Your fist flew across his cheek and caused his whole body to hit the floor.
It shook his whole existance as he tried to get up from the floor. His hands pushed him up but it was his core muscles that were too numb to make him lift himself up. He felt tingles everywhere. His toes slipped and he fell back on his face.
"Bloody hell." he cursed under his breath and could feel the iron on his tongue as the inside of his mouth started to bleed. His tooth was hanging by the nerve, agony causing his head to spin as he touched it with his tongue.
Healthy tooth, healthy nerve, abbhorent pain from the pulp of his tooth to the back of his head.
He knew you had a temper. He knew you would yell, shout and insult him. He knew you would seethe and snarl but what he didn't know about you that you would preger a hand instead of a wand. More than that, he didn't expect you to be a fighter.
Before he could look up, your lips were at the edge of his earlobes. He could feel the warmth radiating from them and then... then came the seethe. "Keep testing me, Black and a chipped tooth won't be the only thing you'll get."
He looked over his shoulder, blue fire burning resentment. It was a glare, a stare piercing acrimony throught your soul. Though his eyes were giving you a death penalty, his strenght was still numb from the pain.
You were gone. You were gone and he was on the floor where the rest of the students were gaping at the Gryffindor whose ego was chipped away, just as his tooth.
He felt someone's hands lift him up on his feet. He knew who it was. Who else but his best friend?
He leaned on him, as he always seemed to do as James held him up, as he always seemed to do. Remus was standing beside Peter, not really understanding what had happened, despite his fast thinking. And just like Remus, Peter couldn't do anything but stare as well.
Sirius didn't speak a word but when he could feel gaining his strength back, he walked on his own.
James didn't look at him any differently. He knew that this was not only Sirius' being beated by a girl. This was Sirius, the brave, cocky Gryffindor being beaten by a Ravenclaw. It was the house pride that made Sirius not speak a single word until he came into his room, grabbing an ice pack his way there and pressing it on his cheek.
If the professors found out, there wouldn't be just house points that would be taken away. There would be expulsion because Hogwarts does not tolerate violance and after he said to you, provoking you, taunting you... the least thing he expected was a punch straight in the jaw.
But why a punch? Why hand? Why not a wand?
You came from a respectful foreign family. Wealthy, traditional...just like him.
Or at least that was what he heard from other people... or was that what you told other people about.
A Ravenclaw...
The wheels in his head started to spin faster and faster. The tooth inside his mouth hanging from his nerve and stabbing the left shadow in his head.
"That's enough." He stood up, feeling a twirl of the room as he did. He grabbed a flossing string, wrapped it around a doorknob and the other around his tooth which caused him scowling like Remus on a full moon.
James stood by the door, holding the doorknob and trying to supress the excitment in his hidden smile. "Ready?"
Sirius could see the smile emerge into a beam. He smiled at his best friend and nodded. "I know you can't wait for it, you twat. Just do-"
James slammed the door and the tooth flew out, causing the whole room to spin into other dimensions and shapes until darkness fell upon him and he slammed face down on the floor.
For Sirius it was only a second before he opened his eyes and all of his friends were above him, James laughing with Peter meanwhile Remus tried to ignore the laughter in his throat. He wanted to come out as a worriesome, caring kid, just as he always did but it was only when Sirius opened his eyes that the laughter finally escaped his throat.
"Aw, Merlin." Sirius pressed his palm on the side of his head. "How long was I out?"
"Like a minute or so." Remus said, helping him to sit up.
"Thought I dropped dead for a second there." Sirius continued to rub the side of his head, his eyes in a terrible ache.
"Sirius Black, cause of death: toothache." Remus chuckled.
Sirius couldn't laugh though. As much as he would there was something still stuck in his head. No, not something. Someone.
"How much do we really know about (y/n)(y/l/n)?" he asked out of the blue, causing the other three to stop their laughter and stare at him.
"What?"
Sirius rubbed his pams over his eyes and tried opening them, seeing only black spots until the vision cleared. "I mean..." he blinked a few times, adjusting to the light. "How much do we know that she is actually from a wealthy, traditional, respectful foreign pureblood wizarding family? What if she's just a Muggleborn?"
"I mean... everybody knows her family."
