Sorry for the long wait! I hope you enjoy it. I'm still on to this, but as of right now I have NOTHING in store … which means it will take me about as much time as this one did to translate the next chapter. But I'll give you the title, just as a teaser at the end of this chapter!

Chapter 5 Don't worry – be happy

When I'm on my way to Slughorn's party at 8 o'clock – like it says on the stupid invitation – I'm humming an indefinable melody and strolling through the dim corridors. My mood is not exactly that good which is why I'm wearing dark clothing. Yes, even my underwear is dark purple.

I don't even want to go to that party because these kinds of parties were never really my thing, but if I don't go Mr God of Love might think I'd be too intimidated or was afraid of meeting him. I mean sure, generally I don't care what Sirius thinks of me, but I don't like being portrayed as the frightened mouse that runs away from possibly problematic encounters. No, I always get my way and I take every opportunity to make that clear to everybody. So if Sirius is going to grace me with his annoying presence, I'd just cut him off and take pleasure in my life.

And concerning Regulus … - well, I doubt that he'll cause problems tonight because he knows I'd just put him in his place again and he wouldn't be able to defend himself because of the witnesses. I think him intelligent enough to avoid me.

After a few minutes I've reached the location of the party and enter the already quite full room. Surely no other professor has an office this big. Not even Dumbledore can keep up with the extent of over the top luxury. Again, I ask myself why Slughorn hadn't chosen the way of an interior designer for too rich people – I'm sure he could have gone a long way.

"Hello, Emily", Malvin Cornell, the Arithmancy ace of the school, greets me shyly and straightens his colossal glasses.

"Malvin." I smile at him, but I have to suppress the urge to make a comment about his love for chequered patterns. He's the poster child of a nerd and a pedant, and his clothes really just underline that fact.

"Do you want to … uhm … drink something?" I hear his question but my attention is captivated by someone entirely different. Gilderoy Lockhart, who his currently walking the catwalk for Hexima Moda, is talking to Professor Slughorn. My goodness! – The connections this man has so that even the prominent figures of the magical world attend these parties. I have to pull myself together, in order to avoid undressing Gilderoy with my eyes. I'm not superficial, but how do you say? You have to appreciate the beauty of nature, and this man is most certainly beautiful! Oh, the dreamy smile, and the even, striking features, the alabaster body, and the inimitable taste in clothing.

Gilderoy's smile diminishes somewhat when he notices my severe look. Why severe? Well, I'm just not one of the small minded girls that catapult the egos of men like him into the vast sky by idolizing them. I definitely have too much pride for such crudity. It should be enough that I know what I think of men. Besides, Lockhart's character is said to be plain awful, if you can believe Witch Weekly. He is said to be selfish, artificial and unbelievably conceited. Of course, I'd rather form my own opinion about people before I believe articles like this, but I don't think I'll need to make the effort of getting to know Lockhart better. There are people you know enough about at first glance.

"Um, Emily?" Malvin asks again and strokes his immaculately bound, chequered tie.

"What? – Oh, Malvin. Yes, I'd like something to drink."

He nods relieved and mumbles something like: "I'll get us something then", and walks to the buffet. I stand there alone for a moment, until Slughorn walks over with Lockhart. My professor is smiling like an idiot and seems to be quite happy. Gilderoy, on the other hand, looks at me with a strange distance in his eyes.

"Miss Amandus, how nice you chose to attend my little gathering. Your charm and humour always enrich my parties."

"I do what I can."

"Exactly. This is Gilderoy Lockhart. I'm sure you know him due to the magazines or possibly fashion shows?"

"Now that you mention it, Professor – I just recently read an article about him in Witch Weekly."

Lockhart pouts and his tone becomes somewhat indignant. "Oh, now I understand why you didn't ask for an autograph – that article must have put you off. My true character must have escaped that dreadful reporter. I have never met someone with such poor knowledge of human nature before. She totally misjudged me."

He sighs theatrically and I respond dryly: "Oh yes, that happens to me all the time, too."

Speaking of, I notice Regulus moving through the party crowd. He looks completely indifferent to the happenings around him and takes a sip from the glass in his hand.

"It's abominable, isn't it? Oh, one works so hard to please everyone and then one is stabbed in the back. It's really hard to be part of the crème de la crème when you're as young as me."

"You have my heartfelt sympathy." My smile is sweet enough to deter both men from the sarcasm.

