Sorry for the late update everyone! Also, I know this may be confusing as it actually comes before the last chapter I posted. I've been re-reading and editing a lot of the story-which is quite long now (I have almost 200k words written, so this is far from over!). My editing has included adding in a bit of fluff and extra plot lines, and this chapter is certainly one of the former. I know a lot of you asked for more fluff and day-to-day stuff in the comments (plus I love writing this stuff), so hope this makes you all happy (-: I'll try to have the next chapter up sooner rather than later. As always, please comment, like, and follow!
Best,
Alisson
Early May, 1978
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
"Discover the azimuth and altitude of Tethys at exactly 17:24 this evening, then convert these figures into their Cartesian components using the correct formulae. Upon finishing this task, explain the importance of the rectangulus to spherical trigonometry regarding astronomical bodies," Sirius read aloud whilst Blanche played with the torquetum on their large desk. They were partway through the three-hour N.E.W.T.-level astronomy lab they had every Thursday evening, and were not making a lot of progress.
"I'm usually quite fond of maths. But there is something about astronomy that simply… bores me," Blanche sighed. The light of the golden hour stretched through the tall windows and scattered amber rays across their desk. Lily and James were the only two others of their close friends who took N.E.W.T. Astronomy, and one desk in front of them Lily was scribbling digits upon a piece of parchment whilst James basked in the warm light. It seemed most of the class wasn't going to be putting in the effort they did in the Tuesday morning lab, but the professor didn't care much. He spent most of their evening lab preparing his various telescopes, astrolabes, and like instruments for the moment the sun went down.
"Remember when Astronomy was just drawing star charts of the Milky Way?" Sirius reminisced.
"I do," she replied, sinking into her seat. Sirius looped a hand around part of her chair and dragged her closer to him to he could lay his head on her shoulder and pretend to go to sleep. "Would you stop?" She laughed, squirming out of his grip playfully. He locked an arm around her shoulders and pushed a kiss onto her temple.
"Want to do something tonight?" He enquired, playing with one hand at the seam of her shirt.
"That question means absolutely nothing. We do things every night."
Then Lily, out of absolutely nowhere, jolted up from her diligent work and spun around, causing James to startle out of his almost-sleep. "Double date!" She cried.
"Absolutely not—" Blanch began.
"Not happening," Sirius said simultaneously. "Do you remember when you tried to do that with Holly? How disastrously that went?"
"Yeah, but that was with Holly. This time it's with Blanche," she argued, adding vocal flare to her best friend's name.
"I don't understand how this is any different from last Friday. We four went to Hogsmeade for a Butterbeer without calling it a 'double date'," Blanche sighed and looked at Sirius. "Looks like we can't go out with those two anymore without dragging along the rat or the wolf. Pity."
"That wasn't a double date, Blanche," Lily said. "This will be different. We can even go to Edinburgh!"
At this, both Blanche, Sirius, and James straightened their backs and raised their brow in attention. Lily was never one to suggest leaving the close confines they were kept in throughout the school year. However, the other three took any opportunity they could to escape for just an evening. Plus, Edinburgh was coming back to life this time of the year.
"You actually bring up a fascinating point, Lily—one which you are going to regret very shortly," Blanche smiled sinisterly at Lily, whose grin dropped from her face.
"Why—"
"—Because, in Edinburgh, there is a brand new restaurant that has not yet even opened to the Muggle world, although it will be by Halloween of next year."
"Well, what's wrong with that? Which restaurant is it?"
"The Witchery by the Castle," she grinned.
"Wait, I read about that in the Prophet. It's right by the castle, right? I thought that was an inn?"
"Yes, it also is an inn," her grin grew.
Lily hesitated, watching the smiles rise on her boyfriend's and Sirius' lips. "We can't do a whole night away from Hogwarts, Blanche!"
"This was your suggestion, Lil."
"I just wanted to go to the cinema then maybe get dinner! Superman won't be in theatres for much longer. It's about a flying Muggle!"