"Do we? All we heard was what she told other people." Sirius continued and Remus wanted to object but those brain of his were quick to interfere and contemplate Sirius' words.
"Why are you so suddenly interested in her?" James started to tease. "Do I smell plotting?" he rubbed his hands together as his eyes sparkled with mischief.
"No but she knows. She knows about us and about Remus- I don't know how but she knows. She has the upper hand on us."
"But she hasn't told anybody." James countered.
"Yet." Sirius added. "We can't prank her, she's too smart for that and she knows far too much about us. I can't just let her humiliate me in front of everybody and make them think I'm going to be degraded by a Ravenclaw. I'm degraded enough as it is. A blood-traitor, being disowned by my cursed family. I can't handle more humiliation as well but if I know one thing about her. One dirty little secret, I can make all of that go away." Sirius was hopeful in his eyes, begging their friends to help him.
He knew how he sounded. He sounded pitiful and pathethic but he wanted to prove that he wasn't. He wasn't a shoe being tossed around, especially by a Ravenclaw like you. He just wasn't. He was so much more than you made him be today.
And he wasn't one of those boys to hit a woman. He couldn't do that. Not after what his father did to his mother, no matter how much she treated him and Regulus, he still knew that women shouldn't be hit.
But he wanted to hit you. Not physically. He wanted to hurt you like you hurt him today. He wanted to show you how it feels, hurting somebody's pride. Degrading, humiliating, embarrasing them... making them show everybody in their weakest form.
That's what he wanted to do.
He wanted to kill your pride and ego as you did to him.
"She's a Muggleborn." it was more of a statement than a theory.
"And she doesn't want anybody to know." Remus interfered, analyzing every detail in his head.
James let out a scoff, throwing his head back and hoping this was all just a joke. "You can't be ser-"
"Think about it, Prongs." Sirius cut in. "She used a hand. She didn't press her wand on my throat or threaten me- let alone hide away like usual wealthy pureblood spoiled rats do. You come from a pure blood line of family, Prongs. Would you use your hand, growing up in a wizarding family?"
"Or maybe you just pissed her-"
"Would you?" Sirius persisted. "I wouldn't, knowing all the spells and hexes I was thought as a kid, observing them on my parents. And the way she spoke to me about her family-"
"She'd be more accepted by the Slytherins and the Ravenclaws since they have the highest percentage of purebloods than Hufflepuff and Gryffindors. Like Sirius said, she's too smart. She knew excatly in her first year that if she said she was from a Muggleborn family, that she'd be degraded and embarrased, looked down on but if she said she came from a foreign pureblood family nobody has heard of, she'd be accepted easily." Remus interfered, his wheels spinning.
"Even if her family isn't pureblood, we don't have any proof and it's not our place. You know how I feel about this pureblood mania, Pads." James continued to look at his friends.
"I don't either but she knows about us, Prongs. She thinks she has the upper hand on us by knowing. It's excatly what makes her a bloody Ravenclaw. But if she knew about us knowing about her, we'd be the one who had the upper hand. "
"It's not fair."
"It is." Remus snapped. "I don't want anybody to know about me, Prongs. I could lose everything if she told. I could lose EVERYTHING." he now shared the same look as Sirius. "It is fair if we can have just as much power to ruin her as she has to ruin us. You wouldn't understand because you and Peter don't have any dark secrets like Sirius and I do. We have so much to lose." Remus pleaded with his tone of voice.
And there James was, the usual leader of the group wanting nothing more but be a sheep for once and be hidden in the background. His father tought him to be better than this but it was either all together or none at all.
So he gave in. All together.
"Fine. I'll pull some strings."
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Your finger slid down to the edge of the book and flipped the page. Your eyes travelled up the first line and continued to follow the words until you had to repeat the process.
It was an interesting book, something that could take your mind off things, those reality things. It's how books worked; they took you away into another worlds where your troubles and you didn't exist. There was only a tangled story that untangled itself so wonderfully towards the end.
A boy continued to watch you from the shadows of the bookshelf. His finger rested on the core of an old book, one his eyes hadn't landed on yet. They were soley focused on the girl behind the desk, her feet on the opposite chair in front of her. Her hair were in a low bun, strands falling out everywhere as it wasn't tightened enough to keep all of your hair in one bunch.
