And here we are, chapter five already. Just two chapters left to write after this one. I might write a prequel/sequel, if I'm in the mood. I've been looking forward to this chapter for a while, because I get to make the great Sirius Black stumble all over his (extremely sexy) feet for a girl! So, without further ado, the chappie!

Please be strangely enigmatic

Alize had drifted off to sleep as soon as she'd been able to collapse on her bed. Her dreams were full of doing various unpleasant things to Sirius—well; most of them were, anyway. One was about snogging him, but she dismissed this as an intercepted dream from one of the other girls in her dorm and made a mental note to clean out her dream-catcher later. Alize went through her morning without incident, trying to think of nasty and embarrassing things to do to Black.

However, lunch took her by surprise. As soon as she had finished her meal, and was now merely sitting and nursing a cup of pumpkin juice, Sirius approached her. She pointedly ignored him.

Sirius cleared his throat.

Alize took a sip of her juice.

Sirius tapped his foot and coughed rather loudly.

Alize took another sip, then reached patiently for the pitcher of pumpkin juice, but it was gone before she could get there. She stared exasperatedly up at him, finally deciding to pay attention to him. "What, Black? What is it now?" she growled. Sirius smirked, having gotten her attention at last. "I have something to say to you. Can I sit down?"

Alize almost laughed, the old jab from mother to child was far too good to pass up. "I don't know, can you?" At Sirius' almost desperate looking stare (which she found quite odd before dismissing it as an optical illusion; Sirius Black was never desperate) she jerked her head. Sirius took this as a yes and collapsed onto the bench.

She slowly rotated her head, her hazel eyes boring a hole into him as she sipped from her newly-refilled cup of juice. He turned red, which she found quite amusing. "Look, Faustine—I mean, Alize, I want to—I'm—Oh sod it. I'm sorry, okay?" She let out a sadistic cackle, then spoke in a sweetly confused tone. "Sorry? Sorry for what?" Under any other circumstances, Sirius would have been furious at the deliberate goading, but the Remus-voice (as he had taken to calling it) told him to hold his tongue and go on. "I'm sorry for ruining your day yesterday. I'm sorry for not standing up for you when McGonagall assumed we were—" and at this he turned a brighter shade of red, so that he now resembled nothing so much as Lily Evans' hair. "Basically, I'm sorry for being a great prat for six and a half years."

This took Alize by surprise. Of everything she'd been expecting, this certainly wasn't it. "Friends?" he asked, so softly that she almost missed it. "Well, Black, this isn't normal for you. Which one of your little friends spiked your drink, and what potion did they use? Or, more likely, what was that bet you lost about?" Sirius looked up at her in disbelief. He was ready to yell that he was sacrificing his pride here and she was baiting him, but the Remus-voice told him in a maddeningly patient tone that if the situation was reversed, he would be saying the same thing. 'Stupid voice, always right,' he thought grumpily before continuing. "No, Alize, neither. I really mean it. I'm sorry for being a prat and I really want to be friends because you're really nice—well, not to me but that's mostly—well, completely—my fault, and I'm sure you're nice to other people and I just want to be friends and I wish you'd call me Sirius and not Black because the people who call me Black all hate me and I really, really hope you don't hate me because I just figured out that I really, really like you!" he said, all in one breath. After a second, he seemed to realize what he said and rose from the table before running off like a bat out of hell and knocking over Alize's juice.

Alize was shocked speechless, watching the white fabric be stained orange because she was unable to do anything else. If that wasn't genuine, she didn't know what was. Somehow, she knew that he had meant everything he had said. Anyway, the least she could do after he had said all this was forgive him. As she rose to go to her next class, she told herself, 'I'll tell him at dinner.'

However, telling Sirius at dinner (or any other time for that matter) proved to be far more difficult than she had anticipated. Obviously embarrassed by what he'd said to her, Sirius was avoiding her like the plague. In classes, he arrived late and sat as far away from her as possible. He didn't attend meals, but somehow was always eating between classes, which Alize found highly suspicious. Finally, on Friday (Sirius had talked to her last on Tuesday); she decided to take matters into her own hands. A few threats later, she had made everyone promise to leave the seats by her empty and to deliberately fill every other seat in Charms, so that Sirius would have to sit by her.

