Sorry it's been a spell. You know how I am by now (that is, completely unreliable). But don't worry, hopefully I will one day get the whole story on here. The first book is completed, after all. And let me tell you, your comment encourage me more than ever. In fact, seeing the last one is the reason I decided to sit down and post this chapter.
Alisson
P.S. Can anyone guess what book I read before writing this chapter? Winner gets... something. You ask and I'll provide.
Late May, 1978
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
"But professor, counter-transfiguration from inanimate form is inherently nonsensical. If a full human transfiguration is supposed to be complete, aren't its animate qualities transfigured into inanimate qualities? If a transfigured wizard can counter himself from, say, an armchair, back into his human form, doesn't that logically assume that any inanimate object can transfigure itself into a human at any given time?"
Professor McGonagall sighed. Blanche Greengrass had been harassing her in her classroom ever since her N.E.W.T. Transfiguration class… three hours ago. Her questions hardly even pertained to the curriculum. Ever since she was a First Year, Minerva remembered this particular student had a knack for finding theoretical holes in the logic of magic. She had certainly been a heavy cross to bear for the Advanced Theoretical Magic teacher, Professor Aloysius Crumble, who—not very shockingly—retired the year after having her as a student.
"Miss Greengrass, you are aware these questions will not be on the N.E.W.T., correct? I thought I outlined the exam's structure relatively well in class."
"You did, Professor, but I just feel as though my understanding is compromised unless I understand—"
"Last class you transfigured Olympia Barrett into a goldfish and back. I don't believe your understanding is compromised," Minerva sighed. "Now stop with this nonsense and go do some actual work! These questions are meaningless. I'm afraid I'll have to threaten you with a detention if you do not stop revising so relentlessly."
Blanche sighed, pursing her lips before seeming to concede. "Fine. Only because I'm not allowed to do work in a detention. Thank you, Professor McGonagall," she said before turning around and walking halfway through the classroom. Then—to Minerva's horror—she dropped her armful of books and papers onto a desk.
"What are you doing now?" Minerva asked with a frustrated breath.
"The Ministerial Management of Mayhem Act No. 430tnIB2x9 of 1972 allows any student extended access to the facilities offered by their school during the four weeks prior to their N.E.W.T. examinations. The Hogwarts Board of Governors established that these privileges include any student's unmonitored access to the library's Restricted Section, guided species collection in the Forbidden Forest and the Black Lake, expanded spell limits outside and inside the castle—"
"I am familiar with the Ministerial Management of Mayhem Act No. 430tnIB2xx9 of 1972," Minerva stopped her irately.
"And unlimited access to professors' classrooms for academic purposes," Blanche added with a proud grin.
Sirius sat in the Restricted Section of the library, scouring over a stack of letters. Of course, none of this was in preparation for his N.E.W.T.s; his textbooks had been left untouched for days. Blanche had been up day and night revising—leaving him partnerless for over a week now. It was not due to any resentment nor ill temper, she was just an absurdly dedicated student. She was actually nearly a Hatstall—Sirius recalled. Everyone gossiped that it was between Gryffindor and Slytherin, but Blanche had once confided in him that the Sorting Hat had been actually torn between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, which made far more sense to him. Blanche did have the cunning and determination of a Slytherin, but her guile could never sour nor was her command ever anything but pure. She was clever and witty, academic and dedicated, a Ravenclaw by brain. But in her heart she was truly warm, playful, brave, stubbornly strong, and secretly desperate for the love her parents never gave her. And more than all of this, she was propelled to absolute selflessness by her own illusion of inherent guilt; forever pushing away the apparent selfishness of love and affection, thinking she didn't deserve it. The thought of it made Sirius grind his teeth.
"Lestrange, Blanche!" The hat summoned a familiar name to the stool at the front of the Great Hall. Sirius had heard plenty from his parents about the prestige, power, and purity of the Lestrange family. He had never met this girl—the only child of the elder Lestrange brother, Rabastan Lestrange, who was admired widely for his ruthlessness and conservatism. Perhaps she had attended a Pureblood Ball or two, but he seemed to have missed her. All he'd really heard was from his mother: "A slight but pretty girl, quite clever I hear. Has her mother's beauty and her father's colouring. You should get to know her, Siri."
