Chapter Forty Nine | Viam fatorum
[Fate's path]
Vivian Blair is a complete hypocrite.
" – Why do you constantly drag me into alcoves?" Gavin complains the next afternoon, when he is assailed by one hot-tempered Slytherin on his way to the library. It's just after lunch, and the next class of the day doesn't start for another half an hour. It hadn't exactly been a challenge to guess where the nerdiest student in the school would choose to spend those extra thirty minutes, hence Vivian lying in wait for him several corridors away from the library doors.
"What?" she asks, looking confused, and then rearranges her features and drags him further into the shadows behind the statue of Ferdinand the Finnicky. "Don't be weird, Clarke. This is important."
Gavin sends her a concerned look and whispers, "Is it about – "
"It's not about the task," she interrupts, glancing furtively around to see if anyone has noticed them. The corridors are relatively empty, but they're busier than usual because apparently, Gavin isn't the only one who had wanted to spend his extra half hour in the library. Thankfully, no one is expecting to see anyone lurking behind Ferdinand the Finnicky, and walk right by without noticing them.
Gavin's concern fades to exasperation. He sighs and rearranges his robes, which Vivian had accidentally skewed out of place when she has accosted him. "Well I actually do have plans to get started on my Transfiguration essay this afternoon, so whatever it is that you wanted to say, I don't see why you can't say it in the libr – "
"I kissed Black!" Vivian blurts out. Her cheeks turn a faint shade of red.
Gavin stares at her, but not because he's reeling from what she had just said. Actually, her words had come out so quickly that they had sounded more along the lines of 'I kissed back', which is predictably confusing.
"Huh? You kissed what?" he questions, raising a bewildered eyebrow.
Vivian glowers at him, takes a deep breath, and hisses, "Sirius Black. I kissed Sirius Black."
This time, his reaction is more in keeping with the message. Well, sort of. He gapes at her for all of three seconds, mouth dropping open in surprise – before he makes a choking sound and then promptly begins to laugh at her.
Vivian does not appreciate it.
"This is not a laughing matter, Clarke," she hisses, narrowing her eyes into her best Slytherin glare. Unfortunately for her, Gavin Clarke is quite immune to said glare at this point, and it only seems to make him laugh harder.
"Oh sorry," he snickers, pushing his glasses up. "It's not as if you've spent your entire time at Hogwarts loathing the very ground he walks on or anything. How dare I laugh at you for snogging your sworn enemy, right?"
She scowls at him. "Sarcasm doesn't suit you. Now stop laughing. I need to try something to see if I've gone off the deep end or not."
At this, Gavin raises an eyebrow and chuckles, "If you ask me, you've always been insa – oomph!"
Now, the inelegant ending of Gavin Clarke's sarcastic commentary is due to this:
Vivian Blair takes her assailment up a notch by grabbing two fistfuls of his blazer, heaving him forward, and slamming her mouth against his in a decidedly bewildering (and actually rather painful) kiss. What does Gavin Clarke do, upon being randomly (and painfully) kissed? Well, he'd do what any morally upstanding Ravenclaw prefect would do. He squirms back, tries to loosen her hold of him, and splutters, "Viv – mph! Would you – stop – assaulting me!"
Upon hearing him, Vivian stops, pulls back, and furrows her brow. "I'm not assaulting you, Clarke. Don't be dramatic. Now stop moving around so much."
Gavin, who is by the by quite red in the face at this point, squirms back even further and exclaims, "Wait! I think you should explain yourself – ". But, of course, his words are promptly cut off when Vivian kisses his again, this time (slightly) more tenderly.
Now. Gavin Clarke does not snog people in shadowy corners, especially people like Vivian Blair, who is a bit too brash and headstrong for him now that he's thinking about it. To be perfectly honest, he very rarely snogs people in any sort of corner, which leaves him in a bit of a conundrum because once Vivian tilts her head a bit and stops smashing their lips together quite so callously, it actually does feel somewhat...nice.
Right. That is, it's alright, for an impromptu kiss being had in a murky alcove. He'll admit that he had wondered what it would be like, to kiss her. At least now he can say that that's over with, and that it isn't so terrible.
Vivian isn't in complete agreement, though. She sighs and pulls away with a muttered, "Merlin, it's like kissing a fucking rock."
Gavin's mouth, which is slightly bruised at this point, drops open. "Excuse me?" he asks, sounding quite offended.
She sighs again and nods to herself, then shuffles closer to him and says, "One more try, then I'll let you have your usual mental breakdown over your homework."
After being likened to a rock, Gavin is understandably less than thrilled with the prospect of doing this all over again, and he attempts to squirm backwards once more. But Vivian, as he knows by now, can be quite adamant about having her way, and any protestations that may or may not leave his mouth upon her wayward shows of affection are promptly cut off when her lips descend upon his again.
