Chapter 2
Beautiful
When Ana and Rachel returned from swimming that evening, James and Sirius were already home, much to Rachel's dismay. When Rachel opened the door and Ana peeked over her shoulder into the living room and saw James and Sirius there at the table playing chess, she immediately pulled Rachel outside and suggested to come in for a while. Rachel strongly objected, not only because of Sirius and the danger he was for her friend, in her opinion, but also because she feared one of the careless guys would say something about Hogwarts and them being wizards and put her into an uncomfortable situation. She was trying to convince Ana when her brother and Sirius appeared behind her and ruined everything by saying,
"hey, we wanted to go out and grab a bite to eat, and we were wondering whether you'd like to come with us?"
Rachel groaned. Ana, on the other hand, beamed and said overenthusiastically, "what a fantastic idea! We're coming, aren't we, Rachel?" she said, staring at her friend threateningly.
Rachel stared back with a look that said 'well, you have to know what you are doing', and gave in.
"Great!" James said cheerily, and minutes later, Rachel found herself on the way to the nearest café, behind Sirius, Ana and James, who were talking away happily, while she trotted after them. She reminded herself that the only reason she was even going with them was to make sure Sirius stayed away from Ana, and stared at the back of her friend's head angrily.
Ana was actually similar to Sirius in some ways, not just because they were both good-looking. Ana lived by the motto "enjoy life and take what you can get", and to her, that meant fitting in as many hot guys as possible. She made good use of her looks, and at only sixteen had had her fair share of boyfriends, none of which she had been with for more than a week. While Rachel was in no way opposed to having a boyfriend in itself, she couldn't help but feel repulsed by the prospect of kissing complete strangers in a disco. Ana was the opposite, this was her definition of fun. While Rachel couldn't understand Ana's handling of boyfriends, they were still very good friends and she couldn't bear the thought of Ana getting hurt by the one person she truly despised.
She wondered why she was even so worried about her friend, the worst that could happen to her was a snog and then his going off with another or telling her that they were over, but Ana wasn't the kind of person to be deeply hurt by such a thing. In fact, she herself had done the same thing to others many times.
And yet … she just didn't want to come across Sirius kissing Ana. No way.
Suddenly, James stopped and turned to face her.
"Hey, sis!" he called. "What are you doing, trotting behind us like that? Come up front, chat with the rest of us, have some fun!"
Sometimes she really felt like strangling her brother.
"Yes!" Sirius was yelling too now. "You have the perfect company to change your life style for the better! You need to get out more, liven up your sad little life!"
"Argh!" Rachel lunged at Sirius, but just before she made to slap him, James grabbed her from behind.
"Tststs", he said. "We were just kidding, Rach! No need to get violent."
Rachel struggled against her brother for a few seconds, while Sirius raised an eyebrow at her, smirked, and crossed his arms, tapping his foot.
"Well?" he said. "Are you ever going to come and hit me, big bad Rachel? Of course, for that, you'd have to be strong enough to get away from James, and since it doesn't seem like that is going to happen anytime soon, I'm afraid I'm going to have to wait for the hitting in vain … good for you, actually, because I'm afraid in pure self-defence I might cause some serious damage to that pretty face of yours…"
Furious, Rachel gave him a very rude hand-gesture. Sirius backed away in mock horror and Ana collapsed laughing.
But that didn't annoy her half as much as the fact that Sirius immediately went to pick Ana up, and the triumphant look he gave Rachel while doing it.
Sirius Black knew she hated him near Ana, and he enjoyed it all the more for it.
-
Rachel spent the evening sitting gloomily at a table staring at Sirius and Ana flirting shamelessly.
She had known Black's staying at her house would bring nothing but trouble. But did he content himself with being mean to her? No, he had to annoy her through her friends.
Sometimes, he would look up from his flirting, shooting her an arrogant smirk over Ana's head. He knew exactly what she was thinking, and obviously loved that she couldn't do anything about it.
That was nothing new, he always loved it when she was uncomfortable.
Rachel vividly remembered the first time she had met Sirius Black, which had been in autumn of their first year; James and Sirius having become best friends from the very moment they started school.
She and her two best friends, Lily Evans and Dorcas Meadowes, had come out to the lake to do some studying there (that is, Dorcas, who was a very ambitious person, wanted to study, Lily and Rachel had more or less been forced to come with her). When they reached the lake, they were met by the sight of James and Sirius, lounging by their favourite tree, looking bored. Remus was with them, reading, and Pettigrew was sitting a little by the side.
Lily visibly reddened when she saw James. Somehow, Rachel's brother had had an enormous effect on her ever since they first met. He simply made her angry. She could rattle on for hours about his arrogant attitude and the way he thought himself better than everybody else.
Rachel was not bothered. She loved James; he was her brother, but she was fully aware of his being nowhere near faultless, and she had to admit that most of the things Lily said about him were partly true. And she was pretty sure that they were going to end up together anyway. James was the only guy that Lily ever thought about for a longer period of time. He was the only one who was pretty much constantly in her thoughts. Did it really matter what she thought about him?
Anyway, Lily already got angry at the sight of James only. But when she saw that he and Sirius were happily insulting everybody who walked past them out of pure boredom, she seemed close to an explosion. She sat down with us, staring over at them, looking furious.
