Siriusly Deluded

Ch. 4: Delusions

On Monday, Lauren was sitting in her Potions class, taking notes. She had spent most of the weekend writing the Muggle Studies essay. It took much longer than she had anticipating, because every time she tried to work on it, her thoughts kept drifting...So, she hadn't read in preparation for her Potions lesson like she usually did.

She scribbled furiously with her quill:

Delusion Potion:
~Composition: wormwood, crushed poppy petals, liquefied pyrite
~Invented: in 1421
~Effects: Siri 'Why did I write that?' Serious and often life-threatening;
including uncharacteristic behavior and thoughts, loss of memory and
inhibitions, uncontrollable urges...

Those things seemed all too familiar to Lauren. She had...flirted?...with Sirius, and let him kiss her, and...liked it, all while forgetting what a prat he was...

"Merlin, am I in trouble," she muttered under her breath.

Severus Snape, who had been her Potions since second year (the professor partnered them based on their first year exam scores. Severus had earned full marks, while she was only one point behind), gave her a weird look.

She was still surprised that she had been able to survive the past six years with him as her partner. He was not exactly the easiest person to get along with, he never had been. She was really glad that, even though she was a Ravenclaw, she was a pureblooded witch. Severus at least tried to be civil to her, unlike the way he was with any muggleborns and the Gryffindors.

She tried to be more than civil back, but sometimes she just didn't have the patience. She felt sorry for him, because she knew he didn't have any friends. But, he didn't exactly give anyone the chance to get to know him, either.

She shot a venomous look back, as if challenging him to say something to her. He half-smiled, and she couldn't tell if he was making fun of her or if he was proud of her for being so rude. She kept glaring at him, and he looked a little scared before he turned back to his own parchment.

The rest of the class flew by. In no time, she was back in the Ravenclaw common room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Marauders had certainly noticed Sirius' odd behavior when he returned to the Gryffindor dormitory on Saturday. James had opened his mouth to ask Sirius about it when Remus had given him a sharp, warning look. James had reluctantly closed it. He figured Remus knew better than he did when it came to this kind of thing.

The whole time, Sirius had been thinking about what had happened. Initially, he had been floored by what had happened. And on top of that, he was wondering why he had been thinking so much about it. It wasn't all that important, really. Was it? 'He was Sirius Black, infamous Marauder. Every guy wanted to be him. Every girl wanted to be with him. And girls just don't turn down Sirius Black,' he thought. 'Sirius Black never had any serious feelings for girls. Sirius Black certainly never fell in love. It made people too vulnerable. Sirius Black...really needed to stop referring to himself in the third person.'

The rest of the weekend, Sirius went on as if nothing had happened. He attended the Gryffindor team's Quidditch practice (he was a beater, and a damn good one, if he said so himself. His secret was that he imagined one of his family member's faces on the Bludger...), he ate dinner with the Marauders, he listened to James complain about how much he hated being a head student with Lily Evans (Sirius rolled his eyes at this), he played wizard's chess with Remus (and lost thoroughly), but the Marauder's noticed that the confidence, charisma, and energy that Sirius usually exuded just wasn't there.

Well, at least it wasn't until Sirius woke up in a surprisingly good mood on Monday morning. He had that familiar gleam in his eye when he asked James, "Can I borrow your Invisibility Cloak later on?"

James had agreed warily, wondering just exactly what his recently out of character friend was planning on doing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey, Lauren?" a girl's voice called from the entrance of the Ravenclaw common room. "Yes," Lauren replied. "Someone outside wants to talk to you," came the response. Lauren was puzzled. Who would want to talk to her now? It was ten minutes until curfew. She sighed as she got up and asked the fifth year girl who was outside. "I dunno," came the response. Lauren was too busy wondering who it could be to notice that the girl was trying hard not to smile. After all, anybody (well at least any girl) would have known who was waiting outside for the Ravenclaw prefect.

Lauren cautiously exited the Ravenclaw common room and stepped into the hall. She looked to the right and didn't see anybody. She took another step forward and looked to the left.

Suddenly she felt one hand cover her mouth and an arm grab her around the waist. Caught unaware, she was easily pulled backward, into some sort of...cloak?

Once she recovered from the shock, she turned around to see none other than the gorgeous twinkling blue eyes of Sirius Black staring back at her. He grinned at her sheepishly as he removed the hand covering her mouth.