This time, it's far less aggressive. She even closes her eyes as she kisses him, and gingerly reaches up to thumb over his jaw, trying to recreate some of the emotions that had seared through her last night. When Sirius had kissed her, it had rattled her like nothing she's ever felt before. Her whole body had felt the effects of that kiss. It had burned through her bones and bolstered her heart into a smoldering fire.
A large part of her had hoped that it hadn't really meant anything. That she'd only felt that way because she doesn't make a habit of sneaking out after curfew to hook up with people like many of her classmates do, and that the fire had only burned her because that kiss had been a shock to her system. It's like when you experience something so out of the ordinary that it sparks through you and makes your blood spike with adrenaline. She was hoping that by recreating those effects with someone else, she'd be able to justify it in such a way.
But kissing Gavin isn't anything like that. It's not a bolt of lightning that splinters through her and sets her heart to alight. It isn't fire and ash and ember, and it doesn't make her blood pump or her body sear. She feels no desire to run her fingers through his hair or to haul him as close to her as possible. Actually, she has a feeling that kissing him would feel like kissing a brother, if she had one.
The thought makes her wrinkle her nose and pull away with another loud sigh. Gavin, for his part, looks quite ruffled and a bit shell-shocked. His eyes are glazed over and she doesn't think she's never seen him looking so unkempt. His Ravenclaw tie is all askew and his black school robes are slightly slipping down one shoulder. She feels this insane urge to snicker at him.
"...In hindsight, I'll admit that this wasn't my best idea," she says instead, clearing her throat as she reaches up to pat her hair down. Not that he had messed it up or anything. Kissing Gavin really had been like kissing a rock. He'd barely been able to bring himself to touch her at all.
Her words seem to draw him out of whatever daze he'd been in. As his eyes lock with hers, his cheeks flush a bright red, and even the vexed tone of his voice isn't enough to overshadow his obvious discomfort.
"I can't believe you dragged me into an alcove to snog me!" he exclaims, and then immediately snaps his mouth shut and peers out into the corridor to see if anyone had overheard him. When he sees that the hallway is empty for now, he turns back to Vivian and hisses, "You really are going insane, Vivian!"
She humphs at him and mumbles, "I didn't snog you. I was just trying to see if I actually liked kissing Black or if it was a one-off, you know?"
He doesn't even seem to hear her.
"And let me just add that I do not kiss like a rock!" he scowls, fixing his tie.
She rolls her eyes at him.
"I've been told that I'm actually a very good kisser," he sniffs. "Maybe you would know that if you hadn't headbutted me. I suppose I'm not surprised that Black's in love with you – he probably does the same to the girls he kisses."
This makes Vivian glower at him and mumble, "I didn't headbutt you. You're so dramatic."
Gavin jerks his robes back into place and takes a deep breath. When he looks at her again, his eyes are decidedly less annoyed. So is his voice, when he grumbles, "No, Vivian – you're being the dramatic one. Why can't you just admit that you like Sirius Black? It's not like it's the apocalypse, for God's sake."
She crosses her arms and purses her lips. "Because I hate Sirius Black. I can't like kissing him. It isn't right."
It's his turn to roll his eyes. He pushes his glasses up and announces, "You do this a lot, you know. Deflect." She looks a bit insulted and opens her mouth to defend herself, but Gavin doesn't let her. He holds up a hand and says, "You do. First, you try to ignore the fact that you don't agree with the beliefs that most of your housemates believe in, then you try to use those very same beliefs to justify why we shouldn't be friends. You've been pretending that nothing's wrong since Christmas break, and now you're even deflecting your own feelings for Black. Don't say that you don't like him, Vivian. It's obvious that you do."
Throughout all of this, Vivian gapes at him. When he says that last bit, she appears vaguely sick.
"...Is it really obvious?" she wavers, frowning.
Gavin sends her a look. "To me, it is."
Her only response is a muttered, "Bollocks."
He shakes his head at her as if he's praying for help from the divine and sighs, "I guess I won't be getting my Transfiguration essay done today." Then, taking her arm, he leads her out into the hallway and says, "Let's hear it, then. How did you end up snogging him in the first place? Feel free to skim over the sordid details, I don't really want to hear the specifics."
Vivian lets him lead her down the corridor and grudgingly informs him about the last two detentions. She doesn't go into all the sordid details, but she does explain the way she'd caught Sirius snooping in her things and the shouting matches that have thus far set the stage for both kisses. As before, it feels annoyingly good to get it all off her chest. Gavin makes for a good listener. He's attentive and makes the correct facial expressions at the correct moments: exasperation when she speaks about the shouting matches, and just the right amount of disgust when she talks about what an incredible kisser Sirius Black is.
