A/N: In which one evening detention leads to realizations that Vivian doesn't really know what to do with.
haleygur7: All in good time!
gwenwesley: I'm glad their relationship is growing on you! I'll make you a Vivirius believer yet ;) Of course Regulus will have more screen time in Season 2 as well, so you'll get some actual Regulus/Vivian moments later on if you decide to stick around until then
Toffeeloveryes: That would definitely change Sirius's perspective of his bro I think lol
hayatin: Thanks! If you haven't noticed, I'm having too much fun writing all these detention scenes ;)
Guest: Thanks so much!
LunaEvanna Longbottom: Yeah...as much as I want to have Regulus become the man Vivian wishes he would be, I don't want to verge too far from canon in that regard. As everyone knows by now though, I am going to change up some of the canon later on when it comes to Regulus's ultimate fate, but that won't be for a long time yet
Wikked: I like her with Regulus too, though I am definitely more on team Sirius. I have so many future scene/plot ideas for them when they reunite in the future. Maybe I'll change your mind completely at that point...whenever that point is!
Marnie Quiera: That's a really good way of putting it! I agree 100%
Chrysanthemum: Vivian's slowly starting to realize where she stands with everyone/everything happening to her, hence her drifting away from Regulus. It's going to take a while still before she figures out what she wants from life, but she's getting there!
Guest1515: Lol. I wrote that scene out actually, but decided against putting it into the story. Maybe I'll post it as a separate oneshot at some point
laleh: True! I hadn't thought about it in terms of potential exams. That gives me some ideas about how I'll write the NEWT exam scene though ;)
LilyBlack18: No she's really not haha. I have the next poem written but it won't be for another few chapters before I write the scene for it
AshGalathynius: Thanks! You don't have to wait long for the next detention ;)
puppyduckster: Thank you! I'm glad you like the slow burn. I'm usually a very impatient person so I'm surprised that I haven't just thrown them together yet lol As for Regulus, I never liked that Sirius never found out about his brother's redemption either so I do plan on having him become aware of that in the future.
Guest/guesttt: Feel free to suggest songs if you'd like!
laura-firewalker: No, Vivian and Sirius probably won't need the help ;)
Hope you all enjoy and I'll see everyone next weekend!
Chapter Forty Three | Si vis amari ama
[If you wish to be loved, love]
The following week passes in a similar manner to the previous one. After classes and meals, Vivian and Sirius report to their detentions with Filch, who seems to have made it his life's goal to make every night worse than the last. In all her spare moments, Vivian retreats to the classroom on the third floor. In order to be as discreet as possible with these absences, she often splits her time between the classroom and the library, focusing on research in public while testing out variations of her spell in private. She has yet to test any of her attempts on an actual living creature, but she knows that she will have to take that step eventually. So far, though, she hasn't quite gotten the Latin figured out yet, and so she hasn't deemed it to be fully necessary.
Concerning her task, most of her time is spent with her nose in 'Advanced Latin for the Journeyman Linguist', plying parchment and notebooks with potential terms and particles of speech. She has also taken to corroborating with her Ancient Runes textbook, which, while not traditionally linguistic in nature, has given her some ideas for which to work with. It is also more familiar territory, as she's always held a fascination for the topic, and it gives her a larger sense of stability throughout the process. Overall, though, she is beginning to grow anxious with each failed attempt, but is sure that she's on the right track. She must have altered the Latin verb 'Vivere', her desired root, several dozen times by the end of that week, with no success. She's missing something important – another verb, perhaps, to center the magic to her desired result, or a different prefix or suffix to alter the nature of it – but so far, she has not yet discovered what it might be.
That is why she has decided to bury herself in more research this afternoon, in hopes that it might give her some illumination as to the pieces of the spell that she is missing. Her quiet table in one of the far aisles of the library is thankfully undisturbed save for her own presence. She's leaning over the book that her father had lent her and rereading much of what she has already read. She's convinced that the answer to her problem lies with the nature of Inferi in itself, and therefore she needs to endeavor to learn everything that can be learned about the creatures.
The only problem is that it's quite dry material, written in such a way as to appeal to strict intellectuals who already possess an advanced understanding of dark creatures, and Vivian is already exhausted from having stayed up well into the early hours of morning trying to catch up on homework assignments that she's been procrastinating on. Her eyes are drooping despite it being only mid-afternoon. Her quiet table, while being a boon in terms of privacy, is not helping her to stay awake.
When, after an hour or so, the quiet is broken by the sound of a chair being pulled out beside her, she has been trying not to nod off for some time now and is partially annoyed at having company, while being partially relieved for a distraction.
"If Pince saw you sleeping over her books, she'd be very offended," Gavin tells her cheerfully, heaving his large bookbag into his lap so as to riffle through it.
Her slight annoyance disappears with the realization that her intruder is just Gavin, and Vivian hums sleepily in agreement.
As he's gathering some parchment, he glances up at her and murmurs, "Should I ask the Head Girl to lessen the number of your patrols? You look like you haven't properly slept in weeks."
