(Chapter Six)
Sirius had been watching James doodle little sketches of his initials with Lily's during a particularly tiresome History of Magic lesson where Professor Binns's tranquillizing voice seemed to perpetuate a stupor in a class that was looking eagerly towards the upcoming holiday vacation. They had only a few more weeks before the end of classes and then everyone would be going home for the holidays. Sirius, for his part, could have cared less for the holidays and, as he watched James scratch out the initials and crumple up the parchment, vaguely thought that going home would almost be better this year.
Seeing Lily in the corridor that afternoon had been unnerving. He could not remember any time that she had ever cried in his memory and although he had seen no tears, there was an unmistakably damp look in her eyes and her expression had been that of a person deeply upset. He had always seen her as a formidable type of girl – perhaps what Professor McGonagall might have been when she had been younger – and the idea that someone like Severus could break her down so easily bothered him. Sure, he had shouted at her the day prior, but nothing he said had seriously wounded her.
His gaze drifted over to her where she was bent over her parchment, studiously taking notes. When she had walked in, he had noticed her eyes had been a little red. Beside her, Alice had her head in her hand, her head bobbing as she fell in and out of sleep, jerking occasionally as she woke up. On her other side, Marlene was scratching her quill against her chin, her own eyes drifting around the classroom in mild disinterest. She stifled a yawn and then popped her quill into the ink before she added a few notes. There was a blotch of ink on her chin where she had scratched.
Sirius glanced at his friend, who was now doodling broomsticks, and then over to Remus, who took notes with the air of a court reporter who was not absorbing a thing that he wrote down. Peter was fast asleep, his head in his arms on the desk, snoring slightly.
"Did you notice Evans?" Sirius asked James after casting the Muffliato Charm outside their group, a spell they had learned from one of the Slytherin students.
"I always notice her," James smirked.
"Nice," Sirius said sarcastically. "I meant, her eyes."
"One of her best features, happy to see you've noticed," his friend said approvingly.
"You prat." Remus paused in his record-taking, raising his eyebrows, a small smile playing at the edge of his lips. "She had been crying, or were you too busy staring at something else to notice?"
James ruffled his hair absent-mindedly, frowning as he pointed his gaze towards where Lily was still taking notes. She tucked her hair behind her ear and sniffled, briefly rubbing the back of her hand on her nose. She was not crying, but even her side profile gave her the impression of someone who was not having a good day.
"Snape, you think?" James asked, returning his gaze back to Sirius. Remus, who had also looked over to her, was still watching her with a puckered brow.
"Beats me," Sirius lied, "but if it is, I reckon we shake him up a bit this weekend, eh?"
"Is that really going to fix the problem, though?" Remus asked as James made a rude gesture towards the desk in agreement in response to Sirius. "For all you know, maybe she's upset that he's getting bullied so much."
"Oh, please, we're not bullying him. If he was being bullied, I would make sure that he was the one crying – or in St. Mungo's, either way." Sirius pointed a finger to him. "Don't act the prefect right now, Moony. You'll spoil all my weekend plans."
"This has nothing to do with me being a prefect," Remus said with a deepening frown. "I let you two go on most of the time, but I don't think you should get involved. You're assuming a lot based on seeing a girl's red eyes. She could have allergies for all you know or have gotten a letter from her parents saying her pet rabbit died."
Sirius and James stared at him. His words made complete sense and they each hated it.
If Sirius had not seen what he had before the lesson, he would have been more willing to drop it. It was not his place to gossip about Lily, though. Out of respect for her, he did not mention seeing her with Snape. As much as she had annoyed him yesterday, she had apologized and that took a great deal of maturity that most people – including himself – did not possess. The least he could do, he figured, was not divulge something that he was sure she would not have wanted anyone to see.
That did not mean, however, that he had no plans to poke his own nose into it later. He and James already had plans to get back at Snape later, but whether Sirius raised a finger to help him if the situation got sticky would depend entirely on what type of karma Snape had coming for him. After all, if he was dead, that opened up a whole new avenue of opportunities for both James and Lily.
For now, he would pretend that on some level, he did not wish he was included in that list of opportunities.
"Fine," James grumbled to Remus, "but I'm only promising not to go out of my way to wreck the git." Sirius shrugged in defeat in addition to James's response.
This seemed to satisfy Remus, who returned to his record-taking while Sirius lifted muffliato.
After class, Sirius lingered back behind the others, saying, "I'll catch up with you," without providing an explanation. As the other boys continued on towards Herbology, Sirius lingered outside the classroom until Lily and the other two girls exited the classroom. He had folded a piece of parchment in his hand while waiting and now stepped forward, waving it and saying, "Oi, Evans."
Lily cast him a wary glance. "Yes?"