"I mean, I thought he was all talk, you know? But there's this thing he does with his tongue that – "
"Vivian."
"Oh right. Sorry, I guess."
She opens her mouth to say more, but before she can, she is nearly ploughed over by a certain red-head who storms around the corner right as Gavin and Vivian are rounding it.
When Vivian sees who it is, she immediately scowls. "Evans. What is your problem?"
Lily's angry expression melts away. "Sorry! Merlin, I didn't see you both! Oh, sorry Gavin, let me help you – right. Sorry again."
She kneels down to help collect the books that Gavin had unceremoniously dropped, and Vivian rolls her eyes.
"Honestly. First you drag me behind a tapestry and now you literally run into me. That hurt, by the way," she complains, rubbing her shoulder where it had been knocked into by the storming red-head.
Gavin lets out an incredulous laugh and exclaims, "Oh, so you're allowed to drag people into alcoves, but no one else can drag you into them? I can't believe this!"
She huffs at him and mutters, "I've already admitted that it wasn't my best idea."
Gavin huffs too and shoots Lily an exasperated look. "Thanks," he says to her, and reaches out to collect his books. There are so many of them that even Lily, the school intellectual, seems to think that it's a bit overkill.
As he loads them back into his bookbag, Lily clears her throat and murmurs, "Sorry again. I, ah, guess I need to let out some steam."
Vivian eyes her. "What did Potter do this time, then?"
For a split second, Lily looks surprised to be called out on so effortlessly, but then her expression falls back into annoyance and she scoffs, "He's been ignoring me, that's what. Every time I try to talk to him, he – what? Why are you looking at me like that?"
Vivian's face has, indeed, fallen into a sort of deadpan stare, as if she thinks that Lily is insane. She shakes her head, reaches over to grab Gavin's arm, and mutters, "I can't deal with this right now. C'mon, Clarke, I was just getting to the good parts – "
Gavin looks a bit nauseous. Lily looks a bit confused.
"Wait, what can't you deal with right now?" she demands, all hot-tempered like the Gryffindor she is. She promptly follows them.
Now Vivian isn't about to discuss Sirius Black in front of Lily Evans (she would rather choke herself with a rusty spoon), so instead she grudgingly responds, "You're revolting feelings for Potter, obviously. I mean, it's pretty clear that you like him way more than you want to admit."
Gavin shoots Vivian a dry look that she completely ignores, no doubt due to the fact that he had basically just said the same thing to her about her own revolting feelings for Sirius Black.
As for Lily, her face immediately flushes and she adamantly denies, "I do not like him! That's – that's just not true! He's been a complete arse to me for years now – "
"Is that why you asked him to ask you out and then flat out rejected him?" Gavin interrupts as he adjusts the strap of his heavy bookbag over his shoulder. His voice is casual, as if he thinks that the question is completely innocent and justified. He really ought to know better by now, because Lily does not think it's justified at all. She gapes at him, and he shrugs, "The whole school's talking about it. Some of my housemates have a bet going on about how long it takes for Potter to fall for someone else."
Vivian laughs at this. "Really?" she wonders blithely. "That's wonderful. I hadn't realized Ravenclaws took so much notice about Potter's pathetic love life."
Lily's mouth drops open a smidgen more.
Gavin shrugs. "It's a constant source of amusement. Last year I won two galleons for correctly predicting how he'd ask her out at the start of first term."
Vivian nods, "Right, I remember. He got her a bouquet of lilies and nearly tripped over one of the flagstones in the Great Hall right before she rejected him in front of the entire school. I loved that one. The public rejection was a nice touch."
Gavin hums. "He did that the last two years before that, too. It was a simple matter of calculated prognosis."
"Excuse me – " Lily tries.
She's ignored.
"I don't think he'll fall for someone else, though. He's obsessed," Vivian says as they walk past the library.
Gavin shrugs again and pushes up his glasses. "It isn't necessarily impossible. Statistically, there's only so many rejections he can experience before he comes to the conclusion that his pursuit of Lily is a lost cause."
"I don't really appreciate – " Lily tries again.
"That's fair enough, I guess, but what I really want to know is why she asked him to ask her out just to reject him. That's a bit harsh," Vivian muses.
Gavin nods in agreement. "Which is precisely why I've bet that it'll only take him a month or so before he decides to set his sights on someone else. I think it's an good prediction. If he's ignoring Lily already, that's a pretty big signal that he's trying to get over her."
Vivian taps her chin and then turns to Lily for the first time in the last few minutes, eyeing her speculatively. "You know, Evans, if you really do like Potter, you should probably be taking notes."