She gaped back at him. Then she realized how angry she was. He had scared the shit out of her, for apparently no good reason.

"What the hell are you doing, Black? It's almost time for curfew! What is this thing anyw--" she whispered acidly into his ear. Little did she know about the tingle that passed down the boy's spine at her closeness. It took a second for him to recover, and then he laid on his trademark charm as he reached his hand up and pressed his forefinger to her mouth, partly hoping to silence her, partly just to touch her lips.

"It's an Invisibility Cloak. And I just wanted to show you something," came his soft response as he looked at her with those puppy-dog eyes. She tore her gaze away from him, wondering if he knew that he was absolutely irresistible when he did that. Then she dismissed the thought. Of course he did, he was Sirius Black, the biggest flirt in all of Hogwarts. Then, as if pulled by a magnet, her eyes returned to his face once more, and she reluctantly nodded her assent.

He grabbed her hand as he led her down the corridor, up a few floors and down a couple more corridors. She couldn't remember if she'd ever been there before. The school looked much different at night than it did during class time. Sirius hadn't said a word since before they had left, and she wondered what was on his mind. Finally, they reached a door.

"Well, this is our stop," Sirius said as he grabbed the handle, pushed it down and opened the door ceremoniously. He watched her face as she looked into the room and was delighted when he saw her eyes widen in surprise.

She turned to face him, awestruck. "What is the place?" she finally breathed.

"It's a Room of Requirement. If you're walking by and you think really hard of something that you need, the door will appear and the room will become whatever you wanted it to be," Sirius replied, grinning.

"Do you care to explain your need for an indoor lake at Hogwarts?" Lauren responded incredulously. Of course, she suspected that she knew the answer, but they hadn't talked about what happened between them and she hoped that this might be the time that he would finally tell her what he felt.

"Er...well, I thought it was self-explanatory," Sirius responded quietly. Then he grabbed her hand, shut the door behind them, and pulled her to the boat that was waiting at the dock of the lake.

Lauren didn't know what time it was, but she was sure it was much past curfew. She and
Sirius had been laughing and joking for a long time, since he had somehow caught her off-guard, grabbing her by the waist as he stepped up to the edge of the boat and launched himself into the lake, carrying her along with him.

Currently, they were taking a break from splashing each other. Sirius had definitely proved that he was the stronger one, dunking her repeatedly while she couldn't even push him under the water a little bit. Well, she had dunked him once, but she could tell that he had let her.

Sirius had made the lake a lot shallower than its counterpart outside. In fact, it was just deep enough that his feet touched the bottom and only his head emerged out of the water.

Unfortunately, Lauren was a good eight inches shorter than Sirius, and she had been treading water during their water fight. Her legs were very tired, and she took advantage of the easiest solution to her problem. She tentatively wrapped her arms around Sirius' neck to hold herself up. She shivered as she felt his arm snake its way around her waist.

Now eye-level with him, she looked into his eyes, which she noticed were much darker than their usual crystal-clear blue. In fact, they matched the color of the lake, and even appeared to have the same turbulence in them.

She fought the biggest urge to kiss him, right then and there in the middle of the "lake" he had created.

But then she heard him sigh and felt herself being moved across the water, closer to the boat. He lifted her up and she grabbed onto the side, pulling herself up swiftly. He tried really, really hard not to stare at her body as she did so, but he was a guy, after all, and her soaking wet clothes were clinging to her very temptingly.

He deftly repeated her motions and stepped onto the boat. He noticed that she had lain down on the floor of the boat, 'Maybe to catch her breath?' He did the same, laying down only a few inches from her. He felt so content. This was one of the best times he'd ever had in his life. He was so comfortable that he felt like falling asleep right there.

Then he heard it. A timid, questioning voice said, "Sirius?" "Hmm," he mumbled in response, but then he realized something. Never, not once, in the past seven years had Lauren Walker ever called him by his first name. And frankly, it woke him up faster than that one time James had thrown cold water on his head. He grimaced at the memory, then pushed it out of his head.

"Yes...Lauren?" he ventured eagerly, turning onto his side so he was facing her.

She was still laying flat on her back as she said, "Well, I was just wondering..." and then her question trailed off into oblivion.

He stared back at her expectantly. This had to be important, or she wouldn't have called him Sirius. He wanted to know what it was. 'Patience is a virtue,' he scolded himself as he watched her pull herself up to a sitting position. He followed suit.

