I am just going to quickly post this, and then run away as fast as I can, before you can all shoot me.
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Unfortunately, shyness and anxiety are perpetual states of mind, which are not easily remedied. Thus it was that on the Monday morning after I had acquired the new title of "Sirius' Black's girlfriend", I awoke at 5am in the morning with butterflies, not to mention moths, Crane flies and other winged insects dallying around my stomach.
Deciding that remaining in bed, with nothing to do but turn over in my mind various scenarios, most of which seemed to involve Sirius informing me that he had made a mistake, or that he had changed his mind, or indeed that it was all some sort of ruse to amuse him, I pulled myself from my bed, and spent the next two hours showering, and carefully applying make-up, as well as taming my hair into some semblance of a hair style.
However, after two hours of working on my appearance, even going so far as to use that make-up brush with the little comb that I doubt anybody knows the use of, I concluded that there was nothing more I could do, in the time frame, to viably alter and improve my appearance. I needed someone to pour out my anxieties too. So it was that Lily was awoken at 7:15am by her alarm that morning, to find me sitting Indian style on the end of her bed, staring intently at her face.
I was more than offended that she screamed and fell out of her bed: I had spent two hours getting ready, I think the longest I ever have to date, and she still shrieked as if I had been an ogre. However, any expostulations which sprang to mind were quickly drowned by the invertebrates which had relocated to my mind.
"Lily." I gasped, as she sat on the floor, blinking up at me. "Lily. Lily. I can't... I can't... I mean.. What if he... He might... Maybe... A joke... Or something... Everybody... Staring... Great Hall... Oh my goodness... I can't... Please... McGonagall... I don't..."
My very lucid and coherent diatribe was unceremoniously cut short as I was soundly slapped in the face by a messy-haired Katie. Apparently Lily's scream had roused the dormitory, although as Katie explained once I had calmed down, the slap was more to snap me out of my panic attack than to chastise me for causing Lily to wake them up in such an unpleasant manner.
It certainly did the trick. For a precious five seconds I was relieved from my anxieties, before the arthropods shook themselves out of their stupor and proceeded with their fluttering and flapping about my cranium and abdominal cavity. I groaned and fell face forwards onto Lily's bed.
One of the great thing about my friends is that they didn't start telling me how stupid I was being. They all hauled themselves immediately from their cosy beds, and getting out of bed is no mean feat in a freezing castle in snowy Scotland at the beginning of January. It normally takes preparation: you have to make a quick skip from the duvet to the bathroom, skudding on some slippers to avoid frostbite on the way, and throw your body into the shower before the hypothermia kicks in.
My friends jumped up, and came and sat around me, and not even Lily whacked me on the head for shocking her in such a manner when she had only just opened her eyes. They then sat with me for the next hour, calming me down and reassuring me that Sirius wasn't joking, and that he wouldn't break up with me once he realised that I was certifiably insane and shouldn't be allowed out without expert supervision.
Then Lily caught sight of the clock at 8:15 and realised that breakfast closed in half an hour. Bearing in mind that it took fifteen minutes just to travel from the Gryffindor Tower to the Great Hall, this left them all fifteen minutes to shower, change, pack their bags, clean their teeth and eat breakfast.
Suffice to say that it worked pretty well in assuaging my fear, as I rushed around, grabbing school books, finding tights, and rooting shoes out from their places under the beds. Even getting downstairs posed no problem, as my hand was grabbed by Lily's and we ran down the the Great Hall in a haphazard jumble of arms, legs, bags, robes, and for some reason, a bra trailing from someone's shoe, which I was too out of breath to bring to everybody's attention.
We flung ourselves onto the Gryffindor benches five minutes before the end of breakfast, stuffing toast and jam into our mouths, and pocketing the squashed croissants and brusied apples for later. (All the good food had already been eaten by those less tardy than us.) It was only after I believe we had all hastily consumed a few pieces of toast each that we looked up to find the four Marauders sitting across from us, staring open mouthed as we guzzled down a whole meal in less than five minutes.
I took a moment to look at us all. I was a complete juxtaposition to my four other friends. They were sporting messy hair, half knotted ties, crumpled shirts and pale, make-upless faces, whilst I sat with my hair tamed, my nails manicured, my uniform pristine and my make-up (if I do say so myself) expertly applied. After all, I had had two hours to get ready: they had had ten minutes.
Collectively noticing their eyes upon us, we all began to resume our normal dainty eating manner. However, eating was never going to be very simple for me when Sirius was at the table. Upon catching my eye, he gave me a wide grin and a "Good Morning." My breath caught in my throat at the sight of him and the knowledge that his attention was upon me. Unfortunately, breath was not all that caught in my throat.
Oh no. There had to be a piece of toast in the process of being chewed at the exact moment that he grinned, and I had to be such a nervous wreck that even the sight of my newly acquired boyfriend (gulp) meant that I started choking on my toast. I started a very attractive hacking cough, trying to dislodge the toast from the top of my trachea, as Lily began to helpfully pound me on the back, very forcefully. I suspect to this day that the pounding was partly as a penance for scaring her that morning.
