Prompt: You're in my seat

James has been giving her the silent treatment ever since The Incident, and Lily is determined to get to the bottom of it. Enter, Sirius Black.

It had been a little over two weeks since The Incident (capital letters). Fifteen days, to be more specific. Fifteen days and nine hours, not that she was counting.

Fifteen days, nine hours, and a handful of minutes since she'd gone and ruined their newly formed friendship before it'd really had a chance to start.

She'd kissed him. She'd kissed him.

She'd kissed him, and since then he had ignored her.

Oh, sure he responded when addressed directly, offering one word answers as often as possible. And he wasn't outwardly rude, but as soon as she entered the room, he was mumbling some excuse and was gone before she'd even said anything. Their patrols where he had once chatted her ear off had become silent affairs, save for the sound of their shoes as they walked down the corridor.

Frankly, she was sick of it. They'd started becoming friends this year. She'd gotten to know him, and had come to realize he was more than the arrogant bully she'd taken him as before. He was funny and charming, and incredibly loyal to those lucky enough to be called his friends– and she'd been one of those fortunate enough to fall into that category, until she'd gone and mucked it all up.

Lily wanted to clear the air and get back to the friendship they had only just begun. But it was impossible to apologize to someone who wouldn't spend more than thirty seconds in her presence.

That morning, day fifteen since The Incident, she'd decided enough was enough. He'd dodged her for weeks (fifteen days), and she'd let him; but it was time to be proactive about it.

Lily cornered Sirius during on his way to potions that afternoon.

"Walk to potions with me," she said, looping her arm through his before he had a chance to protest.

He looked surprised, but didn't fight her as she practically dragged him with her towards the potions classroom.

"I'm supposed to be waiting for James, you know," Sirius said as they made their way to the dungeons.

"No you're not," she scoffed, "Potter has the morning block free, so he likes to fly the pitch, and usually flies through lunch as well, and barely makes it to potions on time."

He lifted a quizzical brow.

"I'm observant," she said with a shrug.

When they reached the potions classroom, Lily let Sirius take the lead and followed him to his potions station, hefting her bag onto the table and taking the seat next to him.

"I need to talk to you."

"So I assumed," he deadpanned.

Lily sat, fidgeting with her hands, unsure how to even begin.

"Out with it, Evans."

"Why won't he talk to me?" she blurted.

"You're a smart witch, Evans, I'm sure you can figure it out." Sirius obviously knew which he they were discussing.

"Obviously I don't, or I wouldn't be coming to you for advice."

"Harsh, Evans," he chuckled, not looking offended in the least.

"Oh, please. You know what I mean. Before, whenever something was wrong we usually talked about it, or fought about it, to be fair. But now he won't even say more than three words to me at a time!"

"So what is it you want, Evans?"

"I just want us to go back to being friends. I don't know what's wrong, but I can't even try to fix it if he won't talk to me!"

"You want to go back to being friends?" he'd phrased it as a question, but his done was droll, as if he didn't believe her for a second.

"Yes! We just started getting along this year. Why would I want to change that?"

"I don't know, Evans. Why did you change that?"

"What?"

"Don't play dumb, it doesn't suit you."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Fine then," Sirius said, "New question. Do you want to be friends with him?"

"Of course! I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't. I'm trying my best to fix whatever I did wrong!"

"No, I understand that. What I'm asking is: do you want to be friends, just friends with him?"

She hesitated.

"Of course I do. We've come a long way, I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that."

"You don't sound sure."

"I am."

He raised a skeptical brow.

"I am!" she insisted, "I'm sure we're better off as friends."

Sirius didn't argue with her, but let out a long-suffering sigh that spoke volumes enough. He didn't believe her, but knew he wouldn't get anywhere arguing it now.

"You need to figure out what you want. Do you want to be just friends, or something more?"

She didn't answer.

"You need to figure that out before you go messing with his head any further."

"Messing with– messing with his head? I'm not doing anything like that."

"Who are you kidding, Evans? He told me about the kiss."

"Oh." She felt her cheeks flush.

"Yeah, oh. It took me two days to get that juicy little tidbit out of him. What are you doing, Evans? Just going around kissing blokes?"

"It wasn't like that. It was just an argument that got out of hand, I said some things, he said some things. It was just to prove a point. And, he told me, explicitly, that it had been a childhood crush. He doesn't have feelings for me."

Sirius shook his head in disbelief, muttering, "You're just as blind as he is."

"What?"

"Nothing, but you'd better head over to your station, the bell is about to ring."

Lily glanced around at the students hurrying in, rushing to make it to their seats before the final bell. She hadn't even noticed their entrance, she'd been so engrossed in her conversation with Sirius.

"Wait, no you can't just leave it at that–"

Sirius' attention was focussed on something, someone, just behind her shoulder.

"You're in my seat, Evans"

Lily jumped in her, (well, his) seat at the sound of his voice. It was the most he had spoken to her since The Incident.

"Uh, yes. I– uh, sorry. I'll just–" she stammered.

Sirius snickered in his seat.

"Black. Pleasure as always," she leveled a glare at him that said this is not over, before turning to her work station.

He just smirked and tipped an imaginary hat at her.

"What did Evans want?"

"Oh just some help with the transfiguration homework."

"Really?"

"Yeah. She seemed confused about this one concept, even though it's pretty obvious. She kept insisting it was one thing, even though her answer didn't make any sense. And when I tried to explain it, she just kept saying I was wrong!"

"Oh, maybe I should start on that if it has even got Evans all confused."

"Yeah mate, best deal with it now. I think you might have trouble with this one as well."