Hiding Bruises

Hiding Bruises- Chapter 14- Tingle

I had double potions first thing so I decided to go there early after running out of the great hall. I hoped Lily and Emmeline wouldn’t ask me about Sirius again, I didn’t no what I could say without explaining to them why I couldn’t go out with him. I know I was probably being righteous and stupid but I felt like if I went out with him it’d feel like I was betraying him, setting him up for Bella.

When I got to the classroom there was no one else there apart from a few early Ravenclaws. I sat down at an empty table at the back of the classroom. After about 5 minutes 3 Hufflepuffs walked in and sat down at a table at the front, then 4 Slytherins (Bella, Snape, Avery and Rodolphus Lestrange), another set of Ravenclaws came in and sat at the table nearest the others. Now there was only my table, where Lily and Alice would join me, and one other, where James, Sirius and Remus would go.

The boys came in first, James sat down at the only empty table and Sirius and Remus walked over to me and sat down.

“Umm,” I said, “why have you left James on his own?”

“It’s all part of his mater plan to get with Lily” Sirius informed me.

“Oh,” I said, I looked at the set out again and realised that now Lily and Alice would be forced to sit with James.

“Sorry to drag you into it,” said Remus, “we know you’d prefer to sit with your friends.”

“You’re my friends too,” I said quickly, they both looked surprised, “right?” I asked.

“Yeah, of course,” said Remus, he smiled. Sirius grinned too.

“But if Lily asked you forced me to sit with you,” I said.

Sirius chuckled, “yeah ok.”

“Just for the record I don’t think this is gonna help at all. Lily likes to concentrate in lessons and she’ll probably find James annoying. Especially if he ruins their potion.”

Sirius chuckled again and leaned towards James, “I’ve got a little tip for you mate, try and be clever or Lily will kill you.”

James suddenly looked very anxious, “but I’m no good at potions.” He exclaimed.

“It would probably be best then if you just left Lily to it, don’t talk to her while she’s busy working, it will annoy her. Once she’s finished she’ll be in a good mood though because it will probably be about half an hour before everyone else is done and Professor Slughorn will have complimented her on being a genius.”

James looked thankful for my tip and opened his mouth to express his gratitude but just then he spotted Lily and Alice walking along down the empty corridor. “Shit,” he said, panicking, “Sirius, swap with me, I can’t do this, she’ll eat me.”

Sirius laughed, a low rumbling almost like a dog’s growl, “Sorry mate, but there’s two sides to this plan remember.”

Just then Lily and Alice entered the room, straight away they saw that the only table they could sit at together was the one with James on it. Lily looked over at me and shot me a death stare; I shrugged in an ‘I couldn’t stop them’ kind of way.

Lily sat down grudgingly next to James, Alice beside her looking incredibly uncomfortable.

“So, are either of you any good at Potions?” I asked hopefully as Professor Slughorn walked in.

“Remus is,” Sirius said, “so we’ll just leave him to do all the work.”

I was about to open my mouth to say that that didn’t seem like a very fair thing to do but Sirius shot one of his breathtaking smiles at me. “Sounds like a plan,” I said, staring dreamily into his eyes.

Slughorn had written on the board the potion that we had to make and the page on our books were we could find the instructions. I read it slowly; we were going to be making the Dreamless Sleep Potion.

“I don’t see the point of that,” said Sirius, “I never remember my dreams so it wouldn’t make any difference whether I had them or not. What about you?” he asked me.

I blushed bright red, “I remember some of them,” I confessed. The last dream I remembered did in fact feature Sirius quite centrally.

Sirius noticed my blush and he seemed to guess something from it, “want to tell me about one?” He asked grinning cheekily.

I stared him straight in the eyes for a second or two and then with a gargantuan effort I dragged them away. I turned to Remus, “would you like me to get you anything from the storeroom?” I asked him.

“Uhh,” he said, staring down at his book, “could you go to the storeroom and get me some frog’s eyes, snake skin and …umm… two frozen Ashwinder eggs.”

I got up from my seat and went into the store cupboard, I stood there for a second longer then I needed to, giving myself a little mental scolding for staring at Sirius in such a dreamy way. He was just a normal boy; his eyes were just normal eyes.

Just then James walked in, “Shit,” he was saying to himself, “where do I find two Ishfindle eggs?”

“I think you mean Ashwinder,” I said to him, he jumped when I spoke as he hadn’t noticed me when he walked in, he’d been too preoccupied with worrying about the ‘Ishfindle’ eggs. “They’re here,” I said, and got two down for him.”