If he wouldn't know who you were and what you did, he would say you looked pretty normal to him. Or just pretty, normal was underrated when it came to you.
So his finger left the core of the unseen book and his feet moved in sync with his arms. He pulled the chair beside you and sat down, hazel eyes looking at you through his large spectacles.
You removed your eyes from the book and scanned his expression.
Something told you keep your guard up, everything else told you to relax.
"I know." he softened his smile, sighed as he locked his fingers together and leaned his elbows on his knees.
Your heart stopped, the book slipped through your fingers as they lost their senses. You panicked. "I- kno...know what excatly?" you stammered, your eyes flicking left and right to try and read him.
"I know who you are....where you come from..."
Your heart shattered. "I- how did you find out? Did Regulus tell you?" you continued to spill word after word.
He blinked a few times, leaning back in suprise. "Regulus knew?"
"He's the only person who knew. He's the only person who I told. He's the only way to finding it out-"
"But he's a Slytherin."
"Did he tell you?"
It was only a mix of questions and half-completed, confusing sentances.
Panic; it caused you to think too fast before time.
James sighed, rested his elbows on his knees all over again. He looked up, worry in his eyes. "You never meant to tell anybody about us, did you?"
Despite all the questions you wanted to hear at this moment, this was the last one. "No." you shook your head. "Whatever Black told you about me, Potter, I am not him. I wouldn't tell secrets that aren't mine to tell. His paranoid mind might think so but Lupin did nothing to hurt me. He even helped me and I would never be petty enough to spill his secret to get back at Black. A punch was enough, don't you think."
"Remus did nothing to hurt you, neither did Sirius." he continued to speak softly and calmly, something you would never expect from him.
"He didn't hurt me but he hurt the one person I loved. And by hurting him, he hurt me too." you said, keeping your guard up. "One thing I did was let him know what he did and for that I appologised. Whatever followed was his own fault."
James knew you spoke truthfully. Not only that, you spoke facts to which he did not want to admit. If he admitted it meant standing on your side and not Sirius and there was this thing called loyalty that he really hated in the moment.
He had to let himself think and he wasn't pressured by you when you noticed that. You let him think because from everything Black had done to you, James did absolute nothing but come here and talk. He talked to you instead of pulling a prank or attack you.
Yet he knew.... and now you knew he knew.
"How did you find out?" you asked, this time quietly and mirroring his position.
You avoided his gaze. Not because you were guilty or afraid, more or so because you didn't want to face the truth. You didn't want to know the truth that you force yourself to ignore and drown in other worlds; books.
"My dad... he knows these sorts of people who know stuff like this."
"And do they know?" you now looked directly into his eyes, to which he felt it hurt to say but relieved at the same time.
"No." was all he said. Quietly, shamefully even.
"Will they know?" you asked, your heart throbbing in your chest.
He looked up, then down at his hands. He contemplated it over and over in his head because that was what he tried to find out on his own, right now, in this moment.
"Because... because I beg you James and I never beg anybody for anything but I can go on my knees and beg you to never tell anybody about this." your voice started to quiver, tears gathering in your eyes as your hands covered his.
He looked up at you, noticing just how much power he did have over you with this information. It was more power than you ever did over Remus.
"Please, James." you tightened your grip around his hands and he could almost feel the squeeze of your heart in his hands.
And so he knew what he had to do; he opened his palms for you and took a hold of your hands. He smiled and kept them gently swinging. "It's our secret now." he gave you a child-like smile, eyes smiling as they saw you smile.
Overwhelmed, you jumped into his arms and tightened them around him like your life depended on it... which it felt like it did. His hands, surprised but still gentle wrapped themselves around you, him chuckling in your embrace. "Thank you." you mumbled into his shoulder and stayed like that for a while.
He felt the need to bring you closer to him, giving you the comfort you needed... reassuring you that he is not someone who would hurt you. "Just do me one favor, though." he mumbled back and you pulled away, looking at him worriedly.
"Which is?"
"Forgive him." he said, eyes frowning.
"I already did." you sat back and grinned. "Not the one to hold grudges."
"No, just one to throw some punches." he laughed and you laughed with him."What are you reading?"
And that was how everything really began.