- CHAPTER FOUR -
❛ your eyes hold everything my soul thirsts for. ❜
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Tuesday dawned just as bright and chilly as Monday, when Ray, Juliet, and I entered the Great Hall, it was buzzing with conversations and laughs. I quickly excused myself from my friends and made a beeline toward the Gryffindor table.
There he was, sitting with his three useless friends — well, maybe Lupin wasn't much useless — anyway, I cleared my throat to get Sirius's attention, attracting a lot of stares from the table, especially a blonde.
"Black, we need to talk."
Remus, James, and Peter raised their eyebrows at Sirius, who gave them an exasperated look before following me out of the Hall, his eyes ever so secretly glancing at Marlene as he walked.
"We still haven't decided on a place for us to brew our potion," I whispered once we were in the hallway. "Didn't you say something last night? The Room of Request or something?"
"The Room of Requirement," He corrected.
"Yes, that. Where is it?"
"Well, it'd be way better if I just show you. Come on," he started walking.
"What— now?" I caught up with him, stopping him in his tracks. "Are you crazy? We have to get to class!"
"Don't be such a goody two shoes, Larson," said Sirius impatiently. "God, of all the people I could've been partnered with. . ."
"Listen—"
"We can go there after classes are over, alright?" He interrupted, glancing inside the Great Hall. "That way we don't have to keep you away from your precious classes."
"Fine," I huffed. He gave me a mock smile and went back inside to his friends.
I let out a frustrated sigh and followed him. Just when I stepped inside the Hall, I saw Lily, Alice, Marlene, and Dorcas walking toward the door. Marlene gave me a dirty look and made sure to hit me in the shoulder as she walked past, causing me to hiss quietly and rub my shoulder.
What in the heck just happened?
Throughout lessons that day, I couldn't help but notice Marlene giving me the evil eye whenever Slytherins and Gryffindors had a class together.
"She was actually acting sort of weird at Potions yesterday too," Juliet told me during our last class of the day— Charms.
"Weird? Weird how?"
"For starters, she kept looking over at your table," said Juliet seriously. "More like— glaring at you in particular."
"But why?" I asked in confusion.
"Maybe she thinks you're going to steal her boyfriend, honey," said Ray, smiling.
"Oh please, why the hell would I even go near Davies?"
"Azura, Azura," Ray sighed, twirling his wand. "Not Davies, you empty head. I am talking about Sirius Black."
My confusion immediately turned into amusement as I snorted.
"Sirius Black? What do you mean? He's not her boyfriend."
Ray put his chin on his elbow and smirked at me knowingly.
"Honey, I love you but sometimes you can be so thick," he said. "Why do you think McKinnon is dating Davies? She likes him? Oh, please, she just wants to make Black follow her around, earning her attention. We all know she likes the special treatment she gets from the school's heartthrob."
He must've been joking. Why would anyone date a person to make someone else jealous?
"Why does she think I am going to 'steal' Black from her?" I asked Ray. "We hate each other! We can't even be in the same room without starting a fight. We made a cauldron explode in less than five minutes, for Merlin's sake."
Ray just shrugged, but he was still smiling.
"I wouldn't recommend getting on her bad side, Azu," whispered Juliet, revising the Summoning Charm, making her pillow fly towards her smoothly. "You know how she is, she's obsessed with Black, she doesn't like it when other girls talk to him. She could make life difficult for you."
"I am not scared of a high school mean girl," I rolled my eyes. "I don't plan on shagging Black, she could have him for all I care. We're just Potions partners for this term, there's nothing between us. . . and it'll stay that way."
⋆⋆⋆⋆
"Took your sweet time, did you?"
I was waiting on the seventh floor in the left corridor of the castle and opposite the tapestry depicting the attempt of Barnabas the Barmy to teach trolls ballet, where Sirius told me to come.
"I take immense pleasure in making you wait, Larson," said Sirius cockily. "My hair takes time to style, people with coconut fibre for hair wouldn't understand."
My hand went up to my long black hair unconsciously as Sirius chuckled. How I wished I could break his jaw again.
"You said something about a room here," I said, as though his comment hadn't affected me. "I don't see anything. Where is this Room of Recommendation—?"
"Requirement, Larson, honestly," said Sirius, shaking his head. "It is here. Move over and let the expert do the work."
He began to walk past the empty wall three times, turning sharply at the window just beyond the blank stretch of wall, then at the man-sized vase on its other side. His face was set with concentration.
He looked a bit of an idiot, to be honest.
"Black, what are you—?"
"Shh."
"I don't. . . Wow." I breathed, as he wheeled around after his third walk past.
A highly polished door had appeared in the wall.
"Go on," said Sirius, nodding at the door.
I reached out shakily, seized the brass handle, pulled open the door, and led the way into a spacious room lit with flickering torches like those that illuminated the dungeons eight floors below.
The walls were lined with wooden bookcases and tables were set up with various sized cauldrons on them. A set of shelves at the far end of the room carried a range of potion equipment such as scales, and stirring spoons. The cupboard on the other side of the room had all the potion ingredients we needed. I ran my fingers along the bookcases, everything was potions related.
"What. . . what is this place?" I asked, my eyes drinking in every corner. "It has everything we need. . ."
