"Perfect." He grins, sitting back down and tugging me to sit next to him, "But Dean will be patrolling those hallways for the rest of the ride, I can assure you. So you're safest bet is to spend the journey with us. Plus, we don't want you backing out."
"Yeah, you know what? Forget the Crabbe thing, this'll be punishment enough," I say and he let's out a barking laugh.
"Come on, we're not so bad."
"You're pretty bad," I retort, leaning my back against the wall so I face Sirius directly, leaning my head against the frame behind me and closing my eyes.
"Woah. Did you get in a fight or something?" James suddenly asks, and I open my eyes just as Sirius grabs my hat from my head and everyone stares at my face.
"Hey, give that back," I say, trying to snatch my cover back from him only for him to hold it in his other hand. I lean across his body to reach it before my hand slips and I land on top of him. My nostrils fill with the sent of tobacco and vanilla, which must be his cologne and is very intoxicating.
"We just met and you're already all over me." He shakes his head as I get up, glaring at his smirk, "I guess I really do have that effect on girls."
"Bite me, Black," I growl as he shoves me away easily with his arm and puts my hat on his own hair.
"Tell me where."
I glare at him as James laughs and I give up on trying to get my hat back, just leaning back again and crossing my arms in annoyance.
"Aw, has anyone ever told you you're adorable when you're angry?" Sirius speaks in a baby voice and scrunches his face up at me.
"Has anyone ever told you you look like shit with a broken nose?" I ask sweetly and he shrugs.
"Never had a broken nose."
"Want me to change that for you?" I ask and he grins.
"Oh, feisty are you?" He winks at me, "I like 'em better that way."
"Oh shoot." I pout in disappointment, "It's too bad I don't like 'em as slimy gits, or else we'd be perfect for each other."
Sirius has no comeback, and James laughs again at the banter that we share.
"This is better than a good Quidditch match." He grins.
"So what really happened to your face then?" Sirius asks me, his eyes narrowed.
I just shrug, "I got into a fight. What else?"
"With who?"
I quickly form a lie in my head, "Well my dad is a Muggle, and he owns this shop, and this guy came in and tried to rob it. I was trained in karate when I was younger, which is like this fighting style, and so I fought him."
"No way," James says, clearly impressed, "really?"
"Yes way." I grin at all of their shocked and awed faces, except for Sirius, who just stares at me blankly. I try to ignore the fact that maybe he sees right through my lie. Oh well, I'll never talk to them again, so what does it matter if they believe me or not?
So I let myself go into an elaborate, made up story on how I beat up the guy, and they all listen intently, Peter gasping at some especially dramatic parts and James pressing a hand over his mouth to shush him while he leans closer and closer in his seat. They're all staring at me, but I can't help but feel like Sirius is staring at me in a different way. So I avoid his eye contact, speaking mostly to the other three.
For the next five hours of ride, I make small talk with the boys, learning mostly about their pranking experience and listening to James and Sirius tell their own stories. I end up laughing really hard with them all, and I can't help but feel angry that I'm not in their house, because I feel like if I was, we'd all be good friends.
The time flies exceptionally fast, and when the announcer tells us we're half an hour away and people should start getting into their robes, I almost gasp. Here I was expecting to be dying of boredom in a compartment full of Slytherins, and now I barely even realized that five hours have gone by with this odd group of Gryffindors. All we had been doing was talking and playing the occasional game, along with telling jokes that made us all laugh hysterically. It sort of hurts to know that after this, we'll never speak again.
Nevertheless, I stand up and check the hallways, seeing no sign of Dean and slipping back into my Slytherin compartment.
"Cassidy, there you are," Charles says, "Where have you been?"
I shrug, "I put off some fire crackers and now I'm in trouble with the Head Boy. I had to camp out a bit."
"Dean the Head Boy?" Mandy asks, "God he's so hot."
She begins ranting about his perfect face, and I take that as my cue to grab my robes and leave, slipping into the bathroom to change before putting my clothes into my trunk and heading back to the Marauder's compartment. I enter to see them all changed and ready, and Sirius puts a hand on my shoulder, a smug smirk on his face.
"Are you ready for the kiss of a lifetime?" He asks me, and I groan.
"Don't remind me."
Soon we're pulling into Hogsmeade station, and we exit with the crowd, landing on the platform and searching for any sign of Crabbe.
"Well, I guess he's not here. Darn, that's really too bad—"
"I see him." James points to the bobbing buzz cut of Hector Crabbe, and I shake my head.
"Nope. Not him. That's just a large rock." I peer at his face, "You sure those glasses are the right prescription, Potter?"
Sirius grabs my wrist and leads me through the crowd, a grin on his face as he breaks into the clearing, where Crabbe has stopped to speak with another boy. I tug on Sirius's hold, and he looks back at me.
"We had a deal, Milton." He puts on a serious face, but I see through it, "Do you really wanna be another slimy Slytherin?"
He's right, I don't, but I just groan, "That would make things a lot easier, wouldn't it?"
I tug my hand out of his arm and walk over to Crabbe, standing behind him and turning to curtsey at the Marauders before tapping on the lug's shoulder.
He turns around, and I smile at him sweetly, feeling queasy inside.
"Hector, you look very handsome."
I hear barking laughter not six feet away as Crabbe narrows his eyes.
"I was wondering if you—"
"Miltonnnnnnn!" I hear a low shout, and then I'm tackled by two boys. One of them my brother and the other his closest friend, Marcus, who's a Gryffindor kid. Josh really tried hard to not be friends with him, but after a while they just clicked too hard, and even if Joshua is a Slytherin, he makes an exception for him.
