Lingering Kisses

Alone


Mysterious things they were, hearts. Disconnected from the mind. It was the only theory that made a note of possible sense; how else could a mere feeling produce such an internal tear in his body?

He hurt, hurt like nothing else, longed for the impossible, the unlikely, the wrong, the worst of all. His mind had abandoned him, had run on pure feelings instead, had allowed his heart to bind to air itself. It was like trying to catch smoke with his bare hands.

He exhaled a long and steady breath, expelling crystallized air that lingered before his eyes and faded away within moments.

He'd never chosen it; why would he have? Falling was never a choice. It took its victims in moments of strength, of balance, and promptly assured them of weakness, reminded them of gravity, quite often smacking them in the face.

Sirius raised a hand to his cheek, rubbing it absentmindedly, fingers dead and numb from the icy weather. He lowered his hand then, staring at it with grey eyes, the color of the winter, wondering vaguely if bringing gloves would have been an intelligent choice.

And she noticed, because of course she did. Lily Evans noticed everything.

"Here," she said, tossing a pair of black gloves into his open palms. "Put those on."

He didn't think to ask where they could have come from; she'd probably conjured them out of the snow or something of similar difficulty. He caught her emerald gaze and mumbled a thanks, working his hands into the openings of the gloves, with difficulty, as the cold had considerably restricted the fluidity of his movements.

Lily laughed and went to him, taking a glove in two hands and wrenching it around his bare hands. "There."

He stretched his fingers out in the warmth of the fabric and allowed a smile to pass his features. "What would I do without you?"

She shrugged, digging her hands in her coat pockets. "Freeze, probably."

"Likely," he agreed, swiping a hand over the wooden fence. The snow stuck to his gloved finger tips and he balled it into a fist, collecting it together in absentminded flexes of his hand. He stared at the shape of the snow in his hand and his gaze quickly darted to Lily, whose face was pointed towards the sky, catching snowflakes on the tip of her red nose.

With suddenly wild determination, Sirius gathered more snow in his hand and molded it into a choppy sphere, and took advantage of her momentary distraction to launch the snowball straight at her flaming red head of hair.

She shrieked immediately at contact, shaking out her hair and bending down to grab a fistful of snow in retaliation.

Sirius tactfully dodged her throws and tossed several balls of snow blindly while shielding his eyes from her wrath.

Lily threw with all the force she had, laughing and running to and fro, ducking, spinning. Then Sirius aimed a snowball and it hit her square in the face.

She stopped, blinking slowly as the snow fell back to the ground.

"Woops," Sirius said. "You all right?"

She wiped the snow from her eyes without a response and flung two handfuls of snow in his vulnerable direction.

"Oi!" Sirius cried, creating an unending chain of laughter between the two of them as the snow continued to shoot like broomsticks through the cool air.

After several more pelts in the face, Lily threw her forearms over her eyes. "I give up! I surrender! White flag!"

Sirius smiled, letting the snow fall from his fingers, and wiped his hands together, breathing out misty breath.

She pushed past him, sinking to the white ground, hands digging through piles of snow. "Professor Slughorn will have a fit if we don't get back soon," she said pointedly, shooting him a backwards glance. "The Doxy eggs should be in mounds of snow. But the centaurs kicked them up last night during the storm, so they should be closer to the surface."

"Right," Sirius said, recalling the real reason they were out on the grounds while class was in session. Slughorn had specifically chosen the two to retrieve a sample of Doxy eggs for the Dizziness Draught they would be preparing in class. "What the bugger's a Doxy, anyway?" he asked with distraction.

"It's the Biting Fairy, known for its venom," Lily answered automatically, as if she was reading from a textbook. "They're awful things, pests, really. Like to nest in the colder months. Their eggs are rather useful though. The shell is used in Soothing Solutions..."

That was as much as Sirius internalized, but he nodded along with feigned understanding as the two continued to search the mounds with their gloved fingers.

With the deep chill of the air and the quiet that carried nothing but the sound of the wind and Lily's voice, Sirius fell into the delirium that was his mind. Lily dominated it, directing the trail of thoughts with her distant words.

He couldn't help but admire the way her snow-flecked hair fell over her shoulders, or the way her eyebrows raised and gaze grew steady as she explained things to him. Couldn't help but admire the way she always picked herself up and strutted away indignantly from him and James when they broke the rules as they so often did. She was unique, strangely so, and yet the fact that James fancied her was enough to set Sirius running in the opposite direction.

It didn't happen to help that he was constantly forced to be around her. Professor Slughorn must have been determined to ruin him.

It didn't make logical sense. Lily Evans had always annoyed him before, and the same things that he admired now had once been objects of livid vexation. He'd never understood how James could be so caught up with her, until the terrible day he did.

Perhaps it was the daunting fact that he wasn't meant to fancy her as he did that drove his fixation. It was like he was a child; tell him not to, and it was the very next thing he did. It was a sickening twist to his stomach, the overwhelming presence of Lily in his mind, and honestly, it made him feel more alone than anything.

"Found one!" she cried triumphantly, shooting up from the ground and sprinting to him. She held it towards him in her palm, a small, dainty purple looking shell, fragile and frozen. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her smile decorated the color, a satisfied look equivalent to that of the greatest accomplishment. "How many do you reckon we need?"

He shrugged. "A few more wouldn't hurt."

She rolled her eyes, walking away from him. "That is, if you can find any."

"Here we go, I've found one just now." He dug up an egg from the ground, raised his hand in the air and waved it at her. "I'm flattered by your confidence in me, by the way."

