Disclaimer: Yeah, not mine
So, things get a little...intense towards the end and we're getting the idea that Brady and Sirius REALLY don't like each other. Like a lot. They actually hate each other.
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Love, Essie
You don't have to look any further
I've been waiting here for you for time
You don't have to look any further
You're missing what is right before your eyes
No one's gonna stick the pieces together for you
Together for you
You've got your claws buried deep
Bite down, bite down into me
Bite down, bite down into me
You better sink your teeth before I disappear
Bite down
~Bite Down, Bastille VS. Haim
Natalie Hawk was possibly the most judgmental girl in the entire castle. She somehow managed to fit high levels of scorn and distain for almost every person she knew into her 5 foot tall body. Dany always wondered if she had to curl her hair the way she did just to hide the devil's horns that were surely on the top of her head. And tragically, just two weeks after term started and school resumed, Natalie Hawk was her daily spectacle over breakfast. She had always been kind of tempted to ask Sirius if he had ever noticed any kind of horn or pointy object on her head when he had been snogging her but had always either chickened out or thought better of it.
"I'm just say that there has to be something wrong with her head. You don't curl your hair that way just for fun." Dany was saying to Brady as they walked from dinner up to the Ravenclaw common room, somewhere she had been pleasantly surprised to discover was lovely. Brady laughed.
"I mean her hair isn't that bad." He said and she raised an eyebrow. "Alright it's that bad…maybe she was dropped on her head as a baby, dented it, and is trying to hide her deformity." He added on and she laughed.
"Maybe. We'll probably never know what her head actually looks like with those awful curls; they're just so frizzy. They make her look like she's about ten years older and ten times less attractive than she could be." Dany added on thoughtfully. Brady answered the riddle to the door of the common room relatively quickly and they walked in. Dany sat down next to Brady on a couch near the window. It was snowing outside and it was getting dark.
"Why are you so obsessed with Black's girlfriends?" He asked suddenly and Dany looked him in the face, changing her gaze from the falling snow; confused.
"What do you mean?" She asked and he shrugged.
"I don't know, I mean…you bitch about them kind of a lot. I mean it's funny to hear but I'm just curious." He said and she was momentarily taken aback by the way he had said that she bitched about them. He hadn't called her a bitch, just how she complained, she reminded herself.
"Well I'm subjected to them snogging over breakfast every morning; you can't really like anyone that much after watching them shove their tongue down your friend's throat over your porridge." She said with a shrug. It was true; the snogging at breakfast thing always had grossed her out to some degree.
"I see your point…why are you friends with Black, then? If it drives you crazy, I mean." He said and Dany was surprised by the logic.
"Because there's a lot more to Sirius than his sex habits…there's more to everyone than when or how they snog, Brady. What's with you tonight?" She asked him and he shrugged. "Come on, you've got to talk to me about it if you want anything to change." She pried and he sighed.
"Fine. I just don't like him, is all. I don't think that he's a good guy and he just generally gives me a bad vibe. I don't really like seeing you around him because of that." He responded and Dany raised an eyebrow.
"You've got to be joking. Sirius is a really good guy, despite his…habits with girls." She said and he shook his head.
"Look, Dan I just don't want to share you with another guy." He said and she didn't particularly like the wording of that.
"Share? I'm sorry, but does one of you get me on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays? Did I miss the memo that I'm going to be passed back and forth like a Quaffle? I spend time with who I want, Brady. You don't get to pick for me." She snapped and he seemed to relent.
"I just don't want to see you get dragged into his mess is all." Brady said and Dany shrugged.
"We're friends. That kind of makes his mess my mess. It also makes my mess his mess though so I think it's fair." She said and Brady nodded, although clearly not content with that answer. Just then, the door to Ravenclaw opened to reveal none other than Natalie Hawk, closely trailed by Sirius himself. He looked around and saw them by the window. Natalie was trying to un-charm the stairs and Dany rolled her eyes. "I hope you enjoy yourself". She whispered at him sarcastically and he grinned and gave her a thumbs-up.
"Oh, I will." He mouthed back silently behind his girlfriend's back. She shook her head disbelievingly.
"We'll still be sitting here when you leave in…oh about 10 minutes." She hissed back and he pouted mockingly at her momentarily before walking up the stairs behind Natalie.
"That's what I'm talking about. It's just gross, what he does with them and you obviously know it seeing that you were just giving him shit about it." Brady commented and Dany rolled her eyes.
"Don't start with that again, Brady. I'm really not in the mood. I don't particularly care for it, but it's not my life and it's none of my business." She said.
"Alright, alright how about we work on your Charms homework instead?" He asked and she nodded.
"Yes, please. I'm still horrible in that class. I honestly don't know how I'm going to pass." She said and pulled out her book, opening it to the right page. They spent the next couple hours working on Charms (Sirius had left the tower alone about 45 minutes after he had walked in with Natalie) and finally, Dany left feeling more comfortable with Charms and more uncomfortable with Sirius' dating habits.