Blanche Lestrange was rather tall for a First Year, even for being on the younger side of the spectrum. She had long hair—truly her father's colouring—as black as night, but so black you could nearly see the bright morning blue of the day within it. And she lacked the juvenile roundness they all seemed to hold in their faces. At twelve, she already had a mature severity to her face. But she was beautiful, everyone could see it.
"Hope she gets put in Gryffindor with us," Sirius' new friend James whispered as he nudged him. Sirius grinned slowly, then nodded in concord. But he seriously doubted it—a Lestrange? Pretty high chances she goes into Slytherin. But then again, he was a Black and sitting—already decided—at the Gryffindor table.
"You so sure you'll be put in Gryffindor?" Sirius asked James, who had yet to be sorted but was already clearly comfortable seated at his rightful table.
"Oh, sure of it."
The hat was placed on Blanche's head by a professor, and its creases automatically collapsed in confusion: "Mmm, I don't believe so… No, not that. Certainly not that…I suppose now that I look at it…There's really quite a lot in here…"
"Is this what they call a Hatstall?" James asked Sirius, who looked at his watch in response.
"We're still under five minutes. Not yet, but almost."
Then—startling to all teachers and students alike—Blanche opened her mouth and said irately: "Just make up your mind already!"
"OH, well then that's definitely GRYFFINDOR!"
Sirius laughed to himself at the memory. Too bad she sat at the opposite end of the table when she joined Gryffindor. He would have liked to have gotten started a year earlier than he did.
But in comparison to Blanche's potent love of learning, Sirius was a far more laissez-faire academic; good grades came to him, he didn't go out and get them. As a result, he hadn't picked up his textbooks in nearly a week. His focus was centred elsewhere…
Without Blanche to pick up his spirits and quench his doubts, Sirius had been thinking more and more about the conversation he'd overheard between his brother and Linus Wilkes all those nights ago.
"Well, I haven't heard anything new from Severus…"
Sirius looked down at the parchment before him, which was smudged with ink and littered with the broken cursive his mother had forced upon him as a child. At the top was the list of the Sacred Twenty-Eight surnames: Abbott, Avery, Black, Bulstrode, Burke, Carrow, Crouch, Fawley, Flint, Gaunt, Greengrass, Lestrange, Longbottom, MacMillan, Malfoy, Nott, Ollivander, Parkinson, Prewett, Rosier, Rowle, Selwyn, Shacklebolt, Shafiq, Slughorn, Travers, Weasley, and Yaxley.
But he reckoned not all of these families had abstained to their Pureblood beliefs. So he went name by name, drawing links with the children they had that he knew…
Abbott: Hector Abbott, Fifth Year Slytherin, but dating Muggleborn Carrie Jones. Unlikely.
Avery: Cyril Avery Jr., Seventh Year Slytherin—certainly bad news. Known for harassing Muggleborns—NOTE: Incident with Mary MacDonald in Fifth Year. Part of the gang of Slytherins. Probably a Death Eater.
Black: Sirius Black—a good boy—and Regulus Black. Reread Mother's letters regarding Regulus. In suspicious affiliation with Linus Wilkes and Snivellus Snape—see both below.
In juxtaposition, Sirius looked at a family portrait sat just above this paper. Sirius looked dead-straight into the camera, not a whisper of joy on his face. As the image moved, one could notice the slight roll of his eyes and his mother's tightening of her already-bruising grip upon his shoulder. Regulus—fifteen in the picture—had an odd sort of look on his face; it made Sirius scowl. His eyes flickered hopefully up at their father, Orion, as though trying desperately to please him. It was such an odd relationship, really. Sirius, who never behaved, was always worshipped for any degree of compliance to his parents' standards. However Regulus, always behaving, could do nothing to win his parents' admiration. He lived forever in Sirius' shadow.
But Sirius shook his head—it didn't matter. He could make his own choices, and he chose wrong.
But is he a Death Eater? Sirius asked himself. He was so young… It was unlikely Voldemort would prey upon a sixteen year-old. A time and a place; the words echoed through his mind. To do what? Sirius knew something was wrong. But he hadn't spoken directly to Regulus since his last days at home—nearly two years ago. Since then he'd only blankly stared at him when they were within distance of one another, nothing to say to him.
"What are you doing in the library?" Sirius heard the voice of Peter Pettigrew from behind him. He flipped the photo over and spun around in his seat, looking at his friend.
