#filledrequest

posted!

Sirius was falling, and he was sure he was screaming, but the only sound was the eerie symphony of stone-cold silence and the whooshing of air past his deaf ears. He was reaching: reaching for his wand, for his godson. For his life.

But then he was no longer falling, but standing. Standing in the same circular room that he had just been blasted from. Standing stiff and lightheaded in the center of a stone archway which had just been the home of a veil that no longer existed. In the center of a room that, a moment ago, had contained everyone that he cared about with a pulse.

He was alone. 

He spun on the spot, disoriented, feeling like he wanted to be sick. He wanted to vomit, to shout until his voice was hoarse, to shake and kick and retch until his stomach was empty of acid. But he wasn’t sick, he couldn’t be. He knew at his core that he would never be sick again. 

He was empty, faint, the room was too bright. 

But he was at peace.

It took him a minute to place the feeling; maybe because he’d never felt it a day before in his life. He didn’t recognize the gentle sleepiness of his stomach, the way the lines across his face suddenly seem to be etched so deeply anymore. His hand numbly found his way up to his hair- gone, most of it gone. 

There was a noise from behind him, a muted scuffling sound like someone walking with a feather-light tread. That wasn’t how she walked, but it was her. He didn’t know how, but he knew she’d be here. He always knew, somewhere in the back of his mind when he knew one more drink could kill him and he’d pour it anyway, that she would be the first face he saw.

“McKinnon,” he said softly, his voice cracking painfully before it evened out; was he even talking aloud at all? The sound crackled and echoed around him comfortably. 

Marlene was behind him, looking so small as she stood alone on the concrete of the floor below. Merlin, it was like getting the wind kicked out of him all at once. She was beautiful, so inconceivably beautiful, that he wished for a second time that it was possible to be sick, just to have some way to express the violent buildup of emotions that rose like an angry tide against his ribcage. 

Her eyes were swimming with tears, but her face had split into the most astronomical smile he’d ever seen across her face. There had been a scar -a long white line that ran from her nose to her ear- but it was gone now. He had seen her, of course, before they put her in the ground: hair singed off, blood leaking elegantly from the corner of her chapped mouth. But this wasn’t Marlene as she’d died: it was Marlene McKinnon, just as she’d lived.

Dark hair falling around her face, one nail painted blue “just to test the color”, freckles splattered gracelessly across her off-center nose. 

“This isn’t what I wanted for you,” Marlene said, and her voice wasn’t course like his: it was high, clear as a bell, ringing with sincerity just like it did when she laughed. But she wasn’t laughing, she was looking up at him with a look that was a visible sigh, aching with sadness for him. 

“You’re here though,” Sirius said, feeling his chest dipping with a sudden palpitation as his lungs struggled to keep up. But did they even need to anymore? “I want to go back.”

“I know you do,” Marlene replied, furrowing her brow at him with the weight of the world on her shoulders. 

“I need to go back,” he insisted, sure that she couldn’t have heard him right. “If I’m hallucinating, dreaming...I need to wake up. I need to...Harry...”

“You can’t go back,” she whispered, lifting her hand to his shoulder, squeezing it gently. “I’m here to bring you.”

“Bring me?” Sirius repeated faintly, swallowing hard and letting his eyes whirl in a panic around the room. “Bring me where, Marls?”

“On.” was all she said, amber eyes blinking curiously up at him. 

“You’ll come with me?” he felt so stupid asking her that, like a little boy afraid of the dark. But this wasn’t the dark: this was everything. 

“I’ll always be with you,” Marlene said, and this time it was a laugh. Not patronizing, not sarcastic. Just a laugh that surrounded him, her rosy lips spreading into a crooked smile. 

“Always?” Sirius laughed, raising an eyebrow out of habit, feeling a smirk crossing his face for the first time in years. “Even when you sing in the shower, because I don’t think I can handle an eternity of that.”

It caught her off guard, he could tell. The placid peacefulness of their eerie moment skipped a beat, her smile flitting into a surprised grin.

“I missed you,” Marlene said, and he found himself so automatically pulled to her that it was almost like he was sixteen again and watching her wink at him from across a crowded party. “We all have.”

