Wednesday, September 29, 1976
"Guess who asked me to go into Hogsmeade?" Mary set down her textbook and looked over at Sirius, smiling wickedly.
"Who?" Sirius ripped off a tiny piece of parchment and balled it up, then tossed it at Mary, trying to land it down the front of her shirt.
"Stop that," she complained when the parchment missed its intended target and instead bounced off her arm.
"Hang on, I've almost got it," Sirius said, frowning in concentration. "It should be easy enough, with how many buttons you've left undone. That would be an automatic detention if McGonagall saw it." He aimed again, then punched his fist in the air triumphantly as his piece of parchment dropped neatly down into Mary's cleavage.
"Yeah, well, a lot of the things I do would be an automatic detention if McGonagall saw," she said, scowling as she fished the parchment out of her shirt. "Anyway, I've never known you to complain about the way I dress."
"Oh, I'm not complaining, just making an observation," Sirius assured her, attempting a toss from behind his back and miraculously succeeding.
"Knock it off, Black." Mary rummaged around in her shirt before retrieving the parchment and flicking it at Sirius's face. "Do you want to hear what I was going to say or not?"
"Fine," Sirius sighed, reluctantly throwing the rest of his parchment bits into the fire. "All right, who asked you out?"
She glanced sideways at him and smirked. "Dan Dingle," she said, giggling.
"You're kidding!" Sirius roared with laughter, then stared at her open mouthed, torn between amusement and disgust. "Does he honestly think you're in his league? That bloke is possibly the biggest tosser in the entire school."
"I'm not sure I'd say he's the biggest tosser in the school," she said thoughtfully.
He raised his eyebrows skeptically. "If it's not Dingle, who is it?"
She grinned. "That prat Sirius Black. He's the biggest tosser I've ever met."
Sirius rolled his eyes."If I'm such a tosser, then why do you spend every Wednesday afternoon with me?" He paused. "Hang on, you said no, right?"
"Of course I said no. He sells firewhisky to second years at an exorbitant rate, and I'm pretty sure he's never heard of deodorant." She wrinkled her nose. "Still, I did feel a bit bad. He seemed really disappointed."
Sirius shrugged, unconcerned. "He'll get over it. And if he doesn't, well, he deserves it, doesn't he?"
"I suppose," she said. She hesitated for a minute before she asked, "You wouldn't be upset, would you? If I said yes?"
He looked at her quizzically. "Why would I be upset? Confused? Yes. Disgusted? Yes. Seriously questioning your judgement? Also yes. But no, I wouldn't be upset."
She shrugged. "All right, just making sure."
He opened his textbook and returned to his half-completed essay. "Now come on, let's power through this essay so we have enough time to shag and eat Remus's chocolate."
After twenty minutes of silent, productive writing, Sirius looked up from his essay and poked Mary with his quill.
"Hmm?" she asked distractedly, turning a page in her textbook.
"I was thinking, maybe we should come up with some ground rules. Or no, rules might be the wrong word. Maybe guidelines?"
She closed her textbook, using a bit of spare parchment to save her page, and looked up at him. "Guidelines about what?"
He gestured vaguely at the two of them. "This. Our Wednesday, er, arrangement. So we're both on the same page, you know? Because I would never want you to miss out on your dream date with Dan Dingle on my account."
She laughed. "I don't think 'dream date' and 'Dan Dingle' really belong in the same sentence, but I suppose I see what you mean." She folded her hands in her lap and looked at him expectantly. "Go on, then. What should these guidelines be?"
"Well, first, we should both agree that we're not dating, we're only shagging," he began.
"We've already agreed to that," she argued.
"Yes, but we never agreed on an end goal," Sirius pointed out.
She frowned. "We don't have an end goal, do we?"
"No, we don't, and that's how we should keep it, don't you think? I don't want to do this with the idea that in a couple months it might turn into something more, because I don't want something more, now or in a couple months, and if that's not the way you feel then we'd better stop now before it gets messy and dramatic, because I'm messy and dramatic enough all on my own." He fixed her with a piercing look. "Are we in agreement, Macdonald?"
She nodded. "We are."
Sirius grinned. "Excellent. I also think we need to agree that if either of us starts to feel differently at any point, we have to stop our Wednesday afternoon dalliances immediately, all right?"
Mary pouted. "But I don't want to stop our Wednesday dalliances," she protested.
"Then don't fall for me. It shouldn't be difficult - if you start to have feelings for me, just think about what an enormous tosser I am, and it should cure you in no time." He grinned. "Right, what else?"
Mary toyed with a lock of hair absently. "Hmm… Oh, I know! Absolutely no hand holding." She made a face.
Sirius nodded adamantly. "Agreed. It's hard to do things one handed, and your palms get all sweaty."
"Exactly!" Mary exclaimed. "How come nobody else is bothered by that?"
"Cause everybody else is stupid," Sirius said with a shrug. "I'd also like to propose a ban on Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop. I can't stand the way it smells in there."
"I know what you mean!" Mary said enthusiastically. "It smells like raging teenage hormones and peppermint tea, which is a terrible combination. The place is overrated. If I wanted to watch people snog, I'd, well, I wouldn't go to a tea shop, that's for sure."
"Good, that's settled then," Sirius said with satisfaction. "Next, I think we should establish that we're both free to see other people whenever we like, except, of course, on Wednesdays."
"Seems reasonable," Mary replied. "Now, what if we want to, er, see each other on a day that isn't Wednesday?"
Sirius grinned. "I don't see why we should deprive ourselves of the pleasure of each other's company." He thought for a minute. "No bloody pet names - in fact, let's stick to surnames, shall we?"
"You mean you're not going to be calling me Mare-bear?" She pretended you vomit. "I honestly should have known it wasn't going to work with Stebbins the first time he used that ridiculous nickname, but I suppose I tried to focus on his good qualities."
"Because he has so many of those," Sirius retorted sarcastically.
"Shut up, Black. Oh, I've thought of another one: no gifts. I mean it - no Valentines gifts, no Christmas gifts, no flowers 'just because,' none of that."
"Bloody hell, you have no idea how on board am I with this," Sirius said. "I hate picking out gifts for people - I never know what to get, so half the time I end up making Remus decide for me." He smiled, then eyed Mary suspiciously. "Hang on. You're not just saying this to test me or something, are you? Because that's just the sort of thing a girl would do, and if you're secretly expecting me to still get you gifts, and are going to be angry when I don't, well, you can count on being angry."
She laughed. "I have no ulterior motives, Black. We won't expect gifts from each other, and that's the end of that. Should we agree to any other guidelines, or should we try to finish these essays, do you think?"
Sirius tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair absently. "I think the only other thing is that I don't want to have to lie to you."
She frowned. "What would you lie to me about?"
"Oh, you know, the usual. About being with other girls, or about where I am and what I'm up to, or whatever else you might ask me that I don't necessarily want to talk about. So ask me whatever you like, but just know that you might not like the answer. And I also reserve the right not to answer, and that's not personal, it's just, you know, I'm a mysterious bloke and I like it that way. And I'll extend the same courtesy to you. All right?"
Mary turned this over in her mind for a moment, wearing an expression of bemused puzzlement. Finally she nodded. "Yeah, all right. Should we, I dunno, shake on it or something?"
Sirius didn't reply, but simply extended his hand, and Mary shook it vigorously, amused.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Black," she said.
"Likewise," Sirius replied. "All right, are you about finished with this essay?" When she looked down at her parchment dubiously, he sighed and held out his hand. "Give it here. We don't have all day, Macdonald."