Chapter 12.
New Year's Day. Lou's not sure, but instinct tells her that she's not the only person waking up somewhere unexpected. They're probably all doing it, she thinks to herself (or will be - it's only seven in the morning, after all) - waking up in someone else's bed, or curled up on a bathroom floor, or naked in a field. It's fine. It's what people do.
Instinct also tells her that there are worse places to wake up - in fact, it's probably quite high up on the hypothetical 'Heavenly Places to Wake Up' list of every girl at Hogwarts - than on a sofa in the Common Room, wrapped in the warm and comfortable arms of a rather dishevelled-looking Sirius Black.
Shit.
Of course, 'warm', 'comfortable' and 'dishevelled' are not words that should be crossing her mind, so - after first unconsciously snuggling closer to him, then freezing after realising exactly what she's doing - she replaces those words in her mind with a string of expletives.
She disentangles from his arms carefully (watching his face to check she's not waking him, trying to ignore the shadows cast by dark eyelashes on pale skin, and the deep, inaudible mumble that escapes his lips).
She moves to the other end of the sofa and sits on its arm, placing her feet on either side of his, before reconsidering and squeezing them both to the right. She wraps her arms around her knees, and groans. She's looking at her own knees, not his face, so she doesn't see the way he starts to frown when he wakes up.
The first thing Sirius notices is the absence of her. His side's still warm from where she was lying, and he has a dull ache somewhere in the region of where her head spent most of the night. He looks up and sees her sitting at the end of the sofa, still groaning.
"Are you mooing at me?" he asks curiously, startling her so much that she nearly falls from her perch.
"Yes," she says defiantly, still not looking at him, and starts to make the noise again.
He half-sits, yawns uncontrollably, and simply stares at her. She looks younger than he's ever seen her. He knows it's only because she's just woken up, but he can't help feeling like it's something more symbolic than that. Like it's not simply the start of a new day, or even a new year. Rather, that it's the start of some new period in her life - and his, too. He wonders if she senses it too, and that's why she's still groaning.
"Are you okay?" he asks, because somehow, overnight, he's become the kind of person who waits for concern to be allayed before amusement sets in. He feels a little smug, and starts using words like 'gentleman' in his head, but then she looks up, and their eyes meet, and he winces, realising that "are you okay?" is a ridiculously inadequate question to ask someone who spent a good deal of the previous night crying about their dead mother.
"I'm sorry," he says, in a small voice.
"It's fine."
He sits up properly, holding out his arms to her, wanting her to collapse back into them and remove the hollow ache that's making it difficult for him to breathe. But she flinches, holding her knees closer to her chest, because somehow, in the night, everything got reshuffled, and touching is so much closer to loving than it ever was.
She looks him in the eye, trying to communicate an apology. She wonders if she can hate him for this, hate him for being nice to her, for seeming to care about her. Hate him for the fact he's still beautiful - there's no other word for it - at seven o'clock in the morning on New Year's Day, when he's still bleary-eyed, and his hair's tousled, and he's wearing a rumpled shirt and an expression of confused concern. But what she really hates is the way she's let herself be in a position to see this - the way that she's trying to keep a safe distance from him but she knows what he looks like when he's only half-awake, and she knows how his voice sounds when he cares and, worst of all, she knows that his arms fit perfectly around her, and the way his chest feels as it gently rises and falls when he sleeps. She's angry at the betrayal of her own body, which hasn't felt safe since it ceased contact with his (but she's angry at her mind, too, for being too loud, too rational. For having too much control over her actions, and for knowing that that feeling of safety is the most dangerous feeling of all).
She sighs, tired and confused by her conflicting thoughts.
"Lou," he says, and his voice shakes - from tiredness, from worry, from the desperate desire to be near her. "Don't feel weird about this. I've had such a nice Christmas, and that's mostly down to you, and I want to be your friend," and he pauses, and his heart feels like it's breaking in protest against such a mild description of his longing for her, but he carries on, because it's what she needs. "If you want to talk, about your mum, or about anything, you can talk to me."
He wants to reach out, he wants to touch her, to prove to himself that she's real. She seems blurry around the edges, and he's not sure if it's just because she's just woken up, and her face is still sleepy and her hair needs brushing, or if it's because she seems so vulnerable at the minute, or if it's because - horror of horrors! - his compassion and love and need for her are gathering in his eyes in the form of warm, salty tears. But he remembers the look on her face when he held his arms out to her, and he resists the urge to touch her. He desperately searches his mind for something to say or do that will make her feel better, and he picks the first new thing he finds.
"It's not fair, that you should lose your mum, when you loved her so much, but that mine's so relentlessly alive."
Not for the first time in his life, Sirius curses the fact that the first thing he thinks of is so often the worst possible option. Lou looks up at him.
"Perhaps you should pretend you love her, then she'll be dead and buried in no time," she replies dryly.
Sirius' heart sinks. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have -"
"- it's fine." And she's looking at him, and smiling, and it might be a little bit weak at the sides, but it seems genuine enough, and he can see her little pointy teeth, and he sighs, thinking that perhaps in this case the first thing he thought of wasn't too disastrous.
She stands up, and the air feels thick with things he could say to make her stay, to make her lie in his arms again and never go away, but he can't grasp them, and he knows he sounds desperate and needy when he asks, "Where are you going?"
She shrugs. "For a shower, and then maybe a nap."