“All?” Sirius echoed, his throat suddenly going dry again. His head turned side to side as he scanned the room, waiting for them to show up. He knew who to look for. He was looking for the glint of the glasses, the flash of red hair. But there was nothing.

“They’re waiting,” Marlene said quietly. “They’re there. They’re waiting.”

“Where?” Sirius pressed desperately, even though he knew it was no use.

“On.” Marlene said again, but it was calmer than ever. 

Suddenly, he found his hand gently being taken into the grasp of hers -not cold like he’d expect, but a soft, pulsing, warm grip that filled him with the courage he didn’t know was inside of him.

"Where is she?" Sirius Black stormed angrily through the double doors of the hospital wing, letting them fly against their opposing walls, the clattering noise echoing up and down the high-ceilinged room.

"Mr. Black, you can't just-" the matron tried to admonish him, but there was no reaching him with logic today. Not now. His eyes were livid and scanning the room, jaw twitching angrily.

"WHERE IS SHE?" He shouted this time, so loudly that his voice cracked; no regard for the rules, for others. Not today.

"Sirius," a tiny voice squeaked out, so unlike her, so broken. It came from the corner of the room where she was sitting up in bed with dark shadows under her eyes and a steady stream of blood running a river from her forehead.

It was the first time in his life that Marlene McKinnon had not smiled when Sirius had entered a room.

He was at her side in two seconds flat, ignoring the ever-more-feeble protests of the matron. Sirius took her face in his hands, tried to ignore the way she flinched automatically when he pressed a rough kiss to her forehead. She wasn't ready to be touched, not even by him.

"What the hell did they do to you?" He asked her quietly, taking a seat next to her on the bed, never tearing his grey eyes away from hers- usually warm and dancing with laughter, now flat and expressionless.

She just shook her head in response to his question, arms still shaking at her sides, dropping her gaze to the sheets below. An anger unlike anything he'd ever experienced before surged up inside him, rocking against his rib cage like a tidal wave of acid.

"I don't want you to see me like this," Marlene said, barely above a whisper, after a long minute.

"I'm not leaving you," Sirius snapped, before she had even finished speaking. He couldn't. Not now. He'd come as soon as Lily had found him, had told him why Marlene had missed their dinner date.

She'd been intercepted on the way- someone's idea of a fucking joke: because of her house, because of who she was on her way to meet.

"Okay," she said finally, voice breaking off, wavering on tears. He'd never seen her cry, not once in the six years he'd known her. It was like being tortured himself.

How anyone could have thought this was a harmless prank was beyond him. It was beyond him, of all people, when he saw the way she was pale and shaking and so, so sad.

"Who was it?" Sirius demanded, but gentler now, keeping his voice soft and gruff so that we wouldn't startle her. Again, she just shook her head. "You need to tell me, Marls. I can handle it, I can take care-"

"I don't want you to," she interrupted, chewing nervously on her already-swollen lip. "This whole thing got started because you lot can't stand each other. It's only going to get worse-"

"Worse!?" Sirius roared, immediately regretting it when he saw how the volume made her flinch, pull away from him. As an apology, he wrapped both of her shaking hands between his, looking her in the eye with a somber look. "I can't imagine something worse."

"Mulciber and Travers." Marlene said quietly. He had known, before she said it, that that was who it would be. But actually hearing out loud ignited the fire within him. Madmen.

"You need to tell me what curses they used," Sirius insisted again, watching as she shifted uncomfortably and swallowed hard. "So I can shoot them back at their sorry skulls."

"I don't know," she said weakly, and he shot her a look of blatant disbelief. "I really don't, Sirius...I think they were made up."

"What do you mean?" He pressed anxiously.

"Made up, like...I don't know. What was that one that was big fifth year? Levicorpus? New ones I couldn't defend myself against.They were all like that, like the ones Snape used to-"

"Snape," Sirius interrupted, nostrils flaring with the effort it was taking him to not leave the hall to throttle that friendless, greasy boy. "I swear I'm going to-"

"Snape never raised his wand against me..." Marlene tried to protest, but she trailed off. He saw it in her eyes, though she tried to hide it. She was sure they were his spells. Disconcertingly sure, as a matter of fact.

"He was there, wasn't he?" said Sirius, using every ounce of self control he has to not shout. It had been so long, years almost, since rage had consumed him like this.

