DROWN • Sirius Black

Confessions and False Impressions

"Did you truly think you could use my own potion against me?"

Sirius's previously clenched jaw slackened in shock at her words.

"No," he mumbled, which Esme knew that under the influence of her spell meant 'yes, he did.'

Esme's mind was racing with ways she could torture him under the spell, question his sexuality and erectile functions, the list goes on.

Her eyes lit up, an indication of impending danger Sirius knew well enough. "Playing hard to get I see," she contemplated, her mind dwelling on insidious thoughts, "very well, let me give you a question you can't avoid," she flashed a dazzling smile, which Sirius couldn't help but compare to a lioness showcasing her fangs before pouncing on her prey...the prey being him, of course.

She stood up and walked towards him, leaning on the edge of the table. Sirius's face was downcast, he was defeated, a mouse in the claws of a lioness. Esme maliciously dragged the tips of her scarlet painted stiletto nails along the length of his neck till her index finger reached under Sirius's chiseled jaw and lifted his miserable expression to face her.

Upon the clash of their gazes, Esme's throat tightened momentarily. She dismissed this reaction as a physical relapse of some sort, a stimulus of the body when faced with irrational fear, which beckoned the question...fear of what? Fear of falling, drowning in the abyss of his gray eyes? Never, Esme refused to believe her Royelle training since birth, which programmed her to put her head before her heart, could be wasted on such a broken, pretty thing.

"Who was your first kiss?" She asked not a trace of levity to be found on her face.

Sirius simply shook his head in denial.

That was all he could do because the two of them knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that they stole each others' first kiss.

It was the summer before first year. After escaping a flogging by the skin of their teeth, the pair hid under a spiraling staircase of the Royelle Manor, Sirius had convinced Esme between catching his breath that it could be their secret joke. When Esme initially refused, Sirius claimed it was better for him to be her first rather than some random bloke. And so they shared a peck and laughed about it for the several days that followed. Yet, the secret jokes and endless comradery slowly but surely dissipated with the start of the school year when they were sorted into rivaling houses.

Now, roughly four years later, Esme refrained a chuckle at the heavy furrow of his brows, her potion worked wonders, but Sirius was still putting up an honorable fight, "You look so cute when conflicted," Esme admitted teasingly.

"It's okay, Black," she relented, unable to bear his pitiful sight "I'll make it quick and painless for you."

"You don't have to tell me about Lupin's condition because I have already figured it out. You and your boys were being so excruciatingly stubborn I had to take matters into my own hands. See, I realized that for Lupin to be animagus he would be able to transform voluntarily. Therefore, his accustomed injuries would have been avoidable. Yet, here he was still earning a new scar or two every few weeks, and unless Lupin is a sadist this means he transforms without a choice and therefore harms himself unwillingly."

Sirius' face remained blank, indifferent, but the quicken rise and fall of his chest proved otherwise.

Esme continued: "I kept myself updated on his health habits, the first week he tends not to attend classes at all, the second week he appears with a fresh set of bruises, of course, then the third week he is vibrant as ever, cracking jokes, laughing, with a foreign warmth in his eyes, yet forth week he becomes uncommonly irritable, his responses are comprised of grunts and grimace can be found on his face at all times. And I thought to myself: What a curious coincidence that Lupin's behavioral patterns match the lunar cycle? " she paused momentarily before scoffing, "and if you try to refute my findings, I have four years worth of medical files snatched from Madam Pomfrey, don't test me."