I'll Follow You Anywhere

"Thank you for tonight Sirius. I had an amazing time," she said softly as she looked over at me.

"Thanks for coming. And I'm glad you had a good time. I did too," I replied gently, rubbing her bare shoulder with my thumb. Her blue eyes shined brightly at me, beckoning me forward.

"Sirius?" she asked as I leaned in an inch.

"Yes?"

"Why did it take you so long?" she asked, looking away towards the empty street, only lit by magical streetlights.

"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled by her sudden question.

"I mean, have you just recently had the idea to date me or have those feelings been there for…longer than that?" she asked, looking up at me again with such intensity that I couldn't look away.

"I've been interested in you for a while now, Lor. I was just…nervous that maybe you wouldn't like me back. And I didn't want to be hurt by hearing that you didn’t like me," I confessed to her. A small smile crept upon her face as she leaned forward to me, resting her hand on my chest.

"How could any girl ever resist you Sirius?" she asked as she pressed her lips gently to mine. I kissed her back, my heart pounding so loudly that I was sure that she could hear it. I let my hand slide to her back and she pressed herself closer to me.

We kissed for a while. Then I walked her back inside and bid her and her father, who was waiting on the couch, goodnight.

As I climbed back onto my bike and headed back towards the Potter's, I realized that even though her dad had to have a sex talk with me, even though the stupid man at the restaurant couldn't find our reservation, and even though I looked like a complete idiot in this tux while she looked drop dead gorgeous, tonight was still the best night of my life.

-33-

"Are you gonna eat that?" James asked as he leaned toward me, reaching for a piece of bacon. I quickly swatted his hand away and tossed the bacon into my mouth quickly. He stuck his tongue out at me as he took a sip of orange juice.

I rolled my eyes and looked out at the empty street a few yards away from us. The heat from the sun beating down on the black, smooth pavement was causing a water-like effect to hover over the road, blurring it in my eyes. I could still see what was left of the egg yolk that we had cracked on the black turf, its liquid-y residue shining slightly in the sun's sight. Our little experiment from earlier had obviously not worked (James' mum told us that it was so hot that we could fry an egg on the street. She was wrong. It just got all sticky and it smelled kind of funny.)

The trees around us waved gently in the wind as it breezed by, cooling them down from the treacherous heat waves. There were scarce birds out, but even they were hiding in the cool shade of their home trees. I listened to their chirping conversations, thinking of my own recent conversations as I did so.

Like my recent conversation with Lora, which had been played over so many times in my head lately that it had become embedded there, even when I wasn't thinking of her.

Though those moments were rare.

We had been in my room at the Potters (which was technically also James' room since we shared a room) and I had been in there showing Lor the new motorcycle magazine I had gotten (though she was clearly not interested at all, which is probably why we just ended up snogging.)

Anyway, we were kissing and talking when she asked me if she was my girlfriend. I honestly had no clue what to tell her because I had kind of been wondering the same thing. I mean, we were definitely exclusive to only each other and we kissed and hung out all the time but I hadn't actually asked her to be mine yet. I knew she would say yes but I just hadn't asked her…I don't really know why. But that's why I was planning on asking her today.

"Can I have your muffin?" I asked James, my growling stomach knocking me out of my trance. He looked over at me, putting on an overly dramatic look of surprise, and raised his eyebrow. He opened his mouth and lifted his left hand to his chest.

"Siri-poo, if I remember correctly, I asked you for a piece of bacon not even five minutes ago!" I sighed and rolled my eyes at my friend's dramatic antics. "And now you're asking me for this delectable, soft, warm, blueberry and perfection packed muffin? I don’t think so mister."

"Your muffin has blueberries and perfection in it?" I asked, looking down at my own pitiful muffin.

"But of course," he replied smugly.

"Oh. I heard perfection was fattening."

"Not this perfection," Prongs replied, struggling to come up with something. "This perfection is fat free."

"Are you sure?" I asked, now raising my eyebrow.

"I am positive. I know it definitely has more perfection than your muffin. You know how much your muffin has? None!" he laughed, not waiting for me to answer his question. I chuckled to myself as he rolled over onto the grass, laughing loudly.

"Nice James. Well, my muffin has bits of strawberries and nuts in it so I think that that's ten times better than your little piece of blueberry and perfection crap," I retorted, holding up my muffin. His laughter stopped as he glanced my muffin up and down, his eyes getting greedy. I knew James was a sucker for-

"Nuts? It has nuts? And strawberries? Huh…" he quietly said to himself. I looked down at his now feeble muffin and then back up at mine. He went back and forth like this, debating in his head over which was better: blueberry and fat-free perfection or nuts and strawberries.

