Fun With Girls

"I'm bored. Bored, bored, bored." Sirius Black kicked Peter Pettigrew playfully.

"Give over, Sirius," Peter whined. "If I don't finish this Transfiguration essay by tomorrow, it'll be my second late one this term and old McGonagall will have my head on a stick."

"She's not that old," Sirius remarked thoughtfully. "She's not bad, in fact. Nice bit of stern teacher action could brighten my day."

"You wouldn't," exclaimed Remus Lupin, scandalised.

"I'd certainly consider it," Sirius replied, waggling his eyebrows. Remus shook his head in despair. "I'm bored enough to consider most things. I wish James would hurry up and finish with Lily."

"You don't really mean that."

"No, Remus, I don't. I just wish he'd spend time with us again. I know there are things he can do with Lily that he can't do with us but, well, she's a bit of a goody-goody. It can't be fun all the time."

Remus looked across the Common Room to a group of Gryffindor girls. "You know, if you actually tried talking to girls - getting your lips off theirs long enough for them to say something - you might find you can have fun with girls."

"Bet you you're wrong."

"Bet you I'm right."

"Bet you a Galleon."

"You're on - but you have to spend at least an hour a day with the same one or ones for a week, and you have to find them."

They shook hands. "You're a witness, Peter," Lupin announced. Peter nodded, grinning.

***

Girls, Sirius thought. Girls everywhere, and none of them actually want to spend time with me. The realisation had come as something of a shock. His Gryffindor housemates, used to his casual chat-ups, had decided that his newfound interest in all things feminine was merely a change of tactics, and just laughed him off. He had no hope of spending an hour with any of them, let alone seven hours.

Slytherins were out. There were some astonishingly pretty ones - Datura Bentley was both well-connected and had wonderful blonde hair - but they wouldn't even talk to him. Besides, too many of them were of his parents' and relations' mindset, and while Sirius knew spending time with them would be a sure way to win his bet, he didn't think deliberately choosing girls he would dislike was part of the agreement.

There were a few Ravenclaws he wouldn't mind talking to, he supposed. He'd been sitting in the Library watching them, and they seemed like a good bet. He was sitting there now, studying them from across the room.

"Why are you always on your own nowadays?"

He looked up in surprise. A brown-haired girl in a yellow scarf was whispering to him. Not only was her hair brown, her nose was snub, and freckled to boot. He looked at the spectacle case beside her books. A plain, speccy Hufflepuff. Not his idea of a good companion. "I need to win a bet. My friends think I can have fun with girls without kissing them. I'm not so sure."

She grinned. "You're not having fun with anyone right now."

"I can't find any girls," Sirius confessed. "Not ones who'll spend an hour with me."

She looked thoughtful. "Well, I'm meeting some friends in a few minutes. Why don't you come along? We've got a knitting club going, so you're sure to win that bet. You'll be bored stiff."

Sirius brightened. "You're on! Take me to knitting club. Oh, by the way - who are you?"

The girl looked slightly embarrassed. "Just call me Mel."

As they left the room, a Ravenclaw boy Sirius knew grabbed his arm. "Oh, Sirius - how could you? Melpomene Goyle? That's low." Sirius raised his chin defiantly, and marched after Mel.

"You'll have to come to our Common Room, I'm afraid," Mel told him. "But don't worry, I'll explain that you're with me."

"Won't your housemates mind?" Sirius couldn't imagine someone from another house being allowed to set foot on Gryffindor's hallowed - and slightly worn - scarlet carpets.

"Nah," said Mel, opening a door emblazoned with a badger. "Like I said, you're with me." She ushered him across the room. Sirius decided Hufflepuff's ground floor Common Room wasn't vastly different to Gryffindor's, colouring aside - and then Mel led him out on to the terrace. A little suntrap, the terrace had flowering plants in pots and cute metal patio furniture. A group of girls sat giggling and chatting, surrounded by balls of wool. On the table were pots of tea, scones and sandwiches. It was the girliest thing Sirius had ever seen, and it made him extremely uncomfortable. As one, the girls all turned to look at Sirius.

"This is Sirius," Mel announced. "He's here to learn about girls."

Oh hell, thought Sirius. One girl, one girl on her own, is easy to handle. Girls plural are a different matter. His stomach churning, he sat down beside Mel. Within minutes he'd been presented with tea and scones (the pale yellow china had a pretty black-and-white pattern around the edge) and needles and wool. This was going to be the hardest bet he'd ever won.

***

"You might as well hand me the Galleon now," Sirius told Remus over breakfast. James and Lily looked up.

"What's the bet?" James asked, forkful of sausage halting halfway to his mouth.

"Sirius has to spend time with girls without snogging them. Remus says he'll have fun. Sirius says he won't," Peter explained.

Lily smiled. Sirius groaned. "Come on, Moony, you're not going to make me spend the whole week with them."

"If you don't, the Galleon's mine," Remus told him.

"They made me knit," Sirius complained, and looked annoyed when James and Peter burst out laughing. "Oh yes, laugh. Very funny. But you see, I can't be having fun, and so you have to concede you've lost, Remus."

