It had been three days since I'd been released from the Hospital Wing when the first chocolate frog appeared.

I found it when I was rummaging through my bag for a spare quill halfway through Charms. One minute, I was all business, diligently looking for a replacement writing implement; the next, my mind was filled with nothing but rapturous thoughts of chocolate frogs.

I had a very big weakness for chocolate frogs. My love affair was a long and passionate one, beginning at the tender age of three and one-quarter when I'd tasted my first. At age seven, my father had figured out that it was a good way to get me to fall in love with reading: I wasn't allowed to eat the frog until I'd learnt about the famous person on the back of the card. My card collection was just shy of fifteen thousand – not one of the largest, but not exactly a modest collection either.

Needless to say, nothing existed for me in the world at that moment except me, and the beautiful purple and gold box cradled in the palm of my hand. I was mesmerised by the way the shiny gold paper caught the sunlight streaming through the high windows… the way its perfection was marred by a note stuck on the back.

Wait, what?

The note snapped me out of it. It was a scrap of a parchment, messily folded into quarters, yet stuck onto the back of my box with almost painstaking care. Frowning a little in bemusement, I gently pulled the paper away from its clingy spellotape, and unfolded the note.

In large, loopy writing that was oh-so-familiar, was the rather baffling message:

A special edition Mordred was released last week. I hope it's him.

My frown deepened. What was my scoundrel of an ex-boyfriend playing at now?

Since my return to normal life, I hadn't been so circumspect in my avoidance of Sirius. The irrational anger and hurt of before had eased a little, leaving confusion in its wake. And let's not forget that I still harboured a broken heart. Love was too painful and annoying by half.

However, since I'd decided not to ignore Sirius' very existence anymore, he'd decided that he was going to ignore my very existence instead.

The idiot was even more infuriating since acting so chivalrously. There really had been no need for him to come back and find me. I'd said in no uncertain terms that I wished never to lay my eyes on him again, and first he goes and respects my wishes, then comes to rescue me.

And then, he goes back to respecting my wishes!

I think I loved him all the more for it, the insufferable git.

But now, there was this chocolate frog. I resisted the urge to turn around and look at where he was sitting behind me, two rows back and three seats to the left. Instead, I tore open the box and let the frog slip into my hand, turning over the card to see who I'd got this time.

Mordred, special edition.

Lily gave me a very strange look at the sight of my small grin.

The next chocolate frog was inside my goblet at lunch. That was a little creepy, but I ignored that for the moment and opened the note stuck to the back.

A Morgana to match the Mordred, perhaps?

His innocuous little messages were so infuriating. What on earth did he mean by this? I glanced up to the other side of the table to see that Sirius was busy chatting and laughing with Peter and Remus. Was it my imagination, or did his laugh sound a little forced? And was he deliberately avoiding my eye?

I pushed that dangerous line of thinking away with a mental derisive snort. I couldn't let what Remus had said to me the other day affect me. I knew that he had our best interests at heart, but he must have been exaggerating when he said that Sirius was worried about me. If he was worried, why didn't he come up and talk to me? Why send chocolate frogs?

Incidentally, the card was Morgana.

Sarah caught me staring down at the card in wonder.

"What's wrong, Millie?" she asked between enthusiastic bites of her quiche. "Why are you staring at that chocolate frog card?"

I shook my head and replied, "Nothing, really. I just wasn't expecting to get the card I got, that's all."

"As long as you eat more than that one bloody frog for lunch, I really don't care," Lily added, breaking away from her love bubble with James to scold me.

I sighed and began eating my lunch. She'd never understood my love for chocolate frogs.

If only everything in life was as simple and good as chocolate frogs.

The Merlin card arrived the next morning next to my alarm clock. Just like that stupid rose (over which I had not sentimentally cast a long-life charm. My spell had accidentally hit it instead of a cupcake I was saving for later, I swear) had magically appeared on Valentine's Day, so did my third chocolate frog.

The note as usual had the creepily prophetic words:

Merlin to complete the trinity?

Holy… er, Merlin! Once is chance. Twice is coincidence. But three times? Three times is just creepy.

I had double Potions first thing, so there was plenty of time to interrogate Sirius about his new-found psychic abilities concerning chocolate frog cards.

Obviously, it took me almost an hour to work up the courage to say more than "Pass the snail brains, please."

"How do you know about the chocolate frog cards?" I finally blurted, after three attempts to say something.

Sirius looked up from where he was fastidiously making two copies of the notes for today's potion. "I beg your pardon?" he asked politely.

