Chapter 4

When Sirius returned to the Gryffindor common room, Lily rushed towards him to give him a piece of her mind.

"What by Merlin's beard did you say to Dora to get her to hit you? Never mind, I'm sure whatever it was you deserved it", she started to rant as soon as he came through the portrait hole.

"Stop it Lily. Don't you think McGonagall already gave me a talking to? And I'm the one who got slapped" he complained.

"Sorry Padfoot, but this time you really deserved it. First you doubt her Quidditch skills, just because she's a girl and then you hit on her? Even I could have told you that wouldn't go over well" James said without any pitty.

"And Potter really is no expert concerning girls" Lily added.

"Hey! I can have every girl I want" James said defensively.

"Oh yes? Then why am I constantly turning you down? And don't think I will change my mind any time soon" Lily now rounded up on James.

"Not even if I tell you that you are the most beautiful, intelligent girl I know and the only one I really want?" James asked grinning.

"Your flattery won't work on me" was his redheaded crush's only reply.

Sirius slipped away unnoticed during their banter. He went up to their dorm and flopped down on his bed. He was alone in the room, Remus was still in the hospital wing because of the full moon the day before and Peter was down in the common room doing homework.

Granger has got some nerve to slap me like that. Must have something to do with the red hair, Lily has got a temper, too.

It had hurt Sirius pride when Granger had slapped him and humiliated him in front of the whole school like that and he promised revenge. He already had a few pranks for her in mind. But he had to admit she had captured his interest. From what he had seen in the last two weeks, she was not only intelligent and fit but as he had noticed today pretty, confident and spirited, too, a rare combination.

He was contemplating how to get Granger to give him a chance when James came into the room.

"Hey, why did you suddenly disappear?" James asked his best friend.

"Because you distracted Evans for a moment from her rant I really didn't want to listen to and I didn't need to stay to know she would turn you down yet again" Sirius answered.

"Someday she will see that I'm the only one for her, mark my words" James sulked.

"Give up mate, Evans is way out of your league."

"No. The day I give up is the day she marries Snivellus."

"Prongs, we are only fifteen and you are already thinking about marriage?" Sirius asked incredulous.

"What can I say? She's a very special girl."

"I will never marry. I like having one night stands."

"And the next on your list is Granger?"

"Yep. You have to admit she's a bit like Evans" Sirius said.

"Does that mean you have your eyes set on my Lily, too?" James asked bristling.

"No, no, don't worry. The lovely Lily is all yours" Sirius assured him.

"So, how will you get Granger to fall for you? She's obviously not your biggest fan, especially after what you said to her today" James stated.

"We will see. So far I got every girl I wanted."

Dora luckily had no idea of Sirius Black's plans for her. She quickly fell asleep, dreaming of Mr. Darcy from 'Pride and Prejudice' who strangely enough seemed to have Sirius Black's bright blue eyes.

Dora cursed Sharon the next morning for her comment the night before. Black as her Mr. Darcy, ridiculous! She groaned as she remembered her detention with McGonagall they had to serve together today. That big headed, chauvinistic idiot should leave her alone, or else!

She wanted so bad to talk to someone but her family and her best friend were out of her reach. After a while she decided to write to them anyway, even if they never read the letter, it would help her to sort out her own thoughts. She took out a sheet of parchment, ink and a quill and started writing.

Dear Mum and Dad,

I'm so sorry I just vanished without a trace. You must be so worried and I can't even tell you I'm all right because I'm stuck here in the year 1975 where you aren't even born yet. It's my own stupidity that I ended up here. You told me Mum, that it was dangerous to play around with time-turners, but I was still careless and now I'm paying the price for it. I'm so sorry, I couldn't even say goodbye to you. And now I don't know if I will ever see you again.

Dumbledore – I met Dumbledore, can you believe it? – said he doesn't know how to send me back and that I am stuck here, probably forever. So if we ever meet again I will be older than you. Isn't that a freaky thought?

I've been here for two weeks now and am repeating my 5th year (it's the 17th of September). I'm going to school now with people I only know from what you told me – James Potter, Lily Evans, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black (he's an idiot) and I even met Xenophilius Lovegood! I'm still a Ravenclaw of course and top in all of my classes but I had to give up Divination and Muggle studies. But I made the Qudditch team, Dad! I am now the Ravenclaw's keeper. My best friends are Sharon Davies and Becky Boot, two of my dorm mates in Ravenclaw, but sometimes I meet up with Lily and Remus to study in the library. They are really nice.

I still miss all of you. Often I wish I could speak to you and ask you for advice but I can't. I don't know if you will ever read this letter but I'm writing it anyway. It helps me to clear my head and feel closer to you.

All my Love,

Rose

After she had written the letter she felt a bit better. She hid the letter and then went down to breakfast with Sharon and Becky. When they reached the Great Hall she noticed that she was getting quite a bit of attention. Some congratulated her on slapping Sirius the day before – mostly Slytherins- and some gave her angry glares – mainly girls who were secretly or not so secretly crushing on him.

Her day got even worse when she fell asleep in History of Magic because she already knew what Binns was talking about and he actually noticed an took five points from Ravenclaw because of it.

After dinner she went to detention.

"Good evening, Professor McGonagall."

"Good evening. Please sit down while we are waiting for Mr. Black" she replied.

Dora sat down on the chair she indicated and after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence there was a knock on the door and Black entered the room.

"Professor McGonagall. Granger" he said and nodded in greeting.

"Good, now that you are both here we can begin with your detention. You will remove the chewing gum" – she said the word with clear distaste – "some students stuck on the underside of their desks in my classroom. Without magic. Your wands, please."

