"I'm so sorry about last night Sirius… I uh… clearly have a lot of thoughts in my head and it's pretty hard to quiet them down. I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been to be accosted by a duckling speaking in 15 different versions of my voice."

"Well...It was still a duck. Ducklings are rarely what you'd call terrifying. I really love that your patronus is a little duck. I can't get over it. I've never seen a patronus that adorable before. Sorry. Um…"

"Your patronus is cute too... He looks like you."

Marlene had not once mentioned Sirius's drunkenly tipping the caldron about being an unregistered animagus. But he felt like that comment must have been made knowing full well that Padfoot did look exactly like him. At times.

She was also clumsily implying that Sirius was cute in his human form, which he contended wasn't even really accurate. He'd been called a lot of things but cute was rarely one of them.

It was the true that Sirius was more often referred to as dashing or darkly handsome. A particularly silly Ravenclaw used the word 'dreamy' once but he didn't know that. He just knew that he wasn't like Marlene, personification of all that is warm and cute. Though he found himself smiling a lot more warmly when he was around her.

"Well you can see him again if you want to spend your last night of summer holidays practicing this spell. Though I don't blame you if that isn't your idea of fun. Oh right! It's your birthday as well. Of course you won't want to send ducklings at me. I have something for you though. I'd meant to wrap it…sorry..."

He opened the drawer of the little desk in the rented room where he'd put the beautifully hand painted journal for safe keeping. The artwork was of a sunflower, and it was all in Hufflepuff colors. He handed the gift to Marlene, stepping in just a little too close to her.

"Happy Birthday, Little Duck."

"It's very pretty. Thank you."

"It's a very Marlene-looking flower, I thought. But the best part is inside. It's um… a map my friends and I made when we were still at hogwarts. You'll find it useful. Perhaps. I wrote the particulars about it in your little book. You don't need to read it now. But I do hope you like it."

"Thank you! I'm going to love it. I want to try the ducks again, though. I don't have anything until my family party tonight anyway… and you make practicing… fun."

"It's going to be really lonely without you. I've been a terrible mentor all the way through but I hope now that we're done here, you'll still want to be friends?"

Friends. That was supposed to be the key word but he failed terribly at the execution. Because his heart wasn't in it. The tension was palpable. He could deny it with words all day long but there were feelings growing stronger by the minute.

"Friends. Yeah. That. We should do that. I'll write to you, if you like? I can be just as verbally clumsy in letters."

"Good. I like you verbally clumsy. I'll write too. I'm rubbish at it and never even wrote my mum when I was at Hogwarts but… on the other hand if you knew my mum you'd probably understand why. It'll be loads easier to write to you."

He caught himself just staring at her like an idiot for what must have been longer than whatever the upper acceptable time limit is for staring at someone like an idiot. He couldn't help it. She was blushing and it was very cute. He struggled to find words to get them back to the task at hand.

"So maybe it would be helpful if we could practice a bit while we're both here and maybe I can do my best to help you clear your head. I have no idea what I'm doing, but hey what else is new?"

"I'm for it. And you always say that you don't know what you're doing, but you're somehow always brilliant. I trust you'll keep doing that."

When Marlene said things like that, Sirius couldn't shake the feeling that she was mistaking him for someone else. Someone better. Someone who didn't come from a family of deeply unpleasant dark wizards… Or even someone who'd paid a little closer attention in school. But he found himself smiling despite the fear that she'd figure out how wrong she was. She thought so highly of him that he felt he had at least attempt to prove her right.

"Ha. Um. I'll try? Do you want to sit on opposite corners of the room and I'll watch you cast and see how it goes?"

She nodded and headed over to the far corner of the room. Her tiny frame and short stature were more evident from a distance. When he wasn't looking straight into her eyes and being bombarded with the light she projected, Marlene was seemed so small and fragile. Sirius knew she was tougher than she looked, but his compulsion to protect her was still there.

He watched as she took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out slowly through her gorgeous pouty distracting mouth.

