A/N: I wanted so badly to get an update out before the New Year, and I've just about made it! A few of you are getting antsy for some real Cheryl and Sirius action, and, frankly, so am I... So in the spirit of that, I really hope this chapter gives you at least a little bit of what we've been waiting for (to help make up for the time it's taken me to post it, also)
I really hope all of you had a fantastic Christmas if you celebrated it, and are doing as well as possible given the circumstances! The world is so strange and scary right now. Hopefully this update gives you the same sort of momentary escape as it gave me writing it.
Happy New Year guys! Let's hope it brings positivity.
BlackElectric x
Mr Wolf
There's a famous kid's game called 'What's the time, Mr Wolf'?
You have to sneak up to the person playing as the 'wolf' while he has his back to you, but as soon as he turns around, you freeze in place so he doesn't spot you edging closer towards him.
I couldn't help but think it was a half-decent analogy for Sirius and me.
Every time we shared a moment it was as if he managed to get an inch closer to me than before, until I finally realised what was happening and bolted my emotional gate on him.
And then he would do something so completely unexpected that it would make my gate gradually unlock, and he would get even closer, and then the same thing would happen all over again.
I knew one day there would be no way to lock him out, because he'd already be on my side of it. But that was way too dangerous an idea for me to linger on.
Besides, it almost seemed like he was enjoying treating me like one of the boys. Slapping my back and calling me buddy. Please.
Trying to silence my inner nagging voices, I rolled over onto my side in bed and closed my eyes against the moonlight peeking in through the crack in the curtains.
.o.
As I walked to Defence Against the Dark Arts the next day, I could only vaguely hear Marlene's voice chattering in the background at my side.
My stomach was tying itself in knots imagining what it would be like to see Jesse again after the last time we'd seen one another at the train station; the unfortunate setting of our break up.
Even though he'd sent me a surprisingly lovely Christmas card, it was one thing to communicate with him in writing, and another thing entirely coming face to face with him.
"Ooh, I wonder if Mison will be teaching us today!"
Marlene's voice finally managed to grab my attention.
"Oh wow, I completely forgot," I replied. He had said he'd be coming back after the holidays, he just hadn't specified a date.
"Hope he is back," she continued, "Can't wait to see him. Professor Shahrivar is alright and all, but I miss my boy."
I breathed a laugh at her referring to our mid-thirties DADA Professor as her 'boy'.
As soon as we set foot in the classroom, we both took a few quick, long steps so we could see who was sitting at the Professor's desk.
What we found there was actually a little surprising.
Both the temporary substitute, Professor Shahrivar and Professor Mison were stood together, poring over a text book and talking in conspiratorial voices.
Shahrivar was wearing another one of her patterned silky scarves with her long dark hair tumbling over it in waves. Mison leaned closer into her and said something under his breath, and she let out a sing-song laugh, her eyes closing with the force of it.
"They're flirting..." Marlene said, clocking what I'd seen for myself. A slow grin had started to appear on her face, quickly replaced by a scrunched up look of confusion, "I don't get it, if Mison's back why is she still here anyway?"
"She's probably filling him in on what he's missed while he's been away," I replied.
Marlene blew a snort through her nose. "Oh I bet she is."
As Shahrivar said something back to him, Mison's mouth pulled upwards in a wide smile that showed off the faint dimples in his cheeks, and I was unspeakably happy to see how well he looked in comparison to when he'd been lying half-dead in the hospital wing.
The skin around his eyes was still slightly darker than it used to be, but it was easy to see he was already back to his normal weight, and his hair and clothes were both immaculate; almost like he was over-compensating for the dirt and grease he'd had to put up with for the two months he'd had to spend in the makeshift dungeon.
"Never seen Mison flirt before," Marlene said, leading the way to our seats and talking far too loudly. "He's a bit of a smooth operator underneath all of that shirt starch, isn't he?"
