I was sitting in the common room studying with Alice and Mary when James came bounding downstairs grinning. He came and sat next to me, putting a hand casually on my shoulder. I smiled shyly at him, noticing Alice grinning at my awkwardness, and resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at her.
"We're going out for a casual game of quidditch and we need some more players, want to join?" Potter asked.
I looked to the other girls for a second, wanting to say yes but unsure if the invitation extended to them, but Mary had assumed it was and jumped in before I could speak. "Sounds good to me, this essay is boring me to death."
Alice and I quickly agreed, as the rest of the Gryffindor boys descended the dormitory stairs.
We headed out to the pitch, enjoying what was sure to be one of the last warm days for a while. We met three of the Ravenclaw players on the pitch and quickly split into two teams, minus the Beaters given we didn't have enough people. James recruited me as his seeker, whilst Black as the other team captain appointed himself as my opponent.
Potter grinned brightly as me as we kicked off into the air. "Catch me a snitch, won't you?"
"For you I'll try, James," I told him in an overly sweet voice.
Black and Mary heard us and pulled gag faces at each other, which I couldn't help but laugh at, poking my tongue out them as I took off to fly lazy circles around the pitch, watching out for a flicker of gold.
I quickly realised that though I was on Potter's team this was far from us spending time together given I had to stay out of the way of him and the other two chasers. I was a little annoyed that he hadn't picked me as chaser so we could practise flying together, but I knew it was a compliment because he thought I was one of the better fliers. I hovered higher than the others, looking lazily for the snitch when I wasn't distracted by cheering for my teammates. Black was doing the same kind of circuit as me, though in opposite directions and we pulled faces each time we passed each other.
"Never picked you for the cutesy flirting type," Black told me dryly, flying beside me for a lap after James scored a particularly impressive goal and I cheered for him.
"It's not cutesy!" I wasn't going to deny the flirting though. "Besides, what 'type' would you pick me as?"
Black stared at me thoughtfully for a second, then shrugged. "You seem pretty down-to-earth I guess."
"What does that have to do with whether or not I flirt with Potter?"
But Black didn't answer me, instead leaning forward on his broom and zooming past me. It took me a second to remember what we were meant to be doing, and by the time I realised he had seen the snitch, I was too far behind him to have a chance of catching up. I took off anyway, and pulled level to him as he caught the snitch a couple of metres above the ground.
"Not fair!" I told him. "You distracted me."
"That's the way the game goes, McKinnon," he grinned at me, cheekily.
"Bastard," I told him, shoving him in the side playfully.
I must have pushed harder than I planned to though, and Black wobbled dramatically, before falling off the side of his broom. We were only a few metres up but the impact still made an awful sound.
I flew down to his side. "Black! Oh Merlin, I'm so sorry! Are you ok?" He was silent, eyes shut, face screwed up in pain. I started to wonder if he was conscious and shook his shoulders gently, hoping he wasn't seriously injured.
Eventually, a lazy grin started to spread across his face. "Calm down princess, it was just a little fall. I will get you back for this though." Next thing I knew, I was on my back and Black was leaning over me, scooping handfuls on grass into my face. I was laughing and trying to fight back, but Black was taller and stronger than me so he had no trouble keeping me pinned down as he ticked my face with blades of grass. The others swooped down to land beside us, wanting to make sure Black was ok.
"Alright, Padfoot?" James asked. Black paused mid-grass scooping to grin at our friends, with me still pinned underneath him. "I'm fine, just needed to carry out some payback," he told them.
As he spoke, I suddenly realised that his body was covering mine in a – not-entirely-awful-way, and he smelt nice, and his Adam's apple was bobbing as he spoke about 3 centimetres from my mouth, and if I just lifted my head I could be kissing his neck… I shook myself mentally. Shit, where did that come from? This was Black, I was not attracted to him. I mean, sure he was cute and funny but we were just friends. I was dating his best friend for Merlin's sake. Black looked down at me, dropping another handful of grass into my face and grinning, but his laughter faded when he saw that I wasn't laughing anymore. I gulped in a breath as we made eye contact, and he pulled back quickly, standing up and stretching out his back.
"I hope you've learnt your lesson about pushing people off brooms, Ms. McKinnon," he said, imitating Professor McGonagall.
"Yes, Professor," I replied, standing up and hanging my head even as I tried to pick the grass out of my hair. Black and I laughed at our own joke and Potter chuckled a little, but the others looked at us oddly.
"Well I guess that's game over anyway, shall we head back?" Mary asked. We all shook hands with each other, saying "good game". Once we had completed the circle of handshakes, we turned back towards the castle. Potter offered to take my broom back to the shed for me and I let him, feeling even guiltier about my thoughts from moments ago.
Black grinned at me as he followed James towards the broom shed, and I wondered whether I had been attracted to him for a while. I pushed the thought out of my mind as they returned, and James and I walked hand in hand back to the castle with the rest of the group.
