A/N- Hey hey! Another chapter for yah! Loved the reviews last time as well 3 Keep 'em comin' people! This is slightly shorter but has a lot of Sirius stuff ;)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
"Where's Lils?" Marlene looked up and down the Great Hall, searching for the unmistakable head of red hair. Dinner had started ten minutes ago and the Gryffindor prefect was nowhere to be seen.
"I think she had a meeting," shrugged Dorcas, taking a bite of chicken. "But I don't know how long that was supposed to go on for."
"There she is!" Dany looked up to where Marlene was pointing. Lily walked in, looking a little tired and sat down beside Mary, opposite Dorcas.
"Sorry I'm late. Had to break up a scuffle on my way back from the meeting," she muttered, loading her plate with mashed potatoes. "Stupid fourth years. Hexing each other." She cast a dark look in James' direction as she said that.
"What did I do? I was here! Eating chicken!" James raised both his arms in surrender, gazing at the others for support.
"I know," sighed Lily. "But I can't help but feel it's your legacy which is causing this."
"We are an inspiration," said Sirius, running a hand through his hair and tousling it perfectly. "Can you blame anyone?"
"How does your neck manage to bear the weight of your humongously big head?" asked Remus, gazing into the air in contemplation. "Is that why you moan at night, Pads? Because of your sore neck?"
Everyone burst into laughter as Sirius sported an affronted look. Remus just smirked at his friend and went back to eating. James had almost fallen off the bench, he was laughing so much, while Marlene was begging Remus for a more vivid description of Sirius' nightly activities.
"Anything he moans in particular?" Marlene leaned towards Sirius suggestively. "Or rather, anyone?"
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to divulge that Marly," said Remus with a sigh. "We do abide by a code of honor and as much as he annoys me, I could never betray Pads."
Sirius smirked at this and shot a wink in Marlene's direction. "Sorry, love. Moony's my pal first, and master blackmailer second."
"But if he does get too annoying…" Remus left the sentence unfinished, raising his eyebrows knowingly.
"I'd watch yourself, if I were you, Pads. Moony's not kidding," said James, adopting a mock serious tone. "And you know how Moony gets when people annoy him."
"Okay, now I'm very interested," said Dorcas, looking at James with a grin. "How does Remus get when people annoy him?"
"Let's just say the glitter fiasco of '74 wasn't a Slytherin sabotage." James looked at all of them knowingly.
"That is bollocks!" yelled Marlene, looking like Christmas had come early. "Remus, you utter genius! Where do I sign up for expressing my utter and incandescent admiration?"
Dany snorted loudly at Marlene's declaration and Remus' obvious embarrassment. Sirius and James were laughing like idiots, banging their fists on the table. Lily just looked on in defeat, wondering what she had done to deserve this.
Oddly enough, Sirius kept popping up wherever Dany went. It was barely noticeable at first (Sirius was rather good at the stealth stuff when he wanted to be) but then Dany realised that she had barely made it an hour without bumping into him or chatting with him or just having him around.
It felt uncanny and she wanted to talk to someone about it. She couldn't talk to Scott - she felt oddly self-conscious. That left either Marlene or Lily. And since Marlene's exaggerated winks were still fresh in her memory, she decided to go for Lily.
It was a Thursday. Which meant that Lily would be on patrol. She knew which places Lily had been assigned because of the neverending complaints she had had to hear about James creating havoc in her vicinity.
"That toerag was hexing a student right around the corner!" Her face was red with fury and indignation. "And then he had the utter gall to strut about like it had all been for my benefit!"
Dany chuckled to herself, remembering just how easy it was for James to rile up Lily. But recently, they had been getting along a bit better. Which basically meant that James wasn't doing stupid, attention-seeking things in front of Lily, and Lily wasn't spending the better part of the day contemplating the horrors of James Potter's existence. It was a pleasant change.
Rounding the corner, she walked straight into a solid mass of something. Looking up, she caught sight of a familiar pair of grey eyes, twinkling at her mischievously.
"What brings you here?" He asked, a smirking lifting up the corner of his mouth. He had a toothpick in between his lips, which looked oddly sexy.
"You have a toothpick in your mouth…" He grinned at her statement. She noticed that his tie was loosely knotted and the first button of his white Oxford shirt undone.
"Very astute observation," he said, leaning towards her slightly while keeping his hands in his pockets. "No wonder you're top of the class."
"Bugger off!" She said with a laugh and shoved him lightly. He leaned back slightly and rocked back towards her. It was utterly silly but Dany found herself giggling at his ridiculous antics.
"I don't think I will," he said with that annoying smirk on his face. "Let's head back to the common room. Come on."
Dany didn't remember why she had been out wandering in the first place. As usual, all rational thoughts exited her mind at breakneck speed when Sirius took her hand and sprinted back towards the Fat Lady's portrait.
