Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You've got troubles, and I've got 'em, too,
There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you,
We stick together and we see it through,
'Cause you've got a friend in me.

"You've Got A Friend In Me", Randy Newman

If there was anything she hated more than she did her sister’s ability to whisper-call her a freak without her parents – being in the same room even – overhearing, it was the sight of the two Gryffindor boys – the banes of her existence – standing just outside McGonagall’s classroom. One’s presence was valid, the other’s aggravating and – she didn’t doubt this for a second – orchestrated so as to maximize her trauma. She was about to serve, after all, her first ever detention and if she knew anything about the two classmates that were waiting for her, it was that they had mastered the skill of gloating, had practically turned it into an art form.

“Please don’t make things worse,” one of them - the 15-year-old bespectacled wizard - begged the other. His hand tugged at the curls on top of his head, while he looked at his friend with a degree of most uncharacteristic solemnity. “If I’m to have any chance whatsoever, I –”

“Evans!” Sirius Black, wearing a positively shit-eating grin, exclaimed. Potter – for some reason or other, she couldn’t fathom it being out of any sort of embarrassment related to his causing her to get stuck in detention with his best friend – flushed, his mouth pressed into a thin line now. “How lovely to see you! You seem even more foul-tempered than usual, may I add.” Black included the latter as if it was a compliment of the highest order and not the clear insult she knew it to be.

“Funny, Black,” she rolled her eyes at him, halting just a few steps away from them. Then, turning her head towards his best friend, eyes narrowed, she asked: "What are you doing here anyway?"

"I'm just -" Potter started, but Black was soon to interrupt.

"Moral support, Evans," he spoke. "That's what real friends do, you know. Not that you would have a clue about that given your choice of them."

It was her turn to blush now, her nostrils flaring as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Wouldn't a real friend make sure you stayed out of trouble, rather than pushing you towards it?" She challenged the both of them. "I'm not sure if yours would be the friendship I wanted if this is your idea of what loyalty means."

"That makes three of us then. I would rather die than be friends with that grease stain," Black snipped back.

Before, however, she - or Potter, seeing as he'd opened his mouth at the same time she had - could respond, the door to McGonagall's classroom opened to reveal their Head of House, the look on her face one that she reserved for troublemakers such as Black and Potter and which thus made her - Prefect and proud goody-two-shoes - shrink as their Professor aimed it at her too. 

"Miss Evans, Mr Black," she spoke, tone clipped, "please do come in." Her eyes fell on Potter then, eyebrows raising only slightly to indicate her acknowledgement of his presence. "Although I appreciate your eagerness to spend time inside my classroom, I believe you weren't asked to join either of your Gryffindor classmates, were you, Potter? Not today, that is."

"No," the boy next to Black muttered. She had never seen him this flustered before and raised her eyebrows in surprise when he leaned towards Black to whisper: "Behave, all right? Remember what I said, do it for me -" 

"Mr Black and Miss Evans, if you'd follow me -"

They did and, of course, she was the first to trail McGonagall inside, looking over her shoulder to see Potter and Black engage in some sort of silent and rather intense - by the looks of it - conversation, before the latter followed their Professor too, door closing behind him as the two of them made their way over to where their Head of House sat down at her desk. 

"I am most disappointed in the two of you," their Scottish Professor spoke, looking at the pair of them over the rim of her wire-framed glasses. Her words - where Lily was concerned - given all the more power due to the fact that she looked unhappy too and did not just sound it. "Two of the brightest in the entirety of Hogwarts' Fourth Year, two Gryffindors to boot!" She eyed the pair of them sternly, something which was far more effective than any words she might use. "One would think that the pair of you might one day get over your petty squabbling."

"It wasn't me, Professor," Black spoke, feigning innocence as he placed a hand over his heart. "If Evans here hadn't made such a fuss over me turning Snape's ink bottle into a shampoo one, we wouldn't be here. James, you see, thinks that Evans is all right just because she's a Gryffindor -" Lily snorted here and rolled her eyes. "I, of course," Black continued, "see her for the wannabe slithering snake that she is..."