"Could ask you the same," Sirius replied lazily. Peter shrugged in response, pulling out the chair beside him and plopping down. Sirius noted he had an ancient herbological book with him, Encyclopædia for Darke Fungi.
"Attempting revision," Peter answered. "What about you?"
"Nothing…" Sirius responded but saw Peter's raised brow. "Don't worry about it."
"Surprised you aren't in here with Blanche."
"Please," Sirius sighed. "She's had her nose in a book for a week now. I've hardly gotten the chance to speak with her."
"Well, seems as though you don't need her," Peter suggested, tilted his head towards a certain Janis McLaggen, who was still trying desperately to get a hold of Sirius, who wondered if she was dull in the head. Blanche had jinxed her so many times one would think she'd realise the two were together, however well Blanche insisted they conceal it.
As the Seventh Years were preparing for their N.E.W.T.s, they hadn't any classes for the next two weeks. Therefore, they were allowed out of their uniform. Plenty of girls, especially Janis, took advantage of this. She wore a low-neck blouse with a short skirt and boots. She was quite an attractive girl, no one could deny that. But her beauty was a bit too typical, Sirius found. She had long dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes; a small waist and wide hips. Or maybe the issue was that she simply didn't look anything like Blanche. Janis' plastic sex appeal didn't hold a candle to the passionate and sparkling beauty of Blanche.
"No thanks," Sirius pursed his lips in disinterest and looked back to the work splayed before him. He riffled through the papers for something, then successfully pulled out the Marauder's Map. "Speaking of, where is little Blanche?"
"So that doesn't tempt you?" Peter confusedly enquired.
"What?" Sirius asked, then followed Peter's gaze. "Her? No."
"Oh, how the mighty have fallen…"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sirius enquired with an angered brow and deepened voice.
"Oh, nothing," Peter shook his head. He knew to tread carefully these days. He knew all too well that Sirius could pack one hell of a punch, "Come on, then. It's almost time for supper. Food's been even better than unusual. Seems the elves are treating us in our last days."
Sirius nodded and stood. He slipped the papers and photograph into a pocket inside his robe.
On the way down to the Great Hall, Peter spoke incessantly about a girl he'd allegedly snogged before he passed out on the carpet after the last Quidditch match. Sirius cared so little he hadn't even decided if he'd believed it. His mind raced with other thoughts.
Would Mum and Dad allow their son to become a Death Eater? He asked himself. Well, they'd certainly encouraged work within the Dark Arts. But it seemed hard to believe. In spite of their dedication to the pureblood agenda, becoming a Death Eater was a dangerous task. If he was caught, he faced Azkaban.
Sirius felt a shiver zip up his spine at the thought of Azkaban. A grey monolith standing alone atop a sharp crag that jutted out of the most tempestuous waves of the North Sea. Wrapped in a shroud of Dementors, the never-sleeping guardians who fed off the sorrow and insanity of the inmates. And their sentence for misbehaviour as an inmate… the Dementor's Kiss, said to be unbearable to watch. Not death but the slaughter of spirit first; taking everything light within the body and strangling it until it rotted, then leaving the body—an empty shell—to wither.
And would his parents allow Regulus to possibly meet this fate? He'd seen his mother racing after Rabastan Lestrange when Sirius was under the Cruciatus Curse. As much as Sirius loathed her, Walburga Black had a heart. And could that heart suffer the pain of a son's death?
Sirius doubted it, but Orion was truly the one in charge and he was a different case. His father was certainly a type, and some of that had evidently carried on in Sirius. He was always working, coming home late at night and leaving early in the morning with an untouched breakfast. And it was clear his time 'working' was not purely that. He often came home with his hair askew and shirt collar lightly touched with the lipstick of another woman. Sirius knew his father admired him for his own good looks and charisma, as though his son was keeping the libertine line alive, but he wasn't sure if his love for his son was stronger than his love for the Dark Rebellion. Plus, this was Regulus they were talking about, who didn't hold the same favour as Sirius in their father's eyes. Perhaps he would sacrifice Regulus. Walburga worshipped Orion's every word—in spite of her husband's philandering—and would probably parrot his permission for Regulus to join the ranks of Voldemort.
Sirius shook the thought from his head as they entered the Great Hall. He heard Peter asking him: "Don't you think?"
"Sure," Sirius absently shrugged. Peter smiled widely in response. Sirius looked to their usual spot at the Gryffindor table for Blanche and saw her slender form hunched over a textbook and an untouched plate. A fork was playing with a piece of asparagus as she read. He snuck up on her from behind and quickly wrapped his arms around her waist. She shot up straight and the asparagus went flying from her fork.
A quick whelp left her mouth and she turned around to see her attacker—who she truly knew before looking. "Sirius! You know I don't like that!"
Sirius had been ambushing Blanche quietly for years, but before he would just let go once she reprimanded him. But now he could hold on and nuzzle his face into her sweet-smelling hair, laughing to himself. She felt so fragile in his arms, like a flimsy bird. She hadn't been eating—too consumed with her studies to pay attention to her body's basic needs.
Blanche's hands clawed at his as they kept themselves locked around her. Such a public show of affection was unusual for them and caught the raised eyebrows of onlookers, including those of Lily and James. But he had hardly touched her in a week and he needed to feel her. He sat in the open space beside her and released her, but kept one arm tightly around her waist. With the other he piled onto his plate a steaming hill of roast potatoes, two Cornish pasties, several slices of roast chicken, and a gathering of steamed sprouts, all alongside an iced glass of pumpkin juice. He then slid the book out from under Blanche.
"Hey!" She cried, fighting off his much larger hands with her fingers.
"Come on, give it a rest. You're top of the class as it is—haven't anything to worry about," he urged aloud, then leaned into her ear. "I never see you anyway."
Blanche looked up to him guiltily and conceded, placing an expensive vellum bookmark to hold her page before allowing him to close. She put the books on the bench beside her and Sirius pulled the plate in front of her in replacement. There was a carafe of mulled wine that he poured for her—to which she objected but then relented. She could use a glass of wine. The carafes were not available at every part of the long tables, but magically found their way to Sixth and Seventh Year N.E.W.T. students—especially those who looked like they needed it.
"Thank you," she hummed before lifting the porcelain mug to her lips. The dark wine and spices stained her lips even darker than they already were. The sight of it started a deep and warm stirring in Sirius, but he ignored it as best he could, trying to convince himself that not everything she did was innately sexy… to no avail. He swore he could harden from the sight of her brushing her teeth.
"You are welcome," he said happily, before releasing his arm from her and turning to his own meal.
"Blanche, have you done the analysis for the Persian star chart—" Lily began, but was quieted.
"None of that. We will not speak of academia at this table, just for the evening. All of you, give yourself a break."
As a result, the table was silent for the following moments. Blanche took a quiet bite of chicken. "Then what are we supposed to talk about?" Lily asked.
Sirius let out a dramatic, exhausted breath.
The silence between Sirius and Blanche quite quickly revealed to the former that the latter was internally quizzing herself. Her full lips moved minutely and her eyes absently watched the path to Hogsmeade unfurl before her. She perhaps would have noticed his series of exasperated sighs had she not been so tightly wound up in her own head.
Eventually, he tore her from her silent studies: "I thought we had an agreement?"
"Hm?" She asked, looking up to him. His brows were raised and partly hidden beneath the loose, chocolate ringlets that descended over his smooth forehead. Her pinpointed energy seemed to instantly transfer over to him, as her brain exchanged computing numerological data for calculating the divine precision of his face's characteristics. She was caught—as she often was after long periods of not studying him—in the majesty of his beauty. He let her stare, then a pink grin lifted half of his mouth.
"No studies for tonight," he reminded her.
"Right," she nodded, looking back ahead of her. Hogsmeade twinkled some twenty metres in the distance. It was sure to be nearly empty, especially of Seventh Years. She'd forced him to walk with her along the path. With the warmth of May so recently set in, she liked to relish it when she could; so much of her life had been in the cold. Plus, he said there was to be no study of magic tonight. And she had extended it—there was to be no magic at all tonight. But then she saw she was already slipping from the promise. "Yes, you are right," she repeated in a stronger tone.
Blanche sighed to herself, looking to her surroundings with actual attention this time. The lengthening grasses—just having emerged from the cold winds of the Scottish hills—were green again and patched with frilly flowers peaking between their blades.
"The white heather is nearly bloomed," she noted.
"How do you know what it is?" He enquired. Sirius was not an herbologist—in spite of getting stellar marks in it, he found very little interest in it.
"Grows in northern Yorkshire as well… my mother's bridal bouquet."
"A white flower? Unexpected."