And he waited, and waited. 'Damn, this bloody patience thing sucks.'

Then finally he heard her begin to speak. She spoke so softly that he had to lean into her to hear what she was saying, so he couldn't watch her face as he listened.

"Umm, well, I was wondering...since you haven't...since we didn't...if you thought...if you weren't attracted to me?"

That was the most absurd statement he had ever heard in his entire life. He threw his head back in laughter. Was she kidding? Of course she had to know that not only was he attracted to her, but he thought she was the most beautiful person he had ever known!

Meanwhile, he didn't notice how quickly her head had dropped at his response.

Then another realization hit him--hard. He got the same feeling that he did when he took a Bludger to the stomach during that Quidditch practice when they wanted him to play Keeper.

She wasn't laughing.

'You bloody idiot!' he yelled at himself internally. 'How could she know that you felt that way about her? You never told her!'

He chanced a glance at her, but her face was buried in her knees. He scooted himself closer to her and lifted his hand to her face. He cupped her cheek and slowly tilted her face up so that he could stare into her chocolate brown eyes.

What he saw there made his heart break. They were full of tears threatening to spill over, but beyond the wall of tears, the pain in her eyes was obvious.

"How could you ever think that?" Sirius questioned gently as he looked into her face. She blinked, and the tears fell. He reached up his other hand, used the pads of his thumbs to wipe the tears away, and then cradled her face in his hands. He patiently awaited her reply.

The words came slowly, half whispered and half choked. "Well, you haven't tried to...to kiss me...or anything...and I've heard what the other girls say about you...and you never asked me out...and...I just thought...that maybe you weren't interested in me that way..." she trailed off again, carefully avoiding his eyes.

"You're right, I'm not interested in you in that way," he replied. He watched as her face fell and quickly added, "I'm interested in you in a different way." She finally looked up at him, expecting an explanation to his mysterious admission.

"All those other girls...I don't even know what I was doing. But with you...with you it's different. I've never felt this way before," Sirius responded, the first words that that came to his mind tumbling out of his mouth, even though they weren't exactly the best explanation of the way he felt.

"And besides, I did try to kiss you! Don't you remember? But you pushed me away and I thought I should take the hint," he recalled quickly, feeling more than slightly hurt at the memory as he removed his hands from her face.

Her voice was stronger now. "Of course I remember. It was...nice..." she trailed off, then looked up at him.

The look in his eyes gave her that twisty feeling in her stomach again. The one she kept getting every time he looked at her.

He couldn't take it any more. All this time, he thought he had been respecting her by resisting the urge to snog her silly, and now he knew that she had wanted it, too, just as much (well, at least he hoped that last part was true).

He gazed into her eyes as he reached forward and placed his hand on her cheek, stroking it lightly. He felt her hand reach up and cover his own. Somehow, he managed to tear his eyes away from hers and watched as he turned his hand over, intertwining his fingers with hers as he lowered their hands to the floor of the boat.

Then he raised his eyes to hers once more and leaned forward determinedly, concentrating hard in an attempt to memorize every detail of that moment. He saw her eyes flutter closed, and closed his own eyes as his lips touched hers gently.

It was tentative at first. He really did want to take it slow. Jumping into the hot and heavy stuff was what he usually did, but he had a feeling this was going to last longer than one night. In fact, it felt like they had all the time in the world...

However, he couldn't ignore the thrill that he felt as her unoccupied hand reached up to the back of his head, and as her fingers absentmindedly played with his hair.

He used his arm to pull her body closer to his, and he deepened the kiss, hoping that he could communicate all that he was feeling to her.

He felt her respond to him, and he knew that she had gotten the point.

But then she pulled away, and he couldn't help but feel some sadness at the action. He opened his eyes slowly, reluctant to allow the moment to end. As his eyes focused, he saw Lauren, smiling shyly back at him as she fruitlessly tried to push his hair out of his eyes. She quickly gave up, sliding her hand down to rest on his shoulder as he pressed his forehead to hers and released a shaky breath.

He heard her sigh, and lowered his body so he was lying on the deck of the boat, pulling her along with him so she was next to him. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she nestled into him, resting her head on his chest. His other arm reached across their bodies to gently trace her spine with his fingertips. He felt her shiver and instinctively pulled her closer (blissfully unaware of the fact that he was the cause of the shiver).

And that was how they fell asleep.