See? I'm on time :D Just a note: Considering it's been a year, my writing style has changed a lot. I'm sorry if it bothers you, but there's nothing I can do about it. Other than try to switch back. Which I don't want to do.

Chapter 9: Thorns

Elvora was raging. And when I say raging, I really mean it.

Every lesson was almost torture. I could handle Elvora's glares—I've been handling them for years—but she hurled insults at me every chance she got. As soon as the teacher's back was turned, she would throw me a piece or parchment. "Slag" and "Bitch" were reoccurring words.

By lunch, almost the entire school knew Sirius and I were in a . . . relationship. Even thinking the word makes me want to gag.

But then I remember Elvora's smug face when we started the bet. She was so sure she was going to win. And proving her wrong made up for the fact that I was dating Sirius bloody Black.

Of course, it wasn't like much was happening. We didn't even sit near each other in the lessons we had that day—Double Potions and then I went off to Ancient Ruins while he went off who knew where—but we both had a free period right after lunch.

"Hey, Muffin," he said in his usual greeting once I walked into the common room. Lily was right behind me, but she ran up the stairs to our dormitory as soon as she spotted James.

I snorted and muttered, "Scaredy-cat."

The only option was to sit next to Sirius on the couch. Peter, Remus, and Nellie had already taken the three armchairs and James was sprawled across the floor, barely leaving me any room to get to the couch. "Elvora's tried to hex me six times so far," I commented.

"Key word being tried, right?"

"Of course, Nellie." I grinned at her, then turned to Sirius who was staring at me critically. "Can I help you?"

"What was she hexing you with?" he asked after a pause.

I shrugged and brought my legs up on the couch, plopping them into his lap. I needed to star remember that I had to act like a real girlfriend. And a damn good one if I was going to keep him for two months without shagging him. "Bat-Boogey once or twice. I think she tried to give me boils. And then she turned my hair this disgusting green color, but Lily fixed that in seconds. I dunno what the rest of it was."

"Trip Jinx," Nellie chimed in. "She tried to hit you with one on the way to the Great Hall. She missed and ended up hitting some poor little Hufflepuff."

"She could have killed you," James said casually from his spot on the floor.

I took one foot off of Sirius' lap and brought it down to kick James. I had no idea which part of him I hit, but from the embarrassing squeak of pain he emitted, I guessed it was something I shouldn't have. "Thank you for your concern about my murder. I'm glad you can be so casual about it."

"You know I didn't mean it that way, Dae!" he complained. "She's Elvora; you're Daelia. There was no chance of it hitting you."

"And why's that?" I asked, eager to see what he was going to come up with. Hopefully it was something insulting.

"Because you're Daelia," James said, as if it was supposed to be obvious. "You're too bloody epic to be hit by a Trip Jinx from the slag. It would go against the laws of the universe or something like that."

Remus stared at James like he was crazy, but I laughed. "What, so my aura or something is so awesome the universe just decides it's going to protect me from the she-devil?"

I couldn't help but wonder if that would work with winning the bet.

"Of course, Muffin. And if that doesn't work, you've always got me to protect you." Sirius grinned cheekily.

I rolled my eyes. "That's a given. You'll have to protect me from your bloody fan club, too. I can't believe they haven't made their fan club official yet." I was feeding his ego, and something inside me cringed at that, but I knew I had to do it.

I had to do everything to make him believe I was really in this.

The worst part? It wasn't very hard to act like this.

Sirius waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry about them. They never do anything other than stare at me and giggle."

"Sometimes they stare at James, too," Remus pointed out.

"Right you are, Moony. But they won't do anything to you. It'll just be Hardsgrove you've got to watch out for."

It amazed me how much time he spent snogging Elvora senseless and yet he still called her by her last name. It was a nice reminder of how much of a man-whore he was.

"Hey, Elvora," Remus said before anyone else could speak. "Did you finish that Potions essay about the properties of Wormwood and Moonstone?"

I groaned. "Bollocks! Why is it always the Potions essays I forget?" Potions had never been my best subject, but it had gotten even worse this year. I forgot about every essay, screwed up every potion, never listened to anything Slughorn said. The only reason I'd made it into the NEWT class was because I'd gotten lucky.

That's my theory, anyway.

"Bad Muffin. Lily might have your head for this."

I gave Sirius a look. "Lily won't know. She'll be too busy yelling at James after that little stunt he pulled this morning."

James' face colored as he no doubt thought about what he'd done this morning. Somehow, he'd gotten roses up into our dormitory and onto Lily's bed. I didn't plan on asking him how he'd done that; I knew I was better off not knowing. If the boys could get in there, we really had no secrets.

Lily would have been angry enough about the roses, but they weren't even rose petals. They were full roses, thorns and all, spelling out "Lily, will you go out with me? -James"

I had to hand it to him. At least he called her Lily.

Lily came down the stairs with bleeding fingers after she'd woken up on the floor with the roses on her bed. I was hoping James hadn't given her a sleeping potion and then tossed her onto the floor.

Lily hadn't gotten a chance to yell at him yet, but I couldn't wait for it to happen.

"Remus. Give me a piece of parchment and a quill and some ink and your Potions book. Pretty please?" I bat my eyelashes at him and Sirius let out a bark-like laugh.

"You're not planning on injuring anyone, are you?" Remus asked as he reached into his bag.