"Got a note for you." Sirius raised his eyebrows meaningfully, hoping that she would catch on.
She eyed him and then said to her friends, "You can go ahead of me. I'll be right there."
Marlene perked up a bit, smiling even as Alice protested. It was clear she thought the note was from James. "Sure! We'll see you." Grasping Alice's arm in hers, she dragged her away to give them privacy.
Lily took the piece of parchment from Sirius, opening it up and smiling slightly. "Blank," she noted and then tucked it into her robes in case her friends had looked back to watch her. "What's this about?"
Sirius rubbed the back of his neck, aware that he was putting himself in an awkward position and potentially opening a door that should have remained closed. Remus's warning about love triangles rang in his head not for the first time since he had said it. The hell with it, he decided dismissively. "I saw you earlier with Snape – whatever he said that got you so upset is rubbish. You shouldn't be crying in the middle of school over it."
Lily laughed and, he realized, it was the first time he had ever really heard her laugh without a hint of irony or exasperation. It sounded genuine and a bit grateful.
"You don't even know what he said," she pointed out with a warm smile.
"No, but I know he's a knob."
She seemed to consider this and then nodded slowly. "Yeah, sometimes." She raised her eyes back to him. "I know you're probably just saying it because you hate him, but...thanks, Sirius. And also..." She hesitated this time. "Thanks for not saying it in front of James. I know how he likes to play white knight."
"You have to admit that he's good at it," Sirius said loyally.
Lily did not miss the tone of pride in his voice and her smile reappeared. "Okay, I'll admit that he is – but don't tell him that. He'd be insufferable."
Her compliment of James strangely seemed like it was for his benefit and he felt even more uncomfortable than he had when he had stayed back behind everyone else.
"Right," he said instead. "Well. I'll see you in detention."
"Aren't you going to Herbology?" she asked in surprise.
He cast her an exasperated stare. "Obviously, but I'm not planning to sit with you."
Lily snorted and rolled her eyes, but went ahead of him, waving her hand in a mocking wave. He waited for some minutes before following, making certain to walk slowly and to take his time so that he would be late and would not be associated with her entrance to the classroom.
"Black," Professor Sprout sighed when he walked in, "it wouldn't take that much effort to arrive on time considering you live where you take classes."
"And yet I still have to handle hallway traffic, professor," Sirius drawled lazily, settling between Peter and James at the work table. "Have you ever tried navigating teenagers making out in hallways? It's worse than getting caught in a Floo Network jam."
Professor Sprout directed a side-eyed glare at him, but she was smiling. "Five points from Gryffindor, and next time don't take so much time kissing girls."
"Who said it was me?" he asked.
"Me," she answered, "or do you think I don't listen to student gossip, either?" She gave a tiny little nod towards a work table and he turned to see Dorcas sitting there with her hair pulled back with a scarf. Becoming aware that it had been she who Professor Sprout had nodded at, she flashed a mischievous smile.
"How does she come to that conclusion when Dorcas showed up on time?" Sirius grumpily asked James as Professor Sprout began to go into a detailed lesson about caring for the healing herb, Origanum Dictamnus.
"If you wanted to go out with her, I wouldn't complain," James said to Sirius, catching Dorcas peeking over at Sirius. "She seems to like you. And after all, hard to stick to code when I've dated most of the eligible girls around here." He gestured towards Remus and Peter. "That goes for you two, as well."
"Thanks," Remus said dryly. "I've always wanted to date a girl that will continuously compare me to my mate."
"Good point," Sirius muttered.
When Lily arrived for detention that night, she felt a strange pang in her chest, as if she had been on a vacation and was saying goodbye to a friend. She knew it was foolish, but Sirius's attempt at comfort earlier that day had given her that developing, squiggly feeling in her belly that had would sometimes present itself when she was near him. She had explained it away previously with biology and science, but her nervousness when approaching Professor McGonagall's classroom was too akin to how she used to feel when meeting up with Severus that she began to question that explanation.
Wiping palms that were suddenly sweaty, she entered the bedroom and gave a small smile of greeting to McGonagall. Stepping into the storage room, she had to admit that it looked quite clean compared to how it had at the beginning of her detention. It was entirely clean except for the back corner, where McGonagall was having them label and reshelve all of the wooden toys. Once this was completed, they were to collect all of the trash and take it down to the basement where the house elves took care of the castle trash. And then, their detention would be completely done.
It was not so much that Lily would miss having her evenings occupied – keeping up with homework had been a nightmare the last two weeks – but she would have no reason for talking to Sirius after this. Perhaps that was a good thing, in some sense. She could get rid of this horrible feeling she had been having this past week, Severus would stop targeting him, and she could get on with her term in peace.