"Well, maybe we can see that as well. Look—compromise. Then we have dinner, drinks, go about town, then stay in a five-star inn whose eight suites are decorated with Gothic paneling and tapestries rescued from the fires at St Giles. I'm tired of these stiff, single beds. We all deserve a night of luxury."
James audible cleared his throat, catching Lily's attention. She looked at him expectantly as he raised his brow. Without getting the response he was looking for, her opened his mouth: "I would enjoy a night of romance. With a big bed."
"Oh, Blanchette, is that why you've suggested this?" Sirius piped up, pinching her arm as she leaned away from him to escape.
That actually was not the reason to why she'd suggested it—she just liked having breaks from the restricted grounds of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. She hoped she hadn't planted any expectations in Sirius' mind with the suggestion, although she didn't dislike the idea of it. Ever since their first shared night in his unavoidably narrow bed, the physical element of their relationship had gained importance. Initially she had been difficult both privately and publicly—like slipping a thread through a needle's eye. But now it was just in public that she twisted under his hands and danced circles around him. In private, she had warmed to the feel of his hands on her waist and hips and the touch of his lips on her neck. Perhaps a big bed would be nice, she thought. As long as he didn't expect anything.
James and Lily were quietly arguing whilst Blanche was absently studying the hand belonging to Sirius which tapped along her knee. She looked up to him and met his eyes, seeing a cheeky ear-to-ear grin had found his lips.
"Don't get your hopes up," she said lowly so the others could not hear. "That's not why I suggested it."
"I don't know. Candlelit sixteenth-century inn named in honour of the thousands of witches accused by Muggles on Castlehill? That sounds like someplace you can really get in touch with your feminine wiles. You know, let out the sorceress hidden deep inside."
Blanche couldn't help but laugh at this, although she shook her head whilst doing it.
"I'm playing. I won't touch you if you ask. Better yet, I'll reserve a cot."
"No, I don't want that," she instantly replied, causing his brow to raise in boyish interest. "Oh, will you stop? It's like—what's that Muggle idiom—oh! Walking on eggshells. Except the eggshells are your inescapably persistent sexual innuendos and crude interpretations."
"Welcome to my world."
"Alright, fine!" Lily's exhausted exclamation parted their private conversation. James silently rejoiced and caught Sirius' eye, communicating something nonverbally about the prospect of his next Friday evening. "We will go. But bright and early the next day we're coming back—no exceptions."
"I accept these terms," James announced. They all agreed.
By the next evening, Blanche had sent Sulwen to the Witchery, alerting them of their necessity for their two largest rooms looking out at the castle. With the help of Sirius' surname, Sulwen had already returned with a notice of availability made for the upcoming guests. After spending the morning, midday, and early afternoon on classes and schoolwork, the girls were in the ladies' toilet getting ready by four in the evening.
"You know, there are charms that curl your hair for the evening," Blanche commented as she carefully picked Lily's hot rollers out her orange hair with her nails. She'd nearly burned herself twice—the outdated set had been first bought by Petunia in '68 and Lily had inherited the thoroughly-used rollers when Petunia got a new set for Christmas three years ago.
"Those curls always fall out. Hair-curling is one of the very few arenas in which Muggle technology surpasses that of the Wizarding world."
"Well, they're all out," Blanche said as she finished, sliding the last smoking roller into its case with her varnished fingertips. "Come on now, let's do your make up."
As they sat before the mirror, Blanche carefully pencilled Lily's pale brows. "Now how do you want your eye-shadow?" She enquired.
"Try and do it like Debbie Harry, with the smokey eyes. James would like that—he thinks she's so fit," Lily replied.
"He also thinks you're fit. Maybe you don't need that much."
"Not all of us look like you, Blanche," she retorted. "Plus, tonight's a big night. You know, with it being a special overnight and all. James bought a bottle of Swiss elderflower wine… Are you and Sirius doing anything special?" Lily asked tentatively. The hesitation and raised pitch of her voice clearly indicated she was looking for juicy bits of information to surely share later with James.