By the time she reached Gryffindor tower, all she wanted to do was to crawl into bed and sleep through her morning Herbology class tomorrow. She didn't know why she was so exhausted but she definitely was more tired than usual. Maybe it was the bickering with Brady; she liked to think that she wasn't a particularly petty person and arguments like that give her headaches. She gave the portrait the password and walked into the common room to see that the only person down there was Sirius. It seemed weird to Dany; he had legitimately been in his girlfriend's bed a little more than an hour ago and now here he was reading a book. It just didn't add up in her head. He looked up when she walked in and smiled. What Brady had been lecturing her about quickly faded out of her mind and the boy in front of her went from being a womanizer to her funny and (usually) kind friend.
"How was your dashing and ever pleasant boyfriend?" He asked and she sat down next to him in the floor.
"Hey, let's not start pointing fingers or being rude around here. I promise that I'll win. 45 minutes total, Sirius? That's all you could manage? Poor Natalie." She asked condescendingly and he shrugged.
"Are you implying that I didn't do a good job?" He asked, clearly amused. She laughed.
"Hey, I don't care how you fuck your girlfriend. I don't know and I don't want to know." She said with a shrug, putting her head back onto the seat of the chair she was sitting against and closing her eyes. So tired.
"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? I've never heard anything so vulgar from you, Danilynn." He said back and she laughed.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Sirius; I'm an angel. But I'm just saying that if we're going to make a competition out of being a good boyfriend, I don't think you're a frontrunner." She said.
"And you think Brady is?" He asked and she didn't bother opening her eyes.
"He has been so far. I'm going to say that he is until he isn't." She said and she couldn't gauge his reaction with her eyes closed. So tired. So, so tired.
"That's fair, I guess…you should know though, and this isn't a slam at Brady so don't freak, that guys change a little once you sleep with them. I'm not saying that all guys become dicks and will leave you but the relationship's going to change." He said and she opened an eye to look at him.
"Thanks for the notice. I wouldn't worry about me too much; that's a long way away." She said and closed her eye again, once she had seen him shrug.
"Whatever, I'm just telling you now; from the perspective of a guy that's lived it many times." He said and she snorted.
"Oh, I bet you have. You're on girlfriend what? Girlfriend Five? Girlfriend Six?" She asked and there was a moment of silence.
"Six. Natalie makes six." He said and she made a noise that she hoped he would understand as an acknowledgement. She didn't respond and he started talking about something that sounded like it involved James; he was talking in an oddly rhythmic and relaxing way. Not five minutes into the story and she had been lulled to sleep.
"Dany! Dany! Get up!" She heard someone saying as they shook her shoulder.
"Wha—what the hell? Where am I?" She asked, looking around blearily. "Lily?" She asked her redheaded friend who was standing in front of her.
"Yeah, it's Lily. Would you like to explain to me why you decided to camp out down here last night?" She said and Dany looked around. She was still in the common room. She rubbed her eyes and sat up.
"I—I didn't mean to. I must have fallen asleep on the floor accidentally." She said and Lily looked interested as Dany stood and her joints protested to her moving.
"You said you fell asleep on the floor?" She asked and Dany nodded as the two girls walked back to their room to get ready for the school day.
"Yeah, I fell asleep sitting on the floor, I'm pretty sure." She said. "I don't know how I ended up not on the floor."
"When I woke up and you had never came back to the room, I came looking for you. You definitely weren't sitting on the floor." Lily said and Dany raised an eyebrow as they walked into the room. How she had gotten off the floor was beyond her. She was too tired to think about it.
"You found her! Dan, we were worried." Alice said as she walked out of the bathroom. Marlene looked up from applying mascara.
"Yeah, please don't ever decide to spend the night at Brady's again without telling us." She added on.
"I didn't spend the night at Brady's; I fell asleep on the floor of the common room." She explained and they all nodded.
"So you're still a virgin?" Marlene asked sadly.
"Yes Marlene, I'm still a virgin. Sorry to disappoint you." She said as she started to get ready for school.
"I'm telling you Dan, I didn't find you on the floor. You were dead asleep on the couch by the fire. You even had a blanket. Are you sure you didn't actually sit on the couch?" Lily asked and Dany shook her head.
"No, I definitely was on the floor because I fell asleep with my head resting on one of the chairs; at least that's the last thing I remember." She said.
"Why were you sitting in the common room last night anyways?" Alice asked suddenly and Dany shrugged.
"I came back from hanging with Brady and Sirius was in the common room by himself so I sat down and we talked for a while. That's when I fell asleep, I guess. The last thing I remember is sitting on the floor and listening to him talk about…I don't even know what he was talking about, to be honest. I just remember him talking and that was it; lights out." She said with a shrug as she put her shoes on.
"He probably noticed you fell asleep and didn't want to leave you on the ground." Marlene said from around her toothbrush. Dany nodded.
"Probably. I don't know why he wouldn't have tried to get me up, but whatever."
"He could have tried to wake you up for all we know; you're kind of a heavy sleeper and it might not have worked." Alice said and Lily looked amused and muttered something.
"What was that?" Dany asked, completely missing what she had said.
