Aisling had found herself in a position she had been in once before, about a year previously. She was sitting in the library and trying desperately to finish a particularly tricky potions essay, while trying even harder not to stare at Sirius Black. As she focused determinedly on her parchment and racked her brains trying to remember whether to stir clockwise or counter-clockwise when concocting a Draught of Living Death, she felt two eyes burning into the top of her head and she bent down even lower over her essay.
She had clocked him when she walked in, leaning back in his chair and showing no evidence of someone who was actually in the library to work or read. The two still hadn't spoken since their kiss in the stairwell; and Aisling didn't intend to. She knew that her and Sam weren't officially together, but she still felt immensely guilty about it. After all, she doubted that he was snogging other girls in the Ravenclaw common room when Aisling wasn't around. Then again, it would probably make her feel better if he was. She kept thinking, with an even sharper pang of guilt in her stomach, how grateful she was that Remus had walked in on them. As much as she kept trying to rationalise that she wouldn't, she knew that she would have let him lead her up to the boys' dormitories. She knew that she would have done anything to stop the fire between them from being extinguished.
Get a grip of yourself. She thought, shaking the thoughts firmly out of her head.
Just as her stamina reached its limits and she was on the verge of packing up her stuff and leaving, she felt someone tap her on the shoulder.
"Hey" Sam said, smiling at her.
"Hey." She replied, convincing herself that the strange feeling in her stomach was relief that it wasn't Sirius, and not disappointment.
"You've started on Slughorn's essay already?" He asked, sitting down next to her.
She nodded and for a few minutes neither of them said anything. The table was silent apart from the scratching of Aisling's quill on her parchment. Eventually Sam spoke again.
"Anyway I was going to ask if you wanted to hang out later? If you're not busy."
"Yeah sure." She said, smiling at him. "What do you want to do?"
"I dunno." He shrugged. "Naadir got a new set of Quidditch balls, we could get Roman and have a two-a-side game."
Aisling nodded and turned back to her essay, frowning slightly. She loved playing Quidditch, so why wasn't she excited at the idea of the game later? Maybe it was because she didn't like Sam's friends very much; although first impressions are often wrong Aisling had not grown any fonder of Naadir and Roman, and she got the distinct impression that the feeling was mutual.
"Difficult essay huh?" Sam asked, clearly misinterpreting her furrowed brow.
"Wha- yeah." Aisling corrected herself halfway through. "So am I on your team tonight then?"
"Depends, do you think that would be fair on the other two? I mean we're both pretty awesome."
Sam smiled playfully as he said this, but the smile quickly disappeared when they both heard a sharp, humourless laugh come from a few feet away. Aisling whipped her head around and saw nobody in the area. Nobody except...
"Black." Sam raised his voice slightly. "Something funny?"
Aisling noticed the glint in Sirius' eyes way too late.
"Nothing at all Matthews. Just, you do know what awesome means right?" He leaned further back in his chair so that the two front legs tipped up off the ground.
"Shut up, Sirius." Aisling said, through gritted teeth.
"Don't get offended Aisling, I wasn't talking about you." He grinned widely, showing gleaming white teeth. "I was talking about your friend here."
"We're a little bit more than friends, actually. Probably a concept that someone as immature as yourself can't grasp. But don't worry about it, I'm sure you'll get there." Sam's eyes, usually so warm and kind, were hard and cold. But Aisling was less concerned with Sam's face and more with her own.
She had developed a strange habit. Whenever anyone referred to herself and Sam being...whatever it was that they were, her eye would twitch. She had hoped that it would go away once she got used to the idea, but it had been over a month now and it was still happening involuntarily. She ignored the voice in her head telling her that this was a sign, that her body was physically rejecting the match. He made her happy, and he was nice to her; which was more than could be said for certain people.
It was subtle, in fact even she barely noticed it anymore, but she could tell by the look on Sirius's face that he had. He opened his mouth, almost certainly to point it out. But as he stared defiantly at her, all that stared back was a pleading look in her eyes. She shook her head ever so subtly, so that only he could have seen it. Every part of her body language seemed to be screaming out two words.
Please, don't.
And he didn't. Instead he stood up, and smiled airily at Sam.
"You're right, I am immature. I'm nowhere near mature enough to be in the library." And with that he left; tossing his hair over his shoulder as he walked past Madam Pince, who was looking sternly at him over her glasses.
"What's his problem?" Sam muttered, more to himself than to Aisling.
"Just ignore him, he's an eejit." Aisling said, running her hand up and down his arm in what she hoped was a soothing way.
"No seriously, we used to be mates. But ever since you and I..." There it was, the twitch again, but Sam didn't notice; he was too busy ranting about obnoxious Gryffindors with stupidly long hair.