"Stop trying to weasel answers out of me, Lily. You know it doesn't work."
"I'm just curious, Blanche," she whined. "Did you suggest the spot so you could have a bit of fun with Sirius behind closed doors?"
"No, I did not. I merely thought it all sounded fun. All being the whole night out, you know. Not just having a private room."
"Sure…" Lily hummed, causing Blanche to roll her eyes.
"I swear!"
"Sure."
Not far from where Lily and Blanche were finishing getting ready, Sirius and James were waiting patiently in the Common Room, preparing themselves for the evening with bottles of Hog's Head Brew and bragging to the rest of the Gryffindor boys about their evening.
"Yeah, then after dinner we'll probably go up to our rooms for a bit of fun with our ladies. I got elderflower wine from Switzerland to drink before… and after."
"A surprisingly suave move on your part, Prongs."
"Thank you. And what about you, Padfoot? Any grand gestures planned? Presenting yourself naked on a bed of rose petals?"
"Ha-ha," Sirius punched James lightly on the arm. "And no. I reckon Blanche isn't one for grand gestures."
"I don't think she likes any gestures," another Seventh Year chimed in. He was another one of the many who'd tried and failed to sweep her off her feet in the past few years.
"Because you would know so well, Scotty?" Sirius retorted at the boy.
"Trust me, if anyone knows how to woo Blanche, it's Sirius," James came to his defence, although there was a layer of doubt in James' voice. It had taken Sirius six years to pin down Blanche, after all.
The girls arrived to the Common Room not much later and slipped out into the halls before anyone could loudly comment upon and take note of their evening wear. Blanche wore a short crimson dress with bishop sleeves and a low neck; Lily a pale lilac one which clung to her curves but flared at the knee.
The four of them made it under James' cloak to the Forgotten Grounds—which Lily highly disapproved of—and Apparated to the cinema in Edinburgh. Blanche, James, and Sirius particularly enjoyed observing this element of Muggle life which they hadn't ever seen before. None of the three could believe why any Muggle would eat salty popcorn and sweet candy at the same time. Nonetheless, Sirius indulged in as many sweets as he could get a hold of: bottle caps that fizzed in your mouth, fresh peppermint patties, chocolate eggs full of cream, pop rocks that cracked like embers on your tongue, and sour lemon balls.
"Honestly, some of those candies were quite impressive for being made without magic. Especially the Pop Rocks," Sirius gushed over dinner.
"Not as impressive as the movie—wasn't it incredible?" Lily responded, leaning eagerly over her bowl of French onion soup.
"I don't get it. Muggles can't fly at all—not even with brooms! And yet this silly Clark Kent can go about without anything? I don't understand it," Blanche commented after taking a sip of her wine. "However, I do like Marlon Brando. He was quite good in… Sirius, what's that one you made me watch in Fourth Year?"
"Just The Godfather, only the best Muggle movie ever made."
"You should really watch him in The Wild One, Blanche. Trust me. He was quite handsome back in the day."
"I'd rather watch James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. I don't much enjoy Muggle cinema—or any for that matter—but I will overlook that to see James Dean," she answered.
"Oh, he's such a square. I don't know why all the girls are so in love with him. Any guy can fluff up his hair and pop his collar. Musicians are much better looking. What about Mick Jagger?" Sirius countered
"Oh, I love him," Blanche sighed. "Or at least how he looked ten years ago. I like him and—who are the other ones, Sirius?"
"Jimmy Page and David Gilmour," he filled in for her.
"And George Harrison, he's always been very handsome."
"Hmm…" James announced, humming against his lips. "I'm sensing… a type. Tall boys with long dark hair. Interesting."
"I don't have a type," she argued.
"Wait, why didn't I realise this before?" Sirius announced, gears turning in his mind.
"That's true," Lily added. "And Blanche has always thought you were cute, Sirius."
"Cute?" He raised his brow in offence towards Blanche. She rolled her eyes and shoved him a bit, but saw he needed further explanation.
