Young and Restless

Sirius looked up, startled, at the girl who had just stormed into the common room. He’d seen her around, of course; when you lived in the same dormitory all year, you began to recognise your fellow housemates. He couldn’t remember her name, but he was fairly certain she was only a year under him.

He could tell she was upset. Not only was her face screwed up into a grimace, but there were traces of tears on her cheeks, and she was pacing furiously, muttering to herself. Obviously, she thought she had the room to herself.

‘Hey,’ Sirius called, startling her. She whipped around, her blonde-brown hair fanning out behind her as she turned. ‘Whoa, easy there. It’s just me.’ The girl calmed a little, but she was still glaring.

‘Wanna talk about it?’ Sirius offered, gesturing to the empty spot on the sofa next to him. She looked at him warily but then moved over to him and flopped inelegantly onto the sofa. Her robes parted at the knees, revealing a pair of legs encased in fishnet tights. Sirius quirked an eyebrow.

‘Bad date?’ he asked.

‘You have no idea,’ she said, rolling her eyes. Her voice was smooth and pleasant, and Sirius thought suddenly that he could listen to her for hours. He propped his elbow up on the back of the sofa and turned towards her, silently encouraging her to continue.

‘Boys are just so insufferable!’ she ranted. ‘They have no respect for our minds, only eyes for our bodies. Why can’t a bloke see that I’m more than just a pretty face? I have a brain, too, you know!’ She paused here, looking at Sirius expectantly.

‘Oh, I’m sure you do,’ he said encouragingly, nodding in agreement. The girl did a double take, wondering whether she should take him seriously or not.

‘Right,’ she said finally. ‘And you’re one of the types who just smiles and nods at whatever a girl says, hoping she’ll eventually shut up so you can shove your tongue down her throat.’

Sirius looked at her in surprise. He couldn’t remember the last time a girl had spoken to him so forthrightly, so honestly, and he told her so.

‘Do you know, you’re right,’ Sirius said. ‘I mean, that is what I usually do. Not that I shove my tongue down every girl’s throat, but yeah, I don’t normally pay attention to what they’re saying.’

She studied him for a moment. ‘I can’t believe you just admitted that to me,’ she said after a while. ‘I’m obviously not about to let you anywhere near my throat now.’

Sirius laughed, and she smiled grudgingly. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t try anything,’ he said, still chuckling.

‘Well, good,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I could handle another ape pawing at me tonight.’ She shivered.

‘Are you cold?’ he asked, incorrectly interpreting the source of her shudder. ‘Here, let me stoke up the fire.’ Getting up, he moved over to the fireplace and added a few logs, poking at it until the flames sparked and grew. He straightened and stood there for a while, gazing into the flames. A yawn from the sofa startled him out of his thoughts, and he turned back to see that the girl had stretched out on the sofa, her legs now occupying the spot he had vacated. Grinning, he went back over, lifted her legs, and sat down, pulling her feet across his lap.

She squeaked in surprise. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, trying to move her legs out of his grasp.

‘Nothing,’ he said, smirking. ‘Your feet were in my spot, that’s all. I figured we could share.’

‘Well, all right, then,’ she said warily. ‘But no funny business.’

Sirius nodded in agreement. The girl turned her gaze back to the fire, allowing Sirius to study her unnoticed. She had flipped her long hair up over the arm of the sofa so that it didn’t tickle her neck, and he admired the way the strands turned from pale gold to dark blonde as she shifted to get more comfortable. Her neck was long and graceful, her face sprinkled with freckles, and her blue eyes looked almost grey in the dim of the room. Sirius’s mouth quirked as he noticed her slightly rounded nose. It kept her from being a typical beauty, but it added charm and character to her face. The scowl she had worn earlier was all but gone now.

‘Are you staring at me?’ she asked, jerking him back to the present.

‘What? Erm, no, of course not,’ he said, clearing his throat.

‘You were,’ she accused, smiling slightly.

‘I wasn’t staring. I was just looking.’