Vivian, upon hearing his kind suggestion, immediately blinks away her exhaustion and clears her throat. "No, I'm fine. This book is just boring is all." She makes no mention of the fact that he's right, she hasn't been sleeping properly. Not since Christmas, to be precise. That he's unwittingly hit the nail on the head is somewhat nerve-wracking. Is her exhaustion that obvious? She thought she was being more successful with hiding her pale, drawn skin and her bloodshot eyes…
Gavin studies her for one long moment before shrugging and opening one of his textbooks. "Alright," is all he says, and then changes the subject to his absolute favorite. "Have you really not finished your D.A.D.A. essay yet? It's due tomorrow."
The question makes her furrow her brow in confusion, until Gavin sends her a strange look and gestures to her reading material. She wouldn't be reading a book called 'Raising the Dead' unless it was for Defense Against the Dark Arts, after all. Vivian opens her mouth and says, "Oh right. I finished it last night but I wanted to check on a few facts before tomorrow."
At least half of that sentence is, in fact, the truth. She did finish her D.A.D.A. essay last night, staying up in the common room with her schoolwork and assignments layered out before her, desperately trying to get as much work done as possible so that she could turn her attentions to more important things. Task or not, she doubts her parents would be overly pleased if her marks began to fall. She's sure that they fully expect her to accomplish her task while remaining at the top of all her classes.
Gavin hums. He seems to think that there's something off about her, but it isn't quite dire enough to truly concern him because he starts talking about his own essay and what he had chosen to write about, and how it had ended up being fifteen inches longer than the assigned twenty and he'd had to go back and mournfully edit out much of his original (and important!) notations.
"Anyway though," he says after his monologue, "I've brought you something you might like to read." Then, swooping down to once more look through his bag, he pulls out a book and hands it over to her. He leans forward and eagerly gushes, "It's about a man who performs experiments on himself and becomes invisible, and he spends the entire book trying to reverse it. It's a muggle book but I think it was actually written by a wizard under a different penname."
Vivian raises an eyebrow and glances down at it. "'The Invisible Man'? It does sound a bit suspicious," she concedes.
Gavin nods, "I thought so too. You should read it, it's really good. Oh, and I almost forgot – Lily told me to give this to you." He hands over a neatly folded piece of parchment with Vivian's name written on it in precise handwriting. When she sends him a weird look, Gavin shrugs. "I ran into her on my way here. And – can you believe this? – she was with Potter. And she wasn't trying to murder him."
Vivian actually cannot believe that, and stares at Gavin with skeptical eyes. He only shrugs again and turns to flip through his textbook, leaving Vivian to unfold Lily's note and read its contents.
'Vivian,
I wondered if you wanted to go to the Slug Club dinner party this Saturday evening as friends? Potter keeps asking me to go with him, but I would much prefer having the company of someone who doesn't have the intellectual capacity of a mountain troll. (Slughorn actually invited him. I think it's because he's Head Boy.) Anyway, I know this is probably a little random, seeing as we rarely talk outside of prefect meetings, but since it's a dinner party and we aren't able to invite along other people who aren't in the Slug Club, I thought that you'd at least be able to keep Potter off my back.
Sincerely,
Lily'
Vivian immediately narrows her eyes suspiciously. When Gavin sees the look, he raises an eyebrow at her and wonders, "Well? What does she want?"
"She wants to go to Slughorn's dinner party with me. As friends," Vivian responds, sounding slightly grossed out.
Gavin quirks an amused smile and chuckles, "Does that bother you? I thought you were over your prejudices."
The ease in which he calls her out on this makes Vivian blink at him. She opens her mouth to immediately deny his words, then pauses and instead mutters, "That's not the point."
"Then what is?" Gavin asks, uncapping an inkpot and dipping his new heron feather quill into it with a flourish.
Vivian watches him set it to his roll of parchment. "I can't go to a Slug Club dinner party with Lily Evans – and it has nothing to do with my beliefs," she quickly adds, though doesn't go into detail about said beliefs, or the fact that they have changed somewhat since the beginning of the year. "You forget that there will be a lot of Slytherins there."
Gavin glances up at her and frowns, "Yeah, but it's a dinner party. It's not as if you'll be mingling that much. I heard Slughorn usually kicks everyone out after dessert anyway."
While this is true, Vivian still doesn't like the idea of going with Lily. It's not that she doesn't like Lily – she's not nearly as annoying as some Gryffindors – but it still feels like a bad idea. Gavin doesn't seem to think anything of it, though, and Vivian decides against continuing the conversation lest it travel into other, similar avenues, like her standing within her house. She just grunts as she pulls her book forward again.
"Whatever. I'll have to think about it," Vivian grumbles, and stuffs Lily's note into the front of her book.
Gavin hums, "I think it you should go. You don't have a detention that night since it's the weekend and it would definitely annoy Potter, which is always a plus."
She does have to admit that annoying James is a very admirable pastime, and so Vivian snickers a bit as she finds the paragraph she'd been reading before Gavin had arrived.
Speaking of James Potter, though…
"You didn't have to go that far," James mutters, crossing his arms as he quietly shifts a book back onto the shelf directly behind Vivian's aisle. "I do not have the intellectual capacity of a mountain troll."
Beside him, Lily smirks and quietly responds, "Vivian thinks you do, though."
James glowers for half a second before turning to her with shining eyes, and in a slightly louder voice, he happily says, "But you don't?"
Lily pauses, seems to realize what she had just inferred, and quickly responds, "Anyway, this will work, I'm telling you. She didn't outright refuse, so that means I can convince her to go with me as friends."