"Do I really need to validate what hundreds of witches—and a few wizards, for that matter—have made perfectly clear in the past five years?" Blanche responded sharply to Sirius' expression. In the silence that followed, she rolled her eyes. "Obviously, I find you very handsome, Sirius. Have you looked in a mirror? You shouldn't need my verbal confirmation to know that you're beautiful. I mean, Merlin, you look a love child of Mick Jagger and James Dean. So you should stop knocking the latter."
Sirius looked out across the table with a face-splitting grin.
After dinner, the four went to a nightclub. Or more specifically, a disco club. Blanche, Sirius, and James were all too sober to fully enjoy themselves alongside the tracks of the Bee Gees and Donna Summer. But Lily, a true queen of the coloured lights, was dancing the night away. After all, she played the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack most days of the week. James—reluctantly dancing beside her—didn't have the same depth in Muggle music that she did, but occasionally dabbled in the softer of rocks: Rod Stewart, Cat Stevens, and Elton John—all artists thoroughly made fun of by Sirius. Sirius himself preferred the Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, Jeff Beck, the Clash, and even psychedelics like Hendrix to anything. Blanche was possibly the least aware of Muggle music, but she did know she liked Led Zeppelin and that she didn't like disco very much.
Despite all this, they sold packs of cigarettes at the bar and made very big drinks, so within two hours Blanche was dancing whilst Lily pointed to her singing poorly and loudly: "You are the dancing queen! Young and sweet, only seventeen!" Because she was, after all, the only seventeen year-old left among them.
Blanche collapsed soon after on the hard club sofas beside Sirius and put her half-smoked cigarette in the remainder of the olive juice in her martini glass. She then asked: "Can you dance, Sirius? Can you jive? And can you have the time of your life?"
She could see by how low his lids were that he was just as drunk as her. He had the goofiest but handsomest look on his face when he was drunk, she always thought: a toothy smile from ear to ear, sleepy eyes, and coloured cheeks.
"Do you really want to see me jive?" He slowly answered, a laugh coming breathily at the end of the question.
"Maybe not," she giggled. Her laughter began slow then grew hysterical. "I'm so high."
"High?" Sirius asked, raising his brow. He leaned in to look at the whites of her eyes and finding them indeed pink.
"Yeah, what did you think was being passed around to us on the dance floor?" She leaned in and inspected his own eyes.
His lips formed a small 'O' and he nodded slowly then smiled. "That explains."
A cosmopolitan she ordered at the bar was delivered before her and the waiter removed the cigarette-stubbed drink she'd abandoned.
"That's perhaps the girliest thing I've ever seen you drink. All my old girlfriends drank those," he commented.
"Do you really want to have a drunken conversation about all your old girlfriends?" She mimicked him, taking a sip. "Plus, you know I like sweet things when I'm drunk."
"Like me?" His grin seemed to somehow widen.
"Yes," she hissed, leaning in to kiss him. He nearly missed her lips, but did secure himself there, humming into the pomegranate-and-vodka taste of her mouth. She tangled a hand into his hair, fastening herself onto him whilst she blindly put the drink on the table. Half of it spilled on her hand, but she managed to push it from the edge and place a sticky hand on his cheek. His tongue idly explored her mouth, prodding her own and infusing it with the taste of gin from his drink.
"Okay, maybe it's time to go back to the hotel!" Lily's voice rang out after some unknown stretch of time. Although she'd danced the most, she seemed the least drunk as she dragged a half-aware James on her shoulder. Blanche parted unsteadily from Sirius and nearly fell from her seat in surprise, then brought a hand to wipe the evidence from her lips. "I swear—all this one would do was rave about having our own hotel room, and here he is: so drunk he could be a sponsor for whiskey-dick."
Sirius laughed very loudly, clapping his hand on the table so it shook. Whenever Lily got tipsy, bolder statements tended to leave her mouth. And Sirius loved it, but James did not.
"Hey!" James cried. "You're in for a long and hard—"
"For all of our sakes, don't lie James," Sirius chuckled.
"What's whiskey-dick?" Blanche hiccoughed.
