The month of December came in peacefully. December first showed to be an abnormally comfortable temperature, a persistent breeze making it chilly. The ceiling of the Great Hall illustrated a pale blue sky obscured only by a handful of wispy, pale gray clouds. Such weather resulted in the students of Hogwarts taking on pleasantly lull moods.
"Hey Sakura," Blaze called that morning, taking a seat beside the fourth year girl. She glanced around the table. "Where's your boyfriend? He sleep in?"
"Nah…" With a shake to her head, Sakura flashed an odd sort of grin. "He offered Dennis some 'help' with his potion making… To prove that he'd done it successfully, the bloke sampled it himself. Now he's up in the hospital wing with a horrible purple rash and gradually growing earlobes, poor guy."
Blaze laughed, shaking her head. "Oh lord. You know… I could never see you two as a couple, honestly."
A "pfff" sound escaped Sakura's lips as she began cutting up her pancakes. "Oh, neither could I. But, I'm really happy with him…"
"Well I'm glad." Still smiling, Blaze turned to her own breakfast, though her eyes lingered on Sakura. "How did you two find each other? I mean, you're almost polar opposites."
"It seems that way, doesn't it? It's quite a story though, how he came about asking me to be his girlfriend…" And so she flashed back to the middle of the previous year.
It all began when a certain number of students met to sign their names on a paper promising their allegiance to Dumbledore's Army. Sakura had planned to come along with her brothers, but both of them seemed to have a little group to go with. How typical, she thought apathetically. It wasn't like she was envious of her brothers' social skills: she liked being a lone wolf. Besides, she was quite fond of a majority of the people Shiro and Satoshi were close to. Still, there was always that voice in the back of her head nagging about forming some friendships. I've been here for three years, she told herself, if I was too make friends, I would have done so already. However, she found that she was quite wrong.
Satoshi had scribbled his signature, striding off with Jeffrey Knumlach and the Lumbach twins in his wake; Shiro neatly wrote his name, took Konata's hand, and ruffled Sakura's wavy hair as he passed. Sakura nonchalantly bit the inside of her cheek as she noticed there were only 2 people left besides her: two boys with mousy brown hair that she recognized as the Creevey brothers, Dennis and Colin.Huge, carefree smiles were plastered on their faces as they signed their names in similar handwritings. As they stepped away so Sakura could get to the list, Colin stopped halfway. He kneeled down, clearly appearing to be tying his shoelace… Except that Sakura noticed his shoes had no laces. Not thinking much of this, Sakura completed her signature and started to make her exit. However, Colin scrambled upright the moment she began walking.
"Er, hello there! We're in the same House, yet we haven't exactly made acquaintances… I'm-"
"Colin Creevey, I know. You sort of find things out when you never talk to people." Feeling as if her heart plummeted to the pit of her stomach, Sakura prayed Colin hadn't noticed the self disgust that flickered across her face. Smooth, real smooth, she thought sarcastically. Apparently, her lack of social involvement made it so things she intended to stay in her head freely came out of her mouth.
Fortunately, Colin seemed completely unfazed by this remark. "You know of me? Wonderful! I know a tad about you as well… You're Satoshi and Shiro Ueda's sister, Sakura. Their youngest surviving sibling and a third year Gryffindor… I hear you don't talk much but are very gifted at Charms."
Offering an awkward, barely noticeable smile, Sakura wasn't sure if she should be flattered or disturbed. "Yeah, that's right… How come you uh, came to know this?"
To her surprise and confusion, Colin's face turned a gentle shade of crimson. "Oh, I just… Did…" He abruptly took a couple steps back, groping the air for his brother's arm. "It was lovely talking to you, see you around!" Speechless, Sakura simply watched as he spun around clumsily and dashed away with Dennis.
Instead of following after him as she should have, Sakura stood there looking mildly dumbstruck. She didn't think many people were aware of her existence, let alone little facts like her knack for Charms. For a moment, she was afraid Colin was just a creeper who had no shame in stalking up information on people, but the sincerity in his brown eyes when he approached her and the blush that had swept across his face overruled that option. Besides: just because he knew a few things about her didn't make him a stalker… Maybe he, like Sakura, wasn't a social butterfly and learned things about near strangers in the time spent not interacting with friends. Anyways, she happened to know a few things about Colin himself…
Even girls like Sakura will sometimes see a boy and immediately think "Ew, he's unattractive" or "Blimey, he's a cutie!" Sakura had thought that second statement, almost painstakingly so, the first time she saw Colin back in her first year. Absent-mindedly, she leaned over and asked Satoshi who he was.
