DOG DAYS → [SIRIUS BLACK X READER]

Chapter Five

It's when you feel an arm drape itself over your shoulder, tucking you closer against the warmth of another body, do you realize that at some point during the night you fell asleep.

Not only that, but you've fallen asleep on someone.

You blink groggily as the contact rouses you from your sleep, your eyes adjusting to the room around you. At some point during Sirius' retelling of his antics from when he was younger and the moments he had shared with his group of friends, the very same ones who helped make the Marauders Map, you must've fallen asleep against his shoulder. When you glance up at his face, his eyes are closed and his gaunt features are free of the lines of stress that seem to overshadow them when he's awake, and it hits you that at some point after that, he must've fallen asleep as well. His arm is wrapped around your shoulder, while his body is leaning up against the back of the lounge, his other arm still propped against it with his head resting in his hand from when he first nodded off.

You applaud his kindness to not just shoving you off the lounge as soon as you passed out, but the feeling of your cheeks growing hot at the realization that you just fell asleep draped against a man you barely even know is mortifying, to put it lightly. Carefully, as to not wake him up for the time being since he seems quite comfortable for someone sleeping in such an awkward position with dead weight lying against him for what must've been hours, you gingerly move yourself out from under his arm, placing it back down at his side as you scoot away from him. You'd stand, but you don't trust the floor to not squeak and wake him.

Pulling up your sleeve and checking your watch, you make a face at the time it reads. 4:45 AM. Soon students and teachers alike will get getting up, and the early risers are the ones you need to be careful of if you want to get through the castle without anyone noticing you've been out of your bed all night. You really don't want to wake Sirius; you can only imagine how long it's been since he's had a proper night's rest, but you know he'd at least want to know if you're about to skip out without a goodbye. He's had enough problems with people betraying his trust in the past, and assurance that you didn't leave while he had his guard down to go tell the Headmaster about his whereabouts is the least you can offer him.

You put a hand to his bony shoulder, shaking him lightly and doing your best to be gentle about it so he doesn't get alarmed by the contact. He groans, sitting upright and rubbing his face as he wakes.

"You're awake?" He mumbles, his eyes squinting through the dark as he turns to look at you.

You chuckle awkwardly. "Yeah, uh- sorry about falling asleep on you. I promise I don't drool." Nice one, [Y/N].

He lets out a breathy laugh. "It's alright. It's been a long night for both of us, and considering I fell asleep too, there's no need to dwell on it."

Comforting. But if anything you've already proven your inability to not dwell on things with everything you've done in the past few days.

"I didn't want to wake you up, but we've only got a short window of time if I'm going to get back without Filch spotting me and putting my head on a spike as a form of punishment."

You hold up your wrist to show the numbers on your watch, the digital lights are dim in the darkness of the room, and he leans forward to get a better look.

"Are you a muggleborn?" He asks at the sight of the technology. You forgot that digital watches are no more of a thing within pureblooded wizard society than any other type of electronics that muggles have come up with.

You shake your head. "I'm a half-blood." You don't feel hesitant to say it, knowing that Harry Potter himself is a half-blood, and if Sirius was friends with his parents then he must not have an issue with those who aren't from a pureblooded lineage like himself. "My mum and dad moved here from America way before they had me, since relationships between witches and muggles were forbidden over there at the time. After the law got repealed they just decided to stay since we have family here, but most of them are on my dad's side so I get a lot of interaction with muggles. Still don't have a clue how this works in and around Hogwarts, though. It doesn't even have a battery in it." You grin as you tap the face of the watch, and it's infectious upon Sirius, who smiles fondly in return.