Your love/is nothing I can't fight/can't sleep/with a man who dims my shine/I'm in the bedroom/with tissues and then/I know you're outside banging/but I won't let you in/'cause it's a hard life/with love in the world/and I'm a hard boy/loving me's like straightening curls/you've got me wondering why/I, I like it rough/ I, I like it rough/ I, I like it rough/I'm shiny and I know it/don't know why you want to blow it/need a man who likes it rough/likes it rough/likes it rough…
–Lady Gaga, I Like It Rough

Fifth year
November 29th
Sirius

I, Sirius Black, was well and truly shocked speechless. I was standing in the fourth-floor toilets, checking I didn't have lipstick smears anywhere on my person and trying to make my hair look a bit less like I'd been dragged through a doxy nest backwards. It was getting long, I thought, shoving it off my face. I'd need to find some scissors (severing charms work well on most things, but when your wand's so close to your face you tend to lose your nerve a bit. I mean, I quite like all my body parts where they are, thanks very much) and hack it back again. But why, I hear you cry, was I so surprised? No? Oh well. Figure of speech. I'm going to tell you anyway. Usually, at times like this, it took me a minute to rearrange my features into something that looked less like afterglow. But this time, I hadn't needed to. Which meant – shock horror – that something, at some stage of the proceedings, had gone quite seriously wrong. It certainly hadn't been the girl (Lucie McCullough, blonde and curvy, big, pouty mouth, absolute sex on legs… very vocal). Something was very, very off. Personally, I blamed the whole fucked-up situation. One measly little kiss (and the crushing burden of guilt this particular one had come with. I mean, I was practically beside myself when I saw him all bandaged up) really shouldn't screw with your head so badly that you need the rebound shag. Then again, you really shouldn't go around snogging your mates, either…

Ah, yes. That little can of worms. I didn't know what to make of what had happened. Not even slightly. Not only was it Moony, best friend and partner in crime, the only person with the balls to give me a well-deserved verbal bitchslap when I was being a prick, it was also the third bloody time. Or was it? Third? Fourth? I couldn't even remember any more. What does that tell you? God, I just couldn't get away from it. Not even on the full moon nights. Last night, for instance. He'd collapsed against me, still in some pretty serious, heavy-duty pain from turning into a fucking wolf, and I'd flipped out and tried to take his head off, acting on the remains of some instinct to stop anyone finding out on pain of death. Wait, finding out? That was ridiculous. There wasn't anything for anyone to find out about. I also wasn't even thinking about the psychological damage I was going to get from repressing all the guilt from trying to kill him when he'd honestly needed me.

I'm not even making sense anymore. You see, that's one of the million and one things I needed him for. He always knew exactly what I was talking about. Which is some achievement, as half the time I haven't got a clue what I'm talking about.

I knew I should have just let sleeping dogs lie (as it were). I knew. That didn't mean I was actually going to. What did you expect? It wasn't even really my fault. I was curious. I had so many questions about my best mate beating against the inside of my skull that there was no way in hell I could have Just Left It Alone. It wasn't going to be easy, I thought, as I offered the Fat Lady a profuse and highly insincere apology along with my most charming smile in repentance for waking her up from her nap (luckily, she seems to quite like me. Haven't a clue what that could be about…). Getting anything out of him was going to be so damnably difficult because he was the cool type, the one who went in for quiet strength and biting snarkiness instead of hysterics and blurted confessions. Even I didn't know what was going on in that not-quite-so-innocent honey-blonde head of his sometimes. I allowed myself a very small evil grin. It was going to be difficult… if I played fair.