“Thanks,” he sighed, “you’re a lifesaver, literally, Lily would have killed me if I got this wrong.” Well, I wasn’t going to argue with that.

“No problem,” I said, and walked out of the storeroom, James hurrying out soon after me and practically sprinting over to Lily.

She looked surprised to see him back so quickly, obviously she had been expecting him to take ages. She looked even more amazed when she realised he’d got the right stuff for her, she smiled at him in a bemused kind of way and James grinned back (even more bemused looking then Lily).

I turned away from watching them to see Sirius watching them also. “He really likes her doesn’t he?” I asked.

Sirius looked away from them, straight at me, “he’s obsessed, has been for years.”

“I reckon if he backed of a bit then she might start to like him more, he comes at her so much, it gets annoying.” Sirius and me sat pondering that thought for a minute or two, until I said, “I think she likes him back.”

“You do?” Sirius asked, looking surprised.

“Yeah, he just needs to give her time to realise that for herself, if you know what I mean,” I replied. I knew a lot more about most of the people in this school then they thought, when you’re invisible you see, hear and notice things that you don’t if people pay attention to you.

Sirius was staring at me, “but if she likes him why doesn’t she say yes when he asks her out?”

“Maybe she’s scared, for so long he’s been asking her out and she’s worried that if she says yes he might not find her interesting anymore. Or maybe she thinks he’s too immature or she’s worried they don’t have anything in common and it will be really horrible once they go out, and she quite likes it how it is now. She also doesn’t want the whole school watching them.”

Sirius looked miffed, “but that’s stupid, if he didn’t find her interesting then he’d have stopped stalking her by now and the whole school is watching them anyway.”

“Girl’s over think things, especially relationship related stuff. Girls can find the stupidest reasons not to go out with a boy, even one they really like,” I told him.

Sirius was silent for a moment, “Girl’s are weird,” he said simply. Well what a little gem that thought was. We were both quiet for a moment, I looked down at the table, Sirius was still thinking about James and Lily. Suddenly he seemed to realise something, “I didn’t mean that you’re weird, when I said that, when I said girls are weird.”

“So you don’t group me with girls?” I asked, laughing slightly.

“No, no, of course you’re a girl, I know you’re a girl,” Sirius started to say hurriedly, he spotted me biting my lip to try and keep myself from laughing at him. “Are you laughing at me?” He asked.

“No,” I said shaking my head, “it’s just, boys are weird.”

Sirius smiled and poked my side playfully; “hope you’re not talking about me when you say that,” he said.

I made a face of mock horror, “Me? No!” I exclaimed, “I’d never call you a boy.”

Sirius laughed, really laughed, and I laughed too. I got so lost, so caught up in his laugh; I could listen to it for hours. It was deep and loud, almost like a dogs growl, apart from that it wasn’t a defensive or aggressive noise; it was free and playful and full of mirth. You could tell he was really laughing, not just fake laughing to make you feel better after cracking a terrible joke, he really found what I had said funny.

A quiet cough from the other side of the table drew my attention away from Sirius and his rumbling laugh. I looked over to see Remus, bright red in the face panting over the cauldron and stirring maniacally. “Could I have a little help here?” he asked pleadingly.

“What should we do?” I asked, keen for a distraction from Sirius and his bewitching eyes.

“Cut this,” he said and shoved a pile of snakeskin at me. I picked up the knife and started to work. I spent the rest of the lesson cutting things up, and trying to save what I could of the stuff Sirius hacked up.

At the end of the lesson, our potion was looking not too bad compared to most of the others (obviously it looked like a mess compared to Lily’s, but wasn’t that true of a lot of thing?)

Me and Sirius took our bags at the same time and walked to the door chatting together, once there I remembered something I’d meant to ask him before. “Oh yeah,” I said, “I was wondering, what did you mean before when you said to James that there were two sides to your plan?” Sirius looked uncomfortable, as if he had been caught cheating on a test, “you don’t have to tell me,” I said, quickly turning away to hide my embarrassment. Why did I have to be so nosey?

Sirius grabbed my arm to pull me back closer to him, “Well, with that plan, James got to sit with Lily and,” here he paused as though to brace himself for jumping of a cliff, “and I got to sit with you.” With that he let go of my arm and hurried away.

“Oh,” I said, as a little tingle of excitement started in my arm, and then spread it’s way all around my body.