Marcus swings me over his shoulder, and I squeak in surprise, looking at Crabbe and then the Marauders, who are now laughing at my added misfortune.
"Marcus!" I shout, "Put me down!"
"Milton! Milton! Milton!" He chants as he begins sprinting down to the lake, where the first years take boats up to the castle. My eyes widen in realization.
"Marcus! No! Do not throw me in the laaaAAAAAGH!"
There's a splash as I make contact with the water, the cold consuming me as I'm submerged in the liquid. I resurface in time to see my brother high five Marcus and sprint away, laughing. I swear after them, but it's no use, and I groan in frustration.
I begin to shiver as I swim over to the dock and try to hoist myself up, failing miserably and wading water as best as I can in my heavy robes.
Suddenly, a hand appears in front of my face, and I glance up to see a grinning Sirius offering me help. I gratefully take it as my teeth chatter, and he easily tugs me out and to my feet, my lips already turning blue.
"D-d-do I s-still have t-to k-k-kiss C-Crabbe?" I stutter, hugging my freezing clothes closer to my body as Sirius laughs again, dragging me over to James, Remus, and Peter.
"I think you got what you had coming to you," he says, a hand on my shoulder as he leads me to the carriage. I shiver shamelessly, my face numb as I rub up and down my arms. Sirius eyes me before sighing and pulling off my robes, putting his on me instead.
"Th-thanks," I mumble as we walk, and he nods. The rest of the Marauders walk a bit ahead, James still chuckling lightly at what happened.
"So what really happened to your face?" Sirius asks me lowly, and I frown up at him.
"W-what do you mean?"
"Well, my family is a long line of Slytherin pure bloods." He shrugs, "I know that the Miltons are too. Your dad isn't a Muggle, and he doesn't own a shop."
I stare at him in realization. The Black family and the Milton family go back to the same time, so I should've known he'd catch my lie.
"Fine, you caught me." I just shrug, "I got mugged. I thought that it'd sound cooler if I told people I fought off the guy that robbed my dad's store."
I wink at him to sell my lie, and it works easily. He laughs and shakes his head as I put out my pinky.
"Promise you won't tell the others?" I ask, a grin on my face.
"Promise," he says, linking his pinky with mine as he helps me into the Thestral drawn carriage, sitting me down between him and James. Somehow, his arm ends up around me, rubbing up and down my shoulder to keep me warm. I find that I don't mind, letting him try and heat me up as we all ride up to Hogwarts.
I glance down at the Gryffindor emblem that's now on my chest and sigh. If only I was in this house, but the Marauders have a reputation to withhold, and I have to respect that.
So I tug off his robes and lightly remove his hand from my shoulder, giving him back his clothes and putting my soaking wet ones on as we reach the castle.
Sirius says nothing to protest as we head up the steps and into the front entrance, stopping once we reach the doors to the Great Hall.
"Look at all the Ickle Firsties," James says, nodding at the group of eleven year olds that are walking in slowly, looking around in awe. I smile at them, recognizing a few from the train station and chuckling to myself.
"Hey you lot!" I say at them, "Try to make the sorting quick, I'm starving, yeah?"
They look at each other as the Marauders laugh, and I turn back to them with a grin before it falters as I watch a Gryffindor girl waltz up to Sirius and peck him on the cheek. She's blonde and wears her uniform so that the skirt is pulled up too high and her shirt is tied into a cropped format.
He glances down at her as she smiles seductively, and I almost roll my eyes.
Marlene McKinnon. She and Sirius Black have been on and off since third year, mainly just together for the hookups. She also gets with basically everyone in our year. One time I caught her in the Slytherin Common Room with a boy, which is highly forbidden. I don't know what it is about her, but she rubs me the wrong way.
"Hey Sirius," she says coyly, sporting a face of make up, "Who's this?"
Sirius glances at me as he slings an arm across Marlene's shoulders and shrugs, his expression so quickly changing from amusement to nonchalance as he looks me up and down with a bored expression.
"Just some Slytherin chick." He shrugs, "Trying to get with me."
I almost let my mouth fall open in shock, and a light laugh of disbelief escapes my lips. I expect him to say he's kidding, but as I look between his lazy expression, James's smug smirk, and Remus's apologetic look, I realize this is where it ends.
"Did you tell her you're taken?" Marlene purrs, eyeing me as she kisses Sirius's jaw.
"I tried to." He shrugs, looking away from me to glance at the girl on his side, "She wouldn't give in."
Marlene pouts at me, "Sorry, girlie. Maybe stick to your own house."
"Right." I nod, "Like you did last year with Zacharis Jones?"
Anger flashes behind her eyes as James laughs, earning a smack to the head from Sirius.
"You'd better watch your back." She glares at me as I cross my arms and smile slyly.
"And you'd better stop spending so much time on yours," I retort, earning a snort from James as Remus and Sirius cover their smiles.
Marlene gapes as if offended, and looks up at Sirius, "Babe! Aren't you gonna back me up?"
He blinks in confusion, and I smile fakely at him before looking back at Marlene, "Forgive him, it seems he's choking on his own tongue rather than yours."
With that, I wave them goodbye, high-fiving James behind the others' backs and winking at Remus. Marlene scoffs and insults me as I leave, but I'm already gone, heading into the Great Hall and wringing out my sleeves. I eye the Slytherin table with disdain, trudging to my seat next to Charles and Mandy.
Immediately I'm engaged in shit talk, and this time, I join in, as the subject is Marlene McKinnon, and boy do I have some names to call her.
Eventually, the Sorting begins, and silence falls over the Great Hall as my anger slips away and I try not to look over at the Gryffindor table, where four pairs of eyes are avoiding me adamantly.