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Sirius Black.
I've been to school with him six years, but I don't really know him. I'm not really into that worshiping a guy stuff, either. It's like Justin Bieber or Enrique Iglesias—if you had the chance to meet/date them, you would jump on it but if not, whatever. But, let me tell you, even on the ground, covered in dirt, smashed by my not-so-tiny self and all my stuff… he still looked smokin'!
So I won't even pretend my heart didn't skip a beat when his eyes met mine.
Even though he was furious.
I helped him up and we gathered our stuff in angered silence while my family behind us made comments like "Wow. Big fail," from Serena and "Nice job, Nix! Injuring someone before we even get to Hogwarts!" from Pizza. I'm a notorious klutz.
"We'll never make it! Thanks, Kent," Sirius growled. I took a few angry steps towards him.
"Hey! You can't blame me! You were the one in the way!" I said, drawing myself up to my full height, which unfortunately, especially under Sirius, wasn't much.
"But if you hadn't come sprinting in like a maniac and ramming into people, this never would've happened!" he glared down at me.
"Kids, stop fighting and hurry!" my dad said.
Face flushed, Sirius and I wordlessly turned to repack out trunks but the great red steam train whistled an earsplitting note, long and high, and began to pick up speed. Pizza took Serena's hand and used his other to levitate their trunks before them. They ran quickly towards the moving train. Bear barked and loped after him.
"No, Bear! Come!" he turned and sauntered back. I pulled out my wand and made to do the same as Pizza but a hand encircled my wrist.
"You're underage. We can't do magic until we're on the train," Sirius said.
"Thanks, Pizza, for waiting up!" I called after him sarcastically as they both boarded the train just in time and disappeared from sight.
I didn't realize Sirius still held my wrist until I made to pack up my trunk. He let go hastily and I thought nothing of it.
Parents of students soon filed out of the platform and our group was soon alone. I didn't even realized my father were still there until he sighed heavily behind me. "I told you you'd miss the train."
I began to repack my bag and Sirius did the same behind me. "At least you're family didn't ditch you."
"Two of them did."
"Not ALL of them, like mine."
"Great family."
He grunted in reply.
My dad began helping Sirius and I. We got them packed up and loaded them back onto a trolley.
"What do we do?" I asked Sirius as Bear began to sniff him.
"I dunno... I've never missed it before." he said and then began to laugh. Bear was licking his face.
"Ahh! Bear STOP!" I said. Bear stopped and looked at me sadly.
"No, no! I love dogs! it's fine," Sirius chuckled and scratched Bear behind the ears. His sad look disappeared and he smiled his panting smile.
"So, what's our plan of action?" my father said, stepping forward.
It was then that I saw the ugliest person I had ever seen.
Seriously.
She was stooped and old and tiny with grey hair hanging in greasy strands. Her dirty clothes hung limp on her frail body and warts and other bumps of some sort rose in groups on her face. Her skin was tanned and wrinkled and her feet shuffled forward slowly.
In other words, the definition of "hag."
I swear I heard Bear whimper.
"Are you alright?" my dad rushed forward, concerned.
"I'm fine," she growled, glaring at my dad. "You the only stragglers?"
We looked around. The platform was empty. Eerily empty compared to its normal busy, buzzing atmosphere.
"Er... Yes," I answered.
"And you really HAVE to go to Hogwarts?" she looked at me and her warts distracted me.
"Uh, yes," said Sirius.
"Ugh," she grumbled. "You make my job so hard." and she slumped over to a telephone mounted on the cement wall. I hadn't noticed it before. She dialed in a number and grumbled, "GarfunT? ... Two stragglers. ... YES, GarfuntT. They said they HAVE to go. ... No, GarfunT! JUST GET DOWN HERE!"
The hag hung up the phone and cursed, "Dwarfs."
I smiled. I hadn't ever met a dwarf but I'd heard they were extremely high energy and fun.
While we were waiting, for what I didn't know, Bear took to sniffing at the hag like she was some sort of strange new specimen. Sirius and I laughed behind our hands every time she'd curse at him. Fifteen minutes passed like this and soon I was shifting my weight impatiently like an A.D.D. child.
Until... ZOOM!
A silver two-car train sped along the track and came to a screeching halt. Sirius and I shared a look.
Sure enough, out hopped a short, thick boned dwarf with long brown hair and a stubbly beard.
"The name's GarfunT, your driver for today," he grinned, shaking each person's hand in our party. Except the hag's, she turned and left saying only "Don't die" which caused quite some confusion between us. She sure acted like she wanted us to die.
"Don't mind her, she's bitter. Kicked out of Hogwarts in year five. Long, gory story," GarfunT said warmly.
My dad looked freaked out and GarfunT looked at him strangely.
"Anyway, come on, come on, don't want to miss that great feast of your's," he said, leading us to the train door. I waved bye to my father and followed him in. Bear hopped in behind us and found his place, luxuriously stretched out on one of the benches. The train car was about the same size of two compartments placed together and a driving cart attached. Benches ran in a square along the four walls with one opening—to enter into the driver's car.
"Great thing about driving you little punctuality-challenged delinquents," he laughed. "is I get to feast with you guys. Mmm... the best roast chicken I have ever had."
