This chapter, 'The Last Ball,' was particularly long so I had to chop it into 2 parts. So I apologise that this update is on the short side, but I'll try to get the second part up soon!

Alisson

Early May, 1978

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Most unfortunately for Remus Lupin, the Last Ball fell on the night of a full moon. And as much as Blanche and Lily had been dying for him to get some long-awaited female attention from one Penelope Poke, it was certainly for the best he didn't attend.

"What colour dress are you wearing, Blanche?" Lily asked as the six of them sat around a table at the Three Broomsticks. Sirius sat to her right and Lily to her left—the latter being draped across James on her other side. It seemed like her four Butterbeers were doing the trick. But she deserved it—they'd all been working to the bone lately.

"Well, I was going to wear a black dress. But it's sleeveless, so…" Blanche sighed loudly. It had only been five days since the attack. She was feeling much better; her concussion had been solved with an earthy draught from Madam Pomfrey. However, the writing on her arm had officially sunk into her skin. The nurse had done all she could to close the wound—which she did—but Blanche had been left untouched for too long for it not to scar. It wasn't very noticeable, but Blanche had already become deeply insecure about it.

"Blanche, stop it," Sirius hushed next to her, wiping a frothy line of foam from his upper lip. She hated that the first thing her mind went to was how adorable it was.

"That shouldn't stop you, Blanche," Remus unusually spoke up. Conversations were largely dictated by Sirius and James, with Blanche and Lily closely following. Remus was there for witty commentary and occasionally putting the other three boys back in their places. Rarely did he contribute to a discussion like this. On the other hand, Peter would try to contribute from time to time, but usually these trials were laughed at by the rest of the group. "You've no need to be ashamed of it. We have to live with our scars."

Blanche nodded sullenly, realising the foolishness with which she spoke. She only had some dark pink, discriminatory etching in her arm—whilst Remus had quite a fair deal of scars himself from his curse. According to Sirius, his chest and arms had seen the worst of it.

"You're right, Remus. Thanks," she grinned at him. Although she wanted to follow his knowledge completely, she would still find the scars difficult to expose. Sirius caught the flicker of doubt on her dark brow, and he wrapped a hand around her waist, pulling her closer into his side.

"You'll look beautiful no matter what, you know that," he reminded her in a low voice with a grin, as though not to share the delicate words with the rest of the table. "Loveliest thing I've ever seen."

"Stop it," she rolled her eyes, trying to force a smile off her lips. She reached for her drink before her, taking a long sip until the final, golden dregs sat at the bottom. She wanted desperately to plant a kiss on his lips, which were rendered a deep pink by the cheer of alcohol. But she couldn't here, not before her friends. The most affection they ever showed before others was in secret, whispered words, and perhaps a hand and arm drawn across one another's waists or shoulders—and that was a development from how it was earlier on.

There had been an unusual recovery to Sirius' promise of revenge in the hospital wing. Unusual in that it was… too easy. The next morning Sirius had come back around to hear Madam Pomfrey's update on Blanche's injuries. Once the nurse was out of sight, Blanche interrogated Sirius for answers, but he revealed nothing. She spent two days in immense irritation over his silence, but eventually gave in to Sirius' warm embrace on the third day. And now she was just distracted and angry with herself for so poorly holding her grudge against him.

"Do you want me to get you another drink?" Sirius asked, pulling her from her train of thought.

"It's alright, I'm pretty tired. I think I may head back soon," she stated.

"Oh, okay. Let me just finish my pint," he pointed to his half-full glass in front of him.

"No, you stay," she laughed. "It's a Friday night. I was just up all last night practicing my nonverbal jinxes on an apple."

"Well, I don't want to stay out if you're not," he shrugged, bringing his cup to his lips. Blanche barely realised the table had gone silent as she watched Sirius' Adam's apple bob with a large gulp.

"Sirius Orion Black, please repeat yourself!" James shouted from opposite him.