She opened her mouth in clear affront, but McGonagall shut the pair of them down before she could so much as begin to defend herself. "That's quite enough, Mr Black. I think you would be wise to spend your energy on something other than that sharp tongue of yours. You ll find that it will save you many a detention if you do."

He feigned the hurt he so dramatically felt. "But, Minnie, wouldn't you miss me?"

"I think, Mr Black, that you truly overestimate your indispensability."

"Whatever that might mean," Black grinned from beside Lily, "what would you like Evans and I to do then? Write lines? Grade First Year papers? Get along? Though, mind you, the latter might be truly impossible as long as she willingly spends time with the enemy -"

Again, she rolled her eyes, while her Professor sent him a look that spelled out exactly how unimpressed with him she was. "I stopped believing in miracles a long time ago, Mr Black. No battle is ever won overnight, you see." Then she got up from her seat, dusted off her robes. "While I teach the subject, I have found that it is often impossible to truly transfigure a person's morals and beliefs." She pointed to two desks on opposite ends of the room. "I do think, however, that it is a most interesting subject matter and would like the two of you to write me an essay about the unchangeability, yet flexibility of the human heart -"

"What?" Black guffawed. "But that's not even about magic -"

"I reckon, Mr Black, that you could learn a thing or two about how Muggles would solve their problems. Perhaps you and Miss Evans will refrain from hexing one another and turning each other's hair every colour of the very rainbow next time when you do."

Black grumbled, while Lily - ever the good girl and determined to show her Head of House how repentant she was (and she was, she just thought that Black had deserved it too) - made her way over to the desk she had been assigned, sitting down, taking a quill out of her back and dipping it in the inkwell, ready to start writing the assignment their Professor had given them. She paid no attention to Black, who complained something awful, said he'd rather scrub owl faeces than write something as useless as this, but their Professor did not budge. 

It was a good ten minutes later - McGonagall had left after scolding Black one final time, warning him that he better write the best essay he had ever given her for the next hour or she'd double his time - when her housemate spoke up: "How is it possible for you to be such a swot, Evans? Don't you ever get tired of it? You even try hard in detention," he clucked his tongue. "Or are you so used to boring yourself to tears that you have become immune?" She didn't so much as look up at him, firmly ignored him as she kept on writing. This, to his great annoyance as he called out: "Hello! Earth to Evans!"

She scoffed. "Is this why Potter was here just now? Do you suffer from separation anxiety or a constant lack of attention that only he can cure?"

"Why do you care why Prongs was here earlier?" Black lifted his feet, put them up on the desk he was sat at, leaned back in his seat, front legs lifting, which made him look - rather unfortunately for her, seeing as it was painful to admit - like the epitome of cool. 

"I don't, actually," she spoke, tilting her chin defiantly. "I was just making an observation -"

"Uh-huh," his smile was one that told her he was mocking her and the cruelty behind it - or so she interpreted it - made her skin crawl, "sounds to me like you're as obsessed with him as he is with you."

"He's not obsessed -"

"Who actually knows him? You or me?"

She felt very warm all of a sudden, Mary's most unwelcome words two weeks ago - "Potter fancies you, it's blatantly obvious" - poking through where she had buried them, never to be considered again if it were up to her. It seemed, however, that Sirius Black was set on torturing her in any way possible. She put her quill down. 

"I reckon it's you," she told him, "not that I have any desire to get to know him -" Black arched his eyebrow, eyed her sceptically. This only caused her blush to intensify. "I don't," she was quick to tell him, risking a sense of desperation shining through, but hoping that she succeeded in hiding it from him. "If anything, I wish he'd leave me alone. If it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't have been here in the first place. He insists on tormenting Sev -"

"So, what? Prongs is just supposed to take the batshit your boyfriend throws at him?"

"Sev is not my boyfriend," she spoke, embarrassed all of a sudden, while also trying to beat down the guilt she felt at the way she had been so quick to deny it.

"Good to know, that'll significantly improve my best friend's mood. The dorm has not been a happy place ever since you rose to Snivellus' defence earlier today."

