Grey Eyes (A Harry Potter Fanfiction)

7. Talking Back

"Oh, come off it, Sirius. We got second place, didn't we?" James punches Sirius in the arm playfully.

But Sirius just stares blankly in front of him as we make our way to the next class, History of Magic. "I don't think anyone in our house has ever beaten me in Potions, mate," he mutters in a dazed voice. "Ever."

James rolls his eyes and says reassuringly, "Don't even worry, mate. It probably was just a fluke."

JUST A FLUKE? How 'bout I smack you over the head and knock you stairs, eh? Then we'll see who's a fluke! ...Whoa, calm down, Cecilia.

"Even if you got beaten by Cecilia, I still think you're cool, Sirius..." Peter mumbles from somewhere behind us.

"O-oh, thanks, mate," Sirius says, not really hearing anything that his friends were saying at all. "Still though, I can't believe she finished so bloody fast, like how..."

I smirk to myself. Heh, wouldn't you like to know.

As the boys continue on their rather ho-hum conversation, I turn my attention to Remus instead, determined to make this finally work. Remus is my best guy friend here. I'm just gonna pretend nothing ever happened and talk like we usually do again. I mean, really, nothing did happen.

I'll just start with a basic conversation starter. Yeah, that's it! "T-the sun sure is cold today!" Great, Cecilia. You blew it.

Remus looks at me oddly. "Huh?"

"I mean, congrats on finishing third place in Potions!" I say quickly. Ooh, nice save.

"Yeah, thanks." Remus grins. "Though I wasn't nearly as fast as you. That was pretty amazing." He lowers his voice to a whisper, "I saw your little trick."

"What?" I look at him aghast. "Hey, that's my thing! You better not go around showing it off to everyone you know now!" I pause. "Wait, why were you watching me in the first place? Shouldn't you be paying attention to your potion?"

Remus laughs a little and then puts his thumb and forefinger against his chin in mock thought. "Hmm, let's see. Maybe... No wait, I think you were sitting right in front of me. Better yet, right in the way of the directions! How could I not look at you?"

"Oh, yeah... you have a point there," I mumble, embarrassed by my assumption.

We slow down a bit as we start going up the staircase to the fourth floor and Remus spins around, going up the steps backwards. "And you're pretty interesting to look at anyway. I mean, honestly, all those weird things you do?"

"Wait, what?"  I almost blurted out I'M NORMAL, but that would definitely fall under the category of the lady doth protest too much.

"Like that little habit you have when you eat," Remus continues with a grin. "Whenever you take an apple or something, you always move to put it back and then look at it and then you eat it. It's really funny actually."

I hit Remus with my bag, slightly pink in the face. "You watch me while I eat? Now who's the weirdo?"

He laughs light-heartedly. "Not always. I just notice things easily—"

But the rest of his sentence is obscured as my ears catch the sound of a voice uttering softly, "Diffindo!" 

No one else seems to have heard it, but at that moment, the bottom of my bag rips open and all my notebooks and quills spill out onto the staircase. Uh oh.

The rest of the group turn their heads in concern at the sudden crashing sound of books.

"What the?" says Remus as he reaches down to pick up some of my broken ink bottles. "I didn't break your bag, did I? You didn't exactly hit me very hard."