‘Fine, whatever you want to call it, then,’ she said, now full-out grinning. Sirius found himself returning her grin. Why had he never talked to this girl before? She was different from other girls – outspoken, bold. He found himself wanting to get her to laugh, wanting to see that uninhibited smile again. He found himself wondering what subjects she enjoyed, what sweets she bought at Honeydukes, where she lived, how big of a family she had. He found himself wanting to get to know her.

But I don’t have to do it tonight, he realised. Tonight, I can just sit here and enjoy being with her. I can do all the wondering later. He settled more comfortably into the couch, keeping her legs on his lap and enjoying their warmth.

They sat in silence, gazing into the flickering flames. Sirius used to think that silences were awkward, but this silence was different, just as this girl was different. It was companionable and comfortable, and Sirius didn’t feel that words were even necessary right now. In fact, they would just interrupt the warm, soothing quiet enveloping them.

Sirius closed his eyes, only for a moment, he told himself, but when he opened them again, he found a cold fireplace and the couch empty beside him. Rubbing his eyes in confusion, he stumbled to his feet and looked around. He couldn’t believe he had fallen asleep! And where did the girl go? She must have thought he was some kind of idiot for falling asleep with her feet on his lap.

Groaning, Sirius slowly ascended the stairs to his dorm, mentally hitting himself for being such an idiot.
*
Over the following weeks, Sirius saw the blonde-haired girl everywhere. It surprised him to see how often they crossed paths, for he never remembered seeing her before that night she stormed into the common room wearing fishnet tights.

The first time he saw her was in the Great Hall. She was sitting on the opposite side of the table from him, though several metres down, and he looked up to see her chatting animatedly with her friends. Her wide, friendly grin and twinkling eyes made him smile to himself, and he found that he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. James elbowed him in the side when he didn’t pass the pumpkin juice after being asked several times, so was forced to look away for a moment. When he turned back, he caught her looking back at him, but she jerked her gaze away immediately, her cheeks flushing prettily. Sirius gloated internally at the knowledge that she had been watching him as well.

Their next encounter was in the corridor on his way to Transfiguration. Sirius wasn’t watching where he was going since he, James, Remus, and Peter were plotting their next prank, and he walked right into the girl, scattering her books and parchments all over the floor of the hall. He had stooped to help her gather the mess, scrambling for loose sheets of parchment. They both reached for the same book at one point, their hands brushing each other. Sirius yanked his hand back quickly, startled by the warmth of her fingers and the tingle that spread through his arm at the contact. After they collected everything, Sirius apologised once again for knocking into her, and they said an awkward goodbye. He moved down the corridor toward Transfiguration, and when he looked back to catch a final glimpse of her golden head, he saw that she had done the same.

It seemed to Sirius that a day hadn’t gone by without him seeing the girl at least once. Whether it was in the courtyard, the common room, or the corridors, their shared glances and heated looks entranced him. About a month after their first meeting, while James was in detention, Sirius nicked the Map from his trunk to see where she was. He spotted her in the corridor outside the library. Jumping up, he stuffed the Map back into James’s trunk and took off.

Sirius didn’t think about his actions until he reached the large wooden doors of the library. As he reached for the handle, he was suddenly overcome with doubts. What was he doing? He had only had one short conversation with this girl. What would he say when he found her? What would she say? What if they had nothing in common? What if she didn’t fancy him at all? What if she was annoyed that he spoke to her? These questions and more crowded his brain, and Sirius turned away from the door, only to turn back, and then away again. He knew he must have looked like a complete fool, turning on the spot so many times as though he couldn’t make up his mind. But that was the case – he had no idea what to do.

Finally, he screwed up his Gryffindor courage and yanked open the door. He moved stealthily and cautiously through the library, anxious to avoid being seen by Madam Pince. He rubbed his head unconsciously as he remembered the many blows she had inflicted upon him for previous pranks.