"Mmm," I replied distractedly, scanning the room for Jesse.
Well he wasn't sat in our usual seat that was for sure.
Swinging myself into the empty table for two, I continued to peer around me while Marlene dropped down next to me.
With no more Professor Military and his seating plan, we were officially free to sit wherever we pleased now. And it seemed that it pleased Jesse to sit anywhere except for next to me.
After glancing all the way around the classroom, I finally spotted him sat with Elliot, a loudmouth Gryffindor who was currently talking at him animatedly.
Elliot hadn't seemed to notice Jesse's disinterest, which was hidden behind his mildly polite expression as he listened to what was no doubt drivel, but I had got to know his face extremely well by now.
I could tell he probably would've liked to have pinched a peg on Elliot's lips to get him to shut up, if he hadn't been far too nice to even consider that of course.
As if he sensed me watching him, Jesse's dark brown gaze met mine across the classroom, and he became still for a moment.
Knowing I had to do something, I made a huge effort to smile. I wasn't sure if I imagined his stare soften slightly, but still all he gave me in return was a nod. Short and curt, like the kind you'd give a stranger when you passed them in the street.
Not at all like the way you'd greet someone whose mouth you knew the ins and outs of.
Once Professor Shahrivar had finished explaining what she'd taught us in Mison's absence and left him to get on with it, the rest of the lesson felt like he'd never been away.
The topic was resisting the Imperius curse, and it felt a little too on the nose to be coincidence, considering what had happened with Ant.
Obviously we weren't allowed to cast the actual curse itself, but Mison taught us some equally strong, but perfectly safe and legal alternatives to use in place of it for us to practise with.
Marlene was irritatingly excellent at resisting a lot of my attempts at attack, and I found I really had to put the effort in to get past her magic.
I knew it would take me a bit of practice to master, just like most of the other spells I'd learnt over the years, but the further we got into the year, the more I was starting to have faith in my own abilities.
Besides, I was nothing if not persistent.
.o.
"Did you have a nice Christmas, Cheryl?" Professor Mison asked as I passed his desk to leave once the lesson was over.
He peered up at me briefly over the top of gathering his belongings together and putting them into his ever so slightly weathered satchel. He'd had it since we were in first year at least.
"It was good, thanks," I replied, hesitating before adding tentatively, "You're looking a lot better..."
He swung the filled bag over his arm and smiled wryly.
"That's very nice of you to say. I'm feeling a lot better, I'm glad to report. Well, as much as I possibly can be, of course, considering the circumstances. The recurring nightmares are something I could very much do without..."
He looked like he hadn't meant to share quite that much, and picked up his coat briskly.
"Anyway, off you go," he gestured with it, "Don't want to get locked in the classroom now, do you?"
He gave me a dimpled grin and I did as he had said, joining the queue of students waiting to leave.
Once the door was opened we all shuffled out in a long line.
I looked behind me, trying to spot where Marlene had got to, but found a pair of eyes looking directly back at me.
Jesse quickly turned his head away, pretending to be looking at something in the other direction. I hadn't realised he was right behind me in the line.
Not wanting to make things more awkward, I copied him, moving my head back to the front.
For the next 30 seconds that it took us all to funnel out of the door, all I could focus on was his presence behind me; wondering whether I should've tried to speak to him.
The thought chewed on my conscience, and as soon as we broke free of the classroom I made the on-the-spot decision to turn back around.
"Thank you for the Christmas card," I blurted out, causing him to look at me with wide eyes. "It was cute, with the cat on the front and-"
"-Yes, well you sent me one," he shrugged, cutting me off.
"I know that," I said, a little less certain, "But you still didn't have to do it. I appreciated it."
Jesse's expression had become unreadable.
"You are welcome," he replied eventually, "but really if you want to thank anyone you should save it for my mother. She is the one who bought the card and said I should send one back. She thought it impolite to ignore you."
