~
Sirius’ plate was empty. Not even juicy, smoked ham could tempt him to eat. He had something else on his mind.
“I can’t do it,” he said, staring down at his plate.
“Eat?” Peter asked through a mouthful of toast.
“No,” Sirius said slowly, trying to maintain calm. “I meant talk to Agnes. I can’t do it.”
“Of course you can do it,” James reassured him from across the table. “She’s already half in love with you as it is. Charming her will be a snap.”
Sirius glared at James. “Charming her isn’t the problem. The problem is… is… charming her.”
But James did not hear the attempt of an explanation. He was already looking down the long table at one particular redheaded girl. “If only charming Lily was so easy,” he sighed.
“Oh, get over yourselves,” grumbled Remus. His face was paler than usual, even sickly-looking. “I’m the one who has the date with Madame Pomfrey tonight.”
“I didn’t think staff could date students,” Peter muttered, confused. Sirius gave him a quick punch on the shoulder. It worked exactly as he planned, silencing Peter instantly.
Pushing off from the table, Sirius stood up and announced, “I’m going.”
James, Remus, and Peter stayed behind and watched Sirius walk down the table to where a girl with a mass of curly blonde hair sat several seats away.
Just as Sirius Black had a reputation around Hogwarts, so had Agnes Clark as the most talkative and opinionated girl in the entire school. She was the school gossip, not able to keep a secret for longer than five minutes before spilling it to anyone within hearing. In her five years at Hogwarts, she had made more enemies than friends because of her habit for talking about anything and everything that came her way. The friends she did manage to collect could hardly be called such. They endured her relentless chatter grudgingly and ignored most of what she said.
As Sirius approached her, she sat with a group of friends, trying to make herself included. The students talked louder and faster than normal to prevent Agnes from entering the conversation. But she was determined and took advantage of a split second pause one girl took to draw breath.
“Well, have you heard about Chelsea Murray and Timmy Cooper?” she interrupted, quickly changing the subject. “Oh, of course you haven’t! Hardly anyone knows yet, it just happened, but I suppose I should stop teasing you. It’s so juicy! Last night just after curfew, Chels and Tim were in the common room, alone in a corner, when he kissed her. People have been talking about it for weeks and now it’s official. Chels and Tim are a couple.” She waited for a reaction, but none came. The boy next to her slowly edged farther away. The others simply stared at her or pretended to be suddenly interested in their breakfast. “But of course they’re a terrible match,” Agnes continued, wagging a finger in the air. “I’ve said it all along they’d be a terrible match. And I’ve got thirteen reasons to prove it, too. I wrote them all down last night after I saw the kiss. Firstly “”
Sirius grabbed her raised hand. This had the desired effect. Agnes shushed instantly and looked up at him in shock. The entire group at the table turned from Agnes and their plates to stare at him, too. He held her hand between both of his and cleared his throat.
“Er… I love you… and, um, you’ll always be in my heart. Yeah.”
For once, words did not spill from Agnes’ mouth. A wide smile took over it, instead. Her eyes seemed to shimmer with tears of happiness. She was speechless.
Sirius abruptly dropped her hand and walked away. He wanted as far as possible away before she regained the ability to speak. The cluster of friends at the table watched him with wide eyes, each student trying to think of a reasonable answer to why the most eligible bachelor in Hogwarts would confess love for Agnes Clark.
~
The Marauders last class of the day was Herbology. As they passed through the halls on their way outside, Sirius noticed several groups of girls clustered together whispering. They would not so subtly stare at him as he walked by, continuing to whisper in hurried murmurs to each other.
“Looks like Agnes got her story around pretty quick,” James observed.
“Doesn’t she always?” asked Remus, still looking ill enough to collapse at any moment.
James laughed and punched Sirius in the shoulder. “Well, there goes your chances with Claire, mate.”
Sirius shrugged. “Eh. Last night wasn’t such a great date, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, it was okay, I guess,” sighed Sirius. “But there wasn’t, you know, a… spark.”
Remus scratched his chin. “Huh. What did you guys do? Can I ask?”
“Ha!” Sirius barked. “We talked. That’s all she wanted to do. Just talk, talk, talk…” He let his head fall forward and faked a snore.
“Speaking of the devil,” Peter interrupted, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, “she’s following us again.”
All four Marauders glanced behind them to see a head of curly blonde hair quickly hide behind a suit of armor. Slowly, Agnes peeked out again and, meeting Sirius’ eyes, shot him a coy smile. He rolled his eyes as she then proceeded to blow him a kiss.
“Will she never give up?” he growled, walking off again.
“Give her a break, Padfoot,” said James, struggling to keep a straight face. “She’s in love.”
~
“Quick, James! In here!” Sirius pushed a tapestry aside to reveal another of Hogwart’s secret passages.
James followed albeit reluctantly. “Really, Sirius, we’ve used nearly every hidden passage that we know of. I think we lost her at that statue of Bodwin the Hideous. She can’t possibly find us now.”
