A/N: Happy Sunday everyone! Don't know what the weather is like with you but with me it's raining and cold, so the perfect day to snuggle in bed and do some reading and Netflix watching with a nice cup of tea. Unfortunately for me, however, I have an assignment to do (boooo!)

Just so it doesn't come as a surprise, I'll be taking a two-week break in a chapter or two's time because my schedule is rammed and I just know I'm not going to have enough time to write anything decent. I'll let you know when that will kick in on the next chapter, as I'm hoping to try and get as much written before then as possible.

Thank you to the guest reviewer for your feedback and a big welcome to all my new followers/favouriters! :) I hope you all enjoy the next instalment.


Chapter Seven

Aurelia huffed. She was sitting in front of her chest of drawers surrounded by a messy pile of clothes, all of which were either very casual or very formal and hadn't really been updated since her father had fallen on hard times a few years ago. Luckily, she'd been a relatively early bloomer in terms of her figure, so everything more or less fit.

Her eyes caught sight of a t-shirt that had made its way under her bed at some point during the term. It was a wizard rock band t-shirt that she, Regulus, and Sirius, had all bought at a Snitch concert when they were younger. Sirius had grown out of his and given it to her as a pyjama top one night when Kreacher hadn't washed her nighties, and she'd held onto it since. Maybe she could fashion it into some kind of dress? It was just about long enough, and just the sight of it put her in a good mood. Besides, she thought, it's better to be too casual than too smart.

At 8.30pm, she made her way out of the Slytherin common room (wrapped up in her robes so as not to arouse suspicion) and up to Ravenclaw Tower. The party was due to start at 9pm, but people had been told to arrive in specific time slots so that the professors wouldn't catch on. So Ravenclaw.

Primrose had taken her to the common room before, so Aurelia knew where to find the entrance. She rolled her eyes upon seeing a younger Ravenclaw standing outside - they clearly thought the riddles to gain entrance were too advanced for outsiders - and upon the boy's instruction, the door opened to reveal an already lively common room. She stepped in and looked around, scoping out the other attendees.

"You came!" Primrose called, approaching her from out of nowhere and embracing her in a loose hug.

"I didn't realise I had a choice," laughed Aurelia.

"You didn't." Primrose put her drink down on a nearby table and helped Aurelia with her cloak. She looked Aurelia up and down when the cloak was fully off, "What are you wearing? You look about 5!"

Aurelia blushed, taking in Primrose's short green velvet dress and excessively high pointy heels. "I didn't have anything good for a party."

"Clearly!" Primrose agreed unabashedly. "Right, wait there, we can still save this."

Aurelia stood there lamely while she waited for Primrose. She smiled awkwardly at Lily Evans, who was quite clearly talking about her with her friends, and started to question why she'd let Prim talk her into coming.

Thankfully, Primrose came hurtling down the girls' staircase just a few minutes later, some boots and a belt in hand. "Okay," she said, slightly out of breath, "take those disgusting trainers off and put these on." She handed Aurelia a pair of over-the-knee black boots, which the Slytherin eyed wearily. "Dooooo it!" Prim urged.

Rolling her eyes at her friend's exaggerated pout, Aurelia slid her trainers off and laced up the healed boots. "Now this, just to make it a bit more…exciting." Primrose slid a thin leather belt around Aurelia's waist and fastened it as tight as possible. "Much better."

In the absence of a mirror, Aurelia had to make do with looking in the reflection of a window. "I look like a slut."

"You may think that now but give it a few drinks and you'll be thanking me," Primrose told her confidently. She stood next to Aurelia and tilted her head. "We look like twins!"

There was a scoffing sound behind them and Henry Falkirk appeared. "Yeah, non-identical twins where one of you gets all the good DNA."

Prim elbowed him in the ribs. "I assume you're saying I'm the hot one."

Henry pulled a face. "You keep believing that, Prim."

They all laughed and Prim poked her tongue out playfully. "Why don't you make yourself useful and get Aurelia a drink, Henry?"

He saluted her. "Yes ma'am!"

Wasting no time, Prim stuck her hand into her clutch bag, pulled out a lipstick and pressed it in Aurelia's hand, to which she protested, "I'm already wearing lipstick!"

"Yes, but no one wears a nude lip to a party. Red is where it's at."

Aurelia rolled her eyes again but couldn't be bothered to battle with her friend as she'd inevitably lose. "Well you'll have to put it on for me then 'cause I can't see what I'm doing."

Primrose took the lipstick happily and ordered Aurelia to make an 'o' shape with her mouth. "Perfect," she said once she'd finished, surveying her handiwork proudly.