"Nothing. It's just kind of sweet, is all." Lily said quietly and Dany saw Marlene smile a little, obviously trying to stop herself.
"Seriously, Lily? I do have a boyfriend, you know." Dany said and even as she said it, it didn't feel right. Maybe she just wasn't used to the sound of it yet. Boyfriend was a funny word.
"I know you do but I just think that it was sweet of him. He picked you up, put you on a couch, and gave you a blanket before he went to bed." Lily said and Alice and Marlene both nodded.
"I didn't want to be the one to say it, but it's true." Marlene said and Dany rolled her eyes.
"Whatever you guys say. All I know for sure is that we need to get down to breakfast so we can eat something before Natalie comes over and ruins all of our appetites." Dany said and everyone agreed. As they walked down to the Great Hall, Dany idly wondered what exactly Brady would have done if she had been sleeping in the same position in the Ravenclaw common room.
Lily woke up and pushed Alice and Marlene out of bed as usual, to their normal groans of protest. Then she went to rouse Dany and she felt her stomach drop. It felt like someone had pulled her intestines right out of her and dumped cold water over her head.
"Get up, both you. Dany didn't come back last night." She said sharply and Alice and Marlene both stood up immediately. Unannounced disappearances like this were alarming in the war and even at Hogwarts, people were becoming paranoid; not to mention that if anyone was going to be a target, it was going to be Dany or Rhaegar.
"What do you mean 'she didn't come back'?" Alice asked. Lily pointed to her friend's untouched bed. She had never come to the room and she had never gone to bed.
"I mean she didn't sleep here last night. When was the last time you guys saw her?" Lily asked.
"Dinner last night; said she was going to go spend some time with Brady." Marlene said and Lily nodded.
"They probably just hooked up or something. Dan probably decided that she was sick of being a virgin." Alice added. "Do you think she's okay?" She added on.
"Yeah, it's Dan; she's fine, she's always fine." She said. "I'm still going to go look for her though, just in case." Lily said and walked out of the room. Her search for her friend ended very quickly. She almost missed her, and would have if it hadn't been for the constantly burning fire bouncing light off of her white hair, catching her attention. Dany was sleeping on the couch closest to the fire, obviously in her clothes from yesterday, with a blanket wrapped around her. Lily had gone to get her up and Dany clearly had no idea what had happened past falling asleep or how she had been relocated from floor to couch.
Now they were walking down to the Great Hall and this fact didn't seem to be pressing on Dany as much as it had been her friend. Dany seemed to be content with the fact that Sirius had "platonically" moved her onto the couch but Lily wasn't. She knew that she was obsessed with her friends' love lives but she couldn't help it. The girls all took seats at the table and started easily talking about Herbology.
"So do you think that we could convince Sirius to pull a mandrake out accidentally? I would love to see his face as he hits the ground like Second Year." Marlene was saying and the girls were laughing.
"I hope so…damn that was hilarious." Alice laughed.
"That poor boy. I honestly feel worse for James though; he was the one who had to drag him to the hospital wing." Dany said and suddenly none other than Sirius Black sat down next to her. Lily wondered where the rest of the guys were.
"Are we seriously reliving that right now? I don't think that it's quite as funny the thousandth time, Dan." He said and she rolled her eyes.
"Yell at me all you want, but it wasn't me who brought it up. So apparently it is just as funny the thousandth time because we're all laughing." She replied cheekily and he rolled his eyes as he ate a piece of bacon.
"Whatever. If you have to tell that story, I'll just start telling everyone about how you broke your nose on the back of James' head." He laughed and she didn't look overly thrilled with that.
"Oh, yay. Like having my nose broken wasn't bad enough, now it's going to be told to everyone in the castle. Thank you so much. This is why we're friends; because we torment each other by retelling bad stories" She said dryly but still trying not to laugh. Lily thought that she was really horrible at hiding emotions. Sirius laughed and then suddenly looked past Dany. She noticed and turned around. It was Brady. She smiled and he kissed her quickly. "Hey. How are you?" She asked softly, obviously trying to keep the conversation at least partially private.
"I'm good. You?" He asked and she smiled and nodded.
"I'm good. We have to get going soon though, we have Herbology." She said and he nodded.
"I'll get out of your hair then. See you guys later." He said and kissed her one more time before leaving.
"So, Herbology then?" Lily asked and everyone nodded and started picking up their things. "Oh, Sirius where are the rest of your dancing band of idiot boys?" She asked and he noticeably tensed.
"Sick. They all came down with some weird flu. I guess I had it as a kid and am immune or something because I didn't catch it. Damn miracle seeing that they're all fighting over who gets to vomit in the toilet and not the sink." He said and no one looked particularly thrilled with that. Lily saw Dany look at him critically and her eyes narrowed for a second but she didn't say anything.
"That's awful. Please don't get us sick." Marlene said, clearly not noticing the same thing that Dany had, whatever it was.
"Yeah, I'll do my best not to breathe on any of you. And we're not idiots and we do not dance, Evans." He added on, finally catching that. Lily laughed.