You were going to ignore me? I didn't say the words out loud, but they formed in a bubble in my head.
"Right, well thanks to your mum then I guess," I said, giving an unconvincing attempt at a chuckle.
Feeling a lump in my throat, I gave him a half hearted wave, "Anyway, I'll see you later."
Unable to stand there with him any longer, I rushed away to find Marlene.
.o.
"What are you two chuckleheads laughing about?" James asked as Marlene and I finally made our way over to our group, all already seated in the Great Hall for lunch.
"Don't do it," I warned her, climbing in by Lily and most definitely not laughing.
"Cheryl just fell up the stairs," Marlene revealed anyway.
"You b-" I called her a choice insult, but her only response was to laugh even harder.
"You know the steps coming out of the Defence corridor-" she explained between breathy chortles, "-Where you have to go down then come up again? She went down on the one side and-"
"Alright, I don't think they need that much information," I said irritably.
"Ah, now hang on a minute," James said, holding his finger up to silence me, "I'm building a mental picture. I need as many visual details as possible. So, how many steps, exactly, did Chezza trip up? And did she land on her hands or was it more of a controlled stumble?"
I pulled a face at him and he flashed a grin in response.
"It actually really hurt," I said, feeling a bit sorry for myself as I reached for the comfort of some mashed potato, dolloping it on my plate.
James stuck his bottom lip out in a pout. "Poor Chezza. Why don't you tell Aunty Jamesy where the boo boo is."
"It's on my ankle, you git," I replied.
I had been so busy fleeing from Jesse that I hadn't been paying attention to my feet or how they interacted with my surroundings. And of course Marlene had chosen the precise moment of my embarrassment to reappear.
"Give me a look?"
I peered up from my plate to find Sirius leaning back from the other side of the table opposite me, his hands held out as if ready to accept my leg in them.
I stayed still, dumbstruck. "What?"
"I can check if it's a sprain," he replied, still waiting with his hands, "Let me see."
James turned to him with a bemused frown line between his eyebrows, looking like he wanted to question Sirius on what exactly his medical experience actually was, but then an uncertain smirk started to quirk ever so slightly at the corner of Potter's mouth.
It didn't last for long before he too looked over at me, his expression measured again. "He's right, you know. Has healing hands, does our Padfoot."
"Pfft," Marlene made a dubious noise.
Reluctantly, I lifted my leg up underneath the table into Sirius's lap where he grabbed hold of my foot.
I felt him lift the fabric of my trousers upwards to reveal my ankle, and he cocked his head to one side.
Moving slowly, he placed his hand on my skin.
I sucked air through my teeth at the initial shock of pain, but after a second the coolness of his palm was actually pretty soothing against the heat of my injury.
Watching him glance up at me, all I could do was stare back at him. Even with all the people around us it felt oddly intimate.
Just as my face started to burn underneath his focus, he looked down and broke our eye contact. Feeling his support on my leg loosen, he let my foot slide slowly back to the floor, his hand inadvertently caressing the length of my calf.
My rebellious heart was thudding in my chest.
"So what's the verdict then, Dr Black?" Remus enquired, noticing the inspection was finished.
Everyone looked at Sirius, waiting for his answer.
"My formal diagnosis is..." he left a dramatic pause, "...she will live."
"How insightful," Sally observed.
"Wow, thanks," I breathed, rolling my eyes while trying not to show how faint headed I suddenly felt.
"You're most welcome," he replied, his eye twitching in what was unmistakeably a wink.
After that I didn't really speak much. I found I was happy just listening to the others' talk, reacting whenever I felt the urge.
While Sirius and I kept accidentally catching one another's eye from across the table, we didn't say anything directly to one another until Care of Magical Creatures later that day.
"Can you imagine what it must be like to have your limbs torn off by the creatures you care for, and then still want to stay in the job?"