I gritted my teeth and held back my surge of frustration. Our pureblood upbringing chose the worst times to rear its ugly head.

"The chocolate frog cards. How do you know about them?"

"What? That you like them and fanatically collect them? It was one of the few subjects on which you would need no prodding to talk about for hours on end." His lips twitched in a hint of his usual smirk, his voice tinged with some of his usual teasing, and my heart practically melted into a puddle of lovesick goo. And then promptly refroze into something slightly misshapen at remembering the hurt he'd caused me.

I wondered if this would give me heartburn.

"No. What the actual card is," I finally said.

He shrugged. "A lucky guess."

"Three times?"

He gave me a lopsided grin. It was a mere shadow of what it usually was, but it still managed to do funny things to my insides.

We lapsed back into silence, and for the first time in weeks, it wasn't as awkward and uncomfortable.

There was another chocolate frog in my goblet at lunch.

Lily looked at it where I'd put it on my empty plate. "I thought we talked about this yesterday," she sighed. "You can't just eat chocolate frogs, Millie, no matter how much you worship them."

"I'm not just eating chocolate frogs," I huffed. "They just keep appearing."

Lily raised an eyebrow. "You know that's impossible."

I looked around to see if the Marauders had arrived yet, and on noticing that they hadn't I continued in a low voice. "Okay, they're not just appearing out of nowhere."

"Then where are they coming from?"

"Sirius keeps writing her love letters on them," Sarah said, plopping down in an empty chair across the table from where Lily and I were sitting.

Lily looked towards me and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "They're not love letters," I muttered.

Lily shook her head and turned back to her lunch. "You two have the strangest relationship I have ever seen."

I looked over at Sarah for a little help. She nodded her head, agreeing, "Definitely. But it's entertaining to watch."

"You find my heartbreak and pain entertaining?" I asked.

"Not when you were so upset. Sirius was a tosser then. But now… it's sort of cute."

I raised an eyebrow I disbelief. "Cute? How are chocolate frogs and stupid notes cute?"

She shrugged. "What does this note say anyway?"

I looked down at where the note was lying, still attached to the frog. If this was another accurate prediction…

I'm very glad you argued with me this morning.

Lily sniggered as she read the note from beside me. "Is that what you two were doing? James and I had wondered."

I shot her a scowl, but asked, "Do you have a spare quill on you?"

I was glad that Sirius was sitting on the same side of the table as me, three people down. He coincidentally got up a fraction of a second before I did, and so it was easy enough to orchestrate a stumble into him.

From much practice, he caught hold of my upper arms almost instinctively. Our gazes caught and tangled for a long moment, his hands gently running down my arms to rest comfortably around my wrists. The simple touch sent a tingle down my spine.

"Sorry!" I squeaked, twisting my hands in his grasp so that they were clutching at his palms. For all that the stumble was planned, my complete lack of coordination meant that I was still a little off-balance. His hold was very reassuring. I also took the opportunity to slip the note he'd given me back into his palms.

His eyes widened a little in surprise, but he took it from me as he took a step back saying, "No problem. Are you alright?"

I nodded and turned around, not looking back.

I didn't allow myself to smile until I was out of the Great Hall and heading up the Grand Staircase to get my things for the next class. I'd written two words in reply: Me too.

At the sight of my grin, Lily rolled her eyes. "Sarah's right. You two are cute. Strange, but cute."

I looked at her quizzically.

"Sirius had the craziest smile on his face I've ever seen."

My smile grew wider.

Our chocolate frog correspondence continued in this way for the next few weeks. Since the NEWT examinations had begun, we were often in each other's presence, but still never talking to each other unless completely necessary. Despite this, I'd catch myself staring at him thoughtfully, my revision momentarily forgotten, as I tried to sort through my confused feelings.

On the one hand, he'd been a complete twat.

On the other hand, I'd never really given him a chance to apologise properly. Ignoring him and then dismissing his rather sorry excuse at an attempted apology in righteous anger.

And he'd still come back for me in Hogsmeade.

And Lily, Sarah, and even Remus had said that he'd been utterly miserable, which suggested that he did still care for me.

And I couldn't just dismiss that my chocolate frog card collection had grown considerably, thanks to him.

And that I was enjoying our written conversations.

We talked about the stupidest things, from Quidditch, to the weather, to how our Defence Against the Dark Arts practical examiners had to be older than Dumbledore.

It was probably those notes, those moments of surprised laughter and happiness that stopped me from being completely thrown into despair during exams. The stress of exams, combined with my still ongoing nightmares meant that I wasn't getting much sleep at all – despite all the chocolate frogs I'd been consuming.