Lily stares at her.
"Also, I'm a bit surprised that you'd reject him like you did after you specifically asked him to ask you out. He's an annoying git and usually I enjoy watching him get his heart crushed, but that was a bit cruel of you."
Lily splutters and flaps her mouth silently.
"Anyway Clarke and I have things to discuss, so if you don't mind..." she sends her one last poignant look before leading Gavin further down the hallway.
Lily just gapes after them.
___________________________________________________
After her discussion with Gavin, who had gradually grown less annoyed with her assailment after they had run into Lily, Vivian heads to her Ancient Runes class. She happens to love Ancient Runes, but even Professor Gillanders' lecture isn't interesting enough to make her focus. The topic of today's lesson is on mixing runes together to create more complicated symbols, and while it would normally be a very fascinating subject matter, all Vivian can think about is Sirius's lips.
"The Ministry uses a number of these combined runes," Gillanders is saying as she stands by the chalkboard at the front of the class. "Aurors are taught the Germanic and Romanian runes in great detail during their training. When it comes to apprehending criminals and the like, runic configurations are often the preferred method for transport. For example, if you combine the runes Isa and Nauthix, you have a resulting rune that acts similarly to a body-binding jinx, but with more lasting effects..."
Gillanders draws the symbols for Nauthix on the chalkboard: a downward line with a shorter mark slashing through it at a slight angle. She draws Isa directly beside it, so that the shorter stroke of Nauthix is connecting both perpendicular lines together. Beside that, she writes 'body-binding', which is probably something Vivian should copy down, but – Merlin, when did Sirius Black become so attractive, anyway?
"...another technique that they use, which makes the runes even more potent. It was first used in the year 1503 by an Auror named Frederick Finnigan. I won't be covering the actual spell that is used to mark the skin with these runes, but anyone interested in becoming an Auror after they graduate will learn it during their training. It's become quite commonplace nowadays..."
The sound of his voice when he'd said her name, muffled against her lips – the feel of his hands searing against the skin of her waist...
Vivian stares blankly at the chalkboard, quill poised above her parchment, and shudders.
Gillanders doesn't seem to notice Vivian's lack of focus. She's already drawing a different rune onto the board, rattling on about what other runes can be combined with it.
"Perth and Hagalz combined will restrict the flow of magic – another rune commonly used by Aurors. This combination will only weaken you, however, unless you add Isa to the symbol. Isa will make it so that your magic is cut off completely, at least for as long as the rune remains on your skin...of course, it's important to draw the runes in the correct order, especially when you're working with more complicated combinations of three or more runes in one symbol..."
Vivian idly scratches some notes down. She wishes kissing Gavin had worked. The thought of actually enjoying kissing Sirius will take some getting used to.
"...some of which have up to ten different runes. It isn't recommended to use many more than that, as the magic tends to become more volatile the more runes you add – yes, Peter? Did you have a question?"
One of their fellow seventh years puts his hand down and asks, "You mentioned that these effects last only as long as the rune is on your skin. So when the runes are removed, the effects wear off?"
Vivian glances down at her parchment and nearly rolls her eyes at herself. Honestly! She's barely written anything down at all. Sirius Black's kissing techniques are definitely not as important as her studies. Right. Definitely not.
As Vivian hurriedly scratches down the rest of the information on the chalkboard, Gillanders muses, "Well yes, usually. For example, criminals will be marked with several runes to prohibit their magic and keep them confined to their cells. As far as I know, the runes aren't taken off unless they are brought to the Wizengamot for further questioning..."
Well this topic is interesting, but Vivian isn't planning on becoming an Auror after she graduates. To be honest, her future is something she's been adamantly trying not to think about. It's a bit frightful, wondering where your life will go; not knowing what direction you'll find yourself moving in, once you leave the safe routines of school. There's also the little fact that she's finding it rather difficult to think about anything but Sirius Black's mouth on hers.
This proves to be a challenge for the entire day. Though Vivian doesn't want to admit it, she feels this fluttering sense of nervous energy invade her body the closer the hour gets to her nightly detention, and all she can think about is how it had felt when Sirius had pressed her against the pillar of the owlery. The feels gets worse when she heads down to get an early dinner before her detention and sees him sitting at the Gryffindor table with Lupin. Potter and Pettigrew are absent, and Lupin seems to be absorbed in what looks like a copy of The Daily Prophet. Sirius looks like he's half-listening to Remus as he reads aloud, but when Vivian enters the hall, his eyes immediately lock with hers as if he's been waiting for her to arrive.