"They're the tears of Malvina, daughter of the Scottish poet Ossian, when she learned of her lover's death," she explained. "I actually think it's quite fitting."
"How do you know things like that?" Sirius enquired after a moment's thought.
"Like what?"
"Myths."
"My mother used to tell them to me… When she wasn't busy. So, I wasn't told them a lot. But when I was older she'd invite me into her study and pour me a glass of raspberry schnapps her father had stockpiled in Bavaria during the war."
"I'd forgotten that you're German."
"On my mother's side. But she was raised all over, and that's how she learned the stories."
Sirius and Blanche closed in upon Hogsmeade, heading towards the Three Broomsticks in tacit agreement. As expected, High Street was flowing only with residents of the town. A few students lingered around the entrance of the pub, but they were largely underclassmen who had just turned sixteen—already giddy with two glasses of gingered Butterbeer.
"Which was your favourite?" Sirius asked. He liked to hear about the pleasant moments of her upbringing—few and far between, but nonetheless delicate vignettes that lightly glittered silver between the large shadows of her memory.
Blanche thought for a moment. They entered the pub, finding the sepia glow of candles warm their faces and their hearts. Sirius gestured to Rosmerta with two fingers, then sat down in a booth.
"Circe," she decided.
"Isn't she an old-school witch who turned men into pigs?" He asked with surprise. If he were to choose a myth she would most like, he would have guessed one with Athena Pallas—wise and just, the cunning Olympian, forcing her way out of her father's head, or Sekhmet—lion-faced and covered in blood, unrelenting on the battlefield.
"Only those men who came to her shores and raped her after she supplied them with bread, wine, and a place to sleep," Blanche defended. "Those who treated her with due regard she often took to her bed. Odysseus was with her for many years on his way home."
"I thought she trapped him?"
"That's another myth, with Calypso. He stayed on his own accord—loved her and gave her sons. She was the most clever of the Greek pantheon, my mother told me."
"Not Athena?"
Blanche shook her head. "Circe hated the gods. She lived in solitude—yes, exiled, but happy on her island. And when she was released, she only chose simple pleasures, no gold nor silver for her. Treating the ill from shore to shore with her herbs alongside her lover, who patched roofs and levelled tables. In the end, she turned herself mortal with her own spell, so she could die and be buried with her children and the man she loved. She was one of the first real witches, you know."
"I didn't know," Sirius shook his head. Another barmaid—not Rosmerta—delivered the two Butterbeers to the table. Sirius was thankful; best keep her away from Blanche.
"My mother said her great-great-great grandmother was an islander living on a pocket of land in the Black Sea. That's where she got the story from, at least," Blanche shrugged, taking a sip of Butterbeer. "But she's the one who was cursed."
"Your great-great-great grandmother was the first Greengrass Maleportus? I thought it was even older than that."
"No, my mother said it was her. Daphne Xanthopoulous."
"What did she do?"
"It's a long story… But I'll tell you it as I'm feeling restless," she decided. "A sailor came across her island once. She abandoned her family to join his ship because she always wanted to see beyond the island. Her parents were Muggles and didn't understand what their daughter was, so they kept her confined to the island in fear. So when the ship came, she snuck off with it in the night, promising her hand to the sailor who helped her on. They took the Bosphorus out of the Black Sea, sailing all the way to Athens. When the sailor went to buy her a pearl ring for their marriage from the markets, she travelled onto the shore to explore. There she met a handsome merchant, Heinrich Grüngräser, who instantly won her heart. She refused to go back to the boat as she'd taken up with Heinrich.
The sailor refused to leave the port without her and the ship couldn't leave without him, as he was the quartermaster, so the whole crew went out looking for her. Eventually the sailor saw her, one day, bathing in the waters. They had been at the port looking for her a long time, you see, and when he saw her emerge, he saw the she was pregnant. And they had not slept together—as she would not before their marriage. He himself, like Daphne, was a wizard who had no teaching, and—as an infantile wizard often performs magic without intention—accidentally cursed her in his anger. She lived through the pregnancy but died in childbirth of natural causes. However, as you may know from your few moments of attention in Advanced Magical Theory, most blood curses are caused by a cursed pregnant woman. The curse sits in her but sinks into the baby's blood, thereby making it a part of Daphne's descendants' genes. And that's the story."
Sirius' eyes looked mooned-over and a pleased smile sat on his lips, but then it faded. "How many members of your family have died from it?"
