Siriusly Deluded

Ch. 1: Projections

Sirius Black sighed as he dragged himself to Muggle Studies. It was only the third week of class and he was getting tired of it already. Why had he signed up for this class, again? Oh, yeah, he remembered now. He knew exactly how much it would piss off his muggle-hating family. Even though none of the other Marauders were taking it, just the thought of his mother's angry face might make the class bearable for the rest of the term.

He took his usual seat in the back of the room as the crazy old Professor Waters practically skipped down the aisle to the front of the room. 'Uh, oh,' Sirius thought to himself. 'This cannot be a good sign.'

Professor Waters happily greeted the class, and proceeded into a long speech about how we must understand what muggles have to do so we could appreciate our magical abilities, blah, blah, blah. Sirius rolled his eyes. He had heard this speech so many times; he probably could have gone up to the front of the class and recited it himself.

Suddenly he noticed that a pretty blonde Hufflepuff, Sara Barnes, had turned around in her seat and was staring right at him, smiling seductively. Sirius gave her a wink and a sly smirk, acknowledging her attention.

This little exchange was not lost on Lauren Walker, a petite seventh year Ravenclaw with shoulder-length brown hair and deep brown eyes. She rolled her eyes. 'What a dog,' she thought to herself. 'I guess it must physically hurt him to actually pay attention in class...'

"...And you will all complete a task that will help you to understand the privileges you have. Then you will write an essay about what you have learned and what responsibilities you have because of your advantage," Lauren heard the professor drone on. 'Wait a minute! He's not droning anymore! This isn't part of his usual speech!' she quickly realized, and decided to pay attention.

"You will be randomly assigned partners by drawing a number out of this hat. As there is an even number of students in this class, there will be no groups of three and there will be no switching partners. There is two of each number and the number corresponds to a specific task that I will give you once you have been partnered. Miss Walker, why don't you begin?"

Lauren was startled, still shocked at the way this class was going, but she gingerly reached into the hat and pulled out a slip of paper. "7," it read. 'Well, at least it's my favorite number,' she thought, 'that has to be a good sign.'

However, she waited and waited as thirteen of the other fifteen members of the class drew their numbers and moved next to their partners. Only Sirius Black and his flavor of the week remained. She watched warily as the blonde Hufflepuff reached into the hat and pulled out a number. She was very relieved when the girl didn't move towards her table.

So relieved, in fact, that she didn't notice that someone else had (unnecessarily) drawn from the hat, someone who had black hair that always fell into his crystal blue eyes and someone with the most gorgeous face at Hogwarts--none other than Sirius Black.

Suddenly, 7 was no longer Lauren's favorite number. This was not good. The last person--well, the second to the last person--she wanted to be partnered with was standing right next to her, looking down at her amusedly.

"Hey, Walker" he said softly, taking her by surprise. Geez, she had forgotten how it felt when Sirius Black looked at her. He gave her such unwavering attention that she felt like she was the only one in the world. It was a good feeling, to say the very least. Memories of her childhood flooded back to her as she properly heard the sound of his voice for the first time in the better part of ironically, seven years.

Yes, she and Sirius Black had been childhood friends. The children of two of the most respected pure-blooded wizarding families in Britain had been pushed together into a forced friendship very early in their lives. In fact, had in been about 200 years earlier, she and Sirius would have probably been betrothed to one another before they could even pronounce the word.

One could say that they had grown up together, but to her it seemed that she had grown up, while he had remained as childish as the first time they met. He knew how to get what he wanted, even back then, and he obviously was using that special ability of his to acquire new "prospects."

She remembered primary school (of course they were in the same class every year at the most prestigious school in the country) when he used to sit next to her. She remembered how much he had made her laugh, but also remembered how much he had laughed whenever he got a better grade than she did. It had always made her so mad. She worked hard and studied to get her good grades. Sirius would glance over her notes before the tests. And most of the time, she would only barely beat him.

Then she remembered those stupid balls they had both been forced to attend by their parents, apparently to learn the etiquette and dances a properly raised (a.k.a. spoiled) child from a wizarding family should know.