It's difficult to describe the sensation that fills her in that moment, when her eyes connect with his. Perhaps it would be better to describe what she is not feeling:
It isn't the calm and haughty displeasure that she is accustomed to expressing to him. Her face does not fall into the usual cool disregard that she oftentimes makes a habit of reverting to. Her eyes do not pass over his with any of the disparaging scorn that she has been clinging to for as long as she can remember.
No, her mind is a whirlwind and her body is trapped in the center of it. She feels indecipherably cold as she stands in the doorway of the Great Hall; and yet her skin is as hot as if she has just been branded. That nervous energy captures her in its entirety. She thinks with some horror that she might be blushing.
Through the pen of Jane Austen and on the matter of being in love, Mr. Darcy once said, "I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."
Yes – the middle – perhaps that is where she is, though Vivian has not fully grasped this yet. The middle of anything is, after all, too encompassing to pin down into any one layer. It is not the crispness of a new beginning nor does it possess the finality of the last page. It is like dunes of sand in a desert overlapping one and another a thousand times in every direction. It is impossible to predict where the wind will blow; impracticable to know what future events might shape the intervening years between start and end.
Yes, she is in the middle, and like Darcy, she will not know the moment in which she fell in love with Sirius Black, when she looks back upon these years far from now. She will not be able to summon with any precision the second in which she took her first step into that desert. She will know only that she will get irrevocably lost among those overlapping dunes – that she will step so far adrift that the hope of ever finding her way back to the beginning will be completely and absolutely vanished.
Perhaps that is the way of love. There are too many variables for it to be put into any mathematical formula. Human nature does not work in such logical measures. It cannot be rationalized so demurely. He will not know the answer to this question either, though he will spend many years clinging to the memory of her, when the lights of his youth go out and he is left as a shell of who he was in the times before.
But – that is not now. No, no. Now there is only the heady rush of feelings too tempestuous to put into words and too maddening to even attempt to understand. She feels everything at once: a sublime nervousness, a thrilling anticipation, and the remnants of a long-held anger, that she would feel the first two at all. It is the nervousness that makes her turn on her heel and tear out of the Great Hall instead of eating dinner; the anticipation that makes her pace down to Filch's office early; and the anger that makes her do what she does when Filch hobbles away and leaves them in peace.
Tonight, they are to clean the suits of armor on the second floor. Filch takes their wands, grumbles at them to get to it, and gruffly tells them that he'll be back in an hour to check on their progress. He's barely around the corner (muttering about how they never seem to get any work done), when Vivian stalks over to Sirius, crowds him against the wall near a tapestry of trolls having a picnic, and grabs two fistfuls of his shirt without preamble.
Sirius, naturally, assumes the worst. He raises his hands up and begins to hurriedly say, "Look, I'm not going to apologize for last night – ", but his words get promptly cut off when Vivian pulls him down and covers his mouth with hers. And, well, despite being a member of the most esteemed and dishonorable band of Marauders and having a knack for expecting the unexpected, Sirius does not expect this.
The rest of his words get muffled against her lips, and for a long moment, Sirius just stares at her with a bewildered sort of look in his eyes, as if he's trying to figure her out and is coming up short. Perhaps he can't be blamed. After all, the first two times they kissed, angry words had preluded the moment. It would be a lie if Sirius were to claim that he has a problem with Vivian kissing the daylights out of him – which is, consequently, a rather apt way to describe the urgent movement of her mouth and the insistent way she slides her arms around his neck and drags him closer.
Once his bewildered surprise fades, he is quick to curl his arms around her waist and haul her against him, dropping his head lower so as to kiss her properly. He decides not to question the suddenness of it all. He's kissed enough girls to have realized that they don't always have reasons for what they do, and indeed, that it probably isn't worth the inevitable conflict if he were to outright ask her what her angle is. He might only be a seventh year, but if there's one thing he knows, it's that birds are completely nonsensical half the time.
The other half? Absolutely irresistible.
He sighs out and gathers her closer, quickly losing himself in the manner in which she's kissing him. There's something about the way she's being so unapologetic about it all that he finds completely intoxicating. He supposes he shouldn't question that, either. Vivian Blair is certainly not the shy, naïve sort, nor is she someone who defers wholeheartedly to the prim and proper side of human nature, ever second-guessing herself and overly concerned about how others will view her. She is too fiery for that; a creature of brimstone and ember, with the same sort of wild impatience that drives itself through him. Besides that, he isn't that sort of person either, and he isn't about to pull away to ask her why she's suddenly so interested in kissing him. To be perfectly honest, he has other things on his mind.
For example: the warmth of her body against his and the way she's adamantly pressing him against the wall; the softness of her lips and the urgency of her movements; the way she's got one hand curled around the back of his neck as if to hold him in place, and the fact that she's the one controlling the kiss, and he frankly doesn't have the willpower or the desire to take back the reins.
