Disclaimer: Anything that rings a bell belongs to J.K Rowling

Chapter 21: Unexpected Post

The quill glided over the crumpled parchment in shaky lines. Sirius had always been annoyed that he never had a steady hand for drawing, something that wasn't helped by his less than stable lap which the parchment was currently pressed against.

"Writing a love letter, Black?" Sirius smirked at the voice and nonchalantly folded up the parchment and straightened up from the Basement floor.

He had been scribbling down exact coordinates of the Kitchens, to add to the map that he and his friends were drawing of Hogwarts.

He pocketed the parchment as Dean Logan sauntered up to him, still in his school uniform even though it was ten in the night.

"I suppose you were just tutoring Miss Lint in Charms?" Sirius had spotted the seventh year Gryffindor with Violet Lint, a Sixth year Puff, the pair sneaking outside as he made his way down to the basement corridor to work on the map.

"Herbology." Logan smirked, glancing back at the spot where the Hufflepuff common room was hidden, "That spot behind Greenhouse Three has amazing natural lighting at this time of night."

"Point noted." Sirius laughed, "I don't suppose she invited you into the Puff Dorms."

Logan rolled his eyes, "You know how the Puffs are about their common room. Quilla and I dated for a whole three weeks but she never invited me in."

"Must have had something to do with your unusual interest in her best friend." Logan showed off his pearly whites at Sirius' jest and shrugged, unabashed at having broken up as many friendships as he did hearts.

"Speaking of love letters, I received this in the evening, was going to give it to you at breakfast tomorrow." The dark-skinned boy fished out a roll of parchment from the inside of his cloak and tossed it to Sirius. "I know I told you that none of those Beauxbaton broads recalled meeting you, but Robbie's cousin wrote him last week and turns out that one of her friends remembered a Sirius Black and she sent this for you."

Sirius' fingers twitched over the parchment in anticipation, but he refrained from exposing how much he yearned for information about the mystery girl that he had met at Prongs' house last Christmas. His asking after her was unnatural enough, and he didn't want Logan to think that he felt more than human curiosity for the girl's unidentified nature.

So instead, he pocketed the unopened letter and smirked a goodbye to Logan who was already making his way towards the stairs that led up to the Entrance Hall.

Sirius looked up and down the deserted corridor, it still felt too exposed to read the letter out here for some reason. He was uncomfortable with the way he reacted to this letter, how much weight he placed on uncovering the identity of his mystery girl.

Perhaps it was because he didn't have the strength to deal with the more pressing matters like his uncle's untimely death and the way his family had reacted to it. How they all turned their back on Alphard Black after he had done so much for them all over the years and he didn't truly know why.

Perhaps it was because he saved all those muggles.

Perhaps it was because he left Sirius gold.

He surely couldn't process the duel he and Bellatrix got into on the morning after they arrived back at Hogwarts a month ago, which had Dumbledore himself intervene and Sirius receive a dozen detentions and lose a hundred house points.

The witch was out for vengeance and Sirius was more than happy to fight her, after all, her mourning for her sister was ludicrous. Andy was a thousand times safer being married to Ted Tonks than Rabastan Lestrange and Bellatrix was a fool to think otherwise.

So, Sirius was quite content in feeling desolate that Logan couldn't find out who the girl was. He was surprised that he felt that way at all but preferred to obsess over this matter than begin to deal with everything else.

After all the effect she had on him was baffling to say the least, he must have spoken to her for less than ten minutes; the kiss was so chaste he could barely call it the kind that was supposed to make his palm sweaty just thinking about it…

Or plague his mind with the repeated memory of her soft lips below the black mask or the way her eyes glowed gold with life…

It's not supposed to matter…

Yet here he stood, his heart beating a little faster at the thought that this letter was proof that he hadn't completely dreamed up the girl… that she was real… the gold eyed beauty in white wasn't just a figment of his imagination…

Sirius hastened towards the Kitchens, knowing the elves would give him more privacy at reading a letter than his dorm mates and tickled the pear quickly, not caring to look over his shoulder and ascertain that nobody was watching.

He crossed over the step and fished out the parchment but before he could unroll it a familiar smell distracted him, and he glanced up.

The kitchen was empty of elves save for one, an old female that Sirius knew by face, sitting on a stool in the corner and knitting. This wasn't uncommon, the school elves did most of their cleaning at the dead of night, and it was normal to find just one or two left behind to man the kitchens.

