Disclaimer: I STILL DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER! Dang it, I thought that letter I wrote to J.K. Rowling was really convincing too. ALSO: If I did own Harry Potter, Sirius, Remus, Fred, Tonks, Mad-eye, and Hedwig would not have died. Some of the characters had actual reasons why they had to die, which is why I didn't include Dumbledore, James and Lily. But these characters could have lived through it, and I wanted them to, sniffle.
A/N: Hey, so glad to know some people are reading. You all rock (even the silent ones, although not as much). Okay, so…I don't have much to say besides the fact that mosquitoes are cryptic (I do know what that word means) little suckers (haha, I made a pun…ah, okay moving on) that sadistically try to get people sent to asylums. It's true. I just felt like you deserved to be warned. Also, please review. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it hilarious? Is it somber? Is it the most amazing thing ever? Is it absolutely the most terrible thing you've ever read? I seriously want to know. Oh, yeah, and in this chapter, Alex is exceptionally clueless:
I sat on my bed, the curtains pulled around me and my lips pressed together in a thin line. It was Sunday, I'd already finished all my homework, and I was fairly sure every other student in Hogwarts was outside reveling in the warm, sunny day. But not I. No, I was too busy turning over in my mind the odd little quirks my body took on when I was around Sirius. Freaking Black. For one, my heart performed concerts in my chest whenever I'd passed him in the hallways or heard him say, "Hey, Hunt," as he usually did whenever he saw me. That was definitely not healthy. The last time my heart had done that was when I'd begun to like Sam, and not ever in the way it did when I saw Sirius. When I'd liked Sam, it had been like I was at a concert of soft, soothing music. My heart had at least been controlled. When I was around Sirius, it was as if I'd just entered a room where a heavy metal band played their instruments randomly with no apparent rhythm at all, the amps turned up to the very highest point. Now that was interesting.
I decided then and there it must be because I didn't like him.
That had to be it; my heart was trying to warn me. Being close to him was bad for my well-being. I didn't know why it had decided to not like him on its own like that; personally, I didn't even have anything against him. I guess my body was acting on instincts or something weird like that. Well, I decided it would be well worth it if I listened to what my body was so desperately trying to tell me. I'd do the practical thing for once in my life, and stay away from him.
That solved, I moved the curtains of my bed aside and jumped onto my feet. I now went downstairs and outside, to spend an afternoon reading at the lake. When I found a shaded spot under a tree harboring no snogging teenagers, I sat there looking at the worn cover of my copy of The Complete Works of Jane Austin finally opening it to a random page. Pride and Prejudice it read, huh, it had not only flipped to the very beginning…that was the very book I had told Sirius was my favorite. Whatever. Instead of thinking that over, I simply started reading. Then a slight movement caught my eye. I looked over my book to the other side of the lake where I saw a very familiar figure. The heavy metal concert started up in my chest. Sirius Black sat across the lake under a tree staring into space with a blank expression, well it seemed blank, I couldn't tell for sure because of the distance between us, but because he was staring at nothing in particular, I decided he looked blank. Why was he sitting there? I wondered. "Huh," I said out loud to no one in particular. I watched him carefully, he barely moved at all. He just sat there, staring off into space, as still as a statue…a perfect statue…a gorgeous statue…Whoa, where did that come from? My heart beat had slowed back down to become somewhat normal, apparently my body had decided the distance between us was safe enough, that he wasn't going to fly across the lake or something.
It really was weird I'd dislike him so much when we'd only had one date and a few…well quite a few hallway and Great Hall encounters afterward. I thought I was actually beginning to like him a little. Well, that goes to show just how little I actually knew myself.
I continued to stare at him.
I wasn't sure as to why exactly I was, but after I'd started, it didn't seem like I was going to stop anytime soon, so I snapped my book shut and lay on my belly with my head turned to one side on my arms. I stayed like that for a while, just watching him. It was odd I wasn't getting distracted, I didn't even seem to notice anything else around me and my breathing gradually grew more even, eventually I fell asleep under the afternoon sun…
--
"Oy," I heard the voice, muttered something that was most likely incoherent and turned over. "Oy," now the voice was a bit louder. I swatted out with my hand, I didn't want to wake up. "OY!" I shot up.
"King Arthur, I am the next queen of the Zucchini People!" I cried. I doubted whoever had woken me had any idea what I was talking about; let's just say I'd had a very interesting dream.
The youthful figure that had woken me let out an amused snort. I looked at him curiously, realizing I really should know who it was. Then the heavy metal concert started up again. I shrieked and jumped two feet away from him, aware that it was significantly darker than it had been when I'd gone to sleep. And that no one else was around in my line of vision. That was probably bad. The heavy metal concert picked up tempo. Wow, I must really not like this guy.