Merlin, he almost can't believe that Vivian Blair is kissing him. He's only just beginning to accept it when Vivian abruptly stops – and when she suddenly pulls back and takes a step away from him, it's like he's been doused with a bucket of cold water as his senses rush to return to him all at once. His bewildered expression returns.
Vivian doesn't notice. She's too busy frowning as she turns away from him, hands on hips as she gulps down a deep breath of air. To say that she appears quite preoccupied would be an understatement, and to say that it doesn't completely confuse him would be yet another.
"I don't get it," Vivian mumbles to herself, and begins to pace.
Sirius watches her for a moment before shuffling back to lean against the wall. He crosses his arms before drawling, "You don't get what?"
Perhaps he should question the suddenness of her kiss after all.
Vivian shoots him an impatient glance and shakes her head. "It didn't feel like this with Gavin."
Sirius blinks at her. "I'm not following."
Her impatience seems to grow. She rolls her eyes and blurts out, "I didn't enjoy kissing Gavin and I don't know why I – "
"You kissed Tosspot Clarke?" he repeats incredulously, and pushes off from the wall. He sounds almost offended, actually, which would normally amuse Vivian, but at the moment she's a bit too caught up in her thoughts to take much notice.
She waves her hand and says in an offhanded voice, "That's not important."
Sirius barks out a laugh and gruffly responds, "I'd say it's a bit important. You can't just go around kissing other blokes when you're with me."
Vivian rolls her eyes. "I'm not with you, Black."
He gapes speechlessly at her, mouth flapping several times as if he'd like to argue. He can't, though, because she's right, isn't she? It's not as if they've actually talked about what had happened over the last few evenings, and it would be somewhat hypocritical of him to assume anything when he's been on the other side of this picture before. How many times have girls taken a casual broom closet snog to mean something more? It's just that usually he's the one insisting that said snog hadn't meant anything, not the other way around. It's a bit disconcerting, actually.
"Look, the point is that we should probably stop doing this," Vivian says, nodding to herself as she resumes her pacing. "It just isn't right. I mean – you're a blood traitor."
She doesn't say this with the same scorn that would have otherwise existed if she was trying to insult him, but Sirius naturally takes offense and frowns.
"You said you didn't like kissing Clarke. Does that mean you do like kissing me?" he coolly demands, following her back-and-forth movements with sharp eyes. The brusque question makes her pause for a moment. Sirius takes advantage of her hesitation to slowly add, "I don't know how many times you want me to say this, Vivian. If it takes another thousand times before you allow yourself to believe it, then I'll tell you every single fucking day. I'm in love you, and to be honest, I'm getting tired of this back and forth thing we've got going on."
She's not expecting him to say this again. Perhaps she hadn't believed it when he'd said it before. After all, they'd been in the heat of an angry tirade, shouting all sorts of things that they didn't really mean. Maybe she just assumed that those words had been yet another thoughtless addition to their outburst. But this – it isn't thoughtless, and it's not said in the same tones of impatient anger that had colored it before. Sirius sounds quite resolute now, and he's staring at her as if he's silently daring her to question him.
Well.
"I can't be with you, Sirius," she tells him, eyeing him warily.
He stares at her in a strangely calm manner, accepting her words in a strangely measured way, before muttering, "Figures. The first time I actually tell a girl how I really feel, I get rejected." He scoffs to himself, turns his attention to the long row of armored suits that need polishing, and strides over to sort through the supplies that Filch had left. Vivian stares at him as he does, feeling rather bewildered by his sudden disregard.
She sniffs haughtily and mumbles, "I said I can't be with you, not that I wouldn't...consider it. In different circumstances."
Sirius just hums and keeps sorting through the supplies, lifting a jar of goopy gray cream that looks like it's polish for the armor. He untwists top and wrinkles his nose at the frankly disgusting odor that immediately seeps into the air. He doesn't spare Vivian a second glance.
She crosses her arms and, when he doesn't acknowledge her circular confession, adds, "Maybe if there wasn't a war going on, I wouldn't have rejected you."
Sirius doesn't even seem to hear her. He doesn't do anything to address her words in any way, and it's making her a bit lost. And when Vivian Blair feels lost, she grows annoyed.
"Stop ignoring me," she coldly demands, narrowing her eyes at him.
Sirius, who is in the process of trying to decide if the suits of armor have to be taken apart of if he can just half-ass the process by polishing the pieces that are visible, finally turns to acknowledge her. He raises an eyebrow and waits impatiently for whatever it is that she has to say, but Vivian doesn't seem to have expected his sudden concession and is therefore at a loss for words. She opens her mouth, closes it, and looks away from his sharp eyes as if in discomfort. Her silence makes him annoyed, too.