James nods. "Right. But if your whole scheme doesn't work – "
"It will."
" – Then I get to try out my idea," James declares as they move back towards the main room of the library.
Lily scoffs and shoots him a narrowed look. "Your idea is terrible."
"Excuse me, I've put a lot of thought into that plan," James sniffs haughtily, reclaiming the chair he had recently abandoned in order to do his reconnaissance work. He watches Lily cross her arms as she loiters near the table and opens his mouth to invite her to sit down, but doesn't get the chance because – Holy Choir of Angels – Lily actually pulls out a chair and sits of her own accord.
James stares at her in dazed wonderment until Lily gives him a weird look and demands, "What?"
He opens his mouth to gush about her choice of tables, but then decides that it would probably annoy her and just mumbles, "Er…nothing. Did you do the History of Magic homework?"
Lily raises an eyebrow. "Of course I did," and waits for him to ask –
"Can I borrow it?"
She glowers at him, stands up with a huff, and retorts, "Do it yourself and prove that you're smarter than a troll, James Potter."
With that, she takes her leave, and James, dazed and pining, lets out a contented sigh as he watches her go.
"So what's the deal with your prank, Padfoot?" James wonders as he sits down at the Gryffindor table some hours later for dinner. His ladylove has not yet graced the room with her presence yet, so he keeps shooting glances at the doors to see when she arrives. The way she's said his name today in the library keeps rolling through his mind, and he's in a very happy mood as he fills his plate with roast potatoes and onions and steak.
Sirius glances over at him with a raised eyebrow. "If you're referring to the prank, it's still a work in progress."
"You mean the love – " Peter starts to say, and then falls silent when Sirius shoots him a look and he realizes how loud his voice is. "The poems?" he finishes, dropping his voice to a whisper.
"You mean you're still sending them?" James asks, looking slightly surprised by this.
Sirius isn't sure why, and just gives him a weird look. "Of course I am. Why wouldn't I?"
Remus too looks vaguely surprised. He exchanges a glance with James, who says, "I just figured you'd have gotten bored by now, is all."
The notion that Sirius Black would ever get bored of pranking Vivian Blair seems entirely novel to him, for he raises both his eyebrows now and stares over at his friends with a blank expression. "Bored? Gentlemen, if anything, I'm even more invested now."
He thinks about Vivian's endearing embarrassment from their detention some days prior, and the sight of her in his blazer (and the sight of her before he'd offered his blazer). The tentative way she'd looked at him outside of the Great Hall, quietly breathless and utterly alluring in the dim firelight. He thinks of her blushing countenance and her wild eyes and the way he had wanted to kiss her, then, only he hadn't been able to work up the courage nor face Vivian's wrath should he ever be so courageous. And he smiles, giddy almost, with a boyish sort of charm that has several girls glancing over at him while they eat, because he's Sirius Black and he's gorgeous. To everyone except one, at least. (Or so it seems.)
Remus stares at his boyish smile and says, "Do you finally admit it, then?"
"Admit what?" Sirius wonders, eyes drifting over to the Slytherin table. Vivian's back is turned towards him tonight, but he still admires the curtain of her dark hair and recalls how silky it had felt beneath his fingertips. The desire to wrap it around his hands and drag her head back and skim his mouth over her neck has surfaced in his mind during the hours between then and now. In fact, he's been having trouble thinking about anything else all day.
"That you like her," Remus extrapolates, watching Sirius with a strange look on his face.
Peter and James turn to watch him, too, though with varied expressions. James appears expectant as he waits for Sirius to admit what each of them is already aware of. Peter looks somewhat less pleased, and glances at Sirius with the edge of betrayal in his eyes, as if by liking Vivian Blair, Sirius has committed a true act of treason against their Maraudership. Still, not even Peter seems all that surprised by the notion at this point. Months of watching Sirius fight tooth and nail against his own heart has softened the blow a bit.
"Like her?" Sirius repeats, as if he's going to deny it yet again. His friends wait, raising their eyebrows at him until at last he grumbles, "It doesn't matter, does it? She hates me. I've really mucked things up."
This isn't the admission that the other Marauders were expecting to hear, and it's obvious that they seem to find it shocking. James gapes at him. Remus's eyebrows raise into his hairline. Even Peter looks surprised, turning his head to study Sirius as if he thinks that he's gone insane.
James's mouth flaps open a few times before he settles with a, "So you admit that you've gone too far with your pranks in the past, then," just to gain some clarification.
Sirius grumbles again and sighs, "Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't have if I'd known that someday I'd – " and here he falters, not necessarily because he doesn't want to say the next portion of his sentence, but because Vivian's voice flickers through his head then, and he feels slightly chagrined at the nature of this topic.
"When you said you like me, did you mean that you like me, or that you just feel bad about being a complete arsehole to me since first year? Because to be honest, Black, the thought of you liking me in that way is making me want to vomit."
He had outwardly denied having been an arsehole to her, of course, but he isn't so blind as to not see what she's talking about. He has been an arse to her. Why, if Mrs. Potter, who he considers more a mother than his own, knew some of the things he's said and done to Vivian over the last six years, she'd probably have a heart attack. To be perfectly honest, calling her a bitch, had been the least of his wrongdoings.
