September 18 1973
As they walked down the streets of Hogsmeade, ignoring the knowing looks they were getting from passers by, Evans pulled out a list from her pocket.
"Ok, so I have Hermione's list here. If there's a name beside an item it means that whoever's name is there wants to buy that item for Hermione. Marlene, I'll give you the money Dorcas and Alice sent for you to buy their presents and I'll go buy Mary's and my own present since they're at the bookstore." She handed McKinnon two little pouches, each with either Dorcas or Alice's name printed on them, as well as the list. She then turned to Sirius.
"You can go do whatever you want." She said then walked away towards the bookstore. Deciding that he didn't want to be alone, but also didn't want to get hexed into the next century, Sirius decided to follow McKinnon instead. She raised an eyebrow as he caught up to her.
"You're coming with?"
"I've got nothing better to do." He said, putting his hands in his pockets and shrugging. McKinnon looked down at the list.
"Okay...we need to go to the jewelry store first." She said, looking at the list. Sirius peered over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow.
"Granger asked for that stuff?"
McKinnon snorted.
"Not exactly. At first her list consisted of only books and candy, so I made her go through a catalogue from some of the stores here and circle a few things she liked." McKinnon shrugged and Sirius chuckled, opening the door for her as they entered the store. As McKinnon walked around, looking for a particular piece, Sirius walked around aimlessly, peering at the necklaces, bracelets and rings. One particular necklace caught his eye, a locket with an oval shaped blue diamond as the front piece, with little white diamonds surrounding it. It wasn't until McKinnon walked up to him that he realized he'd been staring for several minutes.
"It's beautiful." She said and Sirius nodded. He looked over to her hand and saw that she had a small ring clutched in her hand, with a white crystal in the center of it.
"Is that what you're getting her?" He asked, nodding towards the ring. She smiled.
"Yeah. She seemed to really like it when she was looking through the catalogue."
"Where are the rings?" He asked and she led him to a display with several rings of all shapes and sizes. Deciding that he might as buy something while he was here, he grabbed a few silver colored rings and tried them on, then chose the two he liked the best and put the rest away. McKinnon gave him an amused look when he looked towards her.
"You're buying yourself those rings?" She asked, and he could hear the mirth in her voice.
"Yeah. Why are you looking at me like that?" He asked, slightly offended as she looked like she was on the verge of laughing.
"I'm not judging, I like wearing rings, but I didn't see you as the ring wearing type." She said. He raised an eyebrow.
"You saying you don't see me ever getting married?" He teased. She rolled her eyes.
"You know that's not what I meant."
He grinned.
"I know."
By the time they met up with Lily in front of Honeydukes, the sun was setting. They'd left Hogwarts in the middle of the afternoon, so there was really no reason it should've taken that long to buy the presents when they knew exactly what to buy, but both Mckinnon and Sirius took entirely way too long in the clothing store.
"What the hell took you two so long? I've been waiting for an hour!" Evans fumed. If she'd only been waiting for an hour then that also said a lot about how long she'd spent in the bookstore, but Sirius wasn't about to poke the bear. McKinnon, apparently, had no such qualms.
"In our defense, the clothes store had all kinds of new brands of cloaks, and even had a few muggle pieces." She said while readjusting her hold on the two extra bags full of clothes she definitely hadn't needed. Evans threw her arms in the air and huffed.
"So you spent three hours looking at them?!"
"Well, apparently you spent two hours in the bookstore, so I don't know what rights you think you have to judging us." McKinnon said, raising an eyebrow. Sirius forced himself not to snicker at Evans murderous look, not wanting to be in the line of fire himself, even though he had a feeling he already was. Instead of hexing McKinnon like she looked ready to, however, she just turned around and walked into Honeydukes, no doubt expecting them to follow. Before they could try to distract the clerk with a smoke producing spell, however, Sirius stopped them.
"Hold on, I want to buy something here." He said, then turned to McKinnon.
"What's Granger's favourite kind of candy?"
McKinnon stared at him.
"What?"
He sighed, running a hand through his hair.
"What's Granger's favourite type of candy?" He repeated.
"Why do you want to know?" Evans asked. He shuffled uncomfortably under their combined questioning gazes.
"I want to get it for her birthday. She's been kind to me in potions, so..." He shrugged his shoulders avoiding their gazes.
"It's licorice wands." Evans said finally. He smiled.
"Thank you."
By the time they got back to the common room dinner was already underway, so they had no trouble sneaking the presents up into their dorms to hide in their trunks. As they made their way to the Great Hall-together, because Sirius had waited for them- Evans turned towards Sirius.
"Thank you, Black. You didn't have to help us." She said and Sirius shrugged.
"I wanted too." He smiled. "I guess I'm not as bad as you thought?" He teased bumping his shoulder into hers. Evans gave him an amused look.
"You're slightly less annoying, I'll give you that." She said.
He smiled.
"I'll take that."