Remus just shook his head and kept grinning.

***

"I suppose you're going to take me to do embroidery today," Sirius grumbled to Mel.

"Nope, Gobstones." Mel handed him a worn bag containing her spares.

"Are you always into this many hobbies?"

"Yeah. My parents say I should learn to be a bit more exclusive in the company I keep, but where's the fun in that? Anyway, most of my house is the same."

"I bet your parents were hopping mad when you got sorted into Hufflepuff."

She nodded. "They love me really, though. They're used to it now. Have you played Gobstones before?"

"Only as a kid."

"You'll be fine. Hey, Emmaretta Borgin's playing today, and one of my housemates reckons she's got her eye on Evan Rosier. What do you think?"

"Rosier? But the bloke's an absolute arse!" Sirius couldn't believe his ears. Emmaretta wasn't the brightest girl around, but she was a beauty and could do better than Rosier. "What on earth does she see in him?"

"Well..."

***

"Knitting again, was it, Padfoot?" James teased over dinner.

"Gobstones, actually." Sirius looked proud of himself. "I won. And I found out that someone has a few secret admirers." He stared pointedly at Remus, who looked alarmed.

"Who? Who?" Peter begged eagerly.

"Can't say. Girl talk." Sirius sat back and folded his arms smugly. If he was going to spend five more days not having fun, he was going to make Remus pay at least a little for it, on top of the real payment of the Galleon. Although yesterday hadn't been that bad. He'd been startled to discover that girls seemed to talk about boys in the same way boys talked about girls. He'd imagined them being a little more shy and delicate, but they were possibly even worse. Did his younger brother even know he'd acquired the nickname 'Spottybot'? As for Roger 'Man-boobs' Abbott, it'd be months before he'd be able to look at him without sniggering, Sirius knew.

***

Book club followed Gobstones, Charms club followed Book club, and on Saturday Sirius was relieved to be playing Quidditch with Mel and her friends. They played for fun, and while he knew James would roar with laughter to see him, he enjoyed the game very much despite himself. He half-considered giving Lupin a Galleon on Saturday night, but realised that then he'd have no excuse to meet the Hufflepuffs on Sunday.

Mel was out by the Quidditch pitch when he found her on Sunday. It's odd, thought Sirius, as he walked to meet her. She still has that silly pug nose, and those dreadful specs, and she's going to be a Hufflepuff until she dies, but there's something very cute about Mel. In a plain and freckly sort of way. It's as though she's grown cute the longer I've known her, whereas with most girls it works the other way round.

"What-ho, Sirius!" she called. "I wasn't sure if your bet was done with."

"No, one more day to go. What club do you have today?" He sat beside her in the stands.

"None. I generally just doss around on Sundays. What about you?"

"Same, really." He shrugged.

"Are you going to give Lupin his Galleon, or are you going to tell him you had a dreadful time?"

Sirius thought about it. He could easily afford to give Remus the Galleon, and to be fair, he had won it. Sirius was having fun with girls without kissing them. He'd enjoyed their chatter. He'd enjoyed Mel's chatter in particular, her tales of the Goyle clan and gossip about her housemates. She made him laugh. "He gets the Galleon. I like spending time with girls. I mean, I don't think I'd drop all my friends for you, but you're a good pal. We could hang around sometimes, you know? We could meet up, talk, and have fun."

She glanced curiously at him. "I guess so."

Something occurred to Sirius. "Mel, we've been together every day this week. What was in it for you?"

Mel blushed. He was charmed by how it made her freckles disappear, then slowly reappear as her complexion returned to normal. "Ah, nothing."

"You did all this for nothing?"

"Yeah." The freckles did their vanishing act once more.

Tentatively, Sirius reached out and took her hand.

***

Sirius slapped the Galleon down on the table and helped himself to apple pie. "Remus, you win. Girls are fantastic. I love girls."

"You've missed most of dinner." Peter stated the obvious.

"I have eaten my words," Sirius proclaimed.

James tugged at Sirius' collar. "And someone has been eating you."

"Love bites!" Lupin was shocked. "You weren't supposed to snog any of them.

"Couldn't help it. I have discovered something only James knew up to now."

"What?"

"Good things. I learned that girls are wonderful to be friends with, as you said, and wonderful to snog, as I said, but they're even better when you do both. You should try it some time."

Remus shook his head. "You're terrible. You're just playing with that girl."

"Playing with her? Mel should be a Slytherin; I've never known such devious man-catching tactics. We need to get you a nice Hufflepuff, Moony; you wouldn't believe how friendly those girls can be. Amazingly so. A credit to the school, that house."

"Will you see her again?" Lily looked concerned. "She's a nice girl."

"Definitely! It's knitting club tomorrow, and I reckon I'm ready to start a scarf... What? What?"

Lupin twirled his Galleon, and everybody laid waste to the apple pie so they wouldn't all make fun of Sirius Black, brought low (for now, at least) by a freckled Hufflepuff temptress with a bag of Gobstones and some knitting needles.