Of course she won't trust him enough to help her. She won't believe him when he says that he likes her. She won't allow him to get close to her. He can't blame her for it, either, because if their positions were reversed, he's quite sure that he'd tell her to go fuck off before ever accepting her help. They say that hindsight is a bitch and he can definitely see why.
Prongs cringes a bit, no doubt because he's in agreement with his friend, and says, "Well you can start making up for it. Don't be too hard on yourself, Padfoot. Personally, I think Blair actually likes you more than she wants to admit."
Remus nods, "Yeah, and if you tell her that you were the one who wrote those poems and beg for her forgiveness, I'm sure she'd – "
"Woah woah woah, who said I'm going to tell her that I'm her secret poet?" Sirius demands, and at once, his chagrined expression transforms into staunch denial.
James and Remus fall silent.
Peter smiles smugly. "Padfoot would never do something like that," he proclaims, feeling slightly less betrayed.
Sirius nods profusely. "Yeah, it would send me to an early grave."
He looks somewhat frightened by the prospect, which actually makes James feel slightly amused, and Remus feel slightly less judgmental.
Shaking his head, Remus sighs, "Every secret comes to light eventually, Sirius. You might want to keep that in mind."
But Sirius just adamantly says, "Not every secret, Rem. Are you sure you're a Marauder?"
Before Remus can defend his Marauder membership, James sits up straighter and beams, "Lilyflower, you're here!"
Lily, who is hurrying over to where Marlene and the other Gryffindor girls are sitting, sends him an annoyed look. "For the last time, don't call me that, Potter," she snaps as she passes him, but James hardly bats an eye at her tone.
"She called me 'James' today," he merely informs his friends, puffing out his chest proudly.
The other Marauders roll their eyes, suddenly remembering that Sirius's love life is actually not the only complicated and baffling one in their group.
The topic of the love poems remains lodged in Sirius's head throughout the remainder of dinner and well into the evening. Perhaps that's why he ends up mentioning it during detention that night.
For their next detention, Filch has led Vivian and Sirius down into the dungeons, where one of the Potions classrooms has had a run-in with a clumsy second year. The resulting cauldron explosion ultimately led to an evacuation of the entire room. Rumors of its destruction have already circulated the school, partially helped along by a disgruntled Slughorn, who has brought the subject up several times in his Seventh year classes whenever he was concerned that a student was adding ingredients too quickly or "without reading the instructions!". Clearly, he's very worried that the same incident will repeat itself.
Anyway, the whole place is a mess. Charred ingredients are stuck to the surfaces of the desks and walls, one very unhappy cauldron is in need of some intense scrubbing, and the area surrounding the scene of the accident is in complete disarray.
"Have fun scraping up the bat brains!" Filch had merrily said, before hobbling out of the room while whistling an upbeat jig. Sirius had rolled his eyes at the caretaker and promptly rolled up his sleeves, grumbling a bit about how Filch is just asking to be pranked.
Vivian maintains a neutral silence as she shucks off her Slytherin robes and ties her hair back. The stillness doesn't last for very long. She's beginning to decide that talking to Sirius Black is slightly better than working in awkward silence for the duration of their detention. (Slightly, mind you.)
"So have you gotten any letters lately?" Sirius slowly wonders, glancing at her quickly as he turns his attention to the desk. It's in the middle row next to the far wall, which had gotten hit with the brunt of bat brains. He's going to have to find a way to make Vivian clean that up, because he really doesn't want to. Cleaning isn't really his thing.
Vivian, who is in the process of surveying the desk same as him, crosses her arms and sends him a sidelong glance. "Letters?" she prompts, not entirely sure what he means.
Sirius clears his throat. "Of the romantic type," he clarifies, leaning against one of the clean desks and wondering why he's even asking her. It's just that he can't stop thinking about what Remus had said, about secrets coming out eventually. The shaky truce that they seem to have formed over the last few detentions would be utterly decimated if she were to find out that those letters were all a prank that he himself had concocted to mess with her. Grimacing at the thought, he rubs the back of his neck and imagines her furious expression.
She rolls her eyes. "Oh. You mean the little shit who fancies himself a poet? No, thank Merlin."
Now while Sirius does feel a slight twinge of relief that she seems so unaffected by his prank, the majority of him feels rather slighted that she had just unknowingly insulted him and his superior poetry, and he scoffs, "Fancies himself a poet? What's that supposed to mean?" Then, realizing that his tone is a little too offended to give him the illusion of an outside-party, he hastily adds, "The poems can't be that bad."
Vivian barks out a laugh and grabs a rag from the pile that Filch had so happily provided for them. She throws it at him, grabs one for herself, and responds, "They're not bad. Actually…well, some of them are – well the point is that I never asked to receive them to begin with."
Sirius nods quickly and says, "Right. That – er…makes sense." Then he falls silent and berates himself for broaching the topic at all. Still, he can't seem to let it go. The more he thinks about it, the more Remus's words spiral through his head, and the more he wonders if he ought to just stop the prank entirely. There is only one problem. It doesn't entirely feel like a prank anymore.
