Hey! Thanks for the reviews once again (and the subscriptions, too, of couse)… I especially love the long ones where you explain what you liked (or hated) the most in the chapter… in that way I can adjust the story more to you, since you are its readers… but no matter if short or long; I appreciate your reviews (and subscriptions) SO much since they mean that people are reading this and enjoying this… so thanks for taking your time with reviewing and subscribing.

Anywaaayy; here's the new chapter!

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"Hayley?"

"Can you hear that, too, Lily? It sounds like something is buzzing," I asked her in a mocking way, ignoring the presence of a certain Sirius Black seated right next to me, "or someone," I added as an afterthought.

"No, Hayley," she answered automatically (I had been pestering her with the same questions for the last hour… or two perhaps), her eyes scanning today's edition of The Daily Prophet.

"Haaaaayley?

"Are you completely sure of it?" I asked once again, putting my fork loaded with scrambled eggs into my mouth, munching happily on the food before continuing , "I'm close to sure that there's somethi-"

"Oh, stop it!" she snapped (ups!), throwing the newspaper aside to scorn me better, "Why are you ignoring him anyway?"

I hadn't really told her about the… ehm… 'incident' yet; the k-…thingy. Nor was I planning to do so in the near future.

As I didn't answer her but instead kept eating my breakfast, while avoiding eye contact, she turned to Sirius.

"What did you do?"

"She's just upset about the fact that I ki-" at that moment James and Remus apparently heard their queues and came to sit down on each side of Lily, who sat in front of us. I was pretty sure that I heard Sirius gulp.

"Hey. What are you talking about?" James asked curiously while serving himself greedily.

"Why Hayley is giving Sirius the silent treatment," Lily informed him, arms now crossed over her chest.

"What did he do?" Remus joined in; he actually looked healthy for once. Since the day of our first dueling lesson - five days ago - his health had increased in an exceptionally fast manner.

"He was actually just about to answer that one," Lily informed our newly arrived friends before they all turned to stare at us. I simply kept my mouth full of food.

"Well?" she prompted when no response came.

"Ehm…" (way to go Sirius; start with an 'ehm') "I… we… she's just mad about the fact that I ki-" I kicked him under the table, and somehow this seemed to ignite his missing imagination, "about the fact that I kicked her under the chair during Transfiguration!"

"Seriously?" they turned their eyes on me, trying to get some kind of approval of this statement. I just nodded (what else could I do?).

"That's… so stupid," James said gulping his food down in between the words.

"Well, that's the truth," Sirius grinned in hidden relieve while he ran a hand through his black hair, "Didn't knew she would get this pissed though,"

I aimed another kick at his leg, but ended up hitting James instead, who cried out in pain:

"Oi! Did you just kick me?"

"What? Me? No! Why would I do such a thing? Pffst!" I replied, trying to act innocent though not really succeeding in it (Tough crowd, huh?), "Well, we should better get to class,"

With those words and a nervous giggle from my part, I grabbed my books from the table, and left for the dungeons. Yippi yay! Another long and dreadful potion-class… How lucky can you be? (*cough* SACASM! *cough*).

"Come on, Hayley! Talk!" Sirius whined once again.

"Did you say something, Mr. Black?" Professor Slughorn's voice drifted from the front of the class to our seats at the back.

"No, professor," Sirius replied grumpily shooting me an exasperated glance.

"Well, begin with the brewing!" he told us and in a manner of seconds the whole class was buzzing round the room to find the required ingredients.

"Taaaaaalk to me…"

I went to the nearest cabinet and grabbed a bottle of stewed lacewing flies as well as the cardboard box filled with Antimony; we had to brew our own Polyjuice Potion. Glee…

"Haaayley…"

"Lily, do you need some lacewing flies?" I asked my red-haired friend who was already mixing the contents together from which I concluded: "I guess not,"

I began brewing the potion while Sirius kept whining:

"Haaayley!"

"Cooome on… it wasn't on purpose,"

"This is stupid!"

"Taaaaalk to me… pleeeeeaaaase!"

But I kept my poker-face switched on and ignored him, which actually was pretty hard; he simply looked adorable when pouting (wait, what?).

I had watched her every movement doing potions, as well as now, where she was curled up in one of the cozy armchairs that were suited close to the fire in the Gryffindor tower, a book probed in her lap. Her brown eyes, that reminded me of smelted chocolate, scanned the pages carefully before she turned them over with her delicate hand; her skin as pale as the sheet of papers itself.

Personally I was sitting in a chair by one of the vacant tables, pretending to be writing my potions essay. I had a hard time fighting the urge to jump out of my chair and over to her, looking deep into her eyes before tugging one of her rebellious curls – that had gone astray from its plait - behind her ear; I didn't though and watched her do it instead.

The silence between us was still unchanged as she kept pretending that I was nothing more than hot air to her. It was killing me and something had to be done.

I knew it had been stupid of me to kiss her. But it had been as if my body had reacted on its own; like a magnet drawn to the other with no possible way of escaping.

The most important things though to keep in mind now were:

1. Get Hayley to forgive me… or at least talk to me again

2. Try to re-obtain the control of my own body again and - by that - preventing such an incident from happening again… or at least have her responding positively on it… ehm; scratch the last part

3. Keep it a secret! James and Remus are not allowed to know about it… EVER!

I would be more than dead if they did, as James already had explained to me the other day on the quidditch pitch;

"This is Remus' best friend you're flirting with-" James had told me.

