The Last Gryffindor (Sirius Black)

Chapter XI: The Charming and the Tedious

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It's absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
—OSCAR WILDE

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In retrospect, Aeliana should've known things would end badly the moment she chose an empty bench in Potions. What was she thinking? One didn't get to be Head Girl by making stupid decisions. And mark her words, sitting alone in one of the only classes she had with Sirius definitely fell into the "stupid" category.

The second he slid into the adjacent seat, Lia began cursing every action that she had ever taken in life that led her into that abominable situation. Following his friend's lead, James took his place on Sirius's other side. Remus paused as he took in the situation, giving Lia an apologetic look, before sitting to her left.

"Um... Sirius? Where will Peter sit?" Remus inquired a touch too innocently. "Perhaps we should sit somewhere else..."

He trailed off when it became painfully obvious that Sirius feigning a bout of deafness.

Slamming his cauldron atop the table with a resounding thud, Sirius turned on Lia, a forced smile plastered across his face.

Here we go again, she sighed internally.

"Dearest Lia, light of my life, would you do me the honour of passing the pickled bat spleen?" he asked with exaggerated civility, adding, as if as an afterthought, "Oh, and while you're at it, how about you stop being such a prat?"

"Oh, yes, do be a dear," James imputed from over Sirius's shoulder.

There was no way in hell Lia was going to sit through this for an hour.

"I'll pass. James is enough of a deer for all of us."

Tossing her things back into her cauldron, she pushed back on her stool to get the hell out of there. Unfortunately, it seemed that during their little exchange the rest of the class trickled in and took the rest of the seats, leaving none available for Lia's fleeing pleasure.

Fine, ditching one little class couldn't hurt too much.

Remus, noticing the tilt of her head towards the door, correctly guessed the direction her thoughts took. Before she could take the first step to escape, he subtly grabbed ahold of her hand to garner her attention and nodded towards a vacant seat across the room she'd missed.

A seat that so happened to be next to the ever frosty Severus Snape, but Lia would take anything over this. Sirius needed to leave her alone for his own good and she doubted her ability to not fall back into their old teasing if she had to sit beside him.

Beside her, Sirius scrutinised Lia's hand clasped comfortably in Remus's with an unreadable expression. Seeing as he was distracted, she took her chance to break her way across the room and fall into the stool next to Severus.

"What the hell are you-" both Sirius's and Severus's identically mirrored furious words were cut off by the arrival of Professor Slughorn.

My hero, she thought.

"Just because Regulus let you sit with us, doesn't mean you can just come and sit next to me like we're friends," Severus muttered so low only she could hear, undercutting Slughorn's explanation of the new potion they would be attempting.