A/N: Thanks everyone for reviewing and sorry to keep you waiting! I got busy and forgot to update. Special thanks to the guest reviewer who just reminded me! :)
Chapter Nine : All right, bad girl?
I stood outside the Library at seven thirty that evening, sore from all the desk scrubbing I had just done during detention. Slughorn had been a vindictive sea-mammal, making me scrub up what looked like years of dried vomit off the desks. I was nervously twirling my wand between my fingers and accidentally conjured sparks that set the end of my school skirt on fire. As I was twirling in circles, desperately snuffing the fire out with my robes, I heard a chuckle.
"You all right, Bad Girl?" Sirius asked with a wink that made my stomach swoop.
"I heard you landed yourself in detention," he smirked as I picked up my school bag that I had dropped in order to save myself from burning to death.
"Yeah, sorry we had to meet later," I said but he shrugged.
"Doesn't matter. Shall we brave Pince?"
I nodded and followed him as he threw the double doors open and strode in to the Library like he owned the place. Madam Pince seemed to have cottoned on, and was there to meet him by her desk with her hand out awaiting his detention slip. I noticed again that I hadn't seen Filch's cat all day.
"Ah, thank you Miss," he said, tipping an imaginary hat to her and beckoning me forward so that we could head to the same deserted table that we'd used yesterday. He sat down with a thump and put his elbows on the table, rested his head on his arms and looked up at me with the most adorably curious expression. I turned red as usual.
"Before we start, I have some questions for you," he said, looking at me intently as I took my seat.
"Aren't you supposed to be teaching me?" I asked, looking out of the window instead of at him.
"Ha-ha, very funny. First – why didn't you just tell me yourself about needing to be late?"
I shrugged, still forcing myself to look away from him. How could I say this to him without sounding like an idiot? Wasn't it obvious enough that we weren't the type of people who would regularly have conversations in the hallway? Surely he knew that already.
"Oh, you know – Keeping up appearances, protecting reputations…I thought I'd save you the embarrassment."
To my surprise he chuckled. "Save me the embarrassment? What do I have to be embarrassed about?"
"For talking to me?" I said, finally looking at him.
He raised his eyebrows and curled his lip. "Are you sure you weren't too embarrassed to talk to me?"
I reddened and looked at the table, just barely able to see him if I glanced up. He was grinning.
"You turn red around me an awful lot," he commented nonchalantly and I blushed further. How humiliating – why did he have to point it out? Worse – why did I find him even more attractive for doing so?
"There you go again."
"It's hot in here. I can't be held responsible for the way my face reacts to the temperature of this blasted library," I mumbled, fanning myself with my book and forcing myself to look at him in what I hoped was a casual way. I obviously didn't achieve my goal because he was smirking again but thankfully he finally let it drop, and shrugged.
"So, what was the detention for?"
I sighed and looked out of the window again. This was actually the question I hadn't wanted to answer because it involved his brother and I wasn't sure what their relationship was like.
"Oh come on, what? Did you forget to hand in your homework? What's the worst you could do?" he pressed.
"My mate Benjy and I got in an argument with a Slytherin from my year during Prefect Rounds last night and there was a fight," I said. "Can you help me with Transfiguration now? I did the goo thing again last night when I was practicing."
"What was the fight about?" he asked, ignoring my question and smiling eagerly.
"They called me the M-word. Benjy tried to defend me, I got in the middle of it and Slughorn wouldn't listen to the whole story," I said flatly. "Can we start working now?"
Sirius' face had darkened and he sat upright looking at me with hard, grey eyes.
"A Slytherin in your year that you won't name, huh? Wouldn't happen to be my idiotic brother, would it?" His voice was cold and tight – very different than I'd ever heard it and suddenly he looked alarmingly like the brother he spoke of.
"Um yeah, sorry," I said, trying to hide the worry in my voice at his sudden change in demeanor.
"Don't apologize. It's him…." He trailed off and shook his head, taking some deep breaths before he spoke again. "I'm sorry he called you that. I'll have words with him. It probably won't make a difference but he shouldn't be going about throwing that word around."
Honestly, I was so used to insults that the word 'Mudblood' didn't affect me much more than Bottle-Specs or Einstein or whatever other unoriginal and idiotic names people came up with. He'd heard plenty of people call me other names before and hadn't said anything to them. But the fact that Sirius was concerned about someone calling me Mudblood touched me so much, I didn't care if it was hypocritical. I just blushed, thought that he was the nicest boy I'd ever met, and smiled at him.
He smiled back and then pointed to my open book. "So, what did you learn about the theory?"
At 9.30, I reluctantly put away my book and left the Library with Sirius.
"Looks like you're doing better."