Sirius peeked from behind the tapestry into the hall they had just left. “Don’t underestimate her, James. The fact she managed to follow us as far as Bodwin is enough to have me worried.” His wide eyes turned to settle on James. “What if she knows this castle better than we do?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” James scoffed. “No one knows Hogwarts like we do. Let’s just go to the dormitory. You can hide out there.”
“Okay… if you’re sure…”
“Of course I’m sure!” James drew himself up to the tallest height he could manage. “I am James Potter.”
Sirius relaxed a little under the influence of his friend’s arrogance. Five minutes later, they entered the Gryffindor common room and tactfully escaped to their dormitory without incident. But as Sirius opened the door with a sigh of relief, curly blonde hair filled his vision. Agnes had herself wrapped around him before he could take a step backward let alone run.
James watched on, preferring to savor the moment rather than interrupt. He knew it would be useful for teasing later on. Meanwhile, Sirius flailed his arms pitifully to free himself from Agnes’ hold.
“I looked everywhere for you, Sirius!” Agnes exclaimed, her arms still around him in a death grip. “I knew you’d come here sooner or later. I waited and waited because I knew you’d be here and want to see me. Oh, I’ve missed you so much. But now you’re here. Oh, we have so much to talk about. We should go for a walk or sit by the fire. Anything but here. Your room stinks like old trainers. But I waited anyway because you were coming back. So, what’ll it be? Oh! What if we “”
“Geroffme!”
Shocked, Agnes stopped in the middle of her sentence and stumbled back a few steps. “Something wrong?”
“Lots of things. At the moment, you come at the top of the list. Congratulations. I only said those things this morning because someone made me. Now will you leave me alone?”
“You… you don’t love me?” She found her answer in Sirius’ face. Immediately, her own face scrunched up like a girlish paper ball. Sirius recognized the signs of a deluge and groaned. He was spared the guilt of making a girl cry, however, as Agnes choked back the tears and instead rushed down the stairs without another word. In her distress, she dropped a folded piece of parchment.
Sirius stomped into the dormitory and fell on his bed, leaving James behind to pick up the paper. James expected a humorous love note he could use for further teasing but was sadly disappointed by a certain Slytherin’s handwriting.
“Get a load of this.” His friend grunted from the bed in response. Assuming Sirius was listening, James read aloud, “‘After that pitiful performance this morning, I should reveal your secret immediately. However, I will give you another chance to redeem yourself. Meet me alone. Same place. Same time.’”
“Signed by our lovely Slytherin friend, of course,” Sirius added scoffingly.
“You’d almost think he’s enjoying himself.” Jaames paused to reread the note. “You know, that signature could condemn him. If we show this note to McGonagall, maybe he’d get expelled.”
“He wouldn’t,” Sirius sighed. “Blackmail’s only worth forty points tops.”
“How do you know that?”
Sirius looked up from the bed. “Remember third year?”
“Oh, right. Timmy Cooper. He was pretty embarrassed about that foot fungus.”
“This is between Snape and I now. I’m not running to McGonagall. Besides, then she’d know why I serenaded her.”
James lifted an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
“But it’s so much more fun to keep her guessing,” Sirius replied with a laugh.
His friend didn’t know how to respond and was about to say absolutely nothing when he was interrupted by the appearance of Remus and Peter.
“Oh, there you are!” said Remus, entering the dormitory with Peter following close behind.
James did not waste words and promptly held Snape’s note out for them to see.
“Another meeting?” Peter blurted as soon as he finished reading.
Remus glanced out of the west-facing window. “Tonight’s a full moon.” The sun was already sinking toward the horizon.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Sirius confidently. “I’ll catch up with you three after I find out what Snivellus wants.”
“Wait a minute. You’re not going alone,” James quickly replied. “Peter and I will go under the cloak.”
But Sirius shook his head in determination. “No, you won’t. Last time, he heard all of us coming from down the hall. The cloak would do no good. The note says to meet him alone, so I’m going alone. I can handle him on my own.”
Remus gave a short, harsh laugh. “Last time, you wanted to erase Snape’s memory. After today’s experience with Agnes, I’d be surprised if you didn’t kill Snape when left without supervision.” He looked again at the sunset. “Have it your way. I need to meet Madam Pomfrey. If you do kill someone, just know I won’t be there to defend you and you’ll be spending a long time in Azkaban.” He turned his eyes on Sirius with a serious look.
James grabbed his invisibility cloak from his trunk and stuffed it into his bookbag for later. “We’ll go with you to the Hospital Wing,” he told Remus. “Dinner will be starting soon, anyway. Peter and I will meet you at the shack and Sirius can find us later.”
Standing up from his bed, Sirius nodded in approval to the plan and led the four out.
Sirius' Serious Squirrel Secret by The Scribbler
Chapter Notes: The next installment of SSSS and just in time for Valentine's Day, too! Thanks goes to my beta, MadEyeMaddy, for her always present help and encouragement.