"Will you be at lunch?"
"Probably."
When Lou reaches the bottom of the stairs, she turns back to him, her face full of sadness and regret. "I'm sorry," she says, softly, and he nods, but he doesn't know if she's apologising for getting close to him or for leaving.
He curls himself around his knees, groans loudly, and smiles to himself when he hears her laughing in the stairway.
As the days pass, the distance between them shifts once again, and the time they spend together is full of careful, stilted conversation, and so much eye contact, trying to convey things they don't feel comfortable saying, that both of them are regularly visited by the urge to curl up in corners and moo.
When their friends return from their Christmas holidays, rosy-cheeked from the cold outside and full of anecdotes and gossip, both Sirius and Lou find themselves longing to have all that time to themselves again. They love their friends, but there was something indescribably peaceful about their holidays, and it's something they can't help but miss.
Worst of all is the return of Jess.
Jess, Sirius reasons to himself, is a nice girl. She's pretty and a decent kisser and clearly dedicated to him. These are all the things that Sirius Black has ever wanted in a girlfriend, so he's shocked to realise that he's so irritated in her presence.
The day after the end of the holidays, the entire population of Hogwarts is delighted to wake to find the grounds hidden under a thick covering of snow. That afternoon, Sirius sits on a blanket under a tree with Jess, watching the rest of the Gryffindor seventh-years (apart from Kelly, who's sitting chatting with a group of Hufflepuffs) take part in an exhilarating snowball fight, boys against girls (the girls win. Lily is fast, Mary is sneaky, and Lou has a Beater's strength, precision and uncanny knack of always being in the best position to strike unexpectedly. On the other side, whilst James is quite good, Peter's aim is erratic and Remus seems unwilling to throw things at girls). And Sirius sits there, with Jess straddling his lap and kissing his neck, watching over her shoulder as all of his friends laugh and tease and run around. He's almost shaking with annoyance, and it feels ridiculous, and blown out of proportion - so what? he asks himself. It's a snowball fight! What kind of boy would rather throw snow at people than sit and be kissed by a pretty girl?
He probes his feelings, wondering if he'd mind missing out on all the fun if it was Lou who was kissing him, but it's not a scenario he can realistically imagine (even if they were in a relationship, she'd still want to be involved in the fight, she'd still want to spend time with her friends, and she'd probably take great delight in throwing snow in his face). He sighs.
"You okay?" Jess asks, but then she's kissing him again, so even if what was bothering him was something he could talk to her about, he wouldn't be able to tell her, and she wouldn't want to listen. Sirius realises with a shock that he's in danger of turning into James ("Of course Lily's gorgeous, but it's not just that. She's funny and interesting and clever and fun to be around…"), and he tries to return Jess' kisses a little more enthusiastically.
A little while later, when the boys have been appropriately taunted for their poor snowball display, Sirius and James sit down to talk over a half-hearted game of Gobstones.
"Thanks for the flobberworms," says James with a grin.
"What did you do with them?"
"Tormented Lily's brother-in-law. Flobberworms in his bed, in his soup, all over the place. Then I Vanished them whenever anyone else looked in that direction."
Sirius chuckles. "Didn't Lily mind?"
"I think she enjoyed it. He's not exactly her favourite person."
"And did you get found out?"
"He was pretty sure I had something to do with it, but he had no proof. And Mr. and Mrs. Evans just thought he was being ridiculous. I don't think they like Vernon much - well, who would? He looks like a pig. They like me, though. I heard them talking, they think I'm a very nice young man."
Sirius pretends to choke in shock. "I bet that idea doesn't last long."
"Shut up, you. What did you do with the pineapple, anyway?"
"It's kind of…a work-in-progress."
James grins. "You couldn't think of anything to do with it, could you? Never mind. You put up a brave fight, but I'm afraid it looks like I've won this year's challenge."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that. Just you wait. We had an excellent idea."
James raises an eyebrow. "We?"
"Yeah. Why did you never tell me that Lou's a pranking genius?"
"I never knew."
Sirius' face is annoyingly smug, and James decides to change the subject. "How was Christmas at this end, anyway?"
"Fine. You know, quiet but fine."
"And New Year?" The question is aimed at Sirius, but James' voice is lowered and his eyes are on Lou, who's sitting just a few metres away, laughing at something Remus is saying over a game of chess.
"It was fine."
"For everyone?"
"As far as I know. There was an appalling party in the Ravenclaw Common Room, dullest party I've ever been too. Dorcas was there, though, she's always good for a laugh."
"Yeah, but what about -"
"And you'll never guess what she told me."
James shouldn't abandon his quest to find out how Lou's New Year was. He really shouldn't. But gossip is gossip and anything that makes Sirius' eyes shine like that has to be worth knowing. He sighs. "Go on then, this had better be good."
"Oh, it is. You know Hestia Jones…?"
Seconds later, laughter rings through the Common Room, and the rest of the students of Gryffindor look wistfully - and with no small amount of confusion - at the corner by the fire, where two dark-haired boys laugh hysterically and uncontrollably for rather longer than is necessary, until they're both sitting on the floor, out of breath and wiping their eyes on their sleeves. They seem to burst into fresh guffaws every time they look at Remus Lupin, who's forced to mutter to Lou, "Have I got something on my face?"
Lou replies in the negative, casts a Silencing Charm over James and Sirius, and returns her glance to the chess board.