"If I wanted to injure any of you, I wouldn't need a quill to do it. I just need to do the essay. But if any of you decide you want to be gits, I might throw the book at you." I took my feet off of Sirius and went to sit on the floor in the only open space, right in front of the small coffee table.

"Muffin, I'm hurt. You'd rather spend your time doing homework than with me?"

I didn't look up as I paged through the book. "If I don't finish this essay, Slughorn will give me detention. That's an entire two hours you won't get to spend with me. Now would you rather have me take twenty minutes to bullshite my way through this essay now or spend two hours rubbing my hands raw on trophies?"

I heard Sirius grumbling behind me, but I knew I'd won. After a half hour of tuning out the Marauders and their prank-planning, (Nellie helped them. They were surprised she could even suggest anything until she told them she'd learned it all from either me or her older brother.) I shut the book loudly and tossed it back and Remus.

And just happened to hit him in the face.

". . . Oops," I said as everyone laughed.

James was the first to stop laughing. The smile just dropped right off his face and he turned white in less than seconds. It took me a few moments for me to realize it was because Lily was standing behind us.

But instead of screaming or hexing James, she turned to me and said, "Zane is looking for you. I think he wants to apologize for running out on you at the ball. He's in the library." And without another word, she turned on her heel and stalked back out of the common room.

"She didn't turn your head into a horn or anything, Prongs," Sirius said to an ashen-faced James. "I reckon that's an improvement." Then he turned to me and narrowed his eyes. "Why is Johnston looking for you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Are you so thick that you can't hear? Lily just said she thinks he wants to apologize."

Sirius smirked, his grey eyes sparkling with amusement. "Ah, yes. The git abandoned you at the ball."

"He didn't abandon me, he got sick and . . . Hang on." I stared at him suspiciously. He wouldn't . . . .

But no. He was Sirius Black. Of course he would.

"Did you hex him?" I exclaimed loudly. Half the common room turned to look at us.

The smirk didn't slip off his face. "Of course not."

I kept staring at him suspiciously but decided it was best to get away from him now. Who knew what too much time with Sirius Black could do to me? I shuddered at the thought. I might start thinking that everyone loves me and I'm the hottest thing alive. Or I might even start to like him.

As I was walking out of the portrait, I heard him call out, "It was a potion, not a hex."

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Zane was outside the library when I got there, searching through his bag for something and not looking where he was going. I stood still with my arms crossed, right in his path, and waited for him to run into me.

"Daelia! I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were there, I -"

I cut him off. "Don't worry about it. Seemed like the only way to get your attention. Lily said you were looking for me?"

He smiled. It was a very nice smile, not cocky or angry or beautiful. Just . . . nice. "Yeah, I was. Would you like to go for a walk around the lake or something?"

I raised my eyebrows and pointed out one of the windows. "I don't fancy getting frostbite. How about I just walk you back to the Ravenclaw common room?"

He smiled again as his cheeks colored in embarrassment. "Yeah, that works."

We spent a few minutes chattering about lessons and how badly I was going to fail my Astronomy exam (I've still got no idea how I managed to get an E in it last year) before Zane finally said, "So . . . I hear you're going out with Black?"

I sighed. "Yes, I suppose I am."

His smile was bitter, and his green eyes were blank. I couldn't help but wonder what they would look like if they were grey . . . .

Bad Daelia.

"Can't compete with him, can I?"

Seeing Zane's bitter expression tugged at my heart. It would be so easy to tell him about the bet, tell him I was only being nice to Sirius because I wanted to shove it in Elvora's bloody face that she just wasn't interesting enough for him—or anyone else, for that matter.

But I didn't. For whatever reason, I just gave him a sad smile back and went back to the tower.

I didn't even make it all the way back before the devil himself caught up with me. I sighed as he grabbed my wrist. "What do you want, Sirius?"

His grey eyes searched my face, and as much as I wanted to break the gaze, I couldn't. "Do you like Johnston?"

"I like a lot of people, Sirius."

"No, I mean . . . do you fancy him?"

I thought about it. Did I fancy him? He was gorgeous, he was smart, he made me laugh. But he didn't know anything about me or my family, he didn't know my favorite color or food, he couldn't make me laugh the way Sirius could. "No." I sighed.

After a few seconds, a smirk slipped onto his face. "Of course not. Why fancy him when you've got me?"

It was those kinds of remarks that reminded me of why Sirius was so bloody annoying. I rolled my eyes. "Come on, you git. Don't you have a prank to plan with your partners in crime?"

Putting an arm around me waist, we started to walk back to the tower. "At this moment, James is focused on nothing other than Evans. He's got some new plan to get her to say yes to him. Until she tragically shoots him down again, I don't think we're going to get a word out of him that isn't 'Lily' or 'date'."

The day Lily Evans says yes to a date with James Potter is the day I fall in love with Sirius Black.

I opened my mouth to give some sort of response when I spotted a blonde head to the side, hiding behind a suit of armor. Her eyes were full of more hate than I'd ever seen. I shivered.

With that look, it kind of looked like Elvora was going to kill me.

Kind of a filler. I'll try to have the next chapter up within a week? :D

I was looking through the past chapters. *winces* I was really pushy about reviews. Reviews are nice, but I'm not going to be a bitch about it :P