Eyes flashing, Sirius steps towards her and murmurs, "You know, I don't really understand it either, Vivian. For someone strong enough to hold her own against someone like Adrian Mulciber, you're incredibly thick."
She lets out a humorless laugh and opens her mouth to insult him back, but Sirius doesn't let her. He takes another step forward, crowding her towards the wall, and says, "You say you don't want me, but you get all offended when I ignore you."
Her back presses to the wall. He can hear her breath catch – he's attuned to every reaction she has to him. The flash of heat in her eyes, the way her mouth parts and her head tilts back, her fingers which clench into the fabric of her robes as if she's trying very hard not to reach out for him.
Sirius rests his forearm against the wall beside her head and quietly scorns, "You even thought it was a good idea to kiss Tosspot Clarke, just to see if you could replicate your feelings for me with someone else."
She opens her mouth to reject this notion, but Sirius just adds, "You use every excuse imaginable to distance yourself from me, because you're afraid of what would happen if you admitted that you really do want me. But you know what the worst thing is?" He pauses, studying her closely before murmuring, "You don't trust me enough to prove that I could make you happy."
He swallows tightly, and lifts a hand to cup her face. His fingertips thread into the soft strands of hair at her temple. His thumb brushes ever so lightly over her cheekbone. He watches her eyelids flutter, and listens to her breath shorten, and then hoarsely whispers, "Stop fighting it, Vivian."
Before this moment, their kisses had been constructed from the chafing blaze of anger. They had been tempered with destruction and embellished with madness. They had left her dizzy with confusion afterwards. In wake of their differences, the inclination to write them off had been too tempting to ignore. But when Sirius lowers his mouth to hers now, there is no hint of anger and no violent backlash. The dizziness that she feels at his gentle touch doesn't confuse her. She doesn't feel the desire to disregard the emotions that rise up in her chest as his lips brush just so over hers.
This kiss possesses within it a delicacy that she hadn't thought Sirius Black was capable of. It isn't even really a kiss. The way his lips skim against hers feels more like a caress. It's both overwhelming and incomplete at the same time, so when Vivian slowly slides her hands up his chest and beckon him closer, she does so with the intent of finding a middle ground between every emotion that has thus far held them back. Anger and haughtiness and yearning and denial.
When she had kissed Gavin, her knees hadn't buckled. Her breath hadn't shortened. Her body hadn't filled with the same fluttering hunger that captures her now. Kissing Sirius is different. It's like standing on the ocean's shore and watching the water pull back into a tall wave, and you know that it will annihilate life as you know it but you don't care, and instead of running you just dig your feet into the sand and let it come. There's no way to stop it, and maybe you're setting yourself up for failure, because after all, what could one human do in the face of nature's great strength? But you open your arms to it anyway, not knowing if you're trying to embrace it or trying to stop it, and when the wave hits, the force of it leaves you ragged and amazed in equal measure.
Vivian isn't sure that she feels ragged or amazed, but she does know that kissing Sirius Black is bafflingly perfect. She feels herself relax into the kiss. Her eyes flutter closed, and she loses herself in the touch of his fingers against her temple and in the slow and methodical way that he kisses her. And it's only when he has completely indulged her in this new form of affection that Sirius breaks the kiss and rests his forehead against hers.
He says nothing for a moment, mainly because he has no words to say. The expressiveness of her eyes when she looks at him steals his breath away. A serene sort of silence drifts over them, so fragile that he can't bear to break it. Instead, he breaths out and studies her, memorizing the subtle awe of her expression and wondering if that same emotion is showing upon his own features, because he feels it just as solidly as she seems to.
"...I could make you happy," he finally breathes to her.
"...I know," she finally breathes back.
They stare at each other for a long moment, so close that he notices for the first time that she has the lightest brush of freckles dusting across her nose and cheekbones, so pale against her skin that they are nearly invisible. He feels the urge to know everything about her, to explore every inch of skin and to talk about all the thoughts that cross her mind. For the first time, Sirius Black wants it all.
He swallows tightly and hesitantly admits, "I don't want to only kiss you in detentions."
She pauses, but doesn't draw away.
"...Sirius – " she carefully begins.
"Come and talk to Dumbledore with me, Vivian," he interrupts, and he looks so genuine and hopeful that she finds herself pausing once more, biting back the immediately refusal that she would have otherwise given.
The wave returns, the waters pull back, and she finds herself suddenly standing on the shore again. But this time when she opens her arms, she doesn't think she's trying to stop it. Maybe she's still dizzy from the kiss, or too comfortable in his arms, and maybe she thinks that she'd like to stay like this forever, because it's safe and warm and thrilling and she's never wanted anyone quite as much as she thinks she wants him.
