"Looking for someone?"
Lily jumped. She hadn't seen Sirius sitting on his bed when she first entered the room and his deep voice startled her out of her musings.
"No," she said absently, looking around the otherwise empty dormitory expectantly. "I just left something in here. . ." she trailed off.
"Yeah?" Sirius asked challengingly, as he got to his feet. "And what was that?"
"Hmm, I can't remember," she tittered, trying to remain non committal.
"Right," Sirius huffed.
They stood there awkwardly for a moment, Lily bouncing on the balls of her feet while Sirius stared her down.
"Well, I'll just be going-"
"What are you playing at?" Sirius cut her off.
Lily gaped at him for a moment.
"What do you mean?" she finally asked.
"You're up here all the time, stringing him along, giving him hope, and then you shut him down at every opportunity."
She whipped around and stared at Sirius searchingly, her forehead creased and eyes narrowed in sudden dislike.
"Don't look at me like that," he said irritably. "It's not fair for you to do this to him," he pressed on pointing at her accusingly. "You know how he feels about you, yet you keep coming up here, just teasing, always denying him. So you should turn around and leave him alone unless you've got feelings for him too," Sirius scowled angrily.
"Shut up," she spat harshly, trying to keep her voice down.
"No," Sirius replied, "I've been keeping mum this whole time. I've watched the way you come skipping up here, sitting on his bed, leaning over him as he does his homework, laughing at all his jokes. . ." he trailed off. "Point is, you're just playing, its all a game to you, and its not to him and if you cared about him even a knut's worth then you'd realize that."
She looked as though he had slapped her.
"You have no right to talk about this," she said, her voice shaking in anger. "Don't tell me that I don't care about him. Don't tell me that I'm stringing him along, not when you have no idea, NO IDEA how I feel about him." She said through gritted teeth.
He opened his mouth angrily to retort but stopped as her words suddenly sunk in. He took a long steadying breath.
"What?" he asked in a low voice.
Her face, flushed in anger, immediately blanched to a pale white.
"Nothing," she said breathlessly, brushing her bangs out of her face and with a sigh, all the while refusing to look at him.
"No, no, no," Sirius growled, "If I have no idea how you feel about him, why don't you help me along a little bit."
"There's nothing to 'help you along with,'" she said making quotations in the air. "I don't have to justify myself to you," she snarled, shaking her head. "Just tell me where Potter is," she demanded, trying to keep the sound of begging out of her voice. She just wanted to find him and forget about all this.
"Merlin, Evans," Sirius breathed, running a hand through his hair and looking at her as though for the first time. "You bloody well love him, don't you?"
"No," she cut in at once.
"Yeah, you do," he said in disbelief. "And you haven't told him?" he yelped in a strangled voice.
"Don't!" she said sharply, rubbing her face in her hands.
They both jumped as they heard feet pounding up the spiral staircase. James flung the door open and thundered into the room.
"Just got back from a Honeydukes run!" he sang happily and dumped an armful of chocolate, Pepper Imps, Sugar Quills and Drooble's Best Blowing Gum onto his bed. He turned to smile at each of them in turn but found that Lily and Sirius were both staring at each other intently.
"What's going on?" he asked slowly, his eyes flicking from one to the other.
"Nothing," Lily said gruffly, eyeing down Sirius with a dangerous look. "I gotta go," she muttered, giving Sirius one last death glare before sweeping out of the room.
"Alright, well see ya," James called after her helplessly as she stomped down the stairs. "Yeesh," he said, turning toward Sirius and rolling his eyes. "What's gotten into her?"