Black // Marauders

30. Birthday Shopping

The fairly warm October's turned into bitterly cold and foggy November days and with the clocks turning back everything was almost permanently dark, frozen and grey. Persie and Sirius just carried on being secretive, just making less of an effort to keep it that way. And with Sirius' birthday fast approaching, Persie was panicking and therefore Lily was helping.

"Pers. Breathe." Lily stated pulling into a corner of the bustling second floor corridor as they went from Transfiguration to Potions for the last lesson of Wednesday, "We have a Hogsmeade trip on Saturday, so I'll help you find something then."

"But Sirius' birthday is on Sunday and if I don't find something in Hogsmeade then I am so screwed and he'll be really angry with me and I'll feel like I've completely failed and probably cry because of how much of a fail I am." Persie whispered hurriedly, breathing in and out quickly and sharply as Lily sighed watching her friend hyperventilate, "You know, if you just told someone you were dating then you wouldn't be so worried all the time."

"I've told you, haven't I?" Persie replied, "And who else am I supposed to ask? Ava? No. No I do not think so."

"What about me?" Ava asked, running up the stairs from behind them and grabbing Persie around the waist, smiling broadly.

"Nothing, we were just talking about Hogsmeade and stuff. Hoping we can find you someone to get over Mr Black." Lily mentioned, before Ava laughed, "Sounds like fun. Are you going to Charms?"

"No Potions, but I'll see you later?" Persie suggested before waving good bye and heading down to the dungeons, "I'm rubbing off on you, Evans. Your lying is getting ridiculously good nowadays."

"It's your fault, Pers. I would not be this way if I had been sorted in loyal Hufflepuff where I belong." She sang.

"How is it my fault that you were sorted into Gryffindor and not Hufflepuff? Surely you should blame the Sorting Hat and move on from there." Persie replied, rolling her eyes as they walked into the Potions class and everyone looked up at them, expecting for someone to get into some sort of trouble, which was usually quite entertaining but on seeing Lily Evans walk in, everyone sighed and turned back into their quills as Persie slid down next to Regulus.

Every lesson, the only exceptions being several one minute long pleadings in the middle of October, they never spoke, only sitting in silence from the minute the lesson started to the minute they were released. This went down well with everyone, bar Regulus, who thought this whole set-up was ludicrous and there was going to have to be something done about it or he would explode.

"Pers, listen to me. I need to speak to you after this lesson. It's really important." Regulus whispered as she tapped her quill impatiently on her parchment and consequently splurted ink into a puddle when pressing too hard in surprise.

"Not important enough for you to tell me a month ago, before you shopped me and Sirius to Bellatrix Lestrange and almost got us all killed." Persie replied irritatedly, before ignoring the rest of his pleas for the rest of the lesson and, breathing a sigh of relief, she picked her bag from the floor and headed out towards the stairs to meet with Lily.

"Pers!" Regulus called after her, before she just turned around, gave him a glare and left, jogging up the stairs to head to the Common Room, "I told you not to come near me and I mean it! Stay away!"

***

Saturday came around fairly fast seeing as Thursday and Friday's lessons were the worst of the whole weeks'. Persie rolled out of bed and fell on the floor face down, moaning into the stone as Lily groaned at her to shut up and sleep because it was the middle of the night.

"Urgh, what time is it?" Ava murmured from her pillow as she rubbed her eyes harshly and sat upright on her elbows, blinking as she eyed Persie on the floor before turning to Miranda, "What did you do to Pers?"