Marlene said nothing.

"HE WAS THERE, WASN'T HE?" Sirius bellowed, scooting away from her across the bed. He already knew the answer, but Marlene weakly nodded her head.

"But he never did anything-" her protests were lost on him. "

What'd he do just stand there and watch? Gloat? What, Marlene?"

"He said to give you a message," was all Marlene was able to force out through a thick throat. "That he would find out what you and your friends were up to? At any cost? Something like that. I told him I didn't know anything and to stop being so obsessive, and, well...you can see where I'm at."

"Fine," Sirius growled after she's finished, slowly rising to his feet.

"Fine?" Marlene asked dubiously, pressing her hand uncertainty to the cut on her forehead.

"Fine," Sirius repeated, a stony expression taking over his face as he began to walk away. "Nobody fucks with you, Mar. If he wants to know what's going on so badly, I'll just go fucking tell him how he can find out."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Marlene called after him, but it was no use.

Sirius was striding out of the hall, fists clenched tightly, mind abuzz with secrets about violent trees and haunted houses.

The little girl let out a shriek of laughter as she twirled around the sitting room, basing joyfully in the bright sunlight that streamed in through the bay window. Nobody else on the street would be able to hear her playing, but he could. He could hear her because he was listening. He was watching over them.

The large, black dog sat on the curb across from the little house- starkly at attention though he'd been there since high noon, unmoving even though the hot sun best overhead. He sat completely undisturbed, not daring to even leave for a drink of water from the dish on a neighbor's porch, or to chase after the bike-riding teenagers who'd whistled at him as they rode past. It didn't matter what distractions presented themselves. His stormy gray eyes, such an unusual shade for a dog, remained focused on the modest cottage.

He'd sat there for a full hour now just watching the toddler dance across the couch cushions, a plastic crown perched delicately on top of her black curls. Her smile was astounding and astronomical: all pink lips and pure joy and babbling two-year-old nonsense. She was incredible. She didn't know any better than to smile fearlessly: she was barely a week old, after all, when she'd gone into hiding.

He'd been looking for her since then.

He knew he shouldn't have come here, knew it was a risk for himself and for the little family of two. They'd covered their tracks so well. He knew: he'd helped them. Promised not to follow. But he'd been careful. For the first time in his life he had been so, so careful. He'd planned, plotted, done his waiting. All he wanted was one good look.

He needed to know they were safe, his girls.

All at once, the little girl stopped playing. Her chubby arms dropped to her sides and her face turned eagerly to the back of the house, to the kitchen. Someone had called to her. The dog, Sirius, felt his entire body tense up, freeze in anxious anticipation. The little girl lifted her arms again, no longer playing. She was asking to be picked up. Her mother was coming.

Sirius didn't dare blink. He fought to keep his grey eyes open, hungrily staring in through the window. It was insane, he knew, to be watching like this. But he had to know. He just had to see her once. He wouldn't miss if this time, he couldn't.

It had happened earlier in the day: she'd passed through the room to clean it up and he had thought -selfishly, stupidly- that his chance had finally come. To see her face, her crooked smile, the intoxicating way her nose sloped upward at the end.

But all he'd gotten was a swish of dark hair and the corner of her shoulder before she was gone again: it was Marlene just as he remembered her: just passing through, always leaving, always moving. He felt awful, peering into her life like this, but he could leave, not until he saw her.

But then again, he reminded himself, it used to be his life, too. It should have been his life, too.

So he'd stayed, growing more anxious by the moment. Today was his only shot; his only chance to see her again. He couldn't live with himself, continue to fight, until he knew he'd done the right thing in letting her go. He couldn't leave without seeing her, not after working for so long for the privilege to sit here, on the neighboring curb.

He needn't have worried. There she was.

Marlene came into view all at once, dark hair framing her tired face and falling around her shoulders. She'd cut it, he noticed, since he saw her last.

She had always said she couldn't picture herself as a mother, but it suited her as he watched her now: the way she was able to run to the toddler and scoop her up in an insane game of defying gravity, but all the while cradling the back of the head of midnight curls, keeping the little one safe even when she didn't know it. She was being Marlene- playful and impulsive and joyful, but being more intensely careful and protective than he'd ever seen her before.