"This is the Room of Requirement," said Sirius, who was watching my awed face with amusement. "Also known as the Come and Go Room. Very few people know about it, it just, you know, provides whatever we want. All you have to do is walk past the wall three times and concentrate hard on what you need. Boom."
He made a dramatic action of holding a door.
"How the hell did you even know about this room?"
Sirius gave me a look. "I am a Marauder, Larson."
"So?"
"So. . . I know every hidden place in this castle?" He said in a way as though it was a world-known fact.
I said nothing and turned away, which made him raise his eyebrows in surprise. Ha, ego bruised.
"We'll take our cauldron from Slughorn's class tomorrow and keep it here," I said, tapping on the table in the middle. "And we'll work on it every day before dinner. On the days we've got Quidditch practice, the other one has to come here alone and work on it. Sounds good?"
"Alright," said Sirius, spinning a book on the tip of his index finger. "Hey, I wanted to ask you. . . Did Rosier give you any trouble after last night?"
"Why do you care?"
"I was just being nice!" argued Sirius. "Why don't you believe me?"
"You're being nice," I repeated. "The Sirius Black I know doesn't do nice."
"I was just looking out for you, hell. I won't do it again. Happy?"
I gave him a long look, but he kept his eyes on his book, though I knew he knew I was looking at him.
"If you want to look out for me, keep your little girlfriend on a leash," I said grimly.
"Girlfriend? Who the hell are you talking about, Larson?"
"Marlene McKinnon."
He stopped spinning his book and slowly looked at me, his expression was unreadable.
"Ray thinks she's jealous of me or something," I went on, blaming poor Ray. "He says that she doesn't like me being your Potions partner. She's been acting sort of. . . I don't know, like a jerk to me. Juliet also told me that she kept staring at our table and all so. . . The last thing I need in my seventh year is a hair-pulling fight with a Gryffindor. It'd be great if you told her there's no reason for her to be jealous or whatever she's got it against me."
I didn't know if bringing Ray and Juliet in was a good idea, but I knew it worked. I just didn't want to seem like I was making a big deal out of this. Sirius was silent for some time, his eyebrows furrowed like he was doing some NASA level thinking.
"So. . . I'll be going now," I said, trying to diffuse the awkwardness.
"No, wait," said Sirius softly. "It's past curfew now. You'll be in trouble if you get caught. And the dungeons are eight floors below."
"Why the hell do you care?" I spat.
"I am being nice. . .?" Sirius said uncertainly, repeating what he said earlier. I couldn't help but smile just a little bit to myself.
The two of us left the Room of Requirement and the door melted back into the wall. We walked in silence for three floors, I was just checking out the beautiful paintings. You know, they were super pretty. Gorgeous. Very detailed. We turned a corner, I thought I heard a cat, then a man's voice, which sounded awfully like our caretaker Filch.
Wait, why did I hear Filch—
"Larson, are you listening to me? Get in!"
Before I could fully tune myself back into my surroundings, I was grabbed by my hand and pulled into a cramped dusty room, which I later recognised as a broom cupboard.
"What are you doing?" I whisper-shouted at Sirius. "Let me—"
"Shh," he put a finger on my lips, silencing me, also sending a whole lot of shivers down my spine. We were pressed against each other's chests tightly, with no way for even a line of air to travel. He was leaning with his ear on the door, listening. One of his hands was on my wrist, and the other was on my lips.
I shook his hands off me, which turned his attention back to my face. I raised my eyebrows in question.
"Filch," he whispered, his lips barely moving.
"Right," I breathed, moving away from him, but the small closet seemed to hate me. "Is he gone?"
He pressed his ear on the door again, the light from the thin crack on the roof shining on his grey eyes, making them twinkle slightly. You could easily get lost in them, like staring into the depths of the grey clouds-
"Gone," he said, as I blinked and strayed away from his eyes.
I should really stop drifting off to daydreams.
He opened the door and got out, and I stepped outside after him. But both of us froze at once.
A third-year Hufflepuff girl was standing just outside, her jaw on the floor, and her eyes fixed on the two of us.
"Hi?" I said hesitantly.
She jerked as though I had slapped her, and with one final glance at us, she took off down the corridor, running at lightning speed.
"Well, shall we go then?" Sirius asked me, like nothing happened.
"Are you serious?" I snapped, and when he opened his mouth, "don't answer that! You idiot, that girl just saw us!"
"So?"
"So, what if she blabbers to other people? What would people say if they heard that you and I were— you and I were in a broom cupboard together?"
Sirius grinned.
"Larson, she's a third-year Hufflepuff," he said. "What do you think she can do? Besides, why wouldn't you want people to know that we were in a broom cupboard?" He leaned closer and I took a step back. "Many girls would kill to be in your place."
I glared up at him, my nostrils flaring. The audacity of this boy.
"You're such a cocky bastard, you know that?" I growled. "Some girls might kill to suck your dick, but I wouldn't. I'd rather chew off my own foot."
I didn't know where I even get the confidence to say words like that, because usually, I am never the most confident person in the room. I needed someone else to order for me in a restaurant, still do, but when it came to Sirius Black, It was different.
Not giving him time to reply, I pushed past him and basically ran to the dungeons, hoping with every fibre of my being the Hufflepuff didn't ramble. I didn't need another boy scandal, thank you very much.
If only life were that simple.