"Fuck off, James," Sirius looked into the distance, realising what he'd said had been heard aloud. He had never been reserved in publicly expressing his love for Blanche, but he had engineered a certain image of himself throughout the years.

"Oh James, leave him be," Lily chimed in as protectress, smiling proudly at Sirius as a mother would her son before his first date. Sirius rolled his eyes, but everyone caught a faint blush on his cheeks.

"Has Blanche been browbeating you into submission, Padfoot?" Peter teased him. "Best y'do ma biddin' lad, er else ye'll get a good braying, seethee?" He mimicked a painfully heavy Yorkshire accent in reference to her origins. Too bad for him, she'd been raised on the cusp of the cusp of high society, so she had nothing but the Queen's Received English.

"I do not sound like that," She fought.

"Shut up, Wormtail," Sirius added.

"At least he has a woman, Peter," James quipped. "Last lassie I recall you having was last year with Jocasta Maple. You know, the one who hit you with the Sardine Hex when you refused to slip her love potion into Sirius' breakfast tea!"

Peter's face bloomed red across his cheeks and forehead, and Sirius chuckled to himself—glad that the negative attention had been shifted elsewhere thanks to James, who gave him a know 'go-ahead' glance toward the pub's front door.

"Want to head out now?" Sirius looked to Blanche, who nodded in response. The two stood and said there goodbyes, with Lily adding a quiet "have fun" when only Blanche could hear.

"Have a good evening, you two!" Rosmerta called from the bar. Sirius raised a hand in acknowledgement before holding the door open for Blanche.

"Bitch," Blanche added quietly.

"Hey, no need to be sour," Sirius laughed and she could see the colour of his breath in the air. Although it was May, the Highlands of Scotland didn't seem to warm up until June.

Before she could defend herself, Sirius leant down and pressed a long kiss to her lips whilst holding her heart-shaped jaw lightly in his hand. When she deepened the kiss, he dug a hand beneath her black peacoat to try and feel the slight curve from her waist to hip.

"I wanted to do that all night," Sirius told her when they broke. She couldn't tell him she felt the same way, but did share a knowing smile with him. "Want to Apparate back?"

Blanche's body was already molten, she at least needed the walk back to cool her down before they were alone again near a bed back in the Gryffindor Tower. "Let's take the long, traditional way back," she urged, to which Sirius groaned reluctantly.

"But I'm dying to get that coat off of you," he tugged at her sleeve as she began walking down High Street.

"Well, you'll have to wait," she teased. He grudgingly followed, keeping a loose hand around her shoulders the entirety of the walk back.

By the time Sirius and Blanche reached the bifurcation pointing to Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, their school could be seen in the distance—glittering over the treetops and under a star-clogged sky. The towers reached like stately hands up into the sky, hoping to grab a handful of stardust. They both admired it serenely, completely captured by the beauty they were soon leaving.

"Think Filch is out?" Sirius asked quietly as they slipped into the castle through a largely unknown entrance. The shadows of the dark corridors engulfed them as they made their way to Gryffindor Tower.

"Probably out and about busting Fifth Years for drinking and smoking inside. He'll be too busy," she suspected.

The two quietly walked through the castle's first floor, reaching the first set of stairs safely. But at the sound of footsteps echoing nearby, the two dodged behind the thick, marble railing.

"…Well, I haven't heard anything new from Severus," the heavy voice of an older boy sounded through the Entrance Hall. They appeared to be trying to whisper, but the empty, stone castle operated as an echo chamber for the two. As they reached the bottom of the staircase they turned to descend into the Slytherin Dungeon, but one of the two boys stopped the other. A shard of moonlight fell upon them, and the two were revealed. The one who had spoken earlier was Linus Wilkes, a Fifth Year with a penchant for trouble. And the one who stopped him was none other than Regulus Black, who looked just as much like a watered-down version of Sirius as he did at Blanche's mother's funeral.

"What was the last thing that came through?" Regulus demanded.