The Slytherin looked back at her reflection in the window, not wholly unhappy with the new take on her appearance. "Right, if I'm going to look like this then I need to be too drunk to care. Have you got any shots?"


The marauders made their way through the secret passage that came out by tapestry on the fourth floor, each carrying as many crates of drinks as they could manage. They'd been down to Hogsmede earlier that day and bought up almost all of the alcohol the Hogshead had in stock. An unspoken excitement buzzed between them as they made it out of the passageway and up to the entrance to the Ravenclaw's common room. Even Remus was giddy with the frenzy of their adventure, something which had caught both James and Sirius' interest. They had talked privately about Remus' love life, or lack of it, and wondered if there was anyone going to the party that he was interested in; they'd agreed to keep their eyes open for any potential flirtation.

Despite being Quidditch rivals, Sirius and James got on well with the Ravenclaw team, and they often extended party invitations to each other on the understanding that the invitees would bring plenty of liquor with them. This was something that the marauders could provide in abundance compared to the Ravenclaws, much to their glee.

The party was in full steam when they arrived, with pockets of people dancing, others partaking in drinking games, and even some other activities going on. Sirius nodded to James, who followed his line of vision to see a couple pressed up against a wall, engaged in some very heavy petting. "Bit early isn't it?" James laughed, ruffling his hair.

"Not for them, clearly," Sirius smirked. "Must need to blow off steam from keeping the know-it-all stick up their arses all the time."

James laughed and nodded appreciatively. "Bit like old Moony, eh! Speaking of, got your eye on anyone tonight?"

Remus' eyes narrowed as he looked between James and Sirius' would-be innocent expressions. "I don't know what you two have planned but I'd like to warn you now that I will give as good as I get."

His friends' eyebrows raised simultaneously. "Oh will you now?" James said gleefully.

"You dirty dog!" Sirius added. "Or should I say wolf?" He winked.

"Shut up!" Remus hissed. Shaking his head, he bent down and pulled open the first crate lid he could get his hands on. "I need a drink."

An hour or so later and the boys had downed two bottles of fire whiskey and twenty pints between them, and were taking bets on the remaining Quidditch matches. Sirius was perched on the edge of a table, a bottle of beer in one hand and Mary MacDonald's hair twirling in the other. Occasionally she would catch the eyes of Lily and Alice, and the three of them would start giggling silently. Had he been less inebriated he may have found it annoying but as it was it was quite nice having a girl's hand rubbing his leg.

"What do you reckon, mate?" Henry asked.

"Hmm?" He asked, phasing back in to the conversation.

"Bit distracted are you, Padfoot?" Peter teased, his eyes falling on Mary's fingers, which were stroking up and down his inner thigh. She turned bright red but didn't move her hand away.

Henry grinned knowingly. "Never mind, let's ask Avery. Hey, Avery! Come here a minute!"

Sirius' eyes jerked up, suddenly focused, and watched as Aurelia walked towards them, looking unbelievably hot in some over-the-knee boots and a t-shirt dress just past her bum.

"Henry," she greeted calmly, either unaware of or ignoring the stares she was getting from the entire group, girls included. "How can I help?" She added when he made no move to speak.

He shook himself out of his momentary lapse of consciousness. "We've just been placing some bets on the quidditch, and were wondering what your take is on Freddy's bet."

Aurelia sized up Freddy, then switched her icy blue scrutiny back on Henry. "Go ahead."

"Okay, so Freddy reckons that Black will be the first Slytherin to concede a penalty in our match against you. What do you think, should I take him up on it?"

"Why do you think Regulus will concede any penalties?"

The Ravenclaw boys sniggered and looked at Henry, who reddened. "Because after I asked you out in fifth year, and you said you'd only go out with me if I won against Slytherin, he's made it his mission to hit every bludger that comes his way against me and he's bound to get caught sooner or later."

The group sniggered again, and even Aurelia couldn't stop herself from cracking a smile. "Has he?" She asked with dramatised innocence. "I hadn't noticed."

Not knowing what impressive and witty response to say back, Henry just asked, "so do you think I should take Freddy up on it?"

"I should think so, Regulus is far too… dexterous to ever get caught."

Something about the way she lingered over the word 'dexterous' both enraged and aroused Sirius - or perhaps that was Mary's hand on his leg.

"Excellent, thank you Aurelia, I will be taking Freddy up on that bet!" He smiled gleefully at his friend. "Oh, and if you could ask him to please stop targeting me that would be great!"

"I'll do nothing of the sort." Aurelia said in mock outrage.

"But how is he ever going to get that date?" One of the other Ravenclaw guys, Kieran piped up.