James was peering thoughtfully at Professor Kettleburn's wooden arm and legs as me, Lily, Sirius and the rest of the class all followed our Care Of Magical Creatures teacher towards the outdoor clearing he had prepared for our lesson.
When he reached the long, overflowing apparatus table he'd already set up out there, Kettleburn stopped. The cages and random equipment that were arranged on top all looked incongruous against the wet moss, dirt and grass that surrounded the workstation.
"It's like he doesn't even care too," James continued even after poor old Kettleburn had started the lesson, completely oblivious to Potter's scrutiny. "It's like he sees being ripped apart as an unavoidable side-effect of the job or something. If that was me I'd have retired years ago. Go off to spend the rest of my time with whatever was left of me."
"That's a bit grim," I noted, giving him a frown.
"Yes, that's horrid, James," Lily said, clicking her tongue, "Stop being so mean."
"What?" he said, pausing next to the table for two that Lily and I had stopped at, "I'm just pointing out that if I lost an eye to a rampant swarms of Billywigs, I probably wouldn't carry on using them in my classes. Not live ones, anyway."
He rapped at the side of the metal cage that was sat on our desk, filled with two huge sapphire blue insects. Without warning, one of them burst forwards as if flicked from behind and tried to sting his fingers through the bars.
It was a miracle that he managed to pull his hand back in time.
"Nasty little blighters," Sirius observed, looking at the billywig distastefully.
Once the boys had found their own table at the back and Kettleburn had finished explaining what he wanted us to do, Lily and I set about making a list of the creature's attributes.
"Right, well I suppose the first thing we can list is its poisonous stinger," she said. "A nice obvious one. Then there's its bright blue colour; designed to warn off enemies."
"Ok..." I said, quickly scribbling it down. "Number 3 could be the speed it can fly," I suggested, "Too quick for Muggles to spot."
"Yes," Lily agreed. "Good one. No 4?"
We both peered at it for inspiration.
She put her face as close to the creature as she dared and wrinkled her nose.
"Gah! No 4... smells worse than it looks," she pretended to write on her parchment.
I gave a snort. "Really?" Not satisfied to take her word for it, I made the mistake of bending over to stick my nose right next to it.
"Ugh! Oh Merlin, it's disgusting!" I waved my hand in front of my face to try and dispel it from my nostrils.
"Well I did try to warn you!" she laughed.
Once we'd somehow managed to get ten observations down, Lily started questioning me on how Professor Mison had been during his lesson.
"Did he look like he was still unwell?" she asked, her eyes full of genuine concern, "And how about his weight, has he managed to build himself back up?"
"I mean, from what I could tell he looks better," I shrugged.
"Merlin, Cheryl, with descriptions like that you were born to be a poet laureate."
I snorted and shifted my focus to glance over at James and Sirius; something that I'd found myself doing on reflex all the way through the lesson.
This time, however, my eye lingered there, watching Sirius laugh at a joke James had just told him, with Potter still describing whatever it was animatedly and gesturing wildly with his hands. Sirius started to laugh harder, and the deep bark of it carried across the desks towards me.
I felt a small smile creep onto my face, the authenticity of his laughter infectious somehow.
All of a sudden he happened to look across and catch my eye, the wide, toothy grin still on his face. Not wanting to dart my gaze away and make it obvious I had been caught gawping at him, I held his gaze.
Sirius's grin seemed to widen ever so slightly.
With both of us refusing to break our eye contact, I eventually pulled mine away through fear people sitting around us might start to notice.
I heard Sirius's barking laugh from across the clearing again and could see from the corner of my eye that he had gone back to laughing with James as if nothing had happened.
.oOo.
Why Merlin, why do I get myself in these situations? Please use your divine all-knowing power to shed some light on the horror show that is my life.
It had all been going so well, at the start.
Dinner had gone surprisingly smoothly for instance; I had even managed to stop myself from looking at Sirius for the entire time we were sat down, which a record for me at this point.
