"Merry Christmas!"
Aisling spun around to see Sirius jogging up behind her and smiling. Not the smirk that he usually wore but an actual smile.
"What you doing out here in the snow?"
"What are you doing out here in the snow?" Aisling retorted almost automatically. "And merry Christmas." She added hastily.
"Coming to see what you were doing out here in the snow," Sirius shot back, the playful smile still on his face. "Aren't you cold?"
"Got to be careful asking things like that, Black. Someone might overhear and think you care about someone's feelings other than your own."
"Of course I care." He muttered, plunging his hands deeper into his pockets. He looked at her with a slightly concerned expression on his face. "If you're stuck up in the hospital wing with hypothermia, who am I going to copy my Potions homework off?"
Aisling snorted and rolled her eyes before starting to walk again. There was about a minute of silence before she spoke again.
"Anyways, I like the snow. I feel like it makes everything sort of fresh and new again, you know?"
"No actually, I don't." Sirius stated flatly. "In fact, I think you might be a bit mad McCawley."
"Oh I am. I'm absolutely bonkers, a certified lunatic, actually." Aisling replied, dragging her feet as she walked and kicking up snow with each step.
She didn't know why but she had the feeling that she was suppressing giggles, except nothing was funny. For a while they walked without talking. Aisling kicked the snow and Sirius trailed his gloved hands aimlessly along walls and branches, knocking snow off them as he did so. The silence was comfortable, and neither of them felt the need to fill it. They walked like this until they had done a full circuit of the castle grounds and came to a stop outside the castle doors. The snow had started falling again but neither of them seemed to notice.
"Anyway..." Mumbled Aisling, who was feeling quite awkward now that they had stopped moving and she had nothing to do with her hands and feet. "We should probably get inside, or we'll miss the food."
"Yeah." Sirius agreed.
But neither of them moved towards the doors. In fact, if anything Aisling felt like the boy had moved closer to her. But she hadn't seen him move. He blinked and she now realised there were flecks of deep blue in his stormy, grey eyes. They didn't look so piercing anymore; in fact, they were almost soft. He stood with his mouth parted slightly open so that she could feel his warm breath on her face. Again, they seemed to be closer together than before, was she the one moving towards him? She didn't know.
Sirius looked down at the girl in front of him, he'd never actually looked at her up close like this before. But, as he stood there watching her nostrils flare and her toes scrunch up inside her trainers, he saw that her pale skin was littered with freckles; and her cheeks and nose were pink from the cold. He felt himself getting closer to her, it was definitely him moving towards her now, and he reached his hands out to hold the front of her jacket.
Was he going to kiss her? She wondered. It definitely seemed like he was. It was true that, since that evening in the library, there had been a certain amount of tension building between them. But it was Sirius Black. The guy was renowned for being a professional flirt. There was hardly a single Ravenclaw in their year who hadn't been caught snogging him in the Astronomy tower at some time or another.
But she'd never kissed anyone before, what if she was crap at it? She had a habit of chewing her bottom lip a lot when she was nervous or stressed, what if he could feel it? Or worse still, what if his lips felt weird? Was that something you were supposed to comment on? Or, forget about lips, what was she meant to do with her tongue? And what the hell was she supposed to do with his tongue? Her eyes widened as his hands tightened around the front of her coat and he pulled her closer towards him. Don't think about tongues. She repeated this to herself in her head over and over. But she couldn't help it, his mouth had parted ever so slightly more now so that she could see almost inside his mouth. But his tongue was green.
Wait- what? She thought, blinking rapidly. No that couldn't be right. She looked again. Yeah, there was definitely something green in his mouth, but it wasn't his tongue. It looked like a leaf, it was a leaf.
"Erm, Sirius?" She said tentatively, her curiosity overpowering her reluctance to kill the moment. "Why have you got a leaf in your mouth?"
He paused and pulled his head back slightly, looking confused. Then a look of comprehension spread across his face.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "It's- erm- nothing it's just a mint leaf. I...I forgot to brush my teeth this morning."
"Ew."
"No it's just that I- well- we better go in we're going to miss the Christmas dinner!" He said, in a tone that was far too bright and sounded forced.
He all but ran into the castle, leaving Aisling outside in the cold, blinking snow out of her eyes and feeling very confused indeed. A mint leaf? But she could have sworn it was...
Nah. She thought to herself, why would he have had a Mandrake leaf in his mouth?
She just stood there, up to her ankles in snow. She stood for what felt like ten minutes, although it could have been as little as thirty seconds, before it suddenly came to her attention that the brisk December air was now biting at her neck and face. Shivering, she made her way inside the castle.
