build me up buttercup [s.black]

[23] Fire

After a week of being ignored by Sirius, Aisling was finding it increasingly difficult to be in the same room as him. Whenever she found herself anywhere near him, two things happened in quick succession; rage boiling up in the pit of her stomach, followed by the overwhelming urge to cry.

It had started as a subtle aloofness; she had been sure she was able to sense a certain reluctance to be around her or speak to her, but had decided against trying to address it. Apparently this hadn't been the right move though, as the aloofness had developed into indifference and now into full on silent treatment. She was forcibly reminded of how she had done exactly the same thing to him over Christmas last year, and therefore had absolutely no right to be mad. So why was she?

Well of course she knew why she was angry, but she couldn't help scolding herself for believing she was ever anything more than another one of Sirius Black's conquests. Just because it had been special for her, didn't mean that he had to feel the same way.

These thoughts plagued her all the way from the Gryffindor Common room to the Alchemy classroom on Monday morning. And when she entered the room, she saw something which made her blood boil as hot as her cheeks. Sam Matthews was sitting in the seat next to hers.

She managed to hide her scarlet face semi-successfully behind a curtain of hair as she passed Sirius, who was sitting next to Alice instead of Sam; leaning back in his chair and smirking. She fucking hated him.

She threw her books down onto the table, her Alchemy textbook expelling another large cloud of dust which caught Sam dead in the face and he coughed and spluttered.

"Sorry." She muttered, slipping into her seat and refusing to look at Sirius.

"No problem McCawley." Sam wheezed. "Alright me sitting here then?"

He looked slightly nervous and Aisling suspected that Sirius had asked him not to mention on whose orders they had swapped seats. As if she needed to be told.

Despite her foul mood, she wasn't insensitive enough to let Sam know how annoyed she was about the situation. Instead she made a non-committal noise and nodded her head.

"Cool. Because I was actually just thinking that-"

He was cut short by Dumbledore entering the room in his usual hyper-energetic fashion.  The lesson began, and Sirius tried to ignore the empty feeling in the pit of his stomach as he stared across the classroom at the back of Aisling's head. He missed talking to her so much, but she'd made no effort to approach him since the night of The Hog's Head. He knew how to take a hint, and the night in the secret room clearly hadn't meant as much to her as it had to him.

At least he didn't have to ask her out now though, he hated going on dates; hand-holding and giggling and trying to come up with new and interesting conversation topics when the previous one ran dry. For a week he had been trying to convince himself that he was over it, that she was just another girl. But even he, in his chronic state of denial, couldn't ignore the pang of jealousy that he felt in his chest when he saw Aisling laughing at a joke that Sam had just made.

"And the shopkeeper says to him, we're an apothecary what did you expect?" Sam finished, Aisling giggled in spite of herself.

The lesson passed surprisingly quickly too, despite her originally foul mood. Before Aisling knew it, the day was over and she was finally able to go back up to the Gryffindor common room and curl up in front of the fire. She was especially looking forward to starting the new muggle book that her father had just sent her. 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee. When she climbed through the portrait hole she saw that everyone was gathered round the noticeboard. Assuming it was just the date of the next Hogsmeade visit, she made her way up into the dormitory to get her book.