It was only when Lily happened to overhear me moaning to Dorcas about our Transfiguration homework that it all tipped spectacularly on its head.
"You know you're sitting with some of the best possible people to help you with that, don't you?" she said, holding her spoon aloft with layers of custard and treacle tart on top.
She nodded at Potter. "James is always helping me with my Transfiguration homework. He's almost as good as Professor McGonagall herself. I bet you wouldn't mind helping Cheryl with whatever she's stuck on, isn't that right?"
Lily looked at James expectantly, either not seeing or caring about the look of pure horror? On his face at the out of control steam train coming his way. It was almost possible to see the exact moment that he realised there was no way for him to say no without upsetting his girlfriend.
"I've got some free time after dinner," a different voice offered from next to him. James, Lily and I all raised our eyebrows at Sirius in unison.
"Huh?" I said aloud.
He breathed a laugh. "I'm offering to help you. This is the part where you say thank you."
"No – no it's fine," I stammered, "I'll probably figure it out eventually. I don't want to-"
"Chel, you were only just telling me how you'd never be able to work it out in a million years," Dorcas said, confused at my sudden turnaround.
"That's settled then," Sirius said, looking from her back to me. "You can call me Professor Black. In fact, I'd insist on it."
I could tell he was repressing a smirk, but I couldn't understand what he was possibly getting out of it.
Even so, there I was now, for some unknown reason going along with the idea of 'Professor Black' and heading to the library to meet him.
Preparing myself for what lay ahead, I pushed open the library door and made my way in.
Walking past the high-rise shelves filled to the roof with ancient books, I had just strolled past Madam Pince busy refilling one of them with previously borrowed books, her wand waving and sending each one to its rightful place with her expert precision, when I spotted him sat at one of the tables waiting for me.
"You have got to be kidding me..." I said aloud.
"Shhhh!" Madam Pince stopped her work immediately to glare at me, the books she had been shelving now suspended in mid-air as if they were all judging me as well.
Muttering a half-hearted apology, I continued over to where Sirius had now got to his feet looking pleased with himself.
"What do you think?" he asked, spinning around in a full 360 degrees to give me a better view of what I could only call a costume.
My stare went from the mortarboard he'd got on top of his head down to his floor length black robes, then back up to the monocle he was wearing on one eye, a gold chain dangling from it.
He un-squinted his eyelid and let the lens fall into his hand.
"What? Don't pretend you're not impressed," he said.
He raised his monocle again and began moving it back and forth to examine me like Sherlock Holmes inspecting a clue, his eye getting bigger and smaller in a way that was actually pretty funny.
"Why are you dressed like that?" I asked eventually, wondering why there weren't more people staring at him for being completely weird.
"I'm your tutor?" he said obviously. "And I have been reliably informed that this is what tutors wear."
"It was James wasn't it?"
He grinned and nodded. "Yes. Yes it was."
He gestured back to the table he'd been sat at, "Please, take a seat. Professor Black does not tolerate student tardiness."
Letting out a short gust of air, I went to sit in the closest chair and watched him sit down opposite, making a show of majestically throwing his robes up into the air so as not to sit on them.
"You are really loving this, aren't you?" I asked, baffled that was he taking it this far.
"Life is dull enough, Cheryl, don't you think? Now loosen up and have some fun with me. Who knows, you might actually learn something."
He slammed a book down on the desk in front of me.
"Page 64."
"Fine, but you're taking the hat off," I said, pulling it from his head before he could argue.
Alright, so I'll admit that having Sirius as a tutor wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. After the initial foolishness, he actually took his role quite seriously. For him, anyway.
And he was surprisingly patient with me whenever I needed to question him on anything, which was extremely often.
I stopped making notes to re-read the sentence I'd been copying from A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration. It had made no sense to me whatsoever.
"Sirius, what does 'You must approach this conjuring spell with full velocity' mean? Am I supposed to do it while running or something?"