"Well," Aurelia said, as though speaking to a toddler who couldn't figure out how to get the square peg into the round hole, "he'll just have to win."

The group laughed heartily, even Henry, who had a pretty easy going sense of humour to his credit. Sirius wondered how much Aurelia had had to drink that night, she was really turning on the charm offensive. She looked like she was about to leave, and he couldn't stop himself from saying, "nice tee, Avery."

Her eyes locked on his slowly, as though she'd been purposefully avoiding his gaze for the entire time. Then in a light voice, "Thanks, it's your brother's." She smiled evilly at him, turned, and walked back to her friend Primrose and the others, swinging her hips tantalisingly as she went.

Primrose let out a low whistle as Aurelia rejoined the group. "Wow, Aurelia, which one of those guys has wronged you?"

Aurelia laughed melodically. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Uh, yes you bloody do. That sexy walk you just did, you floored them!"

Aurelia simply shrugged, smiling mischievously.

"OI, EVERYONE!" Henry shouted suddenly, causing more than one person to jump. "Who wants to play spin the bottle?"

Primrose snorted, "he's doing that for your benefit you know."

"I know."


Unsurprisingly, in a room full of randy teenagers there was a full-house of willing participants to play spin the bottle. That also meant that there were a whole variety of options for the bottle to land on, meaning that the chances of Henry actually being able to use the game to engineer a kiss with Aurelia were fairly low.

His friends were too pure and uncorrupted to realise that Sirius had entered into some kind of silent warfare with Aurelia. She was sitting diagonally across from him and Mary was next to him, her hand ever-glued to his leg. Aurelia caught Sirius' eye as Primrose's spin landed on Peter and they engaged in a very brief peck. Her eyes flicked to Mary's hand, then back to him, her brow arching. He broke their gaze and looked at Mary instead, who was giving him 'the eyes'. He moved her hand higher up his thigh, just inches away from his crotch, and she made an odd squeaking noise. Satisfied that he was winning the war, he glanced back over at Aurelia; she was watching Henry take his turn to spin the bottle, apparently unaware of his antics with Mary. "Let's save this for later," he whispered to her.

"Sounds good." She removed her hand but not before she'd swiped it over his crotch. She'd never made a secret of the fact that she liked him and considering she was tall, thin, and blonde, he figured he'd done pretty well for himself. That was until Henry's spin landed on Aurelia.

Henry, overjoyed that his plan had worked out, crawled into the centre of the circle, meeting Aurelia in the middle. Watching them kiss was an unpleasant experience, to say the least, especially as Henry appeared to be dragging it out for as long as possible. He thought about the time he'd kissed Aurelia in his bedroom, how he'd been able to focus on nothing except the smell of her perfume and the fireworks in his stomach.

Pulling himself back to reality for the second time that night, he watched Aurelia pull back from the kiss. A metallic glint reflected off the firelight and caught Sirius' attention. Aurelia was wearing the ring he had given her years ago, the promise ring that was meant to signify his promise marry her in the future. He couldn't believe that she still had it, even less that she wore it! It was on a discreet gold chain around her neck, it must've fallen out from under her t-shirt when she crawled into the centre of the circle. So much for Kreacher stealing the ring back for Mrs Black!

Another thought occurred to him - that photo she'd given him in the hospital wing was some kind of message, the ring must symbolise more to her than she'd ever let on.

Sirius 1 - Aurelia 0.

Triumphant, he found that any feelings of jealousy were overtaken. Now just to let her know that he knew.

It was taking them quite a while to get round the circle, so Sirius had only had two spins of the bottle so far. The first spin got him a kiss with Bertha Jorkins, an irritatingly shrill Hufflepuff girl with big hair not full of secrets as she couldn't keep anything to herself. Hilariously, his second spin had landed on James, and naturally they made as big of a show of their kiss as possible. After Remus had spun and got Lily, much to James' outrage, it was Sirius' turn to go again. He span the bottle with his hand, preferring that to using his wand as some others did, as it wouldn't spin for so long; it began to slow down, creeping past Henry, Freddy, Alice, Primrose, and coming to a stop on Aurelia. What were the chances?

Time to get his own back. The circle had hushed, most people aware of the rivalry between Sirius and any Slytherin, but particularly the Avery. He took as long as he dared to approach her, helped by the fact that she didn't move at all. He kept hold of her gaze, trying to read her. Her expression was irritatingly blank but he noticed her chest rise and fall rapidly: she was nervous. Coming to a stop in front of her, the familiar smell of her perfume consumed him.

"Get on with it, Black!" One of the idiot Ravenclaws heckled.

