"Black is rather charming, don't you agree?"
Emmeline glanced curiously at Marlene. She was relieved to see that her friend was staring longingly at Sirius Black rather than his brother.
"Honestly, no."
Marlene turned around to glare at Emmeline. "Emme, how could you not think so?! Look at him! He's… he's like bloody Adonis!"
"Do you even know who Adonis is?"
"That's beside the point!" Marlene insisted.
"Adonis was a man loved by Aphrodite. And Marlie, you're no Aphrodite."
Marlene didn't even have to look up to know that it was Caradoc. "Shut up you bloody Welsh!"
"I'm quite fond of the 'bloody Welsh', Marlene," Frank muttered. "And he's right."
"You shut up, too, you blasted barmy camp-as-a-row-of-pink-tents… thing!"
Emmeline giggled. "Oh, don't listen to them Marlene, you're pretty. Frankie's just jealous of you, and Caradoc's just jealous of Sirius." Emmeline had long ago learned that the best way to deal with Marlene McKinnon was to feed her ego, not her temper.
This earned Emmeline glares from Caradoc and Frank.
"I'm not bloody camp!"
Unfortunately for Frank, he had decided to yell this at the very moment that the Great Hall had fallen into one of its lulls of freshly-woken teenagers.
Frank turned redder than Lily Evans' hair and stood up. "I'll be in the Common Room."
Marlene burst into a fit of giggles as Frank walked off, shortly followed by his loyal-to-death best mate Caradoc.
"What's so funny that a lovely third year like yourself can't stop giggling?"
Marelene did stop giggling upon this point, blushed the same shade of red that Frank had turned earlier, and looked up to meet the grey eyes of the one and only Sirius Black.
Emmeline rolled her eyes and Marlene's behavior. "I'll be in the library." She stood up and began walking to the library.
"Hey, Emmeline, wait!" Sirius called. Emmeline turned around.
"Yes?"
"Come back here for a second!"
Emmeline groaned, rolled her eyes, but obliged. "Yes, Sirius?"
"If you see my brother in there – oh he's always in there, which just goes to prove that blood really doesn't determine anything. I mean, you're so like Moony, but you're not blood relatives, and I'm nothing like my brother, and we are blood relatives."
"Sirius."
"Oh, right. Well if you see my brother in there – you know what he looks like, right? About four inches shorter than me, hair that's about the same length as Moony's but as nice as mine, grey eyes, skinny – well he's Slytherin's Seeker, he's really got to be…"
"Sirius."
Sirius grinned guiltily, knowing all too well his tendency to ramble and forget his original point. "If you see my brother – give him a snog, yeah?"
This was rewarded by Sirius getting a goblet of pumpkin juice splashed into his face and Emmeline storming off to the library.
"…What?" Sirius asked Marlene, who had arched an eyebrow. "He fancies her."
--x-x-x-x-x--
It was fitting that the first person Emmeline saw upon entering the library was none other than Regulus Black.
Emmeline made a point to avoid Regulus, as whenever she met him, she became quite like Marlene was around Sirius. It was because of this that Emmeline quickly found a table and took out all of the materials that she needed to complete her Potions essay – which was, admittedly, her worst subject. She had hoped that Regulus hadn't noticed her, but she had never really been lucky.
"Hello, Vance."
Emmeline blushed and ran her fingers through her knotty-curly hair. "Black."
"You've just had an encounter with my brother, I assume?"
"Who? Sirius? Is it that obvious?"
She was talking far too quickly and felt her face getting hotter by the second.
"He has more or less the same effect when he hits on Slytherins whose best friends hate him."
"I don't hate him," She muttered, bending lower over her essay so that he couldn't see her red face and terribly illegible handwriting. "I just hate that Marlene fancies him and he leads her on. Honestly, it'd be much easier if she fancied Gerard Rush. At least he dates girls, and doesn't just snog them and leave them."
Regulus laughed. "That's more or less true. And anyway, Vance…"
"Yes?" Her heart rate increased, though surely he wouldn't… he was a Black, of course, and she was a Muggleborn and…
"I was wondering…"
He was drawing this out. It was to torture her, wasn't it? Sirius loved to make Emmeline miserable, suppose Regulus was quite the same. Though she was sure – certain – that he wasn't like his brother, and maybe he even strived not to be and…
He tried to lean on the table – perhaps emulating something he had seen Sirius do… and in the process, Emmeline jumped up and spilled her bottle of ink. It spilled all over her essay, ruining it.