"Oh, my sweet—" Sirius sighed and played with her, bemused by her innocence as always, although she swatted his petting hand away.
"When a guy drinks so much that he can't… You know!" Lily cried, trying to stand James up on his own.
"Oh, I see," Blanche replied.
"I don't get whiskey-dick!" James cried.
"Even I get it, James. Everyone does," Sirius clarified, sinking against the sofa.
"Lily, take me back so I can teach you a lesson," James petulantly insisted.
"The fact that you can't get back on your own is certainly proving my point," Lily replied. "But come on, let's go. I assume Sirius and Blanche want to leave too."
"Why do you assume that?" Blanche answered haughtily.
"Maybe because you two have been snogging on the sofa in full view of everyone for the past twenty minutes?" Lily sarcastically responded before realising her attitude and covering her mouth. "See? I'm clearly too drunk. I'm being so mean!"
"Twenty minutes? Merlin, my perception of time…" Blanche's eyes widened. "We do need to get back."
The walk back was thankfully sobering. The wind drew cold pricks to their eyes and wakened them beneath their coats. Even Sirius' arm tightly wrapped around Blanche couldn't warm her. Her teeth only stopped chattering when they reached their still fire-lit hotel room and collapsed on the floor. Sirius tuned a radio with uncooperative fingers and Blanche lay down beside him, digging her forehead into his collarbone.
"So, what's this one about?" Blanche asked Sirius about the music on the radio, partly attentively and partly drunkenly.
"I don't know, why don't you listen and tell me?" He responded, turning the nob of the radio which heightened the volume.
Blanche listened silently, then raised a brow at what she did believe she heard. "Wiley, windy moors… I hated you, I loved you, too," she spoke allowed. "Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering, Wuthering Heights! No way, Sirius! Is that what she's really singing?"
"Heathcliff, it's me. I'm Cathy—I've come home, I'm so cold, let me in through you window," he repeated. "What do you think?"
"These Muggles…" She giggled, listening more before changing the station once again. "Okay, and this one? It sounds familiar."
"Ugh, ABBA. Let's not listen to this crap."
"Oh! It must have been on at the club tonight! What's it called?" She asked. He hesitated in thought upon answering.
"The Name of the Game. Released last year, I believe," he responded, then switched the radio once more.
"Oh, you've played me this before—I know it! Who's it by?
"It's Barracuda by Heart, the band of sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson. This song is actually quite a funny story. Some American label and reporter went about spouting that these two sisters were incestuous, and they responded with this song."
Blanche listened to it until the song faded and the base sunk into radio silence. "A heavy metal band of two sisters? Isn't that unusual?" She spoke over the Muggle radio host.
"Yeah, a bit," he sighed. "They're American—sometimes they do things different there. Although they were first popular in Canada because the background guys in the band were draft dodgers."
"What's that?"
"Do you know what the draft is?" He asked her, to which she shook her head. "It's a Muggle thing. Whenever there's a war that's particularly bad, the draft begins. Based on random numbers and birthdays, it forces boys over eighteen to be drafted into the war. It's quite horrible, actually—ruins a lot of the men who actually manage to come back. Thankfully, wizards have found ways of slithering out of the Muggle government's fist in these matters. It's quite rare that we become at all involved in these things. But regardless, it's a sad reality for Muggle men. And draft dodgers are the pussies who run off to another country to avoid it."
A slower song announced—a song in a genre Blanche rarely heard on the radio. It began with the light trickle of harp, but not in a classical manner; these strings were brushed leisurely and faded into a steady drum.
"You're so clever, Sirius," she smiled warmly at him, reaching towards him to touch his cheek then forehead, then to brush back the curls that had dripped over his forehead.
I guess I'll always feel the same. Love is strange… Ah—P.S. I love you, baby. The lyrics warmed her heart. "Who's this by, then?" She enquired.
"I don't know. I'm not very familiar with R-n-B."
"What's that?"
"Rhythm and blues," he answered, reaching to touch her hand which sat upon his chest.