The two students groaned and handed their wands over to Professor McGonagall. Then the transfiguration teacher led them to her classroom so they could start on their task.

"When you are finished with your task you can come to my office and retrieve your wands" she said and went back to her office.

Reluctantly Dora and Sirius began to remove the chewing gums. Dora had hoped to get it over with as quickly as possible without having to talk to Black but of course he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"This is not how I imagined our date but we could use the opportunity to get to know each other better. What do you think, Granger?" Sirius asked smiling charmingly, the innuendo clear in his voice.

"Stay away from me, Black or you will regret it" Dora hissed. She really wasn't in the mood for one of his stupid pick up lines.

"No need to bite my head off. I was only hoping we could burrow the hatchet" Sirius pouted.

"We could if you would finally learn how to keep your mouth shut" Dora replied snappishly.

"You could kiss me to shut me up" he suggested grinning broadly.

Dora ignored him for the rest of their detention.

Sirius was frustrated. Why was Granger being so difficult? His charm that never failed to impress the girls seemed to have the opposite effect on her. And for the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

Dora meanwhile was bristling with anger. The idiot was so full of himself, thinking he could have every girl if he only so much as smiled charmingly at them? No, not her!

As soon as they finished removing the chewing gums from the desks she stormed out of the room and into Professor McGonagall's office to get her wand back. Then she made her way as quickly as she could back to the Ravenclaw tower. She wanted to get away from Black as fast as possible before she slapped him a second time.

"How did it go?" James asked grinning when Sirius returned from his detention.

"Don't ask" Sirius mumbled disgruntled.

"She turned you down again?" James deduced.

"Yes" Sirius replied monosyllabic.

"Finally you know how I feel with Lily" James stated.

"Yes, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life running after her, like you do" his friend replied.

"If she's worth it" James only said.

Meanwhile Dora had complained loudly about Black to Becky.

"Be glad you only have to endure his stupid remarks and not his childish pranks" Becky said.

"I would prefer his pranks, at least I would know how to deal with that" Dora replied.

"Believe me, you don't want to be the victim of one of his pranks" Becky assured her.

"I just don't know what they all see in him. He's good looking, yes but looks aren't everything. He's an arrogant git" she bristled.

"Well, he's handsome, intelligent and his family is rich. For some girls that's enough to overlook some character flaws" Becky tried to explain.

"Maybe for some it is but not for me. I'm not that shallow."

That was the end of their discussion and they both went to bed.

'Be careful what you wish for' Dora thought morosely over the next few days. Sirius had decided it was time for his revenge for the slap she gave him and continually tried to prank her. Some of them she could escape because she noticed them in time – after all she grew up with Fred Weasley II and James Potter II – but he still managed to get her a few times. At the end of the week she had sported green strands in her red hair (luckily she was able to reverse it), a note on her back reading ' Sirius Black is hot' and she was the victim of frequent attacks with dung bombs. The only place she seemed to be somewhat safe was Ravenclaw tower where she spent a great deal of her time writing letters to her family and Scorpius even though she knew they would probably never read them.

Unfortunately she had to leave her safe haven on Saturday morning to go to Quidditch practice. At least her team mates had finally stopped patronizing her after they had seen how good she was.

The training went by without any major problems but on her way back she had a run in with Sirius Black. He was grinning broadly at her, obviously happy with the pranks he had played on her.

Dora tried to ignore him and determinedly went past him when he grabbed her arm and whispered something into her ear.

"If you want the pranks to stop you only have to give me a kiss."

Dora looked at him in distaste, freed her arm from his grip and stumped to her common room. She would rather endure his pranks for the next three years than kiss this pig headed idiot. His ego was out of proportion already, there was really no need to inflate it further.

Weeks passed and nothing changed. Sirius continued to prank Dora and then ask for a kiss or a date. And Dora would tell him to go to hell. James, Remus and Peter found it entertaining to watch how Sirius was turned down time and time again. Sharon and Becky pitied her but couldn't help her either. So Dora decided to fight back.

Dora grew up with her cousins Fred Weasley II and James Sirius Potter who had inherited their namesake's passion for pranks. She knew some pretty good pranks herself, even though normally she didn't care for things like that. For Black she would make an exception. He would soon get a nasty surprise.

On a rainy day in October roaring laughter broke out at the Gryffindor table at breakfast. The only one who wasn't laughing was Sirius who was looking around in confusion. James kindly transfigured a spoon into a mirror and held it in front of him. Sirius skin was blue.

"This isn't funny James. We promised not to prank each other" he complained.

"It wasn't me! I don't know who but whoever it was is damn good at pranking" James said.

"Remus? Peter? It wasn't you either, was it?" Sirius asked.

"No, it wasn't us" Remus answered barely holding back his laughter. He didn't want to laugh at his friend but he looked hilarious.

"Then who was it? Who would dare to prank one of us?" Sirius raged.

"I'm more interested in how they managed it" Remus stated. "Obviously you are the only victim of this prank, someone must have a grudge against you" he mused.

"So who did you piss off so much?" James wondered.

"I don't know" Sirius growled.

Remus had an idea who it could have been but he kept it to himself. If it had really been her, she deserved her little revenge on Sirius. Sometimes Sirius just didn't know when to stop.

Sirius was trying to get the blue colour off of him but to no avail. Nothing he did seemed to help and even Madam Pomfrey was at a loss. He had to walk around with blue skin for a week before it vanished on its own.

He was so occupied with finding out who had played that prank on him that he even forgot to play his own pranks. A side effect Dora very much appreciated.

huflepuff girl14: I'm not sure if that was your question but this is definitely going to be a Sirius/Rose fic. It just may take some time for them to get there.