Although she was trying to be helpful, for all that I doubt her motives, the pounding only made me cough harder, and thus it was that I found myself in the midst of my second coughing fit in front of Sirius Black within 14 hours. This was exactly what I was afraid of. I really should have just remained in the beautiful sanctuary this is my dormitory.
Finally, just before I was asphyxiated, the toast was dislodged, and my coughing gently subsided to a soft wheeze. Knowing my face to be a bright red, if not purple, underneath my make-up, I kept my gaze firmly fixed on the table in front of me, too embarrassed to meet anyone's eye. Until, that is, a goblet was pushed against my right hand, which was lying flat on the table. I followed the arm that was pushing the goblet, and met Sirius's encouraging smile as he nodded towards the goblet.
Blushingly, with downcast eyes, I took the goblet, and soothed my roughened throat with the cool pumpkin juice that he had poured out for me. It was then that Lily exclaimed:
"Lessons start in 5 minutes!"
We all jumped up, grabbing our bags, wiping jam off our faces. I don't know how I did it, but somehow I managed not to trip over the bench as I got up – I don't think I could deal with another embarrassing moment that morning. We all ran in the direction of the Transfiguration classroom, knowing that McGonagall was a stickler for punctuality.
We made it inside the classroom just as the bell went: regrettably, nine people running and attempting to stop at the same moment in the same tiny place in front of the desk did not end well. Down we all went, me at the bottom of the pile. Someone fell on my head, and someone else fell on my legs. I was as truly stuck under everyone as if I had been in a rugby scrum.
Sirius decided to come to my rescue for the second time that morning. Whilst it was very sweet of him, I believe that I would have appreciated it more if Fate had not seen fit to place me in such embarrassing situations, so early in the beginning of a relationship that I had hoped and dreaded with equal measure for nigh on seven years. As Lily said to me later, at least Sirius knew what he was getting himself into: as he found out how ungainly I am in the very first day of our relationship, there were no terrible surprises later on. I thanked her greatly for this piece of encouragement.
He grabbed me around my waist and hauled me out from under Remus and Katie. Magically, and probably with the charm and smoothness for which he was so famed (and I must say revered by all the girls of Hogwarts), he had evaded the flailing arms and legs of everybody else and was the only one of us left standing. Even James, who as a Seeker for the Quidditch team had good reflexes, had fallen prey to the malco-ordination of the group.
For a moment he held my back pressed against his front, and, although this is really getting very farcical now, I found myself breathless in his presence for the third time in less than a day. Although I believe this time it had more to do with the fact that I could feel how defined his chest muscles were, even through both of our robes, and with my back. Backs aren't famed for being particularly sensitive, so I'm sure that gives you some idea of... well... his very defined pectoral muscles.
Anyway... ahem... he then turned me around to check that I was unhurt, and to brush down my side where I had fallen on the dusty floor. By the time he had finished this, and reached down to grab my bag, I was stunned into incoherency, and at McGonagall's admonition for us all to sit down and stop disturbing the class, I could only mumble "Table" and walk towards a desk.
With McGonagall's beady eyes upon us, everyone had rushed as quickly as possible towards the nearest desk, and I found myself sitting down next to a a random Hufflepuff guy. Sirius had made his way towards an empty desk for two, and I saw him look at me in askance as I sat down next to the Hufflepuff. However, by the time I realised that Sirius wanted me to sit with him, there was no way that I could stand up and move without drawing the whole class's attention to myself, as well as upsetting the Hufflepuff, so I subsided into my seat, and fixed my eyes on McGonagall's face, wondering why on earth I was such an idiot.
The rest of the day continued in a similar vein: racing from lesson to lesson, and not really getting a chance to speak to Sirius. All my friends were observing me sharply, ready to intervene should I start to panic, or do something utterly mortifying, and coupled with the shyness I felt around Sirius, I barely said two words all day.
It was at dinner that the worst event of the day happened, though. Cecilia Rodgers, an intelligent, suave, friendly and very attractive Ravenclaw (mile long legs, shiny brown hair, and the longest eyelashes I have seen on anyone but a cow) wandered up to chat to Sirius about their Care of Magical Creatures project which they had together. She was obviously flirting with him.
Awkward does not quite describe that dinner time. Sirius was evidently very uncomfortable, and yet her flirting was not so overt as to merit a "I'm sorry but Rose is my new girlfriend." In no way at all did I want to draw any attention to myself, either by leaving the table, or by intruding upon the conversation. I did not have to confidence to subtly hint her away, without seeming like a jealous girlfriend and so I sat there, appetite gone, staring at my plate, and listening to her complimenting him with a sour taste in my mouth.
Eventually, the torture ended as Lily got up to return to the dorm, and I gratefully followed her. We slowly walked out of the Entrance Hall, and James caught up to us, asking us to wait for him wait for Sirius. That was the last thing I wanted. I motioned to my bag, mentioning that I had a book to return to the Library, and that I would return to the Tower after that.
Once I had disappeared around the corner, I took off at a run, on a different route to the Tower, and arriving at the Fat Lady, sputtered out the password. I had beaten them there, and so I ran up the staircase to the Girl's Dormitory, shut the hangings around my bed, placed a silencing charm, and subsided into quiet tears as I reviewed how badly the day had gone.
I can safely promise that the next chapter will not take so long. My heartiest apologies for the delay. Love EllieBaby xxx