build me up buttercup [s.black]

[2] Potions

Aisling sat at the breakfast table the next morning and hurriedly finished her essay on wit-sharpening potions. She knew it wasn't her best work, and tried not to think about the inevitable look of disappointment on Professor Slughorn's face when he handed it back to her.

"Doing your homework at breakfast McCawley?" Someone asked her from across the table.

She looked up and realised it was James Potter talking to her.

"That's not like you. Then again," he looked at Sirius and smirked, "maybe you would get more work done if you spent less time drooling over fifth year hunks in the library."

He laughed and Aisling felt herself go bright red.

"I wasn't drooling over anyone. And if you're talking about yourself, Potter, I can assure you that nobody has ever described you as a hunk." She snapped.

"Who said I was talking about me?" James replied, innocently. "All I'm saying is you looked like you were siriusly distracted by something when we saw you in the library yesterday."

He and Sirius both laughed and Aisling felt the colour in her cheeks rising even further, her ears were now burning furiously.

"Maybe," she said through gritted teeth, "the expression you mistook for distraction was actually shock at seeing you pick up a book. Came as quite a surprise to me that you could actually read."

With that, she picked up her hastily scribbled essay and stalked out of the Great Hall. Embarrassed as she was, she couldn't help but smile at the look on James Potter's face.

When Lily and Alice finally caught up with her, she was already halfway down to the dungeons.

"Ash!" Lily spluttered. "You should have seen Alice, she couldn't stop laughing for about five minutes. She kept trying to drink pumpkin juice and then snorting it out of her nose."

Aisling couldn't help but giggle at this as Alice rubbed her nose with a pained expression on her face.

"It's not funny guys." She pinched her nose as she said this making her voice sound very nasal. "It really hurts."

They made their way down to the dungeons, Alice and Aisling giggling while Lily did impressions of James's dumbstruck face. Aisling noticed that every time Lily did it his face got more and more animatedly stupid.

"Come in, come in!" The jovial voice of their Potions teacher rang through the corridor and the students filed inside the classroom.

"Now today we are studying invigoration draughts."

A murmur of surprise and anticipation rippled through the class.

"Now now," said Slughorn hurriedly, "we will simply be learning the theory today as the potion itself is rather advanced. So if you would please turn to page- oh! I almost forgot, you all owe me homework."

Aisling's heart sank as she handed Professor Slughorn her sub-par essay. They sorted into pairs and began taking notes on an invigoration draught. Aisling and Alice sat together in Potions, they had this class with the Slytherins meaning Lily always worked with Severus Snape. Aisling was determined to take accurate and in-depth notes this lesson, in the hopes that it might make up for her shoddy homework.

After about twenty minutes of copying down the nature of an invigoration draught along with ingredients and instructions for making one - during which the silence was only punctuated by Slughorn shuffling around the classroom and suggesting possible amendments to various people's notes - there was a huge crash that made every student in the classroom jump. Aisling turned around to see what had caused the noise and saw Severus Snape sprawled out on the floor, his chair having fallen to pieces underneath him. He looked furious and he also appeared to be in pain, clutching his lower back as he stood up, wincing. Lily's face had gone so red that it was hard to tell where her forehead ended and her hair began, and her eyes were narrowed. She turned around to face the two people on the desk behind her.

"You two!" She shouted at James and Sirius. "I saw that!"

James and Sirius were both feigning innocence, but neither of them would be earning any points for their acting skills.

"Don't know what you mean, Evans." Sirius smirked.

"Maybe the weight of Snivellus's huge nose was too much for the chair to handle?" Suggested James with the casual air of someone who was discussing the weather.

Aisling noticed that at the next table Peter Pettigrew had collapsed into silent giggles behind his textbook.

"Oh yes, very funny." Lily said coolly. The colour had vanished from her face and she was still staring at James through green slits. "Very big of you. Can only attack someone when their back is turned can you? That's really impressive."

She continued glaring at James who seemed to have lost the ability to speak. Sirius hadn't though.

"Oh come on, Evans!" He exclaimed. "The little creep's had it coming for ages. Didn't you hear about what him and his cronies did to that second year Hufflepuff the other week?"

"W-well now," interrupted Professor Slughorn, waving his wand at Snape's chair which reassembled itself. "Now, I think it's probably best if Mr Potter and Mr Black move away from each other for the rest of the lesson."

James and Sirius both groaned but if Professor Slughorn heard them, he chose to pretend that he hadn't.

"Sirius, if you would please swap places with Miss Fortescue."

He gestured over to the seat next to Aisling and her heart sank. Not today. She shot a pleading look at Alice, as if begging her not to move. But Alice gave the slightest of shrugs and picked up her books and bag to make room for Sirius who had made his way over to Aisling's desk. He flopped down next to her and dumped his bag on the floor.

"Good, now if we could all please carry on with our notes."

Aisling bent her head down so low that her nose was almost touching the paper, determined not to look at Sirius, and started writing again. She was sure she could feel those piercing grey eyes burning into the back of her neck, he definitely wasn't writing anything. After about a minute, she heard a low voice in her ear.

"Couldn't share your textbook could I? Forgot mine." She looked up to see Sirius peering at her with a lazy smile on his face.

"How did you forget it?" She asked in bewilderment. "It's our first lesson of the day."

The boy shrugged as she slid the textbook over a few inches so that they could both see it. After a couple more minutes she heard the same voice in her ear.

"Lend me a quill would you? Can't seem to find mine."

"You had one when you were sitting with James, why don't you find it?" Aisling said without looking up from her notes.

"How do you know? Been staring at me again?" Sirius asked, with a playful edge to his voice.

Aisling jerked her head up and glared at him, her eyes flashing dangerously, and Sirius seemed to get the message. He stood up and scraped his chair across the floor as he did so, making what Aisling thought was an unnecessary amount of noise, and began walking back over to where James was sitting.

"Don't worry, Sir." He said conversationally to Professor Slughorn, who had opened his mouth as if he were about to tell him off. "Just getting my quill, I think I left it over here."

Professor Slughorn paused, apparently deciding whether to reprimand Sirius for causing yet another disturbance. He seemed to decide against it, however, and simply ignored the dramatic performance Sirius was making out of looking for his quill. Finally, and with a loud shout of 'aha!' Sirius seemed to find it. He wandered back over to the empty chair next to Aisling.

"You know," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he began scribbling his notes, "you're quite sexy when you're angry."

And for the second time that day, Aisling felt her cheeks burn red as Sirius Black laughed.