"Well, now that you have met Miss Amandus, I just have to introduce you to another excellent student and outstanding conversationalist – I'm sure you know his older cousin Narcissa Black?" Slughorn interrupts us happily and gently strokes his stomach.

Gilderoy's smile is blinding. "I entered Hogwarts when Narcissa was about to leave it. Oh my, she is such a charming little thing. Impeccable beauty and sensibility."

"Oh yes, that is certainly true!

"You mentioned a cousin of hers is here?"

I have a feeling that nothing good could come of this and surely I'd have left by now if Slughorn wasn't watching me like a hawk. Great. Where did that Malvin wander off to, anyway? It's be great if he showed his kindness by saving me from this disaster.

Slughorn nods eagerly and beckons somebody closer. I'm actually relieved when Regulus walks over to us and not Sirius, who I haven't seen yet.

He greets both of the men with a nice but cool smile and then almost stares me to the ground with his jet-black eyes (black eyes always seem to stare, don't they?). "Emily."

"Regulus." I'm kind of glad that my voice is absolutely neutral and not furious or anything like that.

"I was just telling Gilderoy that you two belong to my best sixth year students", Slughorn explains kindly and looks expectantly at Regulus, who looks even more distanced if possible.

"I'm sorry, Professor. I can't seem to place Mr Lockhart right now. In which line of business is he?"

Lockhart looks outraged and somewhat insulted. "Don't tell me you haven't read the article?"

"Which article?" Regulus asks politely but it's hard to miss that he's enjoying this conversation.

"Well, the article that forced you to abandon your admiration of me and pretend to not know me at all!"

I give a low, derisive laugh because Lockhart's facial expression is very impressive. It seems like he can't decide between self-knowledge and outrage. Poor thing. He has definitely met the wrong people tonight.

"Which house do you two belong to, may I ask? Slytherin?" He asks us, with hurt pride and a sharp edge to the question. I choke on my laugh and puff in a tone of outrage.

"What makes you think that, Mr Lockhart?! I'm a Hufflepuff!"

Gilderoy takes a step back and looks shocked. "A Hufflepuff? But why are you so… so…"

"Vicious and aggressive?" Regulus offers flatly. Slughorn seems amused because he's still grinning like an idiot.

"Exactly."

I look at him condescendingly and counter that insult. "If you think that you can put people into neat drawers just because of their behaviour, then I have to tell you that you're morbidly ignorant."

Gilderoy gasps and doesn't say anything, so Regulus takes the opportunity to say something. "You like to call other people ignorant, don't you?"

"Only if they deserve it."

"So you think it's proper to insult the guest of honour of your authoritarian professor by calling him ignorant?"

"I don't like to hide my honest opinion." I exclaim and notice that Gilderoy tries and fails to enter our conversation.

"But what if you judge too soon and too harshly to understand a person's story? You would have killed the mood for no good reason and made yourself unpopular in one go."

"I can count on my ability to judge character and I know when someone is ignorant. I don't have to know their story."

"If that is so, then I ask myself why you're talking to someone in a nice and polite fashion, when you called him ignorant before, to get him to help you? You should have known immediately that was love's labour's lost."

Well, that was ingenious of him, the way he manoeuvred this from the Lockhart-business to our first conversation. I'm not quite sure why he did that, but it was ingenious. "Well, there are very rare cases when even I make a mistake."

Regulus raises his eyebrows and Gilderoy finally gives up trying to interrupt our conversation. "Remarkable! Can I congratulate you on that revelation?"

"Oh, you could buy me chocolate and some flowers." I offer cynically and stare at him with an angry face.

"I'd love to."

We stare at each other, both trying to avoid blinking or showing any sign of weakness. I've never noticed before how frighteningly deep Regulus' eyes are. Suddenly the panicked thought, that I could fall into that deep tunnel and not get out without a rope ladder, hits me – somewhat creepy.

"It seems we're surplus here, Gilderoy, so let's take a look at the buffet." Slughorn offers and takes the outraged and miffed Lockhart with him to the food and drink across the room.

Before I can say anything to Regulus – not that I'd know what to say – Malvin appears next to us and hands me a glass without a word. I take my eyes off the Slytherin and stare at Malvin reproachfully.

"Where were you? It would have been grand if you could have saved me from that trouble. Besides, I nearly died of thirst."

Malvin glances at Regulus who just stares back, as cool as ever, and Malvin starts explaining in a small voice. "Well, I… I… and you… I didn't want to disturb you? You looked… well… you looked busy and everything. I didn't want to bother you."