Without wasting any more time, Sirius slid a hand onto her lower back and thrust her up so their bodies collided. He pushed his other hand behind her ear and through her hair and brought his lips down onto hers powerfully. It wasn't a long kiss, but he owned every second of it, paying particular attention to her plump lower lip. He nipped at it playfully with his teeth before pulling away.

"Nice ring," he said as they separated. "Is that my brother's too?"

She gave him the same devilish smile as before, her brow arching once again. "Touché."

He tuned in to the whooping and clapping of his classmates, who had now picked up that there was some kind of strange competition between them; centred around rivalry over his brother, they assumed.

Aurelia carefully tucked the ring back under her t-shirt as the game resumed.

Mary was furious with him, it transpired. And whilst he did feel guilty for kissing another girl like that in front of her, it was just a game. At least that was what he was telling himself. She was doing that thing girls do where they would ignore you but spend all of their time glaring at you and trying to make you notice that they were ignoring you. It was getting tiring.

Aurelia had snuck off somewhere after the game dissipated. He looked around; she couldn't have gone off with Henry as he had flopped drunkenly on a sofa by the fire, snoring. Had she left? He wanted to look for her but knew he couldn't do so discreetly, there were enough people still conscious that there was a risk he might be seen. He joined the other marauders next to the 'bar' - essentially a long table covered with a mixture of full and empty bottles. "Any luck with Evans?" Sirius asked.

"Not sure. I mean she hasn't told me off all night," James considered, "but she hasn't exactly spoken to me either."

"Maybe she's waiting for you to speak to her." Sirius offered. "Might want you to make the first move."

"What like you and Avery?"

Sirius' heart stopped, James didn't know did he? "What do you mean?" He asked as nonchalantly as he could.

"Well the way you like grabbed her and kissed her, very authoritative."

Needn't have worried, Sirius thought, James was too drunk to really know what he was saying. "Surprised she didn't slap me to be honest. Look, Evans is alone, go and speak to her!" He gave James a tiny shove and his best friend shuffled over to Lily.

The three of them watched them chatting, James having more success than any of them could have predicted. "Merlin, I'm boiling." Sirius moaned, fanning his face with his hand.

"Firewhiskey come down," Peter said wisely. "There's a hidden balcony here somewhere, you should go get some air before the shits come on."

"Sorry?" Sirius guffawed. "The shits?"

"Yeah the firewhiskey shits! Painful stuff."

Deciding not to press the topic any further, Sirius left Peter with a disgusted Remus and went in search of said elusive balcony. He noticed a curtain flutter slightly at the back of the room, and assumed there must be an open door behind it. Sure enough, he pulled it back to reveal a small balcony overlooking the lake.

As he stepped onto the ledge, he noticed he wasn't alone. He pulled the curtain closed behind him. She didn't react to his presence; only when he lent on the balcony beside her did her head turn in his direction. She gave him a small smile, then turned back to look at the sky.

It seemed her mood had changed. She'd lost her air of playfulness and was instead pensive, rolling the ring on its chain between her fingers as she watched the stars. He wondered what was going through her mind but knew not to ask; Aurelia wasn't one to be pushed into confession, she had to want to talk.

"So," he said in a most familiar way, "where did we get to?"

"Aquila, I think," she said without hesitation.

"Show me again?"

She traced a rough 'T' shape with her index finger and gave him a brief explanation of what the constellation represents, her voice soft. After that, they returned to silence for a while. Sirius leaned against the balcony rail with his forearms, watching Aurelia gaze up at the stars, just like he used to.

Noting his eyes on her, she turned her head. "What are you thinking about?" She asked.

"That kiss back there, it was quite something huh?"

Her eyes twinkled. "They always are."

He smiled a kind of crooked, roughish smile. "I don't think there's been enough to really make that judgement."

"No?"

He turned his back to the railing and pulled her arm to bring her to his chest. She wound her hands around his neck just as he wound his around her waist. "I think we should experiment further."

She laughed lightly, tilting her head up to kiss him. He let her lead this one, curious to see where she took it. It was delicate, not forceful like his kiss, but no less intense. Her hands slid down his neck and onto his chest as she kissed him, and he drew his arms tighter around her. Slowly, she moved her tongue against his lips, looking for entry. He allowed it willingly, their kiss deepening, growing in passion.

They pulled away only when they ran out of breath to carry on.

"Always," he agreed finally.

She chuckled and nuzzled his neck with her nose, then rested her head on his chest. They stayed like that for a painfully short time as James could be heard calling Sirius' name. He sighed deeply and she moved away. "To be continued?" He asked, before he stepped back inside.

She flashed him a little smile, sweet and ambiguous all at once. "To be decided."