Sirius laughed. "Almost 100% positive it does not mean that."
Moving to sit next to me, he inclined his body so he could see which part my finger was pointing to.
"Ah, see, by velocity they likely mean force," he said, thankfully speaking lower and softer than before, considering he was right next to my ear. "As in, mental force."
"So I have to be mentally forceful?" I asked, my speech unintentionally mirroring his.
He gave a light chuckle, "Precisely. Think you can do it, Morland? Be forceful?"
I swallowed. The way he'd said forceful made something shift in my chest, like it was an unspoken invite for me to handcuff him to a bed or something. The sensation swirled around once inside me before calming itself.
"Of course," I replied, faking nonchalance.
His lips curved upwards, but he still wouldn't widen the distance from me, keeping his focus on my face. It was then that I knew. I knew. It was going to happen all over again. Just like in the cabin.
"Guess I'd better write it down then," I said putting my right arm in between us like a wall under the pretence of making notes.
He craned his neck to check the large, round clock hung on the far wall behind us.
"Merlin, we've been at this 3 hours. Might be time to call it a night."
I turned to double check; sure he must've read it wrong. "Wow, that went quick..."
He grunted in agreement. "Who would've thought studying could be so much fun."
I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic so I got up from my seat and started to pile up all the books we'd used ready to put them back.
"Don't worry about those, I'll take them."
I frowned at him. "Are you sure?"
He put the mortarboard back on his head at an angle and then used his wand in a similar way that Madam Pince had done. In an instant all of the books on the table had flown back to their proper shelves.
"I'm positive. Shall we?"
Starting to follow him out to the exit, I was stopped when the tip of my toe caught against something hard and heavy.
'Transformation through the Ages' lay at my feet. I'd forgotten I'd put down there out of the way because it'd been taking up too much desk space.
"You go on ahead," I told him, "We missed one."
He paused before finally a shrug. "Alright, see you when I see you."
Not wanting to use the same levitation technique as Sirius and Pince in case the ginormous tome accidentally clunked an unsuspecting student across the head, I checked the labelling on each high storey row until I saw the one that matched the code on the spine of the book.
I was able to spot the chasm of a gap it was meant to fill almost immediately, and had just slotted it in when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
Swivelling around, I was shocked to find Sirius standing there. We stared at one another for a second, his stupid cap still slanted on his head.
"What are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought you were leaving."
I could feel my heart pumping wildly. It wasn't just from the shock of not hearing him approach, but also from the way I'd noticed his pupils were dilated, and it felt as if he was practically radiating energy.
"I forgot something," he replied.
He barely gave me chance to process what he'd said, because in the next instant his hands were on my waist.
When he crushed his face to mine, I reciprocated without even thinking about it. I knew now that I had been imagining it all evening. I just hadn't wanted to admit it to myself.
The weight of his body pressed against me made me stumble backwards against the bookshelf, and when it forced me to come to a stop I felt him release a guttural moan at the back of his throat, the vibrations of it reverberating against my lips.
I fisted my hand into the back of his hair in response, nearly knocking his hat off in the process.
Without releasing me from the kiss, he somehow managed to reach a hand up to grab it, flinging it carelessly across the floor next to us.
I'm not proud to admit that I was fully aware that what we were doing was a mistake, and yet, I continued to meet him with just as much enthusiasm as he was showing me.
When we parted, I kept my eyes closed. "That wasn't supposed to have happened."
I heard him sigh, almost inaudibly.
"Could've fooled me," he replied thickly, his hands still on my hips.
My mind was in tumult and a long silence passed between us, both of us completely still as if we didn't dare to move.
Finally I broke it. "You're right."
Raising my head to look at him again, I was able to see the disorientation my words had left on his face.
"...I'm right?"
With my arms still around his neck, I lifted my chin slightly higher, and when I got within a whisper of his lips I stopped, knowing that if I did this now there would be no turning back.