Always toeing the line- that was Marlene.

Always fiercely protective over what she loved- that was Marlene.

And there was Marlene, his Marlene, standing in full view of the window. Cradling his little girl, their little girl, the one he had never even gotten to hold. That was his Marlene, smiling brightly even though the bags under her eyes were purple and swollen. Pushing on even though he knew that being caged up and walking away from her life had been beating down on her for almost two years now.

She was tired and overworked and lonely and living in fear. He knew she was, because he was too. They were living apart now, but they were still living the same life. He was fighting others, she was at war with herself.

But he saw her smile. He saw her smile and it was all he needed to set his mind right again. He saw her smile, so briefly but so beautifully that for a fleeting moment he finally believed everyone who had been telling him for so long that she was safe, being looked after.

He believed them with his whole heart when he saw her that afternoon. He believed them when they told him that one day the two of them would be able to be together again, live that normal life they'd dreamed of.

She would die two weeks later, but he didn't know that.

All he knew, as he watched her cross the room and close the curtains, pressing her hand to the glass for a long moment as she looked up at the sky, was that she was safe.

“Stop being so hard on yourself,” Sirius said quietly, leaning against the doorframe with a sad smirk. Marlene was sitting in drawing room, lights off, sitting with her face in her hands, shoulders slumped dejectedly. 

“Easier said than done,” she snapped back, lifting her head to face him with a scowl. Sirius just shook his head at her, crossing through the darkened room to sit by her side. “It shouldn’t have been that hard.”

“It’s a difficult spell,” Sirius said in a low voice, putting an arm around her comfortingly, pulling her across the cushions of the loveseat. “And there were a lot of them.”

“I’m incredibly talented,” Marlene countered sarcastically, folding her arms over chest. He could see the bags under her eyes forming, and knew that she was just being defensive. He and her were cut from the same cloth; he tried not to push her too hard.

“And also incredibly modest,” Sirius laughed, feeling a tiny twinge of joy when he saw that she could no longer resist: her resolve was broken and she let out a small laugh, her pink lips spreading into a grudging smile. “I’ve seen you do a Patronus at training, Mc. It was perfect.”

“That was training,” Marlene muttered, leaning her head on his shoulder as she turned her wand absently through her fingers. “I couldn’t do it when it really mattered. I should have had a hummingbird. All I got was fucking silver mist.”

“Maybe you weren’t thinking of something happy enough,” Sirius tried weakly, but knew it was no use. He knew that no amount of words would be able to build her up today, after feeling like she let everyone down. 

“I was thinking about you,” her voice had dropped to a whisper now, but he snapped his head to her as suddenly as if she’d shouted. She looked back at him, unblinking, the corners of her mouth turned up at the corners.

“Well maybe I should give you something new to think about,” said Sirius, leaning in toward her. It always took him by surprise when she did this, opened up. It was like catching cracks in the foundation of a statue, and he lived for each new wall that she let down around him. 

He would never tell her that, of course. That wasn’t the kind of thing they did.

Though he had leaned in, it was Marlene who closed the gap between them- it always was. 

Being with her had taken him out of his comfort zone, took him out of the role he’d been forced to play for so long, the pursuer, the one in charge. It was disconcerting for him when they’d first gotten together, the way she took charge. A power struggle from time to time, but a welcome challenge nonetheless. 

Though she had begun the kiss, it was Sirius that took over now, taking her face in his hands, moving his lips against hers with increasing urgency. He was kissing her so that she would know everything he didn’t know how to make her understand: that she wasn’t a failure, that she wasn’t incompetent, that she was so much smarter than she would ever give herself credit for. 

He would never say any of that out loud to her, but he tried to kiss it into her every chance he got.

After a long minute, he pulled away, inhaling deeply and opening his eyes slowly to see her calmly gazing back at him, her brown eyes swimming with gratitude. 

“Try it now,” he said, carefully reaching into her hands and positioning her wand at a ready poise.

“What?” she laughed, tucking her hair behind her ear and giving him a puzzled look.

“Try casting your Patronus now,” he insisted. “We both know you can. Make that hummingbird happen.”