"I mean what kind of man puts his hair in a ponytail?" He asked incredulously, looking at Aisling for agreement.
But she merely shrugged, not willing to admit to him that she very much liked the long hair. She nuzzled up to him, trying to ignore the twitching in her left eye.
"Did you want to go and play Quidditch then?" She asked.
"Nah, not really in the mood anymore." He mumbled, looking thunderous.
"Okay, that's fine."
She went to kiss him on the cheek. But he turned suddenly towards her and got her on the lips. Apparently the altercation with Sirius really had him het up, as he was soon kissing her in a way which would have been most embarrassing had Madam Pince decided to come around the corner of the bookshelves. After a few minutes, he broke away.
"Would you like to go somewhere a little more...private?" He asked her, his flushed cheeks and slightly heavy breathing indicating that he certainly would.
But with these words Aisling was forcefully reminded of something that someone else had said to her a couple of months ago, right after Gryffindor had won a Quidditch match.
"Actually I have to- erm..." She paused, thinking of an excuse. "I forgot, I promised Alice to help her with her Runes homework tonight."
She bit her lip nervously, she had always been a terrible liar.
"Okay, no problem." For a split second she saw doubt flicker across his handsome features, confirming that he wasn't at all convinced by her lie. "You want me to walk you up to your common room?"
"No, no I'm okay thanks. See you later."
She kissed him again, making sure she got his cheek this time.
"See you later." She repeated, and she swept her things into her bag before walking briskly out of the library; hiding her flushed cheeks from Madam Pince behind a mop of dark curls.
***
"Where the hell have you been?" Aisling demanded angrily, standing up from her armchair as Alice and Frank clambered through the portrait hole at around eleven o'clock that night.
"Ash!" Alice exclaimed, clearly startled. "What are you-"
"I need to talk to you." Aisling cut across her. "It's urgent."
She looked meaningfully at Frank, who raised both hands.
"Don't mind me." He said, backing away towards the boy's dorms. "I was just leaving."
"What was so urgent that you waited up for me?" Alice asked, trying (and failing) to flatten down her hair with her hands.
"It's- it's about Sam." Aisling said, awkwardly staring down at her feet. She wished she hadn't stood up now, as compared to Alice she was feeling especially gangly.
"Alright?" Alice looked at her sideways. "And why couldn't you talk to Lily about this?"
"You know how she is when we talk about boys, she just gets all upset because she hasn't had a boyfriend."
Aisling hadn't meant to say this and instantly felt guilty; although she wasn't wrong. Thankfully, when she looked up she saw that Alice appeared to agree with her, as she was nodding solemnly and sitting down on a sofa. Aisling collapsed into the seat next to her.
"So it's just that-"
"Before you say anything," Alice was the one to cut across Aisling this time. "Does this have anything to do with the fact that you don't actually like him and you're only with him because you feel like you should like him?"
Aisling stared at her, wide eyes blinking rapidly. Alice raised an eyebrow at her.
"Oh come on Ash, every time someone mentions that he's your boyfriend your eye twitches. See, it just did it!"
"He's not my-"
"Oh, come off it Aisling." Alice said sternly. Aisling started at Alice's use of her full name. "He is your boyfriend, or you're at least seeing each other. You go on dates, you kiss, you hold hands, neither of you are seeing anyone else. The fact that you're always to eager to deny it is just more evidence that you're not actually into him."
She paused for a second, looking at Aisling kindly.
"Frankly, I'm surprised it took you this long to realise it." She said. "Now, why don't you tell me everything?"
And Aisling did. from hers and Sirius' trip to the Room of Requirement and his radio silence afterwards, to the ball and the date in Hogsmeade with Sam. She even told her about the snog on the staircase a few weeks prior, though she averted her eyes at this bit, feeling ashamed. And when she was done Alice stared at her very hard for almost a full minute, Aisling swore she could hear the cogs turning in her friend's head. Finally, she spoke.
"I think you know what you have to do Ash. You just want me to tell you what to do so that it's easier."
Aisling nodded miserably.
"I have to end things with Sam, right?"
"Yes." Alice said, nodding firmly. "And you have to tell Lily all of this too, she may not understand it, but she's our best friend, and I know she'll be there for you."
"I know; I just feel like..."
"Yeah it's shit, but right now we should go to bed; it's really quite late." And the two girls traipsed up the stairs to the girls' dormitories.
"So, why were you and Frank out so late?" Aisling asked, eyeing Alice suspiciously.
Alice smiled back mischievously.
"You're not the only one who's figured out how to use the Room of Requirement Ash."
And although Aisling laughed, she couldn't ignore the heavy feeling in her stomach. She knew that tomorrow she would need to have a very difficult conversation, two if she counted the one with Lily. But, with any luck, one good thing might come out of it all.
Her eye might finally stop twitching.