101 Ways to ditch the Date | SIRIUS BLACK

No. 16

"Honestly, I think there's a whole field of biology that hasn't been looked into purely because magic has been kept away for so long," Emmeline said as the two girls waited awkwardly in the corridor. Although they technically should have been in Arithmancy by now, nobody else was there yet and whilst the two girls were great followers of rules, they also didn't want to sit in there alone with the every chatty Professor Welbrooke.

"I don't know," Ora replied, "Like shouldn't we really be focusing on other issues such as - "

"Look who's coming," Emmeline said, nodding her head in the direction of boys' laughter. Ora turned around to see Sirius walking along the corridor, James by his side. The two boys were laughing raucously about something and for a second Ora thought that they weren't going to even acknowledge her. However, just as they passed, Sirius turned around, flashing a smile at her as his gaze lingered just long enough for her to think that maybe he would stop and talk. However, he continued on his way, turning away from her and continuing walking.

"Well, that was some erotic eye contact," Emmeline said.

"Sarcasm?"

"Even I don't know at this point," Emmeline admitted.

"I guess it was but the problem is that's all it feels like it's been in the last few days. He said he had this plan and it was all going well, of course, I had to ruin it."

"Shock horror, you could go and talk to him first," Emmeline suggested but Ora shook her head firmly.

"No, this is a test. I want to see if he actually thinks that we're friends."

"I don't know, he probably doesn't even realise that," Emmeline said, "He's an oblivious twat, I don't like him but that's not the point. The point is that he probably - "

"People are here now," Ora said quickly, trying to avoid her friend's lecture, "We should probably go in."

Emmeline gave her a vaguely irritated look but couldn't deny it and followed her friend in.

"Ah, there you all are, I was beginning to think you'd all decided to bunk the amazing wonder of Wednesday morning Arithmancy," Professor Welbrooke said, his hat sitting lopsided on his greying hair to the point where Ora was sure it was going to fall off, "Come on in, don't be shy!"

Ora sat down, resting her head on her hands as she vaguely zoned out. They'd been taught all the content now so she didn't really have to focus on anything until he handed out a worksheet. Truthfully, she quite liked Arithmancy. It was logical and logic was one of the things that she liked. Law was logical in a sense although it had enough plot twists to keep it interesting which is how Ora liked to live her life.

"Bet I can finish this before you," Emmeline whispered from behind as the sheets levitated across the room to their desks.

Ora grinned to herself, Emmeline was delightfully wrong, "Oh, you're so on." She replied, turning around briefly before rapidly snapping back to examine the questions. Emmeline made this wager every lesson to make the revision more amusing for herself and Ora was proud to say that she seemed to be winning 99% of the time.Grabbing her chart she began to speed through the questions. Most people seemed to prefer quality over quantity but Ora disagreed; if you could get enough done fast enough people didn't really seem to care how well you did it. Especially in these mini competitions, time was essential.

"Where are you up to?" She heard Emmeline whisper behind her.

Ora turned around, smugly grinning as she held her paper slightly aloft, "Nearly halfway through, question four."

"Is that so?"

"That is so."

"Ha!" Emmeline said, jabbing a finger at her paper, "Question five!"