She decided to ignore this - it was far easier, she found, to pretend Potter's infatuation was something she was oblivious about and immune to - picking her quill back up and returning to the essay at hand. The other Gryffindor, surprisingly, did the same before he continued: "You need better friends, Evans," he stated this as if it were a fact, one that was universally known and agreed upon. "If you're ever looking for new ones, you might want to consider me."

"You?" She wrinkled her nose. "What in Merlin's name do we have in common?"

Black cocked his head, eyed her carefully before simply answering: "I bet we share a lot more than what we don't."

She pursed her lips, fuming. Who was he to tell her they were similar in the first place? They couldn't be more different, were like night and day. When other people thought of the two of them, they would wonder how they had ever ended up being in the same house, she was sure. What the hell did he see in her that made him go: "You know what, we're practically the same people, Evans and I." She sniffed, puffed out her chest and flipped some of her hair over her shoulder in an attempt to appear unaffected: "We share absolutely nothing other than our Hogwarts House, Black."

The boy in question looked up at her, a slow smirk spreading up his cheeks. "That's the thing, though, Evans. Us both being Gryffindors means that you and I share far more than your so-called bestie and yourself do."

She decided to ignore him for the rest of the evening. This - she found - was always the best course of action where he and his best friend were involved.

The next day, she and Severus had gotten into a fight - Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew being the usual catalyst to their argument - which saw her leaving the table they had sat at together. She had only just made it to a new one, where she spread out all her books and arranged them in such a way that it ensured most effective study time - she had tried and tested her methods successfully for years - when a piece of parchment fluttered through the air, flying its way over to her. Curious, she grabbed it and opened the folded paper to read it:

You've got a friend in me, Evans.

She looked up, eyes finding the culprit nearly instantly and then - with a flourish - wrote down her near split-second reply:

Kindly fuck off, Black.

She would be lying if she said that the snorted laughter that escaped him as he read her message, didn't make her bite back a smile or force her to bury that little tinge of pleasure that made her feel almost triumphant. Making Sirius Black a friend would be the worst decision she could ever so much as consider, that much she knew.

Chapter Text

You've got troubles, and I've got 'em, too,
There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you,
We stick together and we see it through,
'Cause you've got a friend in me.

"You've Got A Friend In Me", Randy Newman

“I told you, Evans,” said Sirius Black, looking far too pleased with himself as she shoved a piece of Cauldron Cake - in clear defiance of that other Evans-soon-to-be-Dursley sister who would gasp at her audacity - into her mouth, “you’ve got a friend in me. Come rain, come shine, I’m your wizard.” She rolled her eyes, her mouth too full still to properly reply. Black, however, was happy to oblige where she wouldn’t: “I know, I know… kindly fuck off, Black.”

She swallowed, shaking her head. “Actually, I’m far more inclined to say kindly fuck off, Petunia today.”

“Who names their child that, anyway?” He scoffed, stilling a second later, but not out of the shame one might expect. Rather, it was a contemplative realization he seemed to have come to. “Except for your parents, of course, who fully redeemed themselves by giving you a far superior name. Although I reckon the flower theme was a bit overkill.”

“Says the Pure-blooded wizard named Sirius Orion after the stars up in the night sky -“

“A prophecy, really. I never knew my parents to be anything but awful, but hey… they figured out that I’d be so incredible to warrant being written in the stars.” He crinkled his nose, though, when she rolled her eyes and repeated his full name a second time, scolding him gently for his sheer arrogance. “You know I hate it when you say my name like you’re a much less frigid version of my own mother..” 

“Well, tough luck, Black,” she told him, infinitely pleased with herself, shoving the bit of Cauldron Cake that was left towards him as a piece offering. “Yet, humbly receive my peace offering -“

“I gave that to you to eat your sorrow away,” he said, shaking his head. “Besides, Prongs will kill me. He’s put all of us on a strict diet with the Slytherin match coming up. Something about us needing to be nimble -“ he pulled a face here “- in the air or something. I stopped listening halfway through his speech.” So did she where his was concerned, in all honesty. The mention of his best friend making her stomach churn. “You know what he’s like.” 

