GIRLS
Alice sat on the bed in Lily's room, waiting for an inevitable retribution to fall upon her.
She had spent the last forty minutes shedding tears on her friend's patient shoulder. Then the first wave wore off, and now Alice sat on a brightly colored quilt, rocking like a sleepwalker, occasionally hiccuping and cursing the day in her second year when she was sitting at the first desk in Transfiguration class, heard the hoarse, unfamiliar laughter of one of her classmates, and looked around.
Alice remembered it as well as if it had happened hours ago.
She turned her head, trying to figure out which boy's voice had already begun to break so hard, and at that moment Sirius Black, who was sitting in the back with James Potter as usual, pushed his overgrown bangs away from his face because they were in the way, and barked-laughed again.
Just it. Nothing more.
But it was as if Alice got an electric shock.
She suddenly realized with piercing clarity that she was in love with Sirius Black, and almost burst into tears.
In fact, at least three or four other girls at the school were stunned by Sirius Black's existence, but she didn't know it.
After the mysterious, unbelievable, rumored incident at Whomping Willow, James Potter and Sirius Black had become something of a general craze.
'He's so bad...' The third grades whispered longingly, rolling their eyes at James.
'Kitty told Olivia that Sirius Black likes blondes. Do you think blonde would look good on me?'
Alice was terribly annoyed by all these talks.
Unlike those girls, she took everything very seriously. She stayed up all night imagining all sorts of situations in which she and Sirius would run into each other in an empty classroom, or stay together after school (which was impossible, given her quiet temper and complete inability to argue), and she was dying of grief, thinking that he was lying somewhere very close behind the wall, not even knowing how much she loved him...
Alice trembled as she let Sirius copy her homework, imagining how grateful he would be, and she kept a close eye on what he ate and drank at lunch, breakfast and dinner, and in the evenings she always took a position in the living room, where he could see her. She was friends with Lily, and wherever her red-haired green witch was, eventually, James Potter was, and so was Sirius. Sometimes she even thought how great it would be to make a Polyjuice Potion, turn into a Potter and spend the whole day in Sirius's company. She wondered how all these people who hang out with him don't realize how incredibly lucky they are.
She was so tormented by her crush that she went so far as to write a carefully crafted anonymous Valentine's card on Valentine's Day, stating the place and time of their meeting. However, when it came time to go down to the Hourglasses in the Great Hall, Alisa suddenly had a terrible stomach upset and was admitted to the hospital. She was in her fifth year. Just as Sirius had started dating with Marlene McKinnon, her classmate, a sunny-eyed skinny blonde girl with flaxen curls and an infectious beautiful laugh. It was a cruel blow. She was sure that when Sirius finally decided to date someone, it would be her, Alice sweet, modest, and so devotedly in love. And he...
For several long months, Alice fell into a state of sad confusion and endless jealousy that gradually drove her mad. She even stopped communicating with Sirius and Marlene for fear that they would notice something. Lily became the only person she trusted with her terrible secret. Alice became so depressed that she failed all her classes, lost weight, and stopped smiling at all.