I slouched into the common room, acknowledging the fangirls slightly more than usual – simply because I wanted him to know I was sneaking up on him. I was thinking very carefully about the effect of every single thing I was doing: for instance, I imagined the increased heart rate, the unhealthy, buzzy thrill of anticipation when he realised I was coming. Although, of course, that would only make sense if what I suspected was true was actually true. You follow? Good. I was getting so far into my devious plot that if I'd had a beard, I'd have stroked it. I'd have to borrow Professor Dumbledore's sometime. Now, he had a beard and a half. Besides – getting away from that very odd tangent – you wouldn't believe what an ego-boost it is, having fangirls. The depressing thing is that I can stand in the common room, look round at the girls who suddenly materialise and honestly say that I've been in some kind of misjudged, ill-fated relationship with about half of them. Not even necessarily the more attractive half, either. I scanned the room for him, willingly surrendering to the rush of affection for the place. It's all panelled in dark wood, lit with these warm, creamy-gold lamps and stuffed full of an eclectic collection of armchairs and sofas from all eras and apparently from all over the world. I frowned slightly. Where was he? It was like he was hiding from me or something. Smart boy. If he'd only known what was in my head…

Aha. I'd spotted the glint of lamplight on tawny hair. I tutted. As usual, he was tucked away in one of the little side-chambers, with tables in them so people can work, hidden from the rest of the room by thick, heavy red velvet curtains. Of course, if you will offer teenagers privacy like that, you can hardly expect them to use it to catch up on homework. So, naturally, I got a few death glares and a few more curiously raised eyebrows as I made a beeline for the one you could just about see the back of Moony's head in. I carefully wiped the grin off my face. It wouldn't work at all if he knew what I was doing. Now I thought about it, the prospect of what I was about to do seemed… a bit daunting, even for me. I mean, if it had been some girl I hardly knew, it would have been a walk in the park. But, somehow, the fact that it was him made it quite a lot harder. Relax, I told myself. Just go into girl-pulling mode. After all, if you can't even do that you're pretty much screwed.

With this cheery thought, I slid through the gap in the curtains, into the little pocket of comparative quiet. And there he was, scribbling away at that Transfiguration essay (which, needless to say, I still needed to do). There was more space than I'd expected: a reasonably large, circular table with five chairs around it (what? If I'm ever in one of these things I'm hardly in any state to be noticing trivial things like spaciousness). Again, I squashed the beginnings of a crafty, feline smile. I was about to make the room seem a whole lot smaller to poor Moony. Although I must admit that the fact that he was still half-covered in bandages did make me feel a little bad about what I was about to do. Well, all for the greater good, right?

'Hey, Moon,' I said, in a maddening, I-know-something-you-don't-know voice. He barely glanced up.

'Hi,' he said, clearly not listening. The nerve! No one ignores me. Slowly, I draped myself artfully over a chair. Actually, I felt slightly ridiculous. I'd just have to hope that the effect would cancel out how utterly stupid I looked. I waited.

I waited some more… then gave up.

'We-e-ell,' I purred, in my patented you-know-you-want-me voice. It hasn't failed yet. 'Don't you want to know what I've been… doing?' I honestly couldn't have imbued the last word with another ounce of innuendo and double-entendre. He sighed, dipping his quill into the pot of ink, still not looking up.

'No, Pad. This may shock you, but I have absolutely no interest in whom you've been doing.'

Oh, low blow, Moony, low blow. True, but that wasn't the point. I had to admit, this wasn't going half as well as I'd hoped. Really, he needed to be looking at me. Time for a slightly different approach.

'Moon, have I done something?' I asked, very quietly, in an indecently low voice. This time, I could have sworn I saw him shiver, just a little bit. For a second, I was hopeful, but he just sighed and carried on writing.

'No, Pad, you haven't done anything. I'm just trying to work here, and you're not really helping.' His eyes flicked up at me, and I'd swear I saw some unnameable emotion flick across them. But it was gone before I could tell what it was. I didn't know whether to be offended or reassured that this wasn't working.

'Unless,' he said, eyeing me distrustfully, 'You've got a guilty conscience… Tell me, should I be pissed off with you?'