"As you should be," she replied swiftly, burying her hands in the depths of the snow once more. "Oh, I've found another. Look, there's two here!"

Sirius scoffed. "Would you like to find the rest?"

"Of course not," she said, creating a make-shift nest of snow to hold the eggs she'd found for the moment. "I've got all the confidence in you, remember."

He did. He attempted to busy himself with searching, but the wind grew harsh and bit at his cheeks, and the shivering that encompassed his limbs was suddenly all too much.

"Oh, we've got to go inside," Lily said, standing up and brushing herself off. "Before it gets worse out—"

As if on cue, an incredible gust overwhelmed the two, spraying them with blinding snow that crawled its way down their necks and beneath the warmth of their coats. Sirius cursed loudly, dropped the egg, and grabbed Lily's wrist and pulled her from her spot. He ran against the wind and towards the shelter of the trees, pants materializing between them.

"Oh, Merlin, I left the eggs," Lily muttered, looking out into the increasingly violent snow storm. "They'll be covered again by now."

"Can't we just accio them?"

"They'll break from the force," she said with a weary sigh. "Wait, Sirius. Where are we? Is this..." Her eyes flit frantically around her. "This is the Forbidden Forest, isn't it?"

"It's not like we're really in it," he said with assurance. "Nothing will eat you. Promise."

She glared.

"And if anything tries," he patted his cloak pocket, "I've got my wand to protect you."

That worked a subtle smile from her. Lily's eyes continued to wander over the trees, and then she craned her neck upwards and paused. "Sirius, what's that?"

He looked. "I dunno," he said blatantly, squinting his eyes at the seemingly misplaced green bush hanging over them in the bare branches of the trees. "A plant," he supplied instead.

"I think that's..." She pressed her lips firmly together and looked him straight in the face instead.

"What is it?"

"It's mistletoe," she said quietly, voice hiding beneath the roar of the wind. "Look. Yellow flowers, white berries. It must be mistletoe."

Sirius could have groaned. "Oh, lovely."

"Not really," she said, shifting slightly. "It's a parasite, you know. Not very lovely."

"What?"

"We learned it in Herbology," she explained. "They latch onto the branches of trees and take their nutrients. Kill them, essentially."

"Oh," he said, glancing up at it, lost for words. He didn't really care what mistletoe did or what kind of potions it was used for or whether or not the berries were poisonous. The only thing that he could think was that he knew one thing about mistletoe, and that alone was enough to drive him mental.

But perhaps Lily had never heard of what people did beneath mistletoe. Perhaps he could pretend as if he didn't know, either, and they could wait for the storm to pass without ever approaching the subject. Perhaps she couldn't see the way the thought made him increasingly uncomfortable.

But she noticed, of course, because Lily Evans noticed everything.

"It's a Christmas thing, isn't it?" she asked.

It was a week till Christmas, he remembered, and tomorrow they'd be released for vacation. His mind wandered to thoughts of home and where he would be for the holiday. With James, maybe? But the Potters were surely growing sick of him by now...

With a jolt Sirius suddenly realized how close he and Lily were standing. The cold had pushed them together for mutual warmth, and he hadn't noticed their proximity until he felt her breath warm on his skin.

"Yeah," was all he could make himself say. He felt faint.

"Well," she said, and her voice sounded ever more so like a whisper, "there are traditions for a reason."

Oh, no, he was about to kiss Lily Evans, he couldn't, he would die, he would fall into the earth and suffocate in the snow, he would freeze to death before he did, he couldn't, he wouldn't, there was no way, kissing Lily Evans was absolutely out of bounds, he would never forgive himself—

The light brush of her lips on his was enough to drown all of his thoughts. She was testing the waters, nothing but merely tickling his skin, but the simple touch overwhelmed Sirius's senses. She was timid, uncertain, but Sirius met her with such acceptance that they were both set ablaze amidst the winter snow. Her lips were soft but powerful, dominating, and Sirius traced the line of her jaw with his gloved fingers, brushed her hair back with the other hand. She shivered beneath him and he pressed himself closer against her, meeting her mouth again and again with his. Her fingers skimmed his collar bone and the curve of his neck, twisted in the locks of his dark hair, brought his face as close to hers as she possibly could. Waves of heat surrounded them and Sirius couldn't help but think he could never, would never, mind holding her like this.

She parted her lips from his, and when she did, the cold enclosed them, submerging him in the distinct feeling of loneliness again. Her hand rested idly on his chest and she stared blankly at it, unmoving, locked in an embrace that she was evidently wary to break.

Sirius couldn't handle it, though, and stepped back from her, mystified breath fogging his vision.

She stared at him, hard, relentless, and he couldn't help but notice the pink of her cheeks, the pink of her lips. Perhaps if he wasn't Sirius Black, he could have appreciated her beauty, appreciated her kiss, appreciated their situation, but there was no place for him in her world.

"Sirius," she said gently and tugged on his wrist. He couldn't read the expression in her eyes, but her words seemed to speak enough truth. "Let's go back now."

She meant inside, back to their classroom, in the warmth of the castle, but there was a thin lining to her words, something that whispered back to the way we were before.

He'd known it, and he'd expected it. He'd had a taste, nothing more than a tease, but the withdrawal cut him closely. There was no place for him here with Lily Evans. Nowhere.

He was alone, and he was lonely.


A/N: Oh, Sirius, I'll love you! Oh, right, nobody wants to read about me and Sirius... well, I guess poor lovesick Sirius will have to do then. This was originally posted under a different name and I have come back and reposted it under this story because it seems like it'll have a better home here. Anywhoooo, leave a review? Thanks for reading, as always! xx