"I like it," she responded slowly. She had opened one of the windows and cool gusts of breeze brushed their skin delicately. In spite of its low temperature, she felt a warm crackling inside of her stomach—ignited there with the fuel of music and liquor. She leaned down on the Turkish carpet upon which Sirius lay, using his outstretched arm as a pillow for her head. From there, she could see the high reach of the castle's towers into the night sky, whose slots of window sparked with the amber light of torches.
But Blanche yawned, which caused him to get to his knees and pick her up gently, then lift her onto the wide bed. She kicked off her heels and let them drop to the floor, then clenched the hem of her dress and pulled it over her head, leaving her in her knickers and the pale slip she wore over them. She stood temporarily to hang up her dress and put it in the closet. Sirius watched her closely as he took off his own shoes, caught between two distractions: if he could take off any further articles of clothing and the sight of her dark hair falling down her pale back, lying on top of the figure-caressing silk of her slip.
She notably avoided his eyes when she climbed back in bed, but eventually caught his when he remained standing by the bed. She allowed a silvery laugh to come to her lips in spite of her own nervousness. "What are you doing?"
"Waiting for you to invite me into your bed," he answered flirtatiously and smiling crookedly.
"It's our bed, Sirius. Or better yet, it's yours. You paid for the room," she replied giggling, then reached behind her back to unclasp her bra. His fingers began fidgeting with the sheets in unconscious enchantment with the sight of all of it. The slip she wore outlined every lift of skin, and it was quite cold in the room with the open windows, after all. "So you're still restraining yourself?"
"I'm being gentlemanly—how my mother raised me."
"Well, we wouldn't want to disappoint Walburga. Why don't you wait a bit longer, then," Blanche sighed. The Daily Prophet sat on her bedside table and she opened it casually, aloofly ignoring his waiting presence. And yet he keenly noticed her fingers move across her body beneath the thin sheets. They didn't physically indulge her by any means—she certainly wasn't brave enough to do that in front of him, but sort of traced the contours of her figure and played with the hems of her garments in the mindless way one might do before bed. And Sirius was well aware it was all intentional.
"I reckon I've set an expectation of manners accidentally—manners I have no intention of truly abiding by."
"And yet you're still outside the bed," she answered, keeping herself behind the paper so she could surely hide a wide smile.
"I'm trying to be gentlemanly."
"I'm not here, sharing a bed with you, because you're a gentleman—which you are not, by the way. And if you're going to ask for permission to do things to me, my modesty requires I deny you. So I'd recommend you start making decisions right about now."
With that, Sirius undid his belt and pushed his trousers to the ground. He kicked off his socks and removed his sweater—albeit keeping on the grey t-shirt he wore under it, throwing them all in a pile on the floor before quickly crawling into bed. He reached up and crumbled her paper with one hand then threw it onto the ground, proceeding to drag her down and under him whilst she laughed wildly.
Amidst the mirth of the moment, Blanche recognised—although just barely—that she was comfortable beneath him on the bed. She wasn't frightened nor exceedingly nervous, and wasn't even hesitant like she had been the first time he held her body beneath his and spoiled her face with kisses. And so she lifted her waist so his forearm could slip under it and bring her body upwards towards his, and she even eventually pushed him onto his back and draped herself across him.
Sirius' left hand had gently found itself on the curve of her bottom whilst the other comfortably sat at her waist, his thumb just skimming the bottom of her breast. The sensation of someone's hand other than her own shortened Blanche's breath in her throat, and she was altogether distracted by the mingled sensations in her mouth and at her breast that she did not realise the hardness growing against her midsection. She proceeded mindlessly—caught in a kiss like any young woman could be—and leaned into his hand at her breast, tacitly permitting his exploration of her chest over her slip. He was gentle in his grip, his thumb running along the peak of her breast that was raised in arousal. When she sunk her sweet lips onto the patch of soft skin beneath his ear, he subconsciously pressed himself up into her hips, causing her lips to detach in shock.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he immediately responded, willing his mind to calm.