"Oh please, I know that you can at least passably dance. Well sort of. Actually I take it back, you're not that great." She said and Dany laughed.
"Aw, Lils that's awfully mean, especially considering that neither of us are in a position to talk." Dany said and Lily rolled her eyes.
"You absolutely are in a position to talk; you can dance, Danilynn Masters, and don't you lie about it." She said and Dany waved a hand.
"Eh, if you insist." She said before starting to pull her hair up into a ponytail in preparation for the always-dirty class that was Herbology. Dirt was her hair's enemy because it was white; anything that even came near it was visible from essentially a mile away, except for snow, which blended right in. The five of them walked in and took their spots. Professor Sprout walked in in her usual chipper way and class started. It was a boring class today; it was mainly theory and lecturing and even though Lily forced herself to take notes and listen, she wanted to take a leaf out of Marlene's book and just put her head on the table and sleep. Dany had been braiding and unbraiding Lily's hair for the last twenty minutes from the seat behind her and Lily thought that she must know thousand different ways to braid hair, judging by how long she had been at it.
Finally class drew to a close and Dany quickly undid Lily's hair as the redhead collected her things back into her bag.
"Well that was dreadfully boring." Alice observed and everyone nodded in agreement. Lily, Dany, Marlene, and Alice had Muggle Studies so they bid Sirius goodbye before walking towards Professor Burbage's classroom.
"Does anyone know what that essay we're supposed to be writing is actually about?" Marlene asked and everyone shook her head. Muggle Studies was fun but instructions regarding assignments were just dreadful.
"I never know what I'm doing in that class, truthfully. I just kind of guess and cross my fingers when I'm doing homework." Dany commented and Lily nodded.
"No matter how much I pay attention, I just can't figure out what exactly she wants us to do. Maybe we could ask after class today?" Lily suggested and waited for the groans. Sure enough, they all immediately started complaining.
"Why would I want to see her more than I have to?"
"You've got to be joking, all I took this class for is to have a class to do nothing in."
"There's no way I'm doing that, Lillian."
"Look, all I'm saying is that if you really want to know, we should probably just ask her." Lily pointed out and everyone started complaining again. "Alright, never mind. It was just a suggestion; there's no need to go crazy over it." She said, dropping the topic. It had been worth a shot.
"Six. Natalie makes six." Sirius said to Dany, who he was rather sure hadn't moved since she had put her head down on the chair she was leaned against. She didn't answer for a while so he just randomly started talking. "So James and I were in the Kitchens yesterday and we were talking to the house elves and I think that they'd be willing to let us slip a potion that causes boils into the Slytherins' food if we asked nice enough. They're faces would be incredible and of course I doubt that hardly any of them know how to make the antidote, which takes a week to simmer, by the way. And supposedly the boils pop up in some really unpleasant places…ah, good stuff." He idly said and Dany didn't respond. He looked over at her. Her eyes had been closed the entire time but sometime during his talking, she had obviously fallen asleep. It was a look that he knew relatively well from her father's stint in the hospital; her face relaxed and her breathing became significantly deeper. She looked vulnerable. "Dan? Dany?"
He had to wake her up because he couldn't get her up her stairs and he couldn't go get one of the girls to bring her up either. They were all in their room and even though he spent a lot of time in girls' dorms, he still didn't know how to take the spell off the stairs. Her mouth opened slightly and he gently tried to shake her awake.
"Dany, Dany you've got to get up." He tried to wake her up but nothing happened. Lily had always claimed that she was a heavy sleeper but he had never seen it firsthand. Because of how erratically she had slept in the hospital, she hadn't ever really had a chance to sleep any deeper than a nap. "Seriously Dan, wake up." He said and shook her a little more roughly. She didn't do more than move her head slightly and he didn't want to shake her any harder in case he hurt her. She obviously wasn't going to be getting up anytime soon but he also couldn't just leave her on the floor of the common room and completely vulnerable. He looked around and sighed. "Alright, here we go." He said and picked her up and put her on the couch. She was lighter than he had expected; she weighed next to nothing. He grabbed a blanket and threw it on her and suddenly she shifted around and her eyes fluttered open as she wrapped the blanket around herself.
"Sirius?" She asked, still obviously mostly asleep.
"Yeah Dany, you fell asleep on the floor and I moved you, okay?" He said and she nodded groggily, looking so sleepy that she almost appeared drunk. That was something that he realized he had never seen; he had never seen her really and truly wasted.
"Okay…" She said and her eyelids started to really droop. She was on her way back out.
"Goodnight." He said and started to back away but she grabbed his hand softly.
"Will you stay with me?" She said, probably delirious. Her eyes had momentarily fluttered back open.
"What?" He asked blankly. He probably shouldn't have asked a mostly-asleep person for clarification but he did anyways.
"Stay with me tonight." She repeated, weakly pulling on his hand; it was probably all the strength she could muster at the moment.
"Dany, I can't stay with you; you have a boyfriend. You remember Brady, right?" He said gently and she shook her head as he tried to remove his hand from hers without her noticing. It wasn't working.