Rachel decided that, for some unknown reason, she couldn't concentrate with her friend plotting the murder of her brother beside her, so she swiftly got up and walked over to the guys.
"Hey you", she said, kicking James, who was lolling on the ground. Not hard though. He looked up lazily.
"Oh it's just you, Rach", he said uninterestedly.
At that moment, a guy from James' and Sirius' year walked past them, and Sirius took the time to shout "nice try with Johnson yesterday, Miller! Too bad it was just about the worst try at getting a girl to go out with you in the history of the world!"
James cracked up at this, something not understandable to Rachel.
"Do you mind?" she said, tapping her foot angrily.
"No, not at all, beautiful, what is it?" Sirius said nonchalantly.
Rachel's frown deepened. "Don't call me that when I'm trying to have a serious conversation." she said.
"Oh, ok, beautiful. You can have a serious conversation with Sirius anytime you want. Seriously."
James fell into another laughing fit. Rachel scowled. "Do you really think you're funny?" she asked, annoyed.
"Oh no, I couldn't be more serious."
James doubled over with laughter. Sirius smirked and continued.
"I mean, not that I'm not always Sirius anyway, but I mean, now I'm even more than usual. Serious, I mean." Black sat there, looking at her, smirking, his eyebrows slightly raised.
Rachel kicked her brother who was rolling around on the floor laughing. Hard. He stopped laughing immediately and sat up.
"What the hell was that for?"
"Well, what I originally came here to tell you, before your stupid idiot of a friend interrupted me, was that you should stop insulting people just for the fun of it when Lily's near."
James immediately paid attention. "Lily's here?"
"Oh, yes she is, and she's going to murder you if you don't leave other people alone, got it?"
She looked up from her brother just in time to see Sirius opening his mouth to shout something at a passing couple.
"Black!" she shouted and he closed his mouth and turned to her. "Oh hey, beautiful. Long time, no see."
"I said, stop bloody calling me that!"
"No, you said I shouldn't call you that when you were trying to have a serious conversation with me. Now I don't think you are trying to do that anymore, so I don't have to be serious. And that means that I can call you beautiful whenever I want. Hey, beautiful!"
She lunged to slap him, but he was fast. In a second, he had his wand out and she was in the air, hanging over the lake.
"You!" she screeched. "Black, you prat! Put me down this instant!"
"Really?" he said lazily, his wand dangling from his hand. "Are you-" he paused, "serious?"
"I don't have time for your silly jokes!" she screamed furiously. "I mean it, if you don't put me down now-"
"Beautiful, no need to get worked up. I can let you down if you want it."
"I want it!"
"Ok then, it's what you asked for."
He flicked his wand, and lifted the spell off of her.
She fell right into the lake.
When she resurfaced, James was laughing uncontrollably again, and Sirius was wearing an extremely self-satisfied smirk.
"What?" he asked, shrugging, when he saw her wild expression. "You wanted to be put down, didn't you?"
Rachel screamed in rage.
It wasn't surprising that they hadn't turned out to be the best of friends, to put it nicely. With such a start … he had been a right prat from the very beginning. The first time they had actually met he had dropped her into a lake.
But at least one thing she had accomplished that ridiculous afternoon.
He had never again called her beautiful.
-
Rachel and James looked very similar. You could immediately tell that they were twins. Both had the same, jet black hair, but while James' was always ruffled and impossible to tame, Rachel's was the exact opposite, extremely straight, long and shiny and she was very careful it stayed that way. Rachel wasn't vain, but the thought that her hair could one day look like James' was her greatest fear.
Both twins had exactly the same, warm hazel eyes that drew people to them. Both were rather tall and very athletic, since both were Quidditch maniacs.
Rachel, while not stunning, was a pretty girl. But she didn't really care much about her appearance. Her friends, Quidditch, and her dislike for Sirius Black, took up so much of her time that she couldn't understand where she was supposed to fit in things like putting on make-up or picking out an outfit. Sports, mainly Quidditch, were her main purpose in life, she was on the Gryffindor house team and everything except her friends had to understand that Quidditch was first priority. This made it pretty much impossible for her to date anyone who was not interested in Quidditch, and since it wasn't like she was being showered with dating-offers anyway, she so far had never had a boyfriend. She couldn't be bothered less, she was sixteen, and her life was just starting. Girls who whined over not having a boyfriend at fourteen already, disgusted her.
Therefore, she actually was at a loss to understand why she and Ana were even friends, what with Ana being an overly girly girl, but she figured that in all other ways, they were pretty similar and she liked her, and, right now, was worried about Ana.
She knew that Sirius didn't care in the least about her friend, and she also knew that were something to happen between them, he wouldn't even do it for the fun of it, well, not just for the fun.
His main purpose would be to piss her off, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to bear to have Ana hurt because Sirius Black had used her as means to annoy Rachel.
They had come home late that evening, and when Ana kissed Sirius on both cheeks, batting her eyelashes at him once more, and giving him an over-friendly wink, all at once, she knew that if she kept letting Ana into Black's presence, or, worse, when she let them be alone together, chances were high that something would happen between them.
And she definitely didn't like it.