“You are so dumb,” she said with an eye roll, but that shy, hesitant smile was still etched on her face. She knew that he wouldn’t quit. They didn’t quit on each other: that was their deal. With a sigh, she raised her wand and aimed it across the room, concentrating hard. “Expecto Patronum.”

A burst of silver erupted from her wand and leaped forward, illuminating the dark room in an eerie glow. The silver substance continued to swirl as it formed, but before she could blink it was charging around the room, a massive creature on four legs.

Marlene dropped her wand in shock, letting it clatter to the floor without a second look. The silver animal faded from view, letting the room darken again. The pair of them stared intently at the spot where the Patronus had formed for a long time.

“I don’t know if you’re aware,” Sirius said with a nervous chortle. “But that is not what a hummingbird is.” He tried to act as confused as she looked, but he wasn’t. He’d seen.

“Was that...a dog?” she asked, screwing her face up and turning to him for affirmation he didn’t know how to give her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“No idea, love,” Sirius said, finding that the smile on his face was growing wider and wider the more he tried to suppress it, until it was a full-fledged lopsided grin. Because he did know, now. After all this time, even though they couldn’t say it to each other. He had his kisses and now she had her Patronus. Even though she didn’t know that she’d told him, she had. 

“A dog,” Marlene repeated with an incredulous sigh, shaking her head with resignation. “I don’t even like dogs.”

For anon[s]: Blackinnon's almost/first kisses

Her smile was everything that she was, all wrapped up into one: mischievous and chapped and wild and beautiful and crooked and triumphant and smart.

Her face said "We did it".

He leaned in. 

Sirius padded softly down the stairs to the common room, taking care to press his toes silently into the stone steps, holding his breath and doing his best not to make any noise. The fireplace cast long, eerie shadows over the vast tower; the light flickered and bounced off the armchairs and darkened the doorways. It was late.

Stifling a yawn, Sirius ran a hand through his already-tousled black hair, sighing in relief when his bare feet finally made contact with the warm, shaggy carpet of the common room floor. His favorite couch was waiting for him so nearby; he was already picturing how soundly he would sleep once he made contact with the cushions. 

He could already feel the comfortable heat of the fire on his face, now if he could only make it to the couch...

Sirius stumbled over his own feet, swearing quietly and then freezing, when he realized that he was not along in the common room; a dark silhouette was sitting stiffly in the spot he’d hoped to occupy, a curtain of dark hair and a face obscured by shadows.

“What are you doing up?” Sirius asked, crossing slowly to the edge of the couch, recognizing the long hair, remembering the arrow-straight posture of a sleep deprived Marlene. 

She turned to face him, but her face didn’t register any emotion; she simply stared at him for a long minute through her dark eyes -now holding up the tracings of what would become purple bags, evidence of her sleeplessness- and then shrugged, turning back toward the fire.

“You need to sleep eventually,” Sirius reminded her, lightly teasing but with a tone dominated by concern. “It’s not healthy, you’ve been down here every night this week.”

“I sleep,” she said vaguely, tearing her eyes away from the fire and finding his face. “And I would fall asleep much quicker if I was left alone.”

“Not a chance, McKinnon,” Sirius fell onto the couch ceremoniously, arms spread wide to cushion his collapse as he sank gratefully into the overstuffed cushions. “Remus has a girl up there. You couldn’t pay me to give up this couch.”

“I was here first,” she snapped, but there was affection in her tone, a smile for the first time all day. “Go find yourself a nice armchair.”

“You aren’t even using it to sleep,” he whined dramatically, giving her his best version of puppy-dog eyes, all puns aside, that he could muster. She simply looked him over, unimpressed, and snuggled deeper beneath the blanket that was laid across her lap. 

“Black, I am standing my ground here,” Marlene sighed, and he could see her suppress a yawn. “You didn’t even bring a blanket. You’re completely unprepared for the big leagues of the red couch.”

“I think I know what I’m doing,” he teased with an eyeroll, twisting himself onto his side and stretching out his legs so that they directly invaded Marlene’s personal space, laying them across her lap. “You have a perfectly good bed, go and use it.”

Marlene did not answer him, but instead smacked at the backs of his legs fruitlessly, trying to move them from her lap with no success. Eventually she let out a noise of frustration, draping herself over the arm of the couch in an attempt to escape.Sirius laughed at her all the while, consciously increasing the pressure he was putting down on her legs so that she would have to stay there, pinned and trapped.