Like most girls, she loved getting dressed up in pretty gowns and feeling like a princess. However, she had known how much he hated it, and she liked seeing the overly confident boy unhappy. And she felt that somehow he knew about her satisfaction at his dismay, because he managed to step on her feet a lot more than expected from a boy with what the adults called "amazing" grace for his age. (He had smirked at her when he received that, what she felt was undue, praise).

She had noticed then, even as a ten year old girl, how annoyingly good looking he was. And then, and then there was that face he made when he wanted something. All he had to do was look at her with those puppy-dog eyes and she'd sigh and do whatever he wanted at the time. She almost always regretted it, since it usually involved some sort of prank.

She hated to admit it, but they had been best friends. He knew more about her than anyone else in the world. He knew her favorite color (blue, and not because Sirius' eyes were blue), her favorite ice cream (cookies and cream), and her favorite subject (Astronomy). But he also knew the things she wasn't so fond of, like heights and thunderstorms.

But something had happened when they had gone to Hogwarts. Contrary to what their parents wished, neither child had been sorted into Slytherin. They hadn't even been sorted into the same house at all. She had been placed into Ravenclaw, which was notorious for the most intelligent students. And Sirius had been placed in Gryffindor, whose students were known for their bravery, though it grew increasingly apparent that the more common trait of that year's Gryffindors was trouble-making. She had secretly been pleased when she had been placed in Ravenclaw, as he had always made it a point to compete with her over grades. But she had also been dismayed, because for the first time in her life, she wasn't going to be in all the same classes as Sirius.

But both moved on and matured over their seven years at Hogwarts, becoming two very different people. Never intentionally avoiding each other, that happened naturally for the first two years.

Then at the beginning of third year, one of Lauren's roommates had told her something over breakfast. Something about Sirius and...her. Only, no one seemed to be aware that it was about her. Actually, Lauren still didn't know what made her angrier and sadder, the fact that Sirius had obviously told someone, or the fact that she was now being referred to as "some girl" by all of her classmates.

She thought about that night again, for the first time in a long while. It might have been a dream, but she could have sworn...Regardless, that memory had been tainted by the fact that Sirius had told.

Her friendship with Sirius Black, which had already been slipping away, slowly but surely, had been smashed to pieces that morning.

Gradually their reputations were formed: his as the gorgeous, womanizing prankster; hers as the beautiful but untouchable brain.

And that was what she had come to accept. Until now, when he came crashing back into her life at warp speed.

These thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant, when she felt someone's (most likely his) gaze on her. She looked up at him and nodded to acknowledge his arrival as she murmured, "Black." He was giving her that same sly smirk that he had given that Hufflepuff girl. However, she was not impressed. No, she was not impressed at all by his perfect black hair that always fell seductively into his beautiful blue eyes framed by thick black lashes, nor his perfect nose, nor his perfectly straight, inhumanly white teeth, nor his sculpted cheekbones, or his tanned, chiseled...Luckily, she was pulled off of that dangerous train of thought by his laugh.

She blinked, and realized that Professor Waters was standing in front of them, ready to give them their crazy assignment. Apparently he had been waiting for her to return back to earth. She coughed, and then quickly apologized. She heard a snort beside her. A snort that would have been completely unattractive, had it been emitted by any other person than Sirius Black.

She finally looked expectantly at the professor, who handed them a piece of paper with the number seven written at the top. She quickly read the assignment, and almost laughed out loud when she finished. Apparently, Sirius had finished reading it before her, because he did not have the same restraint that she did. He was positively cracking up, right there in the middle of their Muggle Studies class, in their professor's face, no less!

She glared at him indignantly. It was all she could do to prevent herself from laughing, too. His laugh had always been contagious to her. And their assignment really was quite hilarious, in fact.

So once Sirius recovered, they discussed how in the world they were going to catch a fish from the lake on the Hogwart's grounds without using any magic, between his occasional fits of laughter, that is.

Lauren left class that day feeling very odd, very odd indeed. She had spent the last seven years of her life convincing herself that Sirius Black had the biggest head of anyone in the whole school. And maybe she wasn't wrong about that. But meanwhile she had overlooked something she realized was highly important: the fact that Sirius Black had the most attractive (albeit overlarge) head (and everything that was attached to it) in the whole school.

She shook her head furiously as she reached the entrance to the Ravenclaw dorms. 'He's still the biggest prat you've ever known,' she reminded herself.