"You know what! A time and a place," Wilkes snapped back. "Now stop shouting in the bloody Front Hall. We'll finish this conversation in the Dungeon."

Blanche and Sirius quietly waited until their footsteps faded out of earshot. When they were, Blanche tentatively looked at Sirius, who was frustratedly looking into the distance with his brows knit together in a scowl.

"Sirius—" she began.

"That bastard," he swore. "What the hell were they—"

"Let's go to the the Common Room first," she pled, pulling the sleeve of his coat with her up the staircase.

When they entered their desired destination, it was unsurprisingly alive with teenage debauchery. Several drunken members cheered at their entrance—particularly Sirius', as reigning party king of Gryffindor, but he ignored them and made way for the staircase, where he took stairs two-by-two. Blanche followed behind closely, rushing up with him. When they reached the Seventh Year boys dormitory they thankfully found it empty. A good majority of the boys were still at Hogsmeade, and the remainder were probably enjoying themselves elsewhere.

"Honestly, what do you think we just saw?" Sirius enquired heatedly, tugging off his coat and letting it drop to the ground carelessly.

"I don't know what we saw," Blanche tried, picking up his coat from the ground and hanging it on the end of his bed. "You know your brother takes everything your parents say as gospel. Obviously, he's not behaving morally, but this doesn't mean he's a Death Eater. He's too young anyway!"

"But isn't that the opposite of what you said about your father? That you knew but you didn't want to be sure?" He questioned her.

"You're right," she admitted, realising her contradiction. "But your brother is only sixteen. He may just be a mouthpiece between families now, or maybe he's just trying to get along with the other Slytherins. It's different from my father—he's an adult and he knew the whole time I knew him what he wanted. Regulus, you, and I—we're hardly at the cusp of adulthood. We do dumb things for dumb reasons. I wouldn't jump to accuse your brother of joining the Dark Rebellion."

Sirius had sat down at the edge of his bed and she sat beside him, rubbing a hand across his back. "But he's so… impressionable. Even when we were little I would take advantage of him—make him clean my room, make him take the blame for my blunders, make him lie for me when I wanted to disobey my parents. He has no sense of self."

"Yes, and he's sixteen. Do you remember me and you in Fifth Year? And that was only two years ago."

Sirius smiled to himself as her recalled their pranks from another age. "Yes, particularly I remember your frequent and public humiliations of my girlfriends."

"And now I know that I was probably doing that for a reason, and I can admit it—albeit painfully—and only in private to you, that I may have been a little bit jealous," she reasoned, and kept on before he could cheekily comment. "The insight we accumulate over these years in particular is astounding. We can look to months before and critique our every decision. Whether Regulus is on the right or wrong track, he's young enough to be able to jump ship at any time."

Sirius nodded slowly, a content smile sitting on his lips. He reached out for her to unbutton her coat and pushed it to the ground when he finished, subsequently pulling her to the sheets to lay beside her.

"When did you get so wise?" He asked with a wide grin.

"Oh, me? I've always been wise."

Sirius laughed. "That's true. Cleverest thing I've ever met," he said and pulled her in for a soft but sincere kiss. The warmth in her belly that she had left back in Hogsmeade came back instantly, and Blanche squirmed against him.

"Can you close the drapes?" She offered hesitantly, and he nodded, sitting up eagerly to untie the bows that held the curtains to the posters.

"Muffliato," he repeated the now-familiar charm before tucking his wand in his bedside table. When they shared a bed, they most often slept in Sirius', as he knew the other boys wouldn't disturb him as long as he used the silencing charm.

Blanche was already worming beneath the covers when he finished. "Come here," she summoned him. Her voice was like the deadliest of poisons whenever she was electrified like she was in this moment. Her dark hair was a bit messy around her shoulders and her cheeks bloomed the sweetest of pinks. She didn't wear a tie with her button-down as it was a Friday evening and classes were over until the following Monday, and Sirius could see a freckle on her left breast and the indicative swell of supple flesh.