"I'm not flirtin-"

"She's like a sister to him!"

"I know and I'm not flirting with he-"

"Of course you are; already the way that you 'dragged' her down here? You like her, which is not good!"

"Pffst! I don't like her. She's merely nice company-" that sentence had come out in a completely wrong way.

"So you want to snog her once or twice, and then what? You're going back to 'Sweetheart' again then? Because if you do, Remus will beat the crap out of you, mate,"

"Hey, I broke up with her, so I'm not going ba-"

"And no matter what; don't play with Hayley," It was at that moment the girl in question and Frank had joined us and James only added, "Just stay away, that's easier for everyone,"

One instruction. One very simple instruction and I had messed it up. Way to go, Sirius, you're becoming more of a Black for every day that goes by. I gritted my teeth at the thought. I despised my family and their 'pure-blood-mania' as much as they probably despised me; the son who had turned out to be a Gryffindor, being as different from the rest of the family as possible. They would probably hate Hayley, too, since she only was half-blooded. I couldn't help but smiling at the thought of introducing her as my girlfriend to my dear parents and brother (wait, what?).

Anyway; Plan 'Get-Hayley-to-talk-to-me-again' was in action.

I felt the stares as I turned another page of my book. I was currently reading The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien. Since I had been a little girl I had loved to curl up into a chair and read fantasy novels, though I also counted books like A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens as well as Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austenamong my favorites.

As already mentioned, I felt his eyes lingering on me. The strange thing though; I didn't really mind. It didn't creep me out that I knew his grey gaze was studying me. No, it actually felt… nice.

Great, I'm becoming crazier by the day.

I still hadn't spoken to him and wasn't planning on either. It was his own fault after all; you don't just go around kissing people!

Once again I felt my cheeks heating up by a well-known blush that had been torturing me ever since it happened. It seemed as if every time I would start thinking about it, that same blush would creep into my cheeks, getting peoples notice, which always led to thousands of questions being asked. Just like yesterday during dinner;

"Why are you blushing?" Lily had asked me curiously from her usual seat in front of me.

"What?" I had replied. I had been deep in thought about… ehm… 'stuff'.

"Come on, tell me; why are you blushing?"

"Ehm…"

"Someone special on your mind?" a surprising fact about Lily Evans: She can be a hell of a lot like James, which had become clear as she began to wiggle her eyebrows at me. It was scary, actually.

"No! Pffst! How absurd!"

"Oh, come on you sound like me when I'm lying abou-" At that point she had kind of realized her mistake and I had from that sentence interrogated her about this subject that apparently had her lying constantly ("James?" "No! How come you… no! Why would… I… why?... never!"… You can draw your own conclusions). Take that Lily Evans; I smile inwardly at the thought. She may have grown to be my best female friend, but she needed to get a grip and admit that she was hooked on James Potter; a thing I was gladly looking forward to help her with.

"Why are you smiling?" his voice pulled me out of my thoughts and I looked up from my book to meet his curious look.

I opened my mouth and was just about to reply when Lily entered through the portrait-hole.

"Great! Are you talking to each other again?" she asked smiling (why was she so glad?).

Remembrance hit me like a brick wall and I turned my eyes back to the pages of my book.

"No?" I could practically tell that she was grimacing even though my eyes were glued to the paper, while reading about Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry's adventurous trip through the Old Forest.

"Nope," Sirius sighed and turned back to his essay.

"Hayley, this is childish, you know that, right?" she asked me and I felt her green eyes on me as they studied my face and its expressions.

"What is?" I asked indifferently, continuing my reading as if undisturbed.

"'kay, I'll let you deal with it," she sighed before walking towards the girls' dormitory.

"Why is your hair so messed up, by the way?"

The question took her by surprise and she turned to stare at me (do I need to say she was blushing?).

"W-what?"

"Your hair looks like… ehm…" I couldn't really find a good description for its tousled appearance.

"Like you've been snogging someone," Sirius added in with a smirk.

He was right; her hair looked like someone else had been running his hands through it, probably while kissing her pretty passionately, which only left;

"James?" I exclaimed.

"What? Snogging… with… James…never!… I-I tripped," she defended, her blush deepening.

"Oh my! I don't believe it!" the thought that they had actually been kissing seemed absurd, but also so perfectly right; they simply were meant for each other.

"Lily Evans, and I who thought you'd never give in to him," Sirius teased her, laughing along with me, "remember to set me up with your maid of honor at your upcoming wedding,"

"I… no!" but seeing that we simply wouldn't stop she stormed out of the room and up the stairs to our dormitory. I'm pretty sure I saw her smile though before leaving.

After our laughter ceased, Sirius turned to look at me again, his mesmerizing grey gaze meeting my own brown one.

"We're a good team," he grinned.

"Yea-" I stopped but it was already too late…

"You're talking to me again?" his grin widened visibly at that.

"No…" and with those last words I returned to my book, hiding a tiny smile.

He wasn't all that bad, that Sirius Black.


A/N: What did you think of it? Leave a review (short or long… you decide ;)) and tell me what you think… See ya!

-Marie