Once again, I thank: FallenAngelFox, DreamChaser6, and the previously mentioned fanfickers. You make my day(s) with your wonderfulness. Of course, reviews are always welcome.
I have a confession to make. I was just going where this took me, but then I decided on a storyline. So yeah, in a couple of chapters, maybe, it'll get serious. Yes, serious, not Sirius. It was already Sirius. But I'm rambling. Go on, read.
"I knew this was a mistake."
"Get over yourself, Sirius." Lily said, staring at me as though she was trying to penetrate my mind.
"I can't, Lily. It's not possible." I grinned at her, trying to avoid the topic. Once again, we were discussing my refusal to admit that I liked Bianca. Admit. That was Lily's word. Of course, it didn't matter what I felt or thought, but I just had to admit that I liked her.
"Shut up, Black. Now isn't the time for arrogance. You listen to me. You, Sirius, are a Marauder." She let that hang for a second or two. "A Gryffindor." Dramatic pause. "And a man. So you make the first move."
"Even if I don't feel that way about her?" I asked, frustrated.
"Stop being stubborn, Sirius!" She threw up her hands. "Or vain, for that matter. The world will not collapse if, for once, you allow yourself to go first. Eat your pride, for once!" She glared.
"Pride?" I glared back.
She took a deep, calming breath. "What she feels for you is very strong, Sirius, and that's because you've been good to her. When she suffers her bouts of depression, we pretend not to notice, because she won't confide in anyone but you. Isn't that all the sign you need? Or are you afraid that she doesn't feel the same about you?" Her glare turned into a pleading expression. "She's afraid too, damn you! All said and done, Sirius, when she first heard of you, it was Emma Prince telling her about the many girls that you've…been with." She took a deep breath, and pulled out a rubber band from her pocket to tie her hair back. It made her earnest expression easier to see, and that wasn't doing me any favors.
"Alright, fine!" I yelled. "She's hot! She's got sexy legs that would look great in those stripper-type heels. Her hair is sexy, and the way it swings when she's excited is sexy too. She's damn good looking, with a great figure to boot. Happy?" I glared.
"Sirius Black." She said in her most menacing voice. "Never again, will you ever, let me hear you speak of her that way. Do I make myself clear? You're a better person than that, and I won't have you speaking that way about my friend."
"I'm done here, Lily. I can't talk about this right now." I turned and walked out of the common room. Well, it was time to put my earlier plan into action.
-x-
"James!" I half-roared, startling the Screechsnaps in his box [detention for Professor Sprout], which promptly began to snap and squeal, true to their names. He put the lid on them and yelled at them, some very colorful words shutting them up.
"Yeah?" He said, mellower than he was in September. Did Lily have to make him easier to live with? It made it so much more difficult to be mad at her.
"What's the password to the bathroom on the fourth floor?" I glowered. He took in my expression calmly, as though trying to figure out how to react. It made me angrier.
With a small smile, he replied. "Calla Lily. Why?" He asked.
I snorted. "Did you set that?"
"How did you figure that out?" He smirked in my direction. "Here, make yourself useful." He threw the cardboard box at me.
"Drop these off at the far end for me, and then help me get the rest of these. Sprout says that I need to get this entire patch before my next detention."
"Damn. I hate it when she keeps changing detentions." I grinned sympathetically at him. "What did you do this time?"
"Who do you think turned Snivelly's hair fluorescent yellow?"
"That was you?" I affected a pout. "I was thinking that we were expanding. I thought the little gits had finally caught on." And then I changed my expression to one closely similar to Lily's disapproving looks. "You're Head-Boy, James. You ought to know better than that."
"Knock it off." He shoved my shoulder, handing me a pair of gloves. "It won't come off for a week unless he shaves it off. The grease makes it shine more." He snickered. "Get started in that corner."
We started on the opposite sides of each column of the wriggling plants, throwing them together as fast as we could, making it a race. A competitive streak was almost compulsory in a Gryffindor. I ripped through the Screechsnaps, snapping at them when they bit my fingers.
"Stupid plant!" I growled at one which had been hanging from my thumb for the past minute.
"Stupid human." It squeaked back, releasing my thumb. I quickly put the lid back on the box, levitating it to the far end of the Greenhouse. I didn't have the same restrictions as James, so my wand was still fully functional. James glowered at me each time I used it, so I summoned the next empty box just the same way.
After an hour and half of pulling and fighting with some particularly foul-mouthed Screechsnaps, I was sick of it. I glanced back at the pile of the finished boxes. At a quick count, there were almost thirty.
"I'm bloody sick of these potty-mouthed plants. Have you been teaching them, Prongs?"
"I only met 'em tonight, Padfoot. Hmm…just what kind of language does Professor Sprout use around these things?"
I laughed, throwing the gloves back at him. He caught and pocketed them. "Leaving?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, sorry I have to cancel our date." I made a kissy face at him.
He laughed a huge, belly laugh. "You available tomorrow night, Padfoot?" He was making googly eyes at me.
"Sure, let me call Lily, and we'll make it a ménage a trios."
"Sick man. You ought to get your mind tested."
"Sure. We'll go to Madame Pomfrey together." I said, shutting the door behind me. I stretched, feeling all the stiff knots in my back release. Outside the hot greenhouse, the November air was far more than chilly. The air bit at my exposed face, but it felt good. A contrast to the greenhouse. Of course, by the time I reached the Castle again, my face was numb and my hair was cold, encrusted with bits of ice, which the pine trees lining the greenhouse had helpfully shed on my hair. Well, I could be grateful that they weren't needles.
-x-
Later, in a completely different atmosphere, I had a girl pressed against my torso.
"Willow…" I sighed, staring into soft gray eyes. Not blue-gray, just gray.