Stop it. Don't look.

She cast her patronus charm then fluidly moved into the mercurius. Nothing was off about her wand work, but he'd already suspected as much.

The duckling walked up to Sirius, taking its time along the way, which was a fairly comical sight. It knew it was only going across the room so it was in no hurry.

It let loose what sounded like a Quidditch Stadium full of voices, except they were all her voice, at different volumes.

The loudest one seemed to say the words "does this work?" But he could hardly decipher it, let alone anything else that the duckling might have said.

"Oh wow. That's bad. It is sort of an accurate representation of what my brain is like, but… I don't think it'll be very useful at all unless someone just wanted to see a duck."

He approached her. Partially because yelling across the room would be an odd thing to do, but mainly because he wanted to be close to her. He hoped all this would let up when she went back to school. If it didn't… well… there was always to option of starting a new life in Spain. Probably more viable than offering up his stupid heart on a stupid platter of stupidity. He was really not liking the odds on that one.

"Well I do get a real kick out of your duck. But I'll see what I can do to help you get the chatter under control."

He couldn't think. Apparently all it took to render him incapable of logic and reasoning was a meter and a half of Hufflepuff who was mostly hair.

It was fairly surreal and bit stomach turning to boot.

But he could be disgusted with himself any old time. Right now Marlene was right in front of him looking to him for guidance on her spell work. He had to do something.

"Ok so I guess we just need to practice the whole clearing your mind thing a bit on its own. I'm not sure I know the best way to go about it but… uh… yeah. You've clearly tried the big exhale beforehand. That isn't doing the trick."

"No kidding! What's the done thing after that? Or am I just especially awful at this?"

"No you're incredible. You're only struggling because you think so much. Because you're brilliant. So... Um… Yeah... Maybe some sort of sensory focus thing? I saw someone with a frozen lemon to squeeze one time. I don't happen to keep a frozen lemon on my person at all times. But you could try that later if you want?"

"So the point is to focus on the lemon in my hand rather than the 457 thoughts in my head at that very moment?"

"Yes I think that's the jist of it. Um…"

Acting on complete impulse, he grabbed her hand.

Stupidstupidstupid.

He wasn't sure how it was possible that he felt his heart drop to his stomach over her tiny little hand in his.

Her pulse sped up and she started to consider the possibility that she was in a dream. She may have dreamed this before.

"Squeeze my hand if you like? You don't have to cast the duckling. You can just see if it helps you focus at all. If not I can maybe read up on some other techniques?"

Her eyes met his and didn't stray. She was usually pretty spotty with eye contact. Somehow with Sirius kneeling down in front of her where she sat, gripping her hand in his, she held his gaze.

Then, to Sirius's surprise, her free hand reached out to touch his shoulder.

If someone would have performed Legilimency on either of the pair at that very moment, all they would hear would be a panicked "Ahhhhhh".

She was touching him and he was not stopping it. He just looked into her eyes like a hopelessly lovesick puppy.

This is terrible, Sirius thought.

This is amazing, thought Marlene, at the very same time.

They were so close. It would take nothing to close the space between them.

It was somewhat unclear who started it, but her lips were soft on his. She felt her whole body tense up with nerves. Her anxiety was almost as strong as her eagerness to continue kissing him. Sirius felt the world melt away for just a fraction of a second before panicking and breaking away to put as much distance between them as possible.

"I'm sorry. Oh Merlin… I'm sorry Marlene I didn't mean to do that. Um…"

Marlene had expected that. She was intuitive enough to know that Sirius was trying to hold back. She thought it must be because she was leaving for school. They were clearly more than a summer fling and maybe he wanted to hold off for that reason. Or maybe he was just really jumpy about starting a thing. Whatever the reason, Marlene figured it would resolve itself while they kept in touch between now and her next school holiday.

"I know, I know. Bad timing. I leave for school tomorrow. I suppose we'll um… leave it at that. For now. But you'll write?"

"I'll write."