A/N: I'm participating in Blackinnon Week 2020 over on Tumblr, which means there will be one Blackinnon story every day this week! All of them will be here in Saudade with one bonus story in Ojala on Saturday as well. =D

Prompt: the first time they met each other.

Syzygy

The first time Sirius saw her was the sorting ceremony. But there weren't fireworks or anything like that. Honestly, he kept his eyes focused on each first-year being sorted to keep from looking around at the shocked faces of the other Gryffindors at the table. But she smiled at him as she walked from the stool to the table and sat a few seats down from him, next to that Remus kid he'd seen on the train. That smile felt like a lifeline while he waited to see if James would be in Gryffindor as well.

When Sirius first met her properly it was a few weeks later and he was about to hex a third-year Slytherin for sending a tripping jinx his way. But from behind him, there was a flash of yellow light and the Slytherin's fingers were stuck twisted around each other. The boy swore and went running down the corridor towards the hospital wing.

Sirius turned around expecting it would be James or Remus, or maybe Peter had come out of his shell and actually was a lot cooler than he thought. His jaw nearly dropped to the floor when he saw the small blonde girl with her wand gripped tightly in her fingers.

"Who are you?"

"Marlene McKinnon," she slid her wand into her robes. "My cousin taught me that spell and I've wanted to try it out for ages but no one had done anything worth having their fingers tied for until I saw that kid trip you."

Sirius grinned, "That's a wicked spell, you should teach me."

She shook her head, "Maybe another time, I'm late."

Sirius frowned but followed her. "You're late for what? We don't have class today."

"I'm going to see Professor Lyons." She smiled at him.

"But first-years can't take Muggle Studies."

She laughed at him and Sirius felt his frown deepen. He hadn't said anything funny.

"Professor Lyons is a family friend; I've known her my whole life."

Marlene turned the corner and knocked on Professor Lyon's door.

"Thanks for walking with me," She smiled at him. "I'll see you around Sirius."

Sirius nodded as his brain tried to follow the fifteen different tangents that had hit him all at once.

"Yeah, sure."

"Marly, my girl, come in!" Professor Lyon's opened the door and Sirius quickly moved back the way he'd come.

He ended up back in the dorm where he found James.

"Where've you been?" James tossed the Quaffle at him.

Sirius caught it easily, a Quaffle was a lot easier to catch than a lamp or a fist, and shrugged, "Wandering."

"We need a way to find each other." James held his hands out for Sirius to toss the Quaffle back to him. "It's frustrating trying to figure out where the other is in this huge castle."

Sirius grunted and tried to figure out why he didn't want to tell James about his run-in with Marlene.

On the other side of the castle, Marlene sat down on her Aunt Peggy's big cushy chair.

"Who was the boy you were with?"

"His name is Sirius, he's a Gryffindor." Marlene tried to keep her voice bored. The other students had whispered about all the awful things the Black family had done, but Marlene didn't think Sirius seemed like an awful person. He seemed like someone who just wanted to have fun.

"Oh, yes, Andromeda's cousin," Aunt Peggy smiled. "Remind me to introduce you to Miss Black. She and Ted Tonks are quite the force. They're the top of my class."

"He's got a good cousin too?" Marlene smiled to herself. That was probably why all the other kids were wrong, they didn't know that he had good people in his family to help him.

Aunt Peggy looked at her for a moment with a soft smile. "He has good people all around him. Maybe you could be one of those good people too, love."

Marlene shrugged. "If he wants to be friends, I won't tell him no."

Aunt Peggy leant forward, "Good for you, now pretend Professor Lyons stepped out for a moment and tell Aunt Peggy why a cute boy was walking with you to have tea with your mum's old spinster friend."

Marlene laughed and shook her head, "You have to promise not to get me in trouble."

"Cross my heart, I'm only your Aunt Peggy."

Marlene grinned, "A Slytherin was trying to hit Sirius with a tripping jinx and I really wanted to try out that finger tying jinx that my cousin taught me, so I used it on that mean kid. Sirius was following me because he wanted me to teach him the jinx I used."

Aunt Peggy laughed. "You keep that one to yourself, a girl has to have some tricks up her sleeve, my dear."

"Ok, I don't think he'll ask again. He seems to get distracted really easily. The teachers always yell at him to pay attention, but he still scores alright, so I guess it's working for him right now."

Marlene let Aunt Peggy move the conversation forward, but a part of her kind of hoped that Sirius wouldn't forget about wanting her to teach him the finger-tying jinx. She sort of liked the idea of being friends with Sirius Black.