Human Design | Sirius Black

xix. The Grim That Won't Leave (and is probably an omen of upcoming doom)

WITH EXAM SEASON quickly approaching, the library was full with not a single chair available leaving a few students to simply sit on the floor as they studied on Monday afternoon although it was the first day of the Easter holidays. 

Even Yrsa had come to the library and now sat opposite Reece. She was (quite shockingly) probably studying harder than he was because Reece found himself, once again, completely unable to focus, and resigned instead to watching her as she wrote out an essay for Charms, glancing up to read paragraphs from the two books she had in front of her every few minutes and unconsciously nibbling on her lower lip. Finally venturing to lean over the table, he said quietly, "Yrsa?" and she looked up mid-sentence, eyebrows instantly knitting in worry and he realised his voice had come out sounding quite frightened. Nodding, she encouraged him to continue and suddenly Reece regretted saying anything at all. But there would be no sense in trying to lie so he focused his eyes on her painfully perfect handwriting and asked, "Have you ever fancied more than one person at once?"

When he dared to look at her again it was to find the worry had disappeared from her expression and been replaced by a vainglorious smirk. "Who do you fancy then?" she asked, eyes darting over his features as if she expected to find the names tattooed to his eyelids.

"No one," he denied quickly.

"Oh, you're just casually asking me this for a school assignment, right?" The smirk was joined with arched eyebrows as she leaned back against the chair, looked him over for a moment, and then leaned back over her essay. "Fine, you don't need to tell me. Unlike you, I respect people's privacy." He looked at her expectantly and she quickly added, "Right, yeah," recalling that he had asked her a question, "Yes. Yes, I have. I probably do right now."

Reece nodded, his leg starting to bounce under the table. "Erm – and do you think – I mean, hypothetically speaking – Mum and Dad would be disappointed if I ... if I dated someone that, you know, they weren't expecting?" He started to pull barbs off the vein of his quill.

"What like a Gryffindor?" she asked, perplexed.

"Yeah!" Reece instantly clutched onto the explanation, then blushed when he realised he had spoken loud enough for people in the surrounding tables to look up. "Exactly," he continued, lowering his voice to a library-acceptable volume. "Would they be disappointed if I dated someone who wasn't a Ravenclaw?"

Yrsa continued writing the rest of her sentence, glancing at him through her eyelashes with a bemused expression. "You could never do anything that would disappoint Mum and Dad," she declared.

"I wouldn't be so sure," he said darkly as he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, glowering at the bookshelf behind her before he realised how ominous the response was and that Yrsa was staring at him again. "I was just – I mean – they would have much preferred for me to stay on the debate team and quit Quidditch rather than the other way around so I think they were ... a little disappointed by that," he hurried to explain, desperate for her to believe him, "though really, they would have liked me to do both so the fact that I even dropped out of one was a disappointment."

Thankfully, she shrugged it off, "Right," before looking around in search of something, which Reece soon derived was a clock because when she was unsuccessful, she turned back to him and asked, "What time is it?"

"Why can't you just buy a watch?"

"Why would I do that when I've always got someone around me who has one?" she retaliated.

He rolled his eyes but shook down the left sleeve of his robes nonetheless. "It's quarter past three."

"Right, well I've got to go then." She instantly collected her things and scooped them into her bag with so little care that Reece cringed. "Are you going to be there tomorrow? Because I'll join you then if that's alright cause Ashley and Em's gone home for the holiday and I can't study with Lily or Marlene without feeling brain-dead."