When Sirius filed in, late as usual, a horrified glance crossed his face (akin to the one he'd worn on Tuesday, Alize thought) when he saw he'd have to sit next to Alize. He walked stiffly over to the back of the classroom and sat down next to her, deliberately looking in the other direction. As soon as Flitwick finished talking and told them to practice their advanced levitation charms by themselves, Alize leaned over and hissed "Sirius!" at the boy sitting next to her. Taken aback at being called by his first name, he whirled around and looked at her. For the first time ever, she saw uncertainty in those stormy dark grey eyes.

"Look, about what you said. I certainly don't hate you anymore. How could I, after that apology? I'll try and be friends with you, so long as you try not to be an insufferable prick and charm my hair pink—" Sirius had to grin at this, as did Alize, "and let's just forget you ever said those last…eleven words, if that would make you feel better…?" she suggested. Sirius nodded gratefully, and Alize smiled at him. "But you'll have to tell me where you're getting all that bloody food, darling, because I tend to get hungry at three in the morning," she said briskly, turning to her feather and waving her wand in odd shapes in a valiant attempt to make the feather pirouette around the room. Unfortunately, the shape was exactly wrong, and Alize's wand did the pirouetting instead.

After a couple of weeks, Alize and Sirius were wondering why they hadn't been friends before. They called one another 'dear' and 'darling', teasing each other as always. They complimented one another almost as well as Sirius and James did, and privately Sirius told Alize that he had been feeling a bit lonely ever since James had become addicted to Lily, and so was quite glad that she had come along. Alize had laughed uproariously at this, as he had known she would, because they both knew exactly what she would say next: "Why are you talking about Lily as if she were some illegal substance, dear? And anyway, do you mean to say you want to become addicted to me, darling?"

They both knew that Sirius would answer this with a seductive smirk and a wink, and that Alize would hit him, and that they would go on about their daily lives. For once in his life, Sirius' Remus-voice was happy, and it was hardly chastising him anymore.

Alize, however, was not having the same peace with her little voices. In fact, two of them were arguing—the sensible one that she had control over, and the frustratingly gushy one that she didn't. The more time she spent with Sirius, the more the gushy voice went on and on about his silky soft hair and his stormy grey eyes and his muscular physique. At first, the sensible voice had been able to shoot holes in the other's arguments (usually with statements like "How do you know his hair is soft, you've never felt it!"), but lately, the sensible voice was running out of arguments.

Theicing on the cakecame one particularly boring Saturday when Sirius had decided he might look fetching in braided pigtails, and he pleaded Alize to do his hair. At first, she'd refused, but then he'd gotten hold of a lock of her hair, and refused to let go unless she did his hair. She had complied, and the gushy voice had been right, his hair was soft.

After she was done laughing at how he looked, she said, "Merlin's beard, though, Sirius dear, your hair is soft. What shampoo do you use, darling? My hair isn't even that soft, and I'm a bloody girl!" Sirius had found this highly amusing, but them a frown settled across his face. "Come on, now, I'm sure your hair is softer than mine, dearest. After all, as you so eloquently put it, you are a 'bloody girl'." Alize challenged this, and so Sirius grabbed her shoulders and whirled her around, so that her back was to him. He began to run his hands through her hair.

Alize stiffened instinctively. The gushy voice has swooned, and the rational voice was panicking. 'SiriushandsinmyhairfeelsgoodwhatamitalkingaboutImustbecrazyormaybeinlove? WheredidthatcomefromwhyamIthinkingaboutmymateliketha—'

And then, both voices were suddenly silent as Sirius began to massage her back. "Lying wench, your hair is far softer than mine. Relax, darling, you're ever so tense." Seeing as she couldn't speak to protest, she complied.

I don't know. Does that count as a cliffhanger? And especially, does that count when I'm going to post the next chapter and this one at the same time? Probably not. Oh well…