When Sirius walked in, yawning idly, she felt a fluttering in her stomach and began to doubt very much if there was going to be any peace for her that term.
"Alright, you two," McGonagall said, stepping in behind him. "This will be the last night of detention and I want this storage room looking sparkling by the end of the night before you go. I have a staff meeting in an hour, but I expect you both to behave." She shot a look towards Sirius. Clearly, she had not yet forgotten about the encounter with Severus in the hallway.
Sirius put a hand to his chest mockingly. "I would never dream of anything but that, professor," he said in tones of innocent.
In spite of her severe glare, Lily caught her smile when McGonagall turned and guessed that their professor had forgiven him in the space of a day.
The two of them set to work, with Lily doing the labelling with her neat, clean handwriting, as McGonagall had firmly prohibited any wands during for any of their labor during their detention. Sirius made light conversation with her about an article he had ready in Runes and Rights, an Arithmancy magazine. They spent the first part of their detention talking about runes and the new interpretations of certain runes in an old Romanian castle crypt that had been discovered by a group of wizards and curse-breakers. Lily was thankful for a normal conversation and glad that he did not try to bring up her tears again. The thing about Sirius, she realized, was that he was perfectly content to address something once and then let it be. It was something, she discovered, that she quite liked about him.
That thought, which had occurred in the middle of a conversation lull, jarred her. She did not want to think of things that she liked about Sirius Black – in fact, she did not want to think about him at all.
Getting to her feet from where she had been sitting doing her penmanship, she asked, "Should we start to put things back up on the shelf?"
Sirius, who had been scrubbing at the toys, was frowning at the shelves. "McGonagall will kill us if we put it back up like that." He gestured towards the shelves that were covered in cobwebs.
Lily glanced behind her, listening. She had heard McGonagall leave a short time ago for her staff meeting. She inched a bit closer to Sirius, lowering her voice, "Couldn't we...just for tonight...use our wand for this part? Just a quick spell."
Sirius had turned to look at her and a lazy, amused smile crossed his lips. "Evans, has detention turned you into a troublemaker?" he teased.
She flushed, scowling up at him. "Oh, shut up!" She moved to where she had deposited her schoolbag and robes, fishing in her bag for her wand. Another glanced over her shoulder and she gave her wand a flick, thinking, Scourgify! The cobwebs, chunks of random wood and what looks like clods of dirt disappeared. She hastily stowed her wand again and joined Sirius, who ran a finger along the shelf.
"Not bad," he said, raising a finger that was clean of dirt. "That'll take at least an hour off our detention."
"Come on, let's get this done so we can take the trash down." She climbed onto the counter, standing on her knees and beginning to arrange the wooden toys on the upper shelf. She did not bother to mention why she was impatient to end the detention, choosing to act instead like an industrious detention worker. The longer she stayed in this room with Sirius, the more stupid she was beginning to feel. Talking with him felt natural and in spite of his immaturity in other ways, when they spoke of runes and other intellectual pursuits, they did not feel like just teenagers at Hogwarts, but like-minded intellectuals with common ideas. Only with Severus had she ever been able to talk thusly – Alice and Marlene certainly did not care to keep up with the recent research.
She heard the sound of Sirius moving something and a moment later felt the warmth of his body near hers. She turned to see what he was doing and almost knocked him off a step stool that he had drawn towards the shelves. As he swayed backwards, Lily gasped and grabbed hold of his shoulder, pulling back. This overcorrected him and he went toppling towards her. He caught himself on the shelves, his hand knocking a collection of toys that she had just arranged.
For a few seconds, they neither said nor did anything. He was close to her, much too close, to where she could feel his breath on her cheek and she was still holding onto his shoulder. At some point in the flailing, he had grasped her elbow to avoid falling. His dark eyes had met hers and her own wide, green eyes stared into his and there was a sinking, dawning comprehension in that short moment.
I like him, she realized, hearing her heart thudding in her ears, feeling her pulse beat against her neck. Her gaze flickered to his lips and then she had to wrench her gaze down, towards the fallen toys. "Sorry," she mumbled into the silence, listening to her heartbeat increasing in her own ears, feeling the warmth in her neck and cheeks from blushing. "I didn't see you there."
"It's fine," he said quietly, and still neither of them moved.
"We should...get back to it," she said faintly.
"Yeah."
His hand on her elbow moved to release her and she shivered, feeling his fingers briefly pass through her long hair and he slowly withdrew from her, making her aware of how cool it was without his body so close. She cleared her throat delicately as he straightened on the step stool and quickly turned away from him, having also released him. Lily did not know what his expression was as he slowly began to straighten the toys that he had knocked from the shelf and she did not look at him again for several minutes. When she next did, he had an unreadable, closed expression and she felt more foolish than ever.