"Him? That, my dear, is Colin Creevey," Satoshi replied casually, not bothering to lower his voice. Colin's head whipped up at the sound of his name, but quickly decided someone like Satoshi Ueda wouldn't dream of mentioning him so he returned to his lunch. "He's a character, that one," Satoshi continued, gaining enough sense to bring his voice down a few notches. "Last year, he was bloody obsessed with Harry Potter. Followed the poor boy around with a camera everywhere he went… He still acts like Harry is a god or celebrity, though he did stop carrying around that stupid camera. He probably would've still had it around his neck, actually, if it hadn't been broken by a Basilisk last year."
Sakura's jaw dropped. "Broken by a Basilisk!"
"Yup. Kid's a Muggle born, see, and when the Basilisk slithered on up to him he was dumb enough to try to take a picture of it. The beast's gaze was enough to petrify Colin and break his precious little camera."
From what Satoshi explained, Sakura reasoned that Colin was a rather odd type of person. She glanced across the table at the mousy haired boy, figuring she'd never have anything to do with him again. Of course, as you know, this was incorrect.
At the second Dumbledore's Army meeting, Sakura started to really become aware of Colin's interest in her. She was practicing Disarming with Ginny Weasley when she noticed an amused grin stretch across the red head's face. "What's up with you?" Sakura called, slightly irritated. It wasn't like her performance was worth being made fun of: she had succeeded in knocking Ginny's wand out of her hand four out of six times.
Her annoyance only grew when Ginny lowered her wand and trotted closer to Sakura. "It looks like you've got a fan," she whispered in her ear, nodding over to their right. Sure enough, Colin Creevey was being repeatedly caught off guard by his brother because his gaze seemed unable to stop drifting over to a certain third year Gryffindor girl. Sakura happened to look at him precisely as this occurred. Her green eyes met his brown ones; her cheeks turned light pink, his face flushed beet red, and they immediately turned away.
Similar events took place for the next couple meetings. As Harry dismissed everyone after about the fifth or sixth meeting, Sakura allowed her brothers to kiss her on the cheeks before exiting the Room of Requirement herself. However, she came to a halt when she heard a fuss going on shortly behind her. Dennis was holding onto his elder brother's wrist for dear life, hissing "Please don't do it!" through clenched teeth. Crying out wordlessly, Colin broke free and gripped Dennis's scrawny shoulders.
"Look, it will be FINE! You're my most favorite person in the world, you always will be. Got it?" he huffed. Dennis, suddenly appearing much younger than 12, hesitantly nodded his head and dashed away. Sighing deeply, Colin stood up straight and put on a brave face. This demeanor of boldness was short-lived, though, as he realized Sakura had been watching the entire time. "O-oh, goodness… You saw that, huh?" he squeaked, reluctantly taking a few steps forward.
"Yeah… It's uh, cute that you're so close to your brother… Pretty touching," Sakura responded, not understanding why her heart was fluttering so icily. She didn't have long to wonder if she had spoken the correct words, because Colin seemed to light up a bit.
"You think so? It's kind of… Dorky, if you ask me." Sakura smiled softly, walking a bit so that there was less than a foot between her and Colin. Her chest felt unnaturally loose; it made her sick to her stomach, yet there was also something pleasant about it. "Speaking of asking stuff," Colin added in a speedy voice. He closed his brown eyes tightly as if it pained him to hold back the words forming on his tongue. With a big gulp, he reopened his eyes and exclaimed so fast it was barely decipherable, "Would you go out with me?"
There were a few seconds of incredibly tense silence. Sakura stood there, feeling winded as if a train had just drove by at full speed and missed her toes by an inch. Her face was so red that she could feel her eyes begin to water. "O-oh, my… I-I… But you don't, know me…" she murmured in a shaking voice. Colin looked like he wanted to cry.
"Y-yes, but, I could get to know you. L-look, when I saw you be sorted I thought 'Wow! That is a really pretty girl!' It almost broke my heart to see you alone and mad-looking so often… Ever since, I've tried to learn as much about you as I could! W-we've got more in common than you realize. Neither of us have many friends… Our closest companions are our brothers… We're Gryffindors… B-but I can totally understand why you'd turn me down, I mean, you're such a… Oh, I can't think of a word, so I'll go with interesting… person, while I'm just a weirdo loser, but-"
"You are not," Sakura interrupted, barely acknowledging she had spoken. Colin looked very taken by surprise. Cheeks burning pink, Sakura stared down at the ground. "You're a bit of an oddball, I've heard, but odd means unique, and everyone is unique… The fact that you seem to find me fascinating while almost nobody else knows I even exist is super flattering…" She lowered her voice so that it was almost a whisper. "Plus I've thought you were cute since I was 11." She brought her gaze up to see Colin looking a combination of relieved, confused, shocked, and overjoyed. "I'd love to be your girlfriend… But I can't." As expected, Colin's expression fell.
