The Heartbreak Prince || Sirius Black

3. Of Snakes and Men

A few days had passed since Lily's outburst and things had simmered down to a state of awkwardness. The Marauders had respectively given her some space as both sides considered what to do next, both not finding it easy to find the right words.

Throughout that time, the Evans girl had asked a favor from her Ravenclaw friends to hide out in their common room until she could confront them.

Dorcas was more than happy to invite her.

"Of course!" Meadowes had exclaimed. "We have an empty bed in my dorm that you can use. It would be great to finally have someone with common sense join our House."

"Oi!"

"No offense, Knight."

The Gryffindor—regardless of her robes—seemed to fit right in. She could be constantly found speaking to their Ravenclaw dormmates about a variety of unique, complex subjects which quickly captured their attention as well as their excitement.

Her discourse would inspire multiple organized debates in the common room as well as other competitive activities amongst the crowd of blue robes, making people wonder how she was ever sorted into any other House.

Because of this, it didn't surprise him to see the two girls sitting in front of Rowena Ravenclaw's statue with a chessboard in between them, a look of deep concentration on their faces.

"Who's winning?" Andrew asked, sitting next to them.

Lily commanded a piece to move forward before she answered. "It looks like a draw."

The pieces seemed to come to the same conclusion and began to violently attack each other until nothing but debris was left on the checkered floor. Dorcas and Lily seemed unsatisfied at the result, but shook hands nonetheless.

"Reparo," Dorcas casted before slipping the repaired items back into their box. "Good game, Evans. Many wouldn't have made it that far against me."

"Xenophilius Lovegood was the only one who could beat her," the Veela confirmed. "Said something about Nargles giving her strategy away."

Andrew could still remember the look of surprise on Dorcas' face as her final pieces were destroyed. Lovegood only gave her a placid smile before pulling out a notebook and writing something down—which they later figured out was an article that scrutinized Nargles' intelligence in his newly founded magazine The Quibbler. 

He had to admit. It was an interesting read.

Lily shook her head in disbelief before leaning her head back against the white marble. "If they were real, they certainly weren't helpful this time around."

A short pause took place among them with only the sound of wind to fill the background. The rest of the Ravenclaws had departed early from the Tower for breakfast in an attempt to get ahead of their timetables. It was a great fear for the blue-and-bronze students to appear late to any event.

With that thought in mind, Andrew looked at the door as if already expecting someone waiting for him. "We should start heading down."

"Oh, is Black already here?" Dorcas jeered. "Have you two finally—"

"Oi!" Andrew interrupted, red already forming on his cheeks. "We're just friends. You know that."

"Like how Marlene and I are friends?"

Lily gaped. "Wait, wait. I didn't know the both of you were becoming a thing. When did this happen?"

"During our trip to Sweden this summer," Dorcas began. "My family and I traveled to Kiruna and bumped into the McKinnons, so we decided to hang out together. We had hot chocolate and a couple of snowball fights. It wasn't until we were watching the northern lights—"