The Seriousness of Sirius Potter

While Sirius was going through hell, Michael was the most relaxed he'd been in over a month. He had been happy when he was with Sirius but always being on the edge, sneaking around and hiding their relationship was nerve wracking. Now he was sitting by the lake with a whole gang of Gryffindors. They talked, joked and laughed in the hot sunshine.

As the afternoon went on, the group gradually split into pairs of boys and girls. Scott joined them at some point but Michael had no way of telling what he had just done. Scott's obnoxious and knowing smile just seemed normal.

Michael suddenly found that he was talking to Sally Hitchings, a Gryffindor girl in his year. He impressed her with his Quidditch talk while she laughed at his jokes. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that most of the pairs had started kissing, some were even heading off in various directions, hand in hand. Sally caught him looking at the others and smiled.

She rested her hand on his thigh, instantly bringing his attention back to her. This was a new feeling for him, a mixture of intrigue and anxiety. With Sirius it had all felt so natural, this was something completely different. She nodded towards a cluster of trees near the Dark Forest. Her smile grew ever more suggestive. Michael smiled weakly in return as she took him by the hand and pulled him up. Together they slowly walked over to the trees. Once they were out of sight, Michael turned to look at her. Even he could admit that she was a good looking girl.

"So, um..."

He was suddenly pushed roughly against a tree; Sally's tongue stopped any further feeble attempts at conversation. Her kiss was deep and it seemed only polite to kiss her back. Perhaps things were better this way, after all this was how everyone expected him to be, everyone except Sirius that is. She began grinding into him, applying as much pressure to his genitals as possible yet he felt nothing. A surge of panic rose up from his nether regions, instead of the feeling he should have been experiencing.

In desperation he put his hand under the opening of her blouse, trying frantically to find something of interest. His hands located her breasts. He assumed that the normal thing to do was to caress them. Michael couldn't see what the big appeal of these things was. They just felt weird and seriously overrated.

Her hands were equally busy but they were enjoying their work immensely. She had unzipped his fly and was gripping his penis gently. She waited with baited breath for him to take her skirt down. She was sure that he was teasing her, prolonging their moment. Still nothing, while she was getting excited he only became more bored. Out of panic and politeness he did his best to carry on the charade, kissing and fondling her until she finally came to realise what Michael had known from the start. Nothing she was doing was having any desirable effect on him. She stepped back awkwardly and stared at him uneasily. He couldn't look her in the face. He knew that he should never have let it go this far, it was a futile effort from the start. No matter how hard others wanted it, he couldn't change who he was. He didn't want to. He finally looked into her eyes. Blood filled his face instead of where she had wanted it to fill.

"I-I'm sorry," he muttered as he did his fly back up. "I can't explain ... there's ..."

"Someone else?" finished Sally. She seemed disappointed but understanding at the same time.

"Well, yes, in a manner of speaking... I'm sorry I misled you..." He started walking back up to the castle, leaving Sally alone. From the grass by the lake, Scott Finnigan shook his head, ignoring the Hufflepuff girl who was gratefully stroking his groin. He hadn't bothered to learn her name. Michael's strange behaviour could be a problem, especially as Scott was willing to keep the arrangement he had with Queerius.