"How long have you been asleep here, Hunt?" he asked.
"I don't remember," I replied, searching for a quick escape. It was definitely a bad idea to stick around some guy that made my body react in the way it did. "A few hours, at least."
"Dinner's already over," he informed.
"How long have you been here?" I asked.
"I don't remember," he replied. "I missed dinner too, anyway."
"What were you doing? Did you fall asleep?" I asked, curious, though I knew he'd just been sitting there when I'd been awake, and watching him. Oh, great, was I turning into some stalker?
"No," he said, amused again. "Just thinking."
"Ah," I said. "Well, anyway, I suppose we should go back to the castle."
"Yeah," he said. Then he hesitated.
Suddenly, for no reason whatsoever I realized how close together we were; his face just inches from mine. I hadn't noticed myself inching closer to him. Damn, unreliable body. Then he grinned and did something I didn't expect, he closed the distance between us, and kissed me. I was pretty sure he was able to hear the heavy metal concert going on in my chest when he did that, although I wasn't completely sure and he didn't let on one way or the other.
Then he got up, said, "See you around," and just walked off as if he'd done nothing. Now that was most definitely not right. But I barely noticed this, I was staring if front of me, to where Sirius had just been a few seconds ago, eyes glazed over and mouth slightly ajar. My body was stiff and I fell over backward from my squatting position.
--
Sirius had an incredibly smug look on his face as he entered the Gryffindor common room. James, Remus and Peter all looked up at him as he came in. He came through the whole, glided across the floor and sat down in a cushioned arm chair nearby the rest of the Marauders. Merlin, this was the greatest day of his life.
"What?" James asked finally, fed up with his near-sparkling best friend.
"Well," he replied glancing at his best mate mischievously. "I believe I have just surpassed you and Evans."
"How?" James seemed as if he hadn't wanted to ask, but curiosity drove him to it.
"I kissed her." Was all the information he received.
--
"That guy has no morals whatsoever!" I screeched, pacing the room of our dormitory. Amy, Catie, Diana and Rhea stared at her. Rhea seemed to be dozing off, it was late after all, and the others seemed to barely be paying attention, they thought Sirius had done something incredibly nice to me, in fact Amy and Diana had stared at me with the utmost jealousy at the start of my rant, but that subsided, we were all very good friends and I guessed that they supposed, if anyone, they'd want one of their friends to succeed with Sirius, it was better than letting some other girl take him. But I was not looking at it that way at all. "He's a downright arrogant piece of crap; I mean really, what does he take me for? He had no right to…to…to KISS me!"
"Calm down," Little Rhea said, she had a small stature and looked like a little girl, she acted somewhat like one too at times.
"I will not bloody calm down!" I shouted. It was only because Rhea, our little innocent teddy bear, was in the room that I hadn't started screaming obscenities that would make even Satan himself proud. "He must hate me…" I muttered. "No, maybe he realized I don't like him! That must be it!" My friends were obviously questioning my logic and after a moments hesitation Catie brought up the point she saw most confusing.
"What?" Catie asked. "I thought you said your date went 'sort of okay,' what happened?"
"Oh," I said, realizing I hadn't told her. "Well, my body's been warning me to stay away from him, I must dislike him pretty badly seeing as it reacts so oddly."
"And how, exactly, does it react?" she asked, he eyes rolling. She was in for a surprise.
"Well, my heart starts beating like some heavy metal concert; it must be telling me 'mortal danger' or something. And I get lightheaded too. It's really weird." I replied, ready for them to say stuff like, 'Oh, yeah, you should stay away from him' but no. Instead they, all four of them, burst out into laughter.
"And you realized so quickly with Sam, too," Catie said between the hysterical laughter. What did Sam have to do with it?
"What?" I asked, but they merely laughed even harder in answer to my question. "Seriously, guys, what the heck are you guys laughing about?"
Rhea was the first to stop. "Thanks, Alex," she said and I felt the urge the smooth out her fine, almost white hair that was currently flying in every direction around her face. The untamed, cute, innocent, fury beast. Her wide, cheery blue eyes were sparkling with the laughter that had stopped coming out of her mouth. "You gave me a good laugh, and on that note, I'm going to sleep." And with that she crawled under her covers, drew the curtains around her, and went to sleep.
"Yeah," the rest of them agreed. "Thanks, Alex," and one by one, all of them went to bed.
"What is with you guys?" I asked, disturbed and confused. After a while of standing in front of their beds, I started to get bored and decided they wouldn't be coming back out to answer my rhetorical question. I too went to sleep, but I lay in my bed for a while, wondering what they could've meant and why Catie had brought Sam into all this.