“You’re such a child,” she groaned after minutes of this, but the lines around her eyes crinkled and the corners of her mouth turned upward. 

“Make me a deal, McKinnon,” Sirius proposed, and then plowed straight through to the bottom line, leaving her no room to protest. “I’ll give you the coveted red couch if you tell me why you’re on this fatigue-strike.”

“It’s not a fatigue-strike,” Marlene said with a pronounced roll of her eyes. “It’s not a big deal.”

“If it’s not a big deal,” Sirius countered, raising an eyebrow at her dubiously. “Then tell me about it. It’s what I’m here for isn’t it?”

Marlene cleared her through nervously, tracing the patterns on the upholstery with her fingers, seemingly lost in space. Just as Sirius was about to give up badgering her and leave her to sit in silence, she finally spoke.

“Nightmares,” was all she said, so quietly that he almost did not hear her properly. One word, but it was enough to let him know full and well what the issue was. Though he hadn’t heard about it firsthand, Sirius knew that Marlene had lost her sister over the winter holidays; it had happened while she was home, she had seen the whole thing. He knew from experience that those were not images that left your mind easily. 

“Fair enough,” he said slowly, for the first time noticing how much she’d appeared to have aged in the last month or so. Then again, he’d just realized, whenever he thought of Marlene in his head it was always the same memory of her, back when they were sixteen and carefree. She had been laughing, hair in her face, lips stretched wide. It was hard to believe that that girl and this one were the same. “I’ll leave you to your couch then, madam.”

“Wait,” she said so suddenly that it startled him, her hands clapping a hold over one of his legs. He saw it in her eyes for a moment, reflected in the fire. She didn’t want to be alone. “What if we, erm....share it?” 

“Is Marlene McKinnon actually asking to sleep with me?” Sirius cried dramatically, entirely louder than was necessary. It it had been anybody else, he would have been acting impolitely, but he knew hoe to make Marlene smile. Even vulnerable, she was nowhere near delicate. 

“Oh, sod off,” she mumbled quietly, narrowing her eyes at him, unable to hide the twitch in her lip that meant a smile was approaching. 

“Whatever happened to ‘it’ll be a cold day in hell, Black’?” he plowed on, smirking at the brunette as she again tried to push her legs out of her space, this time succeeding and knocking him off balance. 

“Fine, fine, I’m going up to bed,” she bluffed grandly, holding her hands up in surrender. Grin never leaving his face, Sirius just shook his head, crawling across the cushions to her before she could stand.

“Oh, come here, you,” he muttered, trapping her torso between his outstretched arms and pulling her into him. As he seized her, a cry of laughter and surprise escaped her; the noise was pure joy, and he found himself instinctively bursting out into laughter as well, directed by her own happiness. The both of them collapsed side by side onto the couch in a heap of red faces, shortness of breath, and escaped clips of laughter that they could not quiet if they tried. 

The laughter never left Marlene's face as the pair quieted slowly, shifting and finding the most comfortable pockets of cushions to curl into, quickly becoming familiar with the angles at which their limbs fit together. Marlene stuck her arm out at an awkward angle, retrieving the blanket where it had been kicked to the floor and pulling it over the two of them.

“Fair warning,” she said, after the two of them had settled into each other. The long hair that strayed from the top of her head brushed up and tickled Sirius’s nose, but he didn’t dare say anything. His arms held her in tightly like safety bars so that she wouldn’t roll away and Marlene, who had always been claustrophobic about contact and affection, found that she felt oddly safe. “I”m a blankets hog.”

“Fair warning,” Sirius fired back, watching the amber coals of the fire beginning to dull and flicker, making Marlene’s skin appear to glow. “So am I.”

“I’ll take that as a challenge, then,” Marlene managed to say through a yawn, eyes drooping heavier by the moment. “You’re on, Black.”

There was a stretch of silence that could have been seconds but passed like hours. Eventually, their breathing matched patterns; eventually, the only noise was that of exhales and a distant clock punctuating the time.

When he thought she was asleep for good, Sirius quickly pressed his lips to the top of Marlene’s head, inhaling the scent of her shampoo- he’d never known what it was, but it was earthy and intoxicating, much like her.