By the time she remembered that she had been looking for Lily and the reason for her search had been the person currently sprawled out on the red common room sofa, smirking at her like he knew something she didn't.
"Why did you drag me back here?" Her eyebrows were impressively raised and he cocked his head up to answer her question.
"Not everything has a reason, dear Juliet," he replied, flopping back into the sofa.
"'Juliet'? What?" Her cheeks started to tinge a light pink as she waited for him to explain.
"Thought you knew your Shakespeare. Or are you more into that Marlowe chap?"
"O-of course I know Shakespeare!" she spluttered. "But why 'Juliet'?"
"She's one of the greatest female characters written by the bloke, isn't she?"
"Yeah, but she was also one half of a star-crossed pair of lovers. Who both died tragically because - frankly! Because of their own stupidity! Bloody buggers!"
Sirius let out a bark of laughter at this and rolled off onto the carpet. Taking off his tie and running a hand through his black hair, he looked up at her with a dazzling grin.
"Couldn't have put it better myself," he said, his eyes twinkling once again. "You do have a way with words, don't you?"
"Why would you call me 'Juliet'? Do you want me to die under tragic circumstances?!" she asked, flailing her arms about impatiently.
"Quite the opposite really." He was gazing at her intently, his voice awfully low and husky. Dany's eyes flickered to his lips for a second, before staring into his eyes of molten silver. She gulped visibly, completely entranced by the beautiful boy sitting in front of her. "As for Juliet, it's rather a pretty name. But an even better nickname. And I realised that I didn't have one for you," he breathed, his eyes locked with hers.
"If I didn't know any better, I would think you were following me," Dany whispered, not really being able to focus on anything but his molten gaze in front of her.
"Padfoot!"
Dany jerked at the shout and promptly fell off the sofa, landing with a thump on her arse. Sirius, too, looked slightly disoriented and frowned before heaving himself off the floor and following James up the stairs to the boy's dorm.
Dany let out a long sigh, feeling her heartbeat at a galloping pace under her palm.
Marlene was sitting in a corner of the common room, legs tucked under herself, as Dany whispered to her frantically. Apparently, Sirius had been behaving weirdly the entire day. It was like he was avoiding her. Her friend was worried because they had to finish an important part of their Potions project that night.
"I don't even know if he'll show up tonight, Marls." Dany threw her hands in the air in frustration.
"Okay, just run me by everything that happened yesterday," she replied, placing a calming hand on her friend's shoulder.
"It's like I said, I was looking for Lils and he showed up. Dragged me back to the common room and gave me an utterly ridiculous nickname - Juliet! Why would anyone use 'Juliet' as a nickname? I mean- Sorry. Back to the story. Then, umm... I was grilling him about the nickname and whether he wanted me to die tragically, and then he went all mysterious and said some load of bollocks." Marlene suppressed a grin at the sight of Dany's cheeks flushing slightly at this point. "Then, er, then I think I said that it seemed like he was following me. But - "
"Merlin! You said what? You caught his bluff, Dany!" Marlene fell back into her chair, laughing. "I mean, Sirius prides himself on being smooth as butter and suave like nobody's business. It's his thing. You basically exposed his thing!"
"Whose thing did you expose, Dany?" James walked up to them with a obnoxious grin on his face. Remus, Lily and Sirius were right behind him, looking curious.
"Sirius'." Dany flushed red and smacked Marlene on her shoulder.
"Bint," she muttered, trying hard to get her face back to a normal color.
"When did this interesting development occur?" asked James, cheekily. Dany could see Remus suppressing a smirk, while Lily's expression was caught between indignance and amusement. Sirius, on the other hand, looked absolutely delighted.
"Sod off, Potter!" Dany huffed and picked up the book she had brought down, bringing it in front of her face and effectively blocking out everyone from her line of vision. She was trying very hard to get her heart beating at a normal pace again, hoping to drain the deep red flush that had undoubtedly tinged her cheeks.
She heard vague shuffling around her and breathed out in relief. Feeling a little calmer, she opened her eyes and recoiled upon finding someone leaning over her. Someone with grey eyes, beautiful cheekbones and perfectly tousled hair framing his smirking face.
"You've been on the same page for the past ten minutes," he said, his amusement clearly evident.
"So? Not everyone reads at an obnoxiously fast pace like you," she countered, narrowing her eyes at him.
"With your eyes shut."
Mortified beyond imagination, Dany flung her book at him. "Wanker!"
"I'll see you tonight!" Sirius called after her retreating figure, his smirk now full-blown and devastatingly irresistible.
:D What'd ya think? *waits patiently for 3 seconds* REVIEW PLEASE! Cheers xxx