"I understand…" He tilted his head slightly. "Okay, no I don't."
Sakura chuckled feebly. "I'm just not ready to be in a relationship, I've never even consciously thought about having a boyfriend…" She absently clasped her hands together behind her back. "So how about we get to be really good friends… And then we start dating?" she offered.
A sweet smile reappeared on Colin's face. "That sounds good- no, great- to me."
So, Sakura and Colin started hanging out much more. Instead of sitting by Blaze and Satoshi every single meal, Sakura made a habit of sitting beside Colin (or Dennis on occasion) and across from Blaze or her brother. When nobody else was available, Sakura would be the Creeveys' study buddy. Seeing as neither Sakura nor Colin was very popular, these went quite unnoticed, though some of the Gryffindors would go "Aww" when they spotted them together.
Their bonding didn't even end come summertime. With Satoshi off looking for a Quidditch career and the Dopples doing work for the Order of the Phoenix, Shiro and Sakura often found themselves alone in the house. Sakura would do most of the housework- cooking, laundry, dishes- and once the weekend came around, she would ask Shiro if she could go out for a while. Being her guardian, Shiro wasn't keen on this (especially since she wouldn't tell him where she was going), but since she rarely asked for anything and had been such a large help, he just couldn't say no.
Naturally, Sakura's destination was the Creevey household in the Muggle world. Mrs. Creevey was a bit more out there than her sons, while Mr. Creevey was an always-jolly milkman. Both of them simply adored Sakura, welcoming them in their home with open arms, treating her like a daughter, and offering milk and cookies every visit. It got to the point where Colin actually told them they were embarrassing him.
One day in mid-August, Colin and Sakura found themselves quite alone. Since it was nearly sweltering hot out, Sakura wore just a pink tank top with denim short-shorts while Colin was clothed in a white-and-red-striped wifebeater and gray cargo shorts. Neither of them was wearing shoes. Colin gave Sakura a glass of cool lemonade, and they sat together on the couch. Colin was eager to consume his sugary drink, though Sakura took just a few half-hearted sips before setting hers down. Taking note of this, Colin placed his now empty glass beside hers and flashed a bright smile at her. Despite the nervous feelings flurrying inside her, Sakura couldn't help but grin back. Sucking in a deep breath of warm air, she decided to get straight to the point.
"Look, Colin… I uh… I think we've been friends long enough," she whispered. The joy seeped out of Colin's face, bewilderment gradually seeping up to replace it. Sakura turned to face him, very lightly gripping his hand. "I'd say it's about time we become a couple."
The cheerfulness leaped back into Colin's expression as quickly as it had vanished, its brightness tenfold this time. "Fantastic! That's…" He laughed. "That's fantastic." Giggling beside herself, Sakura lunged forward to wrap her arms around Colin's neck as he hugged her around the waist. They stayed in that position for a few priceless moments, still touching when they finally moved away. They both blushed as their sparkling eyes met. He's right there… His face is RIGHT THERE… Sakura thought in a daze. Colin must have been having similar thoughts, because a few seconds later their upper bodies were leaning forward. However, there was one problem: both of them were tilting their heads the same direction, so they ended up mashing their noses together. Both of them laughed, their smiles warmer than the temperature outside. After Colin adjusted the position of his head, they tried again, this time sharing a very memorable first kiss.
Sakura was remarkably hesitant to go home, but ended up doing so in a cheerful daze. She was surprisingly unfazed to see Konata in her house for the first time that summer, cuddling with Shiro on the sofa. "Hi Sakura!" the brunette called, sliding her arm out from under Shiro's to wave at her boyfriend's sister.
"Hey there," Sakura responded casually. Shiro grinned.
"What's your deal?" he asked bemusedly.
"I saved some baby squirrels when I went for a walk," Sakura told him without turning around. Shiro laughed and rolled his eyes while Konata half-giggled behind her hand as Sakura walked into the door to the stairway. She, however, didn't seem to notice. What good was worrying over an embarrassing little stunt like that when she had just kissed Colin Creevey?