How can he explain this? Well, it's like Quidditch. Sure, doing laps and stretches and all the physical training isn't necessarily fun. At first, it's rather tiring. But the more one does it, the less challenging it is. You build up your strength to the point where you don't feel as tired after it's all over, and afterwards your increased resilience makes you seem like a better flyer as a result of it all, and it seems as natural as breathing.
In the beginning, writing those poems had been nothing more than an amusing pastime. He had wanted to psyche Vivian out. The first few poems hadn't meant anything at all, and the only thing he felt by writing them had been dark entertainment and the hope that she'd fall into his trap so that he could later prove to her that she isn't as important as she seems to think she is. Except he doesn't really see her in that light any longer, and he's gotten rather accustomed to pouring his heart into those words.
When had he started doing that? Was it before Christmas, or after? Can a person even pinpoint with any exacting clarity when they begin to fall in love, or is love made up of layers of thoughts and actions, integrated together too tightly to pick apart?
As Sirius begins to wipe down the desk, he slowly wonders, "…Who do you think this secret admirer is?"
A part of him thinks that he should stop while he's ahead, and turn the topic to over avenues lest she suspect that his interest in this subject goes beyond neutral curiosity. But another part, a larger part, is too interested to her hear thoughts on the matter, and he convinces himself that perhaps learning of her perspective will make him feel less unsure about it all. He wouldn't claim to feel guilty about his letters, of course, but he does feel a little bit remorseful.
Vivian glances over at him with an expression that could be described as annoyed, except that the atmosphere feels slightly too calm to bring about such a feeling. The room is quiet as they work together to clean the surface of the desk, and Sirius doesn't seem to be trying to make her angry by his questions. He keeps his eyes trained to his work, and she doesn't detect any hint of deception in his impassive expression.
"Why do you care?" she mutters anyway, not quite ready to bridge the gap between this version of Sirius Black and the one she's always known, who is constantly attempting to get the better of her in some way or another. She sees him send her a quick glance out of the corner of her eye, but doesn't look up to meet his gaze. It's strange that he hasn't insulted her even once yet. She finds that a part of her actually wants him to, if only to bring them back to more familiar ground.
Sirius shrugs, dips his rag into a nearby bucket of soapy water, and then continues to wipe down the desk with a little more elbow grease than he'd used before.
"Just curious," he mumbles. Then, after several seconds of silence, he says in a louder voice, "What if he's someone you don't expect? Like a – a professor or something?"
Vivian immediately stops working so that she can skewer him with a glare. "You think one of our professors would write love poems to a seventeen-year-old girl?" she says, through slightly gritted teeth. It's painfully obvious that she finds his suggestion to be both offensive as well as revolting.
Sirius, despite his better judgement, can't help but snicker at the mental image that his random suggestion has brought on, and smirks, "Anderson is only…what, thirty-nine? Forty?"
A short silence falls upon them, in which Sirius continues to wipe down the desk's surface and Vivian stares at him with a rather contemptable expression on her face. And then Sirius lets out a muffled yelp and stumbles back a few paces, because Vivian ends up throwing her damp, bat-brain infested rag right into his face.
"Oi!" he exclaims, arms flailing in an attempt to remove the disgusting rag from his angelic features. "It was only an idea, no need to go all mental on me!"
She glowers. "You're basically saying that, in a school that probably has more than a thousand students from years one through seven, the only person who would like me enough to send me love letters is an old, desperate professor who's twice my age."
Her short rant is concluded with a few annoyed words muttered beneath her breath and a decision to move as far away from him as is possible. Sirius can't be too upset by this, seeing as she's decided to take on the monstrosity that is the far wall in her attempt to be rid of him. He kicks the dirty rag under the desk and reaches for a clean one as he watches her, brows furrowed somewhat as he considers her words.
She does have a point.
"Right. But that's not what I was saying at all," he denies as he leans back over the desk to start scraping the dried bat brains from its surface once more. "I was just giving you a very far-fetched example of your secret love poet being someone you don't expect him to be."
Vivian snorts but doesn't answer, preferring to scrub at the wall with renewed vengeance.
"For instance, what if it's a third year?"
She grits her teeth and doesn't look at him.
"…Or what if he isn't a student at all? Maybe he lives in Hogsmeade and he saw you one day and – "
She closes her eyes and sighs, wondering what had ever made her think that perhaps Sirius Black wasn't quite as annoying as she always thought he was.
"Or – here's a thought - maybe he's a Gryffindor."
Honestly, she has no idea what had come over her the other night, letting him touch her cheek and –
"What?" Vivian whirls around, eyes locking with Sirius's as his words filter past her thoughts. "A Gryffindor?"
For some reason, Sirius pauses, and stands very still as he studies her. She doesn't notice because she's too busy wrinkling her nose in disgust.
"Well, I mean, it's possible," Sirius says. His voice his careful. Tentative, even. "Maybe it's the only way he can express his feelings…seeing as Slytherin and Gryffindor are natural born rivals and all…"
She narrows her eyes at him and immediately says, "That's ridiculous," before twisting back around to face the wall and continuing her work.
"Not necessarily," Sirius shrugs, making a sterling effort to keep his voice as light as possible. He studies the back of Vivian's head closely, though, wishing he could see her expression so as to get a better idea into her thoughts. As it is, her brief, spluttered response doesn't give him much insight. Slowly, he questions, "Who do you think it is, then?"