Why am I this stupid? she berated herself in her head as Sirius continued the laborious process of stocking the shelves and they heard McGonagall in the background, returning to the classroom. I shouldn't like him – he doesn't like me! He's James's best friend and he hates girls and dating! She continued this torrent of admonitions in her mind until they had cleaned up the entirety of the shelves.
Once that was completed, they collected the bags of trash in silence. "We'll be taking these down, professor," Sirius called to McGonagall, who was grading papers.
"Very well," she said, "and after that you can collect your things and leave for the night."
Lily followed Sirius with her two bags of trash from the week's worth of cleaning. It was mostly old bits of parchment, dust, and some broken items that they could not repair due to missing pieces, so they were not at all heavy. Her chest felt heavy from embarrassment and she wanted to cry. It was no wonder that Severus had been acting the way he had been – he had seen something in Lily that she not even noticed herself. She refused to shed tears again, though. Sirius had already seen her crying once that day and she was not going to make a fool of herself in front of him again. She had been doing that quite enough lately.
Sirius waited for her as she threw her bags in the bin and they made their way back through the torch-lined tunnel of the dungeons. Abruptly, Sirius said, "Evans." When she pretended not to hear, his hand caught hers and tugged her backwards, forcing her to whirl around and look at him. Sirius opened his mouth once, then closed it, suddenly looking away from her. "I know you don't like James," he began slowly, "and we don't run in the same circles."
Lily's stomach dropped. Is he really going to try to tell me to date James after that?
"But," he continued and returned his gaze to hers, "we're in the same classes. If you wanted to study together in the library sometime..." He trailed off and he had an uncomfortable look on his face, as if he was not sure if he should be making such an offer.
"Oh," she said dimly. "Well...yes."
"Since this is the last day of detention," he added somewhat belatedly. He still had not released her hand.
"Er, yes," she said awkwardly.
There was a silence that settled between them and still, they did not part hands.
She had held hands with Severus, of course, but Sirius's hand felt larger, warmer, and she was reminded of how utterly inexperienced she was when it came to boys. Dorcas's bragging words echoed through her mind, seeming to bounce off each corner of her brain like tennis balls in an empty court. Lily had never been the type of girl to flirt, let alone partake in any type of girlish fancies. She had never needed to do so.
But maybe now was the time to take a chance, to change a little.
"Do you think you could do me a favor?" Lily asked him suddenly, hoping that her voice did not sound too shaky.
"A favor?" he repeated blankly. "I guess it depends on what it is."
There comes a time, she thought, raising her chin a bit and then stepping in closer towards Sirius so they could feel each other's body heat, when you have to decide what type of life you want. I'm not going to let Mathilde and Severus make my school years miserable. It's time I actually have the time of my life – I only have two years left in school. I might as well take a chance.
"Could you partake in an experiment? Just for a second?"
He scanned her face and he was so painfully handsome and more collected and calmer than she ever could be right then. "Alright," he said slowly.
She took in a steadying breath and at last slid her hand from his. Slowly, she leaned into him, drew in closer, and in the briefest half second of hesitation, Sirius had taken her face in his hand and pulled her closer to him, meeting her lips. She had only her friends' stories and magazine articles to go based on what kissing was like, but as soon as Sirius kissed her, all of it flew out of her head. He was not a closed-lip kisser, not a naïve boy unaware of what he was doing, or a nervous teenager. She trembled, shocked, as he kissed her, coaxing her lips to relax, to open for him, and she uttered a tiny sound in the back of her throat. His other hand had circled around to her back and pressed her body into his. She drew away slightly, gasping in surprise, but he took her mouth again and this time, she gripped onto his shoulders, bracing herself as his tongue, very tentatively, touched hers.
She was uncertain, following his dance, and becoming aware of something much more intense than just amiability and experimental interest. She was suddenly pressing herself into him, her hands moving from his shoulders to that silken, messy hair. His hand had fallen from her face and both were on her back. She could feel his fingers splaying on her back, drifting to her hips, pulling her flush against his body, against something that did not seem quite soft against her thigh.
This seemed to knock some sense into both of them and they released each other, almost at the same time, both breathless and, in her case, a bit shaky.
"How did the experiment go?" Sirius asked her softly, and his eyes seemed darker in the torchlight, though she could not be sure. He had dragged a hand through his hair, as if to rearrange it to make him appear innocent.
"I think it's too soon to release any results," she told him, surprising herself with the steadiness in her voice.
He laughed and he folded his arms over his chest, casting his eyes towards one of the torches. The flickering light played on his face, giving him an almost ethereal glow. "Ah, Evans...," he sighed, smiling slightly. "I knew you were going to be trouble for me."
