d'you mean, slip-up?" Emmeline frowned. She and James had become friends on her first day of Hogwarts, when she'd sat next to him and Lily after being sorted- the last person in the year level to have been. They saw straight through eachother. When James was acting arrogant to the level of being pig-headed, it was Emmeline who set him straight. It was also Emmeline who secretly told him things like Lily's favourite colour, sweets, and flower in his desperate bids for her affection.
As for Emmeline, her collected and hardened demeanour was as clear as crystal for James to break through, and he knew it. "You allowed yourself to be human, Emmeline Vance. Allowed yourself to have a few drinks and loosen up. A slip-up to your normal routine." James said, smirking slightly.
"It wasn't the first time I'd consumed alcohol." Emmeline snapped. That story was one she preferred to push far, far out of her mind. It'd happened in their sixth year, they'd managed to get their hands on a bottle of Firewhisky and had drunk it dry- except Lily, who had two sips and pronounced the drink vile..
Dorcas was the quiet drunk, the one who became so sleepy she retired early to bed that evening. Marlene became giddy, overly promiscuous and overexcited, but Emmeline, Emmeline didn't react well. She was the emotional drunk, the one who let all of the couped up emotions and worries come to life. From Lily's word of mouth, she attempted to run away from the safety of their dormitory on six occasions, succeeding on the seventh. Lily had been worried sick about Emmeline, but she'd turned up back in the common room two hours later, with a tear-streaked face and trembling hands, refusing to speak about her night. And when she'd woken up that morning, Emmeline had no recollections of the night whatsoever.
"Y'know, I always hear you four mention that story." James chuckled, jolting Emmeline out of her mental stupor. "I'd love to hear about it someday."
"You and me both." Emmeline muttered, and James quirked his eyebrow up in an entertained fashion. "Look, James just…don't tell anyone, please? And don't tell Sirius we had this conversation." Emmeline stood up to leave.
"What conversation, Em? You haven't answered any of my questions!" James retorted.
"You haven't asked any!"
"Why are you making such a big deal out of this? So you snogged at a party…do you like him or something?"
"Of course not!" Emmeline replied. "It's just…weird. We're friends, you know? I didn't think that was normal behaviour for friends. I mean, I don't go around snogging you!"
James shrugged. "I've never offered." Emmeline rolled her eyes, but he merely grinned in return. "I just think you're making a big deal out of nothing."
Emmeline stopped, sitting back down gingerly. "Nothing?" she said softly. "That's, that's how he described it to you then?"
"Em, that's not what I meant."
"No, it is…and you're right. It was nothing. I'm being stupid."
"Ems…"
"James!" Emmeline shot back, shrugging her shoulders. "Look, we'll just all forget it happened, and we can go back to things being normal again. Yeah?" she said simply, and then slapped her knee as if deciding. "Yeah. Great. Well…my stuff's back in the compartment with the girls, and I better get changed." Emmeline stood back up again and walked to the door, James following close behind her.
When they reached their original compartment, Emmeline slid the door open to reveal Sirius, Marlene and Lily chatting and laughing. "Where're the lovebirds?" she asked casually, sitting down next to Marlene and avoiding Sirius' gaze of slight questioning at her entrance with James.
"Probably off snogging somewhere." Marlene snorted, and Lily laughed, though it subsided as James slid into the seat in between her and Sirius. He placed a casual arm around her, which she almost immediately brushed away.
"Right, well, we should probably go find Wormtail." Sirius said, breaking the silence and standing up to leave.
"Come on now, Pads, I was just getting acquainted." James chuckled, but obliged. "See you ladies at dinner." He smirked, and followed Sirius out of the compartment.
Lily immediately closed the door behind them, and turned to face Emmeline, her expression hungry. "Right. So what the hell was that, ditching me for James?" she asked raising an eyebrow.
"Nothing. Quidditch talk, like I told you." Emmeline said plainly, shrugging her shoulders. "What were you lot laughing about?"
"We were just talking about the holidays. He stayed with James." Marley answered, and then stood up to pull her trunk down from its safely stowed away position above the seats. "We'd better get changed, train arrives soon, yeah?" Emmeline and Lily nodded, and went to do the same.
"I'm dying to know what you needed to tell me." Lily nudged Emmeline, whispering.
"It was nothing. Just…Dorcas and Rem are really cute, huh?" Emmeline smiled at Lily, shrugging her shoulders. "Kind of makes me jealous."
"Don't worry Ems, we don't need boyfriends. Trust me, if there were any decent blokes around here, we'd have roped them in by now." Lily laughed, and Emmeline chuckled half-heartedly back at Lily.
Nothing. Her encounter with Sirius had meant nothing.
The why the hell did it hurt so much to think that he thought that?