By the time Aisling flung herself down next to Alice at the Gryffindor table she had made up her mind. Sirius Black had played a trick on her. It wasn't exactly that she was shocked or surprised, after all he was well known for playing pranks. But nevertheless, she still felt hurt. After all, it was a very mean trick to play one someone, there's a difference between putting dungbombs under someone's bed and convincing someone that you're going to kiss them.
"Are you alright, Ash?" Alice asked, peering at her concernedly. "You've got a face like thunder..."
"I'm fine." Said Aisling shortly, trying to put the matter out of her head as she helped herself to turkey and stuffing.
As she tucked in, she promised herself that she wasn't going to spend any more time dwelling on the strange behaviour of Sirius Black.
***
For the rest of the holidays, Aisling and Alice wandered around the school grounds or sat by the fire in the Gryffindor common room, curled up in large red armchairs. They enjoyed games of gobstones, exploding snap and wizard chess (though the latter was very rare as neither of them were very good.) And Aisling made sure to avoid Sirius, suddenly deciding that now was a great time for Quidditch practice or a stroll around the grounds whenever he happened to come into the common room. This did have its drawbacks though, as the only person she had to practice Quidditch with was Alice who, bless her soul, was really not very good. Being the keeper, it would probably have been far more beneficial for Aisling to practice saving a quaffle thrown by someone who could actually aim in a straight line.
Another issue was that Aisling was sometimes in such a rush to leave the room when Sirius entered that she would forget to bring her broom or books. And would therefore just end up wandering aimlessly around the castle until she deemed it safe to go back to the common room. Aisling's odd behaviour had not gone unnoticed by Alice, who was now protesting whenever Aisling decided to leave the common room. ('It's so nice and warm in here Ash, why can't we just say in one place for more than half a bloody hour?')
It was for this reason that Aisling found herself on one of her late evening strolls by herself, the night before school was due to start again. She turned a corner, not really paying attention to where she was going, and collided with something that was leaning against the wall. Nope, not something, someone. The tall, lean figure grinned and tucked his long hair behind his ear.
"Now then, McCawley."
She rolled her eyes, though she wasn't quite sure he would be able to tell in the partial darkness. She went to walk away from him, but he moved so quickly that she barely had time to comprehend what was happening. Next thing she knew, they had swapped positions ,and her back was up against the wall while he stood in front of her, one arm stretched out so that his palm was on the wall next to Aisling's ear. He grinned, teeth glinting as they caught the reflection of the moon from outside the window. Unsurprisingly, Aisling's ears began to burn.
"Have you been avoiding me Aisling?" asked Sirius, twirling his wand in his long fingers.
Aisling was taken slightly aback at his use of her first name, something she didn't think he had ever done before. She shook her head sharply.
"It's almost nine, so if you wouldn't mind-" She tried to move past him but was blocked by his shoulder.
"You're a good girl, though." He stated, shrugging his shoulders and smirking. "You can definitely get away with being out of your dorm a little later than usual, right?"
"If you wouldn't mind." Aisling repeated again, hoping that she at least sounded like she meant it.
But she couldn't say that she did. He was smirking at her in a way that made her stomach tighten. She might not have been very happy with him, but she couldn't deny that Sirius Black was bloody handsome.
"Are you mad at me?" he asked suddenly.
The question caught Aisling so off guard that she blinked, speechless.
"Oh you are!" He said, dropping his voice lower. He leaned in closer to her so that their noses were only centimetres apart. "Is it because I didn't kiss you on Christmas Day?"
Aisling stayed silent.
"I was hoping that I could make it up to you on New Year's Eve, around midnight? But I couldn't find you."
He was speaking more softly now than ever, so his voice was barely a whisper and Aisling had to strain to hear what he was saying.
"I can kiss you now if you like?" He breathed.
Aisling stared back up at him, eyes wide. She didn't dare speak, for fear that she might throw caution to the wind and shout 'Yes you beautiful fool! Just kiss me, snog my face clean off for all I care!' But she couldn't say that, this was Sirius Black. She had seen too many of her classmates cry over him to even entertain the idea. So why was she?
And then she felt his breath in her ear.
"I'm really sorry that I didn't kiss you two weeks ago. If I'd known how much it would bother you then I never would have left you hanging like I did."
It was the slightly mocking tone of his voice that brought Aisling out of her trance. She pushed past him suddenly, taking him by surprise, and turned to face him with an uncharacteristically ugly look on her face.
"I wouldn't kiss you," she spat, "Even if it was a choice between you and an overfilled bubotuber pod." And she stalked away down the darkened corridor.
And this time it was Sirius's turn to be left feeling very confused.