Vivian spears him with a look and drawls, "A Slytherin would be ideal, obviously. Maybe it's Regulus."
She doesn't really mean that. Regulus isn't the sort who would dabble with love poems in his spare time, and he especially wouldn't bother with the cloak-and-dagger of it all. Any speculations she may have previously had have been changed by the knowledge that Regulus is far too busy with all of his wannabe Death Eater fanfare. He wouldn't allow himself to get distracted with something so mundane. All of this said, it is extremely amusing watching Sirius's reaction to her offhanded guess.
"Regulus?! As in my brother?" Sirius splutters, sounding highly offended by the notion.
Vivian snorts, bites back a smirk, and then turns to glance at him over her shoulder with a look of innocent confusion on her face. "Do you know anyone else named Regulus?" she wonders.
He gapes at her. "He would never write you a love letter. He'd rather strangle himself."
Vivian shrugs. "Well he'd be a better option than some stupid Gryffindor."
Sirius looks even more offended by this, which is rather hilarious to her because honestly, why does he care so much? Does he really find it upsetting that she doesn't want a Gryffindor hanging all over her? It's a matter of pride. Besides, he's become renown for turning down Slytherin girls, so he can hardly talk.
"Oh…have I hurt your feelings?" Vivian smirks, sounding hopeful.
Sirius glowers, pushes away from the desk, and crosses his arms. "Yes, actually. Gryffindors are great. We're loyal, kindhearted, brave – "
"Don't forget ignorant," she butts in, but he pointedly ignores her.
" – Chivalrous, and of course natural born duelists – "
"Loud and obnoxious," she helpfully supplies.
He spears her a look and continues, "And we're honest to a fault."
Then he pauses and wonders if that's actually true, because here he is, keeping a secret from her that would make her absolutely furious…
"So?" she questions, drawing his mind away from those thoughts. "I'm sure Regulus is loyal and chivalrous – "
"To the Dark Lord maybe," Sirius grumbles.
" – and he isn't obnoxious or annoying like you."
At this, Sirius opens his mouth to gainsay her. "He's full of prejudice and he's too conscientious of blood status." When she looks like she's about to argue, he raises a hand and says, "Don't tell me you disagree, because I know that would be a lie."
Vivian grouses, "What do you mean by that?"
He just reaches for the rag again and starts cleaning the desk as he responds, "Please. You're not into all that pureblood bigotry, Vivian. If you were, you wouldn't be bosom buddies with Clarke."
The term 'bosom buddies' does admittedly make her eyebrow twitch. Or is it because he called her 'Vivian'? She's not sure, but she definitely takes notice.
With a haughty sniff, she also turns back to her cleaning and says, "Not that it's any of your business either way." She doesn't necessarily appreciate him calling her out this, so she makes sure to send him a narrowed glower just to ensure that he gets the message. Judging by the way he rolls his eyes at her and turns his attention back to cleaning the desk, she has a feeling that he hasn't, but thankfully he doesn't pester her about it at this moment in time.
Well good. She'd much rather pester him.
"So…about Regulus," she begins, and lifts an eyebrow when she sees that those few words alone have brought a scowl onto Sirius's face. Just the mere mention of his brother is enough to anger him.
"What about him?" he gruffly demands, sounding very much as if he'd like to nip this conversation in the bud before it can turn into anything meaningful.
She pauses, considering her words more carefully than she might have, if they were discussing this a few months prior. For some reason, she finds that she doesn't want to upset him overmuch. She knows well enough that this particular topic causes him some level of grief, and while she doesn't have any siblings and doesn't truly understand the relationships therein, or what happens when said relationship is sundered to such an extent, she does feel that she ought to navigate it with a certain amount of courtesy. It's a strange thing, wanting to be courteous to someone like him, but she feels it nonetheless, whispering at her to be gentle in her approach.
Instead of asking about Regulus directly, though, as she had originally intended to do, Vivian finds herself inquiring into something else entirely. "Did he really oust you to your father when you went into muggle London?" she wonders, and resumes scrubbing down the wall so as to avoid looking over at him. The distraction of her work also assists with one other thing, too, which is to stop her from overthinking her question.
Why is she curious about Sirius's perspective in all this? She never cared before…
Sirius sounds like he's also confused about her curiosity. When he responds, his voice is subtly hesitant, as if he's not sure whether she is genuinely asking or if she's leading her question towards an insult of some kind.
"Yeah…a few times," he says, and shoots her a strange look that she doesn't see, because her back is facing him. When she doesn't appear to have a snarky response at hand, he slowly adds, "He used to follow me around like a shadow. He practically worshipped me, in a way…that was until I got sorted into Gryffindor, of course. Everything changed, after that."
Well not everything. It took a few years of rebelling against the lifestyle he had been raised in, but by third year, his parents had had enough of his attitude and had begun to show their impatience more clearly. As for Regulus, young and impressionable as he was, he had only to be sorted into Slytherin the year after for his Sirius-worshipping days to come to a screeching end. Peer pressure and the biased judgement of his older classmates, along with the nature of his parents, had put a quick end to whatever idolism he'd had as a child.