"No, not Brady. Stay. Please." She mumbled again and he was momentarily really tempted to comply and stay with her on the common room couch for the night.
"I can't, you know that. It wouldn't be right. Go to sleep, Dan." He said and she nodded before her eyes closed again and her breathing evened out, which gave him an opportunity to pull his hand back from her sleeping grasp. He started to back away and glanced back one more time before he walked upstairs. He walked into his room and James was the only one still up.
"Hey, what took you so long?" James asked and Sirius shrugged.
"Oh, I read for a little while downstairs after I came back from Natalie's and then Dany came in and we talked for a while." He said, hesitating to add the part about her falling asleep. "And then she fell asleep." He said and James raised an eyebrow.
"You did not leave her on the floor of the common room, did you?" James asked, Big Brother James clearly kicking in. Sirius shook his head.
"No, what kind of person do you think I am? I moved her to a couch and gave her a blanket. It's not like I could exactly get to her room." He said and James relaxed.
"Good. I know you treat your girlfriends like shit but I don't want you mistreating her." James said, clearly approving of that course of action. A silence fell between the two as they both thought. Sirius was rather sure that he didn't have the capability to mistreat Dany; he knew when it came down to it, there was no way that he would intentionally hurt her.
"She asked me to stay with her." Sirius said suddenly, and very quietly. James raised an eyebrow.
"I thought you said she was asleep." He said.
"She was. She woke up for a minute so I told her that I moved her, so she wouldn't freak out in the morning. She said okay and when I tried to walk away she grabbed my hand and asked me to stay. I told her that she had a boyfriend and that it wouldn't be right but she didn't seem to care. It was weird. Eventually she went back to sleep and I left." He said and James smiled a little.
"What did she say, like word for word?" James asked.
"She literally said 'stay with me tonight'. I'm not joking, mate." He said and James shook his head, amused.
"Anything else? What did you say?"
"I said that I couldn't because she had a boyfriend. I asked her if she remembered Brady. And she said, and I quote, 'no, not Brady. Stay. Please'. And I told her to go to sleep and she did. That was it." He said with a shrug and James smiled a little. Big Brother James knew something that he wasn't saying.
"She gets like that when she's sleepy…I'm not surprised at all to be honest. It sounded like you handled it pretty well; be glad she really and truly likes you because if she didn't, some really mean things would have been coming out of her mouth. Not even I get off that easy; one time she told me that I had weird ears and complained too much." James said.
"What do you mean?"
"She gets honest when she's sleeping but not quite. She gets really honest; she'll act on things she normally wouldn't and just loses all her inhibitions. Anything she said to you tonight was the brutal truth. There was no endgame or trick; she legitimately wanted you to stay with her and obviously didn't understand why you couldn't. She won't remember it tomorrow, in all probability, so I wouldn't worry about there being some super awkward thing or anything. If neither of us ever say anything, it'll never be heard of again." James said and Sirius raised his eyebrows.
"She was really adamant about not seeing her boyfriend. She didn't want to even talk about him. She just shook her head and said 'no, not Brady'. That's a little bit negative for it to be the truth; they're dating." Sirius commented and James shrugged.
"Maybe she's in denial or something; we'll probably never really know because she won't remember so it's not like we can ask."
"I guessed as much about her not remembering anything. She looked like she was drunk." Sirius said and James laughed.
"No, if she was drunk, she would have been crying. But it appears that you have a super reassuring presence or something though if she wanted you to stay with her through the night." James said with a shrug. "Someone should probably inform her that the great Sirius Black doesn't sleep next to girls; he only sleeps with them." James added on with a wry grin. Sirius flipped him off.
"Oh you're just mad you're celibate, James." He said and James laughed.
"Fair enough. If she wasn't dating Brady, would you have stayed with her?" James asked, looking genuinely interested in his answer. Sirius thought about it. His first instinct was to deny completely but he thought about it for a second and he remembered how tempted he had been to stay with her on that couch even though she did have a boyfriend.
"I don't know. I think I might have if she had been single. I was partially tempted as it was." He admitted and James raised his eyebrows.
"Really? Wow, I wasn't expecting that answer. Well, lost opportunities I guess."
"Yeah, don't ever repeat that to anyone. Ever." Sirius said and James nodded with a smile.
"I won't tell anyone that you're going soft, I promise. Now, I'm not going to ask you to get in bed with me, but I'm going to suggest we go to bed; we have class in the morning." Sirius rolled his eyes.
"I'm not going soft." He said defensively and James laughed.
"You're so going soft. You just admitted that you would have slept next to her on a couch, clothes on. Not to mention that you moved her in the first place. You have to admit that you wouldn't do that for any of your girlfriends." James said. Damn, he had him on that. There was no way that he would have thought to do that for Natalie or any of her predecessors.
"Alright, alright you've got me there. But just don't tell her about that, James; she doesn't need to remember asking someone who isn't her boyfriend to sleep with her…in the drool on your pillow kind of way." Sirius said before climbing into bed.