She did, yes. She’d rather not spend too much time thinking about how she knew what he was like either. It did things to her that she would much rather pretend did not exist. Especially after what had happened a year ago at the end of Fifth Year. She had only properly forgiven him for it - meaning that they had talked about it and he had apologized and she had realized that holding on to one’s anger couldn’t possibly be beneficial to one’s health or overall happiness - some three months ago. It definitely didn’t sting that only three weeks after that rather heartfelt conversation they’d had - clear progress in her mind and validation of the fluttering her stomach did whenever he was near in even the worst of times between them - Potter had started dating Ravenclaw Quidditch darling and Head Girl Emmeline Vance. 

He was, of course, allowed to do whatever he wanted with whomever he’d like. She definitely couldn’t fault him for preferring Vance over her after all that had transpired between them in the past. She would even go so far as to say good for him if pressed to respond. She did genuinely like Emmie after all and she had - quite obviously so to her, but she hoped not so much to anyone else - a soft spot for Potter too. 

This was, however, a story for another day and seeing as Sirius Black was impossible to ignore - something she was most grateful for in this instance - she managed to leave her pining of the romantic sort behind. 

“It’s official then,” she said, leaning back in her chair, “he has taken one too many Bludgers to the head…” Ironically, it had been Emmeline Vance who’d managed to practically fracture his skull in the last match. The Head Girl had been so appalled that she had spent the entirety of the Sunday waiting for him to regain consciousness. Apparently - and she had had to take Sirius’ word for it - Vance’s holding his hand and her clear concern, had done things to his ego. 

“He says there is Muggle science behind it, actually,” the handsome 17-year-old shrugged. “You would know more about that than I do, of course.” He eyed her expectantly, as he did whenever a so-called Muggle topic came up. This time - much like others - she could not satisfy his curiousity, however.

“My knowledge of Muggle science is shockingly lacking when you take into account that I’m Muggleborn,” she confessed, shrugging helplessly. “My being whisked off to a school for witchcraft and wizardry saw to it that my knowledge of the Muggle world barely exceeded that of an 11-year-old.” 

“Huh," Sirius clucked his tongue, "would you look at that, Prongs is more of a swot than even you are, it seems,” he shook his head in mock disappointment. “I blame his lonely childhood. Do you know the bugger actually likes to read?”

She didn’t know what Black expected her to say here, wondered whether she was supposed to ignore the clear fondness that dripped off his every syllable when he spoke of Potter. She better, truly, but not for his sake. Her own sanity was truly at stake here.

“A cardinal sin,” she answered in full agreement, so as to avoid any further discussion of his best friend. Then – eager to change the subject – she nudged the side of his leg with her socked foot, deciding on a less self-destructing topic of conversation now that she had the chance to. “Anyway, were you serious earlier?”

He cocked his eyebrow, wolfish grin pulling at his lips. “I’m always Siri –”

“Oh, shut up!” She tried her very best to seem cross with him, but - rolling her eyes - she snorted with laughter, even though that joke was a favourite of his and she'd fallen into the same trap time and time again. “You know what I meant.”

“I do, yeah,” he replied, pulling her feet into his lap and patting her shin with a definitive and firm hand, “and I was, by the way. I’d love to crash your sister’s wedding as your plus one.”

“It’s not crashing when you’re invited.”

“Well, don’t invite me then.”

She grinned at him, entirely grateful that – after all the years of animosity between them – she had befriended this goof and considered him one of her best friends now even. He understood what no one else did and it was such a relief to have someone to talk to when it came to her family woes. It weighed heavily on her, was something that embarrassed her too. Sirius Black - of all people - got that.

“I’ll wear one of those Muggle robes,” he spoke, unaware of her inner musings. “What are they called again? The ones that James Bond wears in the movies –”

“A tuxedo,” she told him, thinking to herself that he would certainly be a sight for sore eyes in the midst of all those Dursley family members. She knew for certain that Petunia’s bridesmaids would trip all over themselves to get a good look at him. The thought alone made her feel triumphant, made her want to - she had learned from the very best in this instance - gloat as her sister's mouth dropped open in absolute shock that she had managed to not just bring a date, but a terribly handsome one at that. Petunia need not know, of course, that their date was as platonic as could be.