As soon as he lay beside her squished within the slender bed-frame, she pulled him into her embrace and entwined themselves in the only way she yet knew how. The heaviness of her kisses instantly sent Sirius into a wildly excited state, and matters were not helped when she began moving her hands up his chest and back underneath his shirt. And she furthermore made a desperate noise when he failed to realise she was trying to undress him, and he complied by removing it for her. She had seen him shirtless plenty of times before, but she'd never been allowed to truly touch it as she could now. The smooth flesh occasionally printed with black and navy ink was hard and warm beneath her fingers. He was quite thin, and Blanche figured he would be lanky like James if beating the Bludger had not applied a layer of sinew to his bones.

She pulled away to study the new patch of ink where her lips had fallen just below the centre of his collarbones. It was smaller than most of the ones he had—a vertical line with three small, horizontal lines intersecting it.

"Why do you have all of these, Sirius?" She asked, to which he shrugged in response.

"Began with irritating my mother, but then I just kept going," he continued. "You don't have any, right?"

Blanche hesitated but then shook her head. "I like yours, though," she commented, dragging her fingertips across another new addition—the Anglo-Saxon rune Æsc, meaning ash. It was large—extending from the bottom of his sternum to several inches above his navel, and done in a dark grey ink.

She sighed and leaned into his pillow, smelling the minty, woodland scent of his shampoo. She yawned loudly and stretched her arms. "We should probably go to sleep. The ball is tomorrow night, and Merlin knows how long that will run."

"Yeah, we should…" Sirius hummed, beginning to toy with her hair. "Or we could stay up for a bit more."

Blanche rolled her eyes and laughed. "Aren't you bored of me already?" She asked, only half-jokingly. Sirius leaned against the pillow next to her and slithered a hand around her bottom and up along the small of her back. She shivered at the sensation.

"What do you mean?"

"Because I won't…do things," she meekly said, then added: "Yet."

"Blanche, how can a girl as beautiful as you be so self-conscious? And here I thought you were aloof all these years…" he wondered. "However small the fraction you want to give me is enough. Do you know what I thought when we kissed for the first time? On my birthday?"

"What?"

"That all the girls I've ever kissed were just in preparation for kissing you, and none of it was enough. So I've been waiting all this time, and even if you want to wait for years I'll be okay with it. Because I've been waiting for years for you already, and I finally have you. I'm never going to back out and 'get bored.' You're going to have to beat me off with a stick if you want that."

Blanche laughed, curling her arms around his waist. "You're horrifically endearing, Sirius," she blushed.

"I know, and you can't tell anyone," he whispered with a wide grin.

"Seems like you've already gone and done that by yourself," she said, referencing to his exposure at the Three Broomsticks. "Now, can you hand me my pyjamas?"

Sirius nodded and reached to the drawer in his bedside table, where a few of Blanche's nightly possessions had collected—including two pairs of silk, button-up pyjama sets. She sat up and began unbuttoning her dress shirt, to which Sirius obediently covered his eyes as she had shyly told him to before. But this time she reached for his hand. "Small fractions," she shrugged.

Sirius watched in wonder as she revealed a laced ivory bra. She stood on the bed to kick off her skirt to reveal matching knickers as well. Sirius couldn't tear his eyes away from the curve of her bottom, the smallness of her waist, the pale flesh of her inner thighs, the delicate roundness of her small but full breasts. For so long he had imagined what she looked like beneath her clothes, and now that he saw he realised it was better than he ever could have imagined.

"Wait, can you turn around—" he began, but she laughed, shaking her head. She slid on her pants and buttoned up her shirt, climbing back underneath the blankets to curl up beside him.

Blanche sighed beside him, burrowing into the pillow to sleep, but Sirius leapt on top of her and nuzzled his face into her neck, causing her to laugh with the tickling of his curled hair upon her chest. "Well now I certainly can't go to sleep!" Sirius exclaimed, ruined for at least an hour by the sight of her nearly-naked form.