Maybe that's why she hears herself whispering, "Okay."
Or maybe she's just clinging to the hope that she really could be strong enough to denounce her family and break free of the path that they want her to take. After all, what is fate but an undercurrent that forms the backbone of every choice and every action that you make? Perhaps it is easier to manipulate than it seems.
"Okay," she says again, stronger this time, because she wants this. She wants him.
And she thinks in that moment that maybe he's right – maybe he could make her happy, and maybe she should stop fighting it. If fate is an undercurrent, then surely that means its direction can be altered. The smile Sirius sends her then makes her think that it can, anyway.
There is, of course, one problem with this:
Love cannot be built on lies, no matter how well-intentioned they are, and there is yet one thing that Sirius is not being completely honest about. It is something that Vivian has been dealing with for some months now, but when she returns to the Slytherin common room later that night to find another folded piece of parchment waiting for her, she doesn't think it strange. Her mind is still spinning with thoughts of Sirius, her heart still racing with the memory of his touch. She's never been in love and so she won't see the signs of her own disillusionment until later, when her head is clearer and she's able to finally connect all the dots. For now, she is none the wiser, but there are some who know more than they let on.
"Don't you think it's a bit creepy?" a voice drawls from the entrance of the common room.
Vivian sits up and immediately folds the letter back into its original position, feeling as if she's been caught doing something that she shouldn't be doing. Which is ridiculous, of course, because it's not like she had asked to be given love poems, and it's not like Regulus Black has any right to be so judgmental about it.
"I never said I didn't think it was creepy," Vivian bites back, and stands up to leave.
Before she can, Regulus says, "If I wrote you a love letter, I wonder if you'd fall all over me, too."
At this, Vivian stops and turns to send him a narrowed look. The tone of his voice is oddly knowing, as if he's fully aware who her secret admirer is. It makes her uneasy.
"I'm not falling all over anyone. Where were you, anyway? It's after curfew," she points out, trying to change the subject.
Regulus coolly replies, "Does it matter? Anyway, I know exactly where you were."
After a thoroughly warm evening in Sirius's arms, Regulus's words are like ice. His grey eyes are iron. His voice is just as hard.
Vivian lifts her chin and calmly says, "I was in detention, obviously," not letting him know just how much his words have affected her.
But he does know, because Regulus Black is observant enough to see it clear as day in the flash of Vivian's eyes. He stalks forward, crossing the room until he's only a few feet away from her, and quietly scorns, "I never would have expected this from you, Vivian. I thought you were smarter than this, but all it takes is one look from my brother and you cave. It's pathetic."
He glances down at the parchment in her hands but says nothing more, and just sends her a cold look before turning on his heel and marching to the boy's dormitories. Vivian almost can't believe that this side of Regulus exists, but she supposes that she's always known he had it in him somewhere. After all, one doesn't express an interest in joining the Dark Lord without possessing some semblance of darkness. She just never thought he would turn it on her.
She stares after him, wondering if she should just let him walk off or if she ought to defend herself. Her mind is made up before she fully realizes it, though, when she blurts out, "It's not pathetic, Regulus."
She watches warily as he stops at the top of the stairs and slowly turns to sneer at her, still reeling with surprise at the coldness of his gaze.
He scoffs at her and mutters, "Whatever you want to believe, Vivian. Just don't let Mulciber find out that you're snogging my brother, or else he'll throw a fit."
And then with a sweep of his robes, he disappears down the stairs and leaves her standing alone in the center of the common room, his words ringing through her head. She stands there for a long moment before collapsing onto the couch in front of the fire and unfolding the letter again, trying to look at it like Regulus had, with that knowing perception. But she is blinded by her own heart and doesn't come to the same realization that he had, and she won't for some time still. She reads anyway, and not even Regulus's warning can stop her from admiring the words that have been written out before her in her poet's uneven scrawl:
'Vivian,
If time was made of coin, and seconds forged in gold,
If moments could be tempered into gilded silver prose,
If hours could be weighed as jewels like emeralds in the fold,
I'd spend my days informing you of love's tenacious hold.
If happiness was counted like drops of morning dew,
If moonbeams could be captured ere they fall away from view,
If such a way existed, to prove my heart is true,
I'd send you stars instead of words, haphazardly construed.
But stars don't shine from up above as brightly as your eyes,
Nor do the moonbeams dance with half the grace that you contrive,
Your soul is far more beautiful than even heaven's skies,
And every constellation in their splendor, intertwined.
Alas, for all these things are but a figment of the soul,
And I can't weigh my heart like jewels or anything so bold.
These letters are my fortune; these words my gleaming gold,
And all that I can offer up are longings yet untold.'
Of course, those longings have been told, only Vivian Blair hasn't realized it yet.