He tossed his muffin aside to me and lunged for the muffin in my hand greedily. Before I could even hand it over to him, he snatched it and shoved it in his mouth. A look of pure contentment swept over his face as he enjoyed the strawberry and nutty goodness that awaited him inside of the muffin. As he pushed the last piece into his mouth, I couldn't hold back my laughter anymore. I guess it caught onto him too because before we knew it we were both rolling in the grass laughing.

"What are you two doing here?!" an angry voice yelled to us. Our laughter flickered out like a flame immediately as Mr. Clense and his shiny head made his way over to us. I couldn't keep my eyes off of him chrome dome though as it shined in the suns-

"We're eating," James said slowly, like Lora's dad was a wanker or something. I muffled my laughter as best as I could but I guess it wasn't good enough seeing as Mr. Clense shot me a glare. I quickly quieted down.

"Obviously you are eating Mr. Potter but why are you eating in my front lawn?" he asked, growing more and more irritated by the second. I wasn't surprised to see that he was so mad. I think he's always mad in the morning, like Lora's always grumpy when she has to wake up. Like the time that I climbed up the tree next to Lora's room and climbed in through her window. When he came in to tell her breakfast was ready, he was really mad. Or the time when he came into the bathroom to take a shower and found me brushing my teeth (well, I didn't want to have morning breath for Lor). He was pretty mad then too. So I wasn't surprised he was mad now because it was still so early.

"Well we saw that you two were asleep and we didn't want to wake you up," I answered, hoping to score some points with him for being considerate of his and Lora's sleeping. I guess that didn't work though because he just looked angrier than before.

"What do you mean you saw we were asleep?" he asked, his voice near shouting. I glanced over James and saw that he was laughing so hard that his laughs weren't even making noises. I didn't think it was so funny that my kind-of-girlfriend's father was yelling at me though.

"Well, when we went in to get some breakfast I went up to see if either of you wanted something to eat but you two were asleep so we just made breakfast and came out here to eat it so that we wouldn't make any noise and wake either of you up," I replied quickly and about as feebly as that muffin I had had earlier that was now digesting slowly in James' stomach.

His face began to turn red, including his shiny head which kind of freaked me out a bit seeing as it looked like his head was turning into a giant tomato.

"You mean you and Mr. Potter broke into my house while my daughter and I were asleep and made yourselves some breakfast?!" he yelled, garnering some attention from a few of the neighbors who had come outside to see what was causing all of the commotion so early in the morning.

"Uh, yeah," I answered half-heartedly, realizing that maybe it wasn't just the morning that was making him a little fussy.

"What is wrong with you?!" he yelled. When I tried to answer him though, I saw Lora leaning out of the front door in her nightdress, staring at the scene taking stage in her front yard.

"Dad! Sirius? James?" she yelled, going from embarrassed and angry to just confused. She gave me a small wave and smile before returning her attention back to her veggie (or fruit. There's controversy over what a tomato should be classified as) like father.

"Lora, I don't want you talking to either of them!" he shouted angrily. A little bit of purple and blue was getting mixed in with the red of his head and it took me a moment to realize that those were his veins.

"Uh, just hold on one minute," I said to him, putting up my pointer finger as I climbed to my feet and rushed over to his daughter. He just let his mouth hang open as he watched me stride over to Lor.

She was a few steps up from me and still hiding somewhat behind the door. She flashed me a smile as I climbed up the steps and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and hug.

"What are you doing here Sirius?" she asked me quietly as she settled her bright blue eyes on me. I couldn't hold back a big smile.

"Well-"

"Just ask her to be your girlfriend you wanker!" I heard James yell from the front lawn. She laughed quietly, not taking her eyes off of me.

"So Lor, you wanna be my girlfriend?" I asked, chuckling a little as I waited for her answer.

"Of course," she said, smiling a big, brighter-than-ever smile for me.

"No! Get away from my house and off of my property!" her dad yelled as he strode over to us. I gave her a big kiss on the lips before I winked and headed away from the house quickly before her dad could get me. James was already on the motorcycle, waiting for me. As I rushed by our little picnic area, I grabbed the last piece of bacon off of the paper plate and ran over to the motorcycle.

"For the road!" I hollered to her as I climbed on, put on my helmet, and revved the bike to life. I gave her one more wink as we headed off loudly down the heat-stricken road.