Finally, it was the night before my final NEWT exam. It was Arithmancy, and since only Lily, Sirius and I took it, celebrations for tomorrow night were kindly being planned elsewhere from the Common Room. Lily called in an early night, saying that she needed the rest.

"Don't you mean you need a snog?" I teased.

She narrowed her eyes at me, but still blushed.

I grinned and waved her away, turning back to my final revision worksheet with a sigh. Unable to focus very well that evening, I'd only completed about a quarter of it, but I vowed to finish before I went to bed.

I hadn't been alone for five minutes, sitting cross-legged on the floor at a low table in front of the fire, before I was joined by Sirius.

My heart leaped a little. We hadn't been completely alone since our chocolate frog correspondence began.

He came to sit across from me, and pulled out a sheet of equations identical to mine. I tried very hard not to stare at him and concentrate on the numbers and figures in front of me.

I'd gotten through two questions when a chocolate frog box skittered onto my page, causing my ink bottle to almost topple over.

I looked up scowling at Sirius, to see him wearing an apologetic expression.

Pressing my lips into a firm line, I reached over and tore off the note stuck to the back, not even bothering to open the box to check the card.

It read: Can you help me with question three?

I glanced over at his sheet, and noticed that he had the right answer. He was actually up to question ten. I looked up to see that he was watching me carefully.

I scrawled my answer on the back as usual, scrunched up the scrap of parchment into a little ball, and chucked it onto his page. My mad Quidditch skills meant that his ink bottle was in no danger at all.

I watched him from lowered lashes as he opened the note to read: No. You have the right answer.

He actually looked crestfallen, but he quickly hid it and started scribbling on a piece of paper.

The split second after my attention returned to my work, another chocolate frog landed on my page.

What about question seven?

I wrote back: Right again.

Another chocolate frog. Another note. Don't I have any wrong?

I couldn't help but smile at that. Glancing up, I noticed his sad puppy eyes. I've never seen anyone look sadder at the prospect of being right, I wrote back.

Another chocolate frog sailed toward me, but I caught it before it landed on my page. I grinned at his impressed expression. How else am I going to talk to you if I don't have anything wrong?

I rolled my eyes at him, my worksheet now forgotten. Not bothering to answer such a ludicrous question, I instead asked, Where do you keep getting all these chocolate frogs?

At reading my note, he grinned and picked up a box from next to him.

I actually laughed. It was quite a big box, like one you'd find from a wholesaler of chocolate frogs. I wondered where he'd managed to get his hands on them…

He picked another chocolate frog and attached the note to it hastily. Why? Don't you like them?

I wrote back, I do like them. But why do you keep giving them to me? Are you trying to give me diabetes?

He grinned, but still picked another frog and wrote, Moony said that I should give you a lot of chocolate to apologise.

There was no need to elaborate what he was apologising for. And inundating me with chocolate frogs is your way of apologising?

He grinned. Is it working? If you're sick of the chocolate frogs, I could probably get something else. What are your thoughts on mint chocolate hearts?

I tried to fight down a ridiculous smile as I replied: Is this your way of saying that I have bad breath?

He looked rather horrified. No! Your breath is fine! I thought heart-shaped chocolate might be a good next step.

I frowned slightly in confusion. Next step in what?

My plan to grovel for the next ten years. I glanced up in surprise to see that he was being completely sincere.

It took me a moment to think of an appropriate response. Another of Remus' suggestions?

Yes. My pile of unopened chocolate frogs was growing to be rather dangerously high.

Smart boy, Remus is. And you can stop with the chocolate frog cards for now. I gave him a shy smile as I threw that one across the table.

He grinned back.

For the first time in this little game, I wrote a note first. But only for now. You can try again tomorrow after the exam.

I slid that note across the table and packed my things. There was no way in hell that I was going to finish that sheet now. It was time to call it a night, no matter how enjoyable it had been "talking" with Sirius.

His shoulders slumped as he watched me stand up and swing my bag onto my shoulder.

I was struck by how much this felt like all those other nights we'd spent studying together. From the first one where I'd woken up to find him scratching away at his Transfiguration essay all those months ago, to the many late nights that were spent on working on our Arithmancy homework. I felt a little warm at the thought of the other things we'd done after we'd finished our homework.

It was these thoughts that compelled me to murmur, "Goodnight Sirius."

Before I could blurt out anything else like "I love you" or something equally embarrassing, I turned around and fled to the entrance to the girls' dormitory.

"Goodnight darling," he called back.

I grinned all the way up to my dorm.