I remind myself that Malvin is possibly the shyest person on earth and forgive him for his failure to lend assistance. He's too nice and too… I don't even know, he just makes me want to protect him. So I smile at him and finally take the glass. "That's alright."

He looks relieved and I take a big sip from the glass, which I immediately regret because it tastes abominable and reeks of alcohol. "Is that punch?"

"Err… yes."

"Why did you bring me punch?"

"I thought you wanted to drink alcohol."

"Do I have a drinker's nose or what?" My voice gets louder and becomes really aggressive. That's that for wanting to protect him. It was the same with my pet hamster as a kid. After it bit me for the fifth time, I gave it to Rodrick to experiment on. He's probably stuffed now in a glass case in Aunt Fiona's house.

"Err… I'm sorry?"

"You're sorry?! What's that you're drinking?"

"Pear spritzer."

I stare at him in bewilderment but I don't get a chance to reply because Regulus, who up until now only watched the spectacle, interrupts us. "Malvin, why don't you take the punch back and get Emily something else to drink?"

Malvin nods thankfully and reaches for the glass in my hand, but I sidestep him. "No!"

"Yes, of course!"

"Oh no!"

"You don't want to drink it, so just give it to me."

"I never said I didn't want to drink it." I can see the enjoyment flooding back into Regulus' eyes and that makes me mad.

"Why are you making such a fuss?"

"Because he should have asked me, instead of just palm alcohol off on me…"

"I didn't want to do that, Emily, I swear! You have to believe me! I didn't want to just give you alcohol like that! I can just get you something else, that's no problem and you don't need to be angry anymore. Please!"

I groan, I'm irritated and don't want to believe that I'm wasting my time with something like this. Then I just hand Malvin my glass and cough when he starts running towards the buffet.

"Why are you here alone?" Regulus asks without perceivable curiosity.

"What did you think Malvin was doing here?" He shoves his hands into his pockets and starts smiling this really small smile that makes the corners of his lips crinkle.

"Being a much overstrained Ravenclaw."

"Very funny." I pause for a second. „Why are you here alone?"

"I'm a loner." He flips a few black strands out of his eyes and suddenly I'd like to know what a shampoo he uses.

"Does your court know that?" I ask him with obvious doubt in my voice but Regulus doesn't answer me. Instead, he looks to the door. I don't even have to turn around to look who just entered the room because the mood in the room immediately lifts and the oestrogen of all the girls – except for me, of course – reaches high heaven. The Marauders enter the scene… Sirius' bark-like laugh makes my ears tingle, James is talking about his victories and Slughorn boasts about his best seventh years in front of Lockhart. Maybe the punch hadn't been such a bad idea – and what is taking Malvin so long again?

"Let's just go", Regulus suggests and his right eye is twitching like it always does when Sirius is close to us. Before I can exclaim my amazement at that strange proposition, someone puts his arm on my shoulders. A very expensive perfume and a lot of testosterone buzzes around my head and I feel the very explicable urge to vomit.

"Black, if you want to keep that arm you should take your hands off me!"

Sirius grins and his perfect teeth almost blind me. Almost. "Just admit it, babe, you've been waiting for me."

"If you mean that I was waiting on you to work off my aggression on you, then you're right." I reply and shrug out of his semi-hug. Sirius' grin becomes seductive.

"Your aggressions? Do you want to go somewhere else with me?"

"Sod off, Black, and annoy someone else with your presence!"

Sirius scrutinizes me for a short while, then throws one very disgusted look in Regulus' direction, grabs me by the arm to drag me a couple of feet away from his brother. My brain takes a while to make sense of what is happening which is why I'm not immediately protesting. Sirius looks at me forcefully, every sign of amusement vanished, and his hands are on my upper arms.

"Okay, Emily. I have to admit, our banter has been fun and all, but that was a step too far. You can't try to provoke me by spending time with that dodgy lindworm. That's not only wrong but also dangerous for you, okay? We can just go on a date or something, but stay away from him. That's not fun anymore."

I stare at him, absolutely flabbergasted. I don't quite understand what he's saying. He can't really have said that, can he?

I have two reactions to choose from and I decide on the latter, because there are too many people around to become violent. They'd just free serious from my headlock. So I just laugh. I laugh, giggle and bray until tears come to my eyes. I can't stop. It's just there and all my aggressions … yes, my endless, murderous fury transforms into laughter. Sirius's embarrassed expression just makes it worse and I think I'll have to choke to death, when …

To be continued in the next chapter: Fuck the Clichés!