After strolling through nearly the entire library, Sirius felt like giving it up. He’d checked all the usual study sections, places he’d found Remus, and sometimes Peter, studying. She wasn’t there. He’d looked down all the aisles in the non-fiction section, but she wasn’t there either. Sirius glanced dismissively over at the fiction section before heading for the door. Why anyone would waste their time reading silly stories was beyond him. He never ventured down there.

But then he stopped, considering. It was possible she was in there, and anyway, it couldn’t hurt to look. Shrugging, Sirius retraced his steps and walked down the aisle, glancing right and left and right, looking down every aisle he passed.

He almost walked right past her. There she was, curled up on the floor at the end of the aisle, leaning against the wall with a huge book resting on her lap. Her long dirty blonde hair was pulled partly back off her face, and she was twirling the ends around and around her fingers as she read.

Sirius leaned casually on the end of the bookshelf, entranced. She was obviously deeply enthralled with whatever she was reading, and she had no idea he was there. He watched her eyes flit back and forth across the page, moving ever lower, and then they snapped up to the next page. She was a fast reader.

He hadn’t ever been able to observe her in this way before. As he watched her, he remembered all the times they’d looked at each other from across the common room, not saying anything with words, but conveying much with their eyes. He remembered how she blushed under his gaze, the way her entire face lit up when he entered the room. A part of him wanted to continue his surveillance without being detected, but the majority of him wanted to actually speak to her again.

‘Hey,’ he called softly. Startled, she looked up quickly, her face breaking into a wide grin as she recognised him.

‘Hey, yourself,’ she said, getting to her feet – somewhat clumsily, Sirius noted with a smile. He walked down the aisle toward her, his hands stuffed into his pockets. She closed her book, keeping one finger on her page, and grasped it to her chest, tucking her hair back behind her ears. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, just looking,’ Sirius said, shrugging. It was true, though he hadn’t been looking for books. ‘What's that you're reading?’

‘Oh, this is one of my favourites,’ she said, her face lighting up in enthusiasm. ‘It’s called “Potions and Prejudice.� It’s about a girl and a guy who hate each other at first, but eventually they realise that they were wrong about each other. Then, of course, they fall in love. I’ve read it so many times.’ She blushed, embarrassed about rambling on, and stretched up on her toes to put the book back in its place on the top shelf.

Sirius moved to help her, his chest brushing against her back and his chin against her hair as he reached up a hand to slide the book in place.

‘Thanks,’ she said softly, turning around before Sirius had stepped away, and he froze. He couldn’t bring himself to move away. He was mesmerised by her nearness, by her beautiful blue-grey eyes, her smooth skin, her rounded nose, her mouth …

Without any further thought, Sirius bent down and pressed his lips to hers. She stiffened in surprise and then slowly, ever so slowly, she began to kiss him back, her hands creeping up to rest on his chest.

Sirius moaned when he felt her responding, and he stepped closer to her, pressing her back against the bookshelf, his tongue teasing her bottom lip, asking for entrance. He curled a hand into her soft hair as she opened her mouth to him and wrapped his other arm around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest.

He could have kissed her for hours, but his lungs thought otherwise. Reluctantly, he pulled away, gasping for breath, but keeping his arm firmly tucked around her.

‘Merlin,’ he breathed, pressing his forehead against hers.

‘Mm-hmm,’ she agreed. He pulled back a little so he could see her. ‘So, it looks like you were able to shove your tongue down my throat after all,’ she said with mock severity.

Sirius blushed, remembering their first conversation. ‘Hey, at least now I’ll be able to pay attention to what you’re saying without thinking about snogging you as soon as you shut up.’

‘Hmm,’ she said, her eyes twinkling. ‘I’m glad this has solved that little problem for you. Only trouble is, I’m not sure that plan is going to work.’

‘What?’ Sirius said in disappointment. ‘What do you mean?’

In answer, she twined her arms around his neck and pulled him down for another kiss. ‘I think I’ll be a little too busy kissing you to talk.’

Sirius smiled against her mouth. He couldn't argue with that.

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A/N: If you're trying to figure out who the girl is, don't worry! I left her anonymous on purpose. Use your imagination. ;)