“That, yes,” Sirius nodded, face contemplative as he muttered: “Effie will help me find one, I’m sure. She's got rather impeccable taste.”

“What will mum help you find?”

The sound of his voice - unexpected, really, she thought he'd gone off with his girlfriend - caused her to stiffen, a fact she hoped he wasn't aware of.

“I’m going to crash Evans’ sister’s wedding,” Sirius informed his best friend happily. “I’ll have to wear a tuxedo for it. You know, one like James Bond.”

Potter frowned slightly, concern marring his forehead. “Wait... that's not a weapon, isn't it?" 

“It’s robes that Muggles would wear to a wedding,” she answered for Sirius, not quite meeting Potter's eye, despite the fact that she could feel his gaze settle on her person. “Bow tie and all."

“Is the license to kill included with the suit, by the way?” Asked Sirius, making finger guns and aiming them at his best friend, making soft gunshot noises with his mouth. “Watch out, Prongs, I’ve got gold fingers…” She would marvel at her friend's knowledge of Muggle films if she didn't know it had been fed by James Potter's own obsession with the movie character he was - so he had informed all of the Gryffindors in their year in a truth or dare session - named after.

“I didn’t know your sister was getting married.” Potter ignored Sirius' antics, his expression solemn as she looked at him. She lifted her feet off of Sirius’ lap and wrapped her arms around the knees she pulled up to her chest in an attempt to shield herself from his unwelcome kindness.

“That’s because I actually didn’t find out until I read my mum’s letter some two hours ago,” she lowered her eyes, her bottom lip trembling as she exhaled heavily. “Which – it’s fine, of course. It really is... she didn’t have to tell me personally, I didn’t expect to be her Maid of Honour or anything –”

“She didn’t tell you?” Potter sounded incredulous, affronted on her behalf almost. His knight in shining armour-complex blazing through, no doubt. “Why would she not –? You're her sister!”

“Not everyone is as lucky as you are when it comes to their family, Potter,” she flushed. “There’s the other half – Black and myself – who – for admittedly very different reasons – do not have a loving relationship with all of their family members. My sister likes to remind me that I'm a freak, the odd one out in our family.”

Potter was flustered now too, trying to find the right words to say. “I didn’t mean – I know that I'm fortunate, of course. I've been friends with Sirius for years -” he ran a hand through his hair, fisted his curls, pulling at them. “But why would anyone not like you? You’re a Prefect, at the top of our year –”

Sirius interrupted then, hand over his heart to feign insult. “Are you suggesting my parents have good reason to hate me then, Prongs?” 

“Oh, shut up, Padfoot, you know that’s not –” his eyes flickered back to Lily before he had so much as finished what he had wanted to say, however, swallowing hard before he turned to her fully. “Anyway, I just – I had no idea, Evans. That’s –” one finger rubbed the bridge of his nose as if he were trying to get rid of some imaginary dust, “– that’s really shit.”

“It’s okay, Potter,” she spoke, unfolding her legs and getting up from her seat on the common room’s sofa. “I’ve made peace with it.” She paused for a moment, moved her weight from one leg to the other. “On most days, that is.”

She walked around the sofa then, leaving the two boys behind, patting Sirius on the shoulder and muttering a soft goodbye before taking the steps up to her dormitory, her heart both pounding – due to Potter's presence – and breaking – knowing that her relationship with her sister was most likely never going to mend.

Chapter Text

You've got troubles, and I've got 'em, too,
There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you,
We stick together and we see it through,
'Cause you've got a friend in me.

"You've Got A Friend In Me", Randy Newman

“It’s fine, Evans,” he said for the fifth time in the past half hour, shaking his head at her complete inability to relinquish control. “You picked up patrol for me twice last week, because of emergency Quidditch practice -“

She arched an eyebrow at him, felt the corners of her lips twitch. “Emergency, you say?”