Vivian doesn't say anything for a while, and so Sirius thinks that she must not be all that interested in his story. This doesn't particularly surprise him. In his opinion, it isn't exactly a story that makes the listener all that eager to hear more. Personally, he finds it rather depressing. He doesn't often open up about his past to very many people. See, another trait that Gryffindors have is optimism, and he prefers to look at his life and see the blessings rather than the challenges. His friends, Mr. and Mrs. Potter, the life he's carved out for himself without the influence of his family's prejudices…
Then, abruptly, Vivian wonders, "Why did you go into muggle London in the first place?"
And Sirius, who had gotten accustomed to the silence of the room, slows in his cleaning and glances up at her in confused surprise. Her back is still turned towards him. He finds himself very much wishing that he could see her face.
"Why do you want to know?" he returns, wondering where she's going with all of this. This isn't how a standard detention between them ought to go, after all. They don't have heartfelt conversations, or exchange emotional confessions about their pasts, or open up about their current circumstances or anything like that. And while her question isn't necessarily an emotional one, he finds it strange nonetheless, mainly because her voice is so normal. Her words aren't sneered, and her voice isn't insulting. Rather, it's clear and curious and if he didn't know who he was talking to, he might even think that it sounded friendly.
He watches her shoulders lift up into a shrug. "This is better than working in silence, isn't it?"
At this, Sirius pauses. Perhaps she feels his eyes on her, because after a few moments, Vivian turns her head, and they just stand there quietly and stare until she raises an eyebrow at him and he clears his throat.
"Right. I guess," he mutters, ducking his head to resume his work. He pauses for a lengthy minute as he gathers his thoughts, and then in a lighter tone, he says, "Well – there's this pub a few blocks away from my house, see? Most nights, bands come and play. It's great. Have you ever listened to rock n' roll?"
Vivian, who has yet to turn back to scrubbing at the wall, finds herself rather surprised at the excitement burning through his eyes, and murmurs, "…No," as she watches him.
"Muggle music is amazing," he gushes with a crooked smile. "They're so talented. Some of the guitar rifts give me goosebumps – and the lyrics are incredible. The whole atmosphere is, really – but anyway, I'd go down to the pub to listen to the bands, and they'd let me in even though they knew I was underage. I think they appreciated that I was just there for the music, you know?"
It's strange, how oddly attractive he is in his moment, as he enthusiastically explains a piece of his life to her that had, before, been left to darkness. She finds herself watching his movements as he does, hands gesticulating, crooked smile growing wider – until she finds herself edging forward curiously as he speaks, hardly realizing that she's moving at all.
" – There's this one band called The Rolling Stones. They're too big these days to play in some backwater pub but one of the proprietors got me into them. They've got so many good songs. There's Queen too. I bet even you wouldn't be able to say they're bad. I mean, Freddie Mercury is a legend, you should hear his voice – "
If she's hanging onto his every word, Sirius doesn't notice. Perhaps that very ignorance is why she's so interested in what he's saying. He's got this far-away look in his eyes that's strangely enticing. He doesn't even seem to remember that she's there at all.
" – Some really good American bands too, like The Ramones. They've got this attitude to their music that I love. That's the whole thing about rock. The attitude. I guess that's why I like it…"
His eyes suddenly lift to hers, and Sirius seems to abruptly realize that he's been monopolizing the last few minutes with his gushing. There's something about the slight embarrassment that overtakes his features as that realization comes that makes Vivian want to smile. She doesn't, of course, but the urge is still there, lingering in the back of her mind.
"Er. So anyway…Regulus. Right," Sirius coughs, and she purses her lips because the urge is getting harder to quell. "Well he followed me one night. He spilled everything to my parents. They were pretty pissed."
'Pretty pissed' doesn't really cover it, to be fair, but Sirius doesn't want to get into all the bleak details. The memory of the resulting ramifications of that night are better left alone. It doesn't do any good stewing in those things anyway. Suffice to say that his parents were more than a little pissed, and they had no qualms about showing it.
Vivian, knowing for herself what it's like to have strict pureblood parents, hears everything that Sirius isn't saying. "I see…" she murmurs, studying the planes of his expression with close eyes. Memories of her own failed trip into muggle London presses into her thoughts. She thinks it's incredibly strange that she shares a memory of this nature with Sirius Black, of all people.
Sirius quickly waves his hand and adds, "Well anyway, it didn't stop me from visiting that pub again. Actually, it only made me want to rebel even more."
He quips that crooked smile at her, grey eyes flashing in such a way that it finally draws out that smile that she's been trying to tamper down. It floods over her face so quickly that the unnerving quality of that last few moments vanishes in its wake, and Sirius is filled with a different emotion entirely. It's hard to describe, but it's light and pleasant and foggy, like the newness of a crisp morning when the sun isn't able to fully breach the clouds, and only a few wisps of its rays alight upon the earth. There is a dove grey pallor to the dawn that seems pure and untouched, and when you breathe it all in, it's like you're inhaling for the first time. He can't help the smile that burgeons over his own face in response. The crooked edge disappears into a more sincere curve, and it occurs to him that he's never seen her smile like that before. Not at him.
It's lovely.
"So," Vivian murmurs, reaching for one of the fresh rags and turning her attention to the desk same as him, because she feels that she ought to be doing something and she isn't sure she wants to move away and deny herself the sight of his smile. "Why is it called rock and roll, anyway?"
Sirius's smile only grows. He leans back and shrugs, "Dunno. Probably because it makes you want to move."