What was strange was the sight Sirius spotted right at the back, of a person, though their slight stature could easily be mistaken as a somewhat tall elf, bustling about behind a counter as if making a potion.

As Sirius approached however, he realized that the person was in fact not brewing a potion, but rather was whipping together baking ingredients, and startled dark eyes looked up at him as he reached the counter, and he couldn't help letting out a bark of laughter.

He had become accustomed to the sight of Judalia Devon, who had suddenly started attending classes and eating in the Great Hall from the start of second term, albeit alone and ever silent, but present, nevertheless.

But he never saw her quite like this. Red faced from manually stirring the large white bowl of batter in her frail arms, her hair, that had grown possibly magically over break, which Sirius never noticed much since it always seemed to be in a bun, was now parted into two long pony tails, something he saw Evans use at night, letting the brown strands fall down her white pyjama top.

This however was not what garnered his laughter, which was in fact due to the flour that was spread across her forehead as well as a bit of batter hanging off her chin like a little goatee, which he could only assume was flung there from her vicious stirring.

His perusal of her was broken by a slight dinging sound and they both turned to the oven as he recalled what attracted him to this spot in the first place, the familiar scent of baked goods.

She left the bowl down silently and crossed quickly to the oven and Sirius hastened forward just as she reached for the oven door.

"Be careful! That'll be piping hot!" His warning was too late as Devon soundlessly whipped back her hand and he quickly came over to her, stopping the girl from reaching for the door again, she seemed persistent in letting her hands burn! "I'll do it! Run that under some water!"

Sirius quickly cast an impervious charm on his hand like he saw Mrs. Potter do a handful of times and easily sprung open the oven door, pulling out the baked good and plopping it onto the counter, shutting the door and turning to Devon who was just silently observing him, the batter goatee falling from her chin with a plop on the floor.

"Did you run it under water?" Sirius asked, getting his answer from the angry red welt on her right palm and he sighed, grabbing it, and leaning down to observe the wound better, "It would help to soothe it." He mumbled, thinking of a charm that could fix the girl's wound. "I'm not good at healing charms. I never have to use them on myself. James says I have a higher than usual sense of self preservation. I tell him if he had my dashing good looks he would too." He chuckled at his own joke as he knew he wouldn't get a response from the girl and glanced up, surprised to see a small smile play on her lips. Suppose she wasn't as void of personality as he thought she was.

"Master Student." The elves usually referred to them as such, having not met many students but at the same time not being forthright to learn their names and Sirius turned to see the little old elf hold out a wet cloth to him, "For Mistress Student. And two bowls of spaghetti that Master student always likes."

Sirius smiled in appreciation and took the wet cloth from the elf, still holding Devon's hand in his own. Her skin was soft, scarily so. Like any sort of pressure would harm her, she really was delicate, it should make him feel uncomfortable, but the feeling never arose. Perhaps it was growing up in Grimmauld with delicate things all about, he'd always liked to touch that which his mother instructed he should not, maybe that's why he wasn't uncomfortable in touching Devon. She was just another delicate thing his mother would disapprove of.

He patted the surrounding area of the burn with the wet cloth, unsure why he did it, but he felt touching the welt straight away might shock her. He moved the cloth slowly onto the burn and pulled her by the hand towards the counter where he took a seat, preventing him from craning his neck down so low. It didn't help much, with him on the stool, she was just a foot or so taller than him seated, he glanced up at her, hoping that he was relieving some of her pain.

Her dark eyes were unsettling but it took a considerable amount of effort to unsettle Sirius so he gazed up at them, "I haven't a clue if this is helping much, you should go to Madam Pomfrey."

She shook her head in the negative at that and he sighed, "Well it's your funeral."

It was an exaggeration of course; the wound would heal on its own, but she'd need something to prevent scarring. Sirius knew girls were supposed to fret over such things, but he imagined this particular girl was a bit different with her makeup free face and plain clothes. A maddening urge came over him and he felt like kissing the palm of her hand… perhaps it was because his head was so very close to the hand or it was because he never kissed a girl there before, it seemed so intimate, and he quickly let her hand go before he acted on the confusing urge.

He turned instead to the baked good which turned out to be a terribly familiar looking dessert, "Treacle Tart!"