"Well…I promise to tell McG that you tried your best. Obviously there's only so many times you can handle being covered in black gunk."
He laughed. "Yeah, I don't want you to ruin my reputation for being brilliant."
"Oh don't worry – it'll only reinforce my reputation for being an idiot," I shrugged.
"As long as we're clear on that," he smiled, a twinkle in his eye. "I'm knackered. It's been a crappy start of the year," he said, stretching his arms and yawning.
"Sorry," I apologized as we walked together. He couldn't talk! At least he hadn't been forced to face hours alone with the love of his life whilst simultaneously getting into physical altercations with said love-of-life's brother.
He shrugged as we came to a stop beside the stairs that led to the Courtyard. "It's not your fault. At least there's a Hogsmeade visit next month after the Quidditch. Are you going?"
I felt my face go warm and nodded. "Er- yeah, probably."
He smiled. "There you go – red again. See ya, Effie," he said with a little wink as he ducked out of the doors in to the dark courtyard, leaving me still blushing madly and completely ignoring the fact that it was curfew, I was a Prefect and I'd just let him go somewhere that definitely wasn't the common room.
As much as I'd hoped that I'd become Sirius' friend after our detention-lessons, I was sadly almost as invisible as ever. He did give me the occasional nod or smile if we happened to run directly in to each other, but other than that I might as well have been another random fifth-year that he didn't know by name. The only thing that could possibly be used as evidence of our brief acquaintance was the way Regulus Black had started to treat me during Potions. Rather than the usual 'ughs' and 'hmphs,' he nodded relatively politely if I asked him to move and even responded with a "here" when I asked him to pass me something. There wasn't a mention of the M-word once and he didn't even shudder if our elbows happened to brush against each other. I suppose Sirius must have had words with him, as he'd promised, although I had to say I was surprised that Regulus seemed to have listened to whatever his brother had said. Their relationship was largely clouded in mystery – everyone was aware that they spoke occasionally and were bitter rivals on the Quidditch Pitch, but there was also the tiny detail of Sirius having been disowned to take in to account.
The other thing for me to consider was the fact that Regulus had once overheard that I fancied his brother. I wondered if he'd dropped that little bomb on poor Sirius who was merely trying to do a pathetic, transfigurationally-inept Fifth Year a favour. How horribly, mortifyingly embarrassing.
After I started worrying that Regulus had given up my secret, I thought that I began to notice that if I happened to catch Sirius' eye, he would immediately divert his gaze – essentially pretending that he didn't even know me!
"He's disgusted by me," I said glumly as I ate my porridge at breakfast a few weeks after my lessons with Sirius had stopped. I had just caught his eye and he had immediately grimaced and looked away at Wendelin.
"Oh stop it, no he isn't – you're reading too far in to his ridiculous expressions. They don't mean anything! Sometimes he even asks about you at Quidditch practice," Marlene said, making me snort porridge from my nose. She frowned at me as I sneezed into a napkin and turned to her with wide eyes.
"WHY wouldn't you share this information with me, Marlene? You're supposed to be my best friend," I whispered, stealing a look at Benjy and Jasper to make sure they weren't listening in.
She looked a bit guilty and shrugged. "Well, he doesn't really mention you by name. Just the occasional, 'how's your mate?'" she admitted.
I sighed and slammed my head on to the table. After a moment, I felt something heavy fall on my head and I yelped.
"HEY!"
"Just a letter, Effie – no one's waging war on you," Jasper joked, picking up the envelope and tossing it at me.
I fumbled it of course and it landed under the table, where I had to scramble around to find it. Bumping my head as I came up, I heard Billy Stebbins laugh loudly.
"What a freak," he said and Rahul Patil shook his head in disgust at me.
"Up yours, Stebbins!" Benjy called out before Marlene could raise her wand. She stowed it back inside her robes and threw Benjy a smile as I rolled my eyes and opened the letter.
"Dear Effie,
How are you darling? I hope school is going well and that Marlene and the boys are fine. How is Transfiguration? Your Professor sent me a note saying you were getting T's – is that bad?
I'm fine. Daddy is feeling a bit under the weather so he's gone off on a bit of a holiday. Poor thing really deserves it – they've been cutting his hours at the construction site. I've had to pick up an overtime shift at the office, so it's been a bit tense, but nothing for you to worry about!
Work hard – I can't wait to have you home for Christmas!
All my love,
Mum."
"Letter from home?" Benjy asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
"Oh. Yeah," I mumbled, feeling a bit ill as I folded the letter and carefully put it in my pocket.
"Everything okay?" Marlene asked looking at me cautiously.
"Yup," I shrugged, returning to sulking into my porridge.
A/N Thanks for reading - will try to update again soon! Please review