"Hush, Black. I'm fine." And then soft, soft, soft lips were on mine. I didn't have to bend much to reach them at all. My hand shaped itself around her waist – Her bare waist. My thumbs were straying higher, to the slip of black material covering her, but each time she squirmed. She said she was fine, that I was fine where I was, but every time she squirmed, I felt like a git.
And then suddenly, something sparked in her. Every time I pulled back, there was a defined, more aggressive reaction from her. This time, there was something different. Her fingers gripped me tighter, and she was suddenly pushing me towards the wall with the mermaid painting.
Willow Chester. She was actually just what I imagined Rowena Ravenclaw to look like – she had the distinguished, graceful and incredibly proud look on her face…except now. The girl who was kissing the corner of my mouth held none of the cold contempt usually displayed on her face. Her cornsilk hair was almost always pulled into a loose braid, except right then. I was not running my fingers through the waves, though I wanted to. It was too intensely sensual a moment to ruin with emotion like that. Her posture was always very stiff, pulled forcefully into a graceful arc, except in my arms. She was rippling like a ribbon.
It was quite simple to get her where she was. I had cornered her in one of the empty corridors. She was not that much younger than I was. We were friends. Kind of. It hadn't taken that long. She was one of the people who preferred it when I held back, letting her do the work. I let her steer our conversation where she liked, and inserted my opinion as required. It didn't take long to end up in the prefect's bathroom, where there was enough steam to justify dropping my shirt. The mirrors were all fogged up, erasing what little shyness she had displayed in the empty corridor.
The buttons on her shirt, however, came off slowly, tantalizingly. One by one, starting from the high collar, the pearl buttons began coming undone. After each button, she would touch the bare skin lightly, and I was fascinated. But being fascinated was all I could do. She had flicked her wand to pin my arms where they were. The white silk fell off her shoulders easily, and she was left, clad in the black skirt, and the black lingerie. Wordlessly, she freed my arms, and I flung myself at her with the force of a released prisoner. She fought back equally hard, grabbing at my hair to keep me against the wall, where she wanted me.
"Enough." She growled, throwing herself with all her force at me. I'll admit, it was more than I'd expected, but nothing I couldn't handle. I humored her. She began nibbling at my jaw, touching small kisses all the way to my mouth, and as I opened my mouth to say something, she caught it open. Like some feral cat on the hunt, she just kept pushing forward. Well, if that was how she wanted to play it…I grabbed her by the waist and flipped her around, pinning her shoulders there by sheer brute force. The mermaid clicked her tongue, flitting out of her portrait.
"No, you enough." I said, my voice equally husky. She didn't like that. It was in her blood to be bossy and controlling. She wasn't comfortable giving up control, especially because it wouldn't be easy for her to reclaim it. Her hands in my hair began to pull in frustration, rather than in passion. I let up a little, giving her a fighting chance. Grabbing at it immediately, she threw me back against the wall. Honestly, this was the part I enjoyed the most. A girl like Willow, well, it was a lot of fun. I grinned. Smirking back, she shimmied out of her skirt, kicking it aside. My breath caught in my throat. Those certainly were long legs. Not giving her the satisfaction, though, I immediately attacked her mouth again, and she purred. Literally, purred. I felt it in my mouth. I pulled back to smirk at her.
Pulling at my head, she said, "Shh. Not a word, you hear me?" And we were locked together once more.
"This is getting to be far too much." I said, pushing her by her shoulders. A look of shock crossed her face before understanding colored her eyes. Taking her by surprise, though, I picked her up, and dropped her into the orchid-scented, plain looking water. Laughing a little, she swam a length and came back, dripping absolutely wet – from cornsilk waves to well-tended toes.
I shucked off the well-fitted pants, still left in boxers. I was not going to be the first there. Laughing more huskily now, she said, "Well, I'm not going to wait for you."
Grinning evilly, she slid down to one of the submerged marble benches. Lifting one leg out of the water, she turned on a tap which seemed to be dispensing orange-blossom scented soap. Mesmerized by the slow rubbing, I didn't notice the slip of black material floating close the edge of the tub for a second or two. It took me a while to understand what it was. And then the sounds! It was not hard to guess what was being rubbed, now that the leg was submerged again. I watched, smirking, taking in the rising of the other leg, the slow sensual repeat, and noting the sounds – the purring, the moaning, the impatient growls, her words of encouragement, telling me to join her. Telling me she was doing my job. But I held on to my resolve. I would not be naked before the girl. I would not.
Giving up, apparently, she lifted her torso out of the water to undo the clasp on the last remaining garment on her.
"Please. Now, at least." She said, sinking back into the water, just visible from neck-above.
"If you're begging." I said, smirking. She scowled at me. She didn't beg. She never begged.
And in the biggest cliché of the unfair friggin' world, when there was no body to rake my eyes over, I looked at her face, and just for a second, her eyes were cornflower blue, and her wet hair was black and waist length.
"Please." Her sarcastic remark snapped me out of it. I closed my eyes and breathed in orchids and orange-blossoms. No. This can not be happening.
And bigger than the biggest cliché of this unfair bloody universe – the door slid open quietly, but loud enough for me to realize it. The face in the door was framed by long black hair.
"Oh." She colored. "Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt." The undercurrent of hurt and anger could have been for an entirely different reason, but I imagined it had something to do with me.
The door shut with a bang. I glanced back at Willow, who was looking at me with an expression of hurt. What did I do?
"I knew this was a mistake." She said before grabbing one of the towels and running away from me.
'Lo, everyone. I just got done reading a fanfic, Turncoat, by elizaye. Very, very good. I can't stop thinking of Draco as a dark, brooding, hidden good guy. And he's handsome, so it's just something to think about.
As always, reviews are welcome.
R. 3