"It's okay," she answered, pulling upwards to meet his eye. At the sight of her reddened lips, the strap of her dress dropping off her shoulder, and the splotches of bitten love upon her fair neck, he nearly did it again and pulled her down back onto his chest.
But thankfully, he abstained and answered: "We should probably stop. I've already gotten carried away, clearly," he cleared his throat tellingly and looked down at his prominent stiffness between her legs. Releasing his hand that was still on her breast, he dropped his hands to her waist and smoothed the crumbled fabric there.
"But I don't want to stop," she answered hesitantly. He melted into the sheets at the fragile pronouncement of her words, eliciting something between a sigh and a groan. Although he remembered, at that moment, his first few years at Hogwarts, wherein he snogged girls for hours on end and got nowhere farther than their necks. By the time he was fourteen, they began thawing a bit, deciding to complete their 'firsts' with him. By the time he was fifteen and sixteen he'd moved onto older girls who weren't so tentative, but yet he still remembered that first year or two. That was where Blanche was, and it wasn't fair to restrict her because his body was used to having more.
"You're right, and I'm sorry," he agreed, bringing his hand back upwards to her chest and lifting his head to connect their mouths once more. She returned his with equal pressure, digging her hands into his hair and releasing a sigh against his lips. She felt like a delicate flower in his hands, blooming in the night beneath cold wafts of air filtering through the room and the sound of some heavy beat coming from the radio.
Eventually even Blanche had had enough, parting from him after a particularly high-pitched mewl came from the back of her throat and it felt like all the blood in her body had concentrated in just a few collective inches of her body. She collapsed beside him on the sheets and rested a cheek on his shoulder. He dropped his head to look at her, studying her beauty—noticing the exact ways she looked like no one he'd ever seen before. Maybe it was the flakes of violet in her blue eyes, or the exact elegant line of her full lips. He didn't know—he didn't think he'd ever know how to explain just how magnificent she was.
"So Lily said you've always thought I was cute through the years? Is that true?" He eventually asked, causing her lovely eyes to widen.
"It was just that… I don't know—it was a universal truth. You know how girls are, always begging to know what boy you like and who you think is the cutest in your year. And everyone would always say you, and I couldn't disagree with them obviously because that would just be an objective falsehood. But when Lily would really lay into me about getting a boyfriend, and I'd say: 'Then who, Lil?' She's always say you. And I'd reply: 'Well, I'd be mad not to say he's handsome but he's Sirius.' And she'd fight me for some fifteen minutes until I'd stop responding and she'd shut up."
"What does 'he's Sirius,' even mean?" He replied, chuckling.
"I think you know," Blanche replied, turning onto her back. "I've turned you down enough times for you to know what my argument against you is… Or was, I suppose."
"Did you ever think of me in any other way? Even before we become friends in Second Year? Did you know of me?"
"Obviously I knew of the Blacks. My father just about drilled it into my head that I had to get my hands on one before I even got to school. And I had seen you around a bit, mostly chasing after Snivellus and laughing about with Potter. I sort of thought you were an ass," she laughed.
"An ass?!"
"You were so outspoken and righteous and cheeky. I don't know. I clearly didn't judge you too harshly, seeing where we are right now."
"I suppose," he replied with a reluctant sigh. "Do you want to know my first thoughts of you?" She nodded. "You were quite quiet everywhere but the classroom. And in class you were constantly answering teachers and sometimes even correcting them, but I just thought it was cute. I remember you catching my eye a couple of times in the halls, though. You were hard not to see."
"Mmm… You're sweet," she hummed against the soft cotton of his t-shirt. Her nails dugs into it and scraped gently, feeling the hard planes of his chest. "You know what I want you to do now?" She asked coquettishly, causing his body to tense excitedly and lift itself partially onto his elbows.
"What?"
She chuckled into his arm then flung herself onto her back. "For you to order room service! Crème brûlée and French toast!"
"Yeah, because you're baked," he laughed, but picked up the telephone and ordered two of each. "Lucky for you, I am too."