It wasn't his favourite dessert but that wasn't his reason for the excitement, it was James' favourite and it looked uncannily like the ones Mrs. Potter made, but the latticework that covered it was kind of crooked and there was a brown dusting over it that he never saw in Mrs. Potters, but the smell was quite like hers and that had been what dragged him over here.

He glanced at Devon as she looked unsure at the tart, the most amount of emotion he saw on the girl's face and realized she must be pondering at how it tastes, "You'll only know if it's any good if you taste it."

She looked at him, dark eyes pondering, and then suddenly grabbed a fork and held it out to him, "Oh no, I don't really like tarts."

To be quite honest, Sirius didn't mind tarts, but he was in no mood to taste something that obviously was a first attempt at baking considering the girl had attempted to open the oven door without gloves.

Devon shrugged, then stuck the fork into the pie and dug out a bit of the middle, but instead of pulling it to her own lips she held it to his, her eyebrows rising as her expression urged him to try it.

Oh Godric, he should have just left the kitchens when he saw it wasn't empty of humans.

He sighed and parted his lips and she slipped the fork in, and he let the dessert fill his mouth as she fluidly slipped the fork out again… that had been the first time anybody had fed him…

She looked at him expectantly and he realized she was waiting for a response, and he was surprised to actually have one, "It's quite good. I like the cinnamon you sprinkled at the top. The crust is a bit hard but the filling tastes perfect! Mrs. Potter's filling tastes the exact same, you must be following the same recipe. Oh, Mrs. Potter is James Potter's mother. James Potter is my friend… er…"

Sirius then realized that he was unsure if the silent girl even knew or cared who any of them were. Well, they were Astronomy partners on that assignment, so she had to at least know who he was. Then there was that whole potion debacle at the beginning of the year… then Sirius realized how cruel he was being. Just because the girl was a mute didn't mean she was thoughtless, she probably was aware of everyone in the year, more aware of them they were of her in fact.

Devon, however, didn't seem to care much for the idea of who Mrs. Potter was and busied herself with pouring the batter she had been mixing into an empty pie crust she must have assembled before he walked in, and topping it with another crooked bit of lattice work and popping it back into the oven.

Sirius stared at her as she stared at the tart in the oven. He'd not really noticed her since they came back over the very eventful Christmas break but there was something different about the girl… she didn't look so sickly… she was still pale but not ghostlike, she merely looked like she didn't get enough sunlight and her hair was long.

And…there were other differences as well…

Sirius couldn't help noticing that her chest looked perkier, nothing to ogle but evidently something was there, perhaps it was just that it wasn't hidden behind the baggy tee, the white pyjama top she now wore fit her quite well and looked new.

Devon straightened and turned away from the oven suddenly and Sirius quickly looked elsewhere, feeling as if she would know where he had been looking if she caught his gaze.

He then spotted the bowls of spaghetti the elf had left for them and hastily brought them forward, twirling some in a fork and taking a bite.

She sat down on the stool next to his and Sirius pushed her bowl towards her, "Have some or the house elves would think you don't like it."

It was the truth, but in reality, Sirius thought that she desperately needed some.

He remembered Andy telling him that Cissy didn't like to eat two years back; that Bella would have to threaten her to eat because she apparently was watching her figure, which puzzled Sirius because Narcissa had always been thin.

Girls were weird.

Sirius had never had a particular type, he liked them in all their glorious shapes and sizes, curvy like Cassie, slender like Isabella McDougal or petite like Selina Selwyn. And Sirius liked that girls took care of themselves, smelled, and dressed nice, but he never liked the idea of them starving themselves to look thin. He'd seen Mary fiddling with her food recently, eating less and less every day, which is why he invited her to go running with him on the weekends. He'd rather her eat and lose weight by exercise rather than starving herself.

It confused him why Devon didn't eat; she didn't particularly take good care of herself what with the bags under her eyes and the usual untidy bun. She probably was the girl that took the least care of herself in this whole castle, so why not eat?

Why starve herself...

He'd remember being hungry once, when his mother locked him in his room after Bellatrix had informed her that he had been playing with Patrick, he had gone without food for three days and he remembered how his stomach burned and pained.

Why would anyone do that to themselves?

"Go on." He forced the bowl towards her, and her eyes flickered to him and then to the bowl of spaghetti, and then she picked up her fork. He took a bite of his as she pushed the fork in, only half concentrating on the meal, watching her from the corner of his eye.

