The Clockwork Locket || SIRIUS BLACK

The First Match

The Sunday following the joint birthday party saw Cassie perched in an uncomfortable position on her bed, struggling to stay awake through the reading Professor McGonagall had assigned them on the Inanimatus Conjurus Spell. Weak sunlight filtered through the clouds outside, playing shadows across the pages of her copy of Intermediate Transfiguration, and finally, she snapped her book shut with a groan, untangling her limbs and laying flat on her back, staring at the red canopy above her.

Boredom was making her restless, and she wished Lily, Alice, and Marlene would come back from whatever they were doing and save her from reading another word of Emeric Switch's obsession with Transfiguration. She had barely seen them since Friday night before her detention with Professor Carlisle, and she couldn't help but feel a little miffed that they kept running off without her.

Thinking of her detention led her thoughts once again to the papers she had seen in the professor's office. The maps and the list of the Four Founders were gnawing at her brain, poking at her meddlesome nature with a long stick, and the more she mulled it over, the more she liked James's idea of breaking in and seeing what she was hiding.

You can't, an insistent voice in her head chided. What if you were caught? You're already on thin ice with her, and think about what your parents would say if you got expelled for doing such a thing!

But I know she's hiding something! her stubborn half persisted. I just have to find proof!

Leave it alone!

Deciding that sitting in her dormitory alone wasn't much fun, she traipsed down the stairs into the common room, her eyes searching for a familiar sight of red waves, blonde curls, or cropped brown hair. She stifled her disappointment when she saw none of those, but perked back up when she noticed someone else.

"Afternoon, gentlemen," she said when she approached the Marauders sitting in their fireplace seats.

"Hey, Cass," Remus returned, shifting on the couch to make room for her between him and Peter.

She sat down, copying Sirius and putting her feet up on the table. James made a rasping, squeaking noise in greeting.

"Sorry, James, what was that? I don't speak Tea Kettle," she said. The others snickered as he scowled, sinking lower in his armchair and glowering into the hearth.

"He screamed himself hoarse at practice this morning," Sirius explained. He was slouched in his chair too, head tilted back and eyes closed in clear exhaustion. "Poor bloke sounds like a mouse getting trod on now."

"Don't let Lily hear him, then," she said, smirking when James cast her a sharp look. "She's scared of mice – she might hex him into cheese or something."

James opened his mouth to retort something, but when all that came out was a puff of air, he pursed his lips and looked away again, crossing his arms and pouting like a child.

"So was practice really that bad, or is he just being overdramatic?" she asked, turning back to Sirius. But he didn't answer, already asleep in his seat.

Her gaze roved over his face; the fluttering eyelids and serene expression. He looked so much more peaceful in his sleep, more...open. His dark hair spilled over his forehead and tickled his neck, just brushing the tops of his shoulders, and she took in the smooth olive skin of his exposed throat, traveling to the collar of his Quidditch robes, which were slightly undone at the top.

She nearly jumped when Remus cleared his throat. She tore her eyes away from Sirius, praying to Merlin that she wasn't red while simultaneously cursing herself for staring so openly. It was hard to deny Sirius's obvious looks, but she suddenly felt like the girls who would crowd around him and coo their compliments and pleasure, and the thought made her want to vomit.