The next morning, he had sat down with the girls, the rest of the guys were working on the map and the transformation; he had drawn the short straw and had been forced to go to class, to throw off suspicion from the rest of them. Brady had come over to talk to Dany briefly and he continued to turn around in his mind what she had meant when she had said "not Brady". She had seemed pretty content with her boyfriend's presence over breakfast, before they had all gone to Herbology. That just further proved James' assurances that she didn't remember a damn thing she had said to him, half-delirious.
Herbology had been damn boring and even though he was sitting next to Natalie, who would have been more than happy to pass notes or something, he didn't feel any interest in really talking to her, or anyone else for that matter. Instead, he settled for watching Marlene doodle, Alice sleep, Lily take notes, and Dany braid and unbraid Lily's hair in about twenty different ways. He was rather intrigued by the fact that so many things could be done to hair and he was also rather amazed that Lily could find the energy to take notes on this dreadful class. Once class ended, he got up and the girls all quickly said goodbye to him before leaving for Muggle Studies. Natalie didn't seem overly thrilled with her boyfriend talking to any girl that wasn't her; they had been dating for over two weeks now and she was becoming more and more unfriendly towards his friends as they got further into February. They walked together to the Great Hall.
"Where are the other guys?" She asked randomly and Sirius shrugged.
"They're all sick. I don't know how I didn't catch the bug from any of them, to be honest. Damn miracle." He responded, not even feeling bad for feeding her the same lie he had fed his friends earlier today. He had at least felt kind of bad for lying so completely before.
"That's not good…I hope they get better." Sirius doubted that. "Well, more time for me I guess." She said with a smile and Sirius fought the urge to roll his eyes at the cheesy line.
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to be avoiding my room for the better part of today. Maybe by the time I try to go to bed they'll all be done throwing up." He said and immediately Natalie looked interested.
"You could always just stay the night with me. No one will throw up on you in my room, I promise." She said and Sirius shook his head.
"As tempting as that is, someone has to go in there to check that they're still alive eventually. I feel kind of bad leaving them alone all day; I can't leave them all night too to fend for themselves." He said, quickly coming up with an excuse. Natalie smiled as they sat down at the Ravenclaw table, near Natalie's friends. They all smiled welcomingly and Sirius thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't dated any of them.
"Of course. That's very caring of you." She said sweetly and Sirius didn't miss the tight set of her mouth. She either was really selfish or he hadn't sold that lie as well as he thought he had. He was a good liar, good enough to get by his parents, so he seriously doubted that his bullshitting skills were at fault.
"Even though I can't spend the night, that doesn't mean that I'm opposed to your room." He said and she grinned.
"Well when you put it that way, I think we should just go skip lunch altogether." She grinned and he let her lead him to Ravenclaw tower. She answered the riddle and they walked in. There were a few people in the common room and Sirius didn't bother identifying any of them.
"Black." Someone suddenly said and Sirius looked around. It was Brady. He had quite forgotten that his current girlfriend and Dany's boyfriend were in the same house.
"Yeah?" He asked warily and Brady waved him over. Natalie shrugged and he walked towards Dany's boyfriend. "Can I help you?" He asked. Brady wasn't looking particularly friendly at the moment.
"Yeah, you can actually. Can you do me a favor and back off of her?" Brady asked and Sirius raised an eyebrow.
"You want me to stay away from Natalie? I don't really see how that has anything to do with you." He said and Brady rolled his eyes condescendingly.
"Well, now we all know why you weren't sorted into Ravenclaw, Black; clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed. I don't give a fuck what you do with Natalie. I meant Dany; you know, my girlfriend. Back off because she's mine. She doesn't need to be spending time with you." He snapped. This was the guy he knew from the Quidditch Pitch, not his friend's seemingly caring and attentive boyfriend. This was the person that he had tried to warn Dany off of, not the face he was putting on around her.
"Well I'm super happy for you two, but I really think that she can decide who she spends her time with on her own. She's a big girl, Harris; I think she has good enough judgment to make that call herself." Sirius said. Brady didn't look pleased with this.
"I don't trust her judgment, not with you. She might not see you for what you are, but I do. She's living under the delusion that you're a really good guy, but we all know that that isn't really the case. So do everyone a favor and leave her alone." Brady said and Sirius was rather taken aback by this. He had never really given Brady much thought past thinking that he was an arrogant asshole who enjoyed fucking three girls at one time behind his actual girlfriend's back.
"Well that's fantastic, Harris. I'm so glad I finally know how you feel about me. But you know what else is fantastic? I really don't care." He said sharply. This was quickly deteriorating, that much was obvious.
"Besides, it's pretty obvious how you feel about her. You have to know that she's way out of your league, right? Have you actually deluded yourself into thinking that you have a chance with her? Please, she's the Minister's daughter and you come from a dirty family; and you know it too, don't you? You know that your blood is dirty. You have less of a chance with her than just about anyone in this castle." Brady said and Sirius was simultaneously becoming increasingly pissed and, for some reason, anxious.