She raises an eyebrow. "You mean dance."
"No," he responds. "I mean move. I'm not talking about those boring waltzes at those pureblood parties."
Vivian scoffs and mutters, "Waltzes aren't boring. Besides, you haven't been to one of those parties in years."
He doesn't even blink at this and just says, "Look, I'll show you some time. It's hard to explain unless you hear the beat of the music." Then, realizing what he's just said, he clears his throat and mumbles, "If you want, that is."
The pure, sincere smiles from before are exchanged out for something far more familiar when Vivian smirks and drawls, "Are you asking me if I want to dance with you, Black?"
Yes, this is better. More comfortable. Less new and shaky and precarious.
Sirius's smile regains its crookedness when he drawls back, "Maybe I am, Blair."
It's a funny thing, how those next few moments go. Rather than feeling annoyed at his boldness, or disgusted at his offer, Vivian feels only a quiet sort of amusement that he had made the suggestion at all. It doesn't occur to her to feel nervous or embarrassed. It doesn't even occur to her that this seems an awful lot like flirting. That would obviously be ridiculous, because Vivian Blair would never flirt with Sirius Black. And so she only smirks at him, and Sirius only smiles crookedly back, and for the duration of those few moments, they do very little else.
That's the funny thing about time. Sometimes it seems to move quickly, as a rush of seconds around a clock; while sometimes it almost seems to slow down just for you, as if it is accommodating some wayward impulse that unfurls from the human spirit with too much wilderness to capture. And then, when time has accommodated as much of that wayward impulse as it can manage, you blink and remember everything that you had forgotten in that press of seconds. That is what happens when Vivian and Sirius abruptly realize that they are just standing there smiling at each other like idiots.
"…We should probably hurry up. I reckon Filch'll be around soon to check on us," Sirius says, feeling his face grow warm. He doesn't look at Vivian to see if she has a similar reaction.
"…Right," Vivian blinks, suddenly wishing that she'd moved back to the wall after all. She suddenly feels that she's too close to him, and not only in terms of distance.
What had that been about, anyway? It almost feels as if a bridge had been constructed between him and her, and for the briefest of moments, Vivian could have reached out across the expanse and stepped into his world. The thought rattles her, but she can't quite figure out why. It's not until later, once their detention is finished and they're gathering their things to leave, that the answer comes to her.
They step out into the hall and linger there for a moment in awkward silence, as if they both want to say something but aren't entirely sure what to say, and so the silence just builds between them until it turns uncomfortable. Vivian, after some hesitation, glances over at him and murmurs a quick goodbye before she starts to walk down the dark corridor. The Slytherin common room is nearby, only a few hallways down. She's hoping it will be empty so that she can do some work on her spell. As she's passing him, though, Sirius reaches out to gently hook his fingers around her arm and pull her to a stop. The slight pressure of his hand upon her arm is a surprising thing: it this particular moment, it feels incredibly vivid. She turns to look at him, and as he slowly drops his hand from her arm, she feels a confusing burst of disappointment flair through her at the absence of his touch.
"I…uh. Just wanted to say that…um…" he clears his throat and starts over. "For what it's worth, I – "
"Yes?" she prompts. She's slightly impatient and slightly breathless, for reasons unknown for now.
He hesitates for a moment more. She's about to turn around and leave him stuttering out where he stands, but then he says something very unexpected and Vivian is so taken off guard that she doesn't turn around. She doesn't do anything but stare at him in shock.
"I'm sorry," he blurts, keeping his eyes firmly trained to the wall behind her. He seems quite uncomfortable, but determined nonetheless. "For all those pranks and insults…and for calling you a bitch. And…everything."
Everything. Like writing her love letters as a joke. Like playing with her feelings and leading her on and assuming that just because Vivian Blair is a Slytherin and a pureblood, she has no heart. No feelings. No soul.
He's never been more wrong about anything in his entire life.
Vivian stares at him, and he stares at the wall, until at last she struggles to regain her sense of composure and scoffs, "Well it's about time you actually apologized for being an arsehole, Black."
And then, because she feels so awkward in the fact of said apology, and doesn't know what else to say or whether he expects her to say anything more or not –
She turns on her heel and flees, and she doesn't see the way Sirius's mouth curves up into that smile as he watches her go. It isn't until she's safe within her common room, heart beating wildly in her chest, that she has an epiphany.
All of those side-effects? The shivers, the breathlessness, the attention paid to his crooked smile and his earnest explanation of muggle music…it all spins through her head with a sudden vertigo that she collapses into the couch by the fire as her thoughts collapse in on each other.
It's like a dust storm in a desert – wind gusting, sand flying – blowing with such force that, when it all begins to settle, the core of that storm makes her feel as though she is still standing in the center of it even as the winds still and the world is enveloped with tentative peace. And she sees something that she hadn't seen before, in that center. Something that makes her breathe out in shock. Something that makes her shake her head in hopes of rejecting it entirely. Only she can't reject it, because it's there even when she blinks. It isn't a mirage or an illusion. It can't be so easily cast aside.
Still, she tries anyway, because –
Sirius Black is an arse. He's a Gryffindor. He is everything that she isn't, and she's hated him for as long as she can remember. She can't like him.
…Can she?