“Half of the team had been sloppy and with the match coming up -“

“He was on a power trip is what that means,” spoke Sirius, who - lying on his back - leafed through a Muggle magazine with pictures of motorbikes. “Ever since he got both badges, he’s been working us plain and lowly people’s bums off -“

“That’s not -“

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” Black didn’t so much as look up at the Head Boy, “it’s the rest of the team that take offense and grumble for days as they ache all over. I, of course, know better than to listen to you when you tell me to do ten laps around the pitch -”

A flush spread up from Potter’s neck to his face. “You’re such a shit sometimes, Padfoot. None of them told me they minded additional practice and I highly doubt that Rufus wouldn’t tell me exactly what he’s thinking -”

“And risk getting benched?” Sirius replied, looking at Potter out of the corner of his eyes. “Also, why am I a shit? Is it because I always cheer you on and tell you to just go for what you want or to quit your desperate moaning and groaning if you’re not going to act on it?”

“That’s not what cheering someone on means,” Potter spoke through gritted teeth. “That’s tormenting me when you know very well that -“ he glanced in her direction and his mouth snapped shut as if he thought better of hashing his frustrations with his best friend out in front of her. “Anyway, that’s not what this is about. I’ll cover patrol for you, Evans, so you can finish your essay for Flitwick.”

“Are you sure?” She questioned one final time, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “I know you’ve got loads of work to do too. Didn’t you still need to finish that paper for Slughorn?“

He shrugged. “I’ll be fine,” he told her. “Besides… there’s the added bonus of taking points off any Slytherin student roaming the halls now that you’re not there to course-correct me -“

“Potter…”

“Only joking,” he held up his hands in mock innocence and she wanted to say something witty about Macbeth and the metaphorical blood he couldn’t wash off his hands, but she worried it might get lost in translation, seeing as Shakespeare had not been – surprisingly, in all honesty – a wizard, making her allusion rather obscure in the Wizarding World. Not to mention that she made a fool out of herself in front of him all too often these days.

“If you’re sure…” she muttered, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

“So sure,” he smiled in reassurance, reaching for his wand in his back pocket. “All right, I’ll better go. Don’t want to keep Flint waiting, even though he’s sure to be disappointed when he sees me rather than yourself.”

She blushed slightly, the realization that he was to patrol with the rather smitten Fifth Year who had a more than obvious crush on her - even she could see it – a rather embarrassing one. He had liked her too when he’d been Flint’s age, she was all too aware. This was, however - her aching heart lamented and twinged painfully - a thing of the far too distant past.

“Be nice,” she told him firmly, worried all of a sudden that the Head Boy might do something that would mortify her even further, such as teasing the 15-year-old over his infatuation with her.

“I always am,” he frowned slightly before perking up a little. “Besides, we’ve got plenty in common, him and I. Quidditch, crushes -“ he’d gone rather bright red in the face here, ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll be right old chums by the end of it.”

“All right,” she nodded, looking away from him and reaching for her essay in an attempt to hide from him how flustered exactly she was, how deeply humiliating it was to know that what had once been true for him was now nothing more than a memory that he inserted for comedic effect. “Thanks, Potter.”

He hovered in her and Sirius’ presence a little longer, but then his footsteps receded, she wished him luck - not looking up from her work, she couldn’t trust herself not to stare after him like some simply teenage girl - while Sirius told him not to do what he wouldn’t do.

It was when Potter had made his way through the portrait hole that Sirius scoffed.

“What?” She asked, her cheeks heating up further.

“You do realise that he broke up with Vance over the summer, do you?”

“Yes, I do, but –” she dropped her quill and essay, mouth pinched. “What does that have to do with anything that happened just now?”

“Nothing, of course,” Sirius spoke incredulously, “apart from the fact that the two of you clearly fancy the pants off of each other and it’s getting quite tiresome to watch.”

She looked over her shoulder to check if anyone had overheard, before leaning forward and hissing: “He does not –”

“I assure you, he does.”

“How would you even know?”