"Well I'll be sure to keep that in mind for when I actually care about what you think about me and my lovely bloodlines. Unfortunately, I don't think that I'll ever care about what you think about me, so your little lecture was pretty useless. And if you're so concerned about me being around your girlfriend, why don't you take it up with her? Could it be because you know she wouldn't like it? Could it be because you're a tiny bit worried about her getting just pissed enough to break things off? Or did you already try to bring it up?" Sirius asked and he saw Brady's jaw clench. "You did, didn't you? You already brought this up to her and from the looks of it, she told you to mind your own business. Well that's a damn shame because I'll stop talking to her when she asks me to, Harris. I don't take orders from you." He said and walked out of the common room, leaving Natalie standing where she had been waiting for him by the stairs leading to her room.
James' head was throbbing. He had been reading an ancient book on the Animagus transformation all morning and just trying to understand the content was bad enough, let alone the fact that it was roughly translated from cuneiform by Remus, who was in Ancient Runes. Frank was putting the final touches on the map, under Remus' supervision, and Peter was trying to do homework so that they wouldn't all be drowning in work when they went back to class tomorrow. Suddenly, Sirius opened the door and slammed it behind him loudly. Everyone looked up.
"Sirius. Wha—?" Remus started. He was supposed to be in Charms.
"Everyone out." He snapped and everyone exchanged looks. James knew that face; he was pissed. "James, stay." He said and Remus, Frank, and Peter cleared out pretty quickly, clearly recognizing that now wasn't a good time to be a smartass and comment back.
"Uh, Sirius why aren't you in class right now?" James asked slowly and Sirius started to pace.
"I was going to go to class but I had a free period last period, right?" James nodded. "Right, so I go back with Natalie to Ravenclaw tower and—"
"No, I don't want to hear about your sex life." James protested and Sirius glared at him.
"Shut up for a second. So before I can go to her room, Brady calls me over to where he is in the common room." James raised an eyebrow. This wasn't good. "So I go over, I mean he's dating one of my best friends, I can't exactly ignore him. So I go over and he says, and I quote, 'back off of her'. So I think he means Natalie because that's who I'm with right then, and he makes some smartass comment about me being dumb or something and then he said that he means Dany; said that I needed to 'back off' because 'she's mine and doesn't need to be spending time with you'." Sirius started to rant. James instantly became very pissed.
"He said what?!" He shouted and Sirius held a hand up.
"Oh no, I'm just getting started. Save your outrage for later. So I tell him that Dan's more than capable of making that choice on her own, I mean she can handle herself, right?" James nodded, "So he says that he doesn't trust her judgment about me because I'm apparently a horrible person or something and said something like 'do everyone a favor and leave her alone'. So I told him that I didn't really care what he thought about me and he just kind of ignored me and kept going." Sirius broke off and James knew there had to be more to the story.
"What the fuck, man? Has anything like this happened before?" James asked, even though he was fairly certain that it hadn't; judging by his friend's almost violent reaction, he would have heard about it if it had.
"No, I've hardly ever spoken to him and that's just been as a courtesy to Dany. I have no clue where this came from." He said and James shrugged. He wasn't very fond of the fact that Brady was trying to make decisions for James' own Godsister.
"I don't know, but this sounds fucking crazy…now what's the part of this that you're not telling me? I know you, Sirius, and if you had already told me everything you'd still be ranting about it." James said and Sirius looked almost guilty for a second.
"He…well he said something like 'It's pretty obvious how you feel about her. She's way out of your league and you've deluded yourself into thinking that you have a chance. She's the Minister's daughter and you come from a dirty family, and you know it. You know that your blood's dirty'. It was delightful. He's a great guy, really." Sirius muttered and James instantly became very, very pissed. He knew as well as anyone that knew Sirius that his family was a sore spot that he still was very insecure about. Anyone that pushed on that usually received a nice ass whooping from James. The 'dirty blood' line was just unnecessarily nasty and cruel.
"Oh he did not." James snapped.
"Oh he did. I asked him why he hadn't brought any of this up to Dan if he was so worried and from what I gathered, he already had and she didn't take it too well. I told him that I'd leave her alone when she, and not him, asked me to and then I left." Sirius finished as he sat down on his bed. He put his head in his hands and James felt very bad for his friend. He knew that Sirius had thought what Brady had told him about his blood more than once and hearing it out loud was sure to take a toll. His stress was palpable from the other side of the room.
"Damn, I'm sorry. The guy's a prick. Not to mention that all that shit he said about you having dirty blood is just ridiculous. And if Dany didn't want to see you, I'm sure she'd make that abundantly clear. It's not like you've never been openly pissed at each other before. You know just as well as any of us that Dany couldn't care less about last names or power; she introduced herself to you when we were eleven, knowing full well who your family was. She doesn't care and neither should you." James said, trying to be as gentle as he could be.
"Yeah, I guess…but that's just it though, I mean I do have dirty blood. I hate myself a little bit for having all of that hatred and prejudice and venom pumping through my veins. And I—it's just if he was right about that, what else was he right about?" Sirius said and James realized that he was getting a good look at a very vulnerable and emotional side of Sirius. This was why Sirius went to Dany instead of him sometimes, like Third Year after his parents had beaten him to hell and back; he hadn't just needed someone to heal a couple of cuts, he had needed an ear to talk to freely. Except Sirius couldn't go to Dany about this. He couldn't go to her because it was about her.