"Plenty," she affirmed. Her mother spoke of her father and aunts and uncles and cousins that had been killed off. "Enough to know I won't be having children."
Sirius bit the inside of his lip. They rarely ever talked about her family's curse—she didn't like talking about it and, honestly, neither did he. Plus, there wasn't much use in it either. No one could predict who could be taken by it, and when they were it was fast, like poison. After all, that's what it really was—poison waiting to set.
Sirius hated the thought of a childless Blanche as well. She could be so loving and delicate when she wanted; she defended those she loved to the ends of the world. She would love having her own children, to adore and play with—children who knew her better than herself. And, although the thought tasted odd in his mouth, he'd always wanted to be the one to give them to her—to make and have together with her.
"Does it ever skip generations?" He asked hopefully.
"No, if anything my chances have worsened. Now I know that the cursed blood in my mother's line is strong," she shrugged. She came to terms with it long ago. "Can we talk of something else? You know how this bores me."
It didn't bore her, Sirius knew; it depressed her. He was sure some small part of her had always wanted to live a long, simple life full of children… Well, at least one or two. He reached for her hands beneath the table, holding them in her lap. She looked at them and he was surprised she didn't push them away. She kept her bright blue eyes trained upon them, he saw through the curtain of her long, thick lashes.
"I won't let it take you. I don't care if I have to sign my soul over to the Devil, but I won't. You will have children who will be safe from it," he promised. "And if I do recall from those few moments I paid attention in Advanced Theoretical Magic, curses often work alongside a witch's or wizard's character. When their minds darken, so do their bodies. And you have the purest mind I've ever encountered. It could never darken."
"You think too highly of me, Sirius," she blushed and tightened her hands around his. God, he had missed this. This quiet voice she so rarely used—tender and modest, not fighting it harshly as she normally would or electing some form of contrived vanity. When she truly needed the words, she absorbed them like a sponge.
"No, I don't," he rejected sternly, shifting so he could be closer to her. He released one hand from her grip and reached for her jaw, softly nudging her face upwards so it could meet his lips in a kiss. She was hesitant as she sometimes was, especially at the start of their relationship, but made no objection to his rather public display of a long snog. He released her before the two older women at a nearby table could clear their throats in disapproval, but was pained by the sight of her wet, reddened lips—dark as red wine.
"Merlin, I can't live when you're off revising like you are now," he complained irately. "Studying through the night and not sleeping in my bed. Being with you again is like resurfacing after drowning."
"Stop it, Sirius," she laughed, pushing away his chest with her palm. He studied the crinkle of her eyes as she giggled, her lips in a high smile upon her face. He captured her with his hands once again, laying a second long kiss on her lips. One of the older women sighed loudly, causing her to hum against his mouth and pull away.
But when she parted from him, her eyes were glued to the doorway, then moved across the room as they followed something passing through the pub. Sirius was about to turn around and look, but her hands stopped him. "It's Regulus. He's here with Wilkes and Avery. Don't look—he didn't notice you."
"That wanker…" Sirius mumbled. "What's he doing with those two?"
"They're all in Slytherin," she shrugged. But something seemed off with them. Their features were strangely contorted and they all ordered liquor, not beer. They sat at a booth across the pub and Regulus seemed to clearly notice Blanche upon one cursory glance of the room. Blanche instantly scowled upon making eye contact. Here sat before her was the best of the Blacks, and Regulus was just a blurred and unappealing reflection of his handsomer, stronger, kinder, brighter brother.
"Doesn't Avery have at least a few N.E.W.T.s to prepare for? What's he doing out here during exam season?"
"Could ask the same of us, Sirius," Blanche dutifully noted with raised eyebrows. Sirius looked across the room to see Regulus, who was staring back.
"Maybe…" Sirius absently replied, glaring at his brother.
"Come on. Forget about him."
Sirius let out a long sigh before dropping his gaze. "You're right," he shook his head. Then the door opened again and he turned at the sound. Blanche swore to herself quietly. Now they would never get some peace and quiet. Sirius could not rest in the presence of such a collectively dark group.
Severus Snape quickly hid the startled expression upon his face when he made contact with Sirius' already inflamed glare. When he wiped his surprise, his lips set in a hard line his brow lowered.
"Here to ruin my brother some more, Snivellus?" Sirius asked sourly. Blanche watched him closely, his grey eyes—just moments ago swirling with a silver mist as refreshing as spring—now tainted with malice. They seemed to absorb the weak lighting of the pub and were now dark as coal.