"Fuck," she muttered, flushing an even deeper red.
"Here," Regulus offered, and she didn't notice that his voice was shaky too, and that he was a bit more flushed than he should have been, and that he avoided looking her in the eyes. He muttered a spell – though Emmeline didn't notice that his wand was shaking – his hand was shaking – he was nervous – and the ink came off of the parchment leaving Emmeline's essay partly finished.
"Thanks."
"Er… don't mention it."
"Anyway…"
"Yeah?"
"What… erm… what were you going to say?"
"Oh, that." His voice seemed quieter, and his face flushed to a shade that Emmeline would have noticed had she not been staring intently at her shoes.
"Well…?"
She was certain that her face was a very deep red by that point, but she was confident that her hair covered most of her face, because no way was she going to let Regulus Black know that she was nervous. Not that he would have noticed, as he was starting at his shoes rather intently as well.
"Well…" He swallowed. His mouth felt terribly dry all of a sudden, and he was certain that she thought that he was being rather pathetic. Not that suavity was ever his strong suit. Cissy called him "adorable" which no almost-fourteen-year-old ever wants to be called. When Sirius had been his age… no. He mustn't think about Sirius. Thinking about Sirius leads to lower self-confidence and making a mess of things.
"Black…?" She was terribly nervous. Suppose he wanted to tell her that he knew that she fancied him… and if he didn't fancy her… oh that would be terrible… she would demand to be homeschooled if that were the case.
"Er… you see, the thing is…" Why couldn't he formulate words? The proper words. Was "I fancy you" really that difficult to say? She was pretty, yes, but she wasn't as pretty as Meissa Montague, who threw herself at him on a daily basis. He could talk to her – well not so much talk as tell to sod off, but it was the same idea, right? The same physical function. He could hold a conversation with Meissa's sister Aza with no difficulties – and she was a Gryffindor. She was pretty, she was smart, she was a lot of things that Emmeline was, but he didn't fancy her. Maybe that had something to do with it, but he could talk somewhat coherently with Emmeline normally, why not today?
"Yes?" Maybe Sirius was right for once. Maybe the only thing to do would be to snog him. All she'd have to do was close the few feet – no it was inches now, when had it become inches? – between them and press her lips to his and hopefully he'd react... but she couldn't. He was too handsome, too rich, too powerful, too clever, too athletic… too much for her, obviously. He was much too good for her.
"I…" fancy you. It's not that difficult. Still he faltered. Still his gaze remained on his shoes. And when had her shoes gotten so close to his? He was inches away from her, closer than he'd been since their brothers tried to force them to become friends in first year… all he had to do was lean in, maybe lift her chin if she wasn't looking at him, and kiss her. That might be easier. Yes… maybe that's what he'd do.
He inhaled sharply. It wasn't that difficult, really. He'd just lean in and hopefully… Sirius does this all the time… it can't be that hard, he reasoned, but he realised that he couldn't move. Had someone put a full-body-bind curse on him? No, it wasn't that, he could blink. He could take in a deep breath. He'd just have to do it. He wasn't a Gryffindor, but that didn't mean that he couldn't be brave.
"Black, I think that whatever you've got to say… you should just come out and say it. I won't bite."
It'd be fine. She wouldn't overreact, she said. She'd be fine. So all he had to do was work up the courage to close those few inches between them and then…
"Hey! Emmeline! You'll never guess who I've got a date with!"
And just like that, any chance he had to… oh what was the phrase? Carpe diem, sieze the day… was completely gone.
"I'll… I'll see you around, Vance." He looked up from his shoes to her face – she was a few inches shorter than him, but she wasn't drastically short like her friend Marlene McKinnon was – and smiled.
Then he promptly turned the other way and ran out of the library.
Under James Potter's invisibility cloak, Sirius Black cursed. "I told her to snog him! Why does no one listen to me?"
Author's Note: Erm. Yeah. Awkward Regulus. I'm pretty much updating as much as I can because I'm moving, and we can't get internet at the new place for about a month.