"First of all, he wasn't right about you having dirty blood or whatever and everything else is shit too. Mate, not everyone is going to like you and that's just life. But Dany likes you, she cares a lot about you just like we all do, and when you find people that care for you and have only your best interest at heart, you hold onto them and forget the rest." James said quietly and Sirius nodded.
"Yeah…I know. But I mean sometimes it does seem almost like a joke; I have these horrible blood supremacist parents and then I come to school and I end up being great friends with the youngest Masters. It's just kind of hard to comprehend if you think about it too much." He said and James shook his head.
"You see things differently than she does and it's not your fault, you were raised differently than she was, but she doesn't see you as a Black and she doesn't think about herself as the Minister's daughter or as the youngest Masters; to her you're just Sirius and she's just Dany. You're not your surname, not to her and not to Lily, Alice, Frank, Remus, Marlene, Peter, or me. You are what your actions make you." James said and he saw the look on his friend's face. This clearly wasn't the first time that he had heard something of this nature.
"Thanks, James." He said quietly and James shrugged.
"Don't thank me; I just told you the truth." He said, trying to blow off the massively emotional talk that had just happened.
"Even so, thanks." He said and James nodded.
"Anytime…so are we going to tell her?" He asked suddenly and Sirius shrugged.
"I'm not. I'd rather not have another falling out and prove Harris right." He said with a shrug.
Apparently Sirius really could learn from his mistakes.
James considered talking to Dany for more than a week. He mulled it over and considered all of the outcomes. None of them were very cheery so he did the next best thing: he tracked down Lily and talked to her about it.
"What do you want Potter?" Lily asked as he sat down at her table in the library.
"I want to talk about Brady." He said and she looked up from her work, even bothering to put her quill down.
"What about him?" She asked. James hesitated again. "Spit it out, James Potter. I don't have all day, you know."
"Alright, so like a week ago Sirius comes storming into our room with a bloody thundercloud over his head. So naturally, I ask him what's wrong. So he starts telling me that he was going back to Natalie's room when Harris calls him over and they kind of, erm, got into it." He said delicately.
"Sirius literally can't stop himself, can he?" She asked tiredly. James held up a finger.
"Oh no, let me tell you what he told me. Said that Brady quote 'wants him to back off' of Dany and that he 'didn't trust her judgment'." He said and Lily looked interested and not particularly happy.
"What? That doesn't sound anything like him." She said and James shook his head.
"Oh, that's not even the worst. So Sirius essentially tells him to piss off, right? I mean that's pretty brutal. So apparently Brady says something along the lines of 'it's obvious how you feel about her and you're delusional if you think you have a chance with the Minister's daughter; you have dirty blood'. Like what the fuck?" James hissed, started to get mad all over again. Lily raised her eyebrows.
"What did you say?"
"What?"
"Repeat what you just said. Not the whole thing, just the last bit." She said.
"Seriously? Don't make me say it again, Evans. I didn't like it the first time." James said and Lily seemed to like his answer. James had no idea why.
"You're not just fucking with me right now, are you?" She asked and James shook his head again.
"No, I'm not unfortunately. See, Sirius is refusing to tell her that it ever even happened; said he didn't want to repeat their little argument from this past winter. I wanted your opinion on if someone should fill her in." He said and Lily bit her lip.
"He really pulled the dirty blood card?" She asked again and James nodded. "I don't know…anything too detailed will get her mad at someone and that's not going to end well for anyone, us included." She said and James nodded.
"Wait, you actually believe me? I thought you'd just think that I was trying to get her to ditch Harris." James said and Lily shrugged.
"I considered it. That's why I asked you to repeat it. If you weren't faking, you wouldn't want to say 'dirty blood' again because it makes you feel dirty saying it. So, I believe you. I don't know about her though…she likes him an awful lot." Lily said thoughtfully. James nodded.
"She'd still rip his bloody head off if she caught wind of that." James said and Lily nodded.
"I know she would and I suspect Brady knows it too… it could come down to putting Brady's word against Sirius' word. He might admit to them arguing but there's no way he'd ever tell her that he took that dig at Sirius. She'd walk and he knows it." Lily said. "I think that if you tell her, don't tell her everything. I know that sounds horrible and kind of like lying but hear me out." She said and James nodded. "She has to believe it but it also has to sound mundane enough that Brady won't deny arguing altogether. If she believes that, tell her everything if that's what you want." Lily said with a shrug. "Beyond that, I have no advice." She added on and he nodded again.
"Okay. I think I'll take your advice on this…thanks, Lily." He added on before walking out of the library.
It took all of five minutes to accidentally run into Dany, who was by herself for once.
"Hey, James." She said cheerily and he smiled. He had to tell her. She had a right to know.
"Hey, Dan. Look, I need to talk to you about something…"