101 Ways to ditch the Date | SIRIUS BLACK

No. 14

"So do you guys want to come to Hogsmeade with us?" Sirius asked, "I'm sure James will pay if Lily comes."

Lily went a bright shade of red, glaring at Sirius. The other three glanced around at each other, smirking slightly as Lily replied, "For the last time, we have work."

"And I don't really want to hang out with you more than I have to funnily enough," Marlene replied dryly.

"Come on, please? Ora will be there," Sirius pleaded, "And I want her to feel comfortable which might help if there are girls so she's not outnumbered. She seemed kind of nervous when she asked me - "

"Wait, she asked you?" Marlene said, snorting with laughter, "Oh God, you idiot. Having your friends around will make her more uncomfortable, not less you daft twat."

Lily shook her head at him, "Unless she explicitly asked you to invite the guys, you never invite the guys!"

"I wanted her to meet them all!" Sirius replied defensively, "I did nothing wrong here."

"No you didn't but you also probably made her die a little bit inside too as well as making her paranoid," Dorcas replied with a smile, "The girl may be sneaky and have spies everywhere but she's also still human and is probably a little upset or disappointed about this."

"It's not like it's a date or anything, I don't like her in that way so there's no reason for us to be alone. She's fun to hang around with, if she was annoyed about me bringing the guys I would know," Sirius said confidently and all four girls burst into laughter, "I know girls, okay? Stop laughing... anyway, we're leaving now... last chance..." The girls raised their eyebrows at him, "Fine, I'm leaving for real now."

"Okay, have fun," Lily said, waving at him as he left, waiting outside for the others. The idea of hanging out with Ora alone was nice but vaguely nerve wracking so he hoped that having the guys around would help both of them. Plus, the others would get the wrong idea and think he liked her or something, it was best to bring them alone for many reasons.

The other boys eventually joined him (James took a while getting his hair perfectly messy) and they walked down to the quad where they were meeting Ora. When he came there, he found that she wasn't alone, Emmeline stood by her with her arms folded. Even though it wasn't who he wanted to see, it was hardly a surprise; where Ora went, Emmeline seemed to go too.

"Hope you don't mind but I brought along a girl to even out the ratio," Ora said with a smile, "You know to make this outing a bit less sad."

"If you're with me, is anything ever really sad?" Sirius asked, moving away from his friends and heading off with Ora, the two becoming quickly involved in an intense conversation. Emmeline glanced over at his three friends who were standing awkwardly and sighed. She sized them up, they didn't look like any harm but she was not in a social mood, she'd expected Ora to at least spend a bit of time with her before going off with Sirius.

"God help me, this is going to be a long day," She muttered to herself, giving one last hopeful look to Ora before accepting her fate and walking over to the three boys, "Hi, I'm Emmeline."

"Oh yeah," James replied, "We met before, I'm James."

"Great," She replied, the conversation plunging into silence again as the three of them had no idea what to say.

"I'm Peter," The short one chimed in.

"I'm Emmeline, nice to meet you."

"That's nice, I'm Peter."

"We know, Wormy," James said with a sheepish grin.

"Why are you still standing there?" Sirius called back.