"Your brother was the one who asked me here," Severus snipped back. "Seems he's chosen a wiser path."
"You're only feeding on the lesser model—everyone knows that."
"Sirius Black, always the narcissist," Severus scowled tightly. "I wouldn't be so sure of your fraternal supremacy. Regulus has shown an ability for the loyalty and commitment you so famously lack. Sirius Black, the man who can't even decide upon which tart to bed for the week," he finished, sending a scathing glance towards Blanche.
"Excuse me?" Blanche made herself known, pushing back the table to stand. Sirius had already drawn his wand. But before Blanche could rise and pull out her wand herself, she saw the worry bloom on Madam Rosmerta's comely, flushed face—she had been polishing silverware and laughing with a patron, but she'd seen Sirius pull his wand. She know he could blow her pub to shambles if he was enraged enough—a state which Severus Snape could so easily summon.
Sirius' jaw was clenched so hard Blanche could see every tendon in his cheek. But as he begun to stand himself, she sunk her hands into his jumper and pulled him down with all her might. When he was set off, he could be unstoppable. She needed to hold him back before Severus said anything further about Regulus. Or worse—anything further about Blanche.
"Sirius, stop," she held him down.
"He's a fucking twat—he needs—"
"Stop," she said harshly and pinched him with her hands. His set lips softened as he looked at her. He remembered how angry she'd been the last time he took revenge against Severus into his own hands. I can speak for myself, her words rung in his head. He settled and dropped his wand on the table—she would be better at taking care of him anyways. Although she often hexed, jinxed, and—if the victim was so unlucky—cursed her opponents, she could also tear them to smithereens with her words.
"Severus, I know you think you're some sort of revolutionary thinker being personally held back by the—quote-unquote—despicable restrictions of Dumbledore. But I'd like to inform you—as I have a hundred times before—that you're not even the best wizard in our year. Not even in this pub!" She laughed. "Because I'll remind you that this certain tart of the week has bested you in duels since your First Year—I have done it before and I will do it again. I mean, you're talking to the four-years-running champion of Flitwick's Annual Informal Duelling Championship! Which you have been defeated by me in every year since you got here. So before you think next time to insult my boyfriend and me, why not grow a pair and THEN call us out when we're not in a tiny, timber pub that won't fall apart when I blast you with the Reducto Curse. Sound good?"
Severus Snape was a talented disputant with a knack for insults, but he withered at the public fire set upon him by Blanche. He was stupid to incite her fury, even he knew that. She had a history of public humiliation, especially for those who hurt her friends.
"Fine then," he ground his teeth. "Expect it."
"Waiting patiently," she smiled back. Before he scurried away, she called out to him and his friends across the pub. "Hey, Regulus! Yeah, you! This snobby Seventh Year you worship claims you're the more talented brother, so how about when Snivellus and I go head-to-head, you join in against Sirius! Love to see how that plays out. And one last note… Sorry I'm distracting you from your ministry-outlawed meetings, but Snivellus—take one sip of anything in this pub and you'll wake up without a single hair left on your head. My apologies, Madam Rosmerta, but I don't think you'd want his grimy money anyways. That's all!"
Blanche picked up her beer and finished it. Rosmerta smiled at her warmly from behind the bar, glad that Blanche hadn't taken to physical means of punishment. She smiled back.
Sirius let out a long sigh. "Can we leave?"
"We just got here."
"We need to go," he uncomfortably shifted.
"Why?"
"Because I've never been more aroused in my life," he confessed. She noticed a high blush upon his cheeks—not from embarrassment but from excitement. "And it's quite cramped in here."
Blanche and Sirius lay in his bed, their figures enlightened by only the twinkling yellow stars Sirius had cast up into the canopy of his enclosed bed. Both were exhausted and breathless, but likewise inflamed. Blanche had taken to wearing only her bra and pyjama shorts or pants whilst she was with Sirius like this, and he had been less self-restrictive with showing her his arousal by her. Plus, she liked the feel of his hardness against her leg, hips, and sometimes even between her spread legs. Especially there—it hit a nerve that made her toes furl and unfurl with every shift.
