Sirius woke up shortly before Sophia did and found that the room had supplied them with a small breakfast on the table. When she started to stir he went and sat on the table and nudged her shoulder to make her open her eyes. "Hey."
She looked up at him and just smiled calmly. Then her eyes wandered around the room and widened.
"Shit!" she said, bolting up into a sitting position. "I didn't fall asleep on you, did I?"
"Actually, yeah, that's pretty much what happened," he laughed.
"Oh God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. You must have had no idea what to do with me."
"Don't worry about it. We'd already missed head-count time anyway, there wasn't really any point in going back to the dormitories. You want some bacon?"
"Sure." She took some to eat and then started to laugh. "You know, this is going to look really bad to the people who noticed us missing."
"I know."
When they were done eating they discovered that there were two neatly folded, clean uniforms waiting for them on the floor, one with Slytherin colors and one with Gryffindor colors. Standing at separate ends of the room were two screens for them to change behind (Sirius was only joking as he said, "What are those for?" but Sophia wasn't particularly modest and was all right with just trusting him to look away while she took off the clothes she'd slept in and changed into the fresh ones). There were two shiny gold sinks next to each other against one wall with cabinets above that each had a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a hair brush inside. It was quite funny for them to stand next to each other brushing their teeth and tidying up, and for a while they joked around with each other, talking like they were married ("Have a good day at work, honey," Sophia said as they were leaving, pretending to be kissing him goodbye at the door).
Assuming their other clothes would still be there if they came back later, they left the room and went directly to the Great Hall.
"Hey, I've got an idea," he said to her as they were walking to the Gryffindor table with their arms around each other's waists. "Let's let them believe something actually happened last night."
She laughed. "Are they gonna fall for it?"
"James won't, but he'll go along with it." Right at that moment everyone noticed them coming. "Hey, guys!"
"Well, good morning," Remus said as he and Sophia sat down. "Where the heck were you all night?"
"Where do you think?" Sirius said suggestively.
Remus rolled his eyes. "Well, what kept you that long? You could have gotten in trouble if McGonagall found out you weren't there. She probably wouldn't even have believed us if we told her we honestly didn't know where you were."
"Yeah, what were you guys doing the whole time anyway?" James asked. "Certainly you didn't spend the whole night in the Room of...yeah," he lowered his voice. Sirius and Sophia just looked down at their plates, smiling mysteriously.
"Wait," Peter said.
"There is no way," Lily said with hopeful certainty.
"You didn't really...?" Remus said, mostly doubtfully.
James started laughing.
"I guess they underestimate us, babe," Sirius said as he put his arm around Sophia's shoulders. She laughed and turned to kiss him, and had barely pulled away when-
"Black! Stabbard!" yelled Professor Constantine as he marched up to them. "If you would please minimize your public displays of mindless infatuation! And you, young lady," he said, jabbing a rolled-up Daily Prophet in Sophia's direction. "Bellatrix reported that you were not in your room at 10:00. Now that I see her cousin here" - he pointed the paper at Sirius briefly, actually giving his shoulder a pretty hard whack - "I dare to imagine that you were with him. I'll have to be speaking with Professor McGonagall about his own attendance at lights-out."
"Well, if our Head Girl wasn't so desperate to get me in trouble all the time," Sophia began naturally and with convincing anger, "she would have waited a couple minutes and found that I was in the bathroom because my nose was bleeding, and that I came back at exactly five minutes after ten. As for Sirius, his roommates are right here and they can tell you themselves that he was in bed at the right time."
Constantine went completely silent and even seemed to be deprived of air for a couple seconds. He gave a quick, fierce glance at all of the students before him, and then before storming off he just said, "Hmph!" so forcefully he almost breathed fire.
Everyone laughed as he walked away. Even Madelin, who was sitting with Remus and who Sirius had almost expected to blurt out the truth to Constantine, was giggling with a guilty smile, obviously not used to this kind of amusement. Sirius just hugged Sophia around her hips and said, "I adore you."
At that exact moment, while everyone was distracted and laughing, Snape was walking by them on his way to the Slytherin table. He stopped as soon as he saw a uniform with silver and green clashing with the surrounding red and gold, looking right at Sophia. She met his gaze, her smile dropping, and they looked at each other like this for a moment, completely unnoticed by the others. But before either of them could budge into showing whatever emotion they were feeling on their face, he quickly retracted his gaze and sped off as if wanting to get away before anyone saw his and Sophia's acknowledgement of each other.
Sophia recovered from the moment and returned her attention to the rest of the table. Just then Professor Constantine suddenly appeared again, apparently not ready to give up.
"What am I thinking? Stabbard, get to your house table!" He pointed across the room furiously.
"Oh...But I'm finished," she said calmly.
"Then I excuse you from the Great Hall."
"Bullshit!" she let out, seemingly without meaning to.
"Now!"
She sighed and got up. "See you later, guys."
"It was nice seeing you, Sophia," Lily made sure to say as she left.
Sirius got up to follow her, taking a couple pieces of toast with him, and Constantine looked at him like he was a pest to be exterminated. Obviously no matter how sadistic he wanted to be there wasn't really any certain way he could bend the rules to deny him and Sophia of each other's company.
Once Constantine had walked off mumbling angrily and was gone again, the others were silenced for a moment, not exactly knowing how to react. Remus was the first one to speak.
"Am I just seeing things, or are those two completely out of their minds crazy for each other?" he asked.
The others laughed.
"No, you're right," James agreed. "I've never seen Sirius quite like this with anyone."
"Is it really getting that serious?" Peter asked. "I mean, did they really...?"
"Come on, Wormtail, do you really believe that? They probably just lost track of time and decided to screw the whole thing and stay out all night."
Peter seemed to breathe a sigh of relief for a moment.
"If it makes you feel any better," Madelin said to him, "he had me fooled for a second, too."
Remus laughed and took her hand under the table.
Everything seemed to only be getting better for the next few days. There was some kind of very contagious cheerfulness that spread following Valentine's Day. Even though the view through any castle window was still blindingly white from all of the snow outside, one would have thought it was spring with all of the smiles and laughing to be witnessed at Hogwarts. Large crowds of students were always out having fun in the snow, the older ones playing around just as loudly and immaturely as the younger ones. Even the Slytherins seemed happier than usual in a strange way, and couples like Bellatrix Black and Rodolphus Lestrange were suddenly kissing all the time in public. The doleful articles about Death Eaters were even getting to be less plentiful and less urgent in every paper, and James had completely forgotten his worries about the danger Professor Fangora had predicted.
One night when he and his friends were eating in the Great Hall they noticed that Sirius didn't seem to be showing up for dinner.
"Does he have detention?" Peter suggested.
"Not that I know of," James answered.
"Is he alright?" Lily asked him.
"Alright? Have you seen Sirius lately? I think Sophias the best thing that could happen to him. He seems to have finally forgotten about all that stuff with his family that happened over Christmas."
"Well, that's good," she said. "You know, I'm really happy that Sirius is actually getting close to someone. He can be so distrusting. And I really like Sophia a lot."
"Well, you know, it's because of me that he's always so distrusting," Remus said quietly. "That's why he didn't even want to let us get too close to you at first."
Lily looked at him with an alarmed expression and said, "Remus, that's not completely true. You can't put all the blame on yourself."
"What are you talking about?" Madelin asked confusedly.
Remus almost jumped. Now he knew why Lily had given him that look. For a moment, he'd forgotten it wasn't just the five of them talking as usual. Madelin had started eating with him almost all the time now, taking advantage of the teachers leniency in enforcing the unspoken rule that students must eat with their houses. He had become so used to her that he'd let down his guard and hadn't thought twice before he spoke.
"Oh, nothing," he said to her. "It's a long story. Ask me later."
James got done eating first and decided to go upstairs to see if he could find Sirius. When he went through the portrait hole he found that some potently psychedelic music was filling the common room coming from Sirius's record player on one of the end tables, but the room seemed to be empty. James started to cross the room to go up to the boys dormitories but was stopped when Sirius's head poked up over the back of the couch in front of the fireplace. It looked like he had been lying down on it before James came in.
"Sirius, what the bloody hell are you doing?" he asked. "It's sure not like you to skip food for a nap."
Then he heard a small giggle and suddenly understood. Sophia sat up and appeared over the back of the couch, immediately leaning her head into Sirius's chest as they both laughed.
"Oh man, we thought you were somebody else when we heard you come in," Sirius explained. "I thought I was going to have to hide her under the table."
James laughed, a little embarrassed for him. "Well, I'm sorry I...interrupted."
"No problem," Sophia said as she got up and walked out into the middle of the room. "I guess I should get going if people are starting to get done with dinner."
"Um, you missed a...er..." James pointed shyly at a slightly gaping part of her shirt where a button had been left undone.
"Oh!" She buttoned it back up casually and smiled. "Thanks."
"I'll see you tomorrow, Sophie," Sirius called. "If you think you can remember the password and get past anyone seeing you, I'm probably going to skip my last class and hang out here tomorrow."
"Okay. But you know what, why did we go here in the first place instead of just hanging out in that room?"
Sirius looked at her questioningly for a second. "Room?"
"Yeah, you know, the room that has whatever you need. What's it called?"
"The Room of Requirement. Wait, you mean you remember that?"
"Of course I remember, are you on drugs? Whatever, I'll see you later."
After she left through the portrait hole, James turned to Sirius. "Looks like things are getting pretty serious."
"Shut up," he said right away, failing to hide a smile as he hopped over the couch to stand in front of James.
"Well, I don't recall you ever bringing any Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs into our common room before."
He gave up, smiling and running his hand through his hair, which was almost unnoticeably a little messed up. "I didn't feel right taking her into the Room of Requirement. I don't know why."
"Yeah you do," James laughed in a don't-be-stupid tone.
Sirius laughed, too. "Yeah, you're right. I guess I might as well know what I've got while I've got it." He sat down in front of James. "You know?"
Sirius could be vague like this sometimes and James would completely understand what he was talking about. "Yeah."
"Well, I think I'll go pick off some leftovers downstairs," Sirius said as he got up. "Keep this a secret if you don't mind. I can just picture how Wormtail would freak out."
"My thoughts exactly," James said.
And with that established, Sirius left through the portrait hole and James went up to his room.