He let out a small chuckle at her fifth attempt to pick a string of spaghetti up with her fork and watched it slither back into her plate. He just realized that she possible has never eaten spaghetti before.

"Look." Sirius placed his fork into her plate, ignoring normal etiquette, "Start near the rim of the bowl so you don't get one that's too long, hold the fork straight up like this and twirl a bit, and ta-da." He lifted up the neatly folded bit of pasta, wrapped about his fork. She leaned forward easily and slipped her lips over the spaghetti and slipped it off the utensil and a jilt of excitement flittered up Sirius' hand… he'd never fed anybody before…

Her eyebrows rose comically, and he laughed, quickly getting more onto the fork to feed her, she evidently liked it as she ate another bite. He quickly scooped his fork down for a third, but she didn't eat it. Instead, she picked her fork up and fiddled about the bowl, slipping a particular long string of the spaghetti haphazardly about it but not too bad for a first attempt, even if a lot of it was still hanging from the utensil.

But instead of bringing it to her mouth, she held it to his and for the second time that night Sirius let Devon feed him.

He tried to get the whole thing, but a considerable amount hung out and he very indelicately and rudely slurped it into his mouth which caused her to silently laugh at the noise.

There was something loud about her soundless laughter, something more honest about it as her lips spread out and her dark eyes grew bright and he smiled, unsure of the tingling sensation in his chest. Must be his ego or pride. He got the usual bland girl to eat and laugh.

She mimicked Sirius' bite, letting a bit hang out out of her mouth and slurping it up, the sauce from the long noodle collecting at her pink lips and Sirius had the mad urge to lick it off.

The thought shocked him, and he rose from his seat, "I better be off. Good luck with your baking."

She nodded, slurping up some more spaghetti, evidently comfortable with entertaining herself, the sauce piling on her lip again invitingly and he quickly turned and walked to the door.

Ten minutes later Sirius was settled in his bed when he recalled exactly why he had entered the kitchens that night and slipped out, picking through his strewn trouser pockets and finding the parchment and unrolling it.

SB

I was quite surprised to find that you were looking for me and embarrassed at the same time. I'm usually not that forthright with strangers but I felt generous considering you were the birthday boy… to be quite honest you're not my type. I don't exactly know how to respond when people blurt out their feelings, especially boys, considering I'm accustomed to gentleman of a more reserved nature, and comfortable with that as I myself am quite reserved…

Anyway, I thought I might write to apologize for disappearing on you… there was a fire after all and I could hardly continue to wait for you…

To be honest I am quite unsure why I am writing at all… as I said, you're not my type, but I do find it kinder to tell you so in writing rather than to lead you on and have you search for me any further.

-CD

Sirius stared at the letter, an unusual feeling settling in his stomach.

Had he just been…rejected! Rejected by someone he was sure he had somehow had a connection to. She was embarrassed at the kiss that he thought was so chaste and delicate! He had let his feelings about Andy and his family show, and she was disturbed by it! That's why she was so quiet! She was uncomfortable!

And worst and most puzzling of all… HE WAS NOT HER TYPE!

Not her type!

Sirius rushed to the desk and furiously grabbed a quill and turned the parchment around.

CD

My search for you was just a curiosity to ensure that you did not die whilst waiting for me. I am quite uncomfortable to find that you had thought my seeking your identity was romantic in nature, it was merely a humane consideration for a fellow human's well-being.

Happy to know that you are well.

-SB

He refrained from pointing out that it was HER that was not HIS type with her flat chest and reserved nature!

And that if she thought that kiss was generous, she was delusional!

He smiled at the aloof way he ended the letter; he returned her frank impoliteness with mild mannered sincerity.

He looked up at James owl, Ceryneian, looked expectantly at the parchment from her post but he shook his head at the beautiful tawny owl that delivered some of his letters.

"You're only to deliver this a week from now Cery, okay?"

The owl hooted in understanding and Sirius rolled the parchment and left it there on the table, he wasn't about to respond in haste lest she think he was desperately waiting her letter!

Sirius made his way back to bed in a mood that almost assured him that he was to wake up to a horrid day.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait guys! But I hope you liked the chapter. I know it will come across as confusing, but everything will soon be explained. Thank you for all the support for this story, it is truly appreciated! Kalina