Sirius stowed our trunks above our heads and stretched out on one of the extended benches.
"I should miss the train more often!" he said, I agreed. This wasfun.
"Yeah! Then I could eat that roast chicken every time!" GarfunT said from the driver's car.
I laughed and sat as well on a bench perpendicular to Sirius's nap time bench.
"So what's the story with your tardiness, kids?" GarfunT conversed from the driver's seat.
"Just late, my dad's a muggle and insisted on driving to the station," I explained.
"My family left without me. So I had to take a stinking taxi here," Sirius said bitterly through his conjured pillow—his quidditch jersey from his trunk.
"What wrong with your family?" I asked him. I stopped. "Oooo... That came out wrong."
Sirius sat up slowly and looked me in the eye with a sad smile. "You really don't know? I thought the whole school did."
"Er... I... Erm. I'm not quite in the loop with all the juicy gossip."
"Do you remember that big fight last year during the Slytherin-Gryffindor match last year?"
"Er... I heard about it... I'm not really into quiddich..."
Sirius's jaw literally dropped and his eye brows disappeared into his hairline.
"You don't like quiddich?" he whispered.
"Not really..."
"Well you certainly don't know what you're missing."
"Ok..."
"Anyway, I am the only Gryffindor in my entire family. The rest are pureblood Slytherin radicals who hate all muggles and muggleborns."
"I'm a muggleborn," I whispered.
"I know," he said simply. "In case you haven't noticed, I don't share my family's opinions. My family hates me and I hate my family. Especially my mom. She... is a bit... erm... not quite right in the head."
"Well—I had no idea—"
"You really do live under a rock."
I stared fixedly at him. His black hair perfectly tousled, grey eyes like a smiling storm and a permanent smirk were, admittedly, extremely attractive but, I realized then and there that there was a whole other part of Sirius I had never known. Sure, I heard about his quidditch ability and womanizing jerkishness (if that's even a word) and id always seen him as far-off and never a possibility for a friend. Or boyfriend. I was never friends with the 'populars', mainly geeks and a few girls who didn't stuff their bras. I didn't ever go to quidditch games. Instead, I would explore the castle, alone except for Bear, uncovering its myriad of secrets and finding little hiding places and niches for me to run to during the week for some much needed quiet and solitude. Books and journals were my closest friends but I was never happy or content with that lifestyle. My personality was—and still is— one who craves human company. I needed laughter and friendship. I needed friends. I found one in Sirius Black.
Conversation continued on the train and the hours passed quickly and effortlessly. After a few hours, I made sure to nonchalantly move over to his bench and ride the rest of journey next to him. After explaining quidditch to me and practically black mailing me (with what he saw spill out of my trunk) to get me to go to the first quiddich game of the season, he let me bury myself in my most recent book I'm obsessed with. Not long later, I was sacked out next to him.
I awoke with my head in his lap.
I like to fantasize that he moved me next to him while I was asleep, but who knows. Then I come round to the possibility that I could have subconsciously—or worse, consciously—snuggled over to him and I literally burn with embarrassment. Seriously, my face feels like it's on fire.
When I woke up, it was dark except for some light spilling in from the driver's cart. I didn't know where I was or what was happening until Sirius said "I thought I should wake you up, we'll be there in around—GarfunT, how long?"
"Twenty minutes!" he called. "Sleeping beauty up?"
"Yeah!"
It was then that I realized I was looking up at Sirius, my face was snuggled up into his stomach, his legs were under my head and I felt a small blanket of some sort around my shoulders. But the part that scared me the most… I liked it. I was snuggled up inhim. I burned red and, without thinking, sat up hastily, bashing our foreheads together.
"Ow! What up?" Sirius said, rubbing his forehead.
"Well I was sleeping in your lap," I saw his jersey fell off of me as I had sat up. "with your jersey as a blanket!"
"So?"
"Here's your jersey," I said handing it to him and avoiding his other question.
"Keep it," he said.
"Won't you need it? You play quiddich."
"You can just give it back before the season starts."
"I can't keep it," I said. I can't keep it because any girl who's dating a quiddich player keeps her boyfriend's jersey. Unless I did more strange things during that nap, I was pretty sure I wasn't Sirius Black's girlfriend.
"Why? What's the big deal? It's my quiddich jersey."
I didn't have an answer that wasn't awkward so I stuck with "Erm...". Always a good choice. I tossed his jersey into my purse and zipped it shut. Sirius laughed and said, "So, Yeah. You curled right up next to me and fell asleep."
"Nooooo..." I debated, defending my honor. "I fell asleep reading."
"Did you?"
It was fuzzy... I didn't know. I didn't want to know. I didn't trust that my half-asleep self wouldn't curl up with Sirius like a teddy bear. This gave me a good subject change opportunity so I said, "Hey! Where's Bear?"
"He's taken a certain liking to GarfunT up there," he said pointing up the train. "Been laying up there for a long time while GarfunT sings him dwarf songs."
Leave it to Bear, the socialite, to make friends with ev-ery-body.
And then, for the first time in my entire life, I wished I was more like Bear.
Then I burst out laughing, and Sirius gave me that "I sure hope you're not a psychopath because I'm stuck on a moving train with you" look.
And I just smiled.
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