I laughed, soft and slightly hoarse. Now, that had to work. I sounded so good I practically got off with myself. No, not like that, you perverts. But he wasn't going down so easily. A smile worked its way across his lips, and I nearly had to sit on my hands to quell the sudden and inexplicable impulse to rip his shirt off. God, why today? The big guy up there clearly felt I needed punishing. I made a mental note to check the bible for stories about people sinning and being… er, smited (smote? Smitten?) with very unhelpful full-on lust for their friends.

'No guilty conscience. Well, not for you. Swear on my mother's grave.' I made the puppy eyes, but he'd looked down again.

'Your mother isn't dead, Sirius, and as a direct result of this is not yet in possession of a grave for you to swear on,' he drawled. I could practically smell the snark in the air. He sounded… bored? Maybe I'd been completely wrong. Maybe I'd imagined everything.

'Oh,' I said, feeling that I should say something but not quite knowing how to turn this to my advantage. Ahh, too late, I thought. If it had occurred to me a split second later, I could at least have made it an Ohhhhh. Now, that would have messed with his head nicely. But there was no time to stop and think about what I could have done. I needed fresh tactics. None of these were working. I sat in silence for a minute, thinking.

'Moon, look at me?' I said, aware that the quicker and more authoritatively I said it, the more likely he'd be to obey without question. Sure enough, his head bobbed up again, the unspoken, resentful what? written all over his face. Slowly, sensuously, licking my lips while fixing my eyes on his mouth, I reached out and brushed an imaginary crumb off his cheek.

'You had some food or something there,' I explained, still firmly in bedroom-voice mode. He rolled his eyes, but that time I definitely felt him shudder. Another couple of minutes passed, and I cast around for inspiration for my next attack.

'You know, Moony,' I remarked, gazing objectively at him, 'I think you're working too hard.'

'No, I'm just working. I appreciate that it's a foreign concept for you, but this is what it looks like.'

'Seriously,' I said, pointing to the convenient, gilt-framed mirror opposite him. 'You look tired.' The next comment was as far as I could go without him commenting that I was acting weird. Did I dare? Of course I did. 'In fact,' I finished, straight-faced, getting up to walk around behind him and enjoying the pictures in my head more than I should have done, 'I think you need to spend a bit more time in bed.'

He didn't try to twist his head round, choosing instead to just look into the mirror. Perfect. That was just what I'd wanted. I heard the slight, jagged intake of breath when he saw that my mouth was literally a hair's breadth from his ear, now grinning lasciviously (he'd be so proud of my vocabulary there). Actually, I thought, surprised, we did look good together, me with vampire-pale skin and winter-dark hair and him, all different shades of gold, like an ancient sculpture of some God or another. Unbidden and rather surprising, my head offered me a picture of his rake-thin, gold-toned body pressed tightly against mine. I blinked. Where had that come from? Later, I could stew over that, but for now, I was having fun. Not that it matters, I reminded myself, don't forget you're not actually trying to get off with him, just find out whether it's easier than it ought to be to mess with him. And it was working. When he reached up to pass a hand over his eyes in mock-exasperation, I noticed his hand shaking. Brilliant. Was I good or was I good?

'You know,' he snapped, shoving his chair backwards savagely and nearly breaking my legs in the process, 'I'm done.'

And he stormed off… but not before I'd clocked him carefully holding his bag in front of his body.

Then I allowed myself a proper, unbridled grin. It had worked. I was a genius. Then, I started to think a bit about what it actually meant that it had been so very easy to turn him on. What did it tell me about Moony? And what did it tell me about myself, that I'd enjoyed it so much? Probably that he was a normal, hormone-riddled teenager and that I was, as I'd been informed by several girls, a 'man-whore', but I couldn't shake the feeling that finally subconsciously acknowledged a whole shedload things I really, really didn't want to think about. Actually, I was starting to wonder if this had been such a good idea after all…

You see, this is the problem with thinking. It really takes the fun out of things.

Man, that was one long-ass chapter... The thing is, I've got the next one written too. Should I post it later...? Maybe wait a couple of days...?
Review if you want it, bitchezzzzzzz...
Joking, joking. Ish. xD