“McKinnon, you’re crushing my bloody arm,” Sirius muttered sleepily, rolling the brunette over, dangerously close to the opposite edge of the bed. She moaned something incomprehensible at him, throwing her arm over her face to block herself from the stray beams of sunlight he’d moved her into.

“You were warm,” Marlene mumbled in a whine, kicking him lightly as she pulled the covers away from him, cocooning herself under the warm material and leaving him laying there in only his boxers, too amused to be annoyed. 

“Fine, come back over here,” he acquiesced with a small laugh, offering his arm back to her even though it was still numb and tingling uncomfortably shoulder-to-fingertip. Playfully and still half asleep, she shook her head, yanking the blankets up even further until she disappeared from sight. With a growl he rolled onto his side, wrapping his arms around her torso and pulling her into him. 

“Leave me alone, Black,” her face reappeared from under the covers, eyes sparkling mischievously. Her dark hair was in a haphazard heap on the top of her head, falling into her eyes and splayed out across the pillow. Even just looking at it made him smile to himself- he gave her hell for the way it always got in his mouth when she kissed him, but it always carried a certain scent that put him oddly at ease. 

“You’re going to start sleeping in your own bed from now on,” he sighed, giving her a light shove before he disentangled himself from the pile of untucked sheets and crossed limbs that they’d become during the night. “What happened to the good old days when you’d sneak out at the crack of dawn?”

“I think it’s these new pillows,” she said with a sigh, burying her face in one momentarily before she too sat up, yawning and readjusting the t-shirt she’d stolen from him to fall asleep in. “Get a harder mattress and maybe we can talk about me leaving you alone.”

“You’re impossible,” Sirius muttered, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and through the bed curtains, taking a hasty sweep of the room with his eyes before he laid down again, rolling back onto his side and exhaling deeply. Marlene was sitting cross-legged facing him; her long hair was hanging within his reach and he absently swatted at it like a cat once or twice before he spoke again. “Coast is clear, by the way. All the boys are serving detention today. You’re safe to take off whenever.” 

“What?!” Marlene asked with a dramatic gasp, giving him a mock-incredulous look as she bounced herself out of the bed and onto the chilled floorboards below, tying her hair into a knot on the back of her head. “What is the infamous Sirius Black going to do without his gang of fellow troublemakers all day?”

“You know,” he said nonchalantly, shooting her the trademarked smirk he’d used to get her into bed in the first place. “I’ll come up with something.”

“You always do,” she scoffed with an eye-roll, wiggling into her school skirt from the night before, picking it up from the floor where she’d abandoned it. Sirius watched her leaving, long hair curling down her back as she headed from the door, endless legs carrying her further away. Suddenly, an idea sprung into his head.

“Oi, McKinnon!” Sirius called after her before he really knew what he was doing, sitting up against the headboard as she paused in the doorway, leaning against the frame as she turned back to him. Keeping his voice as casual as he could, he gave it a shot: “If you aren’t doing anything this afternoon, we should head to town for the day. Grab a few drinks, maybe pop in somewhere for dinner.”

“I wish I could,” she said, scrunching her nose up in disappointment. “I’ve got that paper for Binns to write due Monday. Haven’t even started it yet; I’m about to head to the library.”

“Maybe some other time,” he said with a shrug, keeping his eye trained carefully on the pattern of the bedspread beneath him. He wasn’t so lucky this time; her face had already changed into a suspicious smile.

“What happened to only making plans because your friends were busy?” she taunted, sticking her tongue out at him quickly, walking back toward the bed and snaking her arms around the bedpost, watching him with a funny look in her eyes.

“Sod off. You’re my friend aren’t you?” Sirius’s recovery would have gone off without a hitch had he been talking to any other girl in the castle. Any girl who wasn’t cut from the same cloth as him wouldn’t have seen through the ploy.

“Are you asking me on a date, Black?” Marlene laughed, but it wasn’t the one he’d been expecting; it was the light, ringing sound she made when he told a good joke, not the pointed embarrassing one he’d been afraid of hearing. Shaking her head, she again turned to leave again. Sirius was about to make another last-ditch effort to save face, maybe mutter something about how he didn’t need to waste his money, but it turned out that he didn’t need to.