“Do you really think I don’t know him well enough to see when he is trying to charm a witch?” He sat up, put his magazine down, deepened his voice in a clear impression of his best friend as he said: “Oh, Evans, I’ll patrol for you.”

“He’d do that for any of his friends,” she contradicted him. “He’s done it plenty of times for Remus in the past few months. It’s not as if –”

“Oh, fucking hell, Lil! I thought you were supposed to be clever!” Sirius sounded positively exasperated now. “He bloody well told you just now that he’s got loads in common with Flint, who very obviously pairs himself up with you for patrol, because he hopes you’ll be willing to snog a prepubescent prat like him in a broom cupboard.”

She crinkled her nose. “That’s not –”

“Well, you’re a girl, you don’t know these things,” Sirius waved his hand. “You should hear James up in our dorm whenever he talks about how Flint practically drooled all over the table during a Prefect’s Meeting.”

“Well, what does he know?” She crossed her arms in front of her chest to defend herself. “He never even speaks to him, rolls his eyes whenever he so much as opens his mouth –”

“That’s because,” Sirius enunciated very slowly, as if he she had trouble understanding the English language, which – in this case – may as well be true, “guys always pick up on other boys fancying their girl –” She opened her mouth to protest at his choice of words, wanted to remind him that she was no one’s girl but her own, but Sirius shook his head. “Really, you can deny it however many times you’d like, but it doesn’t change the fact that James thinks you make the world go ‘round.”

She let his words sink in for a moment. “That seems –” her fingers curled into her palms, her hands now two tiny fists, “– look, he dated Vance for months last school year and we are friends now. He has never so much as indicated he’s interested in more –”

“Have you?” She blinked up at him and Sirius sighed. “Look, Evans, you killed any and all hope he had at the end of Fifth Year. How is he supposed to know you’ve changed your mind about him in the meantime? Why would he try again when he doesn’t know for certain that his heart will no longer be danced upon by Severus Snape?”

“I haven’t been friends with him for years,” she reminded the boy that had – in all fairness – taken Severus’ place within months of her and his falling out due to Potter’s and Black’s flamboyant need to show off.

“Doesn’t mean that Snivellus won’t rejoice knowing that you shot James down a second time.” Sirius moved to sit down beside her. “Look, if you ask me, I’m friends with two rather amazing people, who are absolutely mad for the other… what am I supposed to do? Just watch on from the sidelines?”

She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, weighed his words and then exhaled shakily. “He hasn’t ever – how do you even know that he likes me?”

The look in Black’s eyes was one of complete disbelief. “Do you honestly believe that James Fleamont Potter never ever spills his deepest, darkest secrets in the confinement of our dormitory? Do you really believe that Prongs – who has had his heart set on you since that first day on the Hogwarts Express, whether he knows it or not – could ever get over Lily Evans?”

Her breath got caught in her throat before a nervous giggle escaped her. “Why would you even tell me any of this -?”

“Because it has to come from you this time, Lil.” Sirius placed a hand on her shoulder. “He’ll never ask you out again unless he knows for certain that you like him back and seeing as he’s blind as a bat without his glasses –”

She looked at him, he seemed earnest, not that she had expected anything less. “And you are certain?” She questioned warily. “You’re not having me on, are you? Because if you are, I won’t forgive you for at least two weeks –”

“Evans, do you honestly think I’d risk it if I weren’t one hundred percent sure?”

She considered this a moment longer and then made up her mind, squaring her shoulders as she said: “Do you have the Map on you?”

“Yeah, sure, I –” he eyed her quizzically as he retrieved the folded piece of parchment from his back pocket. “What do you need it for?”

She took it from him, tapped it with the tip of her wand, solemnly muttered that she was up to no good and then watched the paper unfold, reading:

Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are proud to present the Marauders’ Map. Prongs would like to add that Miss Evans looks exceptionally radiant today.

A smile crept up her cheeks as she opened it and found the two dots she had been looking for, already getting up and marching her way out of the Gryffindor Common Room, when Sirius demanded her attention: “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

“To ask your best mate out on a date,” she replied, ducking out of the portrait hole and not staying around to find out what Sirius Black had to say to that.