Sirius was now beneath her as her legs straddled his hips. His hands were firmly planted on her bottom and his fingers dipped beneath the hem of her shorts. She allowed him to push and pull her hips as his lips moved across her face and neck. Occasionally she'd playfully lift her hips higher and separate them, causing a strangled sound to leave his mouth and his hips to jerk upwards.
At one point he shifted them and moved one hand to grip her breast through her bra, pushing away its lace so his thumb played the raised peak of her breast—even though he couldn't see it and had not yet. The new configuration of their hips combined with his ministrations caused an electric current to ebb, starting between her thighs and driven by the motion of his stiff member against the bundle of nerves hidden in her core. Paced moans began leaving her parted lips and his mouth likewise began to release sounds she had never heard before, building in tenor.
But in his pleasure, he accidentally pinched her nipple too hard and sent her squealing, launching a hand to hold her hurt breast.
"I'm so sorry," he instantly apologised, resting his hips flat against the bed and partly torn from his desire. "Are you okay? I got carried away."
"Yes," her voice softened, and then she started to laugh. He joined in with her.
"I thought we were better than dry-humping," he commented between their laughter. "Thank God I didn't come."
"Paradoxically, that would have been rather anticlimactic," she commented gigglingly. She had no idea what she would have done if he had. She could hardly imagine it, although she wished she could. Something about it excited her.
The event had coaxed them both into inactivity, though Sirius excitedly and repeatedly offered to 'assist her further' upon hearing that she, too, thought something rather mysterious was going to happen in her body.
She was likewise excited by it and wanted it to happen; she saw the dawn of her true womanhood on the horizon. But was not yet ready to leap towards it. As much as Sirius hoped to touch her intimately, she wouldn't let him. So as far as they went, they were restricted to kisses and silly fumbling around—but not upon forbidden areas.
"I'm sorry," she eventually said into the maroon darkness.
"For what?" He asked in response, sounding truly dumbfounded. She figured at least it wasn't weighing on him, in spite of the toll such abstinence was taking on his body. Sometimes, to Blanche's body-shaking laughter, he looked at family photos to allay his physical arousal.
"My virginity," she blatantly confessed.
"Stop," he quickly answered, turning on his side to look at her. She could see his beauty in the shapes of the shadows cast by his features. He smoothed her hair back and planted a kiss upon her forehead. "Anything you give me will always be enough, because it's you."
Blanche smiled warmly. She lifted her hand and traced his collarbone, then followed the squiggling lines of ink down the hard planes of his chest. She was seeing more and more of him lately and she dearly loved every inch. Yet there were still parts she had not seen, but knew she would one day soon. "It will be you."
Half of his lips lifted in a toothy smile, like a child who had just been told his Easter basket was hiding somewhere in the house. It was full of chocolates and candies, but he had to find it first. In this case, Sirius need only wait.
"I love you," he spoke.
"I love you too," she returned.
"You know who also loves you?" He told her scandalously. "Or, sorry—who at least has a crush on you?"
"Who?" She returned.
"Regulus."
"What?!" She gasped. "Your brother?"
"Yeah. I reckon you have a particular appeal to Black boys. Well, you appeal to everyone, but—"
"How do you know?" She enquired.
"He used to talk about you all the time, but became more covert about it once his balls dropped. My mother would always go—'now, now, Regulus, that one's for Siri. Pity Lavinia and Rabastan didn't have another one, especially with that one so pretty'," he mimicked his mother in a grating, high-pitched tone. "Sometimes he stole the pictures I had of you. Probably to wank to."
"Ew," Blanche's face screwed up in disgust.
"Well, what do you think I was doing with them?" He laughed. A blush rose to her cheeks and she rolled her eyes. "I think you were a symbol of manhood for him. At those cursed Pureblood Balls, you'd arrive in your stockings and heels and sexy black dresses. You were what he wanted—wealth, power, beauty, sex, darkness. I don't know. He didn't really know you, though. He thought you were as evil as the rest of your family."
"Little did he know."
"Little did he know," Sirius mirrored. "He probably still has a crush on you… Probably always will. You were always the tall, tempting shadow standing over him."
Blanche hummed in response. It was hard for her to view herself that way, as a woman. She always knew she was pretty, but she never thought of herself as sexy.
"But that's too bad for him, because his brother was lucky enough to snatch her up," Sirius murmured with a growing grin, wrapping himself around her and tickling her waist.
"Only took six years!" She giggled, trying push away his hands.
"And I'd do it for another six if I had to."