101 Ways to ditch the Date | SIRIUS BLACK

No. 67

It was safe to say that Ora's new friendliness with Marlene had stumped both Sirius and Emmeline. Sirius had noticed almost instantly as the pair walked down the corridor one morning, Ora's face breaking into a smile the moment she saw Marlene.

"Hello!"

"Hey, Ora!" Marlene had replied, mirroring her grin.

"Sirius, go on ahead," Ora had said but he'd lingered.

"I think I'll stay ..."

"You almost bumped into me," Marlene said, completely ignoring Sirius' presence.

"It was intentional, I was trying to trip you up," Ora laughed, before tugging on Sirius's arm, "Okay, well bye!"

After Marlene was gone, Sirius, still glancing around out of disbelief had asked, "What was that about? I thought you were regarding Marlene with cold detachment last time I checked."

For a moment, Ora was silent before shrugging, "I was."

"And?"

"Now I'm not."

"Why?"

Tastefully avoiding the questioning, Ora had pulled him into a kiss before changing the subject. It was a good kiss, excellent even, so much so that he almost forgot the bizarre encounter ... almost. It was clear Ora wanted to hide whatever she was doing in the most obvious way possible which only peeked his curiosity further.

At first, he assumed perhaps it was just the start of her trying to get rid of her mother's influence over her but this was different. If she'd wanted to be more forgiving and less selfish, she could simply just be nice to Marlene, not engage in near flirtatious taunts in the corridor. Over the next week, the bizarre encounters seemed to grow at an exponential rate and he was starting to see far more of his ex than he would have liked.

Again, after a particularly steamy evening by the lake, he'd brought it up again, "So ... you and Marlene, are you mates now?"

Ora had remained quiet for a few moments, looking distantly towards the mountains, "Um ... maybe?"

"Are you more?"

"... no," She laughed, touching his toes with hers, "Sirius, are you jealous? I can assure you I'm not trying to get off with Marlene McKinnon."

He joined in with her laughter momentarily before returning to solemness, "What are you doing then? Please don't avoid the question again either ... I won't interfere at all, I swear. You let me to it with the Marlene scheme, so I'll leave you to this."

Ora's smile had faded slightly, "Well ... I'm surprised you don't know - "

"I don't."

"Okay. Look, it's sort of a spin-off to your Marlene scheme," Ora replied, "I'm just looking for what neither you nor Em will give me."

"And that is?"

"The truth."

It had taken him a few hours to truly understand what she meant but it hit him as he was lying awake in bed. She was worried for her friend and needed to know exactly what had gone down in the scheme. Marlene had famously loose loyalties and Ora full well knew that ... sadly, her ignorance was probably going to have the intended effect. He wasn't sure how Ora would deal with finding out her best friend had been in love with her for years but judging from how she'd been in their relationship blips, probably not well...

He wasn't Emmeline's biggest fan but he felt that he owed her some sort of warning at least. The only problem was getting her alone yet this ended up working itself out for him. Now that Marlene and Ora were 'friends', they no longer created uncomfortable tension between them, now creating something which made Sirius feel slightly uneasy. Clearly, Emmeline was feeling this too as he began to see her slipping away from them with her textbooks at times. Ora would protest but the new friendship was incredibly distracting.