name: Lily and Prongs; aka Lily
house: Gryffindor
week: two
task: write about two characters
prompt: one of them must be in your house
characters: Sirius Black & Lily Evans
title: Une lettre sirieuse
beta- read by: SiriusMarauderFan [Thanks a lot! I'll put the other suggestions in a rewritten version (later), okay?]
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe!
A/N: - in this story, Lily and Sirius are (more or less) friend – but that does not necessarily mean that they can't surprise the other one any more with things they didn't know, yet
Une lettre sirieuse
When Lily climbed through the portrait hole, an unusual scene caught her eyes. The Marauders playing Exploding Snap on the floor in the middle of the common room was not a rare occurrence. This time, however, one of them was missing. The Gryffindor in question sat alone at a table in the corner, parchment and quill in front of him. Tongue stuck between his teeth, he was skimming quickly through a book that looked suspiciously like a dictionary.
Sirius Black was rarely seen actually studying, let alone working on something that was not either a piece of homework or a plan concerning a night-time trip with his friends. So what could be interesting and important enough to get his full attention, while he showed complete disregard for the card game? And what would he need a dictionary for? Hogwarts did not offer language courses. At least not officially. There were a few student organized groups where native speakers tried to teach the others their language. But as far as Lily knew, Sirius had never attended such a study group.
Curious, Lily walked over to the other side of the common room and tried to identify what Sirius had written so far by looking over his shoulder. The written text turned out to be a letter. A common thing to write, seeing that they were attending a boarding school. But- wait!
"'Le livre s'agit de'? Sirius, since when do you write letters in French? I didn't know you knew anyone in France. And do you actually read books in your free time?" "I have a pen friend," Sirius replied briefly. "You have a what?" Lily must have misheard. "A pen friend," he repeated, and and added a bit nervously: "At... at Beauxbatons." She looked unbelievingly at him: "You're kidding. You can't be serious." "I thought you knew my name! I'm Sirius by birth," he told her, slightly smirking. "Oh, this joke is already as old as the hills! You know what I mean... I mean, how did that happen? How did you get to know someone from Beauxbatons? And since when do you speak French?"
"Well... we met in Denmark. Last summer, when I went there with my uncle Alphard. Ever since, we've been exchanging letters – to be honest, it surprises me that you didn't find out earlier. As for the French... we had a private teacher, me and Regulus, before we attended Hogwarts. Sadly, I never really paid attention to what he was teaching us. Actually, I hated the lessons because our parents made us have them."
"I see. If you had paid attention, you wouldn't have written that." "What?" "It's dans le livre, il s'agit de," she answered the question and asked in return: "Why do you write this part in French while the rest of the letter is in English, anyway?" Sirius toyed with the falcon quill on the table: "It's because... see... she asked me about this book, and...-" "She?", Lily interrupted Sirius' attempt of an explanation, "So you correspond with a girl?" Sirius nodded slightly. "Then, by the looks of it, you're trying to impress her...", Lily stated with a smile.
"What's her name, by the way?" "Alice. But I have a question, too." Sirius turned to her again. "What is it?", she asked. "How come, you know the correct sentence – assuming that it is correct?" Now, it was Lily who looked caught. "I... You know that my sister went to a muggle secondary school. I borrowed one of her books," she admitted. "You really are obsessed with studying, Lily Evans! You signed up for extra classes at Hogwarts, and learn a foreign language as a sideline, as well? I always knew you are crazy, here's the prove", he teased her playfully. "This is not an obsession! I'm just... interested in a lot of things," she defended herself, and made an attempt to evade a discussion about her further learning habits by asking: "You haven't yet told me what book it is you have read and are now telling your correspondent about."
"Well... ever heard of Niklas Eddison?" Lily shook her head. "Anyways, this Niklas Eddison claimed that there are mysterious magical creatures called Crumple-Horned Snorkacks living in Sweden. In this book, he tells about what happened on one of his expeditions in search of this Crumple-Horned Snor-thing. All very fishy, if you asked me. Still, it's quite funny and interesting to read. He describes that..."
...
A/N 2: Sorry for the lack of spaces within the dialogue... I'll put in some more as soon as all judges reviewed this chapter since Tat already did and I don't want to cause to muc confusion...