Push and Pull (Sirius Black X Reader)

1978: The Kiss

The first time Sirius Black kisses me, I slap him across the face.

It's near the middle of our seventh year, and we've all become accustomed to helping Remus on the nights of the full moon. We sneak away in the night without incident, traverse the secret passage to the shack with ease, and we spend the entire night distracting Remus to keep him from harming himself. Then, we return to the castle with a weakened Remus supported by one or two of the boys, all of us exhausted.

Of course, the transformations get easier and easier for those of us who are animagi. The first night we spent transformed, we were all exhausted when we returned to our human forms, and we could all barely make it into a bed before we collapsed. Then, James slept for twenty hours straight. The rest of us, Remus included, were mostly recovered by then and watched James sleep with a sort of disturbed fascination. We made bets on how long he would sleep. Peter guessed fourteen hours; me, sixteen; Remus, twenty-one; Sirius... well, he guessed that James would sleep forever, and he was quite convinced. He even started planning a funeral, which we still held after James woke up, and he really enjoyed our speeches.

But we eventually got used to the strain on our minds and bodies, learning to ration our energy and our magic as we remained in our animagus forms. We found that taking short shifts during the night, slipping into the quiet corridor to rest for a few moments, did the trick perfectly, and Remus hypothesized that it would likely be possible for us to remain in our animagus forms indefinitely if we followed the schedule our animagus form traditionally would.

In other words, a lot more sleep is required in order to function.

And we keep to our deal. I stay in the marauders' room after the full moon, curled up on one of their beds. Oftentimes, it's Rem's. Some nights, Sirius gets under my skin and I collapse into his. When I get under his skin, he tends to abandon the edge of his bed and we wake wrapped around one another atop his covers, my face tucked into his chest and his nose buried in my hair. None of the others comment, not even Remus when he occasionally returns to the room before we awake.

While Sirius and I are generally better to each other on the nights of the full moon, that geniality rarely bleeds into our everyday lives. We still nitpick and bicker and poke and prod at each other. Something about me still pisses him off and I still find him irritating, especially when he decides he wants to be protective over me like I'm incapable of handling myself. On one hand, I understand that he means well and he wants to make sure I'm okay, but the other part of me gets annoyed when he tries to meddle in my life.

A few weekends ago, Evan Rosier asked me to Hogsmeade. I had never been on a date before, so I was nervous, but excited. I agreed and he decided to pick me up from breakfast so we could walk together. I don't know if the other boys knew or cared, but I guess Sirius had overheard Evan talking about blood supremacy at some point, so he made a scene in the middle of the Great Hall, simultaneously trying to intimidate Evan and convince me not to go with him.

Of course, I'm glad that Sirius said something. I'm only a half-blood myself, and I'm not sure what Evan would have thought of that if it had come up in conversation, and I don't exactly feel safe around blood purists. Plus, I don't agree with his ideology and I wouldn't want to be around someone who felt that way regardless of my blood status.

Still, I couldn't understand why Sirius had to make a scene about the whole thing. He could have talked to me in private about it instead of taunting Evan. He even pushed the boy when Evan started to get argumentative with Sirius. Evan had grabbed my arm and said, "Y/N, let's just go," and Sirius pushed him away, snapping, "Keep your hands off her." I was afraid the whole thing would escalate, and the stupid fools at the Gryffindor table who were listening close by were sure to have gotten involved had there been any sign of a fight, so I set a hand on Sirius